madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time

[boutons_deux]

Keeping Alabama stupid, ignorant, segregated

Alabama governor names public school-hating Christian fundamentalist to oversee public education




Alabama’s governor has appointed a Christian conservative to the state’s Board of Education despite never having any involvement in a public school in his life.


Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, named 28-year-old Matthew Brown, a design engineer at the Baldwin County Highway Department, to the agency that oversees the state’s public education system, reported the Friendly Atheist blog.


Brown has never attended a public school and has vowed that his own children would not, either, according to a blog post by education activist Larry Lee.

The new school board member graduated in 2007 from Pensacola Christian College and graduated in 2011 from berland School of Law at Samford University.
Brown worked earlier this year to defeat a school tax vote in his county — and the governor promised he would bring a “unique perspective” to the Board of Education.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/alab...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Steve King Believes That The Supreme Court Legalized Lawnmower Marriage

while introducing Mike Huckabee at a campaign event on Thursday, King claimed that according to the Supreme Court’s ruling, “You can marry my lawnmower.”

This, however, was not even the first time King had contemplated lawnmower marriage. He’s actually been making the remark since just after the ruling came down. In late June, he was quoted as saying, “Their ruling really says anybody can marry anybody — and eventually it will be in any combination. I had a strong, Christian lawyer tell me yesterday that, under this decision that he has read, what it brings about is: It only requires one human being in this relationship — that you could marry your lawnmower with this decision. I think he’s right.”

King has a long history of making incendiary remarks about the LGBT community. He opposes nondiscrimination protections because he believes people will pretend to be gay in order to file suits; he called such protections “special rights for self-professed behavior.” If people are afraid of discrimination, he believes they should just hide their iden ies in the workplace so that nobody knows they’re gay in the first place. He thinks same-sex couples who want to marry are just friends, and he doesn’t expect to see any gay people in heaven.

Incidentally, Sen. Chuck Grassley, fellow Republican from Iowa and fellow opponent of same-sex marriage, was tweeting pictures Friday of a rig he set up to mow his lawn with three lawnmowers at the same time. His decision to highlight his marriage of three lawnmowers the day after King’s latest remarks may have just been a coincidence.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/0...ower-marriage/

Who elects these asshole Senators anyway? ing Iowa!

[boutons_deux]

Chris Christie vows to punch the national teachers union ‘in the face’ because they ‘deserve’ it


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/chri...e+Raw+Story%29

[Slutter McGee]

Chris Christie vows to punch the national teachers union ‘in the face’ because they ‘deserve’ it


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/chri...e+Raw+Story%29

Silly turn of phrase, but he is right. As a public sector union the teachers are way too powerful. Look at what has to be done to fire someone in New York.

[boutons_deux]

Silly turn of phrase, but he is right. As a public sector union the teachers are way too powerful. Look at what has to be done to fire someone in New York.

Most of them, esp in TX, quit of their own accord. Avg teaching career in TX is 5 years. very high churn rate.

I suppose the widespread denigration of public schools, teachers, ty budgets and resources from you rightwingers discourages them.

VRWC destruction of public schools and teacher unions in favor of for-profit, right wing/Christian indoctrination charter schools has suckered you, as always. Charter schools pay even tier salaries to tier teachers, get tier results, but suck down taxpayers $Bs to privateering hucksters.

[boutons_deux]

Conservative news site freaks out over ‘demon’ appearance in video of Obama’s Kenya visit

Right-wing conspiracy website World Net Daily has touched off a fever of speculation among its readers over a supposed “demon” captured on video during President Barack Obama’s visit to Kenya in late July.

According to Right Wing Watch, WND’s news editor John Kovacs wrote on Tuesday that he’s only posing the question as to whether a gray blur that flashes across the screen from left to right might be an “otherworldly being.”

“He’s the U.S. president who has had flies land on his face numerous times, prompting some to call him ‘Lord of the flies.’” said Kovacs.

“And he has been buzzed by bees.

And has had rodents running across his presidential podium while addressing reporters.

His face has even been compared to the character of Satan the devil in “The Bible” TV miniseries.”

“And now, a mysterious flash during Barack Obama’s visit to his ancestral homeland of Kenya last month has some people wondering once again about the president’s ties to strange phenomena,” he went on.

Kovacs said he was contacted by a concerned WND reader who wrote, “My husband and I were watching this and I told him I saw a demon run by. He didn’t believe until I rewound the video. Please take a look!”

“The translucent, gray figure rushes by in the blink of an eye, and is difficult to discern at regular speed,” Kovacs said. “A freeze-frame analysis indicates the flash may appear to have a head and shoulders as it scurries along.”

We at the Raw Story Paranormal Phenomena Desk watched the video repeatedly and only saw what appeared to be an out-of-focus boom mic with what looks like a gray “pop filter,” a bit of foam used by audio technicians to screen out high-pitched noises when recording live sound.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/cons...s-kenya-visit/

ing ignorant, stupid, paranoid, supers ious, racist, childish Christians!

aka, The Repug Glorious Base!

[boutons_deux]

Pastor says belief in evolution has killed 55 million Americans as he praises God for his trigger finger




While telling his father’s church about how much he values human life, Matthew Hagee thanked God for giving him a finger he can use to pull the trigger in a recent sermon, Right Wing Watch reports.Hagee, the son of John Hagee, gave the talk at the elder Hagee’s Cornerstone Church on Sunday, in which he said that teaching the theory of evolution has killed 55 million Americans.

“Evolution is a lie from the pit of itself,” Hagee said. “And it has cost us 55 million Americans.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/past...rigger-finger/

Hagee fils even ing crazier than Hagge pere. Same is true with Graham fils.

[boutons_deux]

Mike Huckabee: Fetuses deserve ‘due process’ — and U.S. troops are ‘one of the ways’ to do it

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee did not deny over the weekend that he would consider using federal troops or the FBI to stop abortions because he said that fetuses deserved “due process.”At a campaign stop in Iowa late last month, the former Arkansas governor said that he would invoke the Fifth and 14 Amendments to give fetuses the rights of people.

When he was asked if he would use U.S. troops or the FBI to back the guarantee of equal rights for fetuses, Huckabee replied, “We’ll see, if I get to be president.”


On Sunday, Huckabee claimed that the media was trying to put words in his mouth, but he still declined to say that he would not use federal troops to prevent abortions.

“What I’m saying is that the real issue here is not whether we’re going to give money to Planned Parenthood,” he explained. “Yes, that’s important.

But the bigger issue is, is that unborn child a human being? Because if it is then the Fifth and the 14th Amendment apply because we’re dealing with personhood.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/mike...e+Raw+Story%29

#ZygoteLivesMatter

[boutons_deux]

Florida pastor: The national debt will end ‘immediately’ when Planned Parenthood is defunded

I was talking to the Lord about this just the other day and I said, ‘Lord, I can’t continue this.’ You know if Planned Parenthood is not defunded, I just may stop paying taxes. I know that I’ll go to jail for it.”

“You want to talk about reducing the national debt?” Conner continued. “We could reduce it overnight if they would defund this evil organization and put it on the national debt. Man, we could get out of debt immediately.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/flor...e+Raw+Story%29

goddam, you ing rightwingnuts are truly insane

Let's see if this insane "religious" er really stops paying his taxes so he can go to prison

[boutons_deux]

This Barton is a Repug/Christian Taliban supremacist HERO

David Barton: The Declaration Of Independence And Bill Of Rights Came Directly Out Of The Bible

Glenn Beck brought right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton onto his television program last week so that he could deliver another one of his "history" lessons to Beck's audience about how the Founding Fathers took all of the rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights straight out of the Bible, specifically Genesis 1-8.

As Barton explained, the purpose of the Declaration was to declare that there was a God, that God created inalienable rights, and that government exists to protect these rights. As such, there were some two dozen rights listed in the Declaration, which eventually were codified into the Bill of Rights, and all of which were taken directly from the Bible.

"They held that all of those came out of Genesis 1-8," Barton said. "That's what they looked to. Genesis 1-8, they went through and said, 'Here's the two dozen rights we see and that's why governments exist.' So this is the God factor and that's what made of different from the beginning."

Barton went on to declare that there is no such thing as separation of church and state or government neutrality toward religion because the Declaration declares unanimously, on behalf of every level of government, that God exists.

"We're told by the courts today that, well, we've got people among us that don't believe in God and to make it fair for everybody, government will take no position for or against God, we're going to be neutral between religion and non-religion," Barton said. "Look at the le of the Declaration of Independence. The le says this is 'the unanimous declaration of the thirteen states of the United States of America.'

Every political en y in America said, hey, this is what we in the political world hold true: There is a God, He gives rights to man, and government exists to protect God-given rights. You can't be neutral in America on the God factor because none of our do ents are. It's just real clear."

Beck, of course, was blown away by this revelation, as Barton declared that it is "nonsensical" for courts to protect the separation of church and state.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/david-barton-declaration-independence-and-bill-rights-came-directly-out-bible

Repugs and Christian Taliban supremacists have created a reason- and science-denying fantasy world subscribed to by Ms of assholes.

[boutons_deux]

More proof that Christ-like, loving, charitable (Texas) Christians are not pro-life, but pro-birth, after which you're ed and on your own

Kids With Disabilities Sue Texas For Cutting Their Medicaid Services

A group that includes families of disabled children and health care providers has filed a lawsuitagainst a Texas agency in an effort to stop impending budget cuts that threaten to disrupt the services offered to the youngsters through the state’s therapy program.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a budget that slashes nearly $260 million in Medicaid payments to the therapy program over two years. Medical policy reductions account for another $130 million in cutbacks.

Health care advocates have since launched a public relations campaign against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), claiming the industry will lose 20 percent in revenue and nearly 60,000 children will lose home-based “medically necessary services.”

The recent lawsuit comes a decade after Texas entered a settlement agreement to provide “medically necessary services” to Medicaid recipients. Critics of the recent budge change say cuts to reimbursements will increase demands on the community centers and limit children’s access to resources. “Those rates will force Texas Medicaid providers to cease providing services critical to the health and development of Texas’ most vulnerable residents, its children,” the suit reads.

Children with disabilities who are eligible for Medicaid can access a host of benefits specific to their needs, including therapeutic consultation and crisis intervention and support. Home and community-based therapists receive reimbursements from Medicaid for their work with patients. Recent amendments to federal regulations updated requirements for appropriate home and community-based settings and strengthened protections for individuals.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015...-disabilities/

Who is RUNNING Texas, "wheels" Abbott?

TX spends about $20B year on tax breaks, subsidies for businesses.

[boutons_deux]

USSR Pravda would approve

Conservatives Love the New Advanced Placement US History Standards

The standards were criticized as being "anti-American." Specific objections ranged from the framework stating that the nation's founders believed in "white superiority" and that white Southerners had "pride in the ins ution of slavery" to a line calling former President Ronald Reagan "bellicose."

The Republican National Committee even got involved and passed a resolution that called the framework "radically revisionist," while several states introduced proposals hoping to force a revision.

Bizarrely, at one point, Republican presidential hopefulBen Carson went so far as to argue that the Advanced Placement course might encourage young Americans to "sign up for ISIS"!

To many people's surprise, the College Board listened to the arguments, decided to do another revision, and even hired some of the loudest critics to work on those changes. The College Board has just released the new curriculum framework for its AP US history course, and it appears to have satisfied many of the old framework's critics.

In doing so, the Board has either glossed over or completely ignored many important issues such as racism and slavery.

This is especially important because it affects a large number of young people.America doesn't have a national history curriculum, but the AP US history course comes close. Last year, nearly half a million high school students sat for this AP exam.

Here are just a few of the changes:

In the 2014 version, Europeans "helped increase the intensity and destructiveness of American Indian warfare." Now it says simply that the Europeans' introduction of guns and alcohol "stimulated changes" in native communities.

In the 2014 section on World War II, students were given specific details about Japanese internment camps and the atomic bomb. In the new version, students are told simply that Americans saw the war as a fight for freedom and against fascism.

President Reagan is no longer "bellicose" toward the Soviet Union but rather gives "speeches" and engages in "a buildup of nuclear and conventional weapons."

The 2014 version stated: "Many Europeans developed a belief in white superiority to justify their subjugation of Africans and American Indians, using several different rationales." By 2015, we read that interracial interaction in the colonial and antebellum years spurred "evolving religious, cultural, and racial justifications for [their] subjugation."

You get the idea.

These changes are part of a dangerous trend in education to gloss over or ignore any problems in US history. Thus, Arizona banned ethnic studies classes as "leading to communism," the Texas textbook standards largely ignore anyone of color in the history of the state, the Tennessee Tea Party tried to ban all mention of slavery in their textbooks, and now we have these new AP standards.

There's also another problem: the revised 2014 standards were very similar to the Common Core standards, in encouraging students to think for themselves, and develop their own arguments based on evidence. Conservatives don't like the idea of students thinking for themselves, so they rose up against these standards.

At a time when the US still has a "gaping racial wound," to quote Jon Stewart, our public education system should be taking a stand for the truth, not trying to minimize any issues they find unpleasant.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...at-s-a-problem

Repugs' AmeriKKKa, yeah!

[DarrinS]

You down there boo?

[boutons_deux]

Boehner's Ten Big Lies About Protecting Jobs and Growing the Economy

John Boehner Playing Stupid and Lying

John Boehner, in his latest parcel of lies about all the things Republicans haven’t been doing, makes claims that while the House has been busy serving the “people’s priorities” that Obama has been doing nefarious deeds, like vetoing the dozen or so jobs the Keystone XL Pipeline would have created, or vetoing their attempt to, as they put it, “restore the 40-hour work week,” which was, in fact, an attempt to deprive millions of Americans of their healthcare. There is literally no bill too small for Boehner to lie about and claim it is a jobs bill.

According to the narrative, the House has been struggling bravely on against every attempt Obama has made to stop them from creating jobs.

The truth is, the House has not created any jobs. It has not even attempted to create any jobs. It has attempted to deprive Americans of their healthcare. It has attempted to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of American workers.

Listed here are some of the things that Boehner claims “Republicans have done to protect jobs and grow our economy”:

1. We’ve paved the way for stronger trade agreements, which means more jobs and higher wages for America’s workers. Trade is good for our country: it supports more than one in five American jobs, and manufacturing jobs tied to trade pay 16 percent more. New trade promotion authority (TPA) will ensure that the country makes better trade agreements. This is a big win for American workers, and will help us sell more goods stamped with “made in America.” (H.R. 2146, 114th Congress)

In point of fact, like it or not (and many do not), the White House fully supported the TPA, calling it “a good thing.” According to the administration, “Now, thanks to the new rules of the road laid out by Congress, our latest trade deal — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — can put in place high, enforceable standards that reflect our values on the environment, on workers’ rights, on transparency, and more.” This was not a victory of House over White House but a rare convergence of viewpoints between the two. In fact, Jeffrey Zients pointed out on the White House blog this spring that “Trade authority has a long bipartisan history, dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt. In the decades since the New Deal Congress passed the first trade negotiating legislation, Congress has renewed and modernized that authority 18 different times, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents alike.”

2. We’ve protected 99 percent of Americans from permanent tax hikes. On January 1, 2013, income taxes were scheduled to go up on just about every American. Republicans were able to protect 99 percent of Americans from permanent tax increases while locking in lower rates on the estate tax and the tax on capital gains and dividends. (H.R. 8, 112th Congress)

Boehner and the House Republicans are not interested in protecting 99 percent of Americans from tax hikes. They are interested in protecting 1 percent of Americans from tax hikes. The estate tax, the tax on capital gains, and on dividends, as Boehner well knows, have nothing to do with the average American. For example, the latest Republican attempt to repeal the estate tax, H.R. 1105, would not only have added “hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit to provide large tax cuts exclusively to the very wealthiest Americans,” but would have shifted “a greater share of the tax burden onto working Americans at a time when the top one percent already holds more than 40 percent of the Nation’s wealth and wealth disparities have risen to levels not seen since the 1930s.” At a time when Obama’s plan is to tax the rich and help the middle class, the GOP is trying to do the opposite.

3. We’ve cut government spending by $2.1 trillion and counting. Republicans have won the most significant spending reductions in modern history – more significant than under Reagan & O’Neill and Clinton & Gingrich. These spending cuts have helped reduce the deficit and improve confidence in our economy. (H.R. 83, 113th Congress)

This was in fact, as Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan put it last December, a “bipartisan compromise,” which is not exactly a “Republican win” as Boehner would have it. In fact, H.R. 83 “Avoid[ed] a dangerous government shutdown that would have hurt our economic progress” which contained “ideological and special interest rider provisions” put their by the GOP and objected to by the White House, designed to further weaken Wall Street reform and provided less than a full year of funding for the Department of Homeland Security. All this bill did was keep things going – temporarily. It is at the least disingenuous of Boehner to claim it in any way “protected jobs” or “grew our economy.”

4. We’ve backed American energy production, the biggest driver of jobs and growth in America. From supporting the shale revolution and fighting for the Keystone XL pipeline to blocking new fees on producers and cutting funding for the EPA, we’ve done all we can to blunt the Obama administration’s attempts to decrease American energy production. This has helped make America the world’s top oil and natural gas producer. (H.R. 83, 113th Congress; S.1, 114th Congress)

John Boehner (as did Mitt Romney in 2012) likes to pretend that Obama is opposed to energy production. In 2012, Investmen ch proclaimed “Fact: Under Obama, U.S. energy production is at an all-time high.” And the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in 2013 “that the United States will be the world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons…surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia.” Far from trying to decrease American energy production, Obama has been advocating energy independence.

5. We’ve protected small businesses from ObamaCare mandates that make it harder to hire. In addition to repealing a paperwork mandate in ObamaCare, we recently gave small businesses relief from rules that make it harder to hire veterans. (H.R. 4, 112th Congress; H.R. 3236, 114th Congress)

As the Statement of Administration Policy describes it, the so-called “Jobs for America Act” H.R. 4 “would undermine [the Affordable Care Act] by shifting costs to taxpayers and causing fewer Americans to have employer-sponsored health insurance coverage,” and “throw all major regulations into a months-long limbo,” as well as ” impose other unnecessary requirements on agencies that would seriously undermine their ability to execute their statutory mandates.” Boehner can frame this any way he wants to (and has), but in essence, H.R. 4 was just another Republican attempt to deregulate “while at the same time allowing taxes to increase on 26 million working families.” In other words, it was not intended to “protect jobs” or “grow our economy.”

6. We won passage of three free trade agreements that are already paying dividends for American workers. The Republican majority successfully won passage and implementation of long-delayed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. (H.R. 3078, 3079 & 3080, 112th Congress)

The Statement of Administration Policy for H.R. 3078, which was a piece of bipartisan legislation, shows White House support for this bill, stating that it “forms an integral part of the Administration’s larger strategy of doubling exports by the end of 2014.” The Statement for H.R. 3079 shows the same executive branch support, stating that “The Agreement is an important part of the Administration’s efforts to spur economic growth, increase exports, and create jobs in the United States, while promoting our core values.” In other words, this is just another case of Boehner pretending something was done despite, not because of or in agreement with the White House.

7. It is now easier for entrepreneurs to acquire the capital they need to start and grow a business. It shouldn’t be easier to start a business in Belarus than it is in the United States, but it is, the experts say. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Acthelps aspiring entrepreneurs overcome government barriers to starting and expanding a business. (H.R. 3606, 112th Congress)

Boehner pretends the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act is a Republican victory over White House obstruction, but in fact, the relevant Statement of Administration Policy points out that “The President outlined a number of ways to help small businesses grow and become more compe ive in his September 8, 2011, address to a Joint Session of Congress on jobs and the economy, as well as in the Startup America Legislative Agenda he sent to the Congress last month. In both the speech and the agenda, the President called for cutting the red tape that prevents many rapidly growing startup companies from raising needed capital.” In other words, far from representing a victory over Obama, H.R. 3606 is just an example of the House finally doing what President Obama had urged it to do a year previously.

8. It is now easier for inventors and innovators to launch new products and businesses. The America Invents Act, the most significant update to our nation’s patent system in 60 years, cuts down on costs and speeds up the process by which patents are approved while better protecting intellectual property. (H.R. 1249, 112th Congress)

According to the Statement of Administration Policy, “The bill represents a balanced and well-crafted effort to enhance the services to patent applicants and America’s innovators provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).” Again, H.R. 1249 does not represent a House victory over an unwilling president. The Statement makes clear that “House passage of H.R. 1249 would foster innovation, improve economic compe iveness, and create jobs at no expense to taxpayers – all of which are key Administration goals.”

9. It is now easier for job-seekers to find the right skills to land the right jobs. Millions of good-paying jobs in America go unfilled because workers lack the proper skills. With the SKILLS Act, we modernized the nation’s workforce development system by eliminating programs that weren’t working and giving flexibility to the states. (H.R. 803, 113th Congress)

Boehner pretends H.R. 803 was a step forward, but the Statement of Administration Policy makes clear this bill was not an attempt to improve, but rather to hinder, job access, stating that, “While H.R. 803 takes some positive steps, the bill does not adhere to the Administration’s key principles for reform. The bill would eliminate, or allow the consolidation of, many targeted programs, without providing the critical assistance needed by vulnerable populations such as veterans, low-income adults, youth, adults with literacy and English language needs, people with disabilities, ex-offenders, and others with significant barriers to employment. H.R. 803 would freeze funding for the next seven years and would fail to support efforts to innovate and replicate effective approaches.” As the statement puts it, “any effort to streamline the current system must allow for sufficient funding to meet the needs of workers and job-seekers.” Boehner put a lot of talk into the SKILLS Act, but not much action.

10. It is now easier for graduates to get a good start in their careers. We took the politics out of student loans, plain and simple. By linking interest rates to the markets, people will see more stable and predictable rates over time, making it easier to pay for college and start contributing to the economy. (H.R. 1911, 113th Congress)

Here again Boehner is pretending his bill did something it did not do. He talks about lower interest rates, but as the Statement of Administration Policy points out, “the bill would not guarantee low rates for today’s students,” and “changes would impose the largest interest rate increases on low- and middle-income students and families who struggle most to afford a college education.” Furthermore, “the bill does not include the President’s proposal to extend repayment options to borrowers who have already left school and often face the same debt burdens as current and future students.” H.R. 1911 promoted the idea that interest rates should be raised to reduce the deficit. That’s right. Far from “stable and predictable rates over time,” the rates proposed would be unpredictable and subject to change, and force students to pay more so Congress could spend more elsewhere.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/08/...iticus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

it's the Dog Days

Beat the rush: Fox host Elisabeth Hasselbeck warns of ‘War on Christmas’ — in August


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/beat...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

5. Right-wing film critic celebrates fact that Jimmy Carter has cancer.

Here’s a lovely lady, whose film criticism we’ll be sure to start reading. Her name is Debbie Schlussel, and upon hearing that the 90-year-old ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner is gravely ill, the sometime-film critic, sometime-right-wing political commentator tweeted this out:



Yes, she did.

She even tried to make it a trending topic. It failed to trend. When the twittersphere reacted with some hostility and called her names, she was really upset. After all, she did not use vulgar language. How could they do that to such a nice gal?

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-an...son-goes-rails

[boutons_deux]

Huckabee Supports Denying Abortion To 10-Year-Old Rape Victim

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/08/16/3692100/huckabee-paraguay-rape-abortion/

I wonder if a raped 10 year old girl was Huck's (grand) daughter and the rapist was black, same policy?

[boutons_deux]

Maryland Official: Lead Poisoning Is the Royal Road to Riches

Gov. Larry Hogan's top housing official said Friday that he wants to look at loosening state lead paint poisoning laws, saying they could motivate a mother to deliberately poison her child to obtain free housing.

Kenneth C. Holt, secretary of Housing, Community and Development, told an audience at the Maryland Association of Counties summer convention here that

a mother could just put a lead fishing weight in her child's mouth, then take the child in for testing and a landlord would be liable for providing the child with housing until the age of 18.

Pressed afterward, Holt said he had no evidence of this happening but said a developer had told him it was possible. "This is an anecdotal story that was described to me as something that could possibly happen," Holt said.

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't actually work, but that hardly matters. It's just another example of the peculiar Republican penchant for governance via anecdote. They're all convinced that someone, somewhere, is trying to rip them off, but they can never find quite enough real examples of this. So instead we get

Reaganesque fables about stuff they heard from some guy who heard it from some other guy who said, you know, it could happen.

By the way, if you're tempted to do this, please don't. Licking a lead fishing weight once probably won't actually cause a detectable rise in blood lead levels,

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...al-road-riches

Repugs love the widespread, rampant welfare fraud myth, but never have any evidence.

[Pelicans78]

Crickets chirping

[boutons_deux]

Republicans Against Retirement

For some reason, just about all the leading candidates other than The Donald have taken a deeply unpopular position, a known political loser, on a major domestic policy issue. And it’s interesting to ask why.

The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing.

But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program — and what Mr. Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all. Despite the political momentum coming from the G.O.P.’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security quickly crashed and burned. Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is, and don’t want it cut.
It’s remarkable, then, that most of the Republicans who would be president seem to be lining up for another round of punishment. In particular, they’ve been declaring that the retirement age — which has already been pushed up from 65 to 66, and is scheduled to rise to 67 — should go up even further.

Thus, Jeb Bush says that the retirement age should be pushed back to “68 or 70”. Scott Walker has echoed that position. Marco Rubio wants both to raise the retirement age and to cut benefits for higher-income seniors.Rand Paul wants to raise the retirement age to 70 and means-test benefits.Ted Cruz wants to revive the Bush privatization plan.

For the record, these proposals would be really bad public policy — a harsh blow to Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution, who depend on Social Security, often have jobs that involve manual labor, and have not, in fact, seen a big rise in life expectancy. Meanwhile, the decline of private pensions has left working Americans more reliant on Social Security than ever.

And no, Social Security does not face a financial crisis; its long-term funding shortfall could easily be closed with modest increases in revenue.

Americans love Social Security, so why aren’t the candidates at least pretending to share that sentiment?

Wealthy individuals have long played a disproportionate role in politics, but we’ve never seen anything like what’s happening now: domination of campaign finance, especially on the Republican side, by a tiny group of immensely wealthy donors. Indeed, more than half the funds raised by Republican candidates through June came from just 130 families.

And while most Americans love Social Security, the wealthy don’t. Two years ago a pioneering study of the policy preferences of the very wealthy found many contrasts with the views of the general public; as you might expect, the rich are politically different from you and me. But nowhere are they as different as they are on the matter of Social Security. By a very wide margin, ordinary Americans want to see Social Security expanded. But by an even wider margin, Americans in the top 1 percent want to see it cut. And guess whose preferences are prevailing among Republican candidates.

What this means, in turn, is that the eventual Republican nominee — assuming that it’s not Mr. Trump —will be committed not just to a renewed attack on Social Security but to a broader plutocratic agenda. Whatever the rhetoric, the GOP is on track to nominate someone who has won over the big money by promising government by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/op...ment.html?_r=1

[ducks]

the guy thinks privacy social security is bad
why
If I choice to invest my money and lose it shame on me and I will not ask for the government for a hand out
the government has your money they lose it and then they think they should not give it back or change the rules in the middle of the game
I say I am better off with that money then the government. I HAVE A BALANCED BUDGET THEY DO NOT. I DO NOT GIVE BILLIONS AWAY AND MAKE STUPID DEALS.

[ducks]

Florida pastor: The national debt will end ‘immediately’ when Planned Parenthood is defunded

I was talking to the Lord about this just the other day and I said, ‘Lord, I can’t continue this.’ You know if Planned Parenthood is not defunded, I just may stop paying taxes. I know that I’ll go to jail for it.”

“You want to talk about reducing the national debt?” Conner continued. “We could reduce it overnight if they would defund this evil organization and put it on the national debt. Man, we could get out of debt immediately.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/flor...e+Raw+Story%29

goddam, you ing rightwingnuts are truly insane

Let's see if this insane "religious" er really stops paying his taxes so he can go to prison

DO YOU ENJOY GIVING YOUR MONEY TO TAXES SO THE POLICTIANS CAN WASTE IT? OH II FORGOT ONLY THE REPUBLICANS WASTE IT NOT THE DEMOCRATS

[boutons_deux]

Texas Republican won’t apologize over Facebook post calling for atomic bombing of Muslims


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/texa...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Louisiana GOP lawmaker uses N-word in ad — and that’s not even the craziest thing he’s done

A Republican nominee for the Lt. Governor spot in Louisiana is under fire for using the N-word in a campaign ad that he claims will show black voters they are being played by the Democratic Party, reports The Advocate.In the controversial ad, State Sen. Elbert Guillory uses an apocryphal quote from former President Lyndon Johnson, supposedly uttered after he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to Guillory, Johnson said he “gave ‘them’ a little something to keep the n****rs voting for Democrats for the next 200 years.”

Earlier this year Guillory, attempted to make the case for teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution, claiming scientists once burned heretics at the stake for unconventional ideas.

The lawmaker was widely derided after fellow State Senator Jean-Paul J. Morrell (D) corrected Guillory, before adding a quote from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson who once said, “the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not,” as legislative observers laughed.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/loui...e+Raw+Story%29

[CosmicCowboy]

Louisiana GOP lawmaker uses N-word in ad — and that’s not even the craziest thing he’s done

A Republican nominee for the Lt. Governor spot in Louisiana is under fire for using the N-word in a campaign ad that he claims will show black voters they are being played by the Democratic Party, reports The Advocate.In the controversial ad, State Sen. Elbert Guillory uses an apocryphal quote from former President Lyndon Johnson, supposedly uttered after he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to Guillory, Johnson said he “gave ‘them’ a little something to keep the n****rs voting for Democrats for the next 200 years.”

Earlier this year Guillory, attempted to make the case for teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution, claiming scientists once burned heretics at the stake for unconventional ideas.

The lawmaker was widely derided after fellow State Senator Jean-Paul J. Morrell (D) corrected Guillory, before adding a quote from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson who once said, “the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not,” as legislative observers laughed.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/loui...e+Raw+Story%29

Well, it IS what Lyndon Johnson said.