Why Bill Maher is Right, and Joseph Farrah is Wrong

Bill Maher poked the religio-wingnuts' persecution myth full of holes. Joseph Farrah's attempt to discredit Maher only discredits himself…

Joseph Farrah took issue with Bill Maher’s denunciation of the 'christian' persecution myth – the myth of modern persecution that is, spouted almost daily by any Republican public figure you care to mention – like Farrah himself. Farrah called his column, Bill Maher – Let me Explain 'christian' Persecution.

This would be great. But somebody first needs to explain it to Joseph Farrah. I will undertake that task here, because, well, it’s what I do.

In one of the classic, unfunny non sequiturs of the 21st century, Maher said on his sleazy HBO “Real Time” show: “Wingnuts who constantly whine that christianity is under attack from liberals have to explain why there are over 3,000 cults in the U.S. but only 400 Whole Foods. Clearly your side is winning.”

I beg to differ. The moment was hilarious. So is Farrah’s rebuttal:

“Mike Huckabee says, ‘We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of christianity.’ Ted Cruz says, ‘There is no room for 'christians' in today’s Democratic Party.’ What?” Maher asked. “Eighty percent of Democrats in Congress are 'christian' and 78 percent of Democratic governors. You can look this shit up, you know.”

Well, let me clarify a few things.

It may be true that 80 percent of Democrats in Congress claim to be 'christians'.

It may be true that 78 percent of Democratic governors claim to be 'christians'.

It is definitely true that the Democratic president of the United States claims to be a 'christian'.

The persecution of 'christians' by 'christians' has always begun with the denunciation of heresy, that the side about to take it high gets told they are not really 'christians'. The side doing the persecuting of course are always – just ask them – real 'christians'.

Farrah quibbles that Maher is wrong, that there are 300,000, not 3,000 cults, but asks, “How many of those more than 300,000 cults are really providing the salt and light in their communities for which they were charged by their lord and savior? (Matthew 5:13-16)?”

What’s funny is that Farrah’s gang of religious thugs are not really 'christians' themselves. They have forgotten jesus exists. They quote almost entirely from a cherry-picked copy of the old testament. I have argued many times before, and I believe the point cannot be contested, that without jesus, you are not a 'christian'. It is, after all, ultimately a religion about jesus.

But Farrah can no more quote from jesus’ sermon on the mount than a vampire can bathe in holy water. It violates his beliefs. And his ranting here about “salt and light” is just more fake 'christian' hypocrisy and false outrage over people not doing something he himself doesn’t believe in.

None of this is terribly surprising. Historically, Abrahamic monotheism has always needed somebody to persecute. Not to say all members of judaism or christianity, but there has always been a hard core who are more than willing to use religion as an excuse to oppress.

They have generally gotten their way, through pogroms and crusades and book and people burnings and other terroristic activities because, well, as we have seen in the modern world, fanatics do get their way.

And there has been no want of fanatical intellectuals to offer them excuses. Look at Augustine and his just war doctrine. English theologian John Spencer (1630-1693) agreed with Medieval jewish scholar Maimonides (1135-1204), “in seeing the principle and overall purpose of the Law as the destruction of idolatry.”

Idolatry is to be defined as anything the fanatics don’t approve of, which these days includes the environment (the earth itself), and especially, government (it’s okay to make corporations into idols because that’s where the money comes from).

Is it? In 622 or 621 BCE, in what is a well-known story, King Josiah of Judah (639-609) ordered a reconstruction of the Temple and his priests found a text which “revealed the traditional practice of the cult of YHWH in Judah had been wrong.” This was the excuse needed to wipe out once and for all those pesky ancient, traditional (and polytheistic) tendencies of the jewish people. Josiah was not the first to try.

That seems to be what has happened today, that these fanatics have discovered that mainline Protestants have been doing everything wrong, that, as Santorum has said, they are serving Satan. You know, because actually including jesus in a religion about jesus is something only Satan could be sneaky enough to do.

Josiah’s targets included the worship of Baal and Asherah, according to 2 Kings 23:4-7. Even the foreign cults which had received patronage as early as the time of Solomon were not spared. And the traditional hilltop worship of the dogs of the jewish people (the “high places” of the old testament) was wiped out: “And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beersheba” (2 Kings 23:8).

We have seen the religio-wingnuts' attempt to associate Baal once again with the things they don’t approve of (Glenn Beck blamed Occupy Wall Street on Baal, Rick Perry says “homosexuality” is one of Baal’s strongholds, and Rick Perry pal John Benefiel claims Baal controls America).

Just as a quick aside here, did you notice jesus mention Baal even once? I did. He did talk about how evil rich people are, and how blessed the poor. How rich people served Satan because that’s how you get rich. Just sayin’.

All Josiah’s activities – breaking altars and pillars and cutting down trees and desecrating holy places with “the bones of men” (2 Kings 23:10-14) sounds a great deal like the work of those busy missionaries in 9th century Germany with the Irminsul and sacred groves substituting for the Asherah poles. Today it would be Festivus poles. And it sounds a lot like the religio-wingnuts' plan for mosques or any other holy place not their own.

Gentiles and Pagans were not the only targets of persecution. It is accurate to say nobody loves persecuting 'christians' like other 'christians', and history proves it. In the fourth century, “the century opened by the Peace of the cult, more 'christians' died for their delusions at the hands of fellow 'christians' than had died before in all the persecutions.”

As Fox hack Gretchen Carlson says, “I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.” Which means no, you’re not for free speech and free rights. Rather the opposite in fact.

Read the United States Constitution, darlin’. You too, Joseph. While you’re at it, crack open those bibles. Then get back to the real 'christians' and explain why you threw jesus under the bus. Then explain to us how you are the real 'christians'. A 10-point quiz will follow.

Farrah has already failed of course. He claims, “Persecution couldn’t stop the spread of christianity – not the genuine form of faith of the early believers.”

Of course, there was no persecution then, any more than there is persecution now. As that great evangelical 'christian' Thomas Jefferson observed, “Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry christianity could never have been introduced.”

Sad to say the cult has been less open-minded in matters of belief.

‘Cause fella, as George Carlin put it, “Millions of dead people. All because they gave the wrong answer to the dog question.”

The people asking that question claimed to be'christians', and Joseph Farrah is only the latest to be asking that question. That means you, Joseph Farrah, are not among the persecuted, but among the persecutors.

How big business invented the 'theology' of ‘christian libertarianism’ and the gospel of free markets

The inside history of how evangelical preachers were used to infuse society with the economic dogma that plagues us today.

The 'theology' of ‘christian libertarianism’ and the gospel of free markets

Meet The 'Doctor' wingnuts Depend On To Justify Anti-Transgender Hate

Paul McHugh may have a laudable CV, but his rejection of transgender identities is anything but laudable.

Religio-Wingnut Pulls Out Of Gay-Friendly Bank, Joins Bank Sponsoring Pride Event

Now everyone knows Franklin Graham is a moron and didn’t do his bigot banking research.

Read more

Mike Huckabee Says Josh Duggar’s Child Molestation Confession Doesn’t Count

Mike Huckabee’s defense of the Duggars hit an absurd level of hypocrisy when he claimed that Josh Duggar’s confession doesn’t really count during an appearance on Fox News.

Transcript via Fox News:

HUCKABEE: Megyn, he was an unadjudicated minor at the time that this happened. You’re an attorney. You understand that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

KELLY: But he confessed.

HUCKABEE: He was never adjudicated. He did not confess in a court of law. The law does not hold him accountable, even if he confesses. The bigger issue is not Josh, the bigger issue, the girls. How were the girls served? How were the victims served by the exploitation, by the release, the unlawful release, I’m going to go back and emphasize the illegal unlawful release of that information. It was not about the victims. It was about trying to go after the Duggars. They have been known as a family that is a Christian family. If a Liberal has anything like this kind of situation, it’s no big deal. And I think we all have heard the comparison between this and Lena Dunham who wrote about it in her book.

According to Huckabee, the Duggars are being persecuted by liberals. Apparently, a conservative evangelical Christian’s confession of several acts of child molestation only counts if it is made in a court of law. It is a tribute to the cumulative delusions of Fox News, the Duggars, and Mike Huckabee that they would continue to push the idea that Josh Duggar’s police report was illegally released.

Springdale City Attorney Earnest Cate has already debunked the idea that the release of the police report was illegal, “”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.”

Huckabee is trying to boost his flat-lining presidential campaign by playing that favorite card of Republicans everywhere; the media is out to get us.

Child molester Josh Duggar and his crime covering up parents have been turned into martyrs by Fox News and Mike Huckabee. The effort to defend the Duggars has hit an illogical level of absurd. If the Duggars are an example of his theory of criminal prosecution, Mike Huckabee is unfit to be president.

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U.S. Economy Created Six Times As Many Jobs Under Obama Than Under the shrub

Sorry, Jeb Bush. President Obama has created six times as many jobs as your brother did.

U.S. Economy Created Six Times As Many Jobs Under Obama Than Under the shrub

The Truth Hurts

Senate Democrats Have The Upper Hand And They Are About To Make McConnell Pay

Senate Democrats are getting ready to fire up the filibuster and make Mitch McConnell’s life miserable, as they are determined to make the Senate Majority Leader pay for trying to bully them into accepting the unpopular Republican agenda.

Politico reported:

Minority Leader Harry Reid foreshadowed the shift recently with vows to essentially shut down the appropriations process and block highway and defense bills unless Republicans move markedly to the left. With deadlines looming on several must-pass bills, the stage is set for brinkmanship that could last through the summer and into the thick of the 2016 presidential primary season.

Democrats believe they have the upper hand after Republicans allowed government surveillance authorities to temporarily expire last week, stoking criticism of McConnell’s stewardship of the Senate. The mood in the chamber has turned more antagonistic over the past week, as Reid and McConnell have mixed it up on the Senate floor over who controls the agenda and which party is being more obstructionist.

….

Now, the big-ticket accomplishments of 2015 may soon give way to a similar paralysis, as Congress cruises into a series of fights in which congressional Democrats’ leverage lies mainly in their power to filibuster. Reid has called a national defense authorization bill that Republicans are pushing a “waste of time” because the White House has promised to veto it and pledged to block Republican spending bills and an extension of highway funding unless Republicans agree to fund Democratic spending programs and provide long-term certainty in the transportation budget.

Read more on Poltitco

Part of Mitch McConnell’s plan for running the Senate has always involved using the budget process to force Democrats, including President Obama, to accept the Republican agenda. The first sign that his plan was not working was Democratic opposition to the Republican passed budget. A more concrete omen of trouble ahead for McConnell was the President’s threat to veto every appropriations bill that used sequester cuts to set funding levels.

Sen. McConnell is boxed in. If President Obama vetoes the appropriations bills, Senate Democrats have more than enough votes to sustain his vetoes. The battle over funding the government is expected to grind the Senate to a halt, and consume the entire summer.

On the Senate floor last week, Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) accused McConnell of governing crisis to crisis, “How many more of these manufactured crises must the American people endure? How many more times will the Majority Leader is let another vital program lapse, regardless of the harm it does? It is imperative that Republicans not continue their assault on job creation in America.”

Mitch McConnell is trying to set the stage for a Republican president while making the argument for Republicans keeping the Senate in the 2016 election. McConnell is under intense pressure to pass major legislation, but so far, the legislation that McConnell has passed means more inside the Beltway than it does to the rest of the country.

The result of the McConnell caused chaos could be a government shutdown. Senate Democrats and the President are demanding that McConnell and Republicans move left on the appropriations bills. If Republicans provoke a shutdown by refusing to compromise, it could signal the end of Republican control of the Senate.

A major battle that will shape the landscape of the 2016 election future control of the Senate is taking shape, and Democrats are determined to make Mitch McConnell pay.

The Truth Be Told

Republican Misled Kansas Senate Passes Largest Tax Increase In State’s History

On Sunday evening, the Republican-misled Kansas Senate passed a 471 million dollar tax increase. If the measure passes the Kansas House on Monday and is then signed into law by Sam Brownback, it will become the largest tax increase in Kansas’ history.

Senate support for the tax increase is a clear sign that the Brownback tax cuts that were supposed to stimulate the economy, have failed so miserably, that even teabagger Republicans have resigned themselves to supporting a massive tax increase. However, the Senate did not opt to restore higher income tax rates for the wealthy, but instead they decided to fill the state’s gaping budget hole by raising regressive taxes which pass the burden onto the poor.

The Senate bill, which passed on a close 21-17 vote, would raise the state sales tax from 6.15 percent to 6.55 percent. The cigarette tax would jump from .79 cents a pack to a 1.29 a pack. The measure would also lower deductions for property taxes, charitable contributions and home mortgage interest.

The bill protects the zero income tax rate for many owners of limited-liability companies, corporate farms and large corporations. However, it eliminates sales tax rebates on food for poor families, the elderly and people with disabilities.

So while Senate Republicans have finally come to grips with the failure of the Brownback tax cuts, their solution is not to make billionaires like Charles Koch, who still claims residency in Wichita, pay a higher tax rate. Instead they have decided to tackle the state’s budget crisis by raising the price of food for the poor, disabled and elderly.

What voters in Kansas, and across the nation, need to recognize is that the Republican Party is not so much committed to cutting taxes, as they are to protecting the wealth and privilege for the people at the top of the income pyramid. Republican rhetoric about cutting taxes is often interpreted by voters as a signal that GOP politicians will cut their taxes. However, when tax cuts fail to stimulate the growth that was promised, Republicans will try to plug the gap by squeezing every last penny from the people without money, before they dare ask rich people to pay their fair share.

If the Senate bill becomes law, low and middle-income Republican voters in Kansas will become the proud owners of an “anti-tax Governor and anti-tax legislature” that passed the largest tax increase in the state’s history. To add insult to injury, they will also have the dubious honor of paying for that tax increase so that the state’s aristocracy can keep their precious tax cuts. If not for the fact that some of those people will endure real suffering, the whole charade would be almost comical.

Funny thing about that ...

Ann Coulter Says Immigrants Will Rape and Impregnate Your Little Girls

Apparently, women are not already sexually abused in Ann Coulter's America. 

Maybe she needs to get out more.…

Ann Coulter, still busy selling her new book, Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (as opposed to the hellhole Republicans have turned it into), says immigrants will rape your children.

And here I thought it was the Duggars. Republicans like Coulter are the ones defending rape and rapists. They’re the ones making excuses for child molestation, even of the incestuous sort. We haven’t had so many brothers feeling up sisters since Adam and Eve’s kids.

But the English-Irish-German-Dutch Coulter, who appeared Friday on “The Eric Metaxas Show,” told the Greek-German Metaxas that non-European immigrants were a bunch of “Third World” low-lifes:

Reagan got, I think it was 54 percent of the white vote, Romney got 59 percent of the white vote; the country in 1980 was about 90 percent white, now it’s about 62 percent white though still only 72 who can vote. If something drastic isn’t done right away, it is going to be George McGovern’s America, it is going to be La Raza’s America, it is going to be Uganda, basically.

McGovern, a well-known liberal and ideological successor to RFK, was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, and in Coulter’s mind, is seemingly used as a stand-in for liberalism. She also managed to go after not only blacks there, but Hispanics with her dig at La Raza (Spanish: “The Race”), signifying Hispanic or Latino identity.

But her racist screed did not end there:

And get used to having segregated buses and subways, as they have in India and Mexico, because of the way women are treated and sexually abused there; get used to your little girls being raped and being pregnant; get used to not being able to go to your national parks because they are being burnt down, pot farms are being grown there, pesticides dumped all over.

Wait a second! Impregnate? What happened to women’s magical body processes that just say no to rapist-sperm??? Was that all the lie? Ann, tell us what’s going on.

Seriously, I’d be more worried about some creepy old white Republican – or even a creepy young one like Scott Walker – getting into my little girl’s vagina.

Apparently, women are not already sexually abused in Ann Coulter’s America. Maybe she needs to get out more.

And then she fear-mongers over our national parks as though her rich Republican buddies don’t plan to sell them to foreign mining conglomerates along with the latest patch of sacred Native American lands in an orgasm-inducing BOGO.

Add to that, pesticides too are a conservative thing. It’s not the GOP worrying about the environment. It’s us nasty McGovern liberals. Or are immigrants using their powerful calves to lug pesticides over the border to protect their portable marijuana crops?

Don’t you love how these right-wing demagogues can cash in through the use of monster lies and hypocrisy? I remember when these were character flaws. Now, if you don’t engage in them, you’re not a Republican.

Oh wait. Republicanism is a character flaw these days, isn’t it?

This bubble reality Republicans have created for themselves is a bizarre place when people like Ann Coulter can sound like a liberal complaining about widespread and unregulated use of pesticides in order to condemn liberals.

The saddest part is thinking about all the teabaggers at home, huddled beneath their swastika flags with AR-15s across their knees, as Grandpa Billy Bob reads from Coulter’s book and tears for their lost white paradise slide down their cheeks to pool on the covers of their unread bibles.

Norman Rockwell, where are you? Your America is passing, and only the fascists mourn its loss.

Ann Coulter: Liberals Are 'Going Gay' So They Need Immigrants To Outbreed 'christian America'

Ann Coulter whined to The Blaze, Glenn Beck’s network, last week about the “demographic war” between wingnuts and normal people, who she says need the support of immigrants to take power since they are “aborting and going gay.”  MORE

Obama Bluntly Calls Out Republicans For Trying To Take Healthcare Away From Millions

President Obama delivered a blunt message to Republicans. If they cynically mess with Obamacare, they will be harming he lives of millions of Americans.

The President accused Republicans of ignoring reality, “While we were told again and again that Obamacare would be a job killer, amazingly enough, some critics still peddle this notion, it turns out in reality America’s experienced 63 straight months of private sector job growth, a streak that started the month we passed the Affordable Care Act. The longest streak of private sector job growth on record that adds up to 12.6 million new jobs, so the critics stubbornly ignore reality.”

Obama used examples of ordinary Americans who could afford healthcare before the ACA to highlight reality.

President Obama added, “So five years in what we are talking about is no longer a law, it’s no longer just a theory. This isn’t even just about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. This isn’t about myths or rumors that folks try to sustain. There is a reality that people on the ground day to day are experiencing. Their lives are better. This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another. This is now healthcare in America, which is why when you get outside of Washington and leave behind the Beltway chatter and the politics, Americans support this new reality when you talk to people who are actually enrolled in a new marketplace plan. The vast majority of them like their coverage.”

Obama vowed not to go backward, and said, “There’s something deeply cynical about the ceaseless, endless partisan attempts to roll back progress. I mean I understood folks being skeptical or worried before the law passed, and there wasn’t a reality there to examine. Once you see millions of people having health care. Once you see all the bad things that were predicted didn’t happen, you’d think that it would time to move on, let’s figure out how to make it better. It seems so cynical to want to take coverage away from millions of people. To take care away from the people who need it the most.”

The message to Congressional Republicans was blunt. It is time to move forward and stop playing cynical partisan games. Although the President never mentioned them, this speech was clearly also aimed at the Supreme Court.

President Obama was arguing to the Court that if they rule against the subsidies, they will damaging the lives of millions of Americans.

Obama’s point was crystal clear. Whether Republicans like it or not, the Affordable Care Act is now a woven into the very fabric of the American health care system.

Free Market Ideology Doesn't Work For Health Care

Costs imposed by 'medical industrial complex' defy reason.

Free Market Ideology Doesn't Work For Health Care

Report Shows The Oil Industry Benefits From $5.3 Trillion in Subsidies Annually

In a new and disturbing report from researchers at the International Monetary Fund, the world's governments are providing subsidies to the highly profitable oil industry to the tune of trillions…

Most Americans should know by now that Republicans despise ‘entitlements’ that they errantly consider is anything Americans receive; even if it is theirs to begin with. They hate the idea of retired Americans receiving their Social Security and Medicare after paying into them their entire working lives, and they hate Americans working at slave-wage jobs receiving nutrition assistance because they earn too little to survive. What they do not hate, and indeed fight ferociously for, are taxpayer-funded entitlements that go to corporations in the form of tax loopholes and particularly entitlements for the oil industry in the form of subsidies.

According to the oil industry, the very idea of ending billions-of-dollars in taxpayer subsidies for the profitable industry is un-American; a position that Republicans embrace with religious passion. However, it is not just Republicans that believe the oil industry deserves to be paid for being a highly-profitable business; the world’s governments are handing outlandish amounts of the population’s money to the industry that is driving the Earth’s climate catastrophe.

In a new and disturbing report from researchers at the International Monetary Fund, the world’s governments are providing subsidies to the highly profitable oil industry to the tune of an astonishing $5.3 trillion in benefits per year.  Another way of looking at just how much the world pays the oil industry that bears responsibility for decimating the Earth’s environment; imagine they receive $10 million per minute. That is $10 million every minute, every day, of every month, of every year. Those mind-boggling entitlements have grown over the past couple of decades and are increasing every year.

What that also means is that every minute the world’s population is paying $10 million to help the fossil fuel industry pump climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All the while, in America Republicans are either denying that the Earth’s climate is warming, or debating whether global warming is caused by man’s propensity to pump carbon emissions into the atmosphere. If that is not bad enough, Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to preserve America’s billions in oil industry subsidies while crusading to abolish any and all environmental regulations and eliminate efforts to find new and less costly clean energy alternatives. It is true the world’s population will continue depending on fossil fuels for their energy needs long into the future, but that does not mean seeking and developing existing clean and renewable energy sources needs to be put off; particularly when the intent is to create more wealth for the oil industry.

What most Americans may be surprised to learn, if they even care, is that the IMF report revealed that besides the obvious cash “subsidies” being regularly “gifted” to the oil industry of a collective $88 billion from the G-20 nations alone, are the horrific  consequences of burning fossil fuels that very few nations, including the Koch-American government, are even willing to address. These are consequences such as the permanent and prohibitively costly health and environmental impacts affecting both local regions such as air and water pollution, and the more dangerous global consequences such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events wreaking havoc on the entire world.

Actually, it is the effects of pouring billions of tons of climate changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that accounts for nearly three-quarters of the final $5.3 trillion annual figure arrived at by IMF researchers. According to a statement from  Benedict Clements representing the IMF’s fiscal affairs department; “While the large size of our new estimates may be surprising, it is important to put in perspective just how many health problems are linked to energy consumption and air quality.” According to conservative estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), “One in eight global deaths are attributable just to air pollution.” Obviously it does not included the deaths from drought-related food shortages, lack of water, extreme and deadly weather events, or any of the other consequences of anthropogenic global climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. The WHO strongly suggests that even beyond the global climate benefits of the entire world working in concert to eliminate the highly-profitable oil industry’s entitlements, any one nation’s efforts to keep fossil fuels in the ground and out of the atmosphere “will carry very significant health and economic benefits at the local level.”

The IMF’s report revealed that ending oil industry entitlements would cut by half the number of deaths attributed to outdoor air pollution alone and save about 1.6 million human lives each year. Besides, the level of money being paid to the oil industry for nothing would be better spent on healthcare, education, and infrastructure improvements and relieve the crushing poverty plaguing third world nations like America and drive robust economic growth. Part of that spending naturally includes investing in more cost-effective and money-saving projects like clean and renewable energy and research and development of more energy-efficient uses for oil and gas.

To his credit, President Obama has made efforts to scale back America’s contribution to destroying the Earth’s climate, and in fact joined Democrats’ one attempt at putting an end to taxpayer-funded entitlements to the oil industry. But this is the Koch brothers’ America and although Republicans will never allow the entitlements to stop flowing to their favorite campaign donors, the President could do much more to alert Americans that while their roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools are crumbling around them, Republicans continue spending taxpayer dollars to bolster the profitable oil industry’s bottom line.

It is noteworthy that although the President did veto the Republican attempt to circumvent his Constitutional authority over the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline, he made peace, at least temporarily, with the Koch brothers and fossil fuel industry by granting them permission to start drilling for oil in the Arctic. Obviously President Obama had a good reason to give big oil more opportunities to wipe out the climate and destroy the pristine Arctic environment, but it is a secret he felt was too dangerous for the American people to learn. He said it was because “we can’t prevent oil exploration completely in the region, so we’re setting the highest possible standards.” However, Americans have witnessed, for far too long, exactly how effective those “highest possible standards” are; especially since the Koch brothers own the federal government.

The President sent a mixed message about his commitment to combat global climate change and committed America to adding to the $5.3 trillion in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry; likely to keep up with other world governments that, like America, will not bother to invest even a fraction of that astounding amount in protecting their population’s health or the environment. If nothing else, it appears that to maintain its status as “exceptional,” America will not be outspent by other governments in providing big oil’s entitlements any more than it will make any significant attempt to combat anthropogenic climate change; not while the Kochs own the government. And make no mistake, the Kochs and big oil do own the government lock, stock, and barrel.

It is a sad state of affairs, but the rest of the world’s population, like the American people, are going to have to come to grips with the tragic fact that they are contributing to the $5.3 trillion annual oil subsidies to destroy the environment and the Earth’s climate whether they like it or not. The lack of outrage in the population informs that obviously, most Americans do like it and that, in itself, is incredibly discouraging.

Court Throws Out Challenge To Obama’s Climate Change Rule

Court Throws Out Challenge To Obama’s Climate Change Rule

This Republican’s Tweet Calling Out Obama Is This Week’s SMDH Moment To Remember

A Tweet so stupid it could only belong to a Republican.
Read more 

Rick Santorum finds only one voter waiting at Iowa campaign event

Rick Santorum finds only one voter waiting at Iowa campaign event, warns her about gay marriage

Republican pretender candidate Rick Santorum showed up at a campaign stop in Iowa to find only one voter waiting for him, but he called the event a success anyway.

Republican Unveils New Obamacare Attack, Immediately Becomes A Laughingstock

John Thune (R-SD) probably wishes that he'd thought twice before debuting a new attack on the Affordable Care Act on Twitter.

A Republican Radio Hack Finally Actually Admitted It – He Wants To Bring Back Jim Crow Voting Laws

As frightening as the idea is, this man actually wants to bring back Jim Crow voting.

Read full story 

Rush Limbaugh Is Toast In Major Radio Markets

Chicago is now trying to drop him, and Indiana just sent him to the tall cornfields.

Limbaugh Is Toast In Major Radio Markets

Pastor on probation for sex assault caught molesting another child while wearing ankle monitor

Pastor on probation for sex assault caught molesting another child while wearing ankle monitor

A former Pennsylvania bishop who was sentenced to probation for sexually assaulting a child had his probation revoked this week after he was caught molesting another child.

Armed Couple Planned To Shoot Teachers, Children At NC School 'If It Was dog's Will'

Armed Couple Planned To Shoot Teachers, Children At NC School 'If It Was dog's Will'

These whack jobs never seem to have a problem getting guns. Because freedom!

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!  

 

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

 
Here's cheap red pen so Republicans can mark their mistakes as they write them ... !

Today is - Ball Point Pen Day

 

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The Greatness of the United States is Dying – and Wingnuts are the Ones Killing It

by Allen Clifton

Can someone please explain to me one “great” thing that wingnut ideology has brought to this country? I just don’t get it. Even as much as Republicans worship at the temple of Ronald Reagan, what did he really do? And don’t even give me the “he ended the Cold War” nonsense. The wheels were put in motion for the downfall of the Soviet Union long before Reagan ever became president, he just happened to be the president when it finally all came crashing down.
To be honest, to find the last great Republican we have to go all the way back to the 50′s and Dwight D. Eisenhower, someone who the modern-day GOP would consider a radical socialist if he were running for office today. Eisenhower was a president who presided over much higher taxes than we have today, who built the Interstate Highway System and believed that taxes shouldn’t be cut until the budget was balanced.
That’s what you call “fiscally responsible.”
But it’s rare to see any Republicans cite Eisenhower when spewing their usual right-wing propaganda. They worship Reagan, a man who nearly tripled our national debt in eight years and never once balanced the budget, as a “wingnut icon” – yet mostly ignore the last president from their party who actually showed true fiscal responsibility.
Oh, and Eisenhower was very skeptical of the military industrial complex and the power they might gain over this country… while today’s Republicans can’t line up fast enough to kiss the rings of big defense companies.
But when you look at our history (or even all of human history for that matter), what great things have we seen birthed from conservatism? If anything, their opposition to almost anything and everything that “bucks tradition” is actually the antithesis of progress. Some of humankind’s greatest individuals thumbed their noses at “tradition,” charting their own bold and daring path. Though, sadly, our history also shows that many of these people were attacked, mocked and even sometimes killed for daring to evolve from “what’s always been.”
I’ve even pointed out several times throughout U.S. history where the same states that supported slavery are almost the exact same states that: Opposed giving women the right to vote. Supported segregation. Opposed the Civil Rights Act. Continue to fight against giving equal rights to the LGBT community. It’s almost like clockwork. If there’s a new idea that’s pushing our nation forward, shedding tradition for progress and innovation – it’s wingnuts who are the ones trying to hold us back.
Or we can always look at certain things in this country like Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, sending a man to the moon and more recently our landmark health care reform - all done by Democratic presidents.
Even when you go back to possibly the most universally respected Republican, Abraham Lincoln, we’re looking at a president who issued an executive order bypassing Congress (the Emancipation Proclamation) to free slaves in rebelling states. In reality, Lincoln is possibly the most “big government” president in our nation’s history considering he started the Civil War against states who claimed slavery was a “states’ rights” issue.
Then when you look at what wingnuts stand for now, it’s basically a push to take us back to the regressive social policies of the 50′s with the same worn out economic polices from the 80′s that have proven time and time again that they don’t work. What “new” ideas have Republicans had lately? They’re running on the same crap they’ve been running on for decades. The only real “difference” among Republicans in our government is how radical one might be from another about pushing the right-wing agenda.
The theory of evolution holds true not just for various species, but for nations as well. Any great nation that fears evolving, or seeks to cling to inferior traditions, is a nation that will eventually ceases to be great. Republicans are right about one thing, the greatness of the United States is dying – and their ignorance is what’s killing it.
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Wall St. Journal Poll: Liberals Making Big Comeback

At the same time wingnuts are slithering back under their rocks and into their sewers where they belong.

Liberals Making Big Comeback

Bernie Sanders’ Momentum Is Growing As He Gets 41% Support In Wisconsin Straw Poll

The growing momentum surrounding the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign took another step forward over the weekend. In a display of strength, Sanders got 41% of support in the Wisconsin Democratic Party straw poll to 49% for Hillary Clinton.

Rick Klein of ABC News reported, “Straw polls don’t count for anything, and second place is, well, second place. But how many of these before it will become something? Hillary Clinton captured 49 percent of the vote at the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s convention over the weekend, in a straw poll conducted by WisPolitics.com. The story, though, was second place: Bernie Sanders got 41 percent, just eight points behind Clinton and far ahead of his low-single-digits rivals. It’s the latest sign that Sanders is poised to inherit at least a solid portion of the Ready-for-Warren energy. And it speaks to a longstanding contention that if Clinton is vulnerable, it’s on her left.”

Straw polls are only measures of support by those in attendance. They are not representative samples, so it would be inaccurate to suggest that the result in Wisconsin will translate to the broader electorate. The attendees at events like the state Democratic convention are the dedicated activists. These people are most likely to be drawn to the grassroots activist campaign of Sen. Sanders.

Forner Sec. of State Clinton has tried to reach out to the activist left, but the popularity of Bernie Sanders demonstrates that she still has a lot of work to do in this area. The anti-Hillary activists on the left are galvanizing around Sanders. This is bad news for Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chaffee. O’Malley seems to have been caught completely by surprise by Sanders’ popularity. In a field where there is room for one challenger to Hillary Clinton, O’Malley’s candidacy appears to be redundant and unnecessary.

The segment of the left that thinks Hillary Clinton is too moderate is flocking to Bernie Sanders. As has been shown in previous elections, the activist left is a very small portion of the Democratic Party. The vast majority of Democrats are Obama/Clinton Democrats, but what can’t be denied is that there is real momentum behind the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.

Straw polls are meaningless, but the results in Wisconsin do suggest that the support for Bernie Sanders is very real and that Democrats could be treated to a real primary campaign focused on the issues.

The American People Send A Message To The Supreme Court: Don’t Mess With Our Obamacare

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released on June 8th, finds a strong majority of Americans oppose the Supreme Court taking action to block federal subsidies in states that didn’t set up their own health care exchanges. The survey found that 55 percent of Americans want the Supreme Court to maintain the federal subsidies for low and middle-income families, while only 38 percent of poll respondents want the court to rule against the subsidies in the pending King v Burwell court case.

Predictably, there was a discernible partisan divide on the issue of preserving federal health care subsidies. 65 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Independents argued that the court should not take action to block health insurance subsidies. By contrast, only 34 percent of Republicans felt the same way, with 55 percent of GOP voters saying the court should repeal the subsidies.

In states that have not set up their own exchanges, 53 percent of voters favor keeping the subsidies to just 40 percent who want them eliminated. Although this is a solid majority of voters in those states, it is lower than the 58-33 support for keeping federal subsidies, expressed by voters in the mostly blue states that have set up their own exchanges. While those voters would not be directly affected by the coming Supreme Court ruling, they nevertheless want the federal subsidies to remain intact for their fellow Americans.

The American people have expressed an ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitude towards Obamacare. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove, it is clear that a decisive majority of Americans want the Supreme Court to leave the health care law alone. The federal health care subsidies made possible by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provide direct benefits to 6.4 million people in 34 states.

Since Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, they are not sensitive to public opinion in the same way that elected officials are. What the American people think is of little consequence to the members of the court.

However, should the ideologically partisan right-wing justices on the court decide to end the federal Obamacare subsidies, they will create an enormous headache for wingnut lawmakers, who will then have to deal with the fallout from the court’s decision.

Obama Is About To Take Action To Double The Wages Of Millions Of American Workers

President Obama is on the cusp of taking action alone that be the most aggressive move to help workers in decades. Obama is about to double the wages of millions of American workers by closing a loophole that employers have been using to avoid paying overtime.

Politico reported, “The Obama administration is on the verge of possibly doubling the salary levels that would require employers to pay overtime in the most ambitious government intervention on wages in a decade. And it doesn’t need Congress’s permission. As early as this week, the Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000, extending time and a half overtime pay to millions of American workers.”

As reported when the news of this new rule surfaced in April, “Millions of workers in the service sector have been victimized for years by the tactic of being labeled a manager, but not receiving commensurate pay for the position. By not paying managers overtime, corporate giants can keep wages artificially low. With a stroke of President Obama’s pen, millions of workers will be paid for the extra hours that they are currently working for free.”

The President’s executive action will apply to all workers who are classified as managers, but are earning under the overtime threshold. The retail and service sectors have been avoiding overtime rules for years by classifying employees as managers to avoid paying them the full compensation that they deserve.

Republicans are responding to the new rule with the same argument that they make against any change that would benefit workers. Republicans are claiming that the new overtime rule will kill jobs. The point that Republicans ignore is that having a job doesn’t do a worker any good if that job doesn’t pay enough to pay the bills.

President Obama has scored several victories for labor during his presidency. Obama has also implemented a new rule that would speed up the process for workers to unionize. After decades of defeats, President Obama has given workers some serious momentum. Obama is empowering labor and reversing a trend that goes back to the Reagan administration.

Obama is doing what Republicans in Congress refuse to do, and by acting alone, he is going to make the lives of millions of Americans better by using some common sense fairness to make sure that workers are getting paid what they really earn.

Obama Drives a Stake Through Republican Hearts By Dropping A Fact Bomb About His Economic Success

President Obama drove a stake through Republican narratives about him at the G-7 Summit on Monday, pointing out that since he took office, the United States cut our deficit by two-thirds. A fact you would not know if you only listened to Republicans or the media.

“Since I took office, the United States has cut our deficit by two-thirds,” President Obama said at the G-7 Summit, wounding Republican deficit hawks to the core. Though to be fair, Republicans only started caring about the deficit once they were no longer at the helm and thus unable to continue recklessly driving it up by charging everything.

Here’s a handy chart to demonstrate just how much the deficit has reduced under President Obama, from the White House:

Republicans must not have enjoyed the President’s presser on Monday in which he correctly took ownership of a multitude of positive economic news on issues that Republicans pretend to be experts on from private sector jobs to the deficit.

“We agree that the best way to sustain the global economic recovery is by focusing on job and growth. That is what I am focused on in the United States,” President Obama said.

“On Friday we learned that our economy created another 200,080 jobs in May, the strongest month of the year so far, and over 3 million over the past year, the nearly fastest pace in over a decade.” Obama continued, “We’ve now seen 5 straight years of private sector job growth. 12.6 million new jobs created, the longest streak on record.”

Ouch. The President was referring to the incredible news on Friday that he set a new record for private sector job growth, with the private sector adding 12.6 million jobs over 63 straight months of job growth. Even the normally unimpressed were called it a “robust” report.

“The unemployment rate is near its lowest level in seven years. Wages for American workers continue to rise and since I took office, the United States has cut its deficit by two-thirds,” President Obama said.

“So, in the global economy, America is a major source of strength, at the same time we realize that while growing the global economy while growing is still not performing at its potential and we agreed on a number of steps,” the President continued setting the stage for the agreed upon agenda of the Summit.

At the G-7 Summit, the leaders are addressing diverse issues from sustainable development to promoting peace to trade to advancing women’s economic empowerment. According to the White House fact sheet on the Summit, “The President met with the other Leaders of the G-7 at Schloss Elmau, Germany on June 7-8 to make tangible progress on a wide range of economic, security, and development priorities. The G-7 stands resolved in its commitment to uphold the values of freedom and democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

It hasn’t been a good few days for Republicans, with conservative David Brooks noting that Obama has run a scandal-free administration, saying that there are people in Washington who set a standard of integrity and attract people of integrity. Shhh, don’t tell the Republicans in the House who are spending your tax money on endless investigations into non-existent scandals.

The beauty of President Obama’s last two years is he can say it like it is. He is no longer responsible for Democrats in races around the country, and his only partisan job is to take ownership of the achievements under his administration so that the Democrats running in 2016 can ride the wave.

These economic achievements were accomplished while Republicans were derailing them at every turn, including shutting down the government to the tune of billions of dollars, shutting down national security — oh, it’s hard to think of something they haven’t shut down. Republicans might have been able to claim ownership of the deficit reduction, except that not only are they continuing to advocate for policies that caused a large part of the deficit, but their antics and inability to govern and fake investigations have cost the government billions and billions of dollars. So they have added to the deficit in their attempt to bring Obama down. It’s too bad Republicans can’t get on the country first bus, even once, and be a part of the solution.

61 House Democrats Are Taking A Stand Against Corporate America

There is a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.” Now, if Roosevelt were alive today he would certainly not envy corporations that have had an incredibly easy life since Republicans allowed them to control of America and take inordinately huge profits and benefits without exerting any effort, or bearing any costs. Oh it is true there are costs involved in guaranteeing that already highly-profitable corporations continue making obscene profits without putting forth much effort, but with pro-corporate Republicans running the government for the past 14 years the costs have been borne by the poor, the vanishing middle class, and the elderly; it is just the way things are in corporate-controlled America.

Unfortunately, if President Obama, some Senate Democrats, and all Republicans have their way, the American people will continue paying to ensure that corporations have easy lives and continue getting a free ride as a result of the corporate-written Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). It is the corporate trade agreement the cabal running America lusts to see President Obama fast-track to fruition and it is a lust he appears incredibly eager to satisfy. It is likely that after nearly six years of being hated by Republicans and corporate America, he does long to please more than just his liberal base and cement his legacy as a friend to all; including corporate America.

It is bad enough that the TTP will certainly undermine Americans’ jobs, environmental and financial regulations, and give corporations an easier means of hiding their obscene profits offshore to avoid paying taxes, but it is worse that Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate want the elderly to pay for the consequences of the bad trade deal. To soften the damage to workers who will lose their jobs to the trade deal, a couple of Senate Democrats fought tooth-and-nail to include  an incredibly petty provision, the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, to garner enough votes to give the President authority to fast-track the TTP and cement his legacy as a pro-trade, or is it pro-corporate, Democratic President.

The TAA is the program that provides retraining services to the workers who will lose their jobs after the TTP is finalized, and assist them to buy health insurance with tax credits out of their pathetic unemployment benefits when they are poverty-stricken. Since corporations cannot be bothered, or expected, to pay for retraining American workers who lost their jobs to the trade deal, Senate Republicans and some Democrats decided that the least the elderly can do is pay for the TAA program out of cuts to their Medicare insurance benefits. For dog’s sake this is America and no red-blooded corporate puppet would think to ask, or expect, the corporations that wrote and will profit from the trade deal to pay for the TAA program; it would be an abomination and so unfair. It just is not the way America under corporate ownership operates and nearly every politician in Washington knows it and votes accordingly.

However, although the Senate believes the elderly should relieve corporations of any burden for funding TAA training and tax credits for American workers displaced by the corporate trade deal, 61 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stating that although the TAA is an essential part of even a devastatingly bad corporate trade agreement, it is patently unfair to pay for it with “cuts to critical social programs like Medicare.” The 61 House Democrats led by Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva are demanding a new funding mechanism for the cost of TAA for displaced workers; but they did not call for a corporate tax hike to cover the cost. Why? Because this is America and corporations get a free ride which is precisely why Washington politicians let corporations write the trade agreement in secret.

There is some opinion that House Democrats may use the TAA funding issue to thwart the TPP altogether, either by watching House Republicans refuse to fund anything to help American workers and effectively kill a vote on TPP. It is possible that House Democrats will not vote for TPP unless 90 House Republicans first vote to fund TAA and Nancy Pelosi is concerned enough that she is negotiating with GOP leaders to find a new way to pay for TAA and replace the Medicare cuts since keeping them in place could end up killing it, and TPP altogether.

The only given in this whole sordid TPP and TAA affair is that no-one in Washington will demand that the only beneficiaries of the trade agreement, the corporations that wrote it in secret, at least absorb the cost of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program; and why should they? There are millions of elderly Americans who paid into Medicare throughout their entire working lives who can suck it up and do right by corporate America and pay for retraining Americans who will lose their jobs to international trade. Plus, what red-blooded retired American dare refuse to forfeit their health insurance to pay for tax credits to help out-of-work Americans buy health insurance? Republicans have been demanding for years that the elderly give up their Medicare and Social Security to fund tax cuts for the poor beleaguered corporations, so it is not out of line that they, and some Democrats, believe the elderly should pay to relieve corporate responsibility for training out-of-work Americans after killing more of their jobs.

The elderly, soon-to-be displaced workers, and all Americans for that matter, should be livid that the people who wrote the trade deal in secret, big pharma and other corporations, will make even greater profits at the expense of American jobs, environmental and financial regulations, and the elderly’s Medicare. Apparently, it has become so normal to make other Americans pay to increase corporate profits, that only 61 House Democrats see what President Obama and the Senate refuse to even acknowledge; at least out loud. America is under complete control and run by corporations to such an extent that big business can rape and pillage the population with impunity simply because the rich are well aware that only a handful of Democrats are unafraid of standing up to their thievery.

It is worth noting here, right now, that since the provisions of the TTP were written in abject secrecy by corporations over the past three years, it is highly unlikely that, like the entire Congress, President Obama has read much more than a very brief summary of the TTP’s provisions. As more than one pundit has acknowledged, the President and Democrats understand that, with only about a year-and-a-half left of his presidency, Republicans are not going to pass anything that might be attributed positively to President Obama’s legacy. A significant benefit to corporate America like the Trans-Pacific Partnership will add to the President’s legacy, and because this is corporate America, it is left to the people, whether it is the elderly forfeiting their Medicare insurance benefits, or the poor forfeiting Medicaid and food stamps, to ensure that a positive corporate profit legacy will be at the expense of anyone but the people that wrote and will benefit from TPP; corporate America.