Friday, October 9, 2015
No jail for San Diego doctor who raped and photographed unconscious women at low-income clinic
Thursday, October 8, 2015
The Daily Drift
Welcome to the Thursday Edition of The Truth Be Told.
Our latest comment:
Honesty and Truth.
~ Bob Sheldom
Our latest comment:
Honesty and Truth.
~ Bob Sheldom
The Truth Be Told is read in 205 countries around the world.
Republicans are like an octopus - all arms reaching and sucking the life out of everything ... !
Don't forget to visit our sister blog Carolina Naturally
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina
- Bolivia - Brazil - Canada - Chile - Colombia - Costa Rica - Jamaica -
Mexico - Nicaragua Peru - Puerto Rico - Sint Eustatus/Saba -
Trinidad/Tobago - United States - Uruguay - Venezuela
Europe
Austria - Bosnia/Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia - England - France - Georgia - Germany - Greece
Hungary
- Italy - Latvia - Moldova - Netherlands - Poland - Portugal - Russia -
Scotland - Serbia Slovakia - Slovenia Spain - Turkey - Ukraine -
Wales
Asia
Bangladesh - China - India - Indonesia - Iran - Korea - Mauritius - Pakistan - Saudi Arabia
Sri Lanka - Thailand - Vietnam
Africa
Angola - South Africa - Zambia
The Pacific
Australia - Philippines
Editorial Comment
Wow.
You want to talk about a “perfect
storm”.
After a week of more or less solid rain
we were expecting up to 10 inches more over the past weekend with all
the moisture Joaquin was funneling into the air and said moisture
being sucked in over us by a high level low pressure and just as it
was beginning to come down the winds really picked up and the trees
began to fall …
Needless to say power outages began to
occur and phone lines began to fail.
To top it off our modem decided that
then was the time to give over the ghost and up and died right in the
middle of one of the Mrs.' Rom-Com's.
Being of Scots heritage we still have
the first penny we found on the ground (OK, so we have a few more,
now), and we have the equipment maintenance plan with our ISP so we
got a new modem 'free' but we had to wait three to five business days
for it to be delivered so we were unable to post until it arrived and
we plugged it in.
We could have went out and bought one
but we still have our money because we do not run willy-nilly and buy
something we have already paid for so we waited - with the constant
rain we decided we would rather stay dry anyway.
Luckily we did not have any outages
here but the neighbors lost power and phone service so we became
emergency central for all the neighbors seeking assistance in getting
their power and/or phone turned back on asap.
What was noticeable during all this was
that friends and neighbors stayed positive – after a week of no
sunshine that can be a feat in of itself – some even turned the
situation into an impromptu 'soggy bottom' party because they argued
that since their asses were getting wet anyway why not have fun with
it. Even though we had resolved to remain dry we did go to the party
at a local eatery and let our asses 'get wet' as it were with our
friends.
It was good to be around positive
people especially since it seems that all the negativity is glorified
today along with the stupidity … don't you think the last 35 years
of ever more negativity and increasing stupidity is enough?
The severity of the weather was not
quite as bad as predicted locally which was a good thing – the
damages were light when compared to the possible damages the weather
could have inflicted so all in all life here was hardly interrupted.
Biden Drops Truth Bombs About Wingnut Racism, Prepare For Republican Whining
Vice President Biden told the truth about Republican racism and they’re going to be angry.Hillary Clinton Says Kim Davis Was ‘Treated As She Should Have Been Treated’
Hillary Clinton explained to a crowd of college students that Kim Davis absolutely belongs in jail for refusing to do her job.Government Transparency Website Catches Kim Davis Refusing To Do Her Job Again
Looks like same-sex marriage isn’t the only area in which Kim Davis likes to break the law…
Move Over Kim Davis, Lunatic Fringe Wingnut America’s Latest Hero Is More Batshit Crazy Than You
You had a great run Kim Davis, but conservatives found someone even more batshit crazy to hero worship.
Donald Trump Has A ‘Wall Of Shame’ For His Failed Republican Rivals
Trump is trolling the Republican cabal from the inside.Carson Doesn’t Know What The Debt Ceiling Is
Tres Awkward
The debt ceiling isn’t a quirky policy like where the fresh towels in the White House are. It’s kind of important.
Friday, October 2, 2015
The Daily Drift
Welcome to the Friday Edition of The Truth Be Told.
Our latest comment:
The truth and nothing but the truth, I like it.
~ Melanie Digh
Our latest comment:
The truth and nothing but the truth, I like it.
~ Melanie Digh
The Truth Be Told is read in 205 countries around the world.
Diversity - Another Thing republicans know nothing about ... !
Don't forget to visit our sister blog Carolina Naturally
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Belize - Bolivia - Brazil - Canada - Costa Rica - Mexico - Nicaragua
Puerto Rico - United States
Europe
Bosnia/Herzegovina
- Bulgaria - England - Finland - France - Georgia - Germany - Hungary -
Italy Latvia - Lithuania - Netherlands - Poland - Portugal - Russia -
Scotland - Serbia - Slovenia - Spain Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Azerbaijan - Bangladesh - China - Hong Kong - India - Indonesia - Iran - Jordan - Korea
Mauritius - Pakistan - Qatar - Sri Lanka - Taiwan - United Arab Emirates
Africa
Ghana - South Africa - Sudan
The Pacific
Australia - Philippines
The shrub refugees
‘‘If you break it, you own it.” Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn Rule,
warning the shrub of the consequences of invading Iraq, turned out
to be dead wrong.
Make that half wrong. the shrub broke it — “it” being a swath of the greater
Middle East. But the U.S. adamantly refuses to accept anything like
ownership of the consequences stemming from the shrub’s recklessly misguided
act.
Not least among those consequences is the crisis that finds refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world in search of asylum in the West. The European nations most directly affected have greeted this wave with more hostility than hospitality — Germany, for a time, at least offering a notable exception.
For its part, the U.S. has responded with pronounced indifference. In a gesture of undisguised tokenism, the Obama administration has announced it will admit a grand total of 10,000 Syrians — one-eightieth the number that Germany has agreed to accept this year alone.
No doubt proximity plays a part in explaining the contrast between German and U.S. attitudes. Viewed from Wichita or Walla Walla, the plight of those who hand themselves over to human traffickers in hopes of crossing the Mediterranean plays out at a great distance. Syria is what Neville Chamberlain would have described as a faraway country of which Americans know nothing (and care less). And Iraq and Afghanistan are faraway countries that most Americans have come to regret knowing.
Such attitudes may be understandable. They are also unconscionable.
Yet when it comes to why this fragile structure collapsed just now we can point to a single explanation — the cascading after-effects of a decision made by the shrub during the spring of 2002 to embrace a doctrine of preventative war.
The previous autumn, U.S. forces toppled the government of Afghanistan, punishing the Taliban for giving sanctuary to those who plotted the 9/11 attacks. the shrub effectively abandoned Afghanistan to its fate and set out to topple another regime, one that had no involvement whatsoever in 9/11.
For the shrub, going after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq formed part of a larger strategy. He and his lieutenants fancied that destroying the old order in the greater Middle East would position the U.S. to create a more amenable new order. Back in 1991, after a previous Iraq encounter, the shrub’s father had glimpsed a “new world order.” Now a decade later, the son set out to transform the father’s vision into reality.
The junta called this its Freedom Agenda, which would begin in Iraq but find further application throughout the greater Middle East. Coercion rather than persuasion held the key to its implementation, its plausibility resting on unstoppable military power. For the shrub’s inner circle, including Darth Cheney, Condom Rice, Dummy Rumsfeld and Puuk Wolfowitz (but not Powell), victory was foreordained.
They miscalculated. The unsettled (but largely ignored) condition of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban already hinted at the extent of that miscalculation. The chaos that descended upon Iraq as a direct result of the U.S. invasion affirmed it. The Freedom Agenda made it as far as Baghdad and there it died.
That Saddam was a brutal tyrant is a given. We need not mourn his departure. Yet while he ruled he at least kept a lid on things. The shrub blew off that lid, naively expecting liberal democracy or at least deference to American authority to emerge. Instead, “liberating” Iraq produced conditions conducive to the violent radicalism today threatening to envelop the region.
The Islamic State offers but one manifestation of this phenomenon. Were it not for the shrub’s invasion of Iraq, ISIL would not exist — that’s a fact. Responsibility for precipitating the rise of this vile movement rests squarely with Washington.
So rather than cluck over the reluctance of Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians and others to open their borders to those fleeing from the mess the U.S. played such a large part in creating, Americans would do better to engage in acts of contrition.
On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, former president the shrub visited New Orleans, implicitly acknowledging that his junta’s response to that disaster just might have fallen a bit short. It was a handsome gesture. A similar gesture is in order toward the masses fleeing the region he set out to remake.
It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.
Not least among those consequences is the crisis that finds refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world in search of asylum in the West. The European nations most directly affected have greeted this wave with more hostility than hospitality — Germany, for a time, at least offering a notable exception.
For its part, the U.S. has responded with pronounced indifference. In a gesture of undisguised tokenism, the Obama administration has announced it will admit a grand total of 10,000 Syrians — one-eightieth the number that Germany has agreed to accept this year alone.
No doubt proximity plays a part in explaining the contrast between German and U.S. attitudes. Viewed from Wichita or Walla Walla, the plight of those who hand themselves over to human traffickers in hopes of crossing the Mediterranean plays out at a great distance. Syria is what Neville Chamberlain would have described as a faraway country of which Americans know nothing (and care less). And Iraq and Afghanistan are faraway countries that most Americans have come to regret knowing.
Such attitudes may be understandable. They are also unconscionable.
* * *
To attribute the refugee crisis to any single cause would be misleading.
A laundry list has contributed: historical and sectarian divisions
within the region; the legacy of European colonialism; the absence of
anything even approximating enlightened local leadership able to satisfy
the aspirations of people tired of corruption, economic stagnation, and
authoritarian rule; the appeal — inexplicable to Westerners — of
violent Islamic radicalism. All play a role.Yet when it comes to why this fragile structure collapsed just now we can point to a single explanation — the cascading after-effects of a decision made by the shrub during the spring of 2002 to embrace a doctrine of preventative war.
The previous autumn, U.S. forces toppled the government of Afghanistan, punishing the Taliban for giving sanctuary to those who plotted the 9/11 attacks. the shrub effectively abandoned Afghanistan to its fate and set out to topple another regime, one that had no involvement whatsoever in 9/11.
For the shrub, going after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq formed part of a larger strategy. He and his lieutenants fancied that destroying the old order in the greater Middle East would position the U.S. to create a more amenable new order. Back in 1991, after a previous Iraq encounter, the shrub’s father had glimpsed a “new world order.” Now a decade later, the son set out to transform the father’s vision into reality.
The junta called this its Freedom Agenda, which would begin in Iraq but find further application throughout the greater Middle East. Coercion rather than persuasion held the key to its implementation, its plausibility resting on unstoppable military power. For the shrub’s inner circle, including Darth Cheney, Condom Rice, Dummy Rumsfeld and Puuk Wolfowitz (but not Powell), victory was foreordained.
They miscalculated. The unsettled (but largely ignored) condition of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban already hinted at the extent of that miscalculation. The chaos that descended upon Iraq as a direct result of the U.S. invasion affirmed it. The Freedom Agenda made it as far as Baghdad and there it died.
That Saddam was a brutal tyrant is a given. We need not mourn his departure. Yet while he ruled he at least kept a lid on things. The shrub blew off that lid, naively expecting liberal democracy or at least deference to American authority to emerge. Instead, “liberating” Iraq produced conditions conducive to the violent radicalism today threatening to envelop the region.
The Islamic State offers but one manifestation of this phenomenon. Were it not for the shrub’s invasion of Iraq, ISIL would not exist — that’s a fact. Responsibility for precipitating the rise of this vile movement rests squarely with Washington.
So rather than cluck over the reluctance of Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians and others to open their borders to those fleeing from the mess the U.S. played such a large part in creating, Americans would do better to engage in acts of contrition.
On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, former president the shrub visited New Orleans, implicitly acknowledging that his junta’s response to that disaster just might have fallen a bit short. It was a handsome gesture. A similar gesture is in order toward the masses fleeing the region he set out to remake.
It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.
Bernie Sanders Is Surging And Has Cut Hillary Clinton’s National Lead By More Than Half
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released
today found that Senator Bernie Sanders has cut Hillary Clinton national
lead from 34 points to 15 points without Biden in the race.
According to the poll, the rise of Bernie Sanders is
coming mostly from Democratic voters supporting him. Sanders has gained
thirteen points of support between July and September. The Senator from
Vermont has seen his support grow from 25% to 38%. Hillary Clinton has
lost six points during the same period and dropped from 59%-53%.
Until Vice President Biden is a declared candidate
for the Democratic nomination, using polling that includes him is akin
to playing political fantasy football. Biden is currently not a
candidate for the Democratic nomination, so any poll that includes the
Vice President is engaging in a hypothetical.
The contest for the Democratic nomination is between
Clinton and Sanders. The NBC News poll backs up what every previous
poll about the Democratic contest has found. It isn’t that Hillary
Clinton is unpopular with Democratic voters, but that Sen. Sanders is
gaining in popularity.
Bernie Sanders is doing a lot of things right in his
campaign. Sen. Sanders has a clear and simple message of economic
populism that is driven by a belief that government should be working
for the people, not billionaire political donors and corporations.
The Sanders campaign has reached out to red state
Democrats that are all too often ignored by the national party. The
Sanders campaign is energizing new voters to enter the process and is
willing to fight for the issues that matter most to working Americans.
The biggest positive that Sen. Sanders has brought
to the table has been a rejection of negative campaigning. His refusal
to attack former Sec. of State Clinton has made his candidacy more
acceptable to Democratic primary voters. Sanders isn’t running as a
negative outsider bashing Clinton. In other words, he isn’t Trump.
The support for Sen. Sanders that was once most
visible in the early primary states has spread to the national polls,
which means that Democrats have a real contest for their nomination.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is on the march and continuing to rise
No One’s Safe: Wall Street In Fear Of Republicans Destroying Their Businesses
The idea of wingnuts being in charge of the House is terrifying
Wall Street, which should indicate that the Republican cabal has already
ceded the mantle …
With Boehner’s (R-OH) resignation, the wingnuts are in charge of the House. This prospect is terrifying
Wall Street, which should indicate that the Republican cabal has already
ceded the mantle of “cabal of business”. It just hasn’t become official
yet.
“And on Wall Street, fear set in at the prospect of
another showdown over the government’s ability to pay its debt, support
its export businesses and simply keep its doors open,” Jonathan Weisman
and Michael D. Shear writing at the New York Times reported.
If wingnuts don’t shut down the government in
the next few weeks, they will surely do it in December when whatever
short-term funding bill Boehner can extract from his nutters — or most
likely ram through his nutters with the help of Democrats — will expire.
More from the NYT:
The new speaker, elevated to the country’s third-highest constitutional post by a conservative rebellion, will face demands from those same rebels to extract concessions from a president who has little to lose by standing firm.At stake for conservatives will be the one clear victory they have scored since the teabagger devolution of 2010: firm statutory limits on spending signed into law in 2011, which Mr. Obama has said he can no longer abide.In turn, the Republican cabal, already wrestling with the effect of Herr Trump’s populist insurgency on its non-existent chances at the White House, could find itself with the political challenge of justifying to moderate voters yet another Washington crisis, prompted by an even more obstreperous, confrontational House majority.
The House will be run by the petulant bratty toddlers who
have already cost taxpayers and businesses billions of dollars just so
they could throw a temper tantrum in front of their friends. These are
the same people claiming a moral high ground as they steal from babies
to fund oil companies.
Republicans keep saying that liberals are ruining
business with oversight and regulation, but it is actually Republican
shutdowns that are doing the most damage to businesses and the economy.
And Wall Street knows it. Just a few months ago business leaders accused Republican wingnuts of not knowing what they were doing.
“They really don’t have a clue what they’re doing or the damage they’re going to inflict on small businesses in America by closing the Ex-Im bank.”
Reasonable liberals want Wall Street businesses to
be overseen, not utterly destroyed. They want responsible stewardship
that rewards hard work and treating labor well. They disparage what big
business has become and a government that steals from them to feed the
greed of big business. That is not the same as hating business. The
government is supposed to be helping “human people” as the Pope put it,
not being used as a mechanism from which to steal from and abuse the
people.
None of this would be happening if Republicans
hadn’t catered so much to big business — in ways that can’t be justified
— that they’ve had to scrounge around for the lowest forms of life who
would be willing to hawk their wares, searching for a special
combination of egomania and willful ignorance that renders the person
incapable of seeing that they are being used like yesterday’s trash.
(Hello, Palin.)
Now Frankenstein’s monster is attacking its maker. Wall Street is terrified.
There won’t be a grown up in charge anymore, no one
who can right the ship for the sake of the Republican cabal’s image. The
Jihadist Johnnies are at the helm and there will be no denying it.
Boehner’s resignation is the cherry on top of the
death of the “moderate Republican” delusion. There are no more effective
moderate Republican policies or politicians. This in an election year
is not what Republicans needed, but it is also not what Wall Street
wants and even more importantly, real people will be harmed by another republican cabal shutdown.
It’s all chaos, terror and dread in D.C. and on Wall
Street. But soon enough the disastrous results of the takeover by the
nihilistic carnival barkers and tent revival snake oil salesmen will be
evident enough. Just in time for Xmas, like the Scrooges they are.
Meanwhile Boehner can finally sleep again at night, knowing he will soon be free of the relentlessly pecking “wacko birds”.
Democrats Win Big As Boehner Announces No Shutdown and No Defunding Planned Parenthood
Boehner announced a huge
win for Democrats on Face The Nation. Boehner said that the government
won’t be shut down, and he made it clear that Planned Parenthood will
remain funded.
Boehner was asked about if the government
will shut down on CBS’s Face The Nation, and he answered, “No. The
Senate is expected to pass a Continuing Resolution next week. The House
will take up the Senate bill. We’ll also take up a select committee to
investigate these horrific videos that we’ve seen from abortion clinics
in several states that really raise questions about the use of federal
funds and raise questions about aborted fetuses that were born alive.”
Face The Nation host John Dickerson asked if the
continuing resolution will require Democratic votes to pass, and Boehner
said, “I’m sure it will, but I expect my Democratic colleagues want to
keep the government open as much as I do.”
The only thing that House Republicans are getting in
exchange for keeping the government open is another money wasting
special committee to investigate the Planned Parenthood videos. The
videos have already been proven to be edited fakes, but Republicans are
about to waste millions of taxpayer dollars so that another government
shutdown will be avoided.
Boehner knows that Democrats will support the
continuing resolution because he has already got the votes lined up from
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. The deal is done, and
conservatives who wanted to shut down the government over Planned
Parenthood are screwed.
In reality, all Boehner did was make the potential
government shutdown the next Speaker’s problem by kicking the can down
the road, and running for the exit as quickly as possible, but
conservatives who were calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood
lose, because the government will stay open, and the organization will
not be defunded.
This is all a big win for Democrats. Boehner can
hype his special committee all he wants, but the reality is that the
government won’t be shut down, and Planned Parenthood will still be
funded.
House Democrats Blast Republican Plan to Create Committee on Planned Parenthood
When House Republicans announced a new witch hunt against Planned
Parenthood, Democrats were swift and decisive in their response…
In order to investigate videos already proven to be edited fakes, to not show what Republicans claim they show, House Republicans have decided to create a select committee to spearhead a new anti-Planned Parenthood witch hunt.
Moron Blackburn (R-TN) announced:
“To get answers for the American people, we are significantly ramping up our oversight and investigative practices.”
“We will move to establish a new select
subcommittee that will focus its full attention, resources and subpoena
power on getting to the bottom of these horrific practices.”
Republicans have already ignored all the answers
they demanded, and Blackburn went on to repeat the same tired Republican
lies about the videos:
“I know this is difficult to talk about, and it
should be. But on these videos, they haggle over prices, they casually
sift through body parts.”
She claimed,
“These are some of the most abhorrent, inhumane
things imaginable, and they do it all as if it is just routine — an
expected part of doing business.”
House Pro-Choice Caucus leaders immediately
denounced the Republican cabal plans. Co-Chairs Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), and
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), called the plan “Nothing more than a
taxpayer-funded witch hunt intended to rationalize their efforts to
restrict Americans’ access to health care”:
WASHINGTON, DC — As House Republicans announced plans to create a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood, Pro-Choice Caucus co-chairs Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) today released the following statement:Our country has urgent issues that must be addressed, starting with preventing another partisan government shutdown in just a few days’ time. Instead, House Republicans have unveiled plans to create a Benghazi-style committee to attack Planned Parenthood, proving that Republican cabal efforts to restrict access to health care are snowballing out of control. Trotting out heavily edited videos to justify another publicly funded smear campaign against Planned Parenthood is the lowest form of political pandering and will do nothing to solve the very real problems facing our nation.Republicans have already wasted millions of dollars on their attempts to take away Americans’ health care and millions more fabricating a scandal over Benghazi even after three committees found the charges were baseless. And with multiple committees looking into Planned Parenthood without finding any laws broken, Republicans are returning to a tactic that wastes taxpayer money and produces no substantive information. While Republicans apparently can’t find the money to fix our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools, they’re jumping out of their seats to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on yet another political stunt.This move by Republican leaders is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded witch hunt intended to rationalize their efforts to restrict Americans’ access to health care. We urge Republican leaders, in the strongest possible terms, to not waste the House’s time, money, or dignity on this craven political ploy.
Nancy Pelosi also issued a statement on this latest Republican plot to undermine the health of American women:
Pelosi Statement on Republicans’ Select Committee to Attack Women’s HealthWashington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement after it was announced House Republicans will seek to create another radical select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood:The Speaker’s resignation has not yet broken Republicans’ fevered obsession with shutting down the government at the expense of women’s health. House Republicans are planning yet another taxpayer-funded Select Committee to burn more of the millions of taxpayer dollars they’ve already spent playing politics – this time with the goal of taking lifesaving preventative care away from millions of American women.Planned Parenthood provides a lifeline to millions of women every year, who often cannot afford cancer screenings or well women care anywhere else. One in five American women has relied on a Planned Parenthood health care center in her lifetime, and an independent forensic investigation has demonstrated the videos were manipulated to smear Planned Parenthood. Clearly, there must be a thorough investigation of the blatant wrongdoing of the group that clandestinely filmed and selectively edited these videos, likely in violation of numerous state and federal laws.Make no mistake: House Republicans have renewed their war on women’s health. With this Committee, Republicans are trying to make it easier to shut down the government and harder for millions of women to access the lifesaving health care they need. Hard-working families deserve better than a taxpayer-funded Republican Committee fixated on dismantling women’s health.
Over the past seven years, we have learned that
Republicans have no intention of governing, but rather leaping from
invented crisis to invented crisis in an effort to delegitimize
everything that fails their extremist litmus test. Planned Parenthood is
simply their new Benghazi.
And despite all their talk of budgetary frugality
and fiscal responsibility, Republicans have shown there is no amount of
money they will not spend to further their invented scandals, no time
too precious to waste on witch hunts to appease their bigoted and
narrow-minded base.
If they showed even a fraction of this passion for
doing their jobs, imagine how much fuller our recovery would have been
since 2008.
But rather than deal with climate change or
inequality as the post asked, they will, with all the false
righteousness they can muster, fiddle while the world literally burns
around them.
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