Here’s How Many Veterans Will Be Hurt by Republican Food Stamp Cuts

Time is running out for an estimated 60,000 veterans who rely on food stamps, warns the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, according to The Huffington Post. … 

Veterans Will Be Hurt

Anti-Science Crowd Will Not Be Happy With Google

Have you ever wondered how Google decides which results to give you when search for something? They’re based on an algorithm that rewards a site for the amount…

Not Happy

The Daily Drift

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Politician Forced to Confirm That He Is Not a Hologram

David Seymour is a member of the New Zealand Parliament who represents the Epsom constituency. He insists that he is a completely biological life form, not a holographic projection.
This became an issue because a citizen, known only as Zoe, submitted a request under the Official Information Act with the office of John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Zoe wanted the Queen's own Prime Minister to confirm that the  MP from Epsom is not a hologram. Stuff reports:

Seymour says Key's staff contacted him on Tuesday afternoon about the request. "You'd think if you were going to create a person from scratch, you would've done a bit better."

Seymour offers to let anyone see him to personally confirm his physical existence. They may also touch him for $5 a person.
Unfortunately, we live in an age in which such narrow-mindedness is catered to. Is photonic life not real? Can we not let Photons Be Free?

3 Ways Obama’s Student Aid Bill Makes Loans More Affordable

President Obama signed student loan reform into law five years ago, which redirected tens of billions of dollars into student aid. He increased the maximum Pell Grant by…

3 Ways

Mass Debating

Tom Cotton Told Uninsured Voter Not To Use Obamacare Because ‘Russian Mobsters’ Could Steal Her Identity

Apparently Senator Cotton is not new to making vague, propagandistic threats.

Read more

Witless Wingnuts: Lack Of Flag Waving At Selma Anniversary The ‘True Problem’ In America

Leave it to some wingnuts to take a really extraordinary thing and turn it into their lame ‘anti-American’ bull shit.

Witless Wingnuts

Senate Subcommittee Invites Hate Group Leader to Testify about Religious Freedom

Tony Perkins will be testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing today on “protecting religious freedom abroad,” which is not only ironic, because Perkins has repeatedly proven himself anti-religious freedom, but also goes to show that Republicans like hate groups and just can’t stay away from them.

Perkins, of course, is president of the Family Research Council (FRC), which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Perkins is a hater’s hater: he hates gays and lesbians, he hates Muslims, immigrants, secularists – and he hates President Barack Obama.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, chaired by none other than Lindsey Graham, and which also boasts Mitch McConnell as a member, for some reason I cannot fathom, thinks Perkins might be able to make some useful contributions to the topic of “Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad.”

Also testifying will be Fox News commentator and lawyer Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which was founded by Pat Robertson to counter the influence of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and so, of course, has nothing to do with justice.

Sekulow self-identifies as a Messianic Jew, a bit of an oxymoron since if you believe in Jesus you are not a Jew (the Israeli Supreme Court agrees) which essentially makes him a fake Christian AND a fake Jew, putting him one up on Perkins in the fakery department.

The invitation prompted Perkins to say,

Religious freedom is a fundamental, inherent, and international human right. It is not merely an American right—though religious freedom was foundational to the very existence of the United States. Additionally, standing for religious liberty should be a vital component of American foreign policy. Defending those whose right to practice their faith is penalized or jeopardized wins our country friends among people throughout the developing world and thus enhances the security of our nation.

The problem is that Perkins thinks only people like him should have religious freedom, meaning his religious freedom is actually religious tyranny. Not exactly the sort of expert you would expect, unless what these Republicans are really interested in is oppressing religious minorities. That is where Perkins’ expertise lies.

As Miranda Blue wrote at Right Wing Watch,

The inclusion of Perkins threatens to turn a hearing about a critically important issue into a political sideshow. Perkins has consistently used the persecution of Christians abroad as a political bludgeon at home, claiming that LGBT rights in the U.S. are fueling religious persecution worldwide and falsely asserting that President Obama has done nothing to stop the oppression of Christians because he secretly sympathizes with Islamic radicals.

Small wonder then that Senate Republicans, many of whom have already committed treason in order to derail the Iranian peace process, want to hear from a fellow hater like Perkins. He will verify their completely and often catastrophically erroneous preconceptions, and thereby convince them their hate of Obama is not misplaced.

Perkins then, is not only an apologist for a fake religion, which, of course, he calls “true” religion, but for fake facts. And that, it scarce needs be said, plays right into the Republican wheelhouse.

For example, according to radical fake Christian Perkins, Obama is not only a Muslim but a Muslim radical. Not only does Perkins have absolutely no evidence in support of this claim, but he has to ignore the mountains of evidence that this claim is a complete fabrication. Thus we are left with somebody pretending to be a Christian accusing an actual Christian of pretending to be a Christian.

As I have said here before, Tony Perkins is a fake Christian with an out of control persecution complex. He not only believes that fake Christians like him have more rights than other Christians, but he has rejected the First Amendment entirely, claiming, like Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association, that Islam is not afforded First Amendment protections and that it “tears at the fabric of our democracy.”

Never mind Perkins’ own attempts to tear at the fabric of American democracy.

From the perspective of the rest of us – I’m talking about the huge majority of Americans, regardless of religious self-identification, who are not fake Christians – it doesn’t matter whose religious laws we are forced to live under: they are all incompatible with the United States Constitution’s guarantee of equality before the law and rejection of state-sponsored religion.

As Miranda Blue put it, “Religious persecution around the world is certainly a worthy topic for the Senate to address. But including Tony Perkins in such a hearing is not the way for a committee to convey that it is taking this issue seriously.”

Of course, it is not taking the matter seriously, except as another means to attack President Obama.

Tony Perkins is the last person who ought to be summoned to the Senate to talk about religious freedom. This is a blatant case of pandering to the so-called Religious Right and to hate groups that share Republican biases against ethnic and religious minorities. And it shows that the Republican-dominated Senate has, as the last thing on its mind, actually working on behalf of the American people.

Inviting hate group leader Tony Perkins to speak about religious freedom is just more evidence of the GOP’s farcical approach to governance.

GOP Anti-Abortion Language Threatens to Kill Human Trafficking Bill

The Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Act creates a fund for victims and provides grants to help local governments create programs that will benefit victims and prosecute human traffickers.  On its face, this is a bill that deserves the bipartisan support it had until Democrats found out that Republicans added Hyde Language (anti-abortion language) to the bill without their knowledge.  The problem is that Republicans did what Republicans do.  They said one thing and did another.  In this case, they said the Hyde Amendment would be excluded from this bill then they included it – without telling Democrats.

Moreover, Senator Dick Durbin says, the inclusion of the Hyde language is in direct contradiction to an agreement the two political parties made a year ago.

Senator Durbin told Politico: “there was a representation made”  that the Hyde language would be excluded from the bill.

Senator Chuck Schumer said  that a list of changes to the version of the trafficking bill that was passed in committee last year was provided to Senators.  Surprise!  The Hyde language wasn’t among those provisions. Somehow, it just popped into the law like magic.

Of course, John Cornyn insisted that Democrats are making much ado about nothing.  He also went on to suggest the language was always there, Democrats just didn’t notice it. Oh and besides, the Hyde language is standard stuff.

“All this does is maintain the status quo by making sure that this crime victims compensation fund, the funds available from that fund, are constrained by the same constraint that exists under all other federal law,”

However, as Democrats pointed out the inclusion of Hyde language in this case, actually amounts to a sneaky way of expanding restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, this time in the case of women and girls who were forced into sex slavery. One reason is money for the restitution fund comes from fines, not taxes.

However, there is another feature in this bill that, contrary to Cornyn’s claim is not about merely maintaining the status quo.  Cornyn’s bill authorizes the abortion restrictions for five years – without congressional review. Usually, when the Hyde Amended is attached to an appropriation bill, those are approved annually.

Nothing says let’s get the bad guys like forcing victims of human trafficking to bear children conceived through a sex crime with the added bonus of authorizing this restriction for five years.

It’s such a wonderful way to celebrate women’s history month too.

Democrats are less than pleased by the Republican deceptions. Though when we consider the fact that Republicans are now in the business of sabotaging sensitive diplomatic negotiations, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.  Ok, I digress.

A bill intended to help survivors of human trafficking, in fact, has the very real potential of hurting and possibly killing them because it denies them access to safe and legal abortions.

As Cecil Richards said: ”The majority of human trafficking victims are women and girls, and they need access to the full range of reproductive health care services without barriers.”

Senator Patty Murray described the Republican shenanigans as “shameful.”

Harry Reid, made it abundantly clear that Republicans are not going to get away with shafting victims of crime in the name of continuing their ideological war on women.

“You can blame it on staff, blame it on whoever you want to blame,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday. “But we didn’t know it was in the bill, and … the bill will not come off this floor as long as that language is in the bill.”

When the bill passed in committee last month, John Cornyn said the following:

“Too often we see partisan politics divide Congress, but today as we move forward with a bill to eliminate human trafficking, we see that doesn’t always have to be the case,”

Of course not, as long as Republican ideology comes first.  The fact is, Republicans can’t help themselves.  Their ideology will always be the first priority especially when it comes to women’s reproductive health.

America’s Worst Republican’s Reason for Giving Daughters to a Rapist

When we learned that Arkansas' Justin Harris (R) “rehomed” his adopted daughters to a man who raped one of them, we thought this story couldn’t possibly…

‘Possessed by Demons'

The Truth Be Told

GOP Iran Letter Was A Push For A Regime Change War And Defense Industry Profits

The truth, and true purpose of the letter, has really never been in question; specifically because the filthy little neo-con who originated it has broadcast the purpose …

While many Americans are still outraged over the 47 Republican senators’ “open letter” to Iran, there are a new batch of idiots asking to join the “propaganda ploy.” Shortly after the “press release” was made public, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Texas governor Rick Perry nearly wet themselves asking to join the children posing as U.S. senators. Likely, Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson will be begging to sign the letter soon.

There has been a raging chorus clamoring for legal action against the mentally-challenged 47 for everything from violating the Logan Act to sedition to treason and nearly everything in-between. However, there will be no charges filed because as painful as it is to admit; the 47 are not guilty of treason or sedition or violating the Logan Act. As obvious as it may seem that they are traitors, according to the U.S. Code even that charge is doubtful. Although their goal was interfering with “measures of the United States,” the Iranians are smart and took the open letter for exactly what it was; pathetic propaganda and a gross display of Republican ignorance of the Constitution and international law. It is what one expects from a bunch of petulant punks who are too stupid to understand they embarrassed themselves by lacking even an eighth-grader’s understanding of the document the swore to uphold.

First, the letter was a press release; it was not a personal communication sent to Iran’s leaders. It is also not evident their goal was causing harm to the United States or overthrowing the government. What they are guilty of is hubris and being cretins, and although they seriously deserve to be harshly punished for having the audacity to think they have power over the President leading America’s participation in United Nations Security Council negotiations; the best Americans can hope for is they are humiliated. But that is not likely though because childish malcontents, and Republicans, are never embarrassed.

What is also curious, is the various pundits asking what the 47 hoped to accomplish. Even Hillary Clinton said, “one has to ask, what was the purpose of this letter?” Clinton proffered what she said were “two logical answers. Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander-in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letters’ signatories.” The truth, and true purpose of the letter, has really never been in question; specifically because the filthy little neo-con who originated it has broadcast the purpose for the world to hear for months.

Freshman Tom Cotton, the neo-con Senator from Arkansas admitted openly the purpose in organizing the “open letter” to Iran is derailing the United Nations P5+1 negotiations to expedite an Israeli-started war with Iran for “regime change.” In fact, in January while addressing other neo-cons at an event hosted by the advocacy group Heritage Action for America he said; “The end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak.” Cotton has made no secret that he wants and is working to see that the negotiations fail which is why corrupt John Boehner invited Netanyahu to fear-monger Congress into passing legislation to derail the negotiations.

Fear mongering Cheney, Bush, and Netanyahu-style is not unique to Cotton. He won his Senate seat in Arkansas by telling frightened imbeciles that he would fight for their very survival as their senator because “ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas is an urgent problem.” He also made sure to inspire really scary images of Nazis for conservatives when he went on to compare American participation in international negotiations with Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

In fact, Cotton is a Cheney, McCain, Cruz, Graham, and George W. Bush perpetual war supporter on steroids. He is as staunch an advocate for incredibly higher defense spending and pre-emptive war everywhere as he is for cutting all domestic spending. He subscribes to the Bush aggressive foreign policy agenda and as The New Republic noted, no matter the geographical region in question, whether it is Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, or apparently Mexico, “Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate.” To say there is never a war he would not support is a gross understatement. In fact, Cotton has made perpetual calls for immediate military intervention in Iran for regime change a la Bush and Iraq.  In December, a month before being sworn in as a senator, he called for America to supply Israel with B-52s and bunker busting bombs to use in their imminent strike against Iran; a strike that guarantees America’s entrance in a war on Iran for regime change and to heap untold wealth on the defense and oil industry.

It should come as no surprise then, that after issuing the “open letter” to derail talks with Iran, the very next day Cotton made an appearance at an “Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution” event with the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). NDIA is a very powerful conservative lobbying and professional group for defense contractors advocating for America’s next Middle East war. The Arkansas warmonger met with leaders of the military industrial complex made up of executives from all the major military businesses such as Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, ManTech International, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among other many other firms. It is noteworthy that the B-52s and bunker-busting bombs Cotton wants America to ‘give’ to Israel to bomb Iran are both items manufactured by  Boeing; a major NDIA member.

When the NDIA director of legislative policy, Jimmy Thomas, was asked if Cotton was going talk about the success and progress toward war with his open letter to Iran he said “Most members talk about everything from the defense budget to Iran…so it’s highly likely that he will address that in his remarks.”  What should be frightening to Americans is that the NDIA helps shape conservative legislative policy and gets regular updates on conservatives’ progress in serving Israel’s push for an American war with Iran. Thomas said bringing Cotton in to apprise the defense industry of progress on a war with Iran was scheduled in January, and that “certainly we bring people to the platform that have influence directly on our issues.”

Maybe even stupid Americans can think back to the last neo-con who wanted “regime change” in another Middle East country (Iraq) at Benjamin Netanyahu’s urging. That turned out so well for the nation that America’s debt will increase another $4 trillion over the next decade for the “regime change” war, 655 thousand innocent Iraqi civilians were massacred, and it created the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, IS) extremists that the Islamic Republican of Iran is helping America fight. Through it all, the Koch brothers, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, and the military industrial complex earned hundreds of billions over a war neo-cons pushed for regime change. In fact, creating profit for the defense industry is part and parcel of Cotton’s purpose in organizing the “open letter” press release everyone is up-in-arms over.

It is too bad there is no punitive damage to wreak on the Republican signatories to Cotton’s “open letter.” Whether they are traitors is dependent on how one perceives a group of neo-con warmongers that had to be taken to school by Iran’s foreign minister for a 2nd grade lesson in international law and how the Constitution works at the most basic level. There have been calls to “summarily arrest the punks and throw em’ in slam” to “assembling a Seal Team to regulate their traitorous asses.” As appealing as those actions might be to many, many Americans, it is reasonable to assume that having a foreigner teach them the ‘nuances of their own Constitution‘ and the basic premise of ‘international agreements‘ would suffice…for now.

Senate Historian Can’t Find Anything In History That Matches GOP Iran Sabotage Letter

Republicans who are already reeling from the letter that 47 of their senators sent to Iran were dealt another blow as the U.S. Senate Historian’s Office can’t find another example of this type of behavior anywhere in Senate history.

McClatchy reported:

The U.S. Senate Historian’s Office has so far been unable to find another example in the chamber’s history where one political party openly tried to deal with a foreign power against a presidential policy, as Republicans have attempted in their open letter to Iran this week.

….

We haven’t found a precedent,” said Senate Historian Donald Ritchie. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a precedent. After 200 years. It’s hard to find anything that unprecedented.”

In the past, Ritchie said, “what usually happened is a senator would sign a ’round robin’ letter or a sense of the Senate resolution, or write a letter to the president or secretary of State voicing objections to some particular policy.”

The historian left the door open to a letter surfacing that could lend precedent to the Republicans’ actions, but it isn’t a good sign for Republicans that one hasn’t been found. Congressional Republicans are fond of accusing President Obama of overreaching and overstepping his bounds, but the letter sent to the Iranian government was a clear case of overreach.

As Rmuse pointed out, the letter most likely was not a crime, because it was a public letter, and not an official negotiation with a foreign country. The letter was an act of political sabotage by a group of senators who may not have legally committed treason, but who were acting with the intent of treasonous undermining the Commander In Chief.

Republicans were hoping that the Hillary Clinton email “scandal” would dominate the headlines, and for the desperate Beltway media types who are addicted to Clinton speculation like kittens to catnip, it has. However, the rest of the country has been outraged by the behavior of the 47 Republican senators.

The fact that the Senate can’t find a comparable example to the Iran letter demonstrates that the level of hatred that Republicans have for President Obama is also unprecedented. The level of partisan contempt for the man who occupies the White House is so extreme that Republicans are willing to sabotage global security and world peace in an attempt to politically wound the president.

The Iran letter was bad enough, but the intent behind the letter was even worse. Republicans have gone from wrecking their government at home to making the world less safe for all humankind.

Bernie Sanders Explains How 47 Treasonous GOP Senators Tried To Sabotage World Peace

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained that the treasonous behavior of the forty-seven Iran letter senators is a danger to world peace.

Video:

Video Link

Al Sharpton asked Senator Sanders about the We The People petition to have the Iran letter senators charged under the Logan Act.

Sanders said:

Look, I think it says that people all over the country understand that this is outrageous behavior. It shows the continuing contempt that Republicans have for the president. They invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress and they forgot to tell the president. Now, they are trying to undermine these negotiations, but the most significant point is, Al, I want these negotiations to succeed. I want to see a situation where Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, but that conclusion is reached in a peaceful way. I do not want to see a war in Iran. The American people do not want to see a war in Iran, and to try and undermine the president’s work, not only with our country, but with the U.K, France, China, Russia, and Germany.

To try to undermine that effort for a peaceful resolution, and then what? What happens then? Well if this doesn’t work, I think these guys will be hot to trot for a war, and that frightens me very much.

Millions of Americans are outraged by the Republican attempt to sabotage diplomacy while engaging in the ultimate act of disrespect towards the nation’s Commander in Chief, but there is a global consequence to the Republican behavior. The forty-seven Republican senators were not only undermining the president. They were also undermining world peace.

These Republican Senators were willing to jeopardize global security in order to disrespect President Obama. The letter to Iran is evidence of how detached and radicalized the Republican Party has become from the rest of the world.

The only sure way that the Republicans are going to be stopped is at the ballot box. The American people have the power to make sure that Republicans never get their war with Iran. By keeping the White House in Democratic hands and returning control of Congress to Democrats, Republicans will be denied their war and the neocon assault on peace will be defeated.

National Outrage Grows As 22 Newspaper Editorials Blast Senate Republican Letter To Iran

Newspapers all across the country are ripping the 47 Senate Republicans who attempted to sabotage President Obama by writing a letter to Iran. Here is a sampling of the criticism from no less than 22 newspaper editorial boards.

The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire took Sen. Kelly Ayotte to task for signing the letter, “Ayotte and the rest of the gang of 47 would like nothing more than for the American people to view the letter as a necessary defense against misguided negotiations and flawed policies, a comeuppance for an arrogant commander in chief who flaunts his contempt for the Constitution. They want you to know, America, that they wrote the letter for you because Obama must be stopped. In reality, they are playing a political game dangerously out of bounds.”

The editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette wrote that the senators who signed the letter should be ashamed, “America’s partners in the talks are among the world’s most important nations — China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. They can only be appalled at seeing Secretary of State John Kerry and the president, who are charged with making the nation’s foreign policy, hit from behind by one house of the federal legislature. The senators who signed the letter should be ashamed.”

The Sacramento Bee wrote that Senate Republicans need a civics lesson, “It’s the Republican senators who signed the letter – including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and potential presidential candidates Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida – who could use a remedial civics class. The Constitution gives the president broad authority to conduct foreign policy. The Senate’s “advise and consent” role covers formal treaties. The potential deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is not a treaty. It is a multinational agreement that involves Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, as well as the United States and Iran.”

The Baltimore Sun pulled no punches, “The poison pen note was a shocking example of just how far President Barack Obama’s GOP critics in Congress are willing to go in an effort to undercut his foreign policy goals…The GOP senators might just as well have put up a big sign over their chamber warning the mullahs in Tehran to prepare for war because that’s the practical import of rejecting any possibility of a negotiated resolution of the two countries’ differences. Republican lawmakers in effect have adopted the hard-line agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who offered a similarly uncompromising view of Iranian intentions when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress last week.”

The Boston Globe accused Senate Republicans of winning sympathy for Iran, “WINNING SYMPATHY for the renegade Islamic Republic of Iran is no easy trick. But Republicans in the US Senate seem to be accomplishing it with their breathtakingly reckless intrusion into international diplomacy….The letter not only undercuts the president’s traditional authority to oversee the shaping of foreign policy but badly undermines America’s credibility in the international community.”

The Kansas City Star wondered if it was the Iran letter, or the Republican senators who were treacherous, “Given the Republicans’ pure hatred of Obama, it also seemed extra personal, yet another politically motivated attempt to stop him from doing anything that might be perceived as a victory for his administration.”

The Salt Lake City Tribune referred to Utah’s two Republican senators as foolish for joining the campaign, “It will be up to history to judge whether the latest partisan stunt joined by Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch amounts to an act of End Times warmongering or merely another bit of cringe-worthy buffoonery on the global stage. Chances are that the foolish, dangerous and arguably felonious attempt by the Obama Derangement Caucus of the Senate will soon be forgotten. Unless, as President Obama himself muttered the other day, the Senate Republicans make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran to push the region, and the world, that much closer to nuclear war.”

The quotes above from editorial boards around the country are a small taste of the backlash that is growing against the Senate Republicans. Anger is growing from coast to coast.

It is not an understatement to suggest that the outrage over the Senate Republican letter is national. In this time of great partisan divide, Republicans managed to unify the country with an act that was as blatantly unpatriotic as it was blindingly stupid. The tea partiers who turned the House of Representatives into a three ring circus have invaded the Senate, and the letter to Iran is their most high profile bit of handiwork.

Republicans are desperately trying to convert Hillary Clinton’s emails into a 2016 campaign story, but the irony is that with their Iran letter, the Senate GOP might have just handed Democrats a powerful issue that could put an end to their fragile Senate majority.

Even Fox News Is Attacking The 47 Treasonous Republicans Over Iran

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. This Fox Host makes fun of Senator Tom Cotton to his face and he doesn’t even realize it.

Read more 

Watch Jon Stewart Hilariously Rip Apart Republicans’ Letter To Iran

Stewart nails the hypocrisy of the GOP in this hilarious segment.
Read more

Something Republicans do not have ...

Rush Limbaugh: Your 5 Years Are Up, So ‘Bon Voyage’

In 2010, Rush Limbaugh vowed to leave the U.S. if Obamacare went fully into effect. Al Sharpton reminds us that Limbaugh’s five years are up.

Read more

Morning Joe Says Black Rappers Are To Blame For White SAE Frat Boys’ Racist Chants

During a panel discussion on Morning Joe Wednesday morning, co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, along with guest panelist Bill Kristol, came to the defense of the white University of Oklahoma fraternity members who were caught on video singing a racist song. In the minds of all three of them, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat brothers who sang “there will never be a n*gger SAE” were influenced by profane lyrics in rap music. Specifically, they Mika placed blame on Waka Flocka Flame, a hip-hop artist who had performed for the frat in the past and pulled out of a future performance after video of the chant was made public Sunday.

After presenting a news report about the racism flap, the hosts brought on Urban League president Marc Morial to discuss the incident and what needs to happen moving forward. After a bit of a discussion, Brzezinski brought up Waka Flocka Flame and some of the lyrics from his song. She then asserted that he and the rest of hip=hop were really to blame for a bunch of young, white, privileged men chanting a song about not allowing a black member in their frat and preferring they hang from a tree.

“If you look at every single song, I guess you call these, that he’s written, it’s a bunch of garbage. It’s full of n-words, it’s full of f-words. It’s wrong. And he shouldn’t be disgusted with them, he should be disgusted with himself.”

From watching the segment, it seemed that Mika nearly passed out from the vapors after reading a sample of a black rapper’s lyrics. She was not alone in demonizing hip-hop culture and laying the blame squarely on its shoulders for the SAE controversy.  Both Kristol and Scarborough, two rich, middle-aged white guys, jumped headlong in the “blame blacks for whites being racist” pool. Kristol pointed out that “popular culture is a cesspool” and nobody should be surprised “when a bunch of drunk 19-year-olds repeat what they’ve been hearing.”

Meanwhile, Scarborough used that as a jumping point to insist that white kids aren’t learning racism from their parents, friends or neighborhoods, but instead it is being instilled in them by black rap music.

“The kids that are buying hip-hop or gangster rap, it’s a white audience, and they hear this over and over again. So do they hear this at home? Well, chances are good, no, they heard a lot of this from guys like this who are now acting shocked.”

Just to hammer home their point a little more, Mika ended the segment by smugly stating that she wishes Waka Flocka Flame wouldn’t be so self-righteous when criticizing the OU students, implying that he is as much to blame due to his music’s content. By the end of the discussion, you would have thought it was the SAE frat bros who are the real victims in all of this.

Obviously, context is lost on Mika, Joe and Kristol in regards to this incident and why it has absolutely NOTHING to do with hip-hop culture. In the infamous video, we saw young, white males proudly chanting a song where they declared “there will never be a n*gger SAE” and “you can hang ‘em from a tree, but they’ll never sign with me,” all to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. It had nothing to do with rap or blacks being able to say the n-word with impunity. They weren’t repeating what they heard from a black rapper. Trying to conflate the two is a huge leap and logic and nothing more than shameless victim-blaming.

.Employers are paying less, and workers are getting screwed.

Workers' compensation is yet another of the basic worker protections that have been gutted in recent years, a ProPublica and NPR investigation finds. The details are horrifying:Since 2003, legislators in 33 states have passed workers' comp laws that reduce benefits or make it more difficult for those with certain injuries and diseases to qualify for them. Florida has cut benefits to its most severely disabled workers by 65 percent since 1994.
Where a worker gets hurt matters. Because each state has developed its own system, an amputated arm can literally be worth two or three times as much on one side of a state line than the other. The maximum compensation for the loss of an eye is $27,280 in Alabama, but $261,525 in Pennsylvania.
Many states have not only shrunk the payments to injured workers, they've also cut them off after an arbitrary time limit - even if workers haven't recovered. After John Coffell hurt his back at an Oklahoma tire plant last year, his wages dropped so dramatically that he and his family were evicted from their home.
Employers and insurers increasingly control medical decisions, such as whether an injured worker needs surgery. In 37 states, workers can't pick their own doctor or are restricted to a list provided by their employers.
In California, insurers can now reopen old cases and deny medical care based on the opinions of doctors who never see the patient and don't even have to be licensed in the state. Joel Ramirez, who was paralyzed in a warehouse accident, had his home health aide taken away, leaving him to sit in his own feces for up to eight hours.
With all these cuts, employers and insurance companies are making out like bandits-the former paying the lowest workers' comp insurance rates in decades, and the latter raking in profits-while injured workers are left without care and forced to rely on government assistance to provide for them what their workers' comp should have provided. Read the whole article-it's another terrifying look into how badly American workers can expect to be treated by their employers and by lawmakers.

States slash workers' comp protections, leaving workers broke and suffering

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Obama Wins Again: Projected Health Care Costs Drop Another $400 Billion

Remember when Republicans SWORE that Obamacare would break the economy and destroy America? Are you even slightly surprised they were 100% wrong?

Read more

Hillary Clinton Uses Email Press Conference To Annihilate Republicans Over Iran Letter

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton turned the tables on Republicans by using the press conference about her emails to obliterate the 47 Republican senators who tried to undermine President Obama with their letter to Iran.

Clinton said:

I want to comment on a matter in the news today regarding Iran. The president and his team are in the midst of intense negotiations. Their goal is a diplomatic solution that would close off Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb and give us unprecedented access and insight into Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, reasonable people can disagree about what exactly it will take to accomplish this objective, and we all must judge any final agreement on its merits.

But the recent letter from Republican senators was out of step with the best traditions of American leadership. And one has to ask, what was the purpose of this letter?

There appear to be two logical answers. Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander- in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letters’ signatories.

Former Sec. Clinton came out and immediately turned an event where the media tried to put her on the defensive into a platform where she called out Senate Republicans on their potentially illegal letter to a foreign government.

Clinton’s logic was flawless. There are only two potential reasons for the Republican letter. Either the Republicans were trying to help a regime that they claim to hate, or they were actively trying to undermine the President Of The United States.

The email obsessed Beltway media will likely ignore what Clinton did in her press conference, but her statement was a significant warning shot to Republicans who are thinking about making 2016 a campaign about foreign policy.

If Republicans think that they can beat Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, they are flirting with disaster. Clinton masterfully led the American people to the conclusion that Republicans are either siding with a country that sponsors terrorism, or they are working against their Commander In Chief.

Clinton’s answers in terms of the email flap were what was expected. The State Department will make all of her work emails public, and the American people will be able to read them for themselves. The long-term issue that will have a greater impact on 2016 is the foolish Republican decision to challenge Hillary Clinton on foreign policy.

Hillary Clinton looks ready to run, and her performance at the press conference gave Republicans plenty to worry about.

Democrats Short Circuit Bogus GOP Scandal By Demanding State Dept. Release Clinton Emails

House Democrats who sit on the Benghazi Select Committee has taken the air out of the Republican attempt to turn Benghazi into something by demanding that the State Department make public all Clinton emails related to Benghazi.

In a brief two-paragraph letter to Sec. of State John Kerry, all five Democrats on the Benghazi committee wrote, “Since the Department has already produced approximately 850 pages of these documents to the Select Committee on Benghazi, we request that the Department begin its review for public release with this subset of 850 pages of Benghazi-related documents in order to make them available to the public first without waiting for the full review of all 55,000 pages of documents.”

Democrats are calling the Republican bluff on the Clinton emails. If the Republicans think that there is anything in the 850 pages of emails related to Benghazi, why won’t they release them? If Republicans had any evidence of wrongdoing by former Sec. Clinton, they would have made the information public. Since they won’t release the emails, it is a safe bet that the Republicans have nothing.

By tying the emails to Benghazi, House Republicans are looking for a way to take a scandal that no one cares about outside of Republicans and the chattering Beltway media and inject it into the mainstream. Republicans know that people don’t care about emails, so they are trying to invent a Benghazi “smoking gun.”

The Democrats on the Benghazi Select Committee aren’t going to play along with this ruse. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who is the ranking member of the Select Committee, spent years calling out Darrell Issa’s endless stream of lies and mythmaking during his time as the ranking member on the House Oversight committee. Cummings and his fellow Democratic members are stopping the Republicans dead in their tracks.

Democrats are putting the brakes on the Republican attempt to link the Clinton emails to Benghazi. It is put up or shut up time for Republicans. Since they don’t have any evidence to back up their claims, the Clinton emails are looking like another empty path down the Benghazi conspiracy road.

Republican Judge Deploys Extraordinary New Method Of Politicizing The Federal Judiciary

by Ian Millhiser 

A federal judge opposed to President Obama’s immigration policy tossed a new roadblock in front of that policy on Monday evening, in an order that may be designed to prevent a higher court from staying his decision.
When Republican state officials opposed to the immigration policy learned that George W. Bush-appointed Judge Andrew Hanen would hear their lawsuit challenging much of that policy, it was obvious that they had hit the jackpot. Hanen has a history of handing down opinions calling for harsher treatment of immigrants in cases that have only a tangential relationship to the views Hanen expresses in those opinions. In one case, he called the federal government’s decision to permit an undocumented mother to be reunited with her child without facing criminal charges a “dangerous course of action.”
So when Hanen ordered President Obama’s recently announced immigration policies halted, policies that include the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program and that could enable nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants to temporarily live openly in the United States for a period of time, that decision was not a surprise.
Hanen did not stay his February 16 decision halting the new immigration policies, which was handed down just over a day before immigrants were supposed to begin registering to benefits from one of these policies (a stay would put a hold on his decision and allow these policies to take effect). As a result, a single judge in Texas who holds no elected office and who few Americans have ever heard of effectively prevented the United States of America from implementing a policy impacting millions of people. When the Justice Department requested a stay from Hanen, Hanen gave the plaintiffs seven days to respond to that request. On Monday evening, he handed down yet another order delaying resolution of that stay request — declaring that he would “not rule on any other pending motions” until he conducts a hearing on a different motion filed by the state officials. That hearing won’t take place until March 19.
Stay requests are subject to a multi-factor test, but the primary inquiry when a party requests a stay is whether that party has demonstrated a “substantial case on the merits.” The remaining factors overlap considerably with matters Hanen already considered in deciding to halt DAPA in the first place. For this reason, Hanen’s request for additional briefing and a considerable amount of time to consider the Justice Department’s motion for a stay is an odd request, as he is already familiar with the issues presented in the case and has, indeed, already decided several questions that are relevant to the issue of whether his original order should be stayed.
There is, however, a practical reason why a judge like Hanen, who appears to feel very strongly about thwarting President Obama in this particular case, would want to delay his resolution of the government’s stay request for as long as possible: Hanen may be able to prevent a higher court from ruling on the Justice Department’s stay request if he simply sits on that request and refuses to decide it.
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a)(1) provides that “[a] party must ordinarily move first in the district court” for “a stay of the judgment or order of a district court pending appeal.” Thus, under normal circumstances, the Justice Department may not seek a stay of Hanen’s order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, until after they first ask Hanen to stay his own order. Moreover, in a normal case, when DOJ does request a stay from an appellate court, they must first show that the trial judge denied that request.
Rule 8 does account for certain unusual circumstances where an appeals court may bypass a trial judge and stay that judge’s order before the judge weighs in on the stay request — Hanen can be bypassed if “moving first in the district court would be impracticable” or if DOJ can show that Hanen “failed to afford the relief requested.” But motions asking an appeals court to bypass a trial judge are extraordinary motions. We searched the legal database Lexis and were only able to find one Fifth Circuit opinion where the court permitted such a bypass.
Nevertheless, given Hanen’s indication that he will delay resolution of the Justice Department’s stay request indefinitely, it is likely that DOJ will file a stay request in the Fifth Circuit soon — where they could argue that Hanen’s repeated decisions to delay resolution of their stay request amounts to a failure to “afford the relief requested.”
When DOJ does seek relief in the Fifth Circuit, they may want to consider making another, even more unusual request. Federal law provides that “[a]ny justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” and federal appeals courts have, on very rare occasions, relied on this provision to remove judges from cases where their actions create an “appearance of partiality.”
Smart attorneys are reluctant to file a motion asking an appeals court to remove the trial judge from their case, as such motions typically are not granted and they anger the judge. In this case, however, Hanen has already displayed such disdain for the Obama administration’s policies that DOJ may have nothing to lose if they ask for him to be removed.