Headlines - Saturday June 30

 

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Citizen's United - Well, Nancy Pelosi might have taken impeachment off the table, but she's determined to get Citizen's United over-turned with a constitutional amendment! Corporations are not people, AmIright Nancy! Nancy? Hello, Nancy? Yooooo-hoooo, Nancy? (Raw Story)

 

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Like savoir faire, journalistic hackery is everywhere!

Just read this.

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Christian Churches Win Right To Hold Services In Public Schools

This battle has been going on for a long time and it appears that the virulently anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund has finally won the right for churches to hold weekend services in New York City's public schools.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) won on Friday a permanent injunction in the 17-year legal battle involving the Bronx Household of Faith and the NYC Board of Education. Religious groups will now be allowed to meet freely for worship services in public school facilities. "Churches that have been helping communities for years can continue to offer the hope that empty buildings can't," expressed ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence in a statement. "The court's order allows churches and other religious groups to meet for worship services in empty school buildings on weekends on the same terms as other groups. ADF will continue to defend this constitutionally protected right if the city chooses to continue using taxpayer money to evict the very groups that are selflessly helping the city's communities, including the public schools themselves."

As an example of what goes on at some of these churches, here's what the Village Church, which operates out of PS 3 on Hudson Street, has on its website.

GAME (Gender Affirming Ministry Endeavor) is a ministry of the Village Church, a member of the Exodus International Church Network. The Village Church is committed to celebrating gender, the deeply Biblical reality of our identities. We believe that it is dehumanizing to compel anyone to found his or her identity on sexual desires. So we resist efforts to coerce people into labeling themselves as "gay" or "lesbian" just because they have same-sex attractions. We harm people when we make the nature of their sexual attraction their identifying characteristic. Rather, all of us can find healing and direction through more deeply understanding and affirming our genders as women and men. Check out our Statement on Homosexuality for more details. We have a group that meets weekly and a church that is ready to walk with you. If you'd like to know more, email us or leave a voicemail at 646-863-6020 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 646-863-6020 end_of_the_skype_highlighting. One of our GAME team members will contact you.

We're supposed to believe that these "pop-up" churches pack up all their propaganda and hate materials every Sunday night and leave nothing behind for the kiddies to "accidentally find." One of the involved litigant churches has openly expressed their goal to get a foothold in every public school in the city.

 

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Ex-Wall Street Banker Kills Himself With Poison After Arson Verdict

As news cameras rolled, a former Wall Street banker appeared to swallow poison moments after he was convicted of burning down his Arizona mansion. Paramedics pronounced him dead minutes after he went into convulsions on the court room floor.

All eyes were on the court clerk as she read the verdict on a single count. Then the jury left the room so that Cohen and the attorneys could set the ground rules for the ensuing hearing about whether there were aggravating factors that could result in a harsher sentence for Marin. What video later revealed is that seconds after the verdict was read, Marin rubbed his cupped hands across his face with an expression of dismay. His mouth seemed to open beneath the hands and it appeared as if he swallowed something. Then he took a sports-drink bottle from a briefcase and drank from it.

Investigators say they will make no conclusions until they get the toxicology report.

 

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The only health care mandate they can embrace are transvaginal probes for women -Governor Martin O'Malley

 

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Via ActivistPost:

Now, a new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that the 2010 BP Gulf oil disaster resulted in widespread contamination of Gulf Coast seafood with toxic components from crude oil.1 In fact, levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in shrimp were found to exceed the FDA's established thresholds for allowable levels [levels of concern (LOCs)] for pregnant women in up to 53% of Gulf shrimp sampled.

Eyeballs are so over-rated.

Here's the study.

 

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You all know, at least marginally, about the Fast and Furious scandal. The gun issue that has the GOP voting to holder Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt.

And you may know that underlying the Far And Furious scandal is the belief by Republican members of Congress that President Obama is part of some government wide conspiracy to give guns to Mexican drug lords so that they can kill innocent American feds, and then Obama will use those murders to justify a nationwide crackdown on guns intended to eviscerate the Second Amendment once and for all.

GOP Rep. John Issa, who is taking the lead on Fast and Furious for Republicans in Congress have already publicly stated that he embraces this conspiracy theory. Other Republicans have as well:

Major Republicans, including Darrell Issa, endorse this conspiracy theory. Among those are Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is Chair of the House Oversight Committee and is heading up the investigation of Eric Holder. In an interview on FOX, Issa said, "very clearly, they made a crisis, and they're using this crisis to somehow take away or limit people's Second Amendment rights." He also pushed the theory at an NRA convention. But Issa isn't the only one who is buying in: former Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich just two days ago agreed with the theory. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), and many other Republicans have voiced support for this theory too.

Now, the man who started this conspiracy theory is an ex-militia blogger named Mike Vanderboegh.

And what did Vanderboegh have to say about the Supreme Court decision on health care reform? That if health care reform is not overturned by the Supremes, he's predicting "armed insurrection" against the "tyrannical" US government - he goes on to say that he is "on record as advocating the right of defensive violence against a tyrannical regime."

In the excerpts Vanderboegh posted on his blog "which deal with the decision today," he says of a then-potential decision upholding the health care law, "You may call tyranny a mandate or you may call it a tax, but it still is tyranny and invites the same response." He further predicts the response of his ilk: "If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed -- unless we kill them first. ... I am on record as advocating the right of defensive violence against a tyrannical regime."

And who else is pushing Vanderboegh's conspiracy theory? The NRA.

The NRA is driving the conspiracy theory paranoia though ads. The National Rifle Association is furthering the paranoia as a way to rally gun owners by running advertisements and a petition calling on President Obama to fire Eric Holder. The ads don't specifically mention the gun control conspiracy, but the Executive Director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action is a full-throttle conspiracy believer. The NRA also threatened members of Congress who voted on the contempt charge yesterday, saying that a vote against contempt would reflect poorly on that member's pro-gun ratings.

 

So to recap:

The NRA and Republican members of Congress (and a handful of Dems who voted with them, many of whom got NRA money) are doing the bidding of a somewhat-out-there conspiracy blogger who is now discussing the violent overthrow of the US government.

That's what Fast and Furious is really about. The violent takeover of the Republican party by lunatics.

 

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Dave Weigel at Slate reports that "The Gay Republican Presidential Candidate (Whom You Never Heard of) Calls it Quits":

 

Karger, a successful Republican strategist who'd come out of the closet and quit working for other candidates, had launched a quixotic campaign with one real purpose: Hounding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for its support of gay marriage bans…

Gay Republican activists didn't take Karger seriously. GOPround, the press-savvy gay Republican group, took pains to criticize a campaign that, by taking up the libertation label, made it look like gay rights were hopelessly marginalized inside the party. But Chris Barron, co-founder of GOProud, reacted to the Karger exit with strange new respect. "Congrats to Fred," said Barron. "I don't think he was ever running for President, I think he was running to prove a point and to make a statement. It's fair to say that he succeeded in doing both."

Well, Mr. Karger never overestimated his own chances. There are "fringe", unserious, issue-humping candidates on both sides in every presidential campaign (the unspeakable Randall Terry is running as a "pro-life" Democrat). But then there are the GOP's totally Very Serious, MSM-respectable candidates… like Rick Santorum, now a prominent spokesperson for the Romney campaign. (The difference between Terry and Santorum is some millions of Koch-funding, plus the fact that Sanctorum only discusses jailing women who use birth control and murdering health-care providers of "abortificants" as a theoretical.)

And because the GOP is a Serious Party for the adults in the room, GOProud has endorsed Mitt Romney.

Seriously!

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These people crack me up:

While Colorado burns, conservatives have looked for ways to blame it on President Obama.

Some of the same people who have bashed the president as a big government, big spending liberal now say a wildfire that destroyed hundreds of homes in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs can be blamed on the president because he has been too slow to spend money to beef up the federal fleet of air tankers.

The meme began more than a week ago when pundit Michelle Malkin, who lives in Colorado Springs, wrote a piece for the National Review Online titled "Obama Bureaucrats Are Fueling Wildfires."

"The Obama administration's neglect of the federal government's aerial-tanker fleet raises acrid questions about its core public-safety priorities," she wrote.

How about we end the Bush tax cuts, raise the capital gains tax, gut the defense department budget, and spend the money on things like fire prevention and new roads and the like?

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After yesterday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, conservative politicians turned on Chief Justice John Roberts for siding with liberal justices and ruling the mandate constitutionally sound. Critics of the decision even edited his Wikipeida page to call him a "chief traitor" and "coward," and suggested his epilepsy medicine cause "cognitive problems." Conservative commentator Glenn Beck got in on the action, labeling the chief justice the "Dread Pirate Roberts" and quickly setting up his online store to sell a tee shirt with Roberts's face and the word "coward" below above it. Here's a picture of the shirt, on sale for a mere $30:

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Georgia Sheriff Who Dressed Up As KKK: Criticism Of Me Is 'Sickening And Hurts My Family'

Sheriff Roger Garrison and his friend in KKK attire

 

Sheriff Roger Garrison dressed up in a Ku Klux Klan outfit when he was 22 years old — and now he wants people to stop talking about it. 

A photo obtained by local TV station WSB shows Garrison and a friend in KKK attire, drinking beer.

The Atlanta sheriff insists that the outfit was meant to imitate a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles, and says that any criticism is not fair game. Garrison considers it a stupid move but says that the fury over the picture is "sickening":

"I don't deny it was stupid, looking back now," Garrison told the station, "but there again I say what 21 or 22 year-old in this world hasn't made some stupid mistakes?"[...]

"I don't espouse any of that. It's just insane that politics digresses to this state," he said.

The release of the photos comes at a bad time for the sheriff, who is facing a fight for re-election next month.

"I don't think anyone who knows me is going to think anything of this," Garrison told Atlanta's CBS affiliate. "But it's just sickening and it hurts my family."

To the many black families living in Georgia, the outfit is far from a joke; the Ku Klux Klan are still a functioning white supremacist group with the aim of keeping white people separate from other races.

Garrison's opponent is staying out of the debate, but did say, "it's a statement that the suit makes and to call that a joke is – I don't think a lot of people would laugh."

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Truly shocking, Mitt Romney has moved on from chastising America for copying him to more important things, like the fact that education is expensive for a reason: so that only people who can afford it are permitted to get it. So true! While in Virginia on Friday, Romney said that while America may be "the land of opportunity for every single person," when it comes down to it there is not quiiiiiiite enough opportunity to go around, and education is great, but a person should really only get "as much education as they can afford and with their time they're able to get," which is a weird, as well as an evil, sentence. READ MORE »

 

 

Headlines - Friday June 29

 

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Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian (yesterday after the ruling): "If only we could harness the fury of talk radio today we would have enough wasted energy to light Las Vegas."  

 

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Mike Pence (R) "likened the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Democratic health care law to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to several sources present." Pence later had the good sense to retract his statement, perhaps realizing that allowing sick people to have medical care was nothing at all like over 2900 people meeting their deaths in two hours because of the neglect of the former Administration (see link in the first paragraph).

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This Means War! - Michigan GOP Spokesman and noted Constitutional Scholar Matthew Davis says that today's ruling totally justifies armed revolution. (Little Green Footballs)

 

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Everything you think you know about "Fast and Furious" is completely, 100% wrong. A must-read.

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There's another poll that was released yesterday that highlights a second huge example of this infuriating dynamic.

The latest NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll:

60 percent say President Obama inherited the current economic conditions, compared with 26 percent who blame his policies for the state of the economy.

In other words, a supermajority of Americans blame George W. Bush, and, perhaps, others before him, for the Great Recession.

And rightfully so. The seeds of the recession and the near collapse of the American economy were planted by Ronald Reagan more than 30 years ago. If there's one legacy the Reagan administration left behind — the legacy that too often gets overlooked when the press discusses the present state of the economy — it's the dissolution of the middle class, the dismantling of government regulations and massive tax cuts for the rich. The press won't tell you this, but these policies have always been the driving cause behind everything awful that's happened since around 2007. Continued here…

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John Cole:

The Republicans are demoralized, Roberts is now a dirty word in GOP circles, and they know there is no chance they will ever repeal what happened today. And while I know that, and I have still spent the whole day focusing on the radicalism of the four who ruled against ACA (with Roberts agreeing all the way up until the very end), the most important takeaway politically from what happened today is that the wingnuts lost. Not only did they lose, but they are crestfallen, demoralized, and there are bound to be recriminations and internal discord that can be used to our advantage politically. In one fell swoop, John Roberts ripped away all their socialism bullshit. The ACA is now the law of the land, it was upheld, and regardless of whether you wanted single payer or the mandate to buy private insurance, conservatives lost and will never repeal this.

They are now in disarray. Half of them feel betrayed by Roberts, the other half feel betrayed by life in general. The message for liberals should not be to move on from this victory, but to press the advantage. Obviously, Obama wants to move on and talk about jobs and the economy, but for those of us in the rank and file, this decision is an unlimited ammo dump. Keep pressing the advantage, keep talking about the benefits that consumers will experience under the law, keep mocking the "socialism" and "unconstitutional" claims, and keep moving forward. Remember, this is easy turf. A couple years ago Republicans were arguing that crushing a child's testicles was constitutional. Now they want to argue that denying your child health care when he has leukemia is constitutional. Go in for the fucking kill, liberals.

For once in your god damned lives, put aside your fucking stupid beliefs about purity and how the public option was the bestest thing since sliced bread, accept the massive, game-changing victory you got today, and use it as a god damned bludgeon against the troglodytes whose health care plans are modeled after Ebeneezer Scrooge. For once, focus your bloodlust on Republicans instead of the DLC/Firebaggers/ANYONE WITHOUT AN (R) AFTER THEIR NAME. I'm begging you.

For once in your lives turn a win into a win, just like the Republicans were able to do when I was a wingnut (and half the time they were able to turn a loss into a win). Don't argue amongst yourselves about what would have been better- smash the Republicans around the head and neck with the cudgel you have been given. We're not debating which Democratic plan would have been better, we're debating the reality of what we have now versus the 18th century version of what Republicans would replace it with.

Again, as a former wingnut and lifelong Republican until 2006 or 2007, I am fucking begging- treat a win like a win and use it to your advantage. The most depressing thing about becoming a Democrat after being a Republican for so many years is just watching Democrats shit the bed whenever they win. Press the fucking advantage.

Please?

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The House voted to hold Eric Holder in contempt.

Meanwhile, with a 17% approval rating, the House is held in contempt by the entire nation.

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Rep. Jean Schmidt Has a 'When Harry Met Sally' Moment Outside Supreme Court

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Conservatives Claim Roberts Upheld Obamacare Because Of 'Cognitive Problems' Due To Epilepsy Medication

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Rightwing Blogger's Shocking Discovery: John Roberts Was Blackmailed, Arrests To Come Soon!

How is it possible that it took the #WARBLOGS over an hour to discover the real reason John Roberts made a dookie on the NRO's face, by agreeing that the Heritage Foundation's proposal for health care reform, and one that had been flogged by the GOP as far back as Gingrich's tenure as Emperor of the House, was in fact Constitutional? We cannot answer that for you, we can only do our best to amplify one blogger's shocking discovery the best our humble website can, by bringing you this obvious explanation from "Harry" at "ToBeRight."

Later this afternoon, it's going to come out that Roberts was coerced. A Secret Service agent overheard Obama and Axelrod discussing the Roberts blackmail. He managed to get them on tape discussing it. Later this afternoon, the whole story will come out, Roberts will issue his REAL opinion, and Obama and Axelrod will be taken away in handcuffs.

What could they possibly have on John Roberts? This suggestion, from the endlessly concerning search terms that bring readers to Your Wonket, might hold an answer! READ MORE »

Headlines - Thursday June 28

 

As a vengeful God continues to destroy their home state, Focus On The Family takes advantage of the inferno ravaging their neighbors to argue that Colorado's wildfires should teach us a lesson on the importance of abstinence-only education. SRSLY. From their blogger Chad Hills:

Today, in the state of Colorado, we are breathing smoke from a number of wildfires burning out of control. As of this morning, near Focus on the Family, it's being reported that 15,000 acres have been consumed by fire and some 34,000 people evacuated by the Waldo Canyon fire. More to come, I'm sure. Wouldn't we all agree that it's better to prevent a forest fire, if and when possible, than treat the immense damage in its aftermath? These questions are similar to what the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) is asking Congress and state legislatures about our nation's approach toward pre-marital sex.

Certain questions arise: Why aren't our schools, our states and our nation placing a clear and unquestionable priority on sexual risk avoidance (SRA)? Why are we intentionally spending billions of dollars handing kids matches (condoms), which result in careless (sexual) "fires" and treating victims who have been unnecessarily burned by sex (STDs, pregnancy)? Wouldn't prevention be cheaper and healthier? "Safe" sex education – or promoting casual sex, while handing out condoms and birth control to kids – is analogous to passing out matches to kids in school, and telling them, "Be sure you play safely with these in the forest and, above all, have fun!"

We're still waiting to hear why, exactly, God decided to single out Colorado for this.

 

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Wow. Supreme Court upholds Obamacare individual mandate as a tax

 

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No matter how the Supreme Court rules today, Ann Romney's tap-dancing hobby horse will still get better health care than the majority of Americans and Ann will be able to write it off.

 

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The phrase you're looking for is "Karma's a bitch" Also -- she has red hair and PMS. Greyston Garcia, the 26-year-old man who was acquitted of murder under Floridas "Stand Your Ground" law(lessness) in March after chasing down the man who stole the radio out of his car and stabbing him in the chest after the thief turned and swung a bag of stolen radios at him was shot to death Tuesday night after he was caught in the crossfire as two gangs were shooting at one another. If he had gone to jail, where you belong if you chase someone down and kill them with a knife over a fucking radio, he would still be alive.

 

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Who the fuck even asks the question that would lead to this headline? Two-Thirds of Americans Think Barack Obama Is Better Suited to Handle an Alien Invasion Than Mitt Romney.

 

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There is no doubt in any sane and reasonable person's mind that Global Warming is real and is happening, right now. It's still June and Kansas City is in the grip of August-type weather. We have already had a couple of hundred-degree days, and there is no relief in sight. In the last month, we've had less than an inch of rain. Crops haven't started turning brown and dying in the fields yet, but then again, it's still pretty early in the growing season.

It's real. It's happening. And the deniers are engaging in magical thinking.

And this is going to make their heads explode.

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that the effects of global warming are "manageable," quickly drawing scorn from environmentalists.

Tillerson, speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said climate change will require people to adapt to rising sea levels and shift food production, Bloomberg reports.

He also called for more "competent" climate change models, their piece states.

Environmentalists bashed the "manageable" comment. "The sound you hear is millions of jaws dropping, polar bear jaws included," the Sierra Club posted on Twitter.

So this begs the question -- what kind of models do the industry groups have that they aren't sharing with us, if the CEO of Exxon is willing to admit, out loud and in public, that the climate change phenomenon is real?

I not only shudder to think about what is heading for us that would prompt such an admission, I have decided to start drinking now and get a head start on the 5:00 cocktail hour.

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Without reform, the United States' healthcare system costs nearly double the systems of Canada, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

– A lot of people still don't know what's actually in the Affordable Care Act — so they don't know exactly what they might lose. Here is a great explanation of the law.

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What is REAL AMERICA up to these days, hm? How are REAL AMERICAN HEROES, like police officers, for example, weathering the economic chaos of the past half decade or so? Turns out they are weathering it with lots of fun toys like tanks and machine guns, thanks to a "program" that allows them to acquire military surplus equipment for the cost of shipment and maintenance. And if that equipment somehow gets sold to interested parties, well, this is just the glorious machinations of the Free Market™.

Via Wired:

In 2011 alone, more than 700,000 items were transferred to police departments for a total value of $500 million. This year, as of May 15, police departments already acquired almost $400 million worth of stuff. Last year's record would have certainly been shattered if the Arizona Republic hadn't revealed in early May that a local police department used the program to stockpile equipment – and then sold the gear to others, something that is strictly forbidden.…

READ MORE »

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Hooray! The Texas GOP has published its 2012 platform! It's a bonanza for list-makers, from Think Progress to Comedy Central, because it's just THAT FULL of crazy. It's a veritable Boffo's Joke Emporium Grab-Bag of lunacy: we've got pledges to repeal the 1965 Voter [sic] Rights Act, to stop the womenfolk from doing ungodly things with their sinful ladyparts, and to keep the UN from tainting the water supply with homosexual Kenyan-born Day-After Pills.

But the awesomest part of the platform is to be found in the section on Edumacation. No, it's not the ringing endorsement of corporal punishment, nor is it the predictable support for promoting freedom by forcing children to pledge allegiance to both the US and Texas flags. Heck, it's not even the subtle shift from an open "Cdesign proponentsist" agenda to a pseudo-neutral call for students to be able to answer "God Did It" on a biology test "without fear of retribution or discrimination," or even the plan to base all US History lessons on the art of John McNaughton.

Nope, the real zinger of the 2012 GOP platform is what appears to be a declaration of war on rational thought itself:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

READ MORE »

 

Headlines - Wednesday June 28

 

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Noted Libertarian and neck-stomp enthusiast Rand Paul loves him some small government.

He loves it so hard that he's running around trying to attach a "life begins at conception" amendment to a Flood Insurance bill.

A FLOOD INSURANCE BILL, PEOPLE. From Politico: More »

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But of course THEIR government subsidy is deserved, unlike all those "undeserving" recipients, right?

It seems that when Willard Rmoney appeared on Face the Nation last Sunday to rail against government spending, he did so against a backdrop of a farm that gets a nice fat chunk of federal farm subsidies. What makes this interesting is that the owners of the farm see no inconsistency between their own raking in of six figures of federal cash and their insistence that the government needs to "cut spending":

Jeff and Karen Zuck, who own the 160-acre, 117-head dairy farm that was Romney's chosen backdrop for the rare non-Fox interview, have collected $195,631 in federal subsidies since 1995. The $44,549 in grants they got in 2009, Barack Obama's first year in office, was almost twice their previous high in 2002, and was a consequence of the heightened subsidies the Obama administration rushed to deliver as milk prices plummeted in the recession. Only 20 farms in subsidy-rich Lebanon County, Penn., received more federal aid than the Zucks in 2009, and only 30 exceeded the Zuck subsidy over the prior decade and a half. But the farm didn't even appear on the top 50 list in George W. Bush's final year in office, when they received a measly $1,177 in subsidies, less than three percent of what Obama gave them the next year. Regardless, Karen Zuck told The Daily Beast that she and her husband back Romney. "I haven't liked Obama since before he was president," said Zuck, who had a hard time pinpointing exactly what she likes about Romney, other than her belief that he's "going to do more" about "keeping regulations down." Acknowledging that 2009 and 2010 were their "darkest years," Zuck admitted that "maybe we did get something from it," a reference to the Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Program (DELAP) that Obama jump-started in 2009 ($10,243 for the Zucks), and the Milk Income Loss Contract Payment Program that Obama infused with new funding ($34,944 for the Zucks). "We get enough," said Zuck. "But we'd rather not," she added, insisting that she'd prefer to let milk prices rise on their own.

Yeah, right. Because these are just principled conservatives who are willing to sacrifice that nice fat check in the name of "cutting spending", right? Isn't that funny, then, that they went right ahead and cashed the checks.

 

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To get a grasp of "Obamacare" premiums, let's take a family of four where the policyholder is age 35 and has an income of $40,000. How much would insurance cost them? According to this handy calculator from Kaiser, here's what that family would have to pay:
» Premium cost: $925
» Federal tax credit: $760
» Net cost of policy: $165

... This is based on a "silver" policy, but you could opt for a gold or platinum policy and pay more, or you could pay less and get a bronze policy. Bronze policies don't provide great coverage, but they do provide the basics and they also cover health emergencies. It's a reasonable option for someone who just can't afford more. By my rough calculation, a bronze policy would cost about $125 less than a silver policy. This means that the net monthly premium for our family of four would be about $40.

$165 a month instead of the current $1-2,000? Could those against it please tell me why you would object to someone paying for their own health care - as opposed to paying for them to go to the ER or doctor when they have NO insurance?

 

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This is why all privatization of prisons should be unconstitutional A 27-year-old man who was less than three months away from being released died in custody after a nurse employed by a private company contracted to provide medical services to inmates sent the ambulance away empty that a physician had called for the inmate to transport him to the hospital because he had already had three siezures that day. The nurse overrode the doctor, the patient died and she not only didn't face any sanction, she still has her job and is still, presumably, denying care to inmates for "cost control" reasons.

 

In fact, nothing to do with jails or prisons should be privatized. NOTHING. Because shit like this happens. A woman in Tampa, FL was arrested for failure to appear on a previous, unrelated charge after she reported a rape to the police on the advice of the rape-crisis center she visited after the attack. The arrest for a minor offesne after a violent attack was bad enough, but the next morning when she asked for the second "morning after" pill that had been given to her by the physician who performed the post-attack exam and collected the rape kit, the jailer (whe worked at the jail for a private company) refused to give it to her, stating that it violated her religious beliefs.

 

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When you hear some of the rhetoric from the past, it's fair to say there was some reason for concern with the potential new government. It shouldn't be difficult to do better than the last corrupt regime but as we've seen many times, it's easy to do worse.

But for now, so far, so good though time will tell.

The Muslim Brotherhood is at pains to calm fears of what an Islamist president might mean for Egypt and the region at large. Appointing both a woman and a Coptic Christian is an attempt at a show of unity, and a rule by consensus.

Meanwhile, defeated presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik – Mubarak's last prime minister and Morsi's rival in the runoff election – flew to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday morning with his two daughters. His camp denied that he had fled as investigations begin into allegations of corruption against him while minister of civil aviation. He was in Abu Dhabi for "tourism" purposes, they said.

Essawy also said that Morsi had no objection to swearing the presidential oath in front of the supreme constitutional court (SCC), widely seen as a controversial move after the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood-majority parliament by that very court a day before the run-off elections earlier this month. But, "that does not mean he [Morsi] acknowledges the dissolution of parliament", said Essawy, a member of Morsi's former party, Freedom and Justice (FJP).

 

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Republican Party of Texas released its platform this month, calling on Congress to repeal the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. "We urge that the Voter [sic] Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized," the platform reads. Texas is one of nine states with a history of racial discrimination that must get clearance from the Department of Justice before altering its voting laws.

 

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Good news everyone! Our benevolent corporate overlords are here to stay and it's full steam ahead for the New American Plutocracy! USA! USA! USA!

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a plea to revisit its 2-year-old campaign finance decision in the Citizens United case and instead struck down a Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending.

Rather than hearing the case to rethink Citizens United, as Justice Ginsburg had predicted, the court decided that our public discourse was enriched immeasurably from commentary from Foster Freiss and as a result, we will have to hear from people like him possibly forever. Since the court is not at all a partisan body, the decision was 5 -4:

READ MORE »

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James Fallows believes the conservative members of the Supreme Court are engaged in a slow motion, long-term coup d'etat.

[W]hen you look at the sequence from Bush v. Gore, through Citizens United, to what seems to be coming on the health-care front; and you combine it with ongoing efforts in Florida and elsewhere to prevent voting from presumably Democratic blocs; and add that to the simply unprecedented abuse of the filibuster in the years since the Democrats won control of the Senate and then took the White House, you have what we'd identify as a kind of long-term coup if we saw it happening anywhere else.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but what we know is this: while it has occasionally been political, the Supreme Court isn't supposed to be a political entity. Add politics to the mix and you get a quasi-legislative body that pursues vendettas and decides based on party loyalty. And this legislative body has the power to trump the other two branches of government in a way that's virtually irreversible. The Roberts Court is doing just that, while also trying to roll back decades of precedent.

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Joe said some unkind things about Willard Romney and white people. Joe retweeted a joke about Ann Romney's maladroit quote about "unzipping" her husband. A ludicrous Tinker Toy news outlet stamped its tiny feet, and then the assembled mourners over at Andrew Breitbart's Mausoleum Of Unemployables got themselves outraged, and Politico folded like a cheap suit. This should be a caution to any real reporters who work there now, or who may be thinking about working there in the future. Your bosses can be frightened away by a preposterous political grocery flyer, and by a website run by a cargo cult that worships a deceased angry drunk. They do not have your back. -Charles Pierce on the suspension of Joe Williams

The "Tinker Toy news outlet" would be the Washington Free Beacon.

It shouldn't go unnoticed that Politico suspended African American reporter Joe Williams for saying Romney is more comfortable around white people, while Neil Munroe interrupted the president in the rose garden and is still proudly employed by The Daily Caller.

Munroe's rude interruption was hailed as a heroic act by the same Right Wing blogosphere that lit their hair on fire after Joe Williams dared to tell the obvious truth about Mitt Romney. And while Politico may claim they have "higher standards," those who cried the loudest, prompting the dismissal of Williams, have double standards.

It's okay if you're a Republican. And if you're white.

 

Headlines - Tuesday June 26

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor... oops, time's up - A post office in New Hampshire has cut back operating hours to 30 minutes per day. The post office in Sugar Hill is open from 10:15 to 10:45 each morning. This lack of service is brought to you by your GOP Congress. (AP)

 

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Republican voters actually love the stuff in the Affordable Care Act. This could be a problem for the GOP in the immediate future. Healthcare reform in the abstract is easy to attack. But if it goes down in the Supreme Court, everyone's going to find out what they've lost -- and they aren't going to be very happy.

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Lawmakers reworked financial portfolios after talks with Fed, Treasury officials

 

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Feds Sue Two Polygamous Towns - The Justice Department alleges that local leaders engaged in an intimidation campaign against the unfaithful.

 

Kinda like Prop Hate and when they come to your door all the time.

 

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Vatican hires Fox News Opus Dei adherent for PR help

 

That's one way to address the Vatican's PR problem

Here's another: Stop raping children, and start siding with the kids and not their rapists.

(It also wouldn't hurt if the Vatican got its head out of the 15th century, but no one expects that to happen any time soon. So perhaps in the meantime having a more enlightened perspective on the subject of child-rape might help.)

 

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They like the plan, they just hate him

This is irritating: asked Ipsos to send over a partisan breakdown of the data. Key points:

Eighty percent of Republicans favor "creating an insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits." That's backed by 75 percent of independents.

Fifty-seven percent of Republicans support "providing subsidies on a sliding scale to aid individuals and families who cannot afford health insurance." That's backed by 67 percent of independents.

Fifty-four percent of Republicans favor "requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employers." That's backed by 75 percent of independents.

Fifty two percent of Republicans favor "allowing children to stay on parents insurance until age 26." That's backed by 69 percent of independents.

Seventy eight percent of Republicans support "banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; 86 percent of Republicans favor "banning insurance companies from cancelling policies because a person becomes ill." Those are backed by 82 percent of independents and 87 percent of independents.

One provision that isn't backed by a majority of Republicans: The one "expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year."

"Most Republicans want to have good health coverage," Ipsos research director Chris Jackson tells me. "They just don't necessarily like what it is Obama is doing."

I don't know if you blame this on Democratic and media incompetence or Republican agitprop. But I do know one thing- if the wingnuts get their way and ACA is gutted, these same people will be blaming the loss of all these perks they like on Obama.

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Rmoney, the corporate rapist

Over the weekend, two long stories came out that set out, in detail, how Mitt Romney and Bain Capital raped, plundered and burned companies. They bought a majority stake in the companies and then forced the companies to hire themselves as "consultants" for very large fees.

So as the companies went down the drain, laying off thousands of American workers, sending those jobs overseas and amassing massive debt, Bain Capital took out massive "fees".

If the company was one of those few that survived the rapacious ministrations of Romney's Bain Capital, Rmoney and Bain made a fortune. if the company eventually went under, Bain made even more mney.

The wholly predictable thing is this: Bain Capital under Rmoney made a practice of shuttering American plants and sending the jobs overseas. Only now that he is running for president, Mittens is going around decrying offshoring American jobs.

By the way, has anyone noted that Mittens hasn't held down a job for the last six years? He's kind of young to be retired.

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"Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it's done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

–PA House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny)

Well, pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain, either.

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Location, location, location...Mittens could have probably picked a better place to attack "big government" than in front of a farm that takes thousands of dollars in subsidies every single year.

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It's all about State's Rights. Well, unitl it isn't.

San Francisco - As the 2012 Farm Bill continues to take shape in the halls of the United States Congress, the immense influence of corporate interests is on display.

On June 21 the United States Senate voted overwhelmingly against the Sanders Amendment that would have allowed states to pass legislation that required food and beverage products to label whether or not they contain genetically engineered ingredients.

The amendment, proposed by Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is particularly relevant as many states prepare to vote on a ballot initiatives that would require such labelling of genetically modified (GM) foods.

Lobbyists from the biotech industry have ardently opposed GMO labelling. These opponents argue that because food labelling has historically been handled by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), it is a federal issue and, therefore, individual states do not have the right to implement such legislation. Indeed, in the case of Vermont, Sanders' home state, Monsanto successfully intimidated the state legislature from voting on a bill that would have required GMO labelling.

Patty Lovera, the assistant director of Food and Water Watch, explained that states planning to vote on GM labelling in November could face a legal fight to defend their right to enact such laws.

"However, this amendment would have taken this threat away," Lovera told IPS

So ya see Bubba, when it com to your vote counting for anything... even at he state level my man... my suggestion is that you vote in the one hand, take a dump in the other and see which one fills up first. Until you grow a setr of balls and the brains to realize who your enemies really are, you've doomed yourself and your descendants for the foreseeable future to lives as serfs and fodder for the elites. It's a choice you had for yourself and Miss piggy but your kids deserved the right to make their own decisions and to not have you sell their birthright out from under them. You might be proud of that wonton ignorance Bubba... the rest of us you're dragging down to your level, not so much.

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Well This is nice:

A conservative radio host says that the Catholic nuns who have embarked on a nine-state bus tour to protest the injustice of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget deserve to be beaten with a handgun because they "threw the first punch."

"There's a bus full of nuns headed towards Washington to lobby against the Ryan plan," radio host Jan Mickelson told Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) last week. "Do you guys, do you have any power to pull the nuns on the bus over and pistol whip them?"

"They say he is evil, they say he is fake Catholic," he added. "They're the ones that threw the first punch."

Can I just say this? Fuck these clowns. They are every bit as bad as the Taliban and Iranian Mullahs combined. And if we don't fight them, and fight them viciously, we are going to lose everything. And that's not hyperbole, that's reality.

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The Supreme Court conducted a vile smear against the noble state of Arizona today by shooting down most of SB 1070, the law that restricts illegal Mexicans from existing. Our old pal Antonin Scalia, writing the dissenting opinion, simply didn't care for his peers' decision. As Scalia sees it, states = sovereign, so states can do whatever they want, however they want it, to keep the filthy Mexicans outside looking in. Where is the problem? Southern states did this all the time with freed slaves, so why can't they do it with the taco people? READ MORE »

 

 

Headliines - Monday June 25

 

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Onward Christian Flyboys

This is the very definition of chutzpah:

More than 60 Republican lawmakers have signed a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta accusing the U.S. Air Force of being "hostile to religion," according to Fox News.

The letter, drafted by Reps. Todd Akin (R-MO), Diane Black (R-TN) and Randy Forbes (R-VA), calls on Panetta to investigate a series of cases where the Air Force "succumbed" to pressure from outside groups, such as the removal of a paragraph from a Squadron Officer School training document saying, "if you attend chapel regularly, both officers and Airmen are likely to follow this example. If you are morally lax in your personal life, a general moral indifference within the command can be expected."

The document was taken out following a complaint by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation that the line "creates the inescapable impression that regular church attendance is a requirement for commissioned Air Force officers in order to demonstrate positive morals to subordinates." The foundation said it violates the constitutional ban on religious tests for U.S. office holders.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was created because the US Air Force was becoming a fundamentalist Christian cult. I'm surprised it's taken them this long to start a full-blown pushback.

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".....Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney." Here's a list of thirty lies Mitt Romney has publicly told in just past week alone...

 

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Grand Dragon Inquisitor Darrell Issa admitted to Fox News' Chris Wallace today that there is no evidence that the White House was involved in Fast and Furious.

 

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Wonkette: Governor Asks Shooters Pretty Please Self-Regulate While Utah Burns Because Of Shooters

 

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Karl Rove Still Making Mockery of Campaign Finance Law, Humanity

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that Karl Rove, disgusting human being and co-founder of the American Crossroads Superpac, is making a "mockery of the law" by attending a Romney-hosted retreat for top $100,000-and-up campaign bundlers and donors at a Park City, Utah, resort. Predictably, the internet is all a-twitter at the shocking revelation that a SuperPac cofounder would coordinate with a political candidate. Shocking, isn't it.

Via ThinkProgress:

This weekend, Mitt Romney and his campaign will host a retreat for top $100,000-and-up campaign bundlers and donors at a Park City, Utah resort. The event, dubbed the "First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat," will reportedly be an opportunity for "strategizing and fraternizing" between those bankrolling the campaign and those running it.

READ MORE »