Facing 65 Criminal Charges, New Mexico’s Republican Cabal Secretary Of State Cops A Guilty Plea On 6

Facing 65 criminal counts, embattled New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran (R) resigned early Friday morning, and then pleaded guilty to 6 of the 65 charges. Duran pleaded guilty to two felony counts of embezzlement and four misdemeanor offenses.

Duran ran into legal trouble over allegations that she embezzled campaign funds for her own personal use, and spent those funds gambling at eight different casinos. She apparently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at casinos, of which 19 transactions totaling around 13,000 dollars were traced back to money she pilfered from her campaign account.
On Friday morning, however, Duran chose not to gamble with her freedom, by sticking with a risky high stakes “not guilty” plea. Instead, she recognized she was playing a losing hand, and cut her losses by pleading guilty to just a handful of the 65 charges she faced.
The agreement could permit Duran to avoid jail time and to keep her pension. As a convicted felon she will be barred from voting. The Attorney General’s office has recommended a sentence of five years supervised probation. In addition, she will be required to pay back nearly 14,000 dollars to the political donors she ripped off.
Ironically, Duran was first elected in 2010, by running on a promise to fight corruption and to run “a scandal-free Secretary of State’s office.” Instead, she only reinforced New Mexico’s reputation for political corruption, eclipsing the misdeeds of her political predecessors.
In response to Duran’s resignation and guilty plea, New Mexico’s Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) stated:

After today, citizens can be confident that Dianna Duran will no longer have supervisory control of public funds or the reporting process within the Secretary of State’s Office. I am hopeful that this resolution will begin to rebuild the public trust and compel the new leadership to improve oversight and compliance in our campaign finance system and electoral process.

Republican Idiot Governor Susana Martinez will appoint a replacement for Duran. Then in November of 2016, New Mexico will have an opportunity to elect a new Secretary of State. Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D), who narrowly lost to Duran in 2014, would be an ideal candidate for Democrats to get behind in 2016. Hopefully, New Mexico voters will have the good sense to elect her on the second go around, because obviously voting for Duran was a colossal mistake.

The Daily Drift

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Obama Announces End Of ‘No Child Left Behind’ Era: Education Is More Than Tests

Pencils down. Children should soon find themselves suffering through a lot less mind-numbing standardized tests.

Read more 

Majority Of Americans Have A Favorable Opinion Of Socialism

The Republican cabal is losing one of their favorite boogeyman phrases.
Read more 

Iceland, Where Bankers Actually Go To Jail For Committing White-Collar Crimes

Turns out throwing white-collar criminals in jail doesn't kill your economy.

Noam Chomsky blasts modern Republican cabal ...

Noam Chomsky blasts modern Republican cabal as extremists whose only policy is ‘don’t do anything or bomb’

Sanders wishes Republicans a speedy recovery from ‘amnesia’ over wrecking the economy

Sanders wishes Republicans a speedy recovery from ‘amnesia’ over wrecking the economy

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went on the attack against the GOP during a campaign speech at an Iowa fundraiser dinner.

Mash-Up Of Bernie Sanders And Reagan Shows The Insanity Of The Modern Republican Cabal

Modern Republicans are the radicals, not Bernie Sanders.
Read more 

Security Experts Say Climate Change Is A National Security Threat

These Bipartisan Security Experts Say:

The impacts are real, and the costs of inaction are unacceptable."

Republican Cabal-Misled House Science Committee Launches Benghazi-Like Witch Hunt Against Climate Scientists

In a last ditch effort to silence climate scientists, Republicans go to war with science itself.

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Chuck Todd Attacks Elijah Cummings For Refusing To Participate In Republican Cabal Benghazi Witch Hunt

Chuck Todd Attacks Elijah Cummings For Refusing To Participate In Republican Cabal Benghazi Witch Hunt

It looks like Chuck Todd got the same set of shrieking points as Fox's Chris Wallace on the Republican Benghazi witch hunt.

Bette Midler Perfectly NAILS Benghazi Truthers And Idiot Fox News Viewers

Doesn’t get more honest than this…
Read more 

Fox Hack Throws A Hissy Fit Because Media Declares Benghazi Hearing A Hillary Victory

Everyone knows that Hillary Clinton came out of the Benghazi hearings smelling like a rose– everyone except Fox News. Of course.

Read more 

Birther King Trump: 'I Will Be A Great Unifier'

 Racist birther king Trump wants Americans to believe he's the one who will end the partisanship in Washington.

Immigration Protester Attacked And Dragged Across The Floor At Trump Campaign Farce

Trump promotes violence against anyone who disagrees with him.
Read more 

Trump Says He Hides His Humane Side— Credits Larry King With His Success

“Something I’m really impressed with, is that I really think the public gets it,” Trump said. Ugggg….

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5 Ridiculous Wingnut Moments This Week

5 Ridiculous Wingnut Moments This Week: Carson's Latest Delusion

Carson: Force Raped Teens, Incest Victims To Give Birth

Ben Carson said he would force teenagers who had been raped to give birth.

Read more 

Red States Spent $2 Billion Rejecting Medicare Expansion

So much for their claims about "fiscal conservatism."

Feds Bust Texas, Arizona Smuggling Illegal Drugs Into The U.S. For Execution Purposes

Can we please put these two states away for life?
Read more 

FTC Busts Walmart: Phony ‘Made In The USA’ Campaign Full Of Products Not Made In The USA

Walmart’s “Investing in American Jobs” campaign is bullshit.
Read more 

The Daily Drift

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The Things of Republican Nightmares ... !

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Congressman Loses Bet, Forced to Sing Song on the Floor of the House

(Video Link)

Rep. Adam Schiff of California roots for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. His colleague, Rep. Steve Israel of New York supports the New York Mets. They had a wager over the outcome of a game between their two teams. The Mets won 3-2 and, as a result, Schiff had to sing the song "Meet the Mets" on the floor of the House of Representatives.
My favorite line: "Mr. Speaker, please tell me my time has expired."
Rep. Schiff must also send a supply of gourmet popcorn to Rep. Israel as a result of his defeat.

The Truth Is A Joke

Citizenship for immigrants creates stronger political integration

Citizenship for immigrants creates stronger political integration

Naturalization acts as a catalyst that builds greater social and political integration for immigrants and their new countries, according to Stanford research. Heated debate surrounds the political integration of immigrants and their access to citizenship. But unlike...

Paul Krugman Celebrates Another Deathblow for Know-nothing Wingnut Economics

Paul Krugman Celebrates Another Deathblow for Know-nothing Wingnut Economics

Obama Smacks Down Extremists By Refusing To Negotiate With Republican Hostage Takers

President Obama is gearing up for a huge showdown with Congressional Republicans promising to veto any bill that raises the debt limit, but contains spending cuts.
The Hill reported:
President Obama would veto any bill to raise the debt limit if spending cuts are attached, the White House said Friday.
“Yes,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters when asked whether the president would kill such a measure.
It’s the clearest sign yet from the White House that Obama will only accept a clean bill to extend the nation’s borrowing authority before a fast-approaching Nov. 3 deadline.

“We believe this should be done without negotiation, without drama, without delay,” Schultz said. “No negotiations, period.”

President Obama’s veto of the NDAA was a warning shot to Republicans. Obama wants the growth-killing sequester cuts gone, and this president is willing to go to the mat over the debt limit and the budget to get it done.
The myth that continues to consume the Republican cabal is that they can play hardball and get the President to back down. Trump recently advised Republicans, “If they were really unified and they took that 30 percent stance, assuming they wanted to really make changes and do it right, and cut the budget, cut the deficit, do things that they should be doing, if they took that group, and if everybody was unified, Obama would fold.”
Obama isn’t going to fold. In fact, he is gaining strength and making his move on the Republican cabal. Obama isn’t going to negotiate with the Republican cabal hostage takers. Republicans are going end up regretting what they wished for because President Obama is ready for a fight.

Obama Shocks Republicans Out Of Their Twilight Zone With A Fact Bomb On The Economy

President Obama compared Republicans to Grumpy Cat and shocked them out of their Twilight Zone of denial by dropping an economic fact bomb on the Republican cabal.
While speaking at the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum, President Obama mentioned a New York Times article written by John Harwood, which detailed that Republicans have a data problem because the U.S. budget deficit grew during the juntas of Reagan and both shrubs, but was eliminated during Clinton and sharply cut during Obama.
Right after calling Republicans Grumpy Cat, the President said, “There was an article I think in The New York Times today, or maybe it was yesterday, where they pointed out that it’s very hard for them (Republicans) to make the arguments they make about tax cuts for the wealthy and doing the same stuff that they’ve been promoting, and trying to eliminate regulations on the big banks and all that when the empirical evidence shows that when Democrats control the White House and we’ve got a Democratic Congress, the economy does better; and when they’re in charge, it does worse.”

Obama continued, “I mean, just look at the facts. Don’t take my word for it. Go back and take a look at, all right, here’s Bill Clinton’s presidency, and then there’s Bush presidency, and then there’s my presidency, and take a look.”
So here we go, taking a look — and the view is nice, I’ll start off with a quote sure to upset the Grumpy Cat doomsayers, “Today, the United States has the strongest major economy in the world.”
More from the NYTimes:

The (Republican) party still likes to invoke its success under Ronald Reagan, who cut taxes after defeating Jimmy Carter in 1980. By the mid-1980s, stagflation had turned into an economic boom.
But neither of the two subsequent Republican pretenders fared as well compared with their Democratic successors. That has left the cabal vulnerable in three ways.
…
Growth has remained modest under President Obama, but unemployment has dropped to 5.1 percent since the recession ended five months into his term. The budget deficit as a percentage of the overall economy has fallen to 2.5 percent from 9.8 percent.
A second problem for Republicans stems from their own rhetoric. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama pushed through tax increases despite warnings from partisan adversaries. Among many other Republicans, the current pretender candidates Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Jeb all denounced the “job-killing” consequences of Mr. Obama’s policies.
Yet the economy gained 2.9 million jobs in 2014, more than in any year since 1999, during Mr. Clinton’s term. Net job creation during the 15 years that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama occupied the White House has topped 30 million. That is 50 percent more than were created in the 20 years of Mr. Reagan and both shrubs.

Republicans have been skating by on the already debunked notion that they are the cabal of fiscal business. Under this misguided belief, they have been treated as the experts on the economy. The media has gone along with this for years, even though the data told a different story. The shrub’s eight years at the helm told the story of a cabal of entitled, drunken frat boys racking up debt on daddy’s black card while refusing to feed a starving relative for “moral” reasons.
President Obama isn’t running in 2016, but he can deliver a devastating argument on behalf of Democrats in a way that few others can. Nobody in the U.S. understands the Republican Twilight Zone better than Obama. He has lived with it, challenged it, and defeated it throughout his presidency.

The Truth Hurts

Pundits ridicule Republican cabal Benghazi committee members

Pundits ridicule Republican cabal Benghazi committee members: Hillary is too smart for them

Nothing however will sting the members of Gowdy’s committee like ultra-conservative commentator Erick Erickson calling the whole exercise a “waste of time,” while adding Clinton is “too bright” for them.

Obama Compares Republicans To 'Grumpy Cat'

“Why is it that Republican politicians are so down on America? Have you noticed that? I mean they are, they are gloomy. They’re like grumpy cat,” the president said Friday as he made a grumpy cat face. “Everything’s terrible according to them. We’re doomed.

Obama Owns The Republican Cabal After Their Benghazi Failure

Obama Owns The Republican Cabal After Their Benghazi Failure – Does Hilarious ‘Grumpy Cat’ Impersonation

A day after Republican’s colossal failure trying their best to get a “gotcha moment” on Hillary Clinton during her testimony in front...

Not Satisfied With Crushing Benghazi Committee, Hillary Clinton Goes After Republican Cabal Witch-Hunts

Hillary Clinton isn’t done taking on Republican investigations. Less than a day after crushing the House Republican Select Committee On Benghazi, Clinton went after other Republican witch-hunt investigations during her speech to the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum.
Clinton said:
For people who say they hate big government, Republicans sure spend a lot of time trying to restrict women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights. After my experience yesterday, I am just amazed that they are even talking about setting up another special investigative committee. This time to investigate Planned Parenthood.

And I think we all know by now, that’s just code for a partisan witch-hunt.
Haven’t we seen enough of that?
Clinton began her remarks by making it clear that yesterday’s testimony in front of the Benghazi Select Committee was a big win for her. She said, “As some of you may know, I had a pretty long day yesterday, but I finally got to answer questions. Something I’ve been pushing for, literally, for a year, and I am grateful that I recovered my voice, which I lost a little bit. As I said at the start, I wanted to rise above partisanship and reach for statesmanship, and that is what I tried to do.”
She did reach the level the level of statesmanship, and in the process dominated the over-matched House Republicans at their own hearing.
More importantly, the Democratic front-runner isn’t done with taking on Congressional Republicans. Clinton jumped right into the middle of the Republican plan to use Planned Parenthood as a partisan political tool to get out the wingnut vote in 2016.
Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony was an act of national service because she shined a spotlight on the House Republican abuse of their investigative powers.`
Clinton was correct. These special investigations are witch-hunts that waste taxpayer resources for partisan political purposes.
Hillary Clinton is hunting the witch-hunters and after the display she put on Thursday, Republicans should be very afraid.

Hillary Stronger Than Ever As Republicans Panic Over Botched Benghazi Hearing

Thursday’s disastrous Benghazi hearing may one day be looked back at as the day Republicans lost the 2016 election.

Read more 

BENGHAZI Head Witch-Hunter Gowdy Nabbed Using A Private Email Server

Gowdy isn’t the only hypocrite on the BENGHAZI Committee, either.

Read full story

The Truth Be Told

Jeb Campaign Disintegrating, Latest Move Shows Quitting Just Around The Corner

So much for being an apologist for his brother.
Read more 

Trump bars Univision from covering campaign event

Trump bars Univision from covering campaign event — then vows to ‘win with the Hispanics’

The feud between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Univision network flared up again on Friday.

Republican Bad Week Gets Worse As DOJ Finds No Targeting Of Wingnuts By IRS

First the Benghazi scandal bit the dust after Hillary Clinton testified, and then the Department of Justice released their report that found no targeting of conservatives and no criminal wrongdoing at the IRS.
In his letter to Congress, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote, “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution. Based on the evidence developed in this investigation and the recommendation of experienced career prosecutors and supervising attorneys at the Department, we are closing our investigation and will not seek any criminal charges.”
Democratic Ways And Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin delivered the blunt truth that Republicans wasted 20 million taxpayer dollars on an empty conspiracy theory, “I was one of the first Members of Congress to call for Ms. Lerner’s resignation in 2013 in response to her mismanagement and poor judgement. Since May of 2013, the IRS has spent $20 million and provided to Congress more than one million pages of documents related to this investigation.”
The bogus Republican investigations are dropping like flies. Of course, Republicans still refuse to see reality. They are still clinging on to the belief that the IRS was out to get them.
The IRS scandal was one of the fishing expeditions of Issa (R-CA). Issa was never able to produce any evidence to back his claims that President Obama was behind the IRS scandal, but he did manage to humiliate himself by releasing a report that proved that he had nothing.

The IRS scandal was supposed to bring down President Obama. The Benghazi scandal was supposed to be the end of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Instead, both Democrats are stronger than ever, and it is Republicans who are collapsing under the weight of their dysfunction.

Carson on whether Republican voting restrictions are racist ...

Carson on whether Republican voting restrictions are racist: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ben Carson doesn’t even pretend to understand how electoral institutions affect electoral outcomes.

New Jersey Senate Overrides Christie Veto Of Gun Control Bill

New Jersey Senate Overrides Christie Veto Of Gun Control Bill

The Daily Drift

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Americans More Optimistic About Sanders’ Presidency Than About Any Other Candidate

Voters are less pessimistic about Bernie Sanders' ability to run the country, than they are about any of the other announced candidates.…

An unprecedented number of major party candidates are running for president. Yet, Americans remain pessimistic about the entire presidential field going into 2016.

An NBC/WSJ poll asked Americans about individual candidates and whether they were optimistic/satisfied or uncertain/pessimistic about the ability of each individual candidate to do a good job as president.
With every candidate, more voters were uncertain or pessimistic than optimistic or satisfied, but of the announced candidates, voters were less pessimistic about Bernie Sanders than any of the other candidates. 43 percent of American voters expressed optimism about a Sanders’ presidency, compared to 50 percent who did not. His net (-7) optimism to pessimism score was better than Hillary Clinton’s (-13) or any of the Republican candidates.
Voters were much more optimistic about both Sanders and Clinton than they were about Republican cabal front-runner Trump (-35), Cruz (-32), Jeb  (-26) or  Fiorina (-24). The only Republicans that voters were not deeply pessimistic about were Rubio (-13) and  Carson (-8).
Joe Biden, who announced on Wednesday that he was not seeking the presidency, was the one potential candidate who generated slightly more optimism than Sanders. 46 percent of American voters would have viewed a Biden presidency optimistically compared to 52 percent who would have been uncertain or pessimistic.
Americans have become so pessimistic that even the best candidates only inspire tepid optimism. Nevertheless, it is clear that Sanders, and to a slightly lesser extent, Clinton, give Americans more cause for optimism than most of the Republican cabal candidates.

While conservatives are doing their best to scare Americans away from electing a “democratic socialist” named Bernie Sanders, voters are apparently less nervous about Sanders than they are about the other candidates running for president. America’s optimism for Sanders is decidedly cautious. However, voters are far less pessimistic about Sanders’ ability to run the country than they are about Trump or Jeb’s ability to lead the nation.

Vets For Bernie

Vets For Bernie: Why the Most Anti-War Candidate Has Many Military Supporters 

Bernie Sanders Was Asked If Presidents Need To Believe In Dog, Gives Beautiful Answer

Bernie Sanders continues to pull no punches, even when it comes to religion.

Read more 

Poll Shows Americans Agree With Bernie Sanders On This Major Topic

A new poll shows Bernie Sanders spoke for all of America on this major topic.

Read more 

Top Democrat Wipes The Floor With Republicans In Less Than Two Minutes

This is perhaps the SINGLE BEST MOMENT of the entire 11-hour Benghazi hearing, aka “witch hunt.” This top Democrat took less than 2 minutes to completely shut down Republicans.

Read full story 

Stop Hillary PAC Exposes Actual Vast Wingnut Conspiracy

Stop Hillary PAC Exposes Actual Vast Wingnut Conspiracy

Gowdy’s Select Benghazi Committee is a disaster.