madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time

[boutons_deux]

Rush Limbaugh pulls the bestiality card to defend Indiana: ‘What happens if you love your dog?’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/r...e+Raw+Story%29

From the hater no Repug politician would dare cross.

[FromWayDowntown]

The True Intent Of Indiana’s ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill, According To The People Who Helped Write It


At the forefront of the conservative reaction is Micah Clark, who serves as executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana and who stood right behind Penceas he signed the bill. Speaking Monday to Tim Wildmon, head of the national American Family Association, Clark explained that conservatives should oppose any effort to clarify that the law does not legalize discrimination. “That could totally destroy this bill,” he explained.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/03/31/3640801/conservatives-indiana-discrimination/

The intent to protect discrimination is fairly apparent at even a cursory reading. Governor Pence had clearly studied up on his talking points before meeting the press this morning, but those talking points don't have much to do with the actual language of the bill that he signed, which clearly goes further than the federal RFRA. He either hasn't read the law (which is likely) or, in claiming that the existing bill does not protect discrimination, he's insisting upon a reading of the law that he has to know is defiant of its actual language. His tantrum this morning about mis-reporting of the bill's intent and impact was startling and seemingly below the dignity of a state governor, particularly because his claims are patently untrue; his willingness to insist that the law be changed even though he simultaneously thinks there isn't anything wrong with it is intellectually dishonest.

[boutons_deux]

"his claims are patently untrue"

... we knew that before he opened his mouth.

[boutons_deux]

Corporate Lobby Spends $600,000 to Demote Chief Justice as Criminal Probe of Walker Campaign Looms

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), Wisconsin's premier lobby for corporate tax breaks and low wage jobs, has unleashed a $600,000 ad blitz to strip Wisconsin's independent Chief Justice of her le just as the court prepares to take up the "John Doe" criminal probe of Scott Walker and the special interest groups that defended him against recall in 2012.

WMC's spending in the recall campaigns is one of key issues in the case. The case will be be considered in secret without oral arguments by Wisconsin's Supreme Court whose conservative majority was elected by WMC.

You can’t make this stuff up.

"Vote Yes for Democracy" Campaign Designed to Mislead

The last minute ad campaign is spearheaded by a referendum committee called "Vote Yes for Democracy," whose frontman is long-time Republican operative and lobbyist Brandon Sholtz. Campaign filings show zero grassroots support, but major contributions by the state's largest business lobby WMC.

The committee was formed to back a cons utional amendment on the April 7 spring ballot that would change the way the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is chosen. For 126 years under the Wisconsin's Cons ution, the le has been given to the longest serving member of the court. Now WMC and the state's GOP leadership, with ties to the right-wing majority of the court, are anxious to change the process to a majority vote.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...alker-campaign

No Law Is Above The Man (and his $Ms)

[boutons_deux]

Nevada lawmaker who believes cancer is a fungus calls for “straight-up castration” of pimps




http://www.salon.com/2015/04/01/neva...tion_of_pimps/

[boutons_deux]

Idaho Governor Caught Stealing Wolves From Yellowstone



Idaho Gov. Butch Otter was arrested Tuesday with a pack of Yellowstone wolves in the back of his pickup truck. He told authorities there simply aren't enough wolves in Idaho to satisfy his state's wolf-killing needs, so he had to restock by removing the wolves from Yellowstone National Park and importing them into the Gem State.

"You guys don't know the pressure I'm under," Otter confessed to police. "First we killed a few dozen a year, then a few hundred, and now we've got a taste for it. I gotta keep the supply chain moving."

Otter admitted that he spent many weekends trolling Yellowstone in his Ford F-250 with T-bones draped off the bumper. Sometimes he captured an entire pack; other times he came home empty-handed and had to face the music. "I learned a long time ago not to come back without wolves, or at least a coyote or two that we could shoot," Otter said. "How do you think my thumbs got broken?"

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

[boutons_deux]

Texas Bill Would Name Judges Who Give Minors Permission to Have Abortions

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/texas-bill-would-name-judges-who-give-minors-permission-have-abortions

but police who shoot innocent citizens have their names protected

Repugs: god/guns/gays/abortion/immigration/war-mongering. Governance? GFY

[boutons_deux]

New Kansas Law Allows Concealed Guns Without Training Or Permits




“Responsible gun ownership – for protection and sport – is a right inherent in our Cons ution." Same old bull and lies.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...ining-permits/

[boutons_deux]

Kansas School Districts Shut Down Weeks Early Thanks To Gov. Brownback’s Tax-Slashing Zeal

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/03/3642787/kansas-schools-close-early-due-to-money-drought/

As if unschooled Kansas could become any dumber.

[boutons_deux]

A Missouri Republican wants to stop people from buying steak or seafood with food stamps


http://www.vox.com/2015/4/6/8344433/food-stamps-steak

[Wild Cobra]

Kansas School Districts Shut Down Weeks Early Thanks To Gov. Brownback’s Tax-Slashing Zeal

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/03/3642787/kansas-schools-close-early-due-to-money-drought/

As if unschooled Kansas could become any dumber.

I didn't know Kansas schools were funded by income taxes. I thought they were funded by property taxes, like most other states.

[Wild Cobra]

A Missouri Republican wants to stop people from buying steak or seafood with food stamps


http://www.vox.com/2015/4/6/8344433/food-stamps-steak

I agree that food stamps should be more regulated in what they can buy.

No soda

No prepared foods

No candy

No premium items

etc. etc. etc.

Why should SNAP users eat better than those who have incomes just above the line?

[boutons_deux]

Fox host tells rape victims to man up: ‘It’s sexist to assume women can’t handle their liquor’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/fox-host-tells-rape-victims-to-man-up-its-sexist-to-assume-women-cant-handle-their-liquor/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

Tantaros is wonderful spokes for the misogynist Repug rape caucus.

[boutons_deux]

Hero Tennessee Legislator Explains How Guns Are Like Bicycles, Only Safer

The Cons ution-loving Tennessee House of Representatives expanded freedom a little bit last week, voting 65-21 in favor of a bill that would prevent local governments from restricting guns in public parks.

They were in a hurry to pass it in time for the NRA’s Annual Meeting, to be held in Nashville April 10-12.

And while some nervous nellies (and communist agitators) might have some qualms about letting people carry guns around in public parks, hero state Rep. Glen Casada explained in a press conference that guns are no more dangerous than bicycles, because sure, people sometimes get shot accidentally, but then, people die on bikes alla time too.

http://wonkette.com/581921/hero-tenn...les-only-safer

Confederacy!

red states!

gun fellator logic!

[boutons_deux]

Famous GOP A-hole charged with criminal domestic violence




http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...?detail=email#

you Repugs have some real classy dudes on your side

SC!

Confederacy!

Repug!

[boutons_deux]

Texas rebels secede from reality with claim that American flag more racist than Confederate

A group of Texans attempting to build a memorial to the Confederate war dead in Orange claim that the controversy around their plan to fly 32 Confederate battle flags — eight prominent ones, and another 24 to represent the Texas regiments that fought in the war — is “overblown,” The Washington Post‘s Peter Holley reports.

According to the spokesman for the Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans, Marshall Davis, “all we want to do is honor our war dead. We want to honor our heroes. We don’t want to impede anyone from honoring their heroes, their veterans and their war dead. We would like the same tolerance and courtesy.”

The purpose of the eight large flags isn’t to antagonize drivers on nearby Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, but to increase the memorial’s visibility from neighboring Interstate 10. According to a flyer seeking donations, “your support will enable passengers in over 55,000 cars per day see Confederate Flags flying proudly in the Texas breeze.”

David Moore, Lieutenant Division Commander of the Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans, told the Post that

the flag shouldn’t be seen as a symbol of slavery, because the Civil War was actually fought over state’s rights,

and the South only joined in the fight after it was “invaded by Northern troops.” (uh, Confederate traitors fired on Sumter FIRST, asshole)

“We’re not a hate group or anything like that,” he added. “My great-grandfather joined the Confederate army and he didn’t own any slaves, so why did he fight? It was to preserve his family, his children and his state’s rights.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/t...e+Raw+Story%29

And the Southern Baptist Convention was right there to justify states' rights to slavery.

[boutons_deux]

Hate on display in Texas legislative hearing

The Texas legislature is considering a bill that would block state or local funds from being used "for an activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage." After all, there's a limited amount of time left before the Supreme Court decides on marriage equality, and there are a lot of temper tantrums to throw before then, at least for a certain type of person. A person like this:

“It’s not marriage—it’s a mirage, it’s a counterfeit, it’s a lie,” said Dr. Steve Hotze, president of the Conservative Republicans of Texas. “It will never be a marriage no matter what they say, because it violates God’s standards, and he sets the standards.” [...]“

If you passed a law that we’re going to go and round up people of an ethnic group and put them into jail and exterminate them, would you abide by that law?” Hotze responded. “What did they do in Nazi Germany? It was legal to round up Jews and put them in the chambers and kill them. And the defense they said is, that was the law.”

In case he hadn't gone quite far enough with his charm offensive, Hotze also compared LGBT people to alcoholics and murderers. But I think the Nazi one says it all.

To Hotze, treating people's relationships equally is like genocide.

Not discriminating against same-sex marriages is like sending Jewish people to gas chambers.

You or I might look at this and say "hey, the Nazis were all about treating people worse because of who they were ... and that included gay people."

But that is not how the head of the Conservative Republicans of Texas thinks—or speaks before a committee of his state's legislature.

Hotze, by the way, was just one of 15 people testifying in favor of the bill.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/09/1376637/-Hate-on-display-in-Texas-legislative-hearing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29

you and your TX Repugs are pure hatin, prejudiced assholes, who think you know the "mind of God" and what He wants.

[boutons_deux]

East TX piney woods hick speaking

Gohmert: 'Christians Are The Only Group In America That It Is Politically Correct To Abuse And Misuse'

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten...use-and-misuse

Thanks, TX rednecks and Bible humpers!

[boutons_deux]

This is what white supremacy looks like: A party at the Bundy Ranch, a funeral in North Charleston

This weekend, the Bundy ranch in Nevada will host a reunion to celebrate owner Cliven Bundy’s continued lawlessness. Bundy became a hero of the far-right a year ago when his refusal to pay 20 years’ worth of federal grazing fees for his cattle—totalling $1.1 million—brought federal agents to collect, which Bundy and several hundred armed right-wing militia members repelled with a show of force. Fox News and other right-wing news outlets raced to the ranch to report on what Bundy supporters called the “Second American Revolution” and the “American Spring,” the moment when the rhetoric of “tyranny” and “totalitarianism” under President Obama would materialize into actual armed conflict against the loathsome federal government.

For anyone confused about whether a political movement which celebrates the Second Amendment and rallies around an iconography of war and rebellion is interested in actual combat against the “liberal” federal government, the Bundy affair answered any remaining questions:

Yes, the prospect excites many far right-wing conservatives like nothing else.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity was giddy in his initial introduction of Bundy as someone threatening a “range war” against the federal government.

Fox News covered the ranch saga daily, with Bundy presented as a hero, and Hannity alone would feature Bundy on his show numerous times over the several weeks of the standoff, at times giving the rebel rancher a primetime microphone multiple times a week to rally right wingers to his cause.

Two extremists, Jerad and Amanda Miller, who traveled to Bundy’s ranch, only to be turned out, would go on to execute two Nevada police officers in June, draping the familiar Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag over the corpses and pinning a note to their government victims saying, “This is the start of the revolution.” Jerad and Amanda heard the call for a “range war” and took it upon themselves to be the vanguard of the Bundy rebellion.

In the end, the two officers were the only casualties and Bundy’s boys went home with not so much as a band-aid, as federal agents were backed down by a veritable army of militiamen. The government blinked, and Bundy was allowed to continue to flout a law he’d decided didn’t apply to him.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is white power.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/10/this...th_charleston/

iow, how many blacks would have been allowed to point their weapons the law enforcement and walk away? Whites can, blacks can't.

[boutons_deux]

TX Repugs, ing up per usual, ing up is the Repug strategy, dominant skill.

Texas Senate passes bill to end state renewable program

State support for Texas’ booming wind power industry moved closer to an end Tuesday when the state Senate voted to shut down the state’s renewable energy program.
Related


The program, established in 1999, had called for 10,000 megawatts of wind and solar power by 2025. But buoyed by improved turbine technology and an $7 billion transmission line project connecting West Texas to urban centers to the east, Texas passed that goal five years ago. It now counts 12,800 megawatts of wind energy capacity — at times enough to generate a quarter of the electricity on the grid.


http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/20...-program.html/


why stop now? why not keep going? TX spends about $20B/year subsidizing business, why discriminate against wind, solar? (we all know why)

[boutons_deux]

Lines Blur as Texas Gives Industries a Bonanza

Under Mr. Perry, Texas gives out more of the incentives than any other state, around $19 billion a year, an examination by The New York Times has found. Texas justifies its largess by pointing out that it is home to half of all the private sector jobs created over the last decade nationwide. As the invitation to the fund-raiser boasted: “Texas leads the nation in job creation.”

Yet the raw numbers mask a more complicated reality behind the flood of incentives, the examination shows, and raise questions about who benefits more, the businesses or the people of Texas.

Along with the huge job growth, the state has the third-highest proportion of hourly jobs paying at or below minimum wage. And despite its low level of unemployment, Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate among states.

“While economic development is the mantra of most officials, there’s a question of when does economic development end and corporate welfare begin,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/us/winners-and-losers-in-texas.html?_r=0

[boutons_deux]

Proposed Congressional Cuts to Nutrition Assistance Would Cost Jobs

This week, the House will vote on a measure to repeal the estate tax, which would shower the wealthiest 0.2 percent of estates in the country with an average tax cut of $2.5 million.

Meanwhile, the House has already passed a budget proposal that would convert the nation’s bedrock nutrition assistance program—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP—into block grants to the states. If implemented, this conversion would result in $125 billion in cuts to struggling families between 2021 and 2025.
This draconian proposal would kick up to 12 million people off of food assistance or cut nutrition benefits that primarily serve children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working families by an average of almost $55 per person per month.

In doing so, this proposal would also cost the economy hundreds of thousands of jobs. In fact, assuming the cuts are evenly distributed across the five years between 2021 and 2025, an updated analysis of a 2012 Center for American Progress study estimates that the House’s proposed cuts to nutrition aid would cost the economy 286,000 jobs in the first year alone.*

As families have less to spend on food, that reduced purchasing power ripples through the economy, translating into job losses not just in grocery and retail stores, but also in trucking, warehousing, food manufacturing, farming, and other industries. These cuts will hit younger workers harder because they account for a disproportionate share of workers in food-related industries.

https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...uld-cost-jobs/

we know Repugs love federal block grants with no strings attached so they can give that money to BigCorp, the 1%.

[boutons_deux]

Politics threatening Texas wind energy, advocates say

“When you talk to Texans they like wind power, they like oil and gas, they like a diverse energy portfolio,” said Jeff Clark, executive director of The Wind Coalition, an Austin-based trade association. “This is not the philosophical bent of the average Texan, but this bill is going to send a message to the world about what Texas believes about its energy supply. It’s a foolish attempt to make politics out of a really good policy.”

The bill’s sponsor Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, has said the programs are “irrelevant” and no longer needed since Texas long ago surpassed its goal of 10,000 megawatts of renewable power by 2025.

But wind advocates say those policies helped Texas become the epicenter for the industry’s rebirth,

“(Fraser) is declaring victory and saying, ‘Mission accomplished,’ but we’re still on the battlefield,” Clark said in a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board on Tuesday. “There’s no reason to do it, other than a political statement.”

Without the federal subsidy, the wind business deflated as developers scuttled projects and laid off nearly 30,000 workers.

After Congress re-upped the program for 2014, wind farms revved back up as developers added four times more capacity than they did in the prior year, with most of that new construction occurring in Texas, according to the new wind association analysis.

Providers pass along the costs of the credits in consumer electric bills, and the credit market has helped fund the development of wind farms across the state.
Clark said Fraser’s measure penalizes wind investors who expected the credit program to continue.

That $7 billion investment spurred a record-high level of new wind projects in the Lone Star State, which is home to more than half of the 12,700 megawatts under construction, according to the new report. Much of that infrastructure was finished late last year, but further power line expansions are needed to fully tap into the wind potential in the Panhandle, Clark said.

“If the transmission is not there, we can’t get to market,”

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/04/15/p...advocates-say/

Thanks, Repugs! Protect BigElectric and DYING BigCoal, while killing jobs and the environment.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs screwing their low-wage, low-info trailer park/rural base, throwing them to the Sage of Omaha

U.S. House rolls back safeguards for mobile-home buyers

The U.S. House voted Tuesday to roll back safeguards aimed at protecting mobile-home buyers from predatory sales tactics and high-interest loans.

The bill passed with strong support from Republicans, helped by a handful of Democrats. Other House Democrats objected vigorously, with several citing the findings of a recent investigation by The Center for Public Integrity andThe Seattle Times.

The investigation, “The Mobile-Home Trap,” found high interest rates, excessive fees and predatory sales practices by industry leader Clayton Homes, part of Berkshire Hathaway, an investment conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett.

The bill “would allow an incredibly profitable industry to make even more money by charging exorbitant fees to borrowers,” said Maxine Waters of California, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. If it’s enacted, she said, fewer people who take out costly loans would be protected against predatory lending.

The bill would reverse rules put in place as part of a sweeping financial overhaul in 2010 known as the Dodd-Frank Act. It would raise the interest rates permitted on some mobile-home loans before they trigger extra protections for borrowers such as pre-loan counseling. The bill also would let mobile-home salespeople work closely with buyers to arrange financing.

Every voting Republican but one supported it.

Clayton Homes, by far the biggest player in the mobile-home industry, earned $558 million before taxes in 2014, a 34 percent increase over the previous year.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/...est+Stories%29

Repugs ing over their own base

[boutons_deux]

Have a wacky opinion on the internet? In Texas, you could make the nightly news


Scene: An Emmy-winning local TV news reporter in North Texas is on the hunt for his next story. He sees a woman from Dallas has posted something on Facebook that is, shall we say,controversial.

“A female shouldn’t be President,” the woman has written, and she explains that if that event should come to pass, well, she will be moving to Canada. “Let the haters begin,” the woman continues, “but with the hormones we have there is no way we should be able to start a war.”

The comment might seem just a random speck in the torrent of sexist remarks chucked into the wilds of the Web on any given day. But this one will be different. The local reporter recognizes this woman. He knows her as the CEO of a local marketing company, a successful businesswoman who is raising a family. Her Facebook post, he realizes, has “sparked debate.”

News—news of a sort that would not just make the local evening news but would soon rack up more than 25,000 interactions on Facebook, and spark a round of Twitter mockery for both the reporter and the woman.

The TV reporter is Steve Pickett; the woman is Cheryl Rios. Pickett pitches Rios’ views as a news item to his bosses at DFW/CBS 11 in Dallas.

http://www.cjr.org/united_states_pro...news_angle.php

TX!

TX conservative wimmens!

Repug War on Women!