The Daily Flashback: Hastert / Clinton Edition

What We Now Know About The Men Who Led The Impeachment Of Clinton | ThinkProgress:

On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton on two charges related to his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. (The charges were for perjury and obstruction of justice.) The historic vote, and subsequent trial in the Senate, involved the work of three men who were elected Speaker of the House Of Representatives by the Republican majority, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston and Dennis Hastert.

Almost 17 years later, with the federal indictment of Hastert for illegally concealing up to $3.5 million in hush-money, we finally have a more complete understanding of the men who led this effort...

Hastert And Legal Corruption

How ‘Public Servant’ Hastert Got His Riches - The Daily Beast:

...A better question, and one that many Washington watchdogs leapt on quickly: How did Hastert happen to have enough money lying around that paying out $3.5 million was even within the realm of possibility?

Hastert’s ability to participate in the blackmail is, after all, itself a general indictment of D.C.’s “revolving door” money culture, in which former lawmakers move easily from government into lobbying. In Hastert’s case, the ability to profit off of one’s legislative position is especially galling: While in office, Hastert used the earmarking process to turn his investment in some Illinois farmland into a profit of 140 percent when a federal highway project just happened to make its way through those very fields. Indeed, it was this instance of a completely legal form of insider trading that helped prompt Congress to end earmarks...

NSA Overreach Ending?

Even NRA and ACLU agree: U.S. Senate must rein in NSA's Patriot Act data grab now | AL.com:

Times have changed, technology has changed, but clear limitations on the government's reach into the lives and information of Americans should not be abandoned.

Many Americans, including groups ranging from the ACLU to the NRA, have strongly opposed the NSA's bulk data collection of Americans' private information. Recent developments suggest that our courts and political leaders are beginning to agree...

Benghazi Nonsense Exposed

Debunking the Benghazi Myths - Michael Morell - POLITICO Magazine:

Like clockwork, every several weeks, someone discovers a new document that, to their minds, “proves” that what the administration and the intelligence community have been saying about Benghazi is a bunch of lies. But time and again these documents don’t add up. They don’t show what the pundits think they show—and the Benghazi broadsides miss their mark anew...

The Daily Flashback: Hastert Edition

Frist and Hastert Let Vaccine Industry Write Its Own Multi-Billion Dollar Giveaway | ThinkProgress:

Last December, Senate Majority Leader Bill First (R-TN) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert inserted a provision in the Defense Appropriations bill that granted vaccine manufactures near-total immunity for injuries or deaths (even in cases of “gross negligence”) caused by their drugs during a viral pandemic, such as an outbreak of the avian flu. The legislation was “worth billions of dollars” to a small group of drug makers...

Yet Another GOPer Crook

Former leader of U.S. House of Representatives indicted | Fox News Latino:

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday indicted the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert, who allegedly paid some $1.7 million to cover up financial misconduct and hid information on large cash withdrawals from the FBI.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said that Hastert, who left office in 2007, was charged with withdrawing from his bank accounts $952,000 in cash in such a way as to evade the requirement for banks to report cash transactions over $10,000 and then lying to the FBI about the withdrawals...

Comment Of The Day: Little Ricky Contraception Edition

The Second Coming of Rick Santorum

Bob Brault · Top Commenter · IUPUI

Haunted by the ghost of Terri Schiavo and hungry for power and control over women who he'd like to keep barefoot and pregnant on the outskirts of Stepford, which is why he and every other one of these dogmatic loons was photographed with Josh Duggar] Ricky's endgame is banning ALL birth control in America.

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said,
well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." –American Taliban Ricky Sanitarium, Oct. 18, 2011

Same Old GOP, Same Old Song

Simply Left BehindThe Non-Rapturist's Guide To The Galaxy: Party like it's 1992:

...But, if you listen to the folks that Wehner does not call out — any of GOP presidential candidates — they are all promoting the same slogan: "Still The Same After 25 Years.” That isn’t what the country wants and that’s why the Right is trying to fix things, one-person-one-vote at a time.

The Shame

Matt Taibbi: Media "Shamelessly Trumpeted and Cheerleaded" for Iraq War:

...MATT TAIBBI: So, the problem that I have with all of this is this—again, a revisionist history, this idea that the mistake was that we were misled by this faulty intelligence, and were it not for the fruit of the poison tree, were it not for Judith Miller and a few people in the Bush administration who presented this case to us, we would never have made this decision, we would have gotten it right the first time around. But the reality is, a lot of the people who were looking at this issue saw through all of that. We didn’t need to even consider the intelligence that the Bush administration was trying to present. It was clearly a manufactured crisis. We were invading the wrong country. This wasn’t—you know, this wasn’t a difficult call. It wasn’t like Fermat’s theorem that we had to figure out. This was a pretty obvious manipulation by the Bush administration. And to pretend that, "Oh, yes, we were misled by this faulty intelligence," I think is going to become the new normal on both sides of the aisle...

Damnit Liberals!

5 Reasons Why Poor People Vote For Republicans:

...5. Liberals can be really elitist: I hate to have to say it, but it’s true and I’ve been guilty of it myself. How often do you see liberals respond to conservatives by asking if their parents were brother and sister or using any number of other ad hominem attacks? It’s a regular occurrence in the comments on liberal Facebook pages and websites, and it’s not productive. I get it, it feels good to blow off steam and let that conservative person who frustrates you so much know how you really feel. However, if all you know how to do is attack someone’s character by calling them stupid or a shill, you’re not going to persuade them to see things from your point of view. What it will do is further alienate more moderate conservatives who could be convinced that some gun restrictions aren’t a bad idea, just to give you an example...

This costs more votes than you will ever know. I've been trying to educate my superiors about this for decades.

Irish Stunner

Ireland Votes to Approve Gay Marriage, Putting Country in Vanguard - NYTimes.com:

Ireland became the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change....

Of Course He Does

Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, declared his support on Friday for reality television's Duggar family after the eldest child, Josh, admitted to molesting underage girls, including some of his sisters, when he was a teenager. In a Facebook post, Huckabee said that Duggar deserves forgiveness for his actions. "Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn’t mean 'unforgivable,'" Huckabee said...

Scary Gang Links

Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs - The Intercept:

Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs...

The Coverup Impulse

Slander On The Cuyahoga: What Cleveland Police Tried to Do:

...This should embarrass any sentient primate. The officers involved in the killing of Tamir Rice took less than a minute to kill him and considerably more time concocting the preposterous cover story that, in less than a minute, they felt so "menaced," and so much "panic" had been "induced" in them that Rice had to be put down like a dog. What are these especially delicate blossoms doing in the police business in the first place? This is the kind of thing that was supposed to be the point of the hearings before the House Judiciary Committee this week. Not merely the hairtrigger response of an incompetent cop, but the conditioned reflex inbred in too many of them to cover up their crimes. That is not a "problem" among some bad apples. That impulse drives a culture of deadly corruption.

Iraq Lies Redux, Part 3

Paul Krugman Drops Epic Truth Bomb on Latest Round of Lies About Iraq War | Alternet:

"Mistakes were made" just doesn't get at the truth about how America was coerced into the disastrous war in Iraq,and the horrific consequences that are still unfolding. Paul Krugman sets the record straight in Monday's column, beginning with the ironic statement, that "there’s something to be said for having the brother of a failed president make his own run for the White House."

Yep, Jeb Bush has unwittingly ushered in the chance to have an honest discussion about the invasion of Iraq. About time...

Chickenhawk Jeb

Pacifist Or Chickenhawk? How Jeb (Almost) Avoided The Vietnam Draft:

...In 1972, according to Bush dynasty biographer Kitty Kelley, Jeb drew number 26 in the Vietnam draft lottery, a stroke of bad luck that likely meant his induction the following year.

Jeb then told his parents, George H.W. and Barbara, that he might file for “conscientious objector” status in order to avoid the draft. Applying to become a “C.O.” was a way out then available only to young men who opposed all war, usually on religious grounds — but not if, like Jeb, they merely opposed the conflict in Southeast Asia...

Thug Confoundery

White thugs, black thugs, criminal thugs. That about cover it? | | Dallas Morning News:

Thugs.

Biker thugs.

White (and Hispanic) biker thugs.

White (and Hispanic) biker gang thugs.

Thugs. Thugs. Thugs.

Criminally anti-social biker gang thugs.

If this didn’t go without saying from the criminally anti-social, thuggish behavior Sunday in Waco, I hope saying it here makes someone out there feel better. I’m not sure I’d want to go to the apples-oranges comparison of Waco vs. Baltimore, but, again, whatever gets you through the night.

I’m certain I wasn’t paying attention the day we in the media were instructed to restrict our use of “thug” to black males. Had I noticed, I would have found it kind of stupid, since “thug” has a rich and distinguished history of describing “brutal ruffians or gangsters” of all ethnicities, back before cars or motorcycles...

What The Charlotte Observer Said

Honest answer to a reader’s question | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer:

..David Fry of Charlotte was among those who responded.

“To: observer editors

“Question? Why do you support such a liberal agenda?

“Remember you’re supposed to answer honestly.”

Well, rules are rules, so I suppose you deserve an honest answer for Honesty Day. Here goes:

We believe that everyone is created equal...

Very Good Wacko Questions

“The result of the breakdown of the white biker family”: #WacoThugs perfectly encapsulates what’s wrong with response to Waco shooting - Salon.com:

On Sunday, two rival biker gangs engaged in a massive shootout outside a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Tx. resulting in nine deaths and at least 170 arrests. Although the media had become accustomed to covering protests in Ferguson and Baltimore using descriptors like “thug” and “riot,” they chose to use less loaded words like “melee” and “scuffle” to depict the events in Waco. Police response in Waco was also dramatically less aggressive than it was in Ferguson and Baltimore...

Attempted ReLying

Original Iraq War Skeptics Find The Rekindled Debate Maddening:

..."I was amazed, absolutely amazed at how people were supporting going to war on the basis of things that just weren’t so," said former Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of a handful of members who opposed the invasion. "It was clear as it could be. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. None of the intel suggested they had anything to do with 9/11 and the whole rationale for WMD [weapons of mass destruction] was just very, very thin for anybody who read the intelligence reports." As for the 2016 candidates' comments, he said: "It is just a rewriting of history in an attempt for everybody to cover their extraordinary mistake; probably one of the most serious mistakes in the military and diplomatic history of the United States, and they were all complicit..."