Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo announced Wednesday that Stein will be separated from the service under other than honorable conditions. Stein, 26, a Temecula resident, ran afoul of Marine Corps and Pentagon regulations restricting troop political activity by calling for Obama's ouster and making statements that the president was the "enemy" and that he would not follow his orders unless he considered them lawful. Stein, who could not be reached for immediate comment, was informed of the decision Wednesday morning, according to one of his attorneys, Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation. "He is very disappointed," Kreep said. "His grandmother died last night and then this hit him." Stein will now fight for reinstatement through Marine Corps legal channels and continue pressing a court case, Kreep said. Earlier this month, he unsuccessfully sought to persuade a federal court to issue a restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop the separation.Stein is being backed by the ACLU, who says that his Facebook postings and birther-related political activism falls under freedom of speech protections. The "Patriots For Sgt. Stein" group on Facebook has over 8000 members.
PERKINS: [The media] have attempted to marginalize anyone who challenges this administration on those principles and that driving ideology. You know, it goes back to what they did to those that questioned the issue of his birth certificate. Look, I don't know about all that, but I will tell you this, it's a legitimate issue from the standpoint of what the Constitution says.
And I think what we've done is we've done great harm to foundation of our government by marginalizing and attacking anyone who brings up a legitimate issue.
How dare we treat racist nutjobs like the racist nutjobs they are.
The obvious, and easily substantiated, rebuttal is that questioning the legitimacy of the president's citizenship on the basis of his skin color and name has done more harm to the foundation of our government than the media's dubious-at-best rejection of dog-whistle politics.
Much of the opposition to the president is easily traceable to questions of his legitimacy, not his ideology, and even the opposition to his ideology is primarily informed by dog-whistle politics.
It's unlikely those questions will dissipate until the president either leaves office or spontaneously turns white and changes his name to John Smith.
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Even as the oil industry enjoys $4 billion in subsidies a year, Pompeo lamented the cost of the production tax credit, claiming the wind industry would be fine on its own:
"The program has been around an awfully long time and it's time to let that industry stand on its own two feet. And I'm confident that they'll do it," he said. "There's great, creative engineers and innovators in the alternative energy field, and I'm confident they'll be successful."
It now costs the government more than $1 billion a year to hand out 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of wind power — and enough is enough, says Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.).
"We've been subsidizing some of these industries with tax credits for multiple decades, and every time they get to the end of the line, they get within a year, they say, 'If you just give me' — fill in the blank — 'one more year, four more years, that's all I want. Just a little more time,'" said Pompeo, who is leading a charge against the PTC and other energy subsidies.
"What history would demonstrate is they would continue to come back to the federal trough and ask for more time yet again at the end," he added.
History has shown that the three times the production tax credit expired, wind investments dropped. Meanwhile, Big Oil has benefited from 100 years of consistent tax breaks, even though the industry had a record-high year of $137 billion profits. And Pompeo, who benefits from these profits, has made clean energy his punching bag.
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This is so f***ed up.
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Attention-whoring nematode Antonin Scalia would like to take a regularly scheduled opportunity to remind America that his is a lifetime appointment and professionalism be damned, on this the occasion of the national attention being paid to the SCOTUS hearing on the constitutionality of Arizona's "Let's have a Mexican-hunting party" SB 1070 law, and therefore let you know that illegal immigrants are somewhat like bank robbers. Seems about right, what with how illegal immigrants are constantly stealing money for a living, by working for it at below-market wages.
From TPM:
"What's wrong about the states enforcing federal law?" Scalia said during his aggressive questioning of U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. "There is a federal law against robbing federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is."
The Reagan-appointed justice mocked the Obama administration's argument that S.B. 1070 unconstitutionally forces the federal government to re-prioritize its enforcement resources and go after undocumented people who are not dangerous.
"But does the attorney general come in and say, you know, we might really only want to go after the professional bank robbers?" Scalia said. "If it's just an amateur bank robber, you know, we're going to let it go. And the state's interfering with our whole scheme here because it's prosecuting all these bank robbers."
The line drew uncomfortable laughter and some gasps in the courtroom.
What is an "amateur bank robber?" Oh right, it is the kind that sneaks into your bank and washes the dishes in the employee lounge instead of breaking open the vault. Makes sense now. [TPM]
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Tennessee Rep.: Bullied Gay Children Who Killed Themselves Didn't Have 'Proper Principles'
Oh, yeah, Tennessee state Rep. Jeremy Faison is VERY VERY SORRY about the awful thing he said, about the gay children who killed themselves in his state after they had been bullied for being so very queer. Just how stupid is fat fuckface up there?
We can't continue to legislate everything. We've had some horrible things happen in America and in our state, and there's children that have actually committed suicide, but I will submit to you today that they did not commit suicide because of somebody bullying them. They committed suicide because they were not instilled the proper principles of where their self-esteem came from at home."
O RLY?
RLY. The "proper principles" like probably not being such fags, we guess. But it's not like he's a big expert on homo stuff, 'cause he is godfearing ("attended" Clearwater Christian College and Northland Baptist Bible College) and has four children who doubtless HAVE been raised with proper principles of where their self-esteem comes from (not being fags), so you could see why this well-meaning fellow would accidentally make a gaffe in his pants. Nope, most of his bills pertain to goin' offroadin' and making sure funds are not allocated to implement enforcement of new child labor regulations. But it's true we can't continue to "legislate everything," except when it comes to uteruses and men's bottoms. THIS GUY!
Anyway, Faison represents Cocke County, for serious, so haha? Oh, Tennessee, never change. (Kidding, kidding, you're horrible just the way you are!) [Tennessean]
