Mitch McConnell Admits That Obama Will Veto Any Obamacare Repeal That Republicans Pass

During a radio interview, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted that Republicans are wasting their time with trying to repeal Obamacare because President Obama will veto any bill that they pass.
Transcript via Hugh Hewitt:
HH: Now I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the President to go along with a repeal of Obamacare, so I am one of those that urge getting as much as is possible and playing some poker, and you’re the guy to be playing poker with him. Is part of that poker package that would get the President’s signature, in your opinion, Mitch McConnell, repeal of the medical device tax?
MM: We certainly think it’s a terrible tax that’s offshored a great number of American jobs to other countries. I don’t think he’s going to sign anything, frankly.
HH: Oh, really?
MM: No, I don’t think he will. What I think he’ll probably do is veto anything we send him, and put the pressure on the states to cave and turn established state exchanges in place of federal exchanges, thereby making them eligible for subsidies. I think he’s going to put the heat on the governors who have, in my view, wisely decided not to go along with this new game plan, either with the Medicaid expansion or with establishing a state exchange.

In other words, McConnell admitted that Republicans in Congress are wasting their time, and your money on efforts to repeal the ACA. President Obama is never going to sign any bill that repeals any part of Obamacare, and Congressional Democrats have more than enough votes to uphold any presidential veto.
McConnell knows that any legislation that would repeal the law is dead on arrival, but he has promised to hold a vote on repealing Obamacare. In December 2014, McConnell said, “We certainly will have a vote on proceeding to a bill to repeal Obamacare… it was a very large issue in the campaign. And, the reconciliation process does present an opportunity and we’re reviewing that to see what’s possible through reconciliation. So, we’re certainly gonna keep our commitment to the American people to make every effort we can to repeal it.”

Mitch McConnell has promised something that he has no intentions of being able to deliver on, so Senate Republicans will waste time and money grandstanding against a health care law that is working. The whole repeal Obamacare charade is a sham, and exactly why Mitch McConnell has become the bookend to John Boehner’s failed House leadership.

Republican Nightmare Bernie Sanders Exposes Republican Social Security Killing Dreams on National TV

Bernie Sanders is becoming a daily nightmare for Republicans. Sen. Sanders went on CNN today and cut through the Republican double talk by letting the entire country know the GOP plan for killing Social Security.
On CNN’s Wolf, Sanders said, Look, what Perry and these other guys are talking about, this is the decade-long attack on Social Security by the Republican Party. They want to privatize it eventually. They want to make cuts. We have millions of seniors struggling twelve, thirteen, fourteen thousand dollars a year. I will not accepting cutting Social Security.”
Blitzer asked Sanders about means testing and if millionaires and benefits deserve to get benefits. The Democratic presidential candidate answered, “They’re not talking about millionaires and billionaires. They’re talking about lowering it to forty thousand dollars a year…It’s a universal program. Everybody deserves to put into it. Everybody deserves to get a benefit out of it. We can extend that program by not asking anybody more than the top two percent to contribute into it.”

Republicans love to talk about “saving Social Security” and entitlement reform. What they don’t tell the American people is that they plan to save the program by killing it. Republicans oppose raising the earnings cap so that wealthy Americans pay more into the fund. What they support is imposing means testing requirements that will take Social Security away from anyone earning a middle-class income. In short, Republicans want to kill Social Security.
Bernie Sanders has become an even bigger nightmare for Republicans because, as a presidential candidate with growing support, he can get on national television and speak the truth to more Americans than ever before. Sanders is shaping more than the 2016 presidential campaign. The Senator from Vermont is also shifting the national political conversation.

Republicans are trying to stop Bernie Sanders because he is exposing their agenda speaking the truth to a media that has been most often too content to pass along talking points and lies.

The Obama Economy Sets A New Record: 63rd Consecutive Month of Private Sector Job Growth

May marks a new record for President Obama’s private sector job growth record, with the private sector adding 12.6 million jobs over 63 straight months of job growth. The Department of Labor announced Friday morning that the economy added 280,000 jobs. With businesses adding 262,000 jobs, this represents the 63rd consecutive month of private sector job growth.
Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, broke down the employment situation in May:

The private sector has added 12.6 million jobs over 63 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record. Today we learned that private-sector employment rose by 262,000 in May. Our businesses created more than 200,000 jobs in fourteen of the past fifteen months—the first time that has happened since 1995. On the whole, our economy has added 3.1 million new jobs over the past twelve months, just off the fifteen-year high achieved in February.

Other key points in Furman’s report were: “1. Manufacturing employment is up strongly as compared with the previous business cycle, while construction employment still has not recovered.” 2. “More highly educated Americans participate more in the labor force at all ages, and, compared with less educated workers, their participation does not drop off until much older ages.” 3. “The distribution of job growth across industries in May was highly consistent with the pattern observed over the past year.” 4. “The majority of industries experienced stronger job growth in May than they have on average over the past year.” (Read details here.)
Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi remarked in a statement that she was pleased with the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job growth, but the “Republicans’ constant culture of crisis continues to cast a shadow over our economy and the future of hard-working families.”

Pelosi urged Republicans to get to work, especially noting that the Highway and Transit Trust fund will be expiring in the middle of summer construction season but Republicans still have no plans to act and are endangering 700,000 jobs across the country, “With only 12 legislative days remaining before the Export-Import Bank’s charter expires, Republicans still refuse to reauthorize the bank that supports thousands of American businesses and hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Time is also swiftly running out before the Highway and Transit Trust fund expires in the middle of the summer construction season, but Republicans still have no plan to act – endangering thousands of vital construction projects and nearly 700,000 jobs across the country.”
Jason Furman summed it up with a statement making the case for raising the minimum wage and getting rid of the sequester, among other administration pushes::

The economy added 280,000 jobs in May—the strongest month of the year so far—as wages continued to rise and the participation rate ticked upward. We have now added 5.6 million jobs over the past two years, the best two-year job growth since 2000. Although the job market has made considerable progress throughout this recovery, challenges remain for our economy and there is more work to do. The President is committed to extending the positive underlying trends through a comprehensive agenda to boost employment and wages for the middle class, including opening new markets for U.S. goods and services through expanded trade, increasing investments in infrastructure, providing relief from the sequester, and raising the minimum wage.

President Obama, the alleged “socialist” president, has presided over the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job growth on record. Private sector.

Meanwhile, back in Congress, Republicans can’t even extend or pass the most basic of legislation let alone take care of the people with any attempt to create decent jobs.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon Smacks Down Anti-Union ‘Right To Work’ Bill With His Veto Pen

Missouri Democratic Governor Jay Nixon vetoed a controversial right to work bill (House Bill No. 116) last Thursday. In rejecting the legislation, Governor Nixon argued that “right to work” is a misnomer. He noted that:

Right-to-work laws create a less skilled workforce, drive down wages and directly interfere with a business owner’s right to contract.

The Governor went on to outline three specific objections to the legislation. He argued that House Bill 116 was bad for the economy, that it constituted unwarranted government interference into the operations of Missouri businesses, and that it needlessly exposed businesses to criminal prosecution and unlimited civil liability.
He concluded by stating:

I stand with the workers of Missouri and reject this wrongheaded legislation that will hurt our economy, our families and our businesses.

Had Nixon signed the bill, Missouri would have become the 26th right to work state in the country. Missouri borders six right to work states — Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.

The conservative Missouri legislature does not appear to have the votes to override Governor Nixon’s veto. 109 votes in the House and 23 votes in the Senate are necessary to override the veto. The legislation that reached Nixon’s desk fell short of those vote thresholds in each chamber. House Bill 116 cleared the lower chamber 92-66 and it passed in the Senate 21-13.
Some Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the anti-union legislation, including most notably, Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey (SD 23- St. Charles).
Governor Nixon’s veto of the right to work legislation serves as a reminder to union members and working-class voters that elections matter. The ostensibly more liberal Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan recently pushed right to work laws through their Republican legislatures where the GOP governors dutifully signed them.

By contrast, conservative red-leaning Missouri was unable to enact right to work legislation. The Show Me State had the presence of mind to vote in a Democratic Governor who would stand up for the working people of Missouri in the face of a hostile GOP legislature. On Thursday, Governor Nixon did just that, protecting Missouri workers and smacking down the GOP legislature with the authoritative power wielded by his veto pen.

Voter Fraud

Hillary Clinton Terrifies Republicans By Calling For Automatic Voter Registration

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did more than call out Republicans for trying to suppress the vote. She offered a proposal that would terrify Republicans to their very core. Hillary Clinton wants every American to be automatically registered to vote at age 18.
Clinton stood up for students who have to wait for hours for their right to vote, grandmothers who get turned away from the polls due to voter ID laws, and people who are being disenfranchised by laws that take away their right to vote due to felony convictions.
Former Sec. Clinton specifically called out North Carolina for passing a law that went after anything that made voting more accessible. She said, “We should be doing everything we can to get our young people more engaged in democracy, not less.”
Clinton hit Texas Republicans for allowed a concealed weapons permit for voting identification, but not a student ID. Clinton said most offenses against voting rights occur below the radar, like changing polling place locations and stripping polling places of language assistance.
The Democratic frontrunner cited studies that showed that minorities voters are more likely to wait in line and have to vote in places with an inadequate number of voting machines. Clinton said, “This kind of disparity does not happen by accident.” She said that it is just wrong to try to prevent, prohibit and undermine Americans right to vote, “We should be clearing the way for more people to vote, not putting up every roadblock that anyone can imagine.”
Clinton called out Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush for each taking action in their states that tried to stop citizens from voting. She asked Republicans why they were afraid of people voting, and said that she believes every citizen should have the right to vote, and it should be made easier to vote.

Hillary Clinton called on Congress to restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, the implementation of the recommendations of the bipartisan presidential commission on voting including online absentee voting and no one should have to wait more than thirty minutes to cast a vote, 20 days of early voting, including weekend and evening early voting.
Clinton went beyond any other proposal by calling for universal automatic voter registration. She called for every young man and woman to be automatically registered to vote, unless they opt out. Clinton also wants people’s voter registration to move with them.
She was realistic by stating that none of these reforms will come easily. Clinton stressed the need for more citizens voting, and activists, and grassroots mobilization efforts, more justices on the Supreme Court, who will protect voting rights. She said, “We need a Supreme Court that cares more about protecting the right to vote of a person that protecting the right of a corporation to buy an election.”
Clinton’s speech revealed why millennials are overwhelmingly supporting Democrats. Hillary Clinton didn’t just fight back against Republican efforts to suppress the vote. She proposed a game-changing idea that should terrify Republicans, who are doing everything in their power to shrink the size of the electorate.
If Clinton’s proposal became a reality, Republican voter suppression efforts would instantly vanish. Every American should be automatically registered to vote. Whether or not they vote is their choice, but the idea that voting should be made more difficult is un-American.

Be afraid Republicans. Be very afraid, because Hillary Clinton is not only the most experienced candidate in either party, she is also demonstrating a forward thinking vision that is completely absent on the Republican side.

Voter Fraud Part Deux

Why Rick Perry Is More Likely To End Up In Prison Than Be Elected President

Rick Perry announced his 2016 presidential candidacy as he is currently facing 109 years in prison for abusing his power as governor. Perry is more likely to end up in prison than be elected president.
Rick Perry’s campaign announcement was straight out of 2012, with the exception of Perry stealing Elizabeth Warren’s line about the game being rigged. Perry said, “Capitalism is not about the gains of Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.” Perry followed this statement up by calling for the immediate repeal of Dodd-Frank and the rollback of regulations.
Perry also promised to approve the Keystone pipeline and launch an energy war against Putin and Russia by exporting U.S. natural gas to Europe. Everything Perry said during his announcement was fantasy because Rick Perry is never going to win the Republican nomination. His oops moment during the 2012 Republican debate defined him. Former Gov. Perry can put on his smart boy glasses and try to look the part, but he will never win because he is a buffoon in the eyes of most voters. Rick Perry is currently polling at 2%, and he is clinging on to the final spot in the first Republican debate in tenth place in the current Real Clear Politics average of polls.

In fact, it is more likely that Perry ends up in prison than ever gets elected president. Rick Perry has been indicted on two felony charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of public servant. The charges carry a maximum of 109 years in prison and involve Perry abusing his executive power as governor to try to force a district attorney to resign.
Republican judges in Texas have twice denied Perry’s attempts to have the charges dismissed. Perry has called the indictment frivolous and partisan, but the legal system has not agreed with his characterization. Perry has about a one in twenty shot of winning the Republican nomination, but if his case goes to trial, he has a 50/50 chance of being sent to prison.

Gov. Perry’s odds of ending up in prison are better than his odds of winning the Republican nomination. In a 2016 Republican field that is a total circus, Rick Perry has added a criminal element to round out the GOP race.

With His Mocking of Joe Biden, Ted Cruz Proves That He Isn’t Fit to Govern

Our politics are centered on policy, but there is a line that should not be crossed and Ted Cruz has officially crossed it.

Voters should be asking themselves what kind of person doesn’t know that this is inappropriate?
The Biden family grieved as Former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden lay in honor in the Delaware Senate Chamber, with a receiving line that began past Beau’s flag draped casket and led to the Biden family.
Meanwhile, back at the GOP circus, Ted Cruz (R-TX) has his eyes set on the White House in 2016. On the way there, he does things like this. Last night, the Republican 2016 hopeful was speaking to Republicans in Howell, Michigan when he dredged up one of his popular lines, “Joe Biden. You know the nice thing? You don’t need a punch line.”
There is never a moment when it doesn’t pay to be vicious and cruel for Ted Cruz type Republicans.
The Vice President was mourning the death of his son Beau, who was beloved by everyone pretty much and an all around great son, father, and husband to boot. Delaware Governor Jack Markell said of him today at the service that because of Beau Biden, “the children of Delaware are safer for generations to come.” Markell called Beau a model husband, father and son, at which point Joe Biden teared up.

Beau Biden served his country to great acclaim. He died after a two-year fight against brain cancer at the young age of 46.
Joe Biden has already buried his first wife and a young daughter after a tragic accident in 1972, and now he is burying his son Beau. There aren’t words to express the emotional pain the Biden family must be facing right now.
This is not a moment to make fun of the Vice President. That is obvious to pretty much everyone but Ted Cruz.
Cruz has apologized for this on his Facebook page (never in public, or else he would risk losing the support of the frothing ragers who donate to his cult of cruelty). Wednesday evening, he wrote, “It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief.” It’s as if Cruz didn’t realize that he shouldn’t have said that until the backlash heat burned him.
It’s noted that he apologized, but as a presidential candidate and a Senator, he never should have made this “joke”.
Pundits were busy justifying Cruz’s comment by saying Joe Biden would forgive because that is who Joe is. Yes, maybe he will. But that is not the point. The point is that Ted Cruz has almost no soul.
That Joe Biden is a magnanimous man full of grace and forgiveness for others is not a surprise.
There is no apology that can make up for this kind of failure of judgment. We do not see other Republicans saying such awful things. There is a level of decorum and behavior that is expected from people no matter what side of the aisle they take. This is not it.

Our politics are centered on policy, but there is a line that should not be crossed and Ted Cruz has officially crossed it. He is not only not fit to be president, he isn’t fit to be a sitting senator.

Kochsuckers

Sister of Victim Steps Forward And Reveals Her Brother Was Sexually Abused By Hastert

In an exclusive interview for ABC News, the sister of one of Dennis Hastert’s sex abuse victims, came forward and publicly identified her brother, Steve Reinboldt, as having been sexually abused by the former GOP Speaker of the House.
The abuse occurred while Reinboldt was a High School student and equipment manager for the Yorkville wrestling team. Dennis Hastert was the wrestling coach at the time. Hastert referred to Reinboldt as his “great right hand man” in a 1970 High School Yearbook entry.
Reinboldt, who passed away in 1995 from AIDS, becomes the first publicly named alleged victim of Hastert’s abuse. Reinboldt’s sister Jolene, had tried to expose Hastert’s sexual abuse against her brother in 2006, after the Rep. Mark Foley sex scandal broke, but news organizations were unable to corroborate her story at the time.
Recent revelations that Hastert had lied to the FBI and violated federal banking laws, in order to conceal 3.5 million dollars worth of planned hush money payments to another sex abuse victim, gave Jolene a new opportunity to share Steve’s story.

Jolene gave a compelling interview before ABC News, emotionally recounting how she learned from her brother that Hastert had sexually abused him repeatedly during his High School years. She also noted that Hastert had the audacity to come to Steve’s funeral. Jolene claims she confronted Hastert about the abuse there, but he did nothing but return an icy stare.
Jolene hopes by coming forward, more of Hastert’s victims will know that they are not alone. She noted that Steve hid the abuse, because like so many young victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a “respected” authority figure, he felt nobody would believe him.
Now, however, as Hastert’s secret world of sexually abusing boys begins to unravel, more names may come forward. In addition to the still unidentified “Individual A”, and the now identified late Steve Reinboldt, how many other boys were sexually assaulted by Dennis Hastert?
The former GOP House Speaker was prepared to spend millions of dollars to hide his sexual abuse of minors. Now that his sexual abuse of teenage boys is no longer a secret, Hastert may soon find more victims and their families coming forward to share accounts of his crimes against boys.

If that happens, it may bring some measure of closure to his victims and their families. In addition, if the allegations continue to surface and if they are substantiated in a court of law, J. Dennis Hastert, who once served as Speaker of the U.S. House, will end up serving most of his remaining days in a prison cell.

Duggar Defense Falls Apart As City Attorney Says Josh Duggar’s Police Report Release Was Legal

During their interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox News, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar claimed that the release of their son’s police report was illegal, but City of Springdale City Attorney explained why the release was completely legal.
During their Fox News interview, Jim Bob Duggar claimed that Josh Duggar’s police report was illegally released, “You know, at this point our family is just trying to regroup from these attacks. When you’re in every newspaper and everything throughout the world, it’s been an unprecedented attack on our family. And it was actually — this information was released illegally, so I wonder why all this press isn’t going after the system for releasing juvenile records. That is a huge story. Now, what our son did 12 years ago, I’m sure it’s a major story to them too, but yet, hopefully, justice will be served on the ones that released juvenile records to protect other juveniles’ from their records from being released.”

Michelle Duggar said that the family’s trust was violated by the police, “What’s devastating as a mom for me is we took our children to the children safety center. We trusted them. We trusted the police department. Our children poured out their hearts. They shared everything. And then to have their trust betrayed? And for all of their information and everything they share to be turned over to a tabloid, for those things to be twisted and shared in a slanderous way, story after story, tabloid after tabloid.”
Springdale City Attorney Ernest Cate knocked down the Duggar defense, “On 5/20/15, in full compliance with Arkansas Law, the Springdale Police Department responded to a records request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The requested record was not sealed or expunged, and at the time the report was filed, the person listed in the report was an adult. Any names of minors included in the report, as well as pronouns, were redacted from the report by the Springdale Police Department in compliance with Arkansas law prior to release.”
The court order that the record by destroyed did not come until the following day, May 21, so this means that the release of Josh Duggar’s police report was completely legal. The Duggars claims of police misconduct don’t have a legal leg to stand on. What the police misconduct defense was designed to was to distract from the Duggars role in covering up and enabling their son’s crimes.

Because of the death of Freddie Gray and other incidents, police misconduct has become a topic that is frequently in the news. The Duggars tried to play the victim by crying police misconduct, but their accusations are nothing more than a cynical attempt to drum up sympathy and get their television show back on the air.

Mike Huckabee Cuts Bait, Removes Duggar Endorsement From Campaign Website

Huckabee has pulled the Duggar endorsements from his website, but he cannot undo the damage done from his connection to the Duggars.…

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican pretender hopeful Mike Huckabee removed the endorsements of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar from his campaign website on Monday evening. Huckabee has been a staunch defender of the Duggar’s, including Josh Duggar, who sexually molested four of his sisters and one other girl, when he was a teenager. However, Talking Points Memo reported on Thursday that the Duggar endorsements for Huckabee were removed from his campaign website sometime on Monday.
Up until May 22nd, the Duggar endorsement enjoyed top billing on Huckabee’s campaign site. The endorsement was perched atop the “I Like Mike” endorsement sidebar on the right hand side of the front page of the campaign site.
Huckabee has not formally distanced himself from the Duggar family. However, his decision to pull their endorsement from his website reveals the growing difficulty Huckabee faces in trying to affiliate with the family to maintain his grip on religious fundamentalist voters, while simultaneously attempting to keep the family at arm’s length so he does not alienate mainstream voters. Josh Duggar’s past history of molesting young girls has become an albatross for Huckabee’s presidential campaign.

Huckabee has not been able to extract himself from the Duggar controversy. In fact, by his own actions he has often made matters worse. When Huckabee mocked Caitlyn Jenner by suggesting that he wished he could have identified as transgender in High School so he could have showered with the girls, he outed his teenage self as being a lot like Josh Duggar. Huckabee implied that he too might be a teen sex offender, if not for laws and the threat of hell fire preventing him from entering the girls locker room to sneak a peek and perhaps act upon his most base impulses.
Although Mike Huckabee has cut bait and pulled the Duggar endorsements from the front page of his campigan website, he cannot undo the damage done from his connection to the Duggar family. Huckabee has already identified himself as an apologist for Josh Duggar’s past behavior. Also, by joking about wanting to find a way to shower with the girls, Huckabee has also implied that rather than finding Josh Duggar’s past behavior criminally reprehensible and damaging to the girls, he just sees it as a “boys will be boys” kind of youthful indiscretion to be brushed aside with a shrug.

Huckabee has pulled the Duggar endorsement from his website because he has discovered that his connection to the Duggars could be a political liability for him. Unfortunately he does not seemed to have reached the point where he can admit that the problem with his closeness to the Duggars is not just a political problem but also a moral one.

Rush Limbaugh In Free Fall As His Show Gets Demoted To A Low Rated Station

Things have gone from bad to worse for Rush Limbaugh. Not only are radio stations looking to dump him, but his show is being forced to move to smaller lower-rated stations in an attempt to prevent a mass exodus of stations that carry his show.
Indianapolis Business Journal reported on Limbaugh getting demoted way down the (ratings) dial:

The Rush Limbaugh Show—set to be dropped by WIBC-FM 93.1 next month—will continue to be heard on Indianapolis radio airwaves without interruption after being picked up by iHeartMedia Inc.
iHeartMedia Indianapolis announced Wednesday that it will begin airing Limbaugh live on weekdays on a new local station, 97.5 FM, beginning Monday, July 6, from noon to 3 p.m. It will air the same time on iHeartMedia’s WNDE-AM 1260.

Limbaugh is going from being on a top ten station in the city to a station in the bottom three.
It is widely rumored that Limbaugh is about to get the boot off of his station in Chicago after his ratings have fallen to 24th place in the city with an audience of 121,000 listeners. Limbaugh has already lost his stations in major markets Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. Radio stations don’t want Limbaugh’s show because of the combination of low ratings, poor advertising revenue, and declining audience.

Things have gotten so bad that Cumulus had to scramble shove Limbaugh’s show on to a low rated Indianapolis sports station because they feared a mass exodus of affiliates. According to RadioInsight, “There’s no way iHeartMedia would’ve placed Limbaugh on an owned Sports station if the company had any other affiliation options in the market. You can bet iHeart’s local management would much rather utilize their new translator for something other than a mish-mosh of Sports and Limbaugh. But when everyone one else says no and you need to save face, options become limited. This way iHeart can spin it that they were able to find a strong affiliate for Limbaugh in Indianapolis to potentially keep other affiliates from bailing.”
Rush Limbaugh is being dropped from stations that he has been on for decades because his show is a big money loser for the stations who carry it. More stations would love to dump Limbaugh, but Premiere and Clear Channel are shoving him down the throats of the stations that they own, and the former cash cow of conservative talk radio is being demoted to second and third tier stations in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters argued that Limbaugh’s political influence has declined, but that is a potential chicken and egg argument. Did Limbaugh’s political decline lead to his show’s decline, or did the advertising boycott cause his empire to crumble and his political influence to wither?

The timeline of events suggests that the advertiser boycott and the negative publicity from the Sandra Fluke scandal made Limbaugh toxic. Rush Limbaugh is slowly fading into obscurity. Conservative talk radio is going extinct, and its biggest dinosaur is vanishing.

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Climate Change Could Cause Changes In The Ocean That Haven’t Been Seen In 3 Million Years

Climate change could cause major species movement in the world's oceans.

After Ruling That McDonald’s Can’t Pay Workers In Bank Cards, The Bank Pays Up

A lawsuit over payroll debit card fees charged to McDonald's workers in Pennsylvania has prompted a major Wall Street bank to do something unusual: give money back voluntarily.

According To Polls Real Americans Are Socialists Like Bernie Sanders

Most Americans should understand that a ‘label’ is an identifier, or more aptly put a word or short phrase that describes someone or something. Republicans are real big on labels, and they have had a fair measure of success improperly labeling “socialism” as any policy or agenda that does not enrich corporations and the wealthy, spend half the budget on the military, or create greater numbers of poverty level Americans. To be fair, America does have one purely ‘socialistic’ program in the Veterans Administration, but other than that one agency, America is the epitome of anti-socialist.

In its basic form, socialism is simply organized society in which all major industries and financial institutions are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and corporations. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont self-describes himself as a ‘democratic socialist,’ but there is not only nothing ‘socialistic’ about his policies, those he does espouse are supported by the majority of Americans that likely rail at the idea they are socialists. It is why he is having a measure of success creating a grass roots movement and may have even more if he did not self-label as a socialist.

The reason Sanders is unlikely to win the nomination for president is because only 31% of Americans “react positively” to the word socialism. However, among 18 to 29-year olds, about half view socialism favorable and only 47% see capitalism as a good thing. Still, even with the ‘socialist’ label, Senator Sanders’ policy positions enjoy a great deal of support among the population and it should not only frighten Republicans, it should, and is, pull Hillary Rodham Clinton farther to the left; the left that twenty years ago was decidedly Centrist. One thing is clear; even as a self-described socialist, Sanders’ views on ‘key political issues’ are more in line with mainstream Americans’ opinions of, expectations for, and demands of government.

Senator Sanders’ concept of tax reform is the reverse of Republicans, and what they say Americans demand, and believes the system overtly favors the rich at the expense of the government and rest of the population. Sanders believes the rich do not pay nearly enough in income taxes and recently supported returning to the 90% tax rates established during Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Socialist moniker or no, a February poll revealed that 68 percent of voters said wealthy households pay far too little in federal taxes. Voters also agree with Sanders’ policy, and legislation that cracked-down on offshore tax havens for the rich and corporations. Sanders’ bill required corporations to pay the top corporate tax rate on profits they hide offshore. Interestingly, a stunning 85 percent of business owners favor closing all overseas tax loopholes in their entirety and 68 percent of the public agrees that the government should “close any and all tax loopholes for large corporations that ship jobs offshore.”

Americans also closely align with self-described ‘socialist’ Sanders on campaign finance. Senator Sanders rails against Citizens United and has a called for a constitutional amendment that would effectively prevent corporations from making political donations and buying the government; he also support public funding of elections. Although most Americans think corporations should have a very limited right to make political donations, over half say ban all political donations from individuals and private groups and shift to a government-funded system; only 44 percent of voters oppose such a law.

Sanders believes, like many Americans, that “Instead of cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and nutrition programs, we should be expanding these programs.” Many polls reveal that majorities of voters, including Republican voters, demand that Social Security is expanded and a poll last year showed that even Republicans in red states want Medicaid expanded. Most Americans also support expanding nutrition and housing programs. A poll conducted last year showed that even voters in red states want to expand Medicaid. In a January 2015 poll, it found that over 50 percent of likely voters agree with Sanders and support a single-payer healthcare system.

On regulations, a surprising sixty-four percent of Americans agree with Senator Sanders and strongly support regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars to reduce global climate change; they also support a federal law requiring utilities to generate more power from low-carbon sources. Americans are not, as Republicans claim, in favor of deregulating banks or abolishing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. In fact, a substantial majority of Americans agree with Sanders that big banks “are too powerful to be reformed and must be broken up.” A recent survey revealed that 58 percent of voters agree with ‘socialist’ Sanders and support “breaking up big banks.”

It is almost a no-brainer, but over 63 percent of Americans completely agree with Sanders that it is imperative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour “over the next few years.” Americans want the minimum at $15 an hour by 2020. What is surprising, and should worry Koch Republicans in Congress and states, is that Senator Sanders support for legislation guaranteeing that workers can form and join a union is favored by 53 percent of Americans. In fact, that 53 percent actually “supports a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers.”

It is glaringly obvious that for regardless the reason Senator Sanders self-labels himself as a “democratic socialist,” or whatever negative connotations that label socialist has according to constant harping by Republicans, most Americans support Mr. Sanders’ policies. Of course the truth of the matter is there is nothing, nothing whatsoever, in any of Senator Sanders policies that are remotely ‘socialistic,’ and he may enjoy even greater success if he would just drop the label and be what he, and most Americans really are on social and legislative issues; liberal.

Republicans have for too long enjoyed success by labeling progressives, liberals, secularists, and indeed, Democrats as some kind of anti-American monsters. However, the more people like Senator Sanders, and by force of public opinion Hillary Rodham Clinton, expose their popular policy positions as “good for all Americans” and America, the quicker the Republican label machine will be exposed for what it really is; contrary to the popular will of most American people.

Poll Finds 80% Of REPUBLICANS Agree With Bernie Sanders On Citizens United

Sen. Bernie Sanders is often characterized by the media as an out of the mainstream presidential candidate, but a new CBS/New York Times poll revealed that 80% of Republicans agree with Sanders on the issue of getting money out of politics.

The CBS/NYT poll found that:
– 80% of Republicans believe that money has too much influence in our politics.

– 54% believed that most of the time candidates directly help those who gave money to them.

– 81% of Republicans felt that the campaign finance system needed fundamental changes (45%) or a complete rebuild (36%).

– 64% are pessimistic that changes will be made to reform the campaign finance system.

– 71% want to limit the amount that individuals can give to campaigns.

– 73% felt that super PAC spending should be limited by law.

– 76% thought that superPACs should be required to disclose their donors.

All of these positions are held by Bernie Sanders, and the opinion of the majority on each question is the exact opposite of the reasoning used by the majority of the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision.

Where Republicans differ from the rest of the country is that a substantial number (48%) believe that money is free speech, and they believe that both parties benefit equally (62%), but among those who picked a party that benefited more, they felt that Democrats (24%) benefited more from the current campaign finance system than Republicans (6%). Fifty-five percent of Independents and 53% of Democrats felt that money is not free speech. Fifty-two percent of Democrats believe that Republicans benefit more from the current system.

In 2012, Sen. Sanders laid out why Citizens United is the threat to our representative democracy:

This is unprecedented and it is the most savage attack against American democracy, and the concept of one person, one vote that we have seen in our lifetime, and what it is is saying if you are a billionaire, you can buy elections. You can by politicians, and by the way, on the floor of the Senate, on the floor of the House, you can intimidate members, because you will be saying to them if you are going to vote against Wall Street, or the insurance companies, or the military industrial complex, you just do that, and we’re going to have millions of dollars in thirty-second ads in your state this weekend.”

So this whole effort to put huge unprecedented unbelievable amounts of money is the one percent saying look, we’re not content that the top one percent owns forty percent of the wealth. We want more. We want more. We want more, and we’re going to buy the political process to get what we want. So this is the worst assault on the basic democratic traditions which have made our country great that you and I have seen in our lifetimes, and what it means, we have to overturn Citizens United. We have to pass a disclose bill, disclosure legislation next month, which at the very least forces these CEOs to get on television when they do a negative ad, and say I approve this message, and it forces us to know who is contributing.

Overall, 84% of Americans agree with Bernie Sanders that money has too much influence in U.S. politics. Seventy-five percent favor donor disclosure and 77% favor limiting contributions.

Hillary Clinton and President Obama also favor getting the money out of politics, but both of them have been forced to raise huge sums of money in order to be competitive.

Bernie Sanders isn’t as far out of the mainstream as the media likes to believe, and it is also clear that mainstream America wants their country back from the billionaires who are attempting to take it over.

NSA Critics Get A Historic Win As Senate Passes USA Freedom Act

History was made, as the Senate voted 67-32 to reform a key provision of the Patriot Act by scrapping the NSA’s controversial phone metadata collection program.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could only sit and watch as three proposed amendments that his critics called poison polls withered and died. The passage of the USA Freedom Act has been a foregone conclusion for weeks, but McConnell tried to manufacture a crisis to force the passage of a full extension of some key Patriot Act spying powers. The Senate Majority Leader’s strategic blunder left him trapped in a quagmire between Rand Paul and his Democratic opponents.

The Patriot Act has long been a blight on civil liberties, but the degree of victory for NSA critics is debatable. The reforms in the USA Freedom Act are fairly modest. The metadata phone collection program is gone, but it has been replaced by the phone companies collecting the data, which only requires a warrant for a government search. It is better than nothing, but far from the sweeping reform that some are making it out to be.

It is important to remember that the data is still collected. The only difference is where it is being stored.

Senator Bernie Sanders made this point when he announced that he would be voting against the bill:

We must keep our country safe and protect ourselves from terrorists, but we can do that without undermining the constitutional and privacy rights which make us a free nation. This bill is an improvement over the USA Patriot Act but there are still too many opportunities for the government to collect information on innocent people.

This is not just the government. It’s corporate America too. Technology has significantly outpaced public policy. There is a huge amount of information being collected on our individual lives ranging from where we go to the books we buy and the magazines we read. We need to have a discussion about that.

The victory is history because it is the first one of its kind, but your data is still being collected, and it will only take a piece of paper to give the government the ability to search it. Hopefully, the USA Freedom Act is the first step towards full repeal of the Patriot Act.

$8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget

Gee, I wonder if Republicans will be as worried about this as they are about food stamp users' shopping choices.

Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget

Fox News Now Just Reads RNC Talking Points On Air

Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Republican National Cabal and they’ve stopped pretending otherwise.

Read full story 

Paranoid Wingnut Loses His Mind — Thinks The US Army Just Invaded Michigan

The paranoia that’s occurring in Texas surrounding Jade Helm 15 seems to be seeping in to other parts of the nation. Now, a man in Michigan is fairly...

Paranoid Wingnut Loses His Mind

Clueless Scott Walker Gets The Patriot Act Wrong While Lying About President Obama

During an appearance on Fox and Friends, Scott Walker (R-WI) got the status of the Patriot Act wrong and launched into a new big lie while blaming President Obama for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s crushing defeat on renewing provisions of the Patriot Act.

Walker was asked about the USA Freedom Act being a step back for national security, and he said, “Well, a step back would be doing nothing, so I certainly prefer this over nothing. I just think going forward that it’s another example of the failure of this president to lead. This is an example where the president could lead. Could have used the bully pulpit to tell the American people how important it is to make sure that we have the information to prevent another terrorist attack out there, and this is one of the many tools that we need to do that. I hope that in the future we’ll reestablish the Patriot Act.”

Walker was wrong. The Patriot Act hasn’t gone anywhere. Congress did not repeal the Patriot Act. They tweaked one data collection program in a section of the Patriot Act. Gov. Walker doesn’t understand that the Patriot Act doesn’t need to be “reestablished.” It is still here.

Secondly, President Obama proposed the reforms contained in the USA Freedom Act eighteen months ago. This wasn’t a case of failed leadership because Congress passed the bill that the President supported. Walker’s attempt to blame President Obama for Mitch McConnell’s failure to extend the Patriot Act was nothing less than a complete lie.

Scott Walker was inventing his own reality on Fox News. The Wisconsin governor made the whole thing up because when in doubt, blame Obama. Gov. Walker has repeatedly proven that he is in way over his head. Walker’s intellect does not match his ego and ambition. Where Walker excels is in telling Republican voters exactly what they want to hear.

When one really listens to what Walker is saying, the emperor has no clothes. Behind Walker’s rhetoric is an empty man who devoid of ideas. In other words, Scott Walker might be the perfect presidential candidate for the empty Koch controlled Republican Party.

This Asshole Just Called President Obama A Terrorist During House Session

This is utterly abhorrent…

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Wingnuts Furious That Clinton Thinks Black People Should Be Able To Vote

The wingnuts are apoplectic that Hillary Clinton wants black people to have an easier time voting.

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Ann Coulter Wants To Deny Citizenship To Blind People & People In Wheelchairs

Ann Coulter, who is on a media tour promoting her new anti-immigrant book “Adios America,” called in to Simon Conway’s talk radio show in Iowa yesterday, where the two got to discussing citizenship requirements and naturalization ceremonies. Coulter told Conway that she was appalle... MORE

We Now Know Two Of Dennis Hastert’s Victims

One by one, it seems, the people at the highest levels of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, are guilty of sexual misconduct at levels far beyond anything...

We Now Know Two Of Dennis Hastert’s Victims

6 Reality Show Ideas That Would Exploit The Rich And Help The Poor

Here's how reality TV could take on entrenched wealth and inequality.

Despicable Fox News Gives The Duggars A Primetime Special To Cover Up Child Molestation

Fox News has managed to go even lower than giving Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar a favorable interview. The network is giving the Duggars an hour-long primetime special to explain away why they covered up their son’s child molestation crimes.

Fox’s Megyn Kelly made it very clear that she planned to softball the Duggars in an interview that will air at 9 PM ET on Wednesday.

Video:

On Monday, Kelly said, “I’ll take that reputation as a tough but fair journalist. However, this isn’t going to be a cross-examination of a family. It’s going to be an interview. I want to hear their story. And I think America wants to hear their story now.”

Kelly followed up her admission that the interview was going to be a Duggar rehab job by running a segment on Tuesday’s programming asking whether the police chief who released Josh Duggar’s arrest record should be fired.

Fox News isn’t going to be satisfied with giving Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar a platform to explain away child molestation. Fox is giving the Duggars an hour-long primetime special from their home in Arkansas to try to whitewash away the scandal. The Washington Post reported, “A portion of that interview with Megyn Kelly will air Wednesday evening with a one-hour special scheduled for broadcast Friday.”

Fox News has gone beyond being the home for brainwashing Republican misinformation and transitioned into a becoming a network that defends a child molester and his abuse covering up parents. Megyn Kelly and Fox News are going to allow the Duggars to play the victims. Forget about the little girls, that Josh Duggar molested. The real victims are Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar because their television show has been taken off the air.

Be prepared for lots of liberal blaming and self-pity from Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. The Duggars covered up their son’s crimes by not going to the police, but to a state trooper family friend who was later sentenced to fifty-six years in prison on child pornography charges. Instead of holding the Duggars accountable for why they didn’t stop their son from molesting children, Fox News is going to portray the Duggars as heroes who have been persecuted by liberals and the media.

Fox News is happily playing a role in helping the Duggars minimize the sexual abuse of children, which is why Fox News is just as repulsive as Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.

The Duggars are trying to keep 19 Kids and Counting on the air. You can tell TLC to cancel the show by signing our petition.

‘Final act of patriarchy’

Twitter erupted in a din of unified rage on Wednesday night in reaction to Megyn Kelly’s televised interview with members of the Duggar family on Fox News. During the interview with Kelly, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar admitted they knew their son Josh Duggar had molested several of their daughters, but described Josh’s actions as “inappropriate touching” and “nothing like rape.” Jill and Jess Duggar, two of Josh’s younger sisters, announced on air they were among their brother’s […]

Twitter erupts in horror as Megyn Kelly interviews the Duggars

Scott Walker: Women are only concerned with rape and incest in ‘initial months’ of pregnancy

Scott Walker: Women are only concerned with rape and incest in ‘initial months’ of pregnancy

Wisconsin governor, a Republican who is expected to run for president in 2016, says he is prepared to sign into law a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions

Texas family beat 14-year-old rape victim for six hours to induce an abortion

Texas family beat 14-year-old rape victim for six hours to induce an abortion

The young girl told police she became pregnant after a sexual assault by a family member but was too embarrassed to report it to authorities.

Pastor’s lawyer says underage girl probably lying about rape: ‘She consented 6 times after that’

Accused Pastor’s lawyer says underage girl probably lying about rape: ‘She consented 6 times after that’

Court documents filed against 31-year-old Daniel Allen Jack of Amplify cult alleged that the youth pastor first met the victim in December 2014 when she joined the cult youth group.