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..."

Pot Not Not

It’s Time. Marijuana Legalization Has Reached a Tipping Point:

...Today, commercialism has taken hold of the industry. Why sell just the buds when you can sell the entire plant? Extract the THC and infuse the butter in a variety of products.

What type of edibles are we talking about? Pot brownies. Cookies. Lollipops and Marshmallows. Critics will scream the movement is targeting kids. Yeah, because adults don’t eat junk food.

People don’t like to smoke. Consuming the product lowers the barrier for both medical and recreational use of marijuana. What better way than to make them into a snack...

Obama Opposes Vet Cuts

Obama Stands Up For Veterans By Vowing To Veto GOP Bill That Cut Benefits For 70,000 Vets:

While Congressional Republicans wave the flag with one hand, they are trying to cut benefits for 70,000 veterans with the other. President Obama has vowed to veto the bill, and House Democrats are promising to sustain that veto...

To show their appreciation most of these vets will tune in Fox News, curse Obama, and vote Republican. Don't start on me-- I'm a vet. 

Truth Annoys

Fox News Angry Obama Knows What’s on Fox News -- NYMag:

There are certain facts that an educated person realizes you can’t point out without provoking an angry rebuttal from a Fox News devotee — climate scientists overwhelmingly believe in the theory of anthropogenic global warming, the cost of Obamacare has come in well under projections, and so on. President Obama apparently discovered a new one this week when he mentioned that Fox News routinely depicts poor people as lazy and entitled...

Felony Skating

Five Big Banks Pleading Guilty to Felony Charges Will Continue Business as Usual - Truthdig:

...The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Most if not all of the pleas are expected to come from the banks’ holding companies, the people said — a first for Wall Street giants that until now have had only subsidiaries or their biggest banking units plead guilty...

Since corporations are people shouldn't some body be going to prison?

OMG! Texas Idiots

Texas on Alert for Secret Obama Plot to Send Chinese Troops to Seize the State - I Take LIBERTY With My Coffee

A military training exercise across the southern U.S. is believed by many in Texas to be a plot to declare martial law, arrest citizens and jail them...  

When 2,000 employees at five Walmart locations in the U.S. were abruptly informed they were being laid off due to "weird" plumbing issues, it may have fooled the naïve and innocent multitudes unaware of the giant plot afoot for Barack Obama's military takeover of the United States...

GOPer Rapist Resists

VT Lawmaker Norman McAllister Won't Resign Despite Rape Charges:

“I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong,” Vermont state Sen. Normal McAllister protested when police arrested him outside the statehouse last Thursday.

Some, apparently, would beg to differ. The Burlington Free Press reports McAllister faces three felony charges for sexual assault, and three misdemeanor charges for soliciting women for sex. Despite all the damning testimony from victims gathered by investigators before the arrest, McAllister pleaded not guilty in court...

Too Nutty For The GOP?

Ben Carson's dangerous view of judicial authority: Bloomberg View | OregonLive.com:

Ben Carson will never be president. (There, I've said it.) But his candidacy and the views associated with it aren't a joke; they're an important reflection on the current state of American populist conservatism. That's why it's worth analyzing Carson's recent comments suggesting that the president may not have to obey the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law...

GOP ACA Errors

Markos Moulitsas: So wrong it’s funny | TheHill:

In troubled times, it’s good to take a moment to laugh at the GOP’s hilariously wrong predictions about the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Let’s start with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who predicted in 2011, “[ObamaCare] will bankrupt our nation, and it will ruin our economy.” In a tweet in 2014, he wrote, “Pres. Obama’s #hcr law is expected to destroy 2.3 million jobs.”

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So it must’ve pained him to admit last week that the economy is growing and jobs are following suit: “The economy expands and as a result, you are going to have more employees because businesses have to...”

Not Bad For A Handyman Obama Hater

Luis Lang refused Obamacare & now paying the consequence:

This story reported by The Charlotte Observer is unbelievable. Luis Lang is a 49 year old self-employed handyman. He works with banks and the federal government to maintain foreclosed properties. He and his wife Mary live in a 3,300 square-foot home valued at $300,000 in the Legacy Park subdivision in Fort Mill, South Carolina...

Is Sense Penetrating The Pot Debate?

Retired Cop: I Never Encountered A Person 'Acting Out Under The Influence Of Marijuana':

A pro-marijuana ad debuting in Texas on Tuesday showcases a retired police officer who says the state should take a more "sensible" approach to marijuana policies because the drug causes far fewer problems than alcohol.

"I know of no instance in my entire career where someone was acting out under the influence of marijuana," says Russell Jones in the ad supporting a Texas House bill that would decriminalize marijuana, reducing the penalty for possessing less than an ounce to a maximum civil fine of $250. Current state law allows maximum penalties of six months in jail and a $2,000 fine for possessing less than two ounces...

America Wises Up

Supreme Court’s grand ruse ends: Finally, Americans see the justices for the political hacks they are - Salon.com:

Cue up the sad David Brooks violin playing softly in the corner of a dark alley at 3 a.m., because Americans have no faith in powerful institutions anymore. One of those institutions would be the marbled shrine atop our third branch of American government, the Supreme Court. A new Associated Press poll shows that “only 1 person in 10 is highly confident that the justices will rely on objective interpretations of the [Affordable Care Act] rather than their personal opinions” in the Court’s impending King v. Burwell decision...

Huckabeek Flogged By Malkin

 ...and everyone else.

Mike Huckabee's 2016 Hopes Face A Roadblock: His Former Conservative Media Colleagues | Blog | Media Matters for America

...Michelle Malkin: "Huckabee Is A Lying Crapweasel On Common Core." She also tweeted: "Mike Huckabee: Because there aren't enough Big Govt, soft-on-amnesty, Common Core weasel candidates in the GOP 2016 race." [Twitter.com, 5/5/15; Twitter.com, 5/5/15] ..,

Comment Of The Day: Rubio 9 11 Edition

Old Spy's Tale: A 9/11 Fable Lives Again

Patrick Cox · Top Commenter · Works at Trenton, New Jersey

If you hire a Soviet specialist, I suppose the only threats she will see are Soviet threats, even if there is no Soviet Union anymore. They had this idea that only "state-sponsored" terrorism was a threat, so therefore the Clintons were obsessing over small fry when they made Bin Laden a priority. Bush made fun of Clinton for sending a "$20 million missile up a camels butt." For some reason they just could not see that Al Queda is a state-sponsored terrorist organization, sponsored by our friends the Saudis.

Clinton Scandals: Nobody Cares

Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Need Americans to Trust Her - NationalJournal.com:

For all those convinced that the serial allegations of ethical impropriety swirling around Hillary Clinton will puncture her prospects of winning the presidency next year, there's a relevant precedent to consider: On the day Bill Clinton was reelected by more than eight million votes in 1996, a solid 54 percent majority of voters said in exit polling that they did not consider him honest and trustworthy.

It's possible that voters have since grown less tolerant of perceived ethical missteps, such as the questions Hillary Clinton is facing over her private State Department email account and the Clinton Foundation's fund-raising practices. But it's more likely that empathy, faith in her competency, and ideological compatibility will count more than integrity in shaping voters' verdict on Hillary Clinton—just as they did for her husband...

Chicken Hawk Wants Terror Bombing

Rick Santorum Receives Thunderous Applause When He Says We Should Bomb ISIS ‘Back to the 7th Century’:

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said on Saturday that the U.S. military should “load up our bombers” and completely destroy ISIS.

Santorum’s comments came during the South Carolina Freedom Summit in Greenville, South Carolina, over the weekend. Santorum said:...

Scotland Says No To More Cuts

Sturgeon rallies troops with anti-austerity message for Westminster - FT.com:

...She said she had made clear to David Cameron during a short telephone conversation with the prime minister on Friday that the SNP’s top priority was opposing government spending cuts...

Yes, It's Embarrassing

Transportation chief: ‘We ought to be embarrassed as a country’ | TheHill:

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on Friday said, “we ought to be embarrassed as a country” about the state of the nation’s infrastructure, as lawmakers scramble to beat a May 31 deadline for extending federal transportation funds.

Lawmakers have talked about passing a $10 billion patch to extend transportation funding until the end of the year, but Foxx said temporary extensions are not sufficient enough to address the nation’s infrastructure needs...

Clinton Personality Insight

One Of These Is Not Like The Others: Two Clintons, No Waiting:

...All during her husband's administration, HRC was considered to be the more progressive of the two. She supported the accommodations he made to get re-elected, some of which were pretty damned ghastly. She also was one of the most vocal in defense of that administration against the organized ratfking that sought to destroy it. (The only mistake she made, as Calvin Trillin pointed out at the time was that she referred to a "vast right-wing conspiracy" rather than a creepy little cabal.) I once had a long conversation with a former Clinton lawyer. He told me that, if there were 1000 people in a room, and 999 thought Bill Clinton was a direct descendant of Jesus Christ, and one of them thought he was the spawn of Satan, Clinton would seek out that one person and spend the rest of the night and all the following day trying to change that person's mind. That is not something anyone ever has said about Ms. Rodham Clinton. The edges of her triangulations are all sharp ones...

Higher Ed Costs

The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much - NYTimes.com:

...By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions...

My colleagues and I have been screaming about this since the early 80's when it started-- managers and bean counters became vastly more important than faculty and without elected school boards to rein them in, the crooks ran wild. Cronyism, sexual problems, and good old fashioned corruption rose like a cancerous boil and it continues because the powers are totally unbalanced. A simple fix is to use the Medieval university model wherein the faculty hired the administrators not the other way around.

More Nonsense From The Right

Conservative Columnist: Is Baltimore Unrest A "Set-Up," Allowing Obama To Delay 2016 Election? | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Conservative columnist Morgan Brittany thinks the recent unrest in Baltimore may be a "set-up" and that President Obama might "have to institute martial law to preserve order, form a national police force and postpone the 2016 elections" if the police officers charged in Freddie Gray's death are acquitted...

The Daily Flashback: Raygun Edition

The ludicrous myth of Republican fiscal responsibility: A history lesson for the modern GOP - Salon.com:

Over the past three decades, the Republican party has followed a familiar strategy — get elected to executive office by preaching fiscal responsibility, make a complete mess of things fiscally, and then, when a Democrat comes in to clean up the mess, blame them endlessly for not fixing it fast enough. We see this currently, with the insipid Republican candidates blaming President Obama for our current debt level, despite the fact that Republican policies, like cutting taxes for the wealthy and putting two wars on the credit card made it all possible...

Comment Of The Day: Tuff Texas Troopers (Or Not) Edition

Return To Mena Airport: Calling It From Altitude

Jeremy Warren · Top Commenter · The University of Texas at Austin

What I love about the "takeover of Texas" crowd is the piss in their pants aspect. So, 1,000 US troops are going to take over the state with the most wingnuts and most guns? I thought you guys were buying all those guns so you could fight the tyranny. Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this your Rambo/Red Dawn fantasy?

These people are an embarrassment to carbon-based lifeforms. Yet the GOP is completely beholden to them. I look forward to going to Chipotle and seeing clowns
with their AR-15s. It will be interesting when they show up to monitor elections in minority communities, which we absolutely know will happen. The folks who soiled their drawers over the New Black Panther Party's three yelling goons will claim their packing military heat is not intimidation at all.

How Sanders Helps Clinton

Wormtongues | The Confluence:

...Are you serious? Sanders entering the race is the best thing that could have happened to Clinton. Now, there is another credible person on the left. Sanders is passionate, he speaks well, he’s rational. He doesn’t have the air of dweeb about him like Kucinich and he doesn’t come off as being an unrealistic “knit your own sandals” type who is going to make us eat a raw vegan diet with a heavy emphasis on organic beets. His concern is primarily about the very real erosion of the standard of living of most working Americans today.

He adds weight to the left side of the field. The longer he stays in the race, the better for Clinton. That means it won’t be six silly nobodies trying to out-mean each other on the right sucking all of the air out of the room and one woman defending the left all by herself. It means that issues might actually get discussed that aren’t all on the ultra conservative right. It means she won’t have to be so defensive. It means there will be a clear difference between the two political sides...

Carly Flub

Carly Fiorina fails to register website, gets whacked | The Sacramento Bee The Sacramento Bee:

Newly announced Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina may have once led a tech giant, but that didn’t prevent her fledgling campaign from making a tech oops.

Fiorina’s campaign apparently neglected to register the domain http://carlyfiorina.org/ -- but someone else did and that person is hammering the former Hewlett-Packard chief on the number of layoffs she oversaw during her tenure at the company.

“Carly Fiorina failed to register this domain,” the site reads. “So I'm using it to tell you how many people she laid off at Hewlett-Packard.”

It continues with screens of frowny faces -- the 30,000 people it says Fiorina laid off...

A Complex Problem

Dems link Baltimore violence to dearth of government help | TheHill:

Democrats on and off Capitol Hill are linking the recent violence in Baltimore to a dearth of government programs aimed at elevating poverty.

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They're calling for broader government commitments to education, workforce training, summer jobs programs and other initiatives aimed at fighting unemployment, while hammering the Republicans' new budget proposal for cutting those same measures...

Con Foundation Hypocrisy

Bush Foundations Accepted Unlimited Secret Donations from Foreign Countries | Occupy Democrats:

 As the conservative media networks drive themselves into a muckraking feeding frenzy over the prospect of the upcoming work of fiction titled Clinton Cash, written by a professional right-wing conspiracy theorist and political hitman, the rest of America has picked up the question of foundation accountability out of curiosity and the tempting allure of scandal. But, in one of the countless hypocritical reversals that are all too common in modern American politics, it turns out that the Bush family foundations have been acting like they have something to hide, while the Clintons have publicly released key information about all their donors, such as identity and approximate amount donated. In typical Republican fashion, they are projecting their own corruption onto Democrats and accusing the transparent Clinton Foundation of accepting the same kinds of secret bribes that the Bush Foundation has been taking for years...

Drudging O'Malley

Matt Drudge REALLY likes Martin O’Malley - The Washington Post:

The amount of attention Drudge is paying to O'Malley's is not commensurate with where the former governor stands in polling of the hypothetical Democratic primary race. The last time Post-ABC News polled the race — at the end of March — Clinton led the field with 66 percent while O'Malley took zero percent. Yes, zero percent. (Technically he received less than .5 percent of the vote.)...

If Drudge likes him, that means OM is a right wing stalking horse. No support from me, not that I matter.

A Police Riot?

Eyewitnesses: "The Baltimore Riots Didn't Start the Way You Think" - Mother Jones - I Take LIBERTY With My Coffee:

After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation...

Most Admired

President Obama Named ‘Most Admired Man In The World’ And The GOP Is FUMING | Greenville Gazette:

The dividing line between Democrats and Republicans grows wider. As Republicans become stronger and louder in their opposition to President Obama and his policies, his approval ratings show no signs of slowing down. In fact, for the seventh year in a row, this president of the United States has been named the “Most Admired Man in the World.”

The annual poll from Gallup gave the number one spot to Obama. An incumbent U.S. president is nearly always chosen for the most admired spot. This year, Obama won by a healthy margin over the second place finisher...

Menendez Berdict Implications

If Senator Menendez is Guilty, the Koch Brothers Lose and Democracy WIns:

Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) has been indicted on fourteen counts of conspiracy, bribery, fraud, and false statements pertaining to his relationship with wealthy opthalmologist Salomon Melgen and his Florida corporations. At first glance, this case appears to be a straightforward case of a politician accepting money to use his influence for the benefit of an associate. However, this particular case has huge ramifications for politics and money. In fact, every major political donor in this country – including the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, and Thomas Steyer – must watch this case intently and hope Senator Menendez is found “not guilty”. People who want to curb the influence of money in politics should hope Senator Menendez is found “guilty...”

The Ax Falls Closer To Christie

Gov. Chris Christie Ally David Wildstein Pleads Guilty in Bridge Probe - ABC News:

A key figure in the corruption scandal that threatens New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political career pleaded guilty today in federal court.

David Wildstein, who looked noticeably thinner, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy -- knowingly misapplying property that receives federal funds and conspiracy to violate civil rights.

Wildstein admitted in open court in Newark that the George Washington Bridge's access lane closures were the result of political retribution for Fort Lee’s mayor, Mark Sokolich, for refusing to endorse Christie’s bid for re-election as New Jersey governor in 2013...