Let’s Take Them Up On Their Challenge To Choose Between Liberal And Wingnut Women

by Charles Topher 

It’s no secret that wingnuts are shallow, misogynist creatures who put very little value in women. The Republican cabal is allowed to continue its war on women’s healthcare rights while ignoring calls for wage equality because their base won’t penalize them for considering women “less than.”
Nowhere is this fact more true than on social media, where memes like the one below show exactly what wingnuts value about women:

To compare a group of women, most of whom wingnuts couldn’t identify if they wanted to, by their looks alone is quite possibly the dumbest thing ever conceived. We moved out of caves tens of thousands of years ago. We stopped judging women exclusively by how they look shortly thereafter.
Or, those of us with any kind of real-world sensibilities did anyway.
For the sake of argument, let’s do a three-way tag match and have a little fun with the insane logic that a book can be judged by its cover. To keep things fair, we’ll use one TV personality and two politicians from each side and have ourselves a little side-by-side comparison.

Round 1 – Janet Napolitano Vs. Sarah Palin, both former governors.

Janet Napolitano is a graduate of Santa Clara University with a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia. She served as US Attorney for the district of Arizona and Arizona’s Attorney General before being elected governor of Arizona, serving from 2003 to 2009. She was then appointed Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013 and has since served as the President of the University of California. Napolitano is considered a front-runner should a seat on the US Supreme Court become vacant while a Democrat is in office.
In 2000, Napolitano spoke at the Democratic National Convention shortly after having a mastectomy. She refused to allow cancer to define her, and as a survivor has gone on to continue a brilliant career as a politician and educator.
Sarah Palin got a degree in journalism after hopscotching to four different schools in six years. She did a short stint as a sportscaster and after marrying well, helped her husband with his fishing business. After falling backwards into a career in politics as mayor of Wasilla, Palin somehow managed to get elected Governor of Alaska, but quit halfway through her term because John McCain needed a woman the base would find attractive as a running mate.
Sarah Palin has never accomplished anything of consequence, was recently let go as a commentator for Fox News, gave up on a subscription-based failure of a TV channel and got dropped from reality TV for being too boring.
In 2008 Palin winked at the crowd at the republican national coven and coined the phrase “youbetcha,” which had already been coined before.
Winner: Napolitano

Round 2 – Nancy Pelosi vs. Michele Bachmann, US House Of Representatives.

Nancy Pelosi, a Notre Dame graduate, began serving in the House in 1987. Her notable career of nearly thirty years includes a year as House minority whip and four years as Speaker Of The House from 2007-2011. She currently serves as House Minority Leader. Pelosi has stood firm on her beliefs that women should control their own healthcare choices, that religion has no place in public schools and has been vehemently opposed to any kind of military action against Iran since the Bush administration first suggested it in 2007 as the next phase of their plan to take over the oil-rich world.
Pelosi is credited with spearheading the Affordable Care Act, which has now provided healthcare to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans, as well as the federal minimum wage increase of 2007.
Michele Bachmann, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, is a nutcase. Not even her master’s degree in tax law from William and Mary can compensate for her batshit crazy religious views, which have skewered any chance she ever had of being considered a rational human being. A founding member of the now dying teabagger caucus, Bachmann has stood firm on her beliefs that women need to be regulated at every level of government to save zygotes and that schools should dump the “junk science” of evolution in favor of creationism and prayer.
Bachmann, who has never been taken seriously by anyone, also stood up for whatever financial reform the Koch brothers stood for, as long as they continued to feed her the insanity that they were doing it all for Jesus. She isn’t credited with spearheading anything of consequence other than witch hunts and wild accusations that the President was spending billions of dollars to have the entire Navy escort him to India.
Winner: Pelosi

Round 3 – Rachel Maddow vs. Dana Loesch, television personalities.

Rachel Maddow is the first openly gay recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, which helped her earn a doctorate in political philosophy from Oxford University, considered by many to be the best school in the world. A brilliant commentator, Maddow’s talents moved her through the ranks of radio, ultimately landing her with a television show that has blossomed into a bastion of liberal politics on MSNBC. Maddow’s insights have been sought after for years, and her contributions to television and radio have certainly no gone unnoticed, earning her the following awards:

• Emmy Award in the Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis category for “The Rachel Maddow Show” episode “Good Morning Landlocked Central Asia!”
• Maddow won a Gracie Award in 2009, presented by the American Women in Radio and Television.
• On March 28, 2009, Maddow received a Proclamation of Honor from the California State Senate, presented in San Francisco by California State Senator Mark Leno..
• In July 2010, Maddow was presented with a Maggie Award for her ongoing reporting of healthcare reform, the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and the anti-abortion movement.
• In August 2010, Maddow won the Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom Award, which was presented by the Interfaith Alliance. Past honorees included Larry King, Tom Brokaw, and the late Peter Jennings.
• In February 2012, Maddow was presented the John Steinbeck Award by the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University.

Maddow also earned numerous distinctions and awards for her role in the LGBT community and too many nominations for awards to list.
Dana Loesch is a college dropout who built a successful radio show on a voice wingnut men just love. A liberal that campaigned for Bill Clinton, Loesh says she became a wingnut when she became a mother because she no longer agreed with the political ideologies of liberals. That happened to coincide with her marriage to a moron Republican. After 9/11, Loesch went all the way to the “I hate muslim” lunatic fringe. After a brief stint as a commentator on CNN during a time when the network tried a move further toward the lunatic fringe, her fear mongering and hate landed her a show on The Blaze, the propaganda sellout machine of fake crier Glenn Beck. She’s received some honorable mentions from right-wing media but never won an award of consequence from anyone with any credibility.
Winner: Maddow
It seems the wingnut theory that women who present better (to some) physically makes them somehow superior is yet another side-effect of the stupidity virus that runs rampant in their circles. Memes like this degrade women for no reason and provide nothing other than a sexist point of view.

Political Corruption, Like Cream, Rises to the Top in North Carolina

Republican political corruption in North Carolina is even worse than you thought, as the Paul Foley episode reveals…

by Kevin Welos

Cream isn’t the only thing that apparently rises to the top; in North Carolina political corruption does as well.

On July 13th, the North Carolina Republican Legislature’s effort to codify voter suppression went on trial in federal court in Winston-Salem, Carolina. Before the trial began, Reverend William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP, led between 3,5000-6,000 people in a peaceful protest, part of an ongoing series of protests known as “Moral Monday”. Rev. Barber called the case “our Selma” because the voter ID law and its related provisions, passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, have severely limited the right to vote for most minority voters and, in some instances, disenfranchised them.

In what can only be described as a moment of true serendipity the Associated Press also broke a story about the efforts of Paul Foley a private attorney for the North Carolina Republican Party and member of the North Carolina Board of Elections, efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters in North Carolina.

Relationship not disclosed for seventeen months

The story of Paul Foley’s duplicitous nature actually began almost immediately after his appointment to the State Board of Elections. According to various media outlets, including the Charlotte News & Observer, Winston-Salem Journal and the Greensboro News & Record, shortly after Foley was appointed, he helped oversee an investigation into campaign donations made by Internet sweepstakes businessmen Chase Burns and wife. Mr. Burns and his wife made contributions of approximately $235,000 to various N.C. elected officials, including the Governor, House and Senate leaders. These contributions were all made to aid in the lobbying effort to legalize online sweepstakes gaming. Unfortunately, throughout the 17 months Mr. Foley helped oversee the investigation in to Mr. and Mrs. Burns’ contributions, he failed to mention to the Board of Elections that his law firm was paid $1.27 million by Mr. Burns and his company for legal services. Though in an extremely interesting twist, it was recently revealed by the Winston-Salem Journal that Governor Pat McCrory’s chief legal counsel, Bob Stephens, was aware of Mr. Foley’s conflict for over a year and also said nothing.

The Charlotte Observer reports that Foley “expressed strong interest in the Burns case,” and asked questions, “making it clear he thought it should be finished as quickly as possible.” Seventeen months later after the investigation began, board of elections staff members discovered that Foley’s law firm represented Mr. Burns. It was only after Mr. Foley’s conflict came to light, that he said he would recuse himself from the case. However, despite his alleged recusal, Mr. Foley continued to press the staff of the Board of Elections for information regarding the investigation into Mr. Burns’ political contributions. In fact, according to an article in The Charlotte Observer, Mr. Foley went so far as to suggest he be permitted to see the staff’s report before it became public so he could alert his law firm.

Mr. Foley made a statement on at the beginning of a state Board of Elections meeting that “At the time the law firm received the significant legal fees from IIT [Mr. Burns’ software company], I was an employee, not a partner, at the law firm. I never attempted to, and had no reason to, attempt to influence the direction or outcome of the investigation.” Mr. Foley’s dubious statement becomes even more suspicious given that Mr. Foley worked closely with at least two of the attorneys from his law firm who worked on the team for Mr. Burns. In fact, one such attorney, Richard Dietz, was described by Mr. Foley as his “best friend.” Mr. Dietz left the law firm in 2014 following an appointment by Governor McCrory to the Court of Appeals.

It should also be noted that in addition to Mr. Foley’s firm doing work for Mr. Burns’ company, Paul Foley’s wife’s firm also received payments totaling $28,000 for legal fees. While there is no indication that Mr. Foley’s wife worked with Mr. Burns, it certainly raises some questions.

While the attorney general’s office conducted an investigation and decided that Mr. Foley did not improperly influence the investigation into Mr. Burns, the office left it to other agencies to determine whether Mr. Foley was truthful in his other statements.

Voter suppression efforts proven

On Tuesday, July 14, 2015, the Associated Press, after reviewing hundreds of e-mails, reported that, in 2014, Paul Foley worked closely with the two Republican members of the Watauga County elections board to eliminate a voting site of the campus Appalachian State University. This voting site was the only site in Watagua count to vote Democratic in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and the 2012 governor’s rate.

In August, 2014 the state board unanimously voted to eliminate the voting site. Mr. Foley, again, failed to disclose to the state board his involvement with the plan to eliminate the site.

A lawsuit contesting the elimination of the voting site was brought in Wake County Superior Court by a group of Democratic voters in Watagua County. The Wake County Superior Court judge ordered that the Appalachian State University site be restored, and the board approved the reinstatement on October 24, 2014. However, in another interesting twist, the NORTH Carolina Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit to be reviewed by the North Carolina Court of Appeals; the same North Carolina Court of Appeals where “best friend” to Paul Foley, Richard Dietz was appointed by the Governor just three months earlier. The case is currently before the N.C. Court of Appeals.

Foley refuses governor’s request that he resign but later resigns

Following what can only be described as an Alexander level terrible, horrible, no good, very bad few days for Paul Foley Governor McCrory made two separate request for Foley to from the North Carolina Board of Elections. Foley, apparently not interested in falling on his sword for McCrory rebuffed both of the Governor’s calls for his resignation. Mr. Foley released a statement that he did “not believe it is appropriate for the governor to ask a member of an independent board with on-going oversight authority over him to resign.”

Later McCrory told media outlets he would take steps to have Foley removed, citing a North Carolina General Statute which allows the governor to remove “any member of a board, council or committee from office for misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance.” McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis told the Associated Press Foley’s potential conflict of interest with the Burns investigation wasn’t disclosed to the governor. A damning accusation considering the Governor’s own chief counsel was aware of said conflict for over a year. However, the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, , however, Foley sent in his resignation.

A Culture of Corruption in North Carolina

Whether the further investigation into Paul Foley’s apparent conflict of interests in both the Chase Burns investigation and the elimination of the Appalachian State voting site will show that his actions were guided by Governor McCrory, or an attempt by Mr. Foley to curry further favor with the Governor, remains to be seen. What is clear is that for Governor McCrory, it certainly pays to keep your friends close.

The one saving grace for Governor McCrory, at least for the next 17 months, is that the North Carolina Constitution contains no known provisions allowing for a recall. Until then, McCrory will need to depend on his friends in the North Carolina Legislature and Judicial systems to disenfranchise enough voters to ensure a victory in 2016.

Stewart Mocks Republicans For Being Surprised By Trump's 'Projectile Vomit Of Dickishness'

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart returned from vacation this Monday and proceeded to skewer the Donald along with the Republicans who found themselves on the receiving end of his "projectile vomit of dickishness."

Fox Lies And Tries To Blame Chris Rock For Donald Trump’s Outrageous Remarks About McCain

Bill O’Reilly 'suggested' that Donald Trump got his John McCain smear from a Chris Rock comedy routine. Only O’Reilly was not kidding. And neither was Trump.

Immigration, Where The Republican Cabal Gets The Constitution Wrong

The Republican Cabal Gets The Constitution Wrong

'We, the people' is not a phrase limited to citizens.

 Republicans do not understand the Constitution and they never have or will

This Congressional Food Fight Shows Why Republicans Vote Against Their Own Interests

Who do you think will win this food fight?
Read more 

Tehran Tom is a Douchebag

Tom Cotton blocking Obama federal court appointees hostile to his old pro-business law firm

Chicago Investigator Fired For Finding Cops At Fault In Deadly Police Brutality Cases

His last evaluation said he was not a “team player.”
Read more 

Native Lives Matter

Family Of Lakota Man Dubiously Murdered By Cops Seeks Help, Justice 

The death of a Lakota man at the hands of Denver police on July 12 is being questioned while the victim’s family struggles to pay burial costs —...

Bad Cops

Thirty-Year-Old Father Dies After Being Hogtied By Mississippi Cops 

According to multiple witnesses Mississippi police hogtied 30-year-old Troy Goode, before strapping him to a stretcher, face down. A local attorney, David...

There Be Idiots In Texas ...

Texas Republican: Hospitals are dangerous -- so everyone there should be able to carry guns into them

‘Cancer is a fungus’ Republican threatens Nevada inspectors looking at her home healthcare business

‘Cancer is a fungus’ Republican threatens Nevada inspectors looking at her home healthcare business

Nevada moron Michele Fiore (R) is refusing to allow state inspectors to review her books and faces having her license to operate revoked.

White Supremacists Define ‘5 Types Of Liberal White Men,’ A Must Read Cluster Of Stupid

To see inside the shallow little minds of the ignorant and how they define a “white liberal man” is nothing short of comical.

Read full story 

Anti-Gay Religio-Wingnuts Lose Their Minds Over Story From Fake News Site

For the last few weeks, rabidly anti-gay religio-wingnuts have been losing their minds over a story...

Anti-Gay Religio-Wingnuts Are Idiots

Everything You Need To Know About The Anti-Choice Cabals Trying To Discredit Planned Parenthood

The 'controversy' takes on a different tone when you consider the source of the inflammatory claims.

On The Front Lines Of The 'Christian' Fascists' War To Force Birth

This will not be nice. This will not be polite. This is not safe for work. This will get loud.

The Daily Drift

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

 

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Is The American Century Over?

In "Is The American Century Over?" Joseph S. Nye, Jr. takes an objective look at the idea of an American century and the claim that it is over…

To listen to Republicans, the United States of America has fallen on hard times. Game over, some of them say. Whether it is because “dog had withdrawn his mantle of protection” or because Democrats refuse to fight the endless wars Republicans feel necessary to prove America is the toughest kid in the neighborhood, those who see any hope at all see it in only dog or wingnuttery.

In “Is The American Century Over?” foreign policy analyst Joseph S. Nye, Jr. looks at the question of American dominance. In doing so, he examines not only what this dominance means, when it might have begun, and when decline might have set in, but he looks at America’s neighbors, and likely successors to America’s pre-eminent position since the fall of the Soviet Union.

China, a Donald Trump bogeyman, is often held up to be America’s biggest challenger, but Nye points out that right as the Soviet Union was about to collapse, books were comparing America’s situation to that of Phillip II’s Spain, which is to say, things were about to go downhill very rapidly indeed. Instead, the Soviet Union collapsed, and America became the world’s only superpower.

Apparently, things are not as simple as they seem. First of all, when did the American century begin? (There is no agreement). When did the decline begin? (Again, there is no agreement). How do you define decline? What sorts of power are we talking about? And is power absolute or is it more a relative thing, in balance with the other countries of the world? Donald Trump, like all totalitarian demagogues, likes simple problems and answers, but Nye shows the world to be a very complex thing indeed.

As it turns out, there are different sorts of power. The very terminology we use to define and understand the world bedevils us, as is often the case. “Hegemony,” Nye tells us, is a misleading term, and points out that, “there is no general agreement on how much inequality and what types of power sources constitute hegemony.” If so, we should hardly be tossing such a loaded term around, let alone comparing it to another loaded term, “imperial,” because “a formal empire is not a requirement for hegemony.” Has America imposed its system on the world, or has it invited others in? The answer is by no means clear.

Besides, the largest countries in the world have never been members of whatever it is we are talking about, limiting the extent to which we can talk of hegemony at all. Hegemony, Nye decides, is not a useful term because it is too imprecise. And you begin to see now just how difficult a topic this is. We must first define the “American Century” if we are to understand whether or not it is in decline.

But not so fast! What is “decline”? Is it another ambiguous word and encompasses not only a loss of external power, but domestic decay (think Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire if you’re pressed for examples). Nye calls the first “relative” decline and the latter, “absolute” decline.

Nye – who talks about pop psychology and geo- and partisan politics, two of which are more about perception than absolutes – draws on other examples from history’s other empires, Venice, Portugal, Netherlands, Britain, and Spain – even Rome. You can have external loss of power yet, like Venice, flourish domestically. If America is in decline, what kind of decline are we experiencing?

America could be in absolute decline (you definitely get this idea from the Religious Right) or in relative decline “because of the rise of others.” In other words, even though no single country might become more powerful than the United States, we might decline because we are no longer pre-eminent and are unable to continue the American order, however that might be defined.

Nye looks at the most likely candidates, including, of course, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, India, and Brazil. There are many factors to consider and Nye looks at them all. He devotes one full chapter to China (and I won’t give away any details here) before moving on to ask the big question: is America like Rome.

I have always found comparisons to Rome weak. Rome declined for far longer than America has even existed. We have not earned the right to compare ourselves to Rome. When we have inspired some far distant generation to create a nation of liberty, then we can talk about a comparison to Rome.

However, Nye dispassionately examines the subject, as he does all others, looking carefully at our society and culture (and our culture wars) and, of course, the economy, as well as our political institutions.

It becomes apparent as you read this book that it is careless and self-serving for ideologues and religious fanatics to bandy about talk of America’s decline and fall. It says a great deal more about their purposes than America’s situation.

Which only goes to show how useful and important books like this are. Fortunately, this is not a daunting tome of many hundreds of pages, but a slim volume of only 146, including notes and suggestions for further reading. If you want to understand America’s place in the world, and possible futures, this book is essential reading.

The Atlantic Bluefish Could Be A Glimpse Into How Effective Mercury Pollution Regulations Are

A new study shows a significant decrease in mercury levels for Atlantic bluefish -- and indication that restrictions on coal emissions are working.

Members Of Congress Introduce Largest Minimum Wage Hike Yet

On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison (MN), Raúl Grijalva (AZ) will propose a federal minimum wage increase to the level demanded by fast food activists.

Bernie Sanders Delivers A Lone Star Smash As 13,200 Supporters Rock Texas Swing

The myth that America is made up of only red and blue was smashed by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who drew 13,200 supporters during two campaign stops in Republican-dominated Texas.

Via a statement from the Sanders campaign:

There was another big Texas turnout Sunday evening for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders who brought his Democratic Party presidential campaign to a packed arena at the University of Houston hours after an even bigger mid-day rally in Dallas.

A crowd of some 5,200 pumped-up, mostly-young people filled the university arena here. Earlier in the day, another 8,000 Texans packed a Dallas hotel.

…..

And here in Houston, Sanders brought up the death last Monday of Sandra Bland, a young African-American woman found dead in her Waller County jail cell 60 miles northwest of Houston. The 28-year-old from suburban Chicago had been arrested July 10 after a routine traffic stop. The medical examiner said her death was a suicide. Bland’s family disputes the finding.

“I wish that in the year 2015, I could tell you that we have eliminated racism in our country but you all know that is not true,” Sanders said.

In citing the death of Bland, Sanders also mentioned other recent deaths of African-Americans in police custody. Eric Garner died one year ago after a New York City a police officer put him in a chokehold. Freddie Gray was a 25-year-old African-American who died last April while being transported in a Baltimore Police van. Tamir Rice was 12 years old when he was shot and killed in 2014 by two police officers in Cleveland, Ohio.

“These are the cases that you have heard about recently but anyone who thinks this has not been going on decade after decade would be very wrong,” Sanders said. “It is unacceptable that police officers beat up people or kill people. If they do that, they have got to be held accountable.”

After the debacle at Netroots Nation, (which more people need to be discussing how the event was so poorly organized and out of control as to allow hecklers to take the stage and seize the microphone. Netroots organizers are lucky that the people involved were Black Lives Matter and not someone intent on harming a presidential candidate), it was good to see Sanders mention the issue of police brutality and the targeting of African-Americans in his remarks.

What the huge crowds in Texas demonstrated was that there are plenty of liberals and Democrats in red states like Texas, who honestly tend to be ignored by the Democratic Party. It isn’t fair to assume that a state like Texas is all Republican and downplay needs of liberals and Democrats in the state.

Bernie Sanders took his message to the heart of the Republican-misled territory, and tens of thousands came out to see him. Democrats may not be able to turn the state blue yet, but the crowds for Sanders were encouraging.

The message from the Sanders events is that if Democrats campaign there, they will come.

Bernie Sanders Raises $800,000 Off Of Martin O’Malley Super PAC Ad Attacking Him

Bernie Sanders took negative super PAC ad attacking him and turned it into $800,000 in campaign donations.

The Boston Globe reported:

On June 25 a super PAC linked to former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, another declared Democratic candidate, spent about $10,000 on online ads critical of Sanders’ record on gun control, which is, for a Democrat, notably friendly to gun owners.

Sanders’ team fought back, using the same rhetoric that Warren so effectively employs against her many critics: Frame the attack as an assault on the progressive movement and raise buckets of cash off of it.

The day after the ads began, Sanders’ campaign blasted an e-mail to supporters requesting help. Within 48 hours they’d raised more than $800,000, according to a source familiar with his fund-raising.

What the super PAC supporting Martin O’Malley quickly found out was that attacking Bernie Sanders makes him stronger. Hillary Clinton has the right strategy. Clinton respects Sen. Sanders and his supporters. Her campaign has said only nice things about Sanders. A few of Clinton’s supporters, namely Sen. Claire McCaskill, tried to attack Sanders, but their efforts have gone as well as the O’Malley supporting super PAC ad.

Bernie Sanders is running a grassroots insurgency campaign that by nature will only grow stronger if it is attacked through negative campaigning. The O’Malley campaign made the decision to go negative early because they appear to have been caught off guard by the quick rise of Sanders.

O’Malley has found his campaign turned into an afterthought that has been washed out to sea by the tidal wave of populist support for Bernie Sanders.

For years, a key theme for Sanders has been undoing Citizens United. Attacking Bernie Sanders with a super PAC ad played into his strengths. Any super PAC that tries to take down Sanders should expect their efforts to completely backfire.

Poll Finds That If Trump Runs As An Independent, Democrats Will Win In A Landslide

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that if Donald Trump follows through on his threats to run as an Independent, he will be handing the White House to the Democratic nominee.

According to ABC News:

In a general election trial heat, Clinton leads Bush, the Republican cabal fundraising leader, by a slight 50-44 percent among registered voters. But with Trump as an independent candidate that goes to 46-30-20 percent, Clinton-Bush-Trump – with Trump drawing support disproportionately from Bush, turning a 6-point Clinton advantage into 16 points.

Trump’s support in this three-way matchup was 21 percent from Thursday to Saturday, vs. 13 percent in Sunday interviews.

Donald Trump support did drop in the national poll after he attacked John McCain, but a Trump third-party candidacy could set up a reply of the 1992 presidential election. 2016 could feature a Clinton, a Bush, and a crazy rich guy running as an Independent.

The Republican cabal will already begin 2016 in a big Electoral College hole. Statistically speaking, the Republican cabal will already require a dramatic shift in the electorate to win the White House. A Trump third-party candidacy of modest popularity would make the election non-stealable for the Republican nominee.

Donald Trump is not a serious threat to win the Republican nomination, but if he stays in the upper tier of candidates through the early primaries, Trump and his ego could launch an independent bid for the White House.

Some Republicans already believe that Trump is a Democratic plant that has been sent to destroy their cabal, but Republicans created Trump as a political entity, and it would only be right if he ended up costing them any chance of stealing the White House.

Bad News Republicans: Donald Trump’s More Popular In Iowa After He Attacked John McCain

The Republican cabal’s attempts to stop Donald Trump are doing nothing in Iowa as the bigoted billionaire has seen his approval rating increase after his attack on John McCain.

According to a new Monmouth University poll of Iowa:

Trump’s statement about John McCain’s status as a war hero, made Saturday morning at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, IA, generated almost universal backlash from his rivals but does not seem to have had an immediate impact on his support among Hawkeye State Republicans. In interviews conducted Thursday and Friday, Trump garnered 13% of the vote to 19% for Walker. This is only slightly different than results from the Saturday and Sunday interviews, which put Trump at 13% to 25%
for Walker.

….

Donald Trump holds a positive 47% favorable to 35% unfavorable rating, which is better than the 40% favorable to 41% unfavorable rating he received from national Republicans last week. He has higher favorable ratings among very conservative caucusgoers (55%) than he does among somewhat conservative (41%) and moderate to liberal (37%) Iowa Republicans. He also has higher favorability ratings among Tea Party supporters (56%) compared to non-supporters (39%) and among men (51%) compared to women (41%).

In other words, the people who support Trump don’t like McCain and they are probably going to continue supporting the reality television personality no matter what the media and the Republican cabal say.

Trump is playing into the Republican myth of the tough talker by refusing to apologize to McCain. Trump is on a demented ego trip, but he is speaking the language of a segment of the Republican cabal that abandoned reality years ago. The Republican plan to use his remarks about McCain to rid themselves of Donald Trump could be backfiring.

Republicans may have picked the wrong Senator to serve as their victim. McCain has long been distrusted and disliked by wingnuts. John McCain is viewed in some corners of the political world as more a media creation than a beloved public figure. It turns out that the right-wingnuts are so crazy that attacking McCain  made Trump more popular.

Donald Trump may very well destroy the Republican cabal - and that would be a good thing.

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy Of The Republican Freak Out About John McCain, In One Letter

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy Of The Republican Freak Out About John McCain, In One Letter

Time To Stop Treating Jeb As A Serious Candidate As He Dips to 7 Percent In Iowa Poll

A Monmouth Poll released on Monday July 20, 2015, finds Jeb  is polling just 7 percent with likely Iowa Republican caucus voters. At 7 percent support, jeb is in a distant fourth place, tied with Texas' ididiot Ted Cruz. Jeb trails Wisconsin's moron Scott Walker (22 percent), lunatic Donald Trump (13 percent) and wack-job Ben Carson (8 percent).

While Jeb’s fourth place standing should be concerning enough for his campaign, it may understate how much trouble the reptile faces ahead in Iowa. Of the 17 Republican candidates polled, Jeb is one of only 5 who are viewed unfavorably by Iowa Republicans.

The other Republican cabal candidates who Iowa Republicans dislike are former New York's loon George Pataki, Virginia's cazy Jim Gilmore, South Carolina's insane Lindsey Graham, and New Jersey's buffoon Chris Christie. With the possible exception of Chris Christie, none of those individuals are viewed by the media as having any chance whatsoever of winning the Republican nomination, much less a general election.

Just 6 percent of Iowa Republican caucus voters rate Jeb as their second choice, meaning that even if one of the current leaders fades, Jeb is unlikely to be the candidate who benefits. Iowa Republicans are more likely to support  batshit Ted Cruz, Florida's pendejo Marco Rubio or even Lousiana's clown Bobby Jindal as their back up choice, before they would be willing to back Jeb.

Jeb’s national standing with Republican voters is not quite as dismal as his position is with Iowa Republicans. Nationally, Jeb has a lukewarm 50 percent favorable to 30 percent unfavorable rating with Republican cabal voters. In Iowa, he is underwater with just 40 percent of Republicans rating him favorably to 42 percent who view him negatively.

Nevertheless, if Jeb flounders out of the gate and finishes outside the top three candidates in Iowa, his already flimsy support nationally may evaporate further. Ambivalent Jeb supporters will undoubtedly jump onto the bandwagons of other candidates who have more momentum and who speak passionately on the issues that mobilize wingnuts.

The media has long treated Jeb like the implicit front-runner in the Republican race, or at the very least, they have lumped him in with the top two or three “serious candidates.” However, as Jeb continues to hemorrhage support in Iowa, it may be time to re-evaluate the tendency to view Jeb as a serious candidate. Based on the polling numbers in Iowa, Jeb is looking more and more like a fringe candidate whose family name can’t save him from sinking into irrelevancy.

Illinois Newspaper Crushes Kirk’s Moderate Reputation By Calling Him A Loud-Mouthed Radical

A local newspaper lashed out at Kirk's extreme rhetoric on the Iran deal, calling him the love child of Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz.…

In a blistering editorial, The Southern Illinoisan newspaper’s editorial board crushed Republican Mark Kirk’s 'moderate' reputation, by calling him out as a ”loud-mouthed radical who’s hoping to overrun the cabal of Lincoln with anger and spin.” The editorial was unsparing in its criticism of Illinois’ Junior moron, lashing out at him for his “irresponsible drivel” on the Iran deal.

Kirk, who is already under fire for a series of racist and sexist remarks made earlier this year, has sunken to a new low according to The Southern Illinoisan editorial board, for equating Obama’s multilateral Iran agreement with appeasing Hitler. Kirk has engaged in reckless hyperbole, claiming Obama wants to give Iran nukes. He argues implausibly that the president will be responsible for “tens of thousands” of deaths in the Middle East when the deal ends ”with a mushroom cloud somewhere near Teheran.”

Raising the specter of nuclear war is a favorite Republican cabal scare tactic. In the run up to the Iraq War, then republican cabal Pretender the shrub warned we must invade Iraq, arguing:

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Mark Kirk, however, is supposed to be a different kind of Republican. The mainstream media loves to attach the “moderate” label to Kirk, and he was all too happy to portray himself as a reasonable centrist during his 2010 campaign in traditionally left-leaning Illinois. He has been afforded the courtesy of being called a moderate for over a decade, even though his voting record hardly suggests he deserves that label. After all, even in 2002, as a member of the U.S. House, he fully supported the shrub’s Iraq War resolution.

Fortunately, as the Illinois idiot descends deeper and deeper into nihilistic teabagger madness, even the press is turning on him and discarding the inappropriate moderate tag. The Southern Illinoisan has clearly lost patience with their Republican reptile, as evidenced by this searing but accurate paragraph:

This, folks, is what Illinois has sent to the U.S. Senate. Illinoisans thought they elected a center-right fiscal conservative. They instead got the love child of Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz, a man more concerned with making a name within his cabal’s lunatic fringe than representing his constituents. And Kirk’s erratic, self-isolating behavior only hurts the state he’s supposed to represent.

Mark Kirk has been exposed for being the wingnut fraud that he is. However, his fall from grace follows a familiar pattern of Republican candidates running as “moderates” in blue states and swing states, only to transform into wingnut radicals the minute they are given a taste of power. Kirk, like Michigan moron Rick Snyder, Ohio idiot John Kasich and New Hampshire reptile Kelly Ayotte, is anything but moderate. His recent unhinged and apocalyptic rhetoric on the Iran agreement merely underscores just how dangerously radical he and the entire Republican cabal has become. Thank goodness people are finally paying attention.

Liar And Not-A-Scientist Boehner Blames California Drought On President Obama

Republicans thrive on the increasing stupidity of a few Americans and they have learned exactly how to address their ignorant base…

John Boehner Stupid and Lying

Regardless of how much affection one has, or wants to have, for their fellow citizens, it is affection tempered with disbelief that fundamentally decent people are so mentally challenged to the point of being downright stupid. A point that often arises during semi-academic discussions about the dearth of intelligence in the American population is “thank dog politicians aren’t cognitively deficient like the people they have to govern.” However, politicians on the lunatic fringe, specifically Republicans, thrive on the increasing stupidity of a few Americans and they have learned exactly how to address their ignorant base; make incredibly stupid remarks and lie profusely.

Now, regarding the role that anthropogenic climate change plays in the historically vicious drought plaguing the Western and Southwestern United States, Boehner demurs to Koch ideology and claims “I’m  not a scientist.” Fair enough. But not only is Boehner not a scientist, as a decades-long educator it is safe to say Boehner either never finished the third grade, or he is a filthy liar. What Boehner is acutely aware of is that if he really wants to connect with a particularly stupid segment of the population all he has to do is make a remark that only a four year old feral child would begin to believe is true.

This week Boehner took a page out of another House Republican’s (Jeff Denham (CA)) campaign lies, and categorically stated that President Barack Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency, and California environmentalists are responsible for California’s historic drought. Boehner, or Denham for that matter, have not yet blamed the President, EPA, or California environmentalists for the same drought plaguing Nevada, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Oregon and other West and Southwestern states because the Koch brothers are only targeting California’s environmental regulations; environmental regulations that have no impact on the amount of rain or snow falling out of the sky. For the record, any American with a brain bigger than a molecule understands that a “drought is a prolonged period of abnormally low atmospheric precipitation and the shortage of water resulting from this.” For the cognitively challenged, atmospheric precipitation is two of those big words for rain or snow; something Barack Obama, the E.P.A., or California environmentalists have no control over.

According to real scientists, California’s worst drought in over 1,200 years is not caused by environmentalists, or Californians struggling to save what little water the state has left. No, real actual scientists have explained for the duration of the drought that the only impact man has on the drought is burning fossil fuels that cause anthropogenic climate change. In fact, climate change is solely responsible for the “lack of atmospheric precipitation” and the record high temperatures are exacerbating the drought as well as “tripled the chances of the current weather pattern (no rain/snow = drought) continuing indefinitely; according to the National Science Foundation.

Apparently, what incited Boehner to act stupider than his base and feign outrage is that Californians are being urged not to maintain their water-intensive green lawns during the historically epic drought. On his Facebook page Boehner posted: “If ever there was a phrase that perfectly encapsulates liberal environmentalists’ backwards priorities and regressive ideology of restriction and scarcity, it is the one now displayed on a government sign in Arcadia, California: “It’s ‘green’ to go brown.” Boehner then provides a link boasting about what “the Koch Congress is doing to end President Obama’s man-made water shortage in the West.” To beat a dead horse, California’s, and the entire Western and Southwestern United States’,  water shortage is because there is no precipitation falling from the sky caused by man-made global warming.

Republicans in the House just passed a typically meaningless Koch bill that blames the Administration’s environmental policies for causing California’s historic drought, and specifically lambasted California’s policies conserve water and protect crucial rivers and endangered fish species. The environmental policies have been in effect for decades, including during times of severe flooding and higher-than-normal rain and snow fall. Republicans have regularly attacked the state’s environmental policies during periods of record precipitation, so their so-called concern is not about California’s drought, or Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, or Oregon’s drought; they want the state’s environmental policies abolished for the Koch brothers.

Republicans claim that if California dams up every river in the state, regardless there has been no rain or snowfall for four years, California would be flush with water and the drought would end. However, the state’s substantial number of current dams, reservoirs, and lakes are bone dry because there has been four straight years of inadequate precipitation (snow-pack) in the mountains to melt in the spring, runoff downhill and fill the reservoirs, lakes, and dams that have rivers dried up.

As an aside, if Boehner had taken the time to talk to real “water scientists,” what intelligent Americans call environmental hydrologists, he would be aware that stopping rivers from flowing, even in a normal or higher-than-average wet season, allows salt-laden sea water to flow upstream into California’s prime agricultural land that would mean game over for the agriculture industry, permanently. In fact, even without dams, the lack of snowpack has brought normal river flows to a such a slow trickle that scientists are frantically building rock walls to hold back sea water that started going up-river and encroaching on prime agricultural land.

As noted by Joe Romm at Think Progress,  “if Boehner had been Speaker during the 1930s Dust Bowl, he’d have urged Oklahomans to ignore those science-based conservation efforts pushed by FDR and just keep watering their lawns.” Neither John Boehner, nor his Koch cohorts in Congress, care about California’s severe drought and it is not surprising he would take to social media to assail California’s efforts to conserve what little water the state has left. Boehner and Republicans do, however, care about serving the Koch brothers’ crusade to abolish California’s environmental policies or they would not say incredibly stupid things like the historic, worse in 1,200 year, drought is caused by Barack Obama, the E.P.A., California environmentalists, or condemn the state’s residents’ efforts to save the precious resource as “backwards priorities and regressive ideology.”

John Boehner is, indeed, not a scientist and he is not stupid enough to seriously believe that the lack of precipitation falling on California, Nevada, Oklahoma, or any drought-stricken state is due to a President or California’s water conservation efforts. However, he is just smart enough to comprehend that with a segment of the population struggling to equal the IQ of dirt, all he has to do is blame the lack of rain and snow fall in California, Nevada, Oklahoma and likely the Sahara Desert on California environmentalists, the EPA, and the Black guy in the White House and they will believe him. No, Boehner is not nearly as stupid as he wants his supporters to believe, but he is a lying pile of human waste that does not belong in civilized society, and he had better steer clear of California civilized society.

Arizona cops illegally barge into home of showering woman and handcuff her while she’s naked

A woman is suing after an Arizona police officer barged into her home in March, handcuffed her and lectured her while she was naked.

Elmerelda Rossi was showering when two Chandler police officers arrived at her home to investigate a domestic disturbance call because Rossi had an argument with her estranged husband.
Rossi said she was in the shower when her daughter told her the officers were at the door. She grabbed a towel and slung it around herself before answering. She told the officers to wait at the door so she could get a cell phone to record the encounter, and closed it behind her.
“I start to walk into my living room, I probably get maybe five steps in, and all of the sudden I just hear boots running in after me, telling me, ‘stop or I’ll arrest you,'” she told the station.
Rossi’s daughter started recording.
Chandler police Officer Doug Rose threatens to arrest her. When she asks what for, he grabs her arms and cuffs her, and the towel falls off, exposing her.
“I don’t want to touch you, don’t touch me. I didn’t want to touch him,” she sobs, and her daughter can be heard breaking down as things become chaotic. Rose’s partner, Officer David Selvidge, stands silently and watches with his arms folded.
“You have absolutely no clothes on?” Rose asks Rossi.
“She was in the fucking shower, what is wrong with you?” the daughter screams.
Selvidge tells the daughter to get her mother some clothes as Rose handcuffs her.
After the incident, Selvidge complained to his superiors about Rose’s conduct, prompting an internal investigation. The investigation found Rose entered Rossi’s home illegally. He also failed to document key aspects of the call, including arresting then un-arresting Rossi and the fact she was naked, according to the New York Daily News. Footage from his body camera was missing.
He hasn’t been disciplined or charged with a crime, ABC 15 reports.
Rose retired in the midst of the investigation, but Rossi, who was never charged with a crime, has filed a lawsuit.
Rossi said she was molested as a small child and her encounter with Rose, caused her to have a flashback.

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Chris Wallace Pretends Fake 'Fetal Body Parts-For-Sale' Video Is Real

Chris Wallace Pretends Fake 'Fetal Body Parts-For-Sale' Video Is Real

The Fox News Sunday panel feigns collective outrage over a video that has been doctored and edited to make Planned Parenthood look bad.

Republicans Try To Pin Blame For Chattanooga Shooting On ISIL, But Evidence Is Lacking

Abdulazeez did not regularly attend mosque and his alcohol and drug abuse do not align with the behaviors of a religious fundamentalist.

Racist teabagger Joe Arpaio will face civil contempt hearing after federal judge’s ruling

Racist teabagger Joe Arpaio will face civil contempt hearing after federal judge’s ruling

Judge Murray Snow said he could find no legal reason to delay the proceedings until a U.S. appeals court decides on a motion by the Maricopa County sheriff and his top lieutenant, who want the judge to be removed from the case.

How Goldman Sachs Profited from the Greek Debt Crisis

The Greek debt crisis offers another illustration of Wall Street’s powers of persuasion and predation, although the Street is missing from most accounts.

The crisis was exacerbated years ago by a deal with Goldman Sachs, engineered by Goldman’s current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.
Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt, and in the process almost doubled it. And just as with the American subprime crisis, and the current plight of many American cities, Wall Street’s predatory lending played an important although little-recognized role.
In 2001, Greece was looking for ways to disguise its mounting financial troubles. The Maastricht Treaty required all eurozone member states to show improvement in their public finances, but Greece was heading in the wrong direction.
Then Goldman Sachs came to the rescue, arranging a secret loan of 2.8 billion euros for Greece, disguised as an off-the-books “cross-currency swap”—a complicated transaction in which Greece’s foreign-currency debt was converted into a domestic-currency obligation using a fictitious market exchange rate.
As a result, about 2 percent of Greece’s debt magically disappeared from its national accounts. Christoforos Sardelis, then head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, later described the deal to Bloomberg Business as “a very sexy story between two sinners.”
For its services, Goldman received a whopping 600 million euros ($793 million), according to Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over from Sardelis in 2005. That came to about 12 percent of Goldman’s revenue from its giant trading and principal-investments unit in 2001—which posted record sales that year. The unit was run by Blankfein.
Then the deal turned sour. After the 9/11 attacks, bond yields plunged, resulting in a big loss for Greece because of the formula Goldman had used to compute the country’s debt repayments under the swap. By 2005, Greece owed almost double what it had put into the deal, pushing its off-the-books debt from 2.8 billion euros to 5.1 billion.

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