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