ThinkProgress Goes Union

ThinkProgress Staffers Unionize With Writers Guild:

The editorial staff of the progressive news site ThinkProgress has joined the Writers Guild of America, East, making it the latest in a string of Web-based publications to unionize.

The union said in a statement late Wednesday that management at the site had chosen to voluntarily recognize the employees' decision, allowing them to forgo a secret-ballot election.

“We support and recognize the move by ThinkProgress staffers to join the Writers Guild of America, East," Judd Legum, the site's editor, said in a statement distributed by the union. "Our shared goal is to make ThinkProgress' exceptional team of writers and editors even stronger and continue our cutting-edge work covering the issues that matter most...”

More GOPer Castraters?

Apparently Jodi Ernst is not the only denutter in the GOP.

Rich Lowry Tells Megan Kelly: Carly Fiorina Cut Donald Trump's 'Balls Off Like A Surgeon' | Crooks and Liars:

Just when you thought the GOP presidential primary couldn't get any weirder than it is - we get Rich Lowry. Megan Kelly discussed the recent Trump vs Fiorina duel of recent days since the CNN debate and the National Review's Rich Lowry opened up the discussion by saying Carly castrated Donald Trump in the last debate, only he used much more colorful language...

Why Clinton Instead Of Sanders

Uppity Woman | I'm just one of those Uppity Women. Live with it.:

...What this all has to do with you, is that the only person running for President who would have at least some chance to arrest this frightening trend, is Hillary Clinton. She has already vowed to try to create grassroots strength among Democrats at the state level. She wants to develop a deep bench of state candidates; and she wants to encourage young people to participate in politics, on the Democratic side. In so many words, she wants to rebuild the Democratic Party to where it is a consistent and strong national force. Do you really think that Sanders has any interest in this, or any capacity to do it? He doesn’t even identify as a Democrat. He has never campaigned for any Democrat across the country. He would have no downticket strength whatsoever. Can you not see that even if Sanders were somehow nominated, he could not help the Democratic Party one iota in state races?...

The Outlaw Jersey Whale Slams Pope

Without A Hint Of Irony, Catholic Chris Christie Says 'The Pope Is Wrong' | Crooks and Liars

Last night, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (who is Catholic) said on CNN's State of the Union, that the Pope, who according to Catholic dogma was chosen by God himself, was wrong to help make that deal. Christie thinks the Catholic leader should stay of politics entirely because his infallibility only pertains to religious matters.

However that is contradictory to what Catholic theology says, which means actions and teachings taken by the Pope must not contradict Sacred Scripture. Repairing the relations between two fighting countries certainly doesn't go against any scripture I'm aware of...

Clinton Says No To Keystone

Hillary Clinton breaks silence on Keystone pipeline, opposes it - The Times of India:

Iowa: Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has long avoided a firm position on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, broke her silence on Tuesday and said she opposed it...

O's Diversity Movement

Obama has vastly changed the face of the federal bureaucracy - The Washington Post:

...And it underscored an often-overlooked feature of the Obama presidency: Obama has presided over the most demographically diverse administration in history, according to a new analysis of his top appointments. The majority of top policy appointments within the executive branch are held by women and minorities for the first time in history...

Russian Propaganda

Putin’s Propaganda TV Lies About Its Popularity - The Daily Beast:

A Kremlin-funded foreign propaganda venture is touted as a big success by backers, but documents provided to The Daily Beast suggest that it is woefully failing in its mission. RT, the 10-year-old network formerly known as Russia Today, appears to be misrepresenting its promulgated success at gaining a broad viewership and promoting the Kremlin’s agenda while spending as much as internationally renowned competitors. The network is also accused of exaggerating its audience and impact with its sole financier—the Russian government—and pretending that it has had a far bigger impact in the Western media sphere than it has, particularly online. Its highest-trafficked videos on YouTube, for instance, apparently pertain to “metrosexuals, bums, etc.” rather than anything political...

Clinton Scores In NH

Hillary Clinton Fires Up The Base In New Hampshire | Crooks and Liars:

This really was a great speech, and it's nice to see Clinton get her groove back. As I was watching, I thought, now, that's the same HRC who won so big here in PA:

Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN)Hillary Clinton fired up the most faithful Granite State Democrats on Saturday, outlining her vision for the future and the rationale behind her run in a well received speech at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's convention here.

"If you want a president who will tell you everything that is wrong with America and who is to blame for it, you've got plenty of other choices. And my goodness, didn't we hear enough of that the other night at the Republican debate," Clinton said to a cheering crowd. "But if you want a president who will listen to you, work her heart out to make your life better, and together to build a stronger, fairer, better country, then you are looking at her..."

Afghan Pedophilia

U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies - The New York Times:

...The American policy of nonintervention is intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban. It also reflects a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where pederasty is rife, particularly among powerful men, for whom being surrounded by young teenagers can be a mark of social status.

Some soldiers believed that the policy made sense, even if they were personally distressed at the sexual predation they witnessed or heard about.

“The bigger picture was fighting the Taliban,” a former Marine lance corporal reflected. “It wasn’t to stop molestation.”

Still, the former lance corporal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending fellow Marines, recalled feeling sickened the day he entered a room on a base and saw three or four men lying on the floor with children between them. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what was happening under the sheet, but I have a pretty good idea of what was going on,” he said...

The Diapering Of The GOP

The GOP’s infantile delusions are out of control: A ludicrous CNN debate, a preposterous government shutdown & Donald Trump, still leading the pack - Salon.com:

It’s official: the Republican party has truly become the party of infantile children. The second GOP debate was full of blatant lies, petty mockery, and infighting, with attacks especially directed at the new king of the GOP, Donald Trump (faithful “conservatarians” may not like this reality, but their crippling of Congress helped to create this monster)....

tRump's No Defense Defense

Donald Trump: I'm not 'obligated' to defend Obama - CNNPolitics.com:

Donald Trump on Saturday said it is not his job to correct supporters' claims about the President, defending his decision not to take issue with a man who disparaged Muslims and said President Barack Obama is not an American...

KY Drama Queen Still At It

Kentucky Deputy Clerk Claims Kim Davis Violated Judge's Order | Advocate.com:

More drama in Kentucky as the attorney for a deputy clerk has accused Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis of disobeying the order of a federal judge by altering marriage licenses to remove her name and that of the county.

Brian Mason, who has been designated to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, raised concerns with his attorney about the alteration of the license, the Associated Press reports.

Davis, who believes same-sex marriage is a sin, stopped issuing all marriage licenses shortly after the Supreme Court's June 26 marriage equality ruling. After several couples sued her, U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered that she issue licenses without discrimination. For defying his order, she was jailed for contempt of court September 3...

Banning Private Prisons

Bernie Sanders declares war on the prison-industrial complex with major new bill - Salon.com:

Bernie Sanders just made good on an early campaign promise and introduced a bill in the Senate to outlaw what he called the “morally repugnant” practice of incarcerating Americans in private prisons and called for the reduction in the nation’s prison population...

Paul Makes Sense!

Two Cheers for Rand Paul: The Kentucky Senator Brought the Libertarian in Debate - Hit & Run : Reason.com:

...More important, Paul, who early on in his senatorial career talked forthrightly about the need to reduce not just the Pentagon's budget (U.S. defense spending continues to essentially equal that of all other countries), stressed that we need to rethink military interventions in the same way we think about domestic policy:

We have to learn sometimes the interventions backfire. The Iraq War backfired and did not help us. We’re still paying the repercussions of a bad decision....

We have make the decision now in Syria, should we topple Assad? Many up here wanted to topple Assad, and it’s like — I said no, because if you do…ISIS will now be in charge of Syria…

It's a damning insight that after two major wars that have failed either to advance U.S. interests or stabilize the countries in which they were waged that "we have to learn sometimes [that] interventions backfire..."

Anti Vacc Nonsense

The GOP Debate's Vaccine Disaster:

Wednesday night's Republican debate veered into crackpot territory when CNN's Jake Tapper asked Dr. Ben Carson whether Donald Trump should stop falsely linking vaccines to autism.

Not only did Carson not say Trump should stop, he suggested the professional entertainer had a point. And then The Donald himself went on to repeat the widely discredited claim that vaccines cause autism, and nobody called him out.

"CNN was irresponsible to even bring that up," journalist Ana Marie Cox said on HuffPost's "So That Happened" Podcast. "If you even talk about the vaccine debate you give it credence..."

When Ya Got Nuttin'-- Lie

Fiorina Attacks Hillary Clinton's Record By Lying About It | Crooks and Liars:

...Carly Fiorina is boasting about what, exactly? She practically ruined Hewlett-Packard, fired 30,000 employees, and got away with a hefty golden parachute. She bought wealthy 1%ers, HP executives, costly private jets. She was listed as one of the top ten worst CEOs of all time. Is that an accomplishment? They couldn't wait to fire her.

We also can't forget her costly and disastrous bid for the California Senate in 2010, where she was beat handily by Barbara Boxer. If Carly wants to battle Hillary on electability, Hillary won her Senate seat the two times she ran, Carly, not once. Let's be honest. When it boils down to it, reality is Hillary 2, Carly (less than) Zero!

Misremebering The Past And The Present Debate Style

No, Jeb Bush, Your Brother Did Not Keep Us Safe:

...I ran out of patience long ago with The Great Mulligan. C-Plus Augustus ignored the terrorist threat for nine months. He told his Attorney General to shift focus from counterterrorism to weed and porn. He told his National Security Advisor to worry about the Russians. He blew off a Presidential Daily Briefing and a CIA briefer. Then, on September 11, 2001, there were 3000 Americans who were not kept safe on his watch. He then stonewalled any real investigation of his negligence. He then launched a war of choice after allowing the architect of the attacks to go free. There were more than 4000 American soldiers who were not kept safe. And now his blithering brother suggests that time began on September 12, 2001. Scott Walker then chimed in about how it was all Barack Obama's fault. Then there was Mike Huckabee, stressing the importance of "good intelligence" on formulating foreign policy. This would have been a good idea in, say, 2003, when Jeb(!)'s brother was cooking the books to start his pet war. But everybody cheered. Nobody called them on this. Nobody, except Rand Paul, had second thoughts on sending more American troops back into Iraq. But Donald Trump, whose combat experience is limited to punching out a music teacher in prep school, said that he thought the president lacked courage. I wouldn't hire any of these guys as a crossing guard...

The Daily Flashback: Iran-Contra & Raygun's Greatest Hit

Iran-Contra and Arms-for-Hostages Scandals: Eugene Hasenfus:

...Negotiations between Iran and the US for more arms sales hit another snag, with the Iranians merely releasing some American hostages and kidnapping more (see September 19, 1986). CIA Director William Casey decides to reprise the earlier strategy of exhorting Iraq to escalate its air strikes against Iran, thus forcing Iran to turn to the US for more military aid (see July 23, 1986)...

Comment Of The Day: Mudcat Edition

An Evangelical responds to Sanders' speech at Liberty U:

 * [new] And let's not forget the "electoral math" (19 / 0-)

Mudcat Saunders, Democratic electoral consultant, likes to go after votes in traditionally red areas, like the poor parts of the South, where people continue to vote against their own economic (or in this case, spiritual) self-interest.

He calls it Mudcat's Electoral Math. Every Republican voter you can get to vote Democrat is worth two votes: the one they give our side, and the one you take away from theirs!

Of course, when I say things like, Democrats should campaign in red states, or Democrats should go on Fox News and tell their narrative in their own words, or Bernie Sanders should skip Madison, WI, and San Francisco, CA, and speak at Liberty University . . . I get told what a stupid person I am. Hmm.

by gas28man on Wed Sep 16, 2015 at 10:09:15 AM PDT

Preaching to the choir here.

Sanders And The Gospel

An Evangelical responds to Sanders' speech at Liberty U:

...As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair – this Jew – and he proclaimed justice over us, he called us to account, for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful, and for abandoning the poor, the least of these, who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to. And in that moment something occurred to me. As I saw Bernie Sanders up there, as I watched him, I realized Bernie Sanders for president is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders for president is Good News for the poor. Bernie Sanders is gospel for the poor. And Jesus said "I have come to bring gospel" – good news – "to the poor..."

Rousey Is Right

Ronda Rousey unloads on NSAC for Nick Diaz suspension: ‘No reason’ to test for marijuana | MMAjunkie:

...Diaz’s punishment prompted numerous fighter to speak out against the commission on the former Strikeforce champion’s behalf. However, no one was more explicit than Rousey.

“I’m sorry; I know no one asked me anything, but I have to say something,” Rousey said. “It’s so not right for (Diaz) to be suspended five years for marijuana. I’m against them testing for any weed at all. It’s not a performance-enhancing drug. It has nothing to do with athletic competition, and it’s only tested for political reasons so they say, ‘Oh, it’s only for your safety so you’re not hurting yourself when you’re out there.’ So why don’t they test for all the other things that could possibly hurt us that we could be under the influence of while we’re out there?

“There’s no reason for them to be testing for weed. In athletics, the beautiful thing about it is it separates everything from politics. It shouldn’t be involved at all.”

Rousey expressed frustration in the fact Diaz’s UFC 183 opponent Silva, who failed multiple drug tests around the event for anabolic steroids, was only handed a one-year suspension for his violation. Diaz’s repeat-offender status played a role in the outcome of his case, but regardless, Rousey said the difference in punishments shows an obvious problem...

Fleecing The Flock

Making Money Off Miracles: The Gospel of Televangelists:

...How do televangelists get away with this? It’s easy. It’s the same method the Church of Scientology employs: getting 501(c)(3) status and declaring your corrupt, poor-robbing business model a “ministry,” which, as John Oliver demonstrated, is a painfully simple process. They then ask for large tax-exempt donations and keep as much of it as possible to buy acres of land, mansions, and jets worth $65 million. Joel Osteen, pastor of megachurch Lakewood Church in Texas, for example, lives in a 17,000 square foot home worth $10.5 million dollars. His entire net worth is estimated to be about $40 million...

Bernie Burns Billy

Watch: Bernie Sanders Shreds Bill O’Reilly’s Smear With A Brilliant Response |:

...At this point, Sanders had had enough and jumped in: “Democratic Socialist!” he corrected O’Reilly. “If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, a good Republican, he would want to break up these huge financial institutions on Wall Street, and a lot of other industries as well, cause we have a huge concentration of ownership in this country that is very dangerous.”

He continued: “Second point, as a democratic socialist, whose view is very similar to many governments throughout Europe, no, I do NOT believe government should control everything. But I do believe healthcare should be a right of all people, I do believe college should be affordable to all people, and I do believe that the United States Congress should not be owned by a handful of billionaires!”...

tRump Roast

My bold heh-heh-heh.

Everyone Should Treat Thin-Skinned Donald Trump Like He Treats Them:

...This is, of course, absolutely true. Trump is so thin-skinned that, if he swallowed a flashlight, he'd glow like a Japanese lantern. It is past time now for somebody else in the field, or some other influential Republicans who are not running for president, assuming there are any, to begin a campaign of relentless mockery. Laugh at his hair, his serial marriages, his three bankruptcies, the ludicrous tastelessness of his properties, his skeevy remarks about his own daughter, and the subatomic level of seriousness with which he has approached his entire public life, let alone his campaign for president. He should be subjected to every weapon that Doug Piranha brought to bear against poor Luigi Vercotti...

Davis Bombs Bigot Movement

Kim Davis may have hurt anti-gay religious liberty.:

...On Tuesday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed the most significant post-Davis data point yet—and the results don’t look good for Davis and her admirers. An overwhelming 74 percent of respondents believed that when a conflict arises between religious beliefs and equal treatment under the law, equality should win out. Moreover, 63 percent of respondents said that Davis should be required to issue marriage licenses despite her sincerely held religious beliefs. (That tracks an earlier Rasmussen poll, which found that 66 percent of Americans think Davis should follow the law and issue licenses...)

The Daily Flashback: Obama Fault Edition

Chris Wallace: Why Is Obama Such A Divider? | Crooks and Liars:

...Memory, it's a wonderful thing.

So here's the answer Chris Wallace couldn't seem to get from the so-called Democratic person in the discussion: YES. The reason there were no Republican votes was because they chose that as their strategy. Block and obstruct, slow everything down, screw Americans suffering from the economy or from lack of health insurance, because their goal was to make Obama a one-term President. When they failed, they decided to screw us all anyway in order to win back the Senate.

One part obstruction, one part Billionaire Bucks, and one part lying media narratives like this one have us all in a rut.

The only thing that could actually break the stalemate was the choice between war and possible peace. Thank God enough Democrats decided to give peace a chance, even if it causes Chris Wallace to squirm like a whiny little baby over it.

Grifting Fail

Sarah Palin’s Channel Goes Bust - The Daily Beast:

Sarah Palin’s $10-a-month subscription video network is finished. After a year of charging for content that cuts “through the media’s politically correct filter,” SarahPalinChannel.com announced everything would be distributed for free via Facebook and her political action committee’s website. Palin had partnered with media heavyweights Jon Klein, the ex-president of CNN, and Jeff Gaspin, the ex-chairman of NBCUniversal...

The Outlaw Jersey Whale Gets Harpooned

Chris Christie Freaks At Chuck Todd On New Bridgegate Revelations | Crooks and Liars:

Meet The Press' Chuck Todd asked Gov. Chris Christie some tough questions about his governing and economic record in New Jersey, but what got Christie's undies in a bunch was his confrontation with the talk show host on the Bridgegate scandal and the recent resignation of CEO Jeff Smisek because of it...

Comment Of The Day: Secular Religion Edition

WATCH: Bill Maher to Kim Davis: 'You Are Sharia Law' | Advocate.com

Ocean View HighDavid Carltock ·

 Religion,like every other man-made thing, is a tool, with the potential to go good or bad, depending on the person using it. There is a lot of power in Christianity, and, as Spider-Man is insistantly telling us, ' with great power comes great responsibility '.
 
Personally, I'm an atheist, but I don't believe that religion is inherently bad. I have a good example of why I believe this. My ex's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and given a few months to live. She was a very faithful Christian, and she believed that the cancer in her was literally a demon sent from Hell. In her mind, that was how she conceived it. Astounding her doctors, she went into remission, eventually being basically cancer-free.
 
I'm not suggesting that God reached down and preformed a miracle. I'm saying that I believe her ability to put her mind to getting that cancer out of herself was due solely to her incredible faith. We can do really amazing things with this body of ours, but we need tools, we need some
sort of pattern to work with.
 
What I would suggest is that you look at Christianity a little differently. Rather than look at it as a theology, with all the magic and unexplainables, and look at it as a philosophy. When I did this, a lot of the questions I had about the why's and what's of the religion became much more clear to me. Two things surprised me. One is that, looking at it from the outside, Christianity works equally for the genius and the imbecile. C.S. Lewis was a genius, and the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th Century. Kim Davis seems to be a complete moron, yet she too has found a way to make it work for her. The other thing is that the New testament, where all Christianity comes from, does not contradict itself. ' Love your neighbor ' works with ' work out your own salvation ' which works with ' you who are without sin cast the first stone '.
 
I never judge someone based on their religion - the only purpose that serves is to drive a wedge between me and them. I do, however, judge people's actions. The way Jimmy Carter practices Christianity is admirable. The way Kim Davis and Pat Robertson and Ted Cruz and and and... practice their faith, it's a wonder anyone outside of their inner circle is safe from Hell.

Maher Flogs Davis And Huckster

Bill Maher: Kim Davis Is the ‘Rosa Parks of Homophobia’ - The Daily Beast:

“This was the week of Kim Davis,” Real Time host Bill Maher declared Friday, three days after the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples walked out of jail to a cheering crowd of Bible-thumpers who praised her for refusing to follow the law or do her damn job.

She’s Republicans’ new hero, the “Rosa Parks of homophobia,” as Maher dubbed her Friday, matched in bigotry only by her hand-holding partner in hatred, Mike Huckabee, “the white Al Sharpton...”

House Spends More Time On Clinton Investigations Than Anything Else

Hillary: A Bigger Threat To The GOP Than……Say What? | Uppity Woman

Family Values Rat Fornication Backfires

Mich. sex scandal: 1 lawmaker resigns, other is expelled:

...The scandal swirling around Courser and Gamrat had been rumored for months, but burst onto the public scene last month when audio recordings surfaced and revealed that Courser had asked his staff to send an anonymous, "false flag" email that he had written, saying he was addicted to drugs and pornography, and paid for sex with men outside a Lansing bar. His staff refused to participate in the attempt to make it appear that Courser was the victim of a smear campaign and to downplay the affair he was having with Gamrat. But the email still was widely sent around Lansing...

Advice For SOS Clinton

Hillary Clinton Should Fire Her Entire Campaign Staff:

...Stop caring what the kool kidz think and stop hiring people who do. Bring in some bone-nasty Arkansas hillbillies from Bill's early campaigns and let them run amuck for a while. Right now, it looks like you've replaced the execrable Mark Penn by hiring 20 of him. This is no way to run a campaign.

Inuslting Your Way To Victory

Bush on Trump: You can't insult your way to the WH - CNNPolitics.com:

Jeb Bush said Thursday that Donald Trump cannot insult his way to the presidency, a reference to controversial remarks Trump made about Carly Fiorina's looks that were published in a recent magazine story...

But you can insult your way to the nomination.

I'll Believe It When...

...the cell doors start swing shut.

Justice Dept. encourages prosecutions of corporate execs - Chicago Tribune:

The Justice Department issued new guidance to its prosecutors Wednesday, aimed at encouraging more white-collar criminal and civil cases against corporate executives.

The new policies come amid persistent criticism that the Justice Department, even while negotiating multi-billion-dollar settlements with large banks, has not been aggressive enough in prosecuting individuals for financial misconduct — including after the mortgage crisis that devastated the U.S. economy...

LOL: Plan 9 From The Womb

Planned Parenthood Goes on Trial in Kangaroo Court:

...Ever since the deceptively named Center for Medical Progress released Plan 9 From The Womb, their manufactured horror film about fetal chop shops, state after state has launched its own investigation and found that Planned Parenthood's activities in regard to fetal tissue donation conform to all applicable state laws. This was true in Massachusetts and it was true in Indiana. Elsewhere on Capitol Hill yesterday, the Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued their own report that found PP innocent of any wrongdoing...

Great News For Education

Washington Court Strikes Down Public Funding for Charter Schools:

One of the more grotesque attacks on the concept of an American political commonwealth has been the steady – and, sadly, bipartisan – assault on the concept of public education. Whether it comes from uber-wealthy, oft-liberal dilettantes like Bill Gates at the elementary and secondary levels, from outright grifters like Michelle Rhee at almost every level, charter-school messianics like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, slumping goons like Chris Christie, or opportunistic weasels like Scott Walker, the very idea of public education is fighting a war on a hundred fronts against a hundred enemies, many of them camouflaged as "reform." At the end of last week, the Supreme Court of the state of Washington gave every one of these people, and everybody behind them, as resounding a kick in the ass as any court ever has delivered to anyone anywhere...

All Lives Matter

Fox News Hypes Imaginary Boost In Violence Against Police:

...In 2011, the number of police deaths in line of duty caused by gunfire or stabbing totaled 70. That number dropped to 53 in 2012 and 33 in 2013, before rising to 47 in 2014. Thus far in 2015, 24 officers have been killed by gunfire or stabbing, on pace for a lower number than in 2014.

Overall homicide rates have, however, increased this year in a host of major cities, according to The New York Times. Flynn blamed that rise in killings on lax gun laws, saying that too many convicted criminals have access to firearms...

The Left Wing Conspiracy

The vast left wing conspiracy against Hillary Clinton

...There are two factors at play, and you’ll have to decide for yourself whether one or both applies to any given liberal reporter and in whatever proportion. One factor is that these liberal reporters are simply trashing Hillary Clinton for street cred among their left leaning audience. They know Bernie Sanders is trendy right now, and while they’re politically savvy enough to know that Bernie Sanders has no chance of winning this primary, they’re also aware that much of their audience doesn’t know that. So they keep swiping at Hillary, score some cheap points with purist liberals, and they figure no harm done because Hillary is going to win anyway. The other factor is simply that no one watches a blowout, and in order to get their left leaning audience to keep tuning in, they have to paint this race as being much closer than it is. You can decide who’s doing what and way. But some of these otherwise respectable liberal leaning reporters are stomping all over their own credibility in the process.

Everyone Needs A Union

Obama: If Tom Brady needs a union, Americans do too - CBS News:

President Obama invoked New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady in his Labor Day speech Monday to argue that everyone needs unions to protect them in the workplace.

"Even Brady's happy he's got a union! They had his back. So you know if Brady needs a union, we definitely need unions," the president said...

Wallace Missed "Be Kind To Dick" Memo

Chris Wallace Dazes Cheney: Iran's Centrifuges 'Went From 0 To 5,000' While You Were VP | Crooks and Liars:

Fox News host Chris Wallace forced former Vice President Dick Cheney to admit that Iran's centrifuges went from zero to 5,000 under his watch, not President Barack Obama's...

Panic USA!

From ‘welfare queens’ to ‘anchor babies’ — Here are 12 of the most idiotic racist moral panics:

...This phenomenon has reared its ugly head again with the Ferguson Effect, a panic that that Blacks Lives Matter movement and its “heightened rhetoric” are somehow leading to an increase in police murder and crime. This latest wave of baseless innuendo has all the elements of a classic racist moral panic: an uncritical media, old stereotypes and dubious “trends” backed up by little or no evidence. It’s presently being floated by everyone from the Daily Beast to the New York Times to the Telegraph, but has thus far proved to be a total myth. No one, including the Harris County sheriff who recently suggested a link, has shown any proof of a connection between any killings and the Black Lives Matter protests. Executive director Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice nonprofit, recently told Think Progress that the Ferguson Effect is a “dangerous concept” that “gets us back to the era of the 1980s when police had crime policy developed by soundbites and anecdotes...”

The Messenger Matters

Republicans Like Obama's Ideas Better When They Think They're Donald Trump's:

...Still, associating a particular politician with a certain position wasn't enough for people to abandon their most deeply held convictions. Protecting Social Security, for instance, is an overwhelmingly popular idea, whether it's being proposed by Clinton or by Trump.

Although most Republicans say they strongly disagree with Democrats on health care, Iran and affirmative action, fewer than a quarter of Republicans strongly disagreed when those positions were presented as Trump's. Democrats, a majority of whom said they strongly agreed with their party on health care, were less supportive when Trump was the one endorsing the policy...

GOP Hypocrisy On Davis

The GOP’s “personal responsibility” lie: How the Kim Davis saga reveals the core of Republican hypocrisy - Salon.com:

...For now, it looks as if Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Fox News Channel agree that Davis, an elected government worker, should keep her job despite refusing to perform her professional obligations, and should face no legal repercussions for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after being judicially compelled to do so. But Davis isn’t self-employed. She doesn’t get to revise her own job description on-the-fly. Only her employers retain that discretion, and her employers happen to be the people of Rowan County, Kentucky.

Huckabee and the others believe she shouldn’t be held

personally responsible — accountable for her actions, as President Bush said in 2000 — for her actions in defiance of the Supreme Court; in defiance of her job description; and especially in defiance of a U.S. District Court judge who happened to have been appointed by the Texan in the video above. If the GOP was truly concerned with personal responsibility, they’d support Davis’s posture against same-sex marriage but accept the fact that she’s justifiably being held accountable for her actions. More than that, they’d encourage her to resign her post. Davis’ GOP supporters are doing exactly none of that....

More Stoopid

A Majority Of Republicans Believe Obama Is A Muslim - PPP Focus:

But a Public Policy Polling poll released on Monday found that 40 percent of Republican voters falsely believe Cruz was born in the United States – compared to just 29 percent who believe the same of Hawaiian-born Barack Obama.

A recent Public Policy Poll found that a majority of Republicans think President Obama is a Muslim. Notably, Trump and Carson supporters were also more likely to believe that Obama is a Muslim and that he was born overseas....

Moronic Morons Moroning

Fox News' Erick Erickson Says Kentucky Clerk's Jailing Could Lead To "Another Civil War" | Blog | Media Matters for America:

In response to a judge's decision to jail Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis for contempt of court because she refused to obey a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Fox News contributor Erick Erickson suggested in an op-ed that a civil war might soon break out in America...

I just can't figure out how some people manage to feed themselves and use the bathroom. On the other hand, maybe they confuse the two.

Time For Ben Ghazi To Retire From GOP?

House Benghazi Committee Member Calls Out Media Myths | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic member on the House Benghazi Select Committee, strongly criticized the committee's partisan focus and called out media myths about the September 2012 attacks and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In a September 4 New York Times op-ed headlined, "Disband the Benghazi Committee," Schiff discussed the committee's recent focus on Clinton's State Department emails, writing that they "don't substantiate the bogus theory that the State Department ordered the military to 'stand down' or that there was gun running, or that the secretary somehow interfered with the security provided at the diplomatic facility or annex" at Benghazi...

The Week According To Wonkette

Let's All Get Drunk For Three Days, For 'Unions' Or Whatever - Wonkette:

Hoo boy howdy yee haw, what a week, right? RIGHT?! We persecuted some Christians and threw them in jail — well, just the one, for now, but BEWARE CHRISTIANS, WE ARE COMING FOR ALL OF YOU. And we laughed and laughed, oh how we laughed, at Donald Trump spanking Jeb right on his behind again even harder some more, for being a Bush and also a “low-energy” loser weak sissy crybaby Spanisher who talks Mexican instead of American, what a hater. And we pitied poor Rick Perry, for comparing himself to Jesus, and for being so SO SOOOO dumb, and for, uh, we forget the third thing. (Shut up, that is still funny, it will be funny forever.)...

Comment Of The Day: Arby Blue Skin Edition

Arby's Employee Keeps Job After Refusing To Serve Police

Owner-operator at Self-EmployedJohn Locke · 

So let me get this straight, at a drive thru, a police officer had their order taken by someone who didn’t want to serve them because they were police; but they still received their order from the store manager who explained what the problem was and assured the officer that everything was ok. Then after fearing for her safety, she, a police officer, goes inside where the manager provides a refund.

The officer then uses the PR bully pulpit on Facebook and various media outlets to make unsubstantiated claims that their food was tampered with and demands an apology from the CEO of Arbys?

I, in no way condone the actions of the clerk; but has been blown way out of proportion in the public space.

Heck, as "Faux" News says about teachers all the time, "If you're that thin-skinned, don’t be a cop.

The Law Of Intended Consequences

Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis Is About to Get Filthy Rich:

...Dear Judge Bunning: Thanks for nothing.

Let me explain to you what happens now. The entire political communications apparatus of the wingnut welfare system goes to DefCon 1. (Judge Bunning's e-mail is going to get very entertainingly unchristian, I suspect.) Kim Davis now becomes the latest ornament on the Hang Yourself Cross of Bible-banging

victimhood. There will be marches and vigils. There will be a six-figure book deal; my money's on John Fund as Davis's ghost. There may even be one of those movies produced by gullibility trawlers like the one helmed by Rick Santorum. Anybody want to bet me that she doesn't speak at next year's Republican National Convention? You have made a star, Judge Bunning, and the rest of us have to live with her...

Lying About Lies

Conservative Heads Explode Over Kentucky's Bigoted County Clerk | Rolling Stone:

...Scott Walker and Ted Cruz are pushing the same line, claiming that there must be a way to allow Davis to have her way and for gay couples to get their licenses. They clearly want you to imagine that anti-gay clerks can simply pass the license over to someone less bigoted – er,

religious – and everyone can go home happy. But that's not what Davis is doing. She is forbidding her office to issue the licenses altogether. As David Ermold and David Moore, who have been turned away four times, and April Miller and Karen Roberts, who have been turned away three times, can tell you, if you live in Rowan County and Davis refuses to give you a marriage license, you don't get one at all. There is no compromise here, and these candidates are being dishonest in implying there is...

AP v. FBI

Associated Press sues FBI over fake news story | Ars Technica:

The Associated Press filed a lawsuit (PDF) this morning, demanding the FBI hand over information about its use of fake news stories. The case stems from a 2007 incident regarding a bomb threat at a school. The FBI created a fake news story with an Associated Press byline, then e-mailed it to a suspect to plant malware on his computer....

Ferguson "Surprise"

'Provocative' Police Tactics Inflamed Ferguson Protests, Experts Find:

"Law enforcement officials responding to demonstrations and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown last August used a variety of inappropriate tactics and strategies that often exacerbated tensions, according to a report by policing experts that the Justice Department is releasing this week.

The assessment finds that deploying dogs for crowd control was "provocative," positioning snipers on top of armored vehicles during daytime protests "inflamed tensions," tear gas was "deployed inappropriately," and law enforcement used unconstitutional policing strategies that suppressed First Amendment rights. Such strategies "had the unintended consequence of escalating rather than diminishing tension," the report states...."

There's Always Theft

5 Reasons The GOP Is In Worse Shape Now Than It Was In 2012:

...It’s only August, but the Republican right is on the verge of duplicating or tripling down on every mistake its leaders told themselves not to make after they lost last time, while inventing new flubs beyond the imagination of mortal satirists. Sure, the Koch network has doubled its spending commitment from 2012 to close to a billion dollars and it’s difficult for any party to hold the White House for three straight terms. But conservatives are at war with themselves, while their candidates are spouting nonsense and purposely alienating precisely the same voters they need to be winning over...

Emailgate Debunking

Intelligence Experts Debunk Speculation That Hillary Clinton Could Face Criminal Action For Email Use | Blog | Media Matters for America:

There's no evidence Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or her aides violated any laws with her use of a private email server while secretary of state, according to government secrecy experts cited by the Associated Press.

Conservative media have tried their best to spin Clinton's email use into accusations that she committed a crime by mishandling classified information, even baselessly comparing her to those who did, such as former Gen. David Petraeus and John Deutch, despite the fact that this smear has been debunked.

Yet intelligence and government secrecy law experts refute claims that Clinton could face criminal action for the handling of her emails, according to the Associated Press on August 31. As AP explained, "[T]o prove a crime, the government would have to demonstrate that Clinton or aides knew they were mishandling the information -- not that she should have known," and as one expert noted, "A case would be possible if material emerges that is so sensitive Clinton must have known it was highly classified, whether marked or not," but "no such email has surfaced":...

Hypocrisy And Marriage And Religion

Kim Davis’ four marriages: The ugly self-righteousness of the “saved” that fuels her marriage license refusal - Salon.com:

Kim Davis believes that her three divorces and four marriages are relevant only in that they give her particular insight into the matter currently at hand. She believes that having a track record that enables a US News & World Report writer to note, “She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second” is not what’s really important here and now. And for a person of her convictions, she’s correct. That’s what makes her so frightening and so sad. There’s no self-righteousness quite like the self-righteousness of someone who believes him or herself saved...

Comment Of The Day: Rove Email Edition

Hillary's Email Server Is a Story Because You Clicked on This Headline  IUPUI Bob Brault ·

" OK, let's go back to Dick Cheney's energy task force and start from there."

Oh,you mean when Shotgun Dick and his pal, Ken Lay decided the energy policy of the United States behind closed doors. And Darth went hunting with a facially unscathed Fat Tony and got all that stuff declared as "priviledged"? And Herr Rove in search of the Thousand Year Reptile Reich during the district attorney scandel randomly deleted 22 million emails on the GWB43 server? Stuff like that?

http://www.pensitoreview.com/.../flashback-rove-erases.../

On The Alleged Biden Bid

Politix Update: The Vir

...The news media and and folks not enamored of Clinton want the vice president to run, and his every hiccup - whether meeting with Elizabeth Warren or inviting political aides to yet another closed-door session has been closely watched as Bidenistas in favor of a run manipulate a willing media. But all indications are that Biden will not run, most likely because wife Jill is against it.

"The more you look at the Biden bandwagon, it looks more like a ghost ship being pulled through the mist by a combination of hungry political reporters, Hillary haters (including most of the conservative media), and Delaware-based Friends of Joe who, of course, would love to see him run," writes Ed Kilgore at Political Animal...

ulent Cancer That's Eating Away At The Body Politic | Crooks and Liars

FactCheck On The Air

WATCH: FactCheck.Org Director Makes Rare TV Appearance To Shut Down Recent GOP Lies (Video) |:

Factcheck.org is the “internet arm” of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. It was founded by William and Lenore Annenberg in Philadelphia back in 1993. Annenberg was a very successful businessman and philanthropist. While many on the radical right like to claim that FactCheck.org is “liberal media,” especially when their statements and positions are proven false, a “fact check” would show Annenberg being a GOP stalwart. He served Presidents going as far back as Eisenhower and was a friend of Ronald Reagan’s. Lenore was appointed to serve in the Reagan White House as the Head of Protocol for the Administration in 1981. They also hosted parties for not only Reagan, but Queen Elizabeth II and other celebrities and dignitaries. If anything, a case could be made that they lean a little to the right at least personally, don’t ya think?...

Video at link. Good watch.

Advice For Democrats

Imagine. | Uppity Woman:

...2). Fight the Republicans. Do not cave into them. Use the power of the presidency for all it is worth. Use Executive Orders; threaten to withhold funds from legislators’ pet projects; go directly to the people and urge them to voice their support for the President’s position. Do not make bad deals just to avoid conflict. Call the Republicans out, and explain to the American voters what is at stake; and how pernicious are the Republicans’ views on these crucial issues. In other words, try to change the national dialogue. That is something that has not been tried since Bill Clinton was president. No one in recent times was more effective in winning the national debate on economics. If it weren’t for Clinton explaining this all once again to the American people at the last Democratic convention, Obama would probably have lost the election, because he somehow lacked the ability to make the case in simple but strong fashion. Or maybe he did not identify closely enough with the Democratic Party. Democrats have to win the national debate to be able to gain popular support for their positions and programs. Otherwise, the Republican-dominated media drowns it all out, and we are in a state of perpetual deadlock, at best...

Crazy In NC: Teacher Edition

NC teachers being ‘voluntarily exploited’ | News & Observer:

...To do her job with commitment, oddly, Angie Scioli has to be willing to work for free at her Wake County high school. That’s hardly the American way. “We lost our longevity pay this year. I would have gotten $2,000 in June,” she says. But last month, master’s degree, national board certification and past recognition as Wake County’s teacher of the year notwithstanding, she didn’t have the money to go to the grocery store. She is 44 and has been teaching in Raleigh for over two decades...

Walkering The Toddery On Obama

Gov. Scott Walker Can't Explain Why Obama Has A Better Approval Rating In Wisconsin | Crooks and Liars:

Gov. Scott Walker joined Chuck Todd on Meet The Press this morning and couldn't give a straight answer as to why President Obama has a much better approval rating in his home state of Wisconsin than he does.

The only response he could muster was to read off his preapproved and per-sanitized work resume. There was no follow up question from Todd (who made this an easy interview for the governor) to the question so his nonsensical answer stood alone...

Canada Would Support This

Anything to keepp the Americans out...

Scott Walker Open To Building Wall Along Border With Canada:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), a staunch advocate of beefing up security on the southern border, said Sunday he is open to building a wall on the U.S. border with Canada as well.

The Republican presidential candidate said the idea of building a northern wall was brought up to him during a recent town hall in New Hampshire....

Kicking Carter: Sigh

To those kicking an ailing Jimmy Carter: How low can you go? | Norwalk Reflector

Remembering Katrina

My rage over Katrina is what got me started in the blogging biz. My rage continues.

Hurricane Katrina: Ten Years Later | Crooks and Liars:

These two interviews by Fox News' Shep Smith and Geraldo Rivera were heart breaking in so many ways. It showed the raw emotion of these two newsmen, who were confronted by trying to cover these horrific events - in real time - while trying not to let Hannity, a paid stooge of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, color the events in a positive George Bush light...

Clinton Foundation Money Destination

Cannonfire "The Big Smear": (my bold)

Yada yada yada. Basically, ABC News is giving us the usual smear job. If you read their piece carefully and skeptically, you'll discover the truth of the matter: Clinton runs a charity, and he goes around the world trying to drum up millions for his charity. Where the money comes from doesn't matter as much as where it goes to. As far as I'm concerned, if dictators and thugs pony up some dough and starving villagers in India receive the benefit, fine. Would you feel comfortable telling the starving villagers to keep starving?

Unfortunately, our "unbiased" news media insists on writing stories which convey the impression (without directly stating) that the money goes into the Clintons' own pockets, not to the starving villagers. A number of alleged progressives go along with this hallucination, because doing so makes them feel hip. This situation persists even though the watchdog groups who keep track of charities all say that the Clinton Foundation is clean and transparent.

Funding Socialists And Poetry

Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked - The Awl:

In May of 1967, a former CIA officer named Tom Braden published a confession in the Saturday Evening Post under the headline, “I’m glad the CIA is ‘immoral.’” Braden confirmed what journalists had begun to uncover over the previous year or so: The CIA had been responsible for secretly financing a large number of “civil society” groups, such as the National Student Association and many socialist European unions, in order to counter the efforts of parallel pro-Soviet organizations. “[I]n much of Europe in the 1950’s,” wrote Braden, “socialists, people who called themselves ‘left’—the very people whom many Americans thought no better than Communists—were about the only people who gave a damn about fighting Communism...”

Labor Wins One

Unions Plot Major Push After Landmark Labor Ruling:

U.S. union leaders said on Friday that a landmark U.S. labor board ruling on companies' obligations toward contract and franchise workers would help them organize manufacturers and e-commerce companies as well as fast food chains.

On Thursday the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled the owner of a California recycling plant was a "joint employer" with the contractor that hired workers at the plant, essentially forcing both to bargain with the union together or risk violating U.S. labor law...

The Sorry State Of Political Discourse

Where G.K. Chesterton and B.F. Skinner Meet: On Real Time with Bill Maher, 21 August 2015 | PopMatters:

...Trump’s jingoism, however, isn’t really much different from that of his Republican rivals — it’s just more colorfully unapologetic and imbued with television’s sense of inane fun. Everything Trump utters can be filed under the rubric of nationalism, which probably explains his support from evangelicals, who normally would blanch at his gluttony and wanton libido. But perhaps Trump’s omnivorousness explains his popularity: even prudes can tire of their own chastity and sexual repression, and Trump’s the only candidate who isn’t an uncloseted prude.

As for Real Time, there are two moments worth mentioning. In an exchange with Maher, National Review’s Charles Cooke admitted that leftists should indeed gloat over Trump’s embarrassing and destabilizing success, but then only mustered a spineless rhetorical retort: “Are [Republicans] going to be a party of classical liberals (in the old sense of the term) or the party of white identity politics”? Sadly, this constitutes the oratory of the conservative intelligentsia. That his idea must be phrased rhetorically already admits that classical liberalism no longer exists on the right — but it hasn’t existed since Reagan tied the knot with the Moral Majority.

The argument continued as Maher expressed incredulity over the alleged scandal of Hillary Clinton’s email accounts, but again Cooke reverted to weak rhetorical tactics. When Maher asked, “Even if the scandal is what you say, is it as important as climate change or income inequality,” or, we presume, any of the issues to which conservatives claim blindness. Cooke answered, “Here’s why it’s important… it’s about privilege,” and went on to explain that the Obama administration prosecuted lower-level peons for lesser offenses.

True, but Maher’s question remained unanswered — Maher had asked why this alleged scandal is more important than the real scandals of income inequality and so forth, but Cooke responded by ignoring the qualifier, as if his earnest voice alone could erase the comparative framing inherent in the question...

tRump Cause & Effect

Time to Ask the Question: Is Donald Trump Just Dumb?:

...Only Trump tells it exactly like it isn’t. Long story short: The reason so many Americans are supporting a dumb guy for president is that there are a lot of dumb people out there. Trump’s rising poll numbers should send a shiver down your spine.

Polling Lojinks

Bernie Fans And Republicans Agree: Hillary Clinton Should Drop Out NOW! - Wonkette:

...Okay, let’s not even get mired down in why Rasmussen is bad at polling and has this weird habit of making things look rosier for Republicans than they are. That’s just a well-established fact. And even if the numbers are wrong (they probably are), it makes sense that 73 percent of Republicans would want her to suspend her campaign over the piddly ass email “scandal,” because they consume Fox News and are thus pretty sure President Hillary Clinton would spend each and every day of her presidency sending American ambassadors to Benghazi, getting them killed dead, and lying about it. In fact, 73 seems like kind of a low number...

The Danger Of The Donald

Donald Trump Just Stopped Being Funny | Rolling Stone:

...Trump is probably too dumb to realize it, or maybe he isn't, but he doesn't need to win anything to become the most dangerous person in America. He can do plenty of damage just by encouraging people to be as uninhibited in their stupidity as he is...

Comment Of The Day: China Scotty Edition

Scott Walker Tries, Fails to Understand China

Larry Crofford ·Wheeling Jesuit University

So let's look at the big board of Republican Presidential Contenders: Donald Trump has his exclusive clothing line of shirts and ties made in China and complains China is stealing our jobs; HP failed CEO Carly Fiorina off-shored thousands of jobs to China and makes similar complaints; now we learn that failed college student Scott Walker is trying to cut deals with the Chinese while criticizing any official contact with them. Here's what I wonder. How many more Republican White House hopefuls are also double agents working for China?

More tRumping

Donald Trump Takes on Megyn Kelly, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham - ABC News:

Donald Trump spent Tuesday doing what he does best: Antagonizing everyone from Fox News host Megyn Kelly to fellow Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, and sparking pointed responses from all quarters.

Monday night, Trump unleashed a fresh tirade against Kelly, who he has been disparaging ever since she moderated the first GOP presidential debate earlier this month...

The Creaming Of Christie

Is Chris Christie Finished? | Crooks and Liars:

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. To think that only a few years ago, the Beltway media and the conservarazzi were universally celebrating Christie's bullying of teachers that made their eyes well up with tears. What a man, what a conservative hero. Earlier this month he continued his assault on our educators and said that the national teachers union deserved a punch in the face.

He thought he was the straight-talk-express guy, but what he didn't understand is that the Republican base of the party is made up of angry xenophobes, and Donald Trump has captured their hearts. Since Trump took away his thunder and with his drop in the polls, it now appears he's headed for the kiddie table at the CNN debate. Rumors are flying that he's going to pull the plug on his candidacy...

Exhaustive Email Takedown

Anatomy of a Hillary Clinton pseudo-scandal: How Republicans and their media lackeys are trying to manufacture her downfall - Salon.com:

...But what’s important to note in all this that nothing that happened on that email server appears to have been corrupt, unethical, illegal or dangerous. It’s all smoke, no fire. And that’s the point. The smoke obscures the truth and makes everything vague and formless, leaving only an impression of being under siege...

Finally, A Sensible Commentary About Biden/Warren

Could There Really Be a Biden/Warren 2016 Democratic Ticket?:

...So what does this covert confab really mean? Well, one thing is for certain. Even with Bernie Sanders in the race and tearing up the countryside, the Senator Professor doesn't think the putative frontrunner is doing enough on the issues to which the Senator Professor has devoted her entire career and that, therefore, those issues are not playing a big enough role in the campaign so far. This goes along with something we've been saying around here for a while now. You dismiss the Senator Professor's political chops at your peril. This move is how you broker power from where you are at the moment, and not where people want you to be.

Brown On Email MAAN

That's Much Ado About Nothing...

Gov. Jerry Brown Calls Clinton Email 'Scandal' A Vampire | Crooks and Liars:

...Like many of us who feel the media has already convicted Hillary Clinton over something that was perfectly legal when she was Secretary of State, Brown thinks that this is being made too much of a big deal. We know from the press's relationship with the Clintons that the attempt to pin scandals on both Bill and Hillary has been happening for over a quarter century and will likely continue ad infinitum.

Brown was asked if he considered running for president because, in Chuck's mind, every Republican is doing it, why not him? He explained that he is committed to the job of handling the 7th or 8th largest economy on the planet in his state and dealing with massive wildfires burning all over California. That's enough responsibility for him, and he supports Democrats, no matter who gets the nod, because the alternative is more terrifying than the fires burning the Western United States.

Horrifying Future Blog Post

Uppity Woman | I'm just one of those Uppity Women. Live with it.:

...An article in the Washington Post, entitled, “Were We Unfair to Hillary Clinton?” has gotten some coverage, though most of the broadcast media has ignored it. The article wonders whether the media was unfair to Clinton during her campaign, ignoring most of her policy proposals, in favor of covering matters such as her email, her speaking style, and her wardrobe...

Have We Finally Reached A Bridge Too Far?

IA Radio Host Jan Mickelson: Enslave Undocumented Immigrants Unless They Leave | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Iowa radio host and influential conservative kingmaker Jan Mickelson unveiled an immigration plan that would make undocumented immigrants who don't leave the country after an allotted time "property of the state," asking, "What's wrong with slavery?" when a caller criticized his plan...

Howling At The Moon In GOPerville

The GOP has become the party of infantile rage - Salon.com:

...On the other hand, the Republican Party and the modern conservative movement are so utterly at the mercy of their most extreme elements — on everything from Benghazi, to racism people, to reproductive health, and now even the contents of key sections of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, while the left can suffer its own unhinged moments, there’s simply no comparison when it comes to what’s happening on the far-right. Especially now. While Clinton and Sanders are talking about the middle class, the minimum wage, foreign policy and voting rights, here’s a sampling of what the Republican presidential candidates are discussing:...

Anchor Baby Not

The Washington Post Debunks Conservative Media's "Anchor Baby" Myth | Blog | Media Matters for America:

....But, as The Washington Post explained in an August 20 article, "the anchor baby, while potent politically, is largely a mythical idea." Writing that the term has "little legal underpinning" as "being the parent of a U.S. citizen child almost never forms the core of a successful defense in immigration court," the articles notes that most children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents "must wait until their 21st birthday to begin the lengthy process" of helping their parents become citizens:...

Anchor Baby Not

The Washington Post Debunks Conservative Media's "Anchor Baby" Myth | Blog | Media Matters for America:

....But, as The Washington Post explained in an August 20 article, "the anchor baby, while potent politically, is largely a mythical idea." Writing that the term has "little legal underpinning" as "being the parent of a U.S. citizen child almost never forms the core of a successful defense in immigration court," the articles notes that most children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents "must wait until their 21st birthday to begin the lengthy process" of helping their parents become citizens:...

GOPer Insults Woman--- Surprised?

The insult was nasty.

Yet Another Shining Example Of How Republicans Respect Women | Crooks and Liars:

...As male board member Jeff Weilbrecht spoke in defense of Gremaud, calling the response to the comment “petty,” KFVS reports that half of the people in attendance applauded.

“I’m not saying Mark Gremaud is the perfect board member, I’m not saying I’m one either. I do ask that the rest of us stop and put our petty differences aside once and act like adults and accept that we have differences,” Weilbrecht said.

Differences? As in the male members of the school board believe that the female members should stay in the bedroom, where they belong? Or possibly as in the male members believe that they can degrade and insult their female colleagues if they feel like it, and their female colleagues disagree?

Winning By Losing

“The War on Drugs is Over, and We Lost,” Meet the Police Chief Who’s Starting a Revolution | The Free Thought Project:

...The idea of treating an addict with compasion instead of violence is a revolutionary notion in this country. However, in other countries, such as Portugal, its effects have been realized for more than a decade. In 2001, the Portugeuse government decriminalized all drugs.

14 years later, drug use, crime, and overdoses have drastically declined in Portugal exposing the horrid reality of prohibition.

News of Campanello’s initiative is spreading, and three other cities in Massachusetts will soon launch similar programs, as well as two cities in Illinois. While Campanello’s initiative not perfect, it is radically different than anything we’ve seen thus far. It will undoubtedly lead to decriminilization being pushed into the mainstream...

Lest We Forget: Propaganda Edition

Cannonfire "Crap!":

...The Cato Institute is, of course, a notorious libertarian think tank, originally called the Charles Koch Foundation. The Fraser institute is a notorious libertarian think tank in Canada, funded by the Koch brothers. The Liberales Institut of Zurich is devoted to promoting "classical liberalism" -- i.e., libertarianism. (So far, I can't find a Koch connection beyond the ideological overlap.)

In other words: The Daily Caller -- founded by Tucker Carlson and Dick Cheney's chief aide Neil Patel -- has just hit us with a shotgun blast of libertarian propaganda...

Trumping Up A Fight

The Republican Party Is Becoming a Bloodbath | The New Republic:

...Of the many drawbacks to this kind of myopic voyeurism, the biggest of all is that it obscures the carnage his candidacy is creating on the right as he mows down its sacred cows. Within the conservative movement, the fight over Trump is being waged mostly by surrogates, but surrogates can’t elevate or ennoble it. Instead it has degenerated into a vulgar farce befitting its main object—Trump himself.

The battle line runs between factions of the conservative movement that care about winning, and ones that specialize in entertainment and charlatanism, with Fox News caught appropriately in the middle...

Don't Be A Kerry!

Hillary Clinton emails: Allies fault her response - POLITICO:

As Hillary Clinton faces a new round of questions about her email use as secretary of state, some longtime allies are increasingly worried that she’s learned little from past scandals, and is falling back on her tendency to mount a legalistic defense that only encourages perceptions that she has something to hide...

Support For Iran Deal

Hundreds of Rabbis Tell Senate to Support Iran Deal (VIDEO):

...So as is often the case for conservative causes, it’s not the majority who are standing with conservative politicians. In fact, the majority of American Jews think that the Iran deal is great. It’s the special interest groups, the minority with huge bank accounts, who are trying to slow things down.

Search Warrants And SWAT

Documents Reveal the Fearmongering Local Cops Use to Score Military Gear From the Pentagon | Mother Jones:

...But civil rights advocates have observed that SWAT teams—the specialized officers who use these vehicles—are now overwhelmingly deployed for drug raids and search warrants. In a 2014 report examining 800 raids, the American Civil Liberties Union found that SWAT teams replaced regular uniformed police officers in executing search warrants, mostly on private homes, in 80 percent of cases. The raids disproportionately targeted minority residences, and evidence that the raid would be dangerous for the officers was often scarce. Sixty percent of the raids involved a drug search—meaning the subject of the search warrant had not yet been convicted of a crime—and 36 percent of the raids turned up no contraband at all. Raids for minor drugs charges, the report continued, have frequently resulted in officers killing and maiming unsuspecting residents and even children—including a 19-month-old boy who was injured when an officer chucked a flash-bang grenade into his crib...