Headlines - Friday March 30

 

###

 

Death panels: Pennsylvania goes from bad to worse with fracking. Besides the earthquake risk, besides the flammable tap water, besides the tax free business of fracking and besides the dangerous impact of chemicals being pumped into the ground with costs left for taxpayers to cover, Pennsylvania is now blocking medical doctors from having honest discussions with patients about the impact of fracking chemicals on their patients. Is there any question as to what industry owns the political class of Pennsylvania? The Atlantic

 

###

 

Homeless woman succumbs to bloodclot in jail after hospital has her arrested for trespassing Anna Brown was only 29 years old when she went to St. Mary's hospital in the St. Louis suburb of Richmond Heights, complaining of leg pain. A homeless woman with no means of payment, she was "treated and streeted." A few hours later, she returned by ambulance but the staff, assuming that she was just a drug seeker, told her that she had already been seen and she would have to leave. Police in the building on another call were summoned to the ER and they arrested Ms. Brown for trespassing. A short time later, she was dead in her jail cell after the blood clot that was causing her pain killed her. And her life could have been spared with a simple blood test (called a PT) of her clotting factors.

 

###

 

Senators Who Voted To Protect Oil Tax Breaks Received $23,582,500 From Big Oil

 

### 

 

 

###

 

Oh dear lord...we have not lived good enough lives for this to be real...yet...it is. Rick Santorum gave a "major foreign policy speech" in Fairfield, California. At the headquarters of the Jelly Belly candy company. For those for whom there is still hope of curing yor wonkitis, Jelly Belly makes jelly beans, and jelly beans were St. Ronald of the Ray-Gun's favorite treat. But don't call it pandering! It's an homage!

 

###

Add this to your "what's the matter with Kansas" file. The Kansas House of Representatives on Thursday approved the Orwellian-sounding Preservation of Religious Freedom act. The bill will likely pass the Senate and go on to Brownback for his signature, and there is no doubt that he will sign it, since his administration testified in support of it. Once it becomes law, it will be perfectly legal for any employer to fire any employee that they think might be gay, or liberal, or atheist or whatever -- and hide behind the petticoat of "religious liberty." Apparently, to these douchenozzels, religious freedom means "only the religious have freedom."

 

###

 

 

###

 

WTF? George Zimmerman's Father Blasts Obama: "So Much Hate Coming From The President" 

 

###

 

Rumors are swirling that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley may soon face indictment for tax fraud.

Yesterday, Palmetto Public Record exclusively reported that the Internal Revenue Service has been investigating since March of 2011 the Sikh worship center run by Gov. Haley's father. At least five lawsuits have been filed against the Sikh Society of South Carolina since 2010, alleging that the group bilked contractors out of nearly $130,000 for the construction of a new temple.

I suppose that's either a step up or a step down from "hiking the Appalachian trail," depending on your perspective.

Why does South Carolina have such a problem with their Governors?

 

###

From the Derpartment of "you can't make this shit up."

Tax-cut magician Paul Ryan is accusing the Joint Chiefs of Staff of being dishonest in their budget request, and the reason is –wait for it– they're requesting less spending than expected!

Under normal circumstances you would assume that less spending would be music to the ears of a spending-obsessed man like Paul Ryan, but not in this case. In this case, an agreement between the Joint Chiefs and President Obama, wherein they agree to less spending, must be some kind of conspiracy.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., claimed Thursday that senior U.S. military officials and commanders were being dishonest in their budget requests to Congress.

"We don't believe the generals are giving us their true budget," Ryan said at the National Journal Live Budget Policy summit, adding, "I think there's a lot of budget smoke and mirrors in the Pentagon's budget." [...]

In his FY2013 budget, Ryan proposed dismantling the automatic sequestration of defense spending, replacing those cuts with unspecified savings from mandatory programs.

It gets better.

The spending levels being proposed by the Pentagon are the same levels previously agreed to, by both parties, under the Budget Control Act (the debt-ceiling deal).

Now that the Republicans have officially abandoned the debt-ceiling framework and have, once again, voted to pass Paul Ryan's Medicare-killing budget along party lines, they're pretending that automatically-triggered spending cuts at the Pentagon were never agreed to, even though they were.

By the way, I hear accusing your most senior commanders of lying and producing fraudulent budget requests is a great way to "support the troops."

###

Whether it's Mitt Romney himself or members of his staff, Team Romney simply can't stop saying stupid stuff.

In any case, swelling the IRA to the size Mr. Romney's reached has "created a tax problem" for the former Massachusetts governor, said a Romney campaign official. Tax-law changes since Mr. Romney's Bain tenure mean that long-term capital gains in regular accounts now are taxed at 15%. But IRA gains are taxed at ordinary-income rates upon withdrawal, which for Mr. Romney, under current law, would be 35%.

"Who wants to have $100 million in an IRA?" said the campaign official.

Yeah. Who would want $100 million in an IRA? What a drag would that be?

If you were to withdraw that $100 million dollars, you might have to pay an appropriate amount of tax on it, and that would just be a total buzz-kill.

Maybe Mitt can change the tax laws so he can withdraw his $100 million tax-free if he becomes president.

###

 

FRC: Christians Shouldn't Sell To Queers