madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time

[boutons_deux]

TX hates "Freedom of Religion", but love "Freedom of Christian-religion ONLY"

Texas Residents Cite Health Concerns In Uproar Over New Muslim Cemetery

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fa...+%28TPMNews%29

The ghosts of Muslim cadavers gonna force sharia on Farmersville.

[boutons_deux]

Feds, Dem DoJ hate whistleblowers?

One North Carolina Law Is Bringing the War on Whistleblowers to a New Level

On June 15, North Carolina's state legislature overrode Republican Gov. Pat McCrory's veto of that state's controversial "Ag-Gag" bill HB 405, also known as the Property Protection Act. The earliest bills of this kind, which target industry whistleblowers, activists and in some cases journalists, were introduced in the 1990s when the Animal Liberation Front was said to be targeting labs engaged in animal testing. The bills' legal scope has widened over time to include factory farms as well as most other industries involving animal products.

But unlike the bills passed in seven other states over the years - including in Wyoming, Missouri and Washington where they specifically target animal rights activists - North Carolina's HB 405 takes things to a whole new level, criminalizing whistleblowing against any and all businesses. Based on "model legislation" provided shortly after 9/11 by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and originally called the "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act," HB 405 signals a new brand of anti-democratic legislation that could proliferate, state by state, in the years to come.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...to-a-new-level

[boutons_deux]

Scott Walker says maybe he'll have to bomb Iran first day of his presidency

Speaking to reporters [in Iowa] Saturday after an appearance at the Family Leader Summit, Walker said the next president will need to be prepared to take aggressive action against Iran, "very possibly" including military strikes, on the day he or she is inaugurated, and said he would not be comfortable with a commander in chief who is unwilling to act aggressively on day one of a new presidency.

In his announcement speech at the beginning of the week, Walker had promised to 'terminate' the Iran deal on day one of his presidency, and Bush, at a town hall four days later, said ending the deal on the first day of a new administration was unrealistic and suggested that promises to do so, while politically appealing, reflected a lack of seriousness.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...8Daily+Kos%29#

Thanks, asshole, bombing Iran on 21 Jan 2017 is exactly what Iran wants to hear while considering the nuclear deal.

[boutons_deux]

Misogynists' reach out for the female vote

Republican House and Senate Introduce Bills Allowing Companies To Fire Single, Pregnant Women

In wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage, Republicans are pushing legislation that aims to protect Americans who oppose these unions on religious grounds. But critics say the language is so broad, the bill creates a license to discriminate that would let employers fire women for getting pregnant outside of wedlock.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Government shall not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.

The bill specifically protects those who believe that marriage is between "one man and one woman" or that "sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage." Ian Thompson, a legislative representative at the American Civil Liberties Union, said that in addition to targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the bill "clearly encompasses discrimination against single mothers" and would hobble the ability of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal body that protects women from sex-based discrimination, to act.

There are a number of recent cases where religious schools have fired unwed teachers for becoming pregnant. A Montana Catholic school teacher who was fired for having a baby out of wedlock, for example, filed a discrimination charge last year with the EEOC. While the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a ministerial exception to employment discrimination laws, that exception is somewhat limited, not necessarily covering educators employed by Catholic schools who teach about exclusively secular subjects.

When NPR asked Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who introduced the companion Senate bill, about a hypothetical university firing an unmarried woman for having sex out of wedlock, he said, "There are colleges and universities that have a religious belief that sexual relations are to be reserved for marriage" and they "ought to be protected in their religious freedom."

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

"religious freedom" is dog-whistle for "religious pretext to discriminate, to hate, to impose "Christian" morals, ethics on "sinners".

[boutons_deux]

Upset With Obama, GOP Punishes Young Immigrants

Witness the repugnant move by Missouri’s Republican-controlled legislature calculated to force certain DREAMers to drop out of college. These academically qualified, fee-paying students are allowed to attend state colleges without fear of deportation thanks to President Obama’s 2012 executive order, which made their presence in the U.S. lawful. They had been able to attend public colleges in Missouri at affordable in-state rates — until legislators tucked some extortionary language affecting tuition rates for these students into the preamble of the state’s higher education appropriations bill. Any ins ution that didn’t charge DREAMers foreign student tuition rates risked having funds in the appropriations bill yanked.

Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, signed the bill but maintains that the language isn’t legally binding because it didn’t go through the legislative process and is not in the bill’s text. Unfortunately, Missouri universities are complying. Letters are being issued to returning students, telling them of the change. They face a doubling or tripling of their tuition costs (depending on where they attend) as they enroll in the state’s universities and college’s this fall.

The University of Missouri system believes that 20 to 30 students currently enrolled across four campuses will be affected, but they expect the number to increase with incoming freshmen. Immigration attorneys think the number is far higher, saying that 40 such students are already enrolling at the university system’s Kansas City campus alone. And there are potentially far higher numbers of such students at community colleges and other schools.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/upset-wi...ng-immigrants/

You Repugs are totally nasty, mean, sadistic sonsof es.

[boutons_deux]

Mitch McConnell Wants To Rob Pensions To Fund Highway Repairs

Republicans have rejected that concept out-of-hand and concluded that if, and that is a big if, there is any investment in America it will be paid for by the poor, disabled, middle class or the elderly; particularly if the investment inordinately benefits the corporate world and big business.

It is curious that while Republicans can find enough funding for America’s greatest socialistic welfare program, the United States military and its corporate industrial complex, they perpetually complain that investing in America’s transportation system is too costly.

McConnell did not come up with the proposed theft of federal employee’s retirement savings on his own, it originally came from House Republicans’ fiscal 2016 budget.

it is no surprise that the largest portion of funding for the Highway Trust Fund is due to be taken from current and future government employees.

changing the relatively safe return on retirement savings’ accounts will drastically cut federal employees’ retirement and since robbing employee pensions is a favorite Republican means of upward wealth redistribution, it should not surprise any American that cutting Social Security is on the GOP’s list of possible highway funding options.

Besides cutting federal employees’ pensions, Republicans proposed eliminating Social Security pensions for any recipient with an outstanding arrest warrant regardless if they are decades old or for outstanding parking violations.

catastrophic effects for vulnerable seniors is par for the course for Republicans and the idea of not withstanding judicial scrutiny will have no effect on Republicans.

d attack on Social Security, targets disabled Americans Republicans have spent no small amount of time and effort pushing to return to the workforce regardless their affliction. Republicans want to end payments of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) if a disabled person follows Social Security rules, and Republicans pushing them to work so they can get off SSDI.

strip working SSDI beneficiaries of their eligibility when, through no fault of their own, they lose a job.”

Republicans committed to stealing Americans’ retirement savings and preventing big business from bearing any of the costs for their obscene profits will always opt to steal from regular Americans; particularly government employees’ retirement savings.

In last year’s budget, well over half of the $1.2-plus trillion went to the military and related corporate defense contractors, and foreign governments like Israel and Saudi Arabia; during peace time.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/...iticus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

GOP House Budget Chair Tom Price Is Itching To Cut Social Security

The current Republican-dominated Congress wants to cut social security benefits. The GOP-controlled House signaled their intent to do just that, the very first day they were in session, when they modified the chamber’s rules to jeopardize social security disability payments. The Republican plan would imperil disabled Americans, who could see close to twenty percent reductions in their already meager incomes.Attacking disability payments is just the tip of the iceberg. House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price (R-GA) made that clear on Monday in a speech at the Heritage Action for America “Conservative Policy Summit”.

At the summit, Price stated:

On the issue of Social Security, it has indeed been the third rail as Tim [Chapman, COO for Heritage Action] mentioned, and what I’m hopeful is what the Budget Committee will be able do is to is begin to normalize the discussion and debate about Social Security. This is a program that right now on its current course will not be able to provide 75 or 80 percent of the benefits that individuals have paid into in a relatively short period of time. That’s not a responsible position to say, ‘You don’t need to do anything to do it.’

So all the kinds of things you know about – whether it’s means testing, whether it’s increasing the age of eligibility. The kind of choices — whether it’s providing much greater choices for individuals to voluntarily select the kind of manner in which they believe they ought to be able to invest their working dollars as they go through their lifetime. All those things ought to be on the table and discussed.

If the Republican plan is implemented, some of the suffering will be brought to bear on delusional conservative voters who thought they would be spared any pain from the GOP budget ax. They are going after social security, and if you voted for them, your future suffering was self-inflicted.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/...-security.html

[boutons_deux]

GOP hopeful Scott Walker calls for dismantling of state elections board

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Monday called for the dismantling of an independent state agency that oversees elections and that authorized an investigation into his 2012 recall campaign.

Walker, who launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination last week, told reporters following a bill signing ceremony in Oshkosh that he wanted to scrap the Government Accountability Board and replace it with "something completely new that is truly accountable to the people of the state of Wisconsin."

Walker also called for an investigation into the board's activities. He did not say who should lead the investigation.

Walker's comments come just four days after the state Supreme Court halted a board-approved investigation into whether conservative groups illegally coordinated with Walker's 2012 recall campaign, saying the groups broke no laws.

Republican state lawmakers have been talking for months about reshaping the board, and the Supreme Court's ruling has only bolstered the calls for change.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-sco...720-story.html

Repugs have corrupted the SCOWI and now they want to corrupt the state elections board. Slimebag Walker supports "ethics" and "fairness"?

[boutons_deux]

the "lawless" anti-Cons utional Repugs, mostly Christian Taliban supremacists, trying to trash the "lawless" SCOTUS (Repug agenda: a Christian theocracy)

GOP Outrage With Roberts Court Over 'Judicial Tyranny' Reaches Fever Pitch

Republicans are not backing down from their push to drastically alter the judicial branch.

Conservatives had already been looking into ways to undermine the Supreme Court’s authority ahead of its decision to legalize same-sex marriage. But when that decision, along with one upholding a provision in Obamacare, came down in late June, their frustrations reached a fever pitch.

Conservatives are now responding with “solutions” to crack down on the Roberts court's so-called “judicial activism” with changes that would drastically alter the structure of the U.S. government.

“This past term, the court crossed a line, continued its long descent into lawlessness to a level I believe demands action,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Wednesday at a Senate hearing he called to “discuss what options the American people have to rein in judicial tyranny.”

Cruz, also a 2016 candidate, has called for a cons utional amendment that would submit the Supreme Court justices to national retention elections every eight years.
“The time has come, therefore, to recognize that the problem lies not with the lawless rulings of individual lawless justices, but with the lawlessness of the Court itself,”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also a GOP White House candidate, has floated term limits as a way to rein-in the “disturbing” recent behavior of the justices, as “our country is being ruled by a majority of nine lawyers who are not representative of the population as a whole.”

But it is Chief Justice Roberts himself, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, who is bearing the brunt of the right’s anger. In the wake of the most recent Obamacare decision, for which Roberts wrote the majority opinion, commentators labeled him a “disastrous pick,” “the water boy for the welfare state,” and a “disgrace.”

“When I see what’s happened at the Supreme Court level, it strikes me as a foreign, unhistorical approach to law. It’s just breathtaking, some of the things that have happened,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Sessions said. "So we need to consider carefully and thoughtfully what we might use to defend congressional prerogative and the states’ prerogative,”

"Structural changes to the Cons ution always take time. And one has to build a public predicate for it, and build the case," Cruz told reporters Wednesday.

"When we have five unelected judges who are declaring for themselves they can decide every contested policy issue in our society, it is in bent on elected representatives to take that authority."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ted-...+%28TPMNews%29

The Confederacy still trying to up America, still "states rights" vs the Federal Yankees.

[DarrinS]

lonely echo chamber thread is sad


pity post

[boutons_deux]

lonely echo chamber thread is sad


pity post

cheer up, , the dossier trashing you and your rightwingnuts is insurmountable.

[DarrinS]

cheer up, , the dossier trashing you and your rightwingnuts is insurmountable.

good use of your time

[boutons_deux]

Christian supremacists LOSE AGAIN

Federal appeals court says pharmacy owners cannot use religion to deny medicine

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

[boutons_deux]

House Passes Bill That Would Allow Toxic Coal Ash Into Groundwater

The Republican-led House of Representatives struck another blow to environmental regulation Wednesday night, passing a bill that will undercut the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) coal ash regulations, opponents said.

Several key provisions in the EPA’s coal ash disposal rule — set to go into effect in October — would be either left to states to enforce or thrown out altogether under H.R. 1734, the “Improving Coal Combustion Residuals Regulation Act.”

“There are very big differences [between the bill and the EPA rule] that have huge impacts on public safety,” Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, told ThinkProgress.
Among the differences, she said, is the fact that the EPA rule prohibits disposing coal ash waste directly into the water supply, while the House bill does not. In a survey the EPA did of state laws on coal ash, only five of the 25 states surveyed specifically prohibited disposing of coal ash into groundwater, Evans said.

“It makes absolutely no sense,” Evans said of the bill, noting that even household waste can’t be legally disposed into aquifers. “It’s absurd and its unreasonable.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/23/3683507/house-passes-coal-ash-bill/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progre ss%29

Thanks, Repugs! Protecting Americans and America is your sacred responsbility, fulfilled so fervently.

[boutons_deux]

GOP's favorability rating plummets in first half of 2015




Ever since the GOP took control of Congress, the party's favorability rating has nosedived, sliding nine points since the beginning of the year, according to Pew Research Center. Just 32 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Republicans, while 60 percent view them unfavorably. (Democrats presently have a 48-47 percent favorable to unfavorable rating.)

The Democratic Party has often held an edge over the GOP in favorability in recent years, but its advantage had narrowed following the Republicans’ midterm victory last fall.

Today, the gap is as wide as it has been in more than two years.

Republicans, in particular, are now more critical of their own party than they were a few months ago. About two-thirds (68%) express a favorable opinion of their party, the lowest share in more than two years. Six months ago, 86% of Republicans viewed the GOP positively.

A majority of Americans view the GOP as "more extreme" than Democrats. Democrats also win the empathy/honesty contest by double digits.

By 53% to 31%, the Democratic Party is viewed as “more concerned with the needs of people like me.” And the Democrats hold a 16-point lead on governing in an honest and ethical way (45% to 29%).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...8Daily+Kos%29#

but will it help the Dems win the House and/or Senate?

[boutons_deux]

Republican Party Chairman Tells State To Ignore Roe v. Wade


“The federal courts don’t have the authority to make us kill babies,” according to Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon. “Are the Supreme Court justices going to come down to Oklahoma and make us stop?”

Brogdon, a former state senator who once called for Oklahoma to form its own militia separate from that National Guard — and who previously cast doubt upon the Pledge of Allegiance because he objects to the line “one nation, indivisible” — offered his interpretation of the Supreme Court’s lawful authority on Friday. One day earlier, he signed a fundraising email making a similar pitch.

“As Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, I call on the Governor and legislators to completely end the practice of abortion in Oklahoma,” Brogdon wrote in that email, adding that the state should “[s]hut Planned Parenthood down immediately for their illegal actions, and prosecute the abortion doctors who violate their oath to ‘do no harm.'”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...re-roe-v-wade/

"make us kill babies" no, just get yourself out of women's vaginas and let them FREELY choose.

btw, assholes, as proven in CO over several years, 1000s of unwanted pregnancies, abortions can be prevented by supplying poor women with free contraceptives. It worked in CO, but the Repugs refuse to finance the program.

So, like in TX and everywhere Repugs block health care for poor women, the Repugs misogynist War on (poor) Women will INCREASE the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. But the holy rollin', Bible humpin', pro-life "Christians" will keep votin' to keep the Repugs War on Women in full swing.

[JohnnyMarzetti]

The GOP is self destructing but they just can't help themselves. The first debate will be like Last Comic Standing.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs, Christian haters, LOSE (their own money) again

Michigan is on the hook for $2 million in legal fees after fighting against gay marriage and losing

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

[boutons_deux]

Republicans Are About To Gut Campaign Finance Rules Even Further

Congressional Republicans are trying yet again to use the appropriations process to roll back campaign finance regulations. This time the target is the limit on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties -- that is, money that a party spends to support a candidate in consultation with that candidate.

A rider to the Senate’s Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill would eliminate the limits on coordination between candidates and political parties.

This move to further gut campaign finance laws comes months after Republicans and Senate Democrats inserted a rider to the omnibus budget legislation passed in
December to significantly raise the ceiling on contributions to national political parties. Thus far, only Republicans have taken advantage of those new, more generous limits.

On Thursday, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) attempted to strip the coordination rider in committee, but the effort failed on a 16-14 party-line vote, with all Republicans opposed to removing the rider.

“The American people are sick and tired of big money in politics. It is a major reason that public approval of Congress is so low,” Udall said in a statement. “They do not see us working for the vast majority of people, but instead see big money exerting most of the power. People will be shocked to learn that the Senate is trying to eliminate the few rules that are left.”

“We should shine a light on the flood of money from the ultra-wealthy flowing into our system of government,” he continued. “Unfortunately, today’s bill would only remove one of the few dams left trying to control that flood.”

Under current campaign finance law, political parties are allowed to spend a limited amount of money on campaign-related activities like advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts with the consultation of the candidate's campaign. Those limits range from $96,000 for a House candidate as of this year to $21 million for a presidential nominee as of 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...08f57d5d4313b?

The majority of Americans want money's influence out of politics. The Repugs ALWAYS do against 99% and FOR the 1%.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html?_r=0

[boutons_deux]

Rick Perry Gives Guns In Movie Theaters Two Thumbs Up





"These concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea.

I think that you allow the citizens of this country — who have been appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms — to carry them …

I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity, or stop it before there’s as many people that are impacted as what we saw in Lafayette."

http://wonkette.com/592118/rick-perry-gives-guns-in-movie-theaters-two-thumbs-up

[boutons_deux]

Sean Hannity is killing the GOP: Fox News & conservative media have the party in a stranglehold


If you’ve been following the doings of Congress over the past few months, you’ve probably noticed that the newly empowered Republican majorities in both the House and Senate are not especially good at getting things done. The dysfunction typically follows a familiar pattern: the GOP leadership in one or both Houses tries to follow through on some basic task – funding government agencies, for example – but runs into opposition from conservatives. The leadership tries to accommodate the right, but finds that the right’s demands are unreasonable and inflexible. The whole legislative process derails,

A new paper from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center offers a compelling explanation for why this keeps happening: conservative media keeps derailing the GOP’s agenda.

The paper, by New York Times correspondent Jackie Calmes, explores the influence that talk radio, Fox News, conservative online media, and well-funded activist groups have on Republican legislators.

As Calmes notes, right-wing radio hosts and bloggers have the attention of the people Republicans fear most – the conservatives who can be reliably counted on to join activist causes, flood their congressional offices with angry phone calls and letters, and vote. Legislators understand this, and a toxic, self-reinforcing dynamic emerges in which the conservative media demand legislators take more extreme positions, legislators accede to those demands to curry favor with influential media personalities and their audiences, which imbues those media personalities with still more power and influence.

The end result is a race to the right in which everyone is terrified of betraying the slightest hint of compromise.

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/sean..._stranglehold/

iow, as long as tea baggers wag the Repug dog, Congress is ed and un able.

[boutons_deux]

Fox News’ quiet coup: How its debate criteria give it total control over the early presidential process

Send out the white smoke: Fox News has made yet another alteration to its August 6 debate(s) criteria. No longer will a candidate have to demonstrate even a modi of support among the American public to be included in the kids’ table debate.

The previous Fox News requirement for inclusion in the 5 p.m. debate was a minimum of 1% polling in the five most recent national polls. But because 16 candidates are running, and Donald Trump has sucked up about one-quarter of the party’s support and 175 trillion percent of media coverage, several “real” candidates are struggling to hit even 1%. Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki are hovering either slightly above or below the 1% figure. So even that basic criteria has got to go.

It may go without saying but the decision Fox News is making is not a political but a business decision. If the kids’ debate only featured, say, John Kasich and Rick Santorum, that wouldn’t make for a lively early-evening television spectacle. (Now that George Pataki’s in the mix, though!…??) So we get it.

Though as Conservatives, we here at Salon have trouble accepting Fox News’ decision to lower standards just so everyone gets a trophy. If Lindsey Graham can’t manage to secure 1% polling support through his constant babbling, then he is an unpopular politician who should be sent to Gitmo, not to a televised debate on America’s Number-One Cable News Channel.

The whole concept of the debate caps, introduced by Fox News perhaps as a matter of necessity given the size of the field, has turned out to be a highly successful business decision. As we wrote the other day, the main way that candidates are trying to secure their placement in the Fox News debate has been… to go on Fox News all the time and say insane, attention-grabbing things that get people to turn on Fox News.

Politico has done a rough count of recent Fox News appearances by the presidential candidates.

1) Paul, 35 …
2) Huckabee, 31 …
3) Trump, 30 …
4) Perry, 24 …
5-6) Fiorina and Jindal, 20 each …
7) Cruz, 17 …
8) Santorum, 16 …
9) Rubio, 14 …
10-11) Carson and Graham, 12 each …
12-13) Kasich and Pataki, 11 each …
14) Christie, 7 …
15) Walker, 4 …
16) Bush, 3.

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/fox_...ntial_process/

[boutons_deux]

Texas billionaire oily Bible humping Christian suprpemcaxit theocrats for Krazy Kruz

Religious Right Billionaire Wilks Brothers Give Millions To Ted Cruz Super PAC

Dan and Farris Wilks, Texas billionaires who made a fortune from the fracking boom and have showered millions of dollars on right-wing organizations, have given $15 million to Keep the Promise, a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, according to a CNN story by Theodore Schleifer which was highlighted by John Wright at Towleroad today.

"Our country was founded on the idea that our rights come from the Creator, not the government. I'm afraid we're losing that," Farris Wilks, a 63-year-old pastor in the small town of Cisco, said in a statement to CNN. "Unless we elect a principled conservative leader ready to stand up for our values, we'll look back on what once was the land of opportunity and pass on a less prosperous nation to our children and grandchildren. That's why we need Ted Cruz."

Farris’s brother Dan added that America needs a “leader that will stand up for biblical morals…a leader who encourages hard work, not one who tells people who don’t work that they should make the same living as people who do. We need a leader who will make sure America doesn’t end up a socialist nation.”

Last year, RWW do ented the Wilks brothers’ massive funding of anti-gay and anti-abortion groups, as well as organizations in the Koch brothers’ political networks. And that’s only counting gifts we know about because they are made through foundations created and funded by the brothers and their wives -- the Thirteen Foundation for Farris and Joann and Heavenly Father’s Foundation for Dan and Staci.

Earlier this year, we reported that the Wilks brothers have been backing the work of Christian=nation extremist David Lane. Lane has always refused to tell reporters who funds his events, which are carried out by his American Renewal Project under the umbrella of the American Family Association. But as we reported in June,

According to the 2013 990 forms filed by the foundations with the IRS, The Thirteen Foundation gave 922,000 that year to the American Family Association. It is not clear how much of that was for Lane’s projects, but the filing from Heavenly Father’s Foundation is more explicit, reporting $750,000 to the AFA for three Pastors and Pews conferences.

In 2013, the Christian Broadcasting Network identified the Wilks brothers as members of Lane’s “Pastors and Pews” network, which brings right-wing candidates, including GOP presidential contenders, to meet-and-greets with conservative evangelical pastors. Lane sponsored an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel taken by more than 60 members of the Republican National Committee in January, as well as a series of prayer rallies for Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-billionaire-wilks-bros-give-millions-ted-cruz-super-pac

[boutons_deux]

Louie Gohmert proposes banishing gays to an island to prove same-sex marriage is unnatural


http://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/loui..._is_unnatural/

[boutons_deux]

this guy looks and sounds really, really dumb, some proof:

Marco Rubio causes Twitter firestorm by comparing Cecil the Lion's death to Planned Parenthood controversy

http://m.sfgate.com/technology/busin...ng-6413434.php