The Republican Cabal Descends Into Madness As Ted Cruz Vaults Into Top Tier Of 2016 Republican Cabal Candidates

A Public Policy Polling (PPP) national survey conducted from March 26-31, 2015 shows Ted Cruz pulling into contention with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, for the Republican pretender nomination. The survey, released on April 1st, but apparently not as an April Fool’s joke, shows Ted Cruz gaining ground on the leaders, and sitting in a strong third place position for the Republican nomination. His presidential announcement speech at Liberty University appears to have resonated with Republican voters.

Cruz has surged from 5 percent support a little over a month ago, to 16 percent now. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker still leads with 20 percent support. Jeb Bush is in second at 17 percent and Ted Cruz is at 16 percent. Ben Carson and Rand Paul sit at 10 percent each. Four other candidates (Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and Rick Perry) remain mired in the single digits.

With Republican Cabal voters, Ted Cruz is popular. 52 percent of cabal voters have a favorable opinion of Senator Cruz, to just 30 percent who view him unfavorably. His support is especially strong with Republicans who identify themselves as teabagger supporters. With teabagger Republicans, Cruz enjoys a 74 percent favorable rating to 21 percent unfavorable rating.

It would be very easy to dismiss Cruz’s candidacy as a joke, given his penchant for outlandish remarks, and impractical proposals like abolishing the IRS and repealing every single word of Obamacare. However, his particular brand of madness seems to have attracted him new supporters from within the ranks of the wingnut electorate.

Polling consistently shows that Republican voters are not warming up to Jeb Bush’s candidacy. Reupublican primary voters are seeking a more wingnut alternative who will give voice to their radical lunatic fringe wingnut perspectives, 'informed' as they are by hate speech radio hacks and the 24/7 bash Obama cycle over at FOX News.

Cruz has tapped into Republican resentment, stoking the politics of rage to fuel his campaign. Whether or not his polling surge is but a temporary bump, or a more permanent boost that could make him a threat to seize the Republican nomination, remains to be seen. But one thing is now clear. Ted Cruz’s policy prescriptions may still be a joke, but his candidacy no longer is. America had better be ready because if Senator Cruz’s momentum continues to grow, the Republican primary could descend into madness, dragging the whole country along for the ride.

Boehner Alienates WW II Vets By Inviting Japan’s PM To Speak on Emperor’s Birthday

Leave it to Boehner to alienate World War II vets by inviting the Prime Minister of Japan  to speak before a joint session of Congress on April 29.  That just happens to be Showa Day also known as Hirohito’s birthday.  Aside from alienating World War II vets, Boehner provoked the wrath of usual friends like The Washington Times and Newsmax.  Not bad for a single invitation.

In a statement announcing the invitation, Boehner said:

Abe’s “address will provide an opportunity for the American people to hear from one of our closest allies about ways we can expand our cooperation on economic and security priorities,” Boehner said in a statement. “That, of course, includes working together to open markets and encourage more economic growth through free trade.”

The issue here is not who was invited, but like part of the problem with his invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, the timing is really bad. In this case, Boehner shows a total disregard for what April 29th symbolizes to World War II vets.

As Jan Thompson, president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society explains :

For many World War II veterans who suffered through torture and imprisonment in Japanese detention camps, “the wounds are still healing — and some may never heal.

Thompson goes on to spell out the significance of April 29^th to WW II vets who were POW’s in Hirohito’s Japan and who are members of her organization.

The members of our organization are fully aware of the significance of the date chosen for Prime Minister Abe‘s address. The POWs [70 years ago] all had to bow in the prison camps to honor the emperor on that date,

Aside from being the date of Hirohit’s birthday, April 29th is significant because the Allied International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicted  Hideka Tojo, Japans Prime Minister in WW II and other Hirohito government officials for war crimes and sentenced them to death.

Still, loving the troops and Republicans say they do would mean recognizing that perhaps its a bad idea to ask the PM of Japan to speak on a day that continues to haunt surviving World War II vets.

According to the Washington Times, Congress doesn’t want to discuss if it Boehner even bothered to consult with surviving World War II vets or surviving family members.  If he did, evidently he didn’t care about the effect of the loaded symbolism that comes with the timing of this invitation.

Comparatively, it makes his invitation to Netanyahu look like the height of sensitivity, even though that invitation alienated a majority of Americans and Israelis.

Is there anyone Boehner and company hasn’t offended? If so, it’s probably a matter of time before they do because in Republican world being sensitive to people has become so Democrat.

Republican Asshole calls Real American an Asshole

‘Give it up, asshole!’: Tennessee Republican shouts at health care protester 

Typical wingnut trying to accuse others of being what they are.

The Republican Dictionary

Oops: Indiana RFRA Could Allow Wiccans To Get Freaky On State Capitol Steps

Yet another unintended consequence of Indiana’s religious freedom law proves once again that Republicans didn’t think their plan through when they passed it.

Read more

Jeb Bush Tries To Fool Voters By Pulling A Romney On “Religious Freedom” Laws

An intense and growing public backlash forced Jeb Bush to pull a Mitt Romney and flip-flop on his support for “religious freedom” laws in less than two days.

The New York Times reported:

Jeb Bush appeared to modify his public comments about Indiana’s “religious freedom” law on Wednesday in a closed-door Silicon Valley fund-raiser, telling a small group of potential supporters that a “consensus-oriented” approach would have been better at the outset.

…

“By the end of the week, I think Indiana will be in the right place, which is to say that we need in a big, diverse country like America, we need to have space for people to act on their conscience, that it is a constitutional right that religious freedom is a core value of our country, ” Mr. Bush said.

But “we shouldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation,” he said.

Bush reversed course from what he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, “I think if you, if they actually got briefed on the law that they wouldn’t be blasting this law. I think Governor Pence has done the right thing. Florida has a law like this. Bill Clinton signed a law like this at the federal level. This is simply allowing people of faith space to be able to express their beliefs, to have, to be able to be people of conscience. I just think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”

Jeb Bush’s own donors were voicing confusion about what his real position is after his remarks on Wednesday. Confusion was the point. Bush is pulling from Mitt Romney’s playbook of his true agenda by supporting everything that everyone wants.

The former Florida governor has also fallen into the Republican frontrunner trap of trying to run a general election campaign during a Republican presidential primary. Bush is pulling a Mitt Romney. He is trying to fool the voters of this country by muddying his agenda so much that it is unrecognizable.

The strategy didn’t work for Romney in 2012, and it won’t work for Bush in 2016.

Hey, Religious “Freedom” Laws Open The Door To Discrimination Against Women Too

One day people will wake up and wonder why they can no longer get the pill in their state, let alone an abortion. They can thank a Republican…

One day people will wake up and wonder why they can no longer get the pill in their state, let alone an abortion. It will be a matter of some concern, no doubt since many people enjoy having sex for reasons other than procreation.

President Obama proclaimed that April is “NATIONAL SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS AND PREVENTION MONTH“, because we should be “standing together against the quiet tolerance of sexual assault and refusing to accept the unacceptable.” After all, “Nearly one in five women in America has been a victim of rape or attempted rape.”

So it’s under the dark cloud of this reality that the press largely ignores the impact of certain state versions of “Religious Freedom Reformation Act” (RFRA) bills. That name is an Orwellian attempt to use the same name as the federal law for a law that does pretty much the opposite of the intentions of the federal law; the federal law was meant to protect religious minorities, not give the majority a club with which to beat minorities.

University of Buffalo associate law professor Michael Boucai explained that this issue “is far from solely an LGBT one.” Boucai said, “People have religious convictions about any number of things, he said. One can imagine demands for religious exemptions from laws that prohibit racial discrimination, laws mandating that insurance provide full coverage of reproductive health expenses, laws prohibiting animal cruelty, vaccination laws and environmental laws, to name a few.”

“It’s important that the public see how these RFRAs – not just Indiana’s – open the door for every person to become a law unto her – or himself. In that way, these laws are enacting as a statutory right what the Supreme Court, in cases involving Mormon polygamy and the ritual use of hallucinogens, has consistently and wisely rejected as constitutional right,” he said.

From racial minorities to animal rights, Republicans’ “religious freedom” is coming for you. No one is safe when everyone becomes a law unto themselves. Since the Indiana law is framed on the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision against covering contraception, it’s safe to imagine targeting women’s health is not just an accidental discrimination, but rather, deliberately on the agenda.

The Guttmacher Institute pointed out that legislators in 16 states have introduced versions of the RFRA, yet the potential impact on contraceptive coverage and women’s health has received little attention, “However, the potential impact on contraceptive coverage—and reproductive health more broadly—has received little, if any, attention.”

Of course, it’s easy to see why a little thing like women’s health can be so easily ignored. After all, Guttmacher points out, “By the end of the first quarter of the year, legislators had introduced 791 provisions related to sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

Hey, it’s just an infringement of the rights and liberty of over half the population of the country. No biggie.

Wondering how to source all of this draconian manipulation and discrimination? It goes back to Hobby Lobby’s fight to deny covering contraception, because they are (allegedly) against abortion so they figured the smartest thing to do would be to object to the ONE thing that reduces abortions for sure — contraception. The pill. The magical pill that gave women some measure of control over the planning of their families and lives. The pill that allows many to have sex with relative freedom from worry. The pill that regulates the cycle of women suffering from a myriad of diseases and reproductive system related medical issues.

Many state RFRAs, like Indiana’s and now the measure passed by the Arkansas legislature, open the Hobby Lobby door to discrimination against women and their healthcare needs. Expect the pill to no longer be covered in those states, because a Republican has decided that their alleged religion (sorry, but I’m not buying the notion that christianity supports deliberate and painful discrimination as well as actual physical harm to women) trumps your right to medical care.

When your doctor prescribes the pill to you or your family member for a health reason and your insurance declines it, just remember that somewhere there’s a Republican who feels that women taking care of their health is an infringement upon said Republican’s religious freedom.

When you’re wondering why you can’t get the pill anymore, thank a Republican.

Cotton compares US to Iran, sees discrimination as unimportant

by Steve Benen

With his home state of Arkansas embroiled in a controversy over a right-to-discriminate bill, Sen. Tom Cotton (R) was asked yesterday about how his state should proceed. “In Arkansas, we believe in religious freedom,” the far-right senator replied.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reminded the Republican, “Everybody believes in religious freedom. The question is the discrimination, potential discrimination against gay Americans.” Believe it or not, this was Cotton’s response (via Judd Legum):

“I also think it’s important that we have a sense of perspective about our priorities. In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay. They’re currently imprisoning an American preacher for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in Iran. We should focus on the most important priorities our country faces right now.

“And I would say that a nuclear armed Iran, given the threat that it poses to the region and to our interests in the region and American citizens, is the most important thing that we’d be focused on.”

He didn’t appear to be kidding.

It’s an incredible perspective for anyone to share, but for a U.S. senator to make this argument on national television is striking, even by 2015 standards. Arkansas’ legislature approved a proposal that would empower business owners to legally discriminate against members of the public. For Tom Cotton to endorse such a proposal would be par for the course.

But note that his argument goes much further: the far-right senator effectively argued that gays shouldn’t complain too much about discrimination, since Arkansas is at least better than Iran. That’s his point of comparison – Cotton doesn’t compare Arkansas to America’s highest ideals; he compares his home state to a Middle Eastern theocracy.

Sorry, gay Americans, you may face discrimination in your own country, but Arkansas isn’t talking about arresting or executing you, so apparently Tom Cotton doesn’t want to hear your complaints.

Let’s also not overlook the fact that the senator seemed annoyed that a debate over discrimination even exists at all. As Cotton argued, “the most important thing” is whether or not Iran might, at some point in the future, have a nuclear weapon, not whether some of his constituents face public discrimination. That, the Arkansas Republican said, is what we should all “be focused on.”

And for those involved in ongoing, international nuclear talks, that clearly is the principal focus. But those of us who care about current events are usually able to walk and chew gum at the same time – people, including Tom Cotton, need not have tunnel vision on one important issue, to the exclusion of literally everything else. The resolution of nuclear talks with Iran matters, but civil rights matter, too. So does climate change. And health care reform. And countless other issues.

Those elected to powerful offices don’t have the luxury of effectively telling the public, “I don’t care about your issue; I only care about mine.” Similarly, those in positions of authority should resist the urge to say America isn’t as bad as Iran, so those trying to make America better should pipe down.

Wingnut Defense of Indiana’s Hateful RFRA is Awash in a Sea of Lies

Republican and Religio-wingnut damage-control over Indiana’s RFRA is chaotic and entertaining, and as dishonest as the day is long.

Wingnut Nut Daily, in an attempt to defend Indiana’s so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act claims that the “Fine print doesn’t mention ‘christian,’ doesn’t target ‘gays.’

If the fine print doesn’t mention christians and doesn’t target gays, “how can it be an anti-gay hate bill?” they ask triumphantly.

How about I pose a question for Wing Nut Daily:

The United States Constitution does not mention dog, jesus, the bible, the ten commandments, or christianity. Using your own logic, how can the United States be a christian nation?

We have already seen efforts to claim that the RFRA is just the federal version writ small. The christian post attempted this a few days ago, claiming, “Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is a state-level version of the federal RFRA.”

This is not true, and charitably, I will suggest the possibility that cp did not bother to actually read the bill. The White House has debunked this lie.

What’s more, Pence and his fellow Republicans KNEW this was not just a repeat of the federal law, and 30 law professors warned them of this fact beforehand, informing them, in a letter,

The proposed state RFRAs threaten to destabilize the harmony among fundamental rights struck by Indiana courts in a long line of cases and in a complex set of contexts. The proposed law seeks to override this reasoned balance among rights by bluntly and categorically granting religious liberty rights a special status.

We’ve even got Sean Hannity and Dinesh D’Souza asking why gays are mad at Indiana but aren’t getting all hot and bothered by Sharia law.

Well…I’m making a wild guess here, but maybe it’s because nobody is legislating Sharia law in Indiana?

It is obvious who the RFRA is directed toward. Its architects were anti-gay religio-wingnut agitators – Micah Clark, Curt Smith, and Eric Miller – who then had their photo taken with Governor Pence at the signing ceremony, and who now vociferously defend the law:

EVERYONE knows what this bill is designed to do, from Franklin Graham on down. You might remember Graham’s exclamation of joy, posted on Facebook just before the bill was signed into law:

“Thanks to those in government who are standing up for the freedom and protection of christians to live out their delusion.”

christians. Not muslims. Not jews. Certainly not gays, whatever their religious leanings.

Then there is the little matter of Indiana lawmakers admitting that the law permits “no gay” signs, which sort of puts paid to Ann Coulter’s dishonest claim about “the utterly apocryphal assertion that the law will be used to turn gays away from restaurants.”

Enter Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, whose owners, Crystal and Kevin O’Connor, had already admitted they would refuse to cater gay weddings (does anyone order pizza for weddings?) thanks to the new law. The local ABC affiliate said they were the “first business to publicly deny same-sex service” after Pence signed the RFRA into law.

THEY understood what this law does. And at least, unlike Wing Nut Daily or Ann Coulter, they were being honest and up front about it, however bigoted they might be.

You can bet they expected to be the first of many as all the world rose up to denounce gay-dom in America’s basketball heartland. Except, the day the law was signed might become the day basketball died.

Turns out, there are a lot fewer bigots than the bigots thought. People who don’t think faith is defined by who you refuse to serve, or who you refuse to do business with. That discrimination is not a testament to faith.

Especially faith in a guy who hung out with prostitutes, tax-collectors, and other low-life’s – a guy like Jesus.

It is wrong, if it happened, for people to have harassed the owners into closing their doors. I have not seen any examples of threats, or of anything beyond criticism, which is certainly fair, given the owners are more than happy to criticize gay people.

What the owners have to realize is that they are not martyrs. LGBT people experience this level of persecution all the time. They are bullied, beat, harassed, and refused service. The persecutors are not the victims.

Still, the best response would have been to simply decline to give Memories Pizza their dollars. There are other places to eat.

An irate business owner could have even refused to serve the owners under the new law. A vendor could refuse to supply them with ingredients. Religious convictions, you see. All legal. All protected by the well-meaning fascists at the American Family Association who didn’t think very far ahead about some of the unintended the consequences of their new law.

Wingnuts are in damage-control mode now. With the Arkansas bill’s unraveling and denunciations coming in from all across the country, with Mike Pence stammering that maybe some clarification is needed and the religio-wingnuts and Republican pretender hopefuls all saying “no gays” signs equal dog’s love, and Ann Coulter saying people like the O’Connor’s don’t exist, obfuscation and panicked lies seem to be the order of the day.

It’s the Iran-Contra hearings all over again. And like the Iran-Contra hearings, it’s entertaining, to a degree.

I don’t think it’s all intentional either, this confusion. It’s just that they are all so flabbergasted at the rejection of their message that they don’t know what to say, so they’re all saying different things.

Pence has even been Romney-ized by the experience, saying more than one different thing all by himself.

It’s not pretty. But neither was the law or its intended effects pretty. The lies that have followed have just made an ugly situation worse.

Maybe we should just tell the law’s defenders that when they have got their story figured out, to get back to us. In the meantime, we will keep our dollars away from Indiana. Oh, and use our own First Amendment rights to make our opinions of their bigotry – and lies – heard.

Teabagger ‘Terrorist’ Seeks Dismissal Of Charges For Anti-Muslim ‘WMD’

Attorney Kevin Luibrand: “(Crawford sought funding for) what he believed was a never-before-considered idea — an idea only — to use on Islamic terrorists.”

Read more 

3 members of Florida Department of Corrections found to be in KKK; arrested for murder plot

by Shaun King

No need to pinch yourself, it really is 2015. According to the Orlando Sentinel:

Two current and one former prison employee who all belonged to the KKK planned to kill a black inmate as he was released in retaliation for a fight, officials said Thursday. The three men — Thomas Jordan Driver, 25, David Elliot Morgan, 47, and 42-year-old Charles Thomas Newcomb — each were arrested Thursday on one state count of conspiracy to commit murder, according to a statement from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office.

In light of this, you must remember that a record 346 inmates died in Florida prisons last year—including men and women who were gassed to death, burned to death, and beaten to death, all by staff. It can be hard to really believe that we are in 2015, but this is absolutely our new normal.

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you, this is the true 'symbol' of you cabal ...!  

 

The Truth Be Told is read in 203 countries around the world.

 
It's way past time do some pest control and get the Republicans (Oops, we mean the diseased rats, wait, no, we had it correct the first time) out of Congress ... !

Today is - World Rat Day
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog Carolina Naturally

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Sao Paolo, Brazil

Henry Farm, Moose Jaw and Quebec, Canada

Bogota, Colombia

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San Juan, Puerto Rico

Medway, Menlo Park, Menomonee Falls, Miami Beach, Milledgeville, Millington, Minneapolis, Monroe, Monticello, Mooresville, Mount Laurel, Mount Vernon and Mountain View, United States

Europe

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

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Brno, Karlin, Mala Strana, Prague and Stare Mesto, Czech Republic

Hvidovre, Denmark

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Editorial Comment

Just a cursory read on several wingnut sites and we find that we are getting under their scales.

The Truth is an itch you can't scratch away no matter how hard you try and the wingnuts are too stupid to know this so they keep trying - of course failing utterly while doing so - it only makes the itch worse.

We want to thank our readers from around the globe for spreading the word about The Truth Be Told and increasing our daily readership (and doing so even faster then the word is spreading among the wingnuts that someone is telling the truth and exposing their lies so they must 'stop' them grapevine).

After only a month we have quite a loyal following, thank you for that.

As you may have noticed on the right column - April is National Humor Month, so expect some humor herein ... of course with wingnuts, the humor will be easy to find - they are all jokes, bad jokes we grant you but jokes nonetheless.

So to kick things off we're posting this prime example of wingnut stupidity:

First off the 'Mullet' was never a hairdo it has always been a hair-don't
Second - If the big red lettering and arrow do not highlight it for you (yes, wingnuts we're talking to you) then you should know the idiot couldn't even spell the word that quite aptly befits him.
Third - Just forget number 3, we'll let the stupidity speak for itself ...

Oh, and as an aside:
For the troll(s) trying to link this blog to the homophobic pizza parlor's 'wingnut fear mongering/fund raising'  - WalMart, NASCAR, SalesForce and Angie’s List have all come out against the new law.

So while it may be true (and IT'S NOT*) that winguts are raising money for the bigoted pizzeria that stated on air that they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding (with pizza?), the real big money has spoken: You have lost the culture war against gays.

And yes, you read that correctly even that Paragon of wingnut masturbatory fantasies NASCAR and that Bastion of Liberalism, Walmart have come down on Indiana's throat.

*The GoFundMe campaign is a wingnut media scam. .. so that makes the very stupid troll(s) attempting to link the bogus 'fundraiser' to this blog look even more stupid

Face it, wingnuts, you have lost and lost badly as you have and will forever do on everything and anything every time.

Robert Reich: The Wealthy Are The Real Lazy People In Our Society

We hear it from Republicans every day. They constantly tell us that poor people are poor because they are lazy and rich people are wealthy because they work. But as Robert Reich explained in a new op-ed, the rich are the real lazy people in our society.

Read more

Republican Takeover Of Congress Backfires and Makes Democrats More Popular

According to a new poll, from ABC News/The Washington Post, the American people are noticing Boehner and McConnell’s failures. Since Republicans took complete control of Congress, congressional Democrats have become even more popular than Republicans.

Via: The Washington Post:

Congressional Democrats get higher approval ratings than congressional Republicans, and the gap has widened since last fall. In October, 30 percent said they approved of congressional Democrats compared with 25 percent who approved of congressional Republicans. In the new survey, approval of congressional Democrats has risen to 38 percent while congressional Republicans are up a slight 2 points, to 27 percent.

Boehner and McConnell are also making President Obama more popular. The President has gained five points in approval of his leadership. He now has a seven-point (45%-38% lead over congressional Republicans on the question of who has taken a stronger leadership role in Washington.

Seventy-three percent of those who believe that Obama is taking a stronger leadership role than Republicans view this development as a good thing. Those who view Republicans as taking the stronger leadership role are more divided (58%-32%) on whether or not this is a good thing.

It might appear to be counter-intuitive, but the Republican control of Congress ahead of the 2016 election is serving a helpful purpose to Democrats. Potential voters are getting an eyeful of the Republican agenda, and so far, they aren’t liking what they are seeing.

Congressional Republicans can no longer sit on the sidelines and blame President Obama or Harry Reid to for their failure to govern. They are the majority in the House and Senate, so it is their agenda, and their jobs on the line. The gerrymandered House is obvious to this reality, but the foreboding sense of looming failure is the key to Mitch McConnell’s desperation to prove that he can pass legislation in the Senate.

The Republican agenda is helping many Americans appreciate what President Obama and Congressional Democrats stand for, which is definitely not what Boehner and McConnell had in mind on Election Night last November.

Obama Tells Republicans to Stop Screwing with Unions

President Obama warned them, and then on Tuesday, made good on his promise to veto a Republican attempt to block a government labor agency’s rules aimed at speeding…

Stop Screwing Around

Supreme Court Justices Serve for Life

Why Supreme Court Justices Serve for Life

Once you become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, you have a gig for life. Why is it different for these nine men and women, when presidents and congress persons have to be re-elected to continue serving?

Link Dump

how civil forfeiture enriches  u.s. law enforcement

the typical black household has 6% of the wealth of white households

political liberals display greater happiness

the top u.s. cities for douchebags

melting sea ice will hit the u.s. harder than anywhere else

seaworld twitter campaign backfires terribly
capitalism destroying our planet?

it is time to say goodbye to america's fraternities?

someone at the NYPD has been editing wikipedia to make the cops look good
wind could be the main source of electricity by 2050
people on foodstamps make healthier grocery decisions than most of us

stop calling children's gun deaths 'accidental'

father of the 401(k) says he 'created a monster'

the war on drugs is a racist class war

Republicans Write Letter To U.N. Encouraging Countries To Ignore Obama

Sound Familiar?

Bravo Republicans, thanks to your tireless efforts, shame is now America’s number one export.

Read more

Four Anti-Obamacare Republican Governors Took $352 Million In Health Care Grants

A review of records has found that Republican governors Scott Walker (WI), Bobby Jindal (LA), Rick Perry (TX), and Chris Christie (NJ) took $400 million in federal health care money for their states while opposing the Affordable Care Act.

Reuters reported:

Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, all staunch opponents of President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act, have collectively applied for and won at least $352 million through grant programs set up by the law, federal records show.

The action is at odds with the public stance of all four potential candidates, who have blasted the law as an unprecedented expansion of government and called for its repeal.

These governors are each trying to run for president based on in part publicly opposing the Affordable Care Act, but privately they are hypocritically gobbling up millions of federal dollars to fund the law that they have sworn to destroy. The behavior of the governors illustrates that Obamacare has become a buzzword for rallying Republican voters, but the reality is that repealing the ACA would cause absolute chaos at multiple levels of government.

Walker, Perry, Jindal, and Christie all claim that they hate the healthcare law, but that hatred hasn’t stopped them from putting their hands out and taking hundreds of millions of federal dollars. The key is that the governors were not forced to take the money. They had to apply for the funds. It wasn’t a mistake that they took the loot. Walker and the others intentionally asked for it.

The last two Republican presidential primary contests have quickly devolved into who hissy fights over who is the most conservative candidate. It is going to be difficult for the Obamacare hypocrite governors to wear the crown of real conservative while they were mooching hundreds of millions of dollars in Obamacare cash.

Republicans hate Obamacare, but not as much as they love free money.

KKK Cowards

Florida chef fires back at KKK threats over his interracial marriage: ‘You’re a coward, brother’

Founding Fathers Wanted Civil Rights For All Protected From Religious Persecution

“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience, be in any manner, nor on any pretext, infringed.” – Original draft of the 1st Amendment, 1789.
Had that text been included in the Constitution, imagine how vastly different this country would be. No RFRA laws. No Hobby Lobby decisions in the Supreme Court. No elections based on which candidate supports abortion rights or not.

Read more

How 'Religious Freedom' Works ...

A religio-wingnut 'explains' how 'Religious Freedom' works - in their perverted mentally ill deluded minds

Hobby Lobby Ruling Opened Floodgates For Indiana Discrimination Law

Americans are witnessing the profound and dangerous impact of the High Court's Hobby Lobby decision to dismantle the 1st Amendment's religious clauses and exempt religious devotee's from adhering to the law…

Nearly all parents attempt to teach their children from a young age that every one of their decisions in life will have consequences; no matter how inconsequential they may seem at the time. It is no different for politicians and, more importantly to Americans, Supreme Court justices. In fact, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that Supreme Court decisions “exercise a kind of hydraulic effect.” He meant that even if the decision’s authors assert that their rulings will have limited impact, the cases will invariably have a profound influence on American society sometime in the future.

Americans are witnessing the profound and dangerous impact of the High Court’s Hobby Lobby decision to dismantle the 1st Amendment’s religious clauses and exempt religious devotee’s from adhering to state and federal laws. In writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling was ‘very narrow in scope‘ and would have a very limited impact on Americans other than empowering religious employers to force their religion on their employees. However, within two weeks the Vatican-5 expanded that ruling as a portent that the Hobby Lobby decision would soon have a very profound impact on Americans’ lives; something Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned was going to happen.

In writing the dissenting opinion in Hobby Lobby, Ginsburg put the so-called “limited impact” ruling nonsense into proper perspective and said that the Vatican-5 effectively ruled that religion trumps all other laws. The Jurist said that the Hobby Lobby ruling was a “decision of startling breadth, ventured into a minefield” and argued strongly that “the majority turned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into a protean tool for all sorts of evasions;” many pundits and legal experts distilled her entire dissent into “the conservative Court opened the floodgates of religious imposition on  America.” Republicans in Indiana quickly made use of the “protean tool” to give religious bigots legal license to discriminate at will against, according to the law, “any person” they believe are sinners and violate their religious freedom. There is no mention of gays, LGBT, or same-sex couples in Indiana’s law; any person of any religion, race, or gender can be discriminated against with the full legal protection of religious freedom law.

The Hobby Lobby ruling answered the question conscience clause advocates have asked since the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act was signed in 1993; “when do religious convictions allow individuals or businesses to excuse themselves from legal obligations like adhering to equal and civil rights laws or providing medical care?” That question was answered last year in the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision and it is the driving force behind the rash of legal discrimination laws about to sweep 23 Republican states across the nation. Remember, the crux of the Vatican-5’s ruling was that the faithful are exempt from following any laws on religious grounds whether they are ensconced in the nation’s founding document or federal and state legal statutes.

That horrendous Hobby Lobby decision began opening the gate for the religiously observant to claim privileges that are unavailable to anyone else, and it started within a week of the ruling being handed down. Now the floodgates are wide open and there is no recourse except for decent Americans and businesses to wage economic warfare on bigoted Republican states with extreme prejudice. Even though Justice Alito claimed the scope of the ruling was very narrow, the Papal-5 effectively dismantled the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the 1st Amendment that puts the guilt of the flood of license to discriminate laws solely on the High  Court’s conservatives. Why? Because there are no longer any Constitutional equal rights protections that are not subordinate to a person of faith’s religious exemption to disregard the law. It may be why, a year after the Hobby Lobby ruling, the lawmaker behind the Arkansas license to discriminate measure, Republican Bob Ballinger, said that “The reality is what we’re doing here is really not that remarkable;” or illegal or unconstitutional because religion.

The Indiana law, like the recently passed Arkansas law and those proceeding through 23 other state legislatures, is likely the product of religious Republicans’ attempt to thwart same-sex marriage and rally their religious base around “the issue” god hates going into the 2016 election cycle. It is why several Republican presidential hopefuls have come out in support of the Indiana law and defended Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s signing a clearly religious law aimed at legalizing discrimination against a wide range of Americans; a law that was unlikely to pass constitutional muster prior to Hobby Lobby.

Last year when Arizona passed ‘license to discriminate’ legislation, the overriding opinion was that it would be struck down as unconstitutional if it ever became law. The Indiana law is a mirror image of the Arizona legislation that passed the legislature only to be vetoed by then-governor Jan Brewer over a budget dispute. Like the Arizona legislation, Indiana’s law explicitly exempts “a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint-stock company, an unincorporated association, or any other entity” from legal ramifications associated with discriminating against “any person” they believe violates their religious freedom. It is important to remember the word gay is not a part of the Indiana law; anyone can be the target of discrimination with absolute legal protections as long as religious freedom is cited. The High Court made those kinds of laws constitutionally protected.

That protection was an overriding question before Hobby Lobby, and one opponents and supporters of Arizona’s law asked before the Supreme Court ruling. Since Arizona’s legislation, like Indiana’s and now Arkansas’, do not cite a specific group as a target of discrimination, many people asked “what about religious individuals who say that they have objections to conducting business with gay people or immigrants? Will they be excused from honoring the nation’s anti-discrimination laws?” Although that issue appeared to be unresolved prior to the Hobby Lobby ruling, it is resolved now and it is why 23 states have religious laws making their way through Republican legislatures.

In no small part the expansion effects of Hobby Lobby are due to the efforts of several evangelical and catholic cabals; particularly a so-called 'conservative' legal cabal, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. It began dedicating itself to expanding the reach of the Hobby Lobby decision immediately after the ruling was announced. Obviously, with Indiana’s law, Arkansas’ recently passed legislation, and similar laws progressing in a couple of dozen other states, the Becket Fund is seeing the fruits of its labor realized in a very big religious way. And for all the people that continue shouting the license to discriminate laws are unconstitutional, the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling says otherwise; religious liberty trumps all constitutional protections.

Americans do not get to vote on Supreme Court jurors, but they do elect the religious Republicans pushing the laws legalizing discrimination as a result of the High Court’s ruling. The people of Indiana, Arkansas, and twenty-plus other Republican states knew they were voting for ‘socially-conservative’ Republicans that made no secret their intent was enacting laws to punish residents that did not fit their bible-thumping real American mold. Frankly, the people of Indiana who will suffer the economic consequences of their bigoted legislature and governor deserve what they get. Because if they had listened to their parents warning that their decisions have consequences, they would have voted differently, if they even bothered to vote.

Arkansas Rejects Religious Freedom Bill

Arkansas Rejects Religious Freedom Bill and Exposes Mike Pence’s Deception

Republicans In Turmoil After Asa Hutchinson Caves On Arkansas Religious Freedom Bill

The Republican Party is falling apart, and factions are at each other’s throats over the self-inflicted wound of pushing religious freedom bills that would legalize discrimination.

Hutchinson explained why he reversed course and decided not to sign the bill unless it is changed, “The bill that is on my desk at the present time does not mirror the federal law. It doesn’t mirror it in a couple of ways, particularly allowing the First Amendment to be asserted in the private litigation between parties or reliance on the state law in those claims. Therefore, I asked that changes be made in the legislation and I’ve asked that the leaders in the General Assembly to recall the bill so that it can be amended.”

The divide between Republicans is between the business community and social conservatives. There is also a generational divide between younger and older Republicans that is typified by the fact that Hutchinson’s own son signed a petition asking him to veto the bill, “My son Seth, signed the petition asking me, Dad, the governor, to veto this bill.”

All of the potential 2016 Republican pretender candidates with the exceptions of Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Rand Paul have come out in support of the religious freedom bills. What is happening is the now traditional process of the Republican rank and file pulling their presidential candidates too far to the right to be electable.

In Arkansas, Gov. Hutchinson isn’t looking for a way out because he had an overnight epiphany. Hutchinson is trying to escape a brewing political firestorm that has spread outwards from Indiana and is engulfing the Republican Party.

History is repeating itself. This time the discussions aren’t centered around “legitimate rape,” but an attempt to legalize discrimination behind a thin disguise of religious freedom. The same old divides that have undone the Republican Party in previous election cycles are alive and well, but the GOP’s biggest problem is that their economic, social, and political agenda remains wildly unpopular and out of step with modern times.

Mike Pence lied

Are you surprised? He's a Republican, isn't he?

On ABC's Sunday program "This Week," Indiana Gov. Mike Pence gave a career-ending performance in which he repeatedly refused to answer whether Indiana's new "religious freedom" law, SB 101, allows discrimination against gays and lesbians (#NotReadyForPrimeTime). Pence also likened SB 101 to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) signed into law in the '90s and those adopted by about 19 states since. Then he added:

And after last year's Hobby Lobby case, Indiana properly brought the same version that then state senator Barack Obama voted for in Illinois before our legislature. And I was proud to sign it into law last week.

Lies. All of it. Indiana's new law is substantially different than both the 90s-era RFRAs and there is no parallel to be drawn between Indiana and the Illinois bill Barack Obama voted for 17 years ago.
First, these new RFRAs aren't even close to the same as those that have been passed by other states over the last couple decades. The new ones are RFRAs on steroids. The old RFRAs were meant to keep the government from infringing on the religious beliefs of individuals. The new ones vary, but they almost all apply to private disputes. That is new and will allow people to use their religious beliefs as a defense if they are sued for discrimination by another individual.
Here's more from a real lawyer, Jenny Pizer at Lambda Legal:

SB 101 is substantially broader than the federal law. It extends religious rights to all businesses, no matter how large and completely secular they are. In addition, the federal law can only be invoked against government action. SB 101 goes much further, inviting discrimination by allowing religious beliefs to be raised as a defense in lawsuits and administrative proceedings brought by workers, tenants and customers who have suffered discrimination in a business transaction based on someone else's religious beliefs.

Pence lied

The Big Lie The Media Tells About Indiana's New 'Religious Freedom' Law

by Judd Legum

On Friday, the Washington Post published an article titled "19 states that have 'religious freedom' laws like Indiana's that no one is boycotting." The article snarks about organizations like the NCAA that have protested Indiana's law, noting "the NCAA didn't say it was concerned over how athletes and employees would be affected by Kentucky's RFRA when games were played there last week." The piece concludes "Indiana might be treated as if it's the only state with a bill like this, but it's not." The piece has been shared over 75,000 times on Facebook.
The Washington Post article largely mirrors the argument advanced by Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Appearing on ABC's This Week, Pence claimed "Then state-Sen. Barack Obama voted for [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act]. The very same language."
The same argument is parroted on Fox News and elsewhere.
It's not true.
The Indiana law differs substantially from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed by President Clinton in 1993, and all other state RFRAs.
There are several important differences in the Indiana bill but the most striking is Section 9. Under that section, a "person" (which under the law includes not only an individual but also any organization, partnership, LLC, corporation, company, firm, church, religious society, or other entity) whose "exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened" can use the law as "a claim or defense… regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding."
Every other Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to disputes between a person or entity and a government. Indiana's is the only law that explicitly applies to disputes between private citizens.* This means it could be used as a cudgel by corporations to justify discrimination against individuals that might otherwise be protected under law. Indiana trial lawyer Matt Anderson, discussing this difference, writes that the Indiana law is "more broadly written than its federal and state predecessors" and opens up "the path of least resistance among its species to have a court adjudicate it in a manner that could ultimately be used to discriminate…"
This is not a trivial distinction. Arizona enacted an RFRA that applied to actions involving the government in 2012. When the state legislature tried to expand it to purely private disputes in 2014, nationwide protests erupted and Jan Brewer, Arizona's Republican governor, vetoed the measure.

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Michele Bachmann Is Still Bonkers ...

Minnesota's Ex Michele Bachmann (R) compared President Obama to Andreas Lubitz, the deranged German co-pilot who crashed Germanwings Flight 9525, on her Facebook page Tuesday. Bachmann posted:

With his Iran deal, Barack Obama is for the 300 million souls of the United States what Andreas Lubitz was for the 150 souls on the German Wings flight – a deranged pilot flying his entire nation into the rocks. After the fact, among the smoldering remains of American cities, the shocked survivors will ask, why did he do it?

The delusional lunatic has a long history of fear-mongering about Iran being a dire and imminent threat to the United States and to other nations. As a freshman member of Congress, Bachmann concocted wild fantasies about Iran’s sinister intentions and relayed them as true stories. In 2006, Bachmann stated:

Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they’re going to partition Iraq.

And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made.

They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more terrorist attacks in the Middle East region and then to come against the United States because we are their avowed enemy.

Her bizarre scenario was completely fabricated, but that didn’t stop the moron from spreading her lies to gin up fear about the Iranian threat. In 2014, at the White House Xtmas Party, Bachmann told the President he needed to bomb Iran. She warned that if he didn’t, Iran would acquire nuclear weapons on Obama’s watch, and change the course of world history.

Fortunately, the lunatic fringe wingnut retired from her House seat and did not seek re-election in 2014. Unfortunately, she still has a large following on social media, so her delusional comments still carry sway with folks on the far right end of the American political spectrum.

Bachmann’s incessant fear-mongering about Iran is disturbing enough. Her offensive comparison between Obama and a demented airline pilot who intentionally crashed a plane and killed 149 innocent people is beyond the pale. President Obama bears no similarity to the disturbed co-pilot. Furthermore, given her own flirtations with the frayed ends of sanity, Michele Bachmann is in no position to judge which elected officials she considers deranged.

I’m Sorry, But You Actually Have to See This Horrible Thing Michele Bachmann Said

From the "Public Enemies" Department:

Look, the last thing I want to do with my life is give attention to Michele Bachmann. Her retirement from Congress was a gift bestowed upon the nation…

Michele Bachmann Is Insane