Private companies are now exploiting Arizona’s immigrants in courts and in prisons

Private companies are now exploiting Arizona’s immigrants in courts and in prisons

House Republicans File Bill That Allows Employers To Fire Single Pregnant Women

Well, it’s happened. Republicans have become so desperate in their attempts to allow bigots to discriminate freely against the LGBT community that they have crafted a bill with language so loose that would allow “christians” to fire single women for getting pregnant…just like jesus would. H.R. 2802, or the First Amendment Defense Act, “prohibits the federal government from taking discriminatory action against a person — which is defined to include for-profit corporations — acting in accordance with a religious delusion that favors so-called 'traditional' marriage,” the Huffington Post reports. “This means the feds can’t revoke a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status or end a company’s federal contract over this issue.”The bill includes protections for people who believe marriage is between “one man and one woman” and “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” If that’s not awful enough, American Civil Liberties Union legislative representative Ian Thompson points out that the legalized discrimination within the bill extends to other groups wingnuts regularly attempt to deprive of equal treatment — single mothers.
Thompson says that in addition to declaring open season on the LGBT community, the bill “clearly encompasses discrimination against single mothers” and would make it difficult for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — which protects women from sex-based discrimination — to protect women who are terminated for having a child. HuffPo notes:

This scenario isn’t merely hypothetical. There are a number of recent cases where religious schools have fired unwed teachers for becoming pregnant. A Montana catholic school teacher who was fired for having a baby out of wedlock, for example, filed a discrimination charge last year with the EEOC. While the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a ministerial exception to employment discrimination laws, that exception is somewhat limited, not necessarily covering educators employed by catholic schools who teach about exclusively secular subjects.

Raul Labrador (R-Idaho, reptile), who introduced this latest example of why people in other countries hate us to the House, told HuffPo that “It’s just allowing people to continue to believe the way they do.”
And, of course, some people believe it is entirely O.K. to discriminate against single mothers:
Other Republicans support this legislation, as well. “We’re not going to try to dance on the head of a pin here,” said  Bill Flores (R-Texas, reptile). “This legislation protects an institution based on its sincerely held religious delusions from persecution.”
When asked about a hypothetical scenario in which an unmarried woman was fired from a university for having sex out of wedlock Mike Lee (R-Utah, reptile), who introduced the companion legislation in the Senate, didn’t bother to hide that he was both aware of this possibility, and was fine with it.
“Colleges and universities that have a religious delusion that sexual relations are to be reserved for marriage,” Lee told NPR, “ought to be protected in their 'religiou freedom.”

There are colleges and universities that have a religious belief that sexual relations are to be reserved for marriage and that, for religious delusions, recognize a marriage as an institution between a man and between a woman. Those colleges and universities have the right to make that decision on their own. Now, most colleges and universities don’t have that. It is, again, a slim a minority of those that do. But those that do have this ought to be protected in their 'religious' freedom.

Frighteningly, this new “religious freedom” bill is gaining momentum in the republican misled house. The Hill reports that more than 55 Republicans pledged their support last week alone, bringing the total number of cosponsors to 115. Many Republicans are hopeful that they will be able to pass the bill before they have to go home and face the bigots at town halls in August. However, they could have some problems:

But there’s one possible hang-up: The bill’s author is Raul Labrador (R-Idaho, reptile), a co-founder of the wingnut Freedom Caucus, which has caused fits for Republican cabal leadership since its launch in January. Labrador, a teabagger favorite, also is a one-time rival to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif., reptile), who controls the floor schedule.
In recent months, some wingnut rebels have complained that leadership has retaliated against them by blocking votes on legislation they’ve written. Walter Jones (R-N.C, reptile.) said his bill to name a courthouse in his district has been sidelined because of his frequent criticism of leadership.
But co-sponsors of Labrador’s bill said they hoped the bill would receive a vote based on its merits, not based on who introduced it. Wingnut Mike Lee (R-Utah, reptile) introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

“I think the bill should stand on its merits, and I believe the bill has its merits,” Roger Williams (R-Texas, reptile), who also co-sponsored the bill, said in an interview. However, McCarthy has not displayed any signs that a vote will be scheduled during the final three weeks before the August recess. The bill has been passed to the Oversight and Government Reform and the Ways and Means committees, but neither group has placed it on its schedule.
But, there are more problems. The Hill notes that only blue dog, Dan Lipinsi of Illinois, has co-sponsored the bill. Labrador will have to rely heavily on other Republicans to get the 218 votes needed for passage, and many of them consider him toxic. However, Labrador says that there should not be any problems. “They are not threatening me personally about my bill. They assured me legislation that is important will go to the floor, so I take them at their word,” Labrador told The Hill. “McCarthy assured me he’s not trying to get in the way of the bill.”
One way or another, Tom Cole (R-OK, reptile) says he hopes that a vote happens, otherwise it could get uncomfortable for “members going home for August town halls” who would “like to have had an opportunity to stake out their position on this. … There’s clearly quite a head of steam.”
“[T]his bill goes far beyond simply places of worship, extending to businesses and nonprofits, for example,” said openly-gay Rep. Jared Polis. “The bill even contains a clause stating that it must be construed as broadly as possible by the courts and could be read to permit all businesses to use their views on marriage as justification to discriminate against LGBT Americans.” However, he agrees that “There’s certainly room for clarification that no faith would ever be forced to perform or sanctify marriages that they don’t agree with, just as the catholic delusion isn’t required to marry people who have been divorced.”
Thompson says that the bill would not stop at legalizing discrimination against single mothers (as well as the obvious groups of people). It “would eviscerate anti-discrimination protections for LGBT federal contractors signed into law by President Barack Obama last year and allow federal grantees to turn away LGBT people from homeless shelter services or drug treatment programs.” Thompson compared the bill to Indiana legislation that allowed open discrimination against LGBT individuals, calling it “Indiana on steroids.”
The White House has not yet weighed in on the legislation, but it is likely that if it makes it to Obama’s desk, the “Veto Pen™ will be getting some exercise.

Walmart’s Misleading Claims, 'Made In America'

by Jacob Woodcher

When Walmart kicked off its U.S. Manufacturing Summit on Tuesday, Walmart it posed as a friend of the American worker, a creator of U.S. jobs and a force for reducing inequality.
But, as the American Manufacturing Association dutifully points out this week, we shouldn’t be fooled by the giant retailer’s newly populist rhetoric.
Walmart is aggressively highlighting its 2013 commitment to purchase an additional $250 billion worth of American-made goods by 2023, an action they said would create 1 million American jobs. But $250 billion over 10 years sounds much less impressive with the knowledge that Walmart netted $473 billion in sales in 2014. Put another way, the retailer is only promising to spend an additional 5 percent of its yearly sales on American-made products.
What’s more, in 2014 Walmart only created an additional 2,514 jobs on U.S. soil – a mere 0.2 percent of its lofty goal.
Finally, Walmart is predicted to spend an additional $262 billion on American-made goods in the next 10 years regardless of its newly patriotic policy. Two-thirds of Walmart’s purchases come from the U.S. – mainly because groceries make up 56 percent of its sales. The chain has averaged just under 3 percent annual growth for the last couple years, and if that trend continues for the next decade, $250 billion in additional purchases of American-made goods would actually be less that what should be expected.
Beyond the fact that this commitment is not nearly as meaningful as Walmart claims, its posing as an ally of American workers is unmasked by all it has done to destroy American jobs and depress wages.
Walmart is by far the largest importer in the country, and is a huge contributor to the 2.7 million jobs that were lost to China between 2001 and 2011. In the first five years of that period, from 2001 to 2006, Walmart alone was responsible for 133,000 jobs moving overseas, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

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Ol'Jim Crow

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Compassion meets hate. Compassion wins.
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The fact that this hashtag exists is a terrifying dose of reality.

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Last Week In Police Brutality And Corruption

After his arrest, the stepson of a Florida police officer said: “He thinks he has some sort of privilege that no one else has. He thinks he can do anything… and get away with it.”

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Last Week In Bad Christianity

It’s Really Terrible 

There was an abundance of bad christianity last week.
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Top 5 Stupid Things Pseudo-Christians Said Last Week

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5,000 Kenyans to help President Obama “understand” homosexuality by getting naked in the street

5,000 Kenyans to help President Obama “understand” homosexuality by getting naked in the street

Apparently no one has pointed out the obvious homoeroticism at the core of the protest to its organizer.

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Obama Rides With the Hoofbeats of History

 

The Hoofbeats of History

Obama Destroys the ‘Overheated and Dishonest’ Arguments Against the Iran Deal

President Obama took down what he called the “overheated” and “often dishonest” arguments against the Iran deal in his weekly address. He said that the agreement cuts off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon. He explained that it implements unprecedented monitoring and inspections. The President also explained that the sanctions would immediately be put back into place if Iran were to violate the terms.

Transcript via the White House:

This week, the United States and our international partners finally achieved something that decades of animosity has not – a deal that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This deal will make America and the world safer and more secure. Still, you’re going to hear a lot of overheated and often dishonest arguments about it in the weeks ahead. So today, I want to take a moment to take those on one by one, and explain what this deal does and what it means.

First, you’ll hear some critics argue that this deal somehow makes it easier for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Now, if you think it sounds strange that the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and some of the world’s best nuclear scientists would agree to something like that, you’re right. This deal actually closes off Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapon. Today, Iran has enough nuclear material to produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. With this deal, they’ll have to ship 98% of that material out of the country – leaving them with a fraction of what it takes to make even one weapon. With this deal, they’ll have to repurpose two key nuclear facilities so they can’t produce materials that could be used for a nuclear weapon. So this deal actually pushes Iran further away from a bomb. And there’s a permanent prohibition on Iran ever having a nuclear weapon.

Second, you might hear from critics that Iran could just ignore what’s required and do whatever they want. That they’re inevitably going to cheat. Well, that’s wrong, too. With this deal, we will have unprecedented, 24/7 monitoring of Iran’s key nuclear facilities. With this deal, international inspectors will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain. The verification process set up by this deal is comprehensive and it is intrusive – precisely so we can make sure Iran keeps its commitments.

Third, you might hear from critics that Iran faces no consequences if it violates this deal. That’s also patently false. If Iran violates this deal, the sanctions we imposed that have helped cripple the Iranian economy – the sanctions that helped make this deal possible – would snap back into place promptly.

There’s a reason this deal took so long to negotiate. Because we refused to accept a bad deal. We held out for a deal that met every one of our bottom lines. And we got it.

Does this deal resolve all of the threats Iran poses to its neighbors and the world? No. Does it do more than anyone has done before to make sure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon? Yes. And that was our top priority from the start. That’s why it’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure this deal holds. Because without this deal, there would be no limits on Iran’s nuclear program. There would be no monitoring, no inspections. The sanctions we rallied the world to impose would unravel. Iran could move closer to a nuclear weapon. Other countries in the region might race to do the same. And we’d risk another war in the most volatile region in the world. That’s what would happen without this deal.

On questions of war and peace, we should have tough, honest, serious debates. We’ve seen what happens when we don’t. That’s why this deal is online for the whole world to see. I welcome all scrutiny. I fear no questions. As Commander-in-Chief, I make no apology for keeping this country safe and secure through the hard work of diplomacy over the easy rush to war. And on Tuesday, I’ll continue to press this case when I address the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Because nobody understands the true cost of war better than those who’ve actually served in this country’s uniform.

We have before us an historic opportunity to pursue a safer, more secure world for our children. It might not come around again in our lifetimes. That’s why we’re going to seize it today – and keep America a beacon of hope, liberty, and leadership for generations to come.

Thank you, and have a great weekend.

The goal with the Iran deal is to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon. With this deal, President Obama showed the power of diplomacy, which is one of the largest reasons many on the right object to it. The arguments against the deal have become hyperbolic and hysterical, and have of course not offered a viable alternative that would include the political reality of getting other nations on board.

President Obama made an irrefutable point when he said it would be odd for Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and some of the world’s best nuclear scientists to agree to this deal if it’s a bad one. Are they all in the tank for Obama? Clearly not. This one sentence destroys the claims being made by the “opposition” to the deal.

This is too important to be left in the hands of bombastic clowns who do nothing but scream “The world is ending today!” if they don’t get their way on everything. And while critics troll this deal, many of them have brought nothing to the table except the unspoken “solution” that we have already seen doesn’t work.

Legitimate debate should be had, but it shouldn’t rest on presumptions presented as facts or fear-mongering hysteria. Remember “WMD” and the untold damage that lie continues to do to this day. At the end of the day, if not diplomacy, then what? They won’t tell you the answer for a good reason.

Bernie Sanders calls for a ‘political revolution’ to thwart the ‘billionaire class’

Bernie Sanders calls for a ‘political revolution’ to thwart the ‘billionaire class’

Sanders warned “America now has more wealth and income inequality than any country today” and said this was the great moral issue of our time.

Weekly Republican House Lie Spew Claims Over-Regulation Caused Crash of 2008

House Republicans want us to believe that by gutting Wall Street reform, we can somehow end bailouts and have a healthier economy…

Huffington Post seems to think Donald Trump’s pretender campaign is entertainment rather than politics. This leads you to wonder if they have been paying attention over there to the United States House of Representatives and Boehner’s shenanigans for the past six-and-a-half years.

Perhaps to fill us with dismay, Boehner has assigned the task of lying to the American people this week to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, yet another in a long line of dishonest Texas Republicans, who, we are told, “discusses Republicans’ commitment to protect hardworking families and small business owners from the job-crushing Dodd-Frank law, which President Obama signed five years ago this week.”

So here we go, digging into things Obama (not the shrub!) did years ago rather than doing some work today – say, creating jobs, taxing the wealthy or corporations, or at least actually regulating, instead of pretending to stand up to Wall Street. Here is the big lie, the talking point around which all that follows is based:

KEY QUOTE: “If we want strong economic growth, more freedom and an end to bailouts, it’s time we commit to making sure this anniversary is Dodd-Frank’s last. House Republicans are working to do just that. Together, we can end Wall Street bailouts, have a healthier economy, and protect consumer choice.”

Remarks of Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas
Weekly Republican Lie Spew
Financial Services Committee Hearing Room
July 18, 2015

Hello, I’m Jeb Hensarling, Congressman for the Fifth District of Texas and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Five years ago this week President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Act. You may not have heard of Dodd-Frank, but it’s essentially Obamacare for our economy and your household finances.

And just like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank has left us with fewer choices, higher costs and less freedom.

Now, the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed devastated millions of Americans. But instead of preventing the crisis, misguided Washington policies helped lead us into it – policies that either strong-armed or enticed financial institutions into loaning money to people to buy homes they couldn’t afford to keep.

That was wrong.

It wasn’t deregulation that caused the crisis. It was Washington’s dumb regulations.

Then, and now, House Republicans have offered an alternative to Dodd-Frank that would have ended taxpayer-funded bailouts and protected consumers.

But in typical Washington fashion, Democrats instead by passing a 2,300-page bill that did not solve the crisis but in my ways made it worse. When President Obama signed Dodd-Frank into law five years ago with much fanfare and celebration, we were told it would ‘lift the economy,’ ‘end too big to fail’ and ‘increase financial stability.’ It didn’t happen.

But, Dodd-Frank did nothing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the epicenter of the crisis. It enshrined taxpayer-funded bailouts and ‘too big to fail’ into law, and it imposed 400 new burdensome, job-destroying regulations upon our economy.

And the harm to consumers has been real, very real. We continue to be mired in lackluster, halting economic growth. Middle income paychecks are nearly 12,000 dollars less compared to the average post-war economic recovery. It is now harder for credit-worthy Americans to buy a home. In fact, one-out-of-five who borrowed to buy a home just five years ago will not meet the underwriting requirements of Dodd-Frank’s mortgage rules. According to the Federal Reserve, that’ll hit roughly one-third of Hispanic and African-American borrowers.

Since Dodd-Frank, the big banks have gotten bigger and the small banks are now fewer. Today there are fewer community banks and credit unions serving the needs of small businesses and families. Local financial institutions tell us they can’t keep up with the sheer weight, volume and complexity of Dodd-Frank’s regulations. In fact, because of Dodd-Frank, we’re losing on average one community financial institution per day. It’s no wonder that small business deaths outnumber small business births for the first time in 35 years.

It is also now more expensive for American companies to raise working capital that’s needed to grow and create jobs.

Services that we all once took for granted – like free checking – are being curtailed or eliminated because of Dodd-Frank. Before, 75 percent of banks offered free checking. Just two years after Dodd-Frank became law, that number was cut almost in half.

And bank fees have also increased due to Dodd-Frank’s costs. This has led to a rise in the number of low and moderate income Americans who simply can’t afford to maintain a checking or savings account.

Not long after the financial crisis, we heard the cry from the Left to “Occupy Wall Street.” But hardworking taxpayers aren’t interested in Occupying Wall Street. They just want to quit bailing it out.

Yet Dodd-Frank enshrines “Too Big to Fail” into law. It gives Washington bureaucrats the power to officially designate large financial firms “Too Big to Fail” and then makes them eligible for bailouts. That’s wrong. We have to absolutely end bailouts — period.

It is evident that Dodd-Frank has made us less prosperous and less free. It has meant lost opportunities and frustrated dreams for millions hoping to start a small business, buy a home or plan for a secure retirement.

If we want strong economic growth, more freedom and an end to bailouts, it’s time we commit to making sure this anniversary is Dodd-Frank’s last anniversary.

House Republicans are working to do just that. Together, we can end Wall Street bailouts, have a healthier economy, and protect consumer choice.

Thanks for listening.

Obviously, it was not regulating Wall Street that caused the Great Recession of 2008. It was deregulation. The Dodd-Frank Act of 2008, like the Affordable Care Act, may not be perfect, but it did not make things worse; it made things better. But this is a world, remember in which freedom is tyranny and tyranny is freedom, and where giving money to rich people somehow makes poor people prosperous.

The lies presented here are both profound and obvious, egregious distortions of the past. Hensarling dismisses the #Occupy movement as somehow ungenuine, but his unsupported claims do not diminish the justified outrage of working class Americans at Wall Street, banking, and corporate misdeeds.

Hillary Clinton has dealt with the Republican cabal’s fake concern for small businesses, and President Obama has already vetoed Republican attempts to gut Wall Street reform and destroy the economy all over again for the benefit of the 1 percent.

This is more of the same song and dance we have become all too familiar with, the same tired lies of bygone years. As before, there is nothing here beyond vague Republican assurances that the Republican cabal loves us and that by deregulating wealthy corporations and banks, our beneficent masters will see to our every need.

Talk is cheap, but this sort of talk, put into action, would be very expensive indeed.

Ordinary Americans Are the Villains in Scott Walker’s Failed Journey to the White House

Public Enemies

Every Republican pretender campaign tells a story, and every story has a villain. For Donald Trump, that villain is ...

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Ted Cruz Cancels Press Conference In Order To Avoid Answering Questions About Trump

Republican pretender candidate Ted Cruz never showed up for a press conference after his speech at the 'Family' Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa because he didn’t want to answer questions about Donald Trump.

Less than a week ago, Ted Cruz was supporting Donald Trump on Meet The Press. Today, Cruz cut off a scrum with reporters when the questions turned to Trump, ditched his scheduled press conference, and now his former spokesperson is saying that Cruz wanted no part of the “Trump circus.”

The other Republican candidates were quick to pounce on Trump after he attacked John McCain’s military service record and specifically criticized McCain for getting shot down during the Vietnam War. The hypocrisy of the draft dodging Trump criticizing a former POW provided the opening that the Republican cabal has been looking for to rid themselves of the reality television star.

When asked about Trump’s comments, Cruz praised McCain’s heroism but did not denounce Trump. Ted Cruz is firmly in the middle of the Trump circus. He didn’t seem to mind buddying up to Trump when he thought that it would help to revive his struggling campaign.

Cruz is showing the kind of leader that he really is. When the questions get tough, Ted cuts off the media and runs for cover. Ted Cruz doesn’t want to talk about Donald Trump, and he does not want to have to answer questions about his support for Trump.

If Cruz can’t handle a few media questions about Donald Trump, he definitely doesn’t have what it takes to be president.

Huffington Post Moves Coverage of Donald Trump from Politics to Entertainment

We have been talking about the Republican clown car for years, but Huffington Post has actually decided to “fire” Donald Trump and his “campaign,” as they refer to it in A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump’s ‘Campaign’ yesterday, from news to entertainment.

This is their reasoning:

After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for pretender, we have decided we won’t report on Trump’s campaign as part of the Huffington Post’s political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.

This was posted to Huffington Politics. If they are serious, this should be the last mention we should see there of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump posted his response on Facebook, in the third person of course:

Donald J. Trump Response to Huffington Post

Mr. Trump is number one in the unimportant Huffington Post poll, along with all other recently released polls including Reuters, FOX, USA Today/Suffolk University and The Economist.

Mr. Trump is in first place in Nevada, where he is also number one, by a wide margin, with Hispanics. He is number one in North Carolina and expects to win Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mr. Trump singlehandedly raised the issue of illegal immigration and started a national conversation about what has turned out to be one of the most important topics of this election cycle.

Likewise, Mr. Trump is the leader on issues such as the terrible United States trade deals, strengthening our military, taking care of our great Vets and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

If you read previously written Tweets, Mr. Trump has never been a fan of Arianna Huffington or the money-losing Huffington Post.

The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source. Mr. Trump is not focused on being covered by a glorified blog. He is focused on Making America Great Again.

The Donald is typically full of himself, giving himself credit where it is not due – he can hardly claim to have begun the immigration debate, the discourse on bad trade deals, or, alternatives to Obamacare – but this is how the man is. He is not the first politician of either party to be full of himself. He’s just the most obnoxious.

And this is how HuffPo responded to Trump’s response:

So Trump is right up there with a sparkling Britney.

While this development is amusing, how is it that Huffington Post can separate Trump’s campaign from those of other Republican candidates who are equally “sideshows”? They won’t take the bait where Trump is concerned, but they take Ted Cruz seriously? Or Jeb Bush? Rick Santorum, for all his craziness, has never been relegated to the Entertainment section.

Even Sarah Palin, perhaps the ultimate in Republican clown shows, was never put in the Entertainment section – not even when she praised Donald Trump in June. That news also appeared in Huffington Politics.

If Trump is Entertainment, then all Republican politics for years has been Entertainment. After all, his extremism is merely the culmination of years of work by various Republican demagogues. Where do we draw the line?

There are various other reasons to object to what Huffington Post has done. For one thing, Trump is polling at the top, not the bottom of the polls. It seems to be a very serious campaign indeed. Whatever Trump really believes, the Republican base believes in him, and it is the Republican base who will be voting in the primaries, not news organizations.

Fox News cites “Rich Noyes, research director at the wingnut Media Research Center,” who “said the decision on a candidate’s legitimacy should be up to voters, not the media.”

And however much a joke we might consider him because of his loud, buffoonish behavior, Trump scares the bejeesus out of the Republican cabal. And we liberals and independents must avoid the temptation, like Republicans, to dump reality when we don’t find it lining up with our preconceptions.

David Corn at Mother Jones has voiced another valid objection. He says that “to exile Trump to the realm of the Kardashians is to let the Republican cabal off the hook too easily”:

Trump poses a crisis for his party. It may be entertaining for the Democrats to watch. But this crisis is not transpiring in TMZ-land. It’s what the Republican cabal has brought upon itself. Here is the ROI on the Republican cabal’s extreme politics.

Then too, if Trump can be sent to the Entertainment section, how about other candidates a media outlet might not like? The corporate media could as easily decide Democratic candidates are not to be taken seriously.

As moves go, HuffPo’s is not the most sensible one.

Humans have shaped their reality for thousands of years in various ways, but anyone serious about understanding it has taken the task of cataloging and defining that reality very seriously. Charles Darwin had to deal with the inconvenient reality of the platypus and we have to deal with Donald Trump. The platypus turned out to be a mammal, once we were able to sequence its genes, and is hardly the terror to evolutionists creationists might claim.

The creationists pretend the platypus’ genome has not been sequenced to make their argument against evolution. Huffington Post also rejects evolution – the evolution of Republican politics. It can, but refuses to, sequence Trump’s ideological genes in order to find his evolutionary niche.

Huffington Post says it will not take @realDonaldTrump seriously, but at this point, is there any reason to take Arianna Huffington seriously? Even Fox News, which I think we all agree is not real news, has not relegated candidates it does not approve of to the Entertainment section.

Donald Trump continues war of words with John McCain: ‘He’s only a war hero because he was captured’

Watch Donald Trump continue war of words with John McCain: ‘He’s only a war hero because he was captured’

Fox Hacks Circle Their Wagons Around Walker, Attack Unions

So, just how well is Walker's attacks on unions working out anyway?

Marco Rubio Forgot About Osama Bin Laden

While speaking at the 'Family' Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa Saturday morning, Marco Rubio got some of his best responses from the wingnut audience when he talked about national security and torture.

While fielding a question about torture from a member of the crowd, Rubio said President Obama “was not arresting terrorists.” Interviewer Frank Lunz asked Rubio if he thought the president was soft on terrorism and Rubio hedged, opting instead to talk about the war on terror.

Rubio spoke out against enhanced interrogation techniques, but said the United States should not publicize those methods because it would give terrorists chance to practice for them. He also said the United States should do what it takes to terrorists out of circulation.

Stay tuned for more from Iowa.

So About That Doctored Planned Parenthood Video...

Guess who already knew about it?

‘Medical Group’ Behind Planned Parenthood ‘Sting’ Is A Fake Front Group

And They Lied To The IRS

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!”
Read more 

Birth of A Scandal ...

You Won’t Believe How Easily This Bull Shit Becomes Wingnut ‘Truth’

Take a 1/4 teaspoon of truth, add 3 pieces of misinformation, 1 unrelated topic and a bushel of lies and you have this ridiculous wingnut “scandal.”

Read full story

Reddit Fail

Reddit's new content policy allows racist and sexist communities to continue to exist

***

Reddit fails miserably to curb bigotry for all their haughty speeches about doing just that

Mass Graves Discovered In Texas

The Killing Fields, the Holocaust, the tragedies of Chechnya, Hue, Sooriyakanda, Duraiappa stadium, these are just some names associated with mass graves...

State Claims Nothing To See Here

Sheriff In Sandra Bland Case Was Fired For Misconduct From Previous Job

 

He was fired because he and members of his department had engaged in racially biased behavior and police brutality.

***

In related news:

Texas trooper who arrested Sandra Bland violated police policies: investigators

Bad Cops

Texas Police Chief Used Authority To Solicit And Stalk Teenage Girls

According to a search warrant issued in Ellis County, Texas, Maypearl Police Chief Kevin Coffey used the power of his office to solicit, stalk and harass...

The Real Connection Between Broken Windows And Urban Crime

It's not what we've always heard.

Religio-Wingnut Shrieking Heads Long For The Days When People Were Too Poor To Be Gay

Iowa hate speech radio hack Steve Deace invited Florida religio-wingnut agitator John Stemberger onto his hate speech spew-fest  to push back against wingnuts who are arguing that the government should just get out of marriage altogether after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, which Ste... MORE

More of the snakes eating themselves

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Were Republicans really the party of civil rights in the 1960s?

Nope and here's why...

by Harry J Enten

Civil rights protestors are attacked with a water cannon.

With Republicans having trouble with minorities, some like to point out that the party has a long history of standing up for civil rights compared to Democrats. Democrats, for example, were less likely to vote for the civil rights bills of the 1950s and 1960s. Democrats were more likely to filibuster. Yet, a closer look at the voting coalitions suggests a more complicated picture that ultimately explains why Republicans are not viewed as the party of civil rights.

Let's use the 1964 Civil Rights Act as our focal point. It was arguably the most important of the many civil rights bills passed in the middle part of the 20th century. It outlawed many types of racial and sexual discrimination, including access to hotels, restaurants, and theaters. In the words of Vice President Biden, it was a big "f-ing deal".

When we look at the party vote in both houses of Congress, it fits the historical pattern. Republicans are more in favor of the bill:

80% of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the bill. Less than 70% of Democrats did. Indeed, Minority Leader Republican Everett Dirksen led the fight to end the filibuster. Meanwhile, Democrats such as Richard Russell of Georgia and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina tried as hard as they could to sustain a filibuster. Of course, it was also Democrats who helped usher the bill through the House, Senate, and ultimately a Democratic president who signed it into law. The bill wouldn't have passed without the support of Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, a Democrat. Majority Whip Hubert Humphrey, who basically split the Democratic party in two with his 1948 Democratic National Convention speech calling for equal rights for all, kept tabs on individual members to ensure the bill had the numbers to overcome the filibuster.

Put another way, party affiliation seems to be somewhat predictive, but something seems to be missing. So, what factor did best predicting voting?

You don't need to know too much history to understand that the South from the civil war to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tended to be opposed to minority rights. This factor was separate from party identification or ideology. We can easily control for this variable by breaking up the voting by those states that were part of the confederacy and those that were not.

You can see that geography was far more predictive of voting coalitions on the Civil Rights than party affiliation. What linked Dirksen and Mansfield was the fact that they weren't from the south. In fact, 90% of members of Congress from states (or territories) that were part of the Union voted in favor of the act, while less than 10% of members of Congress from the old Confederate states voted for it. This 80pt difference between regions is far greater than the 15pt difference between parties. But what happens when we control for both party affiliation and region? As Sean Trende noted earlier this year, "sometimes relationships become apparent only after you control for other factors".

In this case, it becomes clear that Democrats in the north and the south were more likely to vote for the bill than Republicans in the north and south respectively. This difference in both houses is statistically significant with over 95% confidence. It just so happened southerners made up a larger percentage of the Democratic than Republican caucus, which created the initial impression than Republicans were more in favor of the act.Nearly 100% of Union state Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act compared to 85% of Republicans. None of the southern Republicans voted for the bill, while a small percentage of southern Democrats did.

The same pattern holds true when looking at ideology instead of party affiliation. The folks over at Voteview.com, who created DW-nominate scores to measure the ideology of congressmen and senators, found that the more liberal a congressman or senator was the more likely he would vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, once one controlled for a factor closely linked to geography.

That's why Strom Thurmond left the Democratic party soon after the Civil Right Act passed. He recognized that of the two parties, it was the Republican party that was more hospitable to his message. The Republican candidate for president in 1964, Barry Goldwater, was one of the few non-Confederate state senators to vote against the bill. He carried his home state of Arizona and swept the deep southern states – a first for a Republican ever.

Now, it wasn't that the Civil Rights Act was what turned the South against the Democrats or minorities against Republicans. Those patterns, as Trende showed, had been developing for a while. It was, however, a manifestation of these growing coalitions. The South gradually became home to the conservative party, while the north became home to the liberal party.

Today, the transformation is nearly complete. President Obama carried only 18% of former Confederate states, while taking 62% of non-Confederate states in 2012. Only 27% of southern senators are Democrats, while 62% of Union state senators are Democrats. And 29% of southern members in the House are Democrats compared to 54% in states or territories that were part of the Union.

Thus, it seems to me that minorities have a pretty good idea of what they are doing when joining the Democratic party. They recognize that the Democratic party of today looks and sounds a lot more like the Democratic party of the North that with near unity passed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 than the southern Democrats of the era who blocked it, and today would, like Strom Thurmond, likely be Republicans.

Maine Legislature Rejects 65 Botched Vetoes From Asshat LePage Forcing Likely Court Showdown

The Maine House and Senate each rejected 65 vetoes sent to them from Republican moron Paul LePage on Thursday, forcing a probable showdown in the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat, and Senate President Michael Thibodeau, a Republican, both refused to consider the vetoes, because LePage held the bills for over ten days without acting on them. LePage initially was attempting to “pocket veto” much of the legislation, but the law only allows pocket vetoes when the legislature adjourns.

However, LePage was unwilling to admit his procedural error and instead double downed insisting that lawmakers should bend to his imperial dictates rather than follow Maine law. Now LePage will have to hope the courts agree with his twisted interpretation of the governor’s powers, because the legislature clearly does not.

House Speaker Mark Eves declared the moron’s behavior as out of order, and flatly rejected the vetoes, stating:

You cannot veto a law. This legislation is already law, in accordance with the Constitution, history and precedent. The governor’s veto attempts are out of order and in error. He missed the deadline to veto the bills.

If the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sides with the legislature, LePage’s strategy will backfire as one of the most cataclysmic blunders in government history. 65 pieces of legislation that LePage opposes may have become law, because the teabagger moron can’t abide by the correct process for vetoing legislation he is against.

LePage has proven time and again that he is either too arrogant or too foolish to serve as governor of his state. He has repeatedly attempted to bully lawmakers, but on July 16th they may have exacted their payback. Dozens of bills that LePage opposed are now law, unless Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court decides to side with the moron by choosing to overturn those laws. Unless the court is unusually partisan, there is no reason to expect that they will rule in the moron’s favor.

Liberals Roar As Bernie Sanders Joins Elizabeth Warren On Bill To Reinstate Glass-Steagall

Two of the most prominent liberals in the Senate have joined forces to take on the big banks as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has announced that he is teaming up with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to co-sponsor her bill that would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.

In a statement, Sanders said:

I strongly support Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bill to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.

On July 1, 1999, while Congress was voting on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to permit commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to merge, then-Rep. Sanders said: “I believe this legislation, in its current form, will do more harm than good. It will lead to fewer banks and financial service providers; increased charges and fees for individual consumers and small businesses; diminished credit for rural America; and taxpayer exposure to potential losses should a financial conglomerate fail. It will lead to more mega-mergers; a small number of corporations dominating the financial service industry; and further concentration of economic power in our country.”

Allowing commercial banks to merge with investment banks and insurance companies in 1999 was a huge mistake. It precipitated the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. It caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college. It substantially increased wealth and income inequality and it led to the enormous concentration of economic power in this country.

I am proud to have led the fight in the House against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. Sixteen years ago, I predicted that such a massive deregulation of the financial services industry would seriously harm the economy. I would give anything to have been proven wrong about this but unfortunately what happened seven years ago was even worse than I predicted.

Today, not only must we reinstate this important law, but if we are truly serious about ending too big to fail, we have got to break up the largest financial institutions in this country. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

The legislation to reinstate Glass-Steagall was introduced by Democratic Senators Warren and Cantwell (D-WA) along with Republican John McCain earlier this month. At the time, Warren said, “Despite the progress we’ve made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy. The biggest banks are collectively much larger than they were before the crisis, and they continue to engage in dangerous practices that could once again crash our economy. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking and make our financial system more stable and secure.”

It is at this point that the obvious must be stated. Despite the support of McCain, Senate Republicans are going to squash this bill. However, the point of this legislation isn’t passage. Congressional liberals have quickly become experts as using their minority status to introduce publicly popular legislation that raises the profile of important issues while putting Republicans on the hot seat by forcing them to defend positions that place them in opposition to a majority of the public.

The judging of proposed legislation based on odds of passage promotes a myopic view that ignores long-term goals and the big picture. Liberals are trying to change the public discussion on issues like the big banks and financial reform, but to begin that conversation the public must have the opportunity to become aware and informed.

Republicans thrive when voters and constituents are uninformed.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall was signed into law by President Clinton, who has continued to defend his deregulation. Glass-Steagall could be a thorny issue for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic primary campaign trail. The post-Great Recession era is not the go-go 90s. Senate liberals are fighting to keep the country from repeating the economic mistakes of the recent past.