‘You people serve no purpose’

Here's an apparent voice of sanity in the GOP.
A Florida Republican had the guts to tear into the Koch Brothers and their cronies during a Senate hearing on Thursday for wanting prosperity for themselves...

Florida Republican senator denounces Koch brothers: ‘You people serve no purpose’

Colorado Republicans Are Pushing Koch Legislation To Seize Federal Land

It is unclear how a state can have "joint jurisdiction" over land it does not own and has no claim to ...

Most Americans know someone whose life is governed by avarice, or greed, that intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth and power. If nothing else, Republicans and the people they represent epitomize avarice in that there is nothing they will not take from the American people. Over the past six years Republicans have taken unemployment benefits, retirement, overtime pay, equal rights, voting rights, food, and healthcare from Americans to hand over to their wealthy donors. Now, they are involved in a scheme to take federal land that belongs to the government and the people to enrich the Koch brothers due to the billionaire’s greed for wealth and power.

Last month Two Colorado Republicans, state Senator Kent Lambert (Colorado Springs) and state Representative Stephen Humphrey (Severance) began pushing a Koch bill, SB 39, calling for “joint jurisdiction” with the Federal government over national forests and Bureau of Land Management land. It is unclear how a state can have “joint jurisdiction” over land it does not own and has no claim to, but the Colorado Republicans’ effort is a first step in a much more ambitious scheme; seizing and handing authority over federal land to the billionaire Koch brothers to drill for oil, mine, and log without “interference” from the federal government.

The Colorado bill is part of an ongoing Koch-funded and driven initiative started by Utah Republicans for Republican-misled states to seize control of public lands from the federal government to open them up to oil, mining, and logging interests; interests, by the way that are wholly-owned and operated subsidiaries of Koch Industries. The Colorado Republicans claim, like most Republican-misled Western states that the Koch brothers will better manage the land without federal government interference; government interference includes regulations from environmental and conservation agencies as well as interference by President Obama who has authority to designate pristine ecological and archeological sites as “federally protected” land; something the Kochs and Republicans are not going to tolerate any longer.

When the land is seized by the state, the federal government will have no regulatory authority over what will have effectively become privately-held land including all BLM land, wilderness areas, and national parks; all areas Republicans and the Kochs complain bitterly should be opened up to unrestricted exploitation. This is not a new development and is part of an ongoing conservative campaign asserting that the federal government has no right to own, or claim authority over, any land in any state; particularly Republican-led Western states.

There is a concerted effort underway in every Republican-misled Western state to seize government property to satisfy the greed of the Kochs who, with their Republican puppets, have panted to exploit all federal land, including federally-protected wilderness areas and national parks, for profit for decades. In fact, in 2012 Utah Mormons passed a law demanding that the federal government cede its ownership, and immediately turn over the titles, of all federal lands in Utah including all wilderness areas and national parks to Republicans to sell off to the Kochs to have free rein to “manage” as “owners” and be exempt from federal oversight.

Utah, Colorado, and several Western states have already revealed their plan to pay for the cost of managing their newly-seized federal lands, including national parks, by leasing or selling national forest land to lumber and paper companies that are owned by the Kochs to be logged without interference from the overreaching federal government. They also plan to sell underground mineral rights to the oil  and gas industry for unregulated drilling, and allow mining companies to have unrestricted access in federally-protected, pristine lands such as designated wilderness areas and of course national parks that are on land Republicans, the Kochs, and cretins like Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy claim the federal government has no legal right to own or regulate. This is in spite of the simple fact the federal government purchased and holds the titles to the land which makes it the American public’s land.

Americans surely remember that Cliven Bundy summoned armed militias to wage war on federal officials last year because he claimed the federal government had no authority to remove his cattle that were illegally grazing on its own land; shortly thereafter he repeated the same claim over federal land in Utah despite he lives in Nevada. When Utah Republicans objected to being prohibited from riding all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) through federally-protected archeologically-historical Indian burial sites on BLM land, Bundy’s supporters made an illegal ride through Recapture Canyon in southeastern Utah anyway. Bundy summoned like-minded criminals with the message that “We need to re-establish who is in control of the land. This is your next stand. Will you be there to help them like you helped us?”

Republicans have spent the past six years taking nearly everything from the American people to provide more wealth for the greed-driven and power-hungry Kochs. They have also taken away Americans’ equal and civil rights for their religious base that the Koch brothers heavily fund. Republicans have even taken Americans’ right to vote away to give control of the government to the Kochs, and now they are on a crusade to seize federal land to give to the Kochs to satisfy their greed. Obviously, there is little left for Republicans to take from the people to give to the Kochs, so they have turned their attention to seizing American public’s federal land and like everything they have seized or stolen, it is to satisfy the greed and lust for power of the Koch brothers.

It's The Economy, Stupid

Miami Beach Official Blasts Florida's Inaction On Climate Change

The Miami Beach city commissioner on Friday lamented the lack of support the southern, coastal city has received from the Florida legislature in addressing the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels."We send our lobbyists to Tallahassee and beg for every little bit we can…but we're not getting help from anybody else," Commissioner Michael Grieco said at a sea level rise summit, according to Fusion. "Some people in Tallahassee don't want to deal with realities."

More

Tucker Carlson: I'm Not A Bullshitter, But Fox News Owns Me

Tuckie gave a short explanation of his Fox News indenture to anyone who cares.

Bullshit

‘Tea Party’ protesters opposed to Florida land deal were mostly actors hired by Big Sugar

"Big Sugar supporters hiring actors to pretend to protest is pathetic. Someone should ask who is paying for artificial sweetener to make polluting the Everglades and our drinking water easier to swallow."

Fake teabaggers (Is there any other kind?)

Wingnuts are dumb ...

... and want to get dumber

The Obamacare Doomsday Cult Struggles to Adapt to World That Did Not End

by Jonathan Chait

 

As Obamacare continues to operate successfully, conservative elites have renewed their pleas for the party to develop an alternative beyond demanding the law’s repeal. The trouble is that anti-Obamacare dogma sits so deeply at the GOP’s core that any discussion of health care must pay fealty to their belief that the law has failed utterly. The Republican Party in the Obamacare era is a doomsday cult after the world failed to end. Its entire analysis of the issue is built upon a foundation of falsehoods.Michael Tanner, a health-care analyst at the Cato Institute, has a column for National Review usefully summarizing the most current iteration of anti-Obamacare talking points. Most of Tanner’s piece is devoted to arguing for alternative proposals, but he begins with the ritual incantation of Obamacare doomsaying. Tanner does not argue that Obamacare is wrong because conservatives philosophically object to using taxation and regulation to transfer resources from the rich and healthy to the poor and sick. Instead he makes eight substantive claims about the law’s impact on health-care access. Every single one of them is overblown or demonstrably wrong.
Here’s Tanner’s litany of failure:

Millions of Americans were forced to change insurance plans, and others found themselves pushed into smaller networks with few choices of providers. Premiums rose. Businesses, laboring under the higher costs imposed by the law, have slowed growth; many have delayed hiring, or shifted workers from full- to part-time. The potential impact on the quality of care remains troubling.

Let’s take these claims in order.
1.“Millions of Americans were forced to change insurance plans.” The specter of mass dislocation was a major anti-Obamacare talking point at the end of 2013 and 2014. The new health-care regulations banned a lot of unpopular practices, like lifetime limits on how much an insurer would pay, or discriminating against preexisting conditions. So it is true that many people who held insurers in the old, barely regulated insurance market needed to find new plans. On the other hand, that market had enormous year-to-year churn anyway. The main way for insurers to make money was to exclude customers who were likely to get sick, so they threw people off their insurance all the time.
We now know that the new churn created by Obamacare was much smaller than conservatives insisted at the time. A recent study by the Urban Institute found that policy cancellations were not “millions,” but under a million. As the authors explain:

These estimates suggest that policy cancellations caused by noncompliance with the ACA were uncommon in 2014 in both the nongroup and ESI markets, and the number and rate of cancellations in the nongroup market in 2014 was far smaller than in 2013. The nongroup market has historically been characterized by high volatility: an analysis of pre-ACA nongroup coverage patterns from 2008–11 shows that only 42 percent of nongroup enrollees retained their coverage after 12 months.

2. “ ... and others found themselves pushed into smaller networks with few choices of providers.” It is true that many people who enrolled in the new exchanges have insurance plans that limit their choice of doctors and hospitals, which is called “narrow networks.” There is no evidence that Obamacare caused this. The law overwhelmingly covers people who had no insurance to begin with. You can’t be “pushed” into a “smaller” network when your previous network was nonexistent.
As Jonathan Cohn laid out in an excellent and balanced explainer on this issue, insurers have been using narrow networks to control costs for decades. “That’s been the case for decades,” Larry Levitt told him, “The only real connection to the Affordable Care Act is that the health reform law is making insurers compete for customers more aggressively.”
If narrow networks are spreading, it is because the Obamacare exchanges are bringing consumer choice into the system. Overwhelmingly, the customers enrolling in plans with narrow networks are not being “pushed” so much as they are choosing them. As a McKinsey study from last year found, 90 percent of eligible customers have access to broader networks of doctors and hospitals. But most customers choose plans with narrow networks because they would rather not pay the higher premiums required to access broader networks. If we think narrow networks are inadequate, one response would be to require insurers to include more doctors and hospitals in their plans, but this would add to costs — an odd argument for a conservative to make.

3. “Premiums rose.” It is true that some people will pay higher premiums. If you previously held a catastrophic plan that covered little to none of your medical expenses, you may now be paying higher premiums in return for having insurance that covers the cost of medical care. Likewise, if you were uninsured and now have coverage, your new premiums are now higher than your old premiums, which were zero. This is exactly what the law intended to do.The argument between the law’s supporters and critics centered on whether it would succeed or fail at its goal of restraining health care inflation. Historically, the cost of health care has grown at a much faster rate than the cost of other goods. Since Obamacare has taken effect, that trend has sharply reversed itself. Analysts debate the degree to which this enormous success is the result of the new law’s reforms versus outside factors. But the cost of Obamacare insurance premiums has come in well under official projections.
Tanner himself asserted that Obamacare would absolutely increase the cost of health care. “While we were once told that health-care reform would “bend the cost curve down,” we now know that Obamacare will actually increase U.S. health-care spending,” he wrote in 2012. This has been proven false. The federal government is spending less, even with the coverage expansions provided by Obamacare, than it was projected to spending before Obamacare became law:

4. “Businesses, laboring under the higher costs imposed by the law ... ” This is the opposite of the truth. The cost of providing health care to employees for business, after years of rapid growth, has stayed unusually flat:

5. “ ... have slowed growth.” Actually, 2014, the first year of Obamacare’s implementation coincided with the fastest growth in GDP since the start of the recession.6. “many have delayed hiring … ” In fact, 2014 was also the best year for job creation, not only since the recession but since 1999.

7. “or shifted workers from full- to part-time.” Nope, the share of part-time workers has also fallen since Obamacare took effect.8. “The potential impact on the quality of care remains troubling.” This is a really vague statement. Measuring the quality of health care is nearly impossible in general. What’s more, tanner’s formulation has not one but two weasel words (“potential,” “troubling”) that distance him from any verifiable claim.
That said, there’s plenty of evidence that the Affordable Care Act is improving the quality of care. The percentage of Americans delaying medical care for financial reasons has dropped sharply. The rate of hospital-acquired infections (a key target of the law, which changed hospitals’ financial incentive in order to drive down infections) has fallen. Customers who bought insurance through the exchanges report high levels of satisfaction with the quality of their care. One study found that Obamacare is saving around 50,000 lives a year; after President Obama cited the figure, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler set out to debunk the claim, only to determine that it checked out.
**
This is the reality that the entire Republican Party has failed to come to grips with. The American health-care system before Obamacare was an utter disaster — the most expensive in the world and also the only one that denied access to millions of its own citizens. Obamacare set out to change those things, and it has worked.
There is one remaining indictment of the law that Tanner makes, and it’s true. “The law remains extraordinarily unpopular, with opponents topping supporters by nearly 11 percentage points, according to the latest Real Clear Politics average,” he argues. It is notable that opponents of Obamacare have fixated on the law’s poor polling. In a recent column, Reason’s Peter Suderman quibbles halfheartedly with the law’s demonstrable success in carrying out its goals — suggesting that the astonishing drop in medical inflation may be owed to outside forces — before reveling for six paragraphs in his major point, which is continued lack of public approval. “Obamacare is simply not well liked,” he concludes, “This is the political reality — and President Obama still refuses to embrace it.”
It is telling that, having lost every substantive argument about the law’s operation, their sole remaining refuge is an argument about its perception. It’s true: Their lies got halfway around the world before the truth could get its pants on. Indeed, if you google most of the factual disputes I discuss above, you’ll get a lot more hits from conservatives making hysterical and false predictions than you will find from reports showing those predictions failed to come true. Those myths still hold enormous sway over public opinion. Far more Americans believe Obamacare has death panels, which is false, than believe its costs have come in under projections, which is true. Conservatives have won the propaganda war over Obamacare. The trouble is that they think this is an indictment of Obamacare, when in fact it’s an indictment of them.

Walker Tries To Nail LBGT Rights Advocates To The Wall Over Indiana, Fails Miserably

Scott Walker acts like he’s a master of words and understanding public opinion. Sadly (for him), he just stuck his foot in his mouth again.

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Wiccans say Indiana religious freedom law opens the door to polygamy, nude rituals at the Capitol

by Scott Kaufman

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Indiana Governor Mike Pence last week has found support from a most unusual source — practicing Wiccans.
The Daily Beast‘s David Freedlander spoke to Dusty Dionne, a High Priest and High Summoner of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, who confessed that while he believes “these bills are horrible,” they do provide a unique opportunity for practitioners of his faith.
“If they are going to up this can of worms,” he said, “we are going to shove it right in their face.” For example, he explained, many Wiccans believe “that love is the law,” so while polygamous marriages are not a tenet of Wiccan theology, “whatever we want to do with marriage we can do. Carte blanche. If I want to marry a horse, I can marry a horse.”
Wiccans would also legally be able to refuse drug tests in states with religious freedom laws, because “natural” substances like marijuana and hallucinogens are “herbs” used to enhance experience at officially sanctioned religious ceremonies. Moreover, Dionne explained, giving the blood or urine samples required for such tests would run contrary to their belief that the “body is a temple,” and “if you come for a piece of my temple, I can say no.”
They would also be free to dance naked on state Capitol steps so long as the moon was full, as a Wiccan holy text — “The Charge of the Goddess” — sanctions the practice.
But Heather Greene, an editor at Wild Hunt — a website that offers news and political analysis from “A Modern Pagan Perspective” — told Freedlander that while she supports legislation that allows those in marginal religions to practice freely, she shares with the mainstream doubts about the efficacy of the Indiana bill.
“The concern,” she said, “is that recent RFRA language is so broad that it will ultimately lead to both religious and LGBTQ discrimination.”
Dionne, however, remains undeterred. “We are the fifth-largest religion in America,” he said, “and we are the fastest growing. If they pass these laws, we are going to beat a fucking drum.”

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.

 
Wingnuts really hate the truth - it contradicts everything they are ... !

Today is - There is no particular celebration today
 

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April is Humor Month

As we promised more wingnut 'humor'.
It is so easy.
Wingnut jokes are written every second by the wingnuts themselves in everything they say and do.

For example calling the truth 'hate speech' using actual hate speech when doing so (one of the oldie but goodie standbys wingnuts use) resulting in gales of laughter among normal people.

Another is accusing everyone else of their own foibles: Like someone being uneducated when in fact their own lack of education is glaringly obvious in their syntax and verbiage (for the uneducated, sorry, we mean wingnuts, that means the words you use and how you use them).

Want to know how dumb wingnuts are?

Just ask the next wingnut you see if they know what a Sphygmomanometer is and watch their head explode.
(And for the wingnuts out there, yes, it is a real thing, and , yes, it is in English, and you need one badly.)

P.S.
To the troll(s) who tried to flood this blog with your slimy brethren by posting a link here on a Disqus message board and telling the ditto-heads to inundate the comments section with wingnut tripe, we would like to formally thank you for more than tripling our domestic readership overnight among people other than your fellow bottom-feeders who aren't paying any attention to you either ... not one of your mentally defective troglodytes have visited the blog and left any comments.

Progressive minded folks are streaming to the blog however thanks to the link.

Even at this attempt at sabotage the wingnuts failed as they fail at everything and anything they try to do.

Oh, and by the way we've been chuckling about that failure all day.

See there is humor in anything the wingnuts do. Not for them, but for the rest of us they are hilarious.

Doctor Responds With Perfect Letter To Employers’ Demand For Sick Day Notes

When his patient required a sick note to be excused from work, this doctor knew exactly what to say.

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Stanford Just Made College Free For More Than 80% Of American Students

Talent and brains come from all walks of life. Society shouldn’t lose out on potential greatness just because someone can’t afford to go to college.

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Vermont Moves Toward Major Progressive Voting Reform

This one easy trick has been proven to boost voter participation rates by at least seven percentage points.

President Obama Makes History With Tough Deal To Cut Off Iran’s Nuclear Program

From the Rose Garden, President Obama announced the historically tough deal that the United States and the international community has negotiated to halt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

The President said:

Today, after many months of tough, principled diplomacy, we have achieved the framework for that deal, and it is a good deal. A deal that meets our core objectives. This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran will face strict limitations on its program, and Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history. So this deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification. Many key details were be finalized over the next three months, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.

The President made it clear that if Republicans in Congress sink this deal, they will be responsible destroying an entire international diplomatic effort.

President Obama laid out three options. Bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and delay their program for a few years, increase sanctions, which would not delay their program at all, or negotiate a comprehensive deal via diplomacy.

The Republican hawks who are craving a new war with Iran are likely to reject any deal, but what this president has negotiated is historic. The international community has come together to agree on a pathway to prevent Iran from developing their own nuclear weapons.

It is an important moment for global security that Americans have to hope that Congressional Republicans don’t screw up.

Here are some of the points that Iran has agreed to:
• Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge.

• Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years.

• Iran has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years.

• All excess centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure will be placed in IAEA monitored storage and will be used only as replacements for operating centrifuges and equipment.

• Iran has agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.
• Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge.

• The IAEA will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including to Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz and its former enrichment facility at Fordow, and including the use of the most up-to-date, modern monitoring technologies.

• Inspectors will have access to the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program. The new transparency and inspections mechanisms will closely monitor materials and/or components to prevent diversion to a secret program.

• Inspectors will have access to uranium mines and continuous surveillance at uranium mills, where Iran produces yellowcake, for 25 years.

• Inspectors will have continuous surveillance of Iran’s centrifuge rotors and bellows production and storage facilities for 20 years. Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing base will be frozen and under continuous surveillance.

• All centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure removed from Fordow and Natanz will be placed under continuous monitoring by the IAEA.

Liberals Bernie Sanders And Al Franken Stand With Obama In Support Of Iran Nuclear Deal

Senators Bernie Sanders and Al Franken are standing with President Obama by praising the progress towards a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program.

In a statement, Sen. Sanders (I-VT) said, “While much more work remains to be done this framework is an important step forward. It is imperative that Iran not get a nuclear weapon. It also is imperative that we do everything we can to reach a diplomatic solution and avoid never-ending war in the Middle East. I look forward to examining the details of this agreement and making sure that it is effective ‎and strong.”

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) called on Congress to give the negotiators more time to finish the agreement, “Americans want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and they would prefer to do it through diplomacy rather than military action. This breakthrough agreement is an important step toward that goal. I believe that Congress now should give our negotiators time and space to work out the details of a strong, verifiable comprehensive agreement.”

Democrats and liberals get it. Republicans are trying to sabotage any Iran nuclear agreement because they want a new war in the Middle East.

President Obama laid out the options for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program during his statement today:

For the fact is, we only have three options for addressing Iran’s nuclear program. First, we can reach a robust and verifiable deal — like this one — and peacefully prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The second option is we can bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, thereby starting another war in the Middle East, and setting back Iran’s program by a few years — in other words, setting it back by a fraction of the time that this deal will set it back. Meanwhile, we’d ensure that Iran would race ahead to try and build a bomb.

Third, we could pull out of negotiations, try to get other countries to go along and continue sanctions that are currently in place or add additional ones, and hope for the best — knowing that every time we have done so, Iran has not capitulated but instead has advanced its program.

Congressional Republicans are firmly in the camp of option # 2. The GOP has made it clear that they will not support any deal that President Obama negotiates. In part because it is associated with Obama, but also because some Republicans believe that Iran is the great evil that must be defeated in military battle.

Republicans have turned the Iran deal into a partisan issue, and some key liberal voices are already standing with the President. The vast majority of Americans want a diplomatic solution. Behind the Republican talk of a good or bad deal, the question boils down to war or no war?

Liberals and Democrats speak for a majority of Americans who are rejecting the Republican calls for new U.S. war in the Middle East.

What The Iran Deal Means For Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy

The Iran deal, if and when finalized, will be to Obama’s second term what the Affordable Care Act was to his first: an unforced, high-risk, presidency-defining choice. Once again he is diving into a complex, seemingly insoluble problem. Once again, he risks not only failure but also further division in an already dysfunctional American political system. But if there has been one consistent motif to Obama’s public life, it has been his willingness to look for answers that do not begin and end with military force.

Planet Politics

The Truth Be Told

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 

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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.

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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.”

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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.