AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, THINGS YOU CAN EXPECT

AMERICAN TALIBAN SET TO SCREW THE COUNTRY YET AGAIN

If Congress fails to pass a continuing resolution by Monday, the federal government will come to a standstill, shuttering “non-essential” services and operations that are deemed unnecessary for the safety of human life and national security. So while air traffic controllers will keep the planes in the sky, seniors will receive their Medicare and Social Security checks and the unemployed will continue to see benefits, other services will begin to dry up the longer the shutdown continues. Services that are not subject to yearly appropriations — so-called mandatory spending — will continue functioning and self-funding agencies like the Postal Services could still deliver mail.

But close to a million federal workers performing tasks that are deemed non-essential could be furloughed, leading to delays and shutdowns in the following services:

FINANCIAL SERVICES. The Small Business Administration will stop making loans, federal home loan guarantees will likely go on hold, and students applying for financial aid could also see delays and backlogs in applications.

ARMED FORCES. U.S. troops serving at home and abroad could stop receiving paychecks if the shutdown continues for an extended period and changes of station would also be delayed and facility and weapons maintenance would be suspended. Families back home would also be impacted.

HEALTH CARE. The National Institutes of Health will stop accepting new patients and delay or stop clinical trials. Medicare and the Veterans administration will continue paying out benefits, but new filers could face delays and doctors and hospitals may also have to wait for reimbursements.

PUBLIC SAFETY. The Environmental Protection Agency would stop reviewing environmental impact statements and food inspectors would stop conducting workplace inspections unless there is an imminent danger. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms could stop processing applications for permits.

SECURITY AND TRAVEL. The Department of Homeland Security would suspend the E-Verify program, which helps businesses determine the eligibility of employees, creating hiring delays. The State Department will also likely halt new passport and visa applications.

PARKS AND RECREATION. The National Park Service sites and the Smithsonian Institution will be shutdown. During the 1990s, 368 sites closed down and approximately 7 million visitors denied entry.

DISASTER RELIEF. In preparation for a potential shutdown, the Utah National Guard is holding off on sending a team to help rebuild areas in Colorado devastated by massive floods last week. More National Guard engineers are desperately needed to repair major roads and bridges in Colorado. Roughly 240 Colorado National Guardsmen currently working on flood missions are also in danger of losing funding.

NUTRITION FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Though food stamps will still be available in the event of a shutdown, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, a service meant to help new and expecting mothers and their young children get nutritious foods, will not. If a shutdown lasts for more than a few days, the roughly 9 million Americans who rely on WIC could see their assistance dry up, leaving them food-insecure.

All this will come at a price. The last two shutdowns during the Clinton era — one lasted six days in 1995 and another stretched 21 days at the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996 — cost the country 0.5 percentage points of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and more than $2 billion (in today’s dollars) in unnecessary expenses — as government employees abandoned their jobs to prepare for the shutdown. Economists estimate that were a short-term shutdown to occur next month, it “would do significant economic damage, reducing real GDP by 1.4 percentage points.” A two-month shutdown could “precipitate another recession.”

I am attaching a document titled "Recall of Legislators and the Removal of
Members of Congress from Office". The Attached report discusses the manner in which members of congress may be removed from office by expulsion.

Excerpt:

Under the United States Constitution and congressional practice, Members of Congress may have their services ended prior to the normal expiration of their constitutionally established terms of office by their resignation or death, or by action of the house of Congress in which they are a Member by way of an "expulsion," or by a finding that in accepting a subsequent "incompatible" public office, the Member would be deemed to have vacated his congressional seat.

Under Article I, Section 5, clause 2, of the Constitution, a Member of Congress may be removed from office before the normal expiration of his or her constitutional term by an "expulsion" from the Senate (if a Senator) or from the House of Representatives (if a Representative) upon a formal vote on a resolution agreed to by two-thirds of the Members of that body present and voting. While there are no specific grounds for an expulsion expressed in the Constitution, expulsion actions in both the House and the Senate have generally concerned cases of perceived disloyalty to the United States, or the conviction of a criminal statutory offense which involved abuse of one's official position. Each house has broad authority as to the grounds, nature, timing, and procedure for an expulsion of a Member. However, policy considerations, as opposed to questions of authority, have appeared to restrain the Senate and House in the exercise of expulsion when it might be considered as infringing on the electoral process, such as when the electorate knew of the past misconduct under consideration and still elected or re-elected the Member.

As to removal by recall, the United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President, and thus no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States. The recall of Members was considered during the time of the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, but no such provisions were included in the final version sent to the states for ratification, and the specific drafting and ratifying debates indicate an express understanding of the framers and ratifiers that no right or power to recall a Senator or Representative in Congress exists under the Constitution. Although the Supreme Court has not needed to directly address the subject of recall of Members of Congress, other Supreme Court decisions, as well as the weight of other judicial and administrative decisions, rulings, and opinions, indicate that (1) the right to remove a Member of Congress before the expiration of his or her constitutionally established term of office is one which resides exclusively in each house of Congress as expressly delegated in the expulsion clause of the United States Constitution, and (2) the length and number of the terms of office for federal officials, established and agreed upon by the states in the Constitution creating that federal government, may not be unilaterally changed by an individual state, such as through the enactment of a recall provision or a term limitation for a United States Senator or Representative. Under Supreme Court constitutional interpretation, since individual states never had the original sovereign authority to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of service of federal officials agreed to and established in the Constitution, such a power could not be "reserved" under the Tenth Amendment. Even the dissenters in the Supreme Court decision on the Tenth Amendment and term limits, who would have found a "reserved" authority in the states regarding "qualifications" of Members of Congress, conceded that the exclusive authority to remove a sitting Member is delegated to each house in the expulsion clause of the Constitution, and that with respect to "a power of recall ... the Framers denied to the States [such power] when they specified the terms of Members of Congress."

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

CALIFATE, A LAND THAT IS TEA PARTY FREE

THE STEAMING DOG PILE THAT IS THE GOP

Bill Maher ended Friday nights show with a proud boast that California is creating the kind of “moderate liberal nation” the country as a whole really needs to be, and it’s doing so thanks to the lack of a Republican “legislative cock-block.”

Maher boasted, “We’re not just gluten-free and peanut-free and soy-free, we’re tea party-free! Yes, we can live in reality!” He tore into the “caboose part of America” that isn’t embracing the kind of change California is, saying that conservatives may love the free market and states rights, but those two things will ultimately “bend the country in California’s image as a socialist fagtopia.”

In California, Maher said, NRA stands for “nuts, racists, and assholes,” and while other states are “working with Jesus to make abortion more miserable,” California is making it easier, not to mention being more welcoming to illegal immigrants.

Maher concluded, “We can’t be worrying about the nonsense that keeps Fox News up at night.”

Video courtesy of HBO:



Imagine how grand this land would be, if it was truly American Taliban free!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HEY GOP, ACA AND OBAMACARE ARE ONE IN THE SAME

Why are Fox News viewers dumber than the rest you ask?

What's in a name? When it comes to the debate over health care, apparently a lot.

“Obamacare” is (from the GOP terrorists perspective) a socialist abomination, the government takeover of health care, a budget-buster that involves hiring thousands of IRS agents to force people to eat broccoli until death panels put them out of their misery.

Unfortunately for the American Taliban, facts get in the way of the benighted groups plan to derail affordable healthcare. A CNBC's third-quarter All-America Economic Survey, they asked half of the 812 poll respondents if they support Obamacare and the other half if they support the Affordable Care Act.

People's opinions are shaped by how pollsters refer to the law - calling it the "Affordable Care Act" leads to less intense feelings — than calling it "Obamacare."

The study shows that forty-six percent oppose Obamacare and 37 percent oppose ACA. So putting Obama in the name raises the negatives significantly - and no surprise here that men and the tea party "patriots" are more negative on Obamacare than ACA.

MADDOW Video courtesy of MSNBC

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Video courtesy of MediaMatters

Fox News hyped a poll showing that a majority of people think the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, would increase the deficit and raise their taxes and insurance premiums, claiming that these polls debunked what President Obama has said about the law. But nonpartisan estimates have consistently shown that the ACA lowers the deficit, IRS rules show that the law's payroll tax increases only affect high-income Americans, and reports show the law is already saving many Americans money. The CBO has reaffirmed that the deficit will be reduced by 109 billion over the next ten years.






CNBC STUDY HERE:

CNBC All-America Economic Survey results, September 26, 2013

The GOP doesn't understand much, let alone insurance or Obamacare. In 1785 Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and it is as true today as it was 228 years ago - as the Heritage Action, the extreme activist wing of the radical Heritage Foundation [Koch Whores] is finding out - that "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive". The plethora of bullshit submitted by both Faux News and the Koch whores daily is unrelenting, but when you fail to understand that ACA and Obamacare are one in the same, you truly are the bottom of the barrel stupid!

It is interesting that the American Taliban lays claim that “most Americans” hate the health law and want it eliminated when it has not been fully implemented. Once Obamacare kicks in and people learn the great advantages to 'Socialized medicine", it will indeed begin to sink into the minds of the nation's poorest that theses terrorist, these Teahadists (and Fox News) have been lying to them.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

AMERICAN TALIBAN SAYS SCREW THE EXPERTS, GO WITH YOUR GUT

THE AMERICAN TALIBAN'S RANSOM NOTE

When it comes to paying the nation’s debts on time, Rep. John Fleming (Teahadist) prefers to trust his gut rather than heed the unanimous warnings of professional economists. “Economists, what have they been doing?” the three-term congressman said in the New York Times on Friday. “They make all sorts of predictions.”

“Many times they’re wrong, so I don’t think we should run government based on economists’ predictions,” Fleming added.

If enough American Talibaner's share in Fleming’s denial of the blunt economic reality that a first-ever failure to fulfill spending commitments Congress has already made would be catastrophic for America’s finances and economic growth, they could induce a new recession. Several of the most prominent anti-spending extremists in Fleming’s party have acknowledged that fact in the past, including Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Rep. Paul Ryan (Ayn Rand Groupie), and leadership officials like Speaker John Boehner (Lead Teahadist) and his deputy Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Jr Teahadist).

The first time that Fleming’s mindset gained real traction within the GOP was in the summer of 2011. The resulting brinkmanship around the debt ceiling caused real economic harm even without an actual breach of the debt ceiling. Conservatives frequently warn that economic uncertainty is damaging when they argue against higher taxes on top earners or regulations of just about any kind, but Fleming and his fellow debt ceiling deniers seem blind to the spike in uncertainty they caused two summers ago. On top of that paralyzing jump in economic doubts, the 2011 episode produced the first-ever downgrade of U.S. debt by a major credit ratings agency. Standard & Poor’s was unequivocal in blaming its downgrade of America’s credit rating on the unprecedented political paralysis around something that had been routine and nonpartisan throughout the country’s history. The downgrade cost the country roughly a million jobs.

GOP RANSOM REQUEST




Raising the debt ceiling does not raise the national debt, but fighting over it does. The perverse outcome of the GOP’s 2011 fight over the ceiling was a nearly $19 billion increase in costs to taxpayers over the coming years due to increased borrowing costs stemming from the credit downgrade. Over the 50 years prior to 2011, the cap on borrowing had been raised nearly 80 separate times as necessary to allow the government to continue paying its debts. Nineteen of those hikes came with George W. Bush in the White House. Republican leaders broke that trend and deemed the country’s financial credibility and economic health “a hostage worth ransoming.” But while the GOP negotiating position inherently acknowledges that the debt ceiling must rise, the denial of economic fact promoted by Fleming and other ultra-conservatives seems to have boxed Boehner in politically. He reportedly proposes to force a default unless President Obama adopts the Republican position on essentially every issue.

Lest we forget readers, that back in November of 2002 - that then Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill, a true "deficit hawk", tried to warn then Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits were expected to top $500 billion that fiscal year alone, posing a great threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off, saying, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter." In December, one month later, Cheney had George W. Bush fire O'Neill. This Fleming character must have come from the same Cheney school of thought.

One has to wonder why taking deliberate actions to shut down the US government isn't treason, or an act of undeclared war, or an act of terrorism.

Yet another instance of the bloviated ignorance from the American Taliban. Why are these terrorists so afraid of facts? Would it be so they can continue to pull the puppet strings of their unlettered/low information base?

RELATED:
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear skewers McConnell and Paul over Obamacare in NYT op-ed

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

BILL AND TED'S NOT SO EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

After listening to part of Ted Cruz‘s 21-hour Nazi-invoking filibuster, Jon Stewart was convinced that whatever Cruz was speaking out against must be nothing less than the zombie apocalypse. So he was more than a little confused at how Cruz was going on about Obamacare, mocking Cruz’s constant tangents and his apparent lack of seriousness about really solving America’s health care crisis.

And, of course, the Dr. Seuss.

Cruz pledged to talk until he could stand no more. Stewart shot back, “Easy for you to take that kind of physical risk, you have government health care.”

Stewart went through all the bizarre pop culture references Cruz made, from Ashton Kutcher and Duck Dynasty to White Castle and Star Wars. But what really killed Stewart was Cruz’s somewhat ironic invocation of Green Eggs and Ham.

“So to express your opposition to Obamacare, you go to the book about a stubborn jerk who decides he hates something before he’s tried it, and when he finally gets a taste, he has to admit after he’s tasted it, ‘This is pretty fucking good.’”

Stewart then went after Cruz on the specifics of his health care objections, and ended the segment with an epic reading of a fake Dr. Seuss book called The Bore-ax, containing phrases like “showboatiest blab” and “hours of mouth masturbation.”

BILL AND TED PART I Courtesy of Comedy Central

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

BILL AND TED PART II Courtesy of Comedy Central

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Cruz is both crazy and emotionally stunted? He is much like Ben Shapiro from GhostBreitbart.com, a man-child who was put on the intellectual fast track to nowhere, thereby freezing his emotional maturity at age fifteen. Ted Cruz, "Rain Man" with an attitude - is a selfish pompous prick.

Ted Cruz is an elitist, male-like version of Sarah Palin - hence why Sarahnoya approves so much of the bombastic right wing nut job.

Those rallying to Cruz's support are as tone-deaf as GOP Chairman Reince Preibus was when he tried to deflect the government shutdown as being something the Democrats were choosing. It was a slight of hand, er, word, and it was transparent, and frankly acted badly.

The stupidity is utterly amazing. The American Taliban is all puffed up and past its peak. They are as deflating now as their hare-brained plan to threaten to harm the country unless they get their way - which has now run its course - again.

Ted Cruz is being criticized from within the clown tent that he is actually a liberal who is trying to destroy the party from within?

The GOP, especially many of the tin foil hat society folk, have traveled so far down the liberalism-is-poison metaphor road that they can't even stand for the deepest principles without being called a fraud. Speaking about trees that are producing bad fruit.

The smorgasbord of incompetence and regression that the GOP puts out daily - is everything ludicrous, and to suggest anything to the contrary, is ludicrous. Conservatives nowadays aren't smart though; they're comparing bureaucracy with Nazism, which, at best, is bad comedy.

I do not like government, GOP-I-Am. 

Would you like it
with clean water?
The EPA checks it for ya' 

I would not, could not, for clean water.
My massive bank account buys me
EU-filtered water. 

A plague! Influenza! Measles, Mumps, and Rubella!
Would you fund the CDC? 

Neither diseases of the common folk
nor health for all, you see
could make me appreciate the CDC. 

Roads, bridges, you drive on them too.
Would you kill - the DOT? 

Soon I'll have not one helicopter, but three, you see.
So drown it in a bathtub, would I the DOT. 

You are rich and elite, so you have no need,
but wouldn't you share a little of your wealth
as a moral good deed? 

Bah, humbug, you're changing the script.
About little people, I just pretend to give a shit. 

The future, your father, Canada helped him out.
Wouldn't you now like to give a hand back? 

You just don't get it, of nothing do I lack,
Re: helping others, for that I have no knack,
All I can say, is
I got mine, Jack! ~Shonagreg

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

CARNIVAL CRUZ'S FAUX FILIBUSTER

TED CRUZ BEING..............................TED CRUZ

How is it that one lone RWNJ, a junior grade Right Wing Nut Job at that, can hold 330 million Americans hostage? Junior congressman Ted "I am not from America" Cruz is on a Kamikaze mission, and if your not up Kamikaze missions, there has yet to be one human who survived one!

SEGMENT ONE:

Yesterday Carnival Cruz took to the floor to speak against the health reform law, attempting to block a funding bill from coming to a vote in the Senate. Cruz has been pushing to derail that funding bill unless it includes a provision to defund Obamacare — a far-right strategy that could ultimately force the federal government to shut down next week, and a tactic that doesn’t actually have the support of GOP leadership or the vast majority of Republican voters. Nonetheless, when he began speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Cruz vowed to continue his “speaking filibuster” until he is “no longer able to stand.”

Cruz’s dramatic anti-Obamacare crusade has captured media attention for weeks. But when it comes to the realities of health reform, it couldn't matter less.

First of all, it’s not a real filibuster. Whether or not Cruz keeps speaking, and regardless of how long he ends up going on, the Senate will still vote on the continuing resolution tomorrow. This weekend, even Fox News was confused about why Cruz thought this political ploy could work.

And even if the provision in question that seeks to “defund Obamacare” somehow managed to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, it wouldn’t actually do anything to bring the health reform law to a grinding halt. The main avenues of reform that will extend health coverage to additional Americans — the Medicaid expansion and the subsidies available to help people buy plans on the state-level marketplaces — aren’t affected by the fight over annual appropriations.

Ted Cruz: “Everyone knows Obamacare is destroying the economy"
That is everyone except CBO, which estimates Obamacare reduces deficits by 109 billion dollars.

If Cruz and his fellow Tea Party Republicans successfully derail the budget negotiations altogether and force the government to shut down, that won’t stop Obamacare implementation from marching forward, either. Much of the money that finances health reform has already been appropriated, and can only be removed if the law is repealed altogether. In an opinion piece published last week, E.J. Dionne suggested that a government shutdown could actually ironically help the law’s popularity. That’s because, if the health law’s enrollment period experiences a few hiccups along the way (as any new government program undoubtedly will), this political battle may convince Americans that Republicans are actually to blame for that.

Of course, that doesn't mean Republicans aren't actively working to sabotage the health reform law in very real ways. At nearly every turn, anti-Obamacare lawmakers have done everything in their power to hamper reform. They've refused to extend health coverage to additional low-income Americans by rejecting the law’s optional Medicaid expansion. They've undermined national public outreach efforts to teach Americans more about their options under the law, and slashed the state-level budgets dedicated to marketing the new insurance plans. They've attempted to slow down enrollment by placing unnecessary restrictions on the people who are supposed to help Americans sign up for new Obamacare coverage. They've disseminated misinformation about the law and confused most people about what it actually does. Some states have even simply refused to implement Obamacare’s provisions altogether.

There are still very real threats to Obamacare, but they’re largely happening on a state level. Some of them are particularly insidious. For instance, grassroots campaigns are attempting to convince Americans to thwart the health reform law by simply going uninsured.

The issues to pay attention to don’t have anything to do with Tea Party politicians making the rounds on Sunday news shows or wasting time on the Senate floor.

NFTOS Editor-In-Chief Roger West speaking to staff members this morning: "Memo to the Klondike Kardashian: Carnival Cruz is not, I repeat not engaged in a filibuster. The Senate has scheduled a cloture vote on Wednesday. He can talk all he wants to Wednesday. Then he must yield the floor to allow the vote.  As we all know American history is laden with people who look back at their congressional heroes who saved them from getting health insurance."

SEGMENT TWO:

Jon Stewart returned Tuesday night roundly mocking the Republican plan to defund Obamacare by any means necessary, even threatening a government shutdown. What disturbed Stewart the most were the creepy anti-Obamacare ads featuring a big-headed Uncle Sam, leading Stewart to conclude that Republicans are counting on an “appeal to fear of anal puppet finger-banging” to kill the health care law.

He took Ted Cruz to task for calling Obamacare the worst thing ever, mockingly piling on, “Nothing spoils Breaking Bad, nothing sews you into a human centipede like Obamacare!”

But what really set Stewart off was Cruz saying once people embrace Obamacare, they won’t ever want to get rid of it. He said, “It’s like crack to us, you give us one small taste of Social Security, and suddenly we’re all sucking the glass dick of not having our old people freeze to death and live off cat food!”

Stewart concluded that Republicans aren't afraid it will be a train-wreck, “They’re afraid we’re gonna like it!”


STEWART PART I

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

STEWART PART II

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Sarah Palin joined Sean Hannity on Tuesday night for hour seven of Ted Cruz‘s Obamacare filibuster on the Senate floor. Both Palin and Hannity were amazed at the level of Republican opposition to Cruz, and stepped in to defend the Texas senator from the GOP establishment.

People Throw Rocks at Things That Shine



Ted Cruz Reads Green Eggs And Ham.



How apropos is it, imagine when Ted Cruz finds out the moral of Green Eggs and Ham is that you don't know if you like something until you try it. Watching Ted Cruz speak on the Senate floor is like watching a dog shit on a priceless rug. Even when you clean it, the stench still remains. Yesterday was National Voter Registration day, and I'd like to thank Ted Cruz for reminding 65,917,257 Americans why they registered and voted for Obama.

GOP Hopes You ‘Die an Agonizing and Unnecessary Death’ to Embarrass Obama




If Ted Cruz wants to demonstrate his stamina, let him try 24 hours living with a tumor he can't afford to treat. Its all fun and games until thousands are dead needlessly because one lone asshat decides its better to grandstand and speak of green eggs and ham rather than ensure that millions of Americans are covered by healthcare.

Ted "Carnival" Cruz, you are today's asshat of the day!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain; He Is No Wizard, And He Certainly Is No Economist

FORBES MAKES UP INFORMATION ON ACA

Please, just give us the facts and nothing but the facts:

An article published by Forbes claiming that Obamacare will increase health care costs by $7,450 for a typical family of four is spreading like wildfire across the internet, but causing eyes to roll from economists across the country.

The estimate by author Chris Conover, an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, comes from a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report, which projects that national health care spending will increase once the uninsured begin enrolling in the law’s health care exchanges.

“By 2022, the ACA is projected to reduce the number of uninsured people by 30 million, add approximately 0.1 percentage-point to average annual health spending growth over the full projection period, and increase cumulative health spending by roughly $621 billion,” the report finds.

To translate that number to a “typical American family,” Conover took “the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected U.S. population to determine the added amount per person,” multiplied that result by four and voila: Obamacare will add $7,450 to average health spending for a family of four between 2014 and 2022!

One economist interviewed said that the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ Paul Van de Water, described this calculation as one of the stupidest things he’s read in a long time and likened it to arguing that college costs will increase for a “typical” family if the federal government adopts policies that help lower-income Americans afford college educations. Yes, the nation will spend more on education if more students enroll in colleges and universities, but the “typical” student already attending college won’t; she or he will continuing paying tuition at more or less the same rate, while the newly-enrolled student will presumably benefit from some sort of subsidized tuition rate.

The same is true here. The so-called “typical” family that Conover describes already receives health care insurance through their employer. The existence of 30 million newly-insured people — many of whom will receive tax credits if they purchase insurance in the law’s exchanges — won’t do much to move their premiums in one way or another. (Health advocates hope that the law will slow the rate of growth in health care spending, but that’s a long-term proposition.)

In fact, if anything, the CMS report that Conover links to shows that Obamacare is a good financial proposition. In 2022, total health care spending will increase by 1.5 percent, while the number of non-elderly adults with health care coverage will increase by 9 percent. That’s a pretty good deal any way you slice it.

Conover produces “an average that doesn't mean anything for anyone,” Van de Water said. “He understates the value of the coverage that uninsured will be getting, but greatly overstates and mis-states the cost of the typical family will experience. Typical is employer-sponsored insurance and that is not being affected to any significant extent.”

“This is a typically misleading use of data by opponents of Obamacare,” MIT’s Jonathan Gruber added. “The bottom line is that the government has consistently reported that Obamacare will raise national health spending by about 1 to 2 percent.” “This is a small fraction of the typical 5 to 7 percent annual growth rate in health care – and is a small price to pay for insuring 30 million or more Americans.”

The American Enterprise Institute has a fancy name with idiots at the helm, much like the current Heritage Foundation, who chose Jim DeMint as their new executive.

They specialize in propaganda, cutely wrapped with some obscure scientist or economist preaching doom and gloom - that if we don't immediately remove the black guy in the White House - that we are purposed for failure.

One would tend to think they would perhaps issue a study on wealth disparity, but no, that would shed a bad light on the uber rich, like the Koch Suckers, who routinely finance much of this crazy bullshit that we see coming from camp "Wacko Bird".

Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but this latest attempt to fear the country is totally bogus! Fear mongering failure.

The GOP motto: "never ever let facts get in they way of a good story"!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; he's no wizard, and he certainly is no economist!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

The GOP's Guide To Shutting Down The Government:

THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

As the nation races toward another budgetary crisis, Radical GOP leaders are using the prospect of a government shutdown and the need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling as leverage points to undermine the Affordable Care Act — just days before uninsured Americans are expected to sign up for health care coverage — and extract additional cuts to government programs.

Past Congresses have used the debt ceiling as a “vehicle for other legislative matters” or no germane amendments, but as the timeline below demonstrates, the Republicans that came to power after the 2010 midterm elections demanded something entirely different: they threatened to push the nation into default and shut down the government unless Congress approves deep structural budget cuts during a period of economic recession.

In November of 2010, GOP leaders informally polled the incoming freshman and were surprised to discover that “all but four of them said they would vote against raising the ceiling, under any circumstances.” This response was the result of what the Washington Post described as a “natural outgrowth of a years-long effort” by GOP recruiters to build a new majority with uncompromising anti-tax, anti-spending candidates and it effectively hamstrung Republican leaders from accepting any kind of budgetary compromise from the Obama administration. As a result, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) walked away from so-called grand bargains with the White House at least twice and have since adopted the same kind of uncompromising rhetoric that’s known to animate political campaigns, not actual governance.

Though Congress has already enacted approximately $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction since the start of fiscal year 2011 — 72 percent of the savings have come through spending cuts — the deficit has fallen to the lowest level since 2008, and inflation-adjusted discretionary spending is now below the final two fiscal years of the Bush administration, Republicans keep holding the debt ceiling and continuing resolution hostage, to achieve more cuts. Here is how we got here:

2010

FEB 4: Congress votes to increase the nation’s borrowing limit — a vote it had taken 40 times in the past three decades. Republicans increased the debt ceiling 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush, raising the nation’s limit by nearly $4 trillion.

Martha Roby, who will go on to represent Alabama in Congress, issues a statement condemning the vote. “This ‘need’ to raise the debt ceiling is caused by one thing: out-of-control spending in Washington,” she says. Reid Ribble, a soon-to-be Congressman from Wisconsin, agrees, “This Congress has done nothing but spend future generations of this country into a black hole.”

SEP 10: Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Conference, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) tells the crowd, “The government shut down…That’s what I wanted to hear! A good clap for that!” “We want you with us,” says Westmoreland. “We gotta have you there. Because they’re going to come and say, ‘Daddy can’t go to the VA, the national parks are closed’ … we need to make sure you’re going to be with us.”

SEP 30: With the fiscal year ending and the 2011 budget not yet adopted, Congress passes an extension –- known as a continuing resolution –- to keep the government running under existing spending levels until Dec. 3.

NOV: Republicans vow to cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget during the mid-term elections and win back control of the House. Initially, Boehner seems hesitant to use the debt ceiling as leverage to achieve the cuts. “I've made it pretty clear to them that as we get into next year, it’s pretty clear that Congress is going to have to deal with” the debt limit, Boehner told reporters on Nov. 19. “We’re going to have to deal with it as adults. Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations, and we have obligations on our part.”

DEC: Alarmed by growing talk from Republicans about taking the debt ceiling hostage to achieve spending cuts, the White House tries to increase the borrowing limit as part of a tax package that passed Congress, but the effort fails. “I’ll take John Boehner at his word — that nobody, Democrat or Republican, is willing to see the full faith and credit of the United States government collapse,” Obama says at an end-of-the year press conference. “Once John Boehner is sworn in as speaker, then he’s going to have responsibilities to govern. You can’t just stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.”

DEC 2-21: Unable to pass a spending bill, Congress enacts four different continuing resolutions to keep the government running until March 4.

These appropriations cut the Congressional Budget Office’s projection of discretionary spending from 2013 through 2022 by more than $400 billion.

2011

JAN: At a closed-door retreat at a Marriott in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, just days after taking power, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) promises to use the debt ceiling as leverage to achieve spending cuts.

“I’m asking you to look at a potential increase in the debt limit as a leverage moment when the White House and President Obama will have to deal with us,” he says. “Either we stick together and demonstrate that we’re a team that will fight for and stand by our principles, or we will lose that leverage.”

FEB: Paul Ryan announces that Republicans will seek a budget for FY 2011 with $35 billion in budget cuts, far less than the $100 billion in cuts that House Republicans had promised. Later that month, the House passes $61 billion in cuts for the remainder of FY 2011, “the amount that would remain to be slashed had a $100 billion cut been applied to the full-year budget.”

MARCH 2: Congress passes a short-term resolution extending operations to March 18. Spending is cut by $4 billion.

MARCH 16-17: Congress approves yet another continuing resolution extending federal operations through April 8. Spending is cut by $6 billion.

APRIL 4: House Republicans “gave the speaker an ovation” when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process included alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.

APRIL 14: Shortly before 11 pm, Boehner announced that he has agreed to support a seventh short-term extension, funding the government through Sep. 30. Spending is cut by $38 billion, but budget analysts reported that the plan would reduce actual spending in the current year by only $350 million.

JUNE-AUG: House leaders try to convince their caucus of the dangers of defaulting on the debt ceiling. “Leaders like me would try to tell them: Look, no, really, we think it could be bad,” Ryan says. “They’d look at it with suspicion …If there was any semi-credible source saying default wouldn't be so bad, they clung to that.”

AUG: At the last minute, Congress passes the Budget Control Act, increasing the debt ceiling immediately by $400 billion, then by another $500 billion after September.

The measure cuts $2.4 trillion over 10 years and establishes a Super Committee to recommend a deficit-reduction package by Thanksgiving 2011. If the committee fails, automatic cuts worth $1.2 trillion are automatically triggered. After deep cuts are enacted by the end of the year, the debt ceiling will increase by another $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion, covering the Treasury’s borrowing needs until 2013. Ryan boasts that Republicans won two-thirds of the cuts to discretionary spending that they wanted.

AUG 5: Standard & Poor’s issues the first downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, saying the “political brinkmanship of recent months” had shown evidence of “America’s governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable.” This costs the country a million jobs and $19 billion.

2012

SEP: Congress passes a continuing resolution through March of 2013. The government is funded at an annual rate of $1.047 trillion, consistent with the cap set by the Budget Control Act.

2013

JAN 2: Congress passes the American Taxpayers’ Relief Act. The measure makes permanent most of the Bush tax cuts. The Act also reduces deficits over the next 10 years by about $750 billion: $630 billion comes from revenue increases, approximately $30 billion comes from programmatic spending cuts, and the rest from interest savings resulting from lower deficits.

The measure also postpones automatic cuts for two months, until March 1, 2013. An increase in the debt ceiling is not included.

JAN: Congress agreed to suspend the debt ceiling without additional program cuts –- but only through May 2013.

MARCH 1: The sequester begins to take effect at the end of the two-month delay under ATRA. Democrats have called for a balanced package of revenue increases and spending cuts to replace the sequester, while Republican congressional leadership has stated that deficit reduction must come solely from cuts.

MARCH 21: Congress approved an appropriations bill to fund government operations through the remainder of fiscal year 2013, which largely maintains low current funding levels –- further reduced by $85 billion in cuts from the sequester.

JULY: Sens. Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), and Rand Paul (TX) circulate a letter warning they will not approve any spending measure to keep the government operating “if it devotes a penny” to Obamacare. The letter is signed by Sens. John Cornyn (TX), John Thune (SD), and Marco Rubio (FL).

AUG 22: Eighty members of the House Republican conference sign on to a letter sent to Republican leaders “demanding that any spending bill that reaches the House floor be free of funds to implement or enforce the president’s healthcare reform law.”

AUG 26: The Treasury Department announces that the nation will hit the debt ceiling by mid-October.

SEP 30, 2013: Fiscal year 2013 ends. Congress and the President must agree on appropriations for fiscal year 2014 by September 30 so the government can function when the new year begins on October 1, 2013.

You do not have to kill to be a terrorist, but in essence, denying the poor food, and denying 30 million Americans affordable healthcare is in essence killing your own kind! Americans do not need to be worried about foreign terrorists, when our bigger threat is terrorism from within - from the right wing nut job better known as "The American Taliban".

Since the presidency of George W. Bush, we have seen nothing from the GOP but:

Radicalism to the highest degree
The party of "Do-Nothings"
The party of "Know-Nothings".
They party of Filibusters
The Party of Extortionists
The party of Obstructionists
The party of elite whites only
The party of racists
The party of kick the poor when they are down
The party of ideals of 50- 300 years ago.
They party of extreme human control [Women and Blacks]
The party of biblical and constitutional hypocrisy Since the era of George W. Bush

There is a huge difference between educated decisions versus unlettered irrational ones. Even the slightest tinge of conversations of shutting down this country, this preposterous and incoherent idea, should not be taken lightly. Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and any other tin foil hat society member suggesting such extreme measures, should be considered internal enemy combatants.

The president has sworn to uphold the constitution from "all enemies, foreign and domestic". These teahadists need to be considered domestic enemies of the constitution. These special "patriots" seem hell bent on one thing, to do harm to this nation and its people. Domestic enemies should be treated accordingly.

Most RWNJ's seem to admire Ted Cruz's willingness to risk other people's careers, humans health and his party's future in order to impress Sarah Palin.

Maybe this horrible GOP extortion plan, in which a GOP/Cuban/Canadian terrorist kills millions of Americans by denying them coverage for pre-existing conditions - is actually just a dream.

I leave you with two queries: Why is it OK to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds on women and not mandate full healthcare? How dare the RWNJ's - to not bat an eyelash when telling women that they must have a probe forced inside their vagina - yet call foul on affordable healthcare. Why is the ACA acceptable under Mitt Romney and not Obama? They are one in the same!

Portions of blog from thinkprogress

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

I"M A 35-YEAR OLD VETERAN ON FOOD STAMPS

JASON KIRELL MILITARY AND ON FOOD STAMPS

Story from Huffington Post:

My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40 hours a week while I was in college. I've never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan.

Oh, and I'm now on food stamps. Since June, as a matter of fact.

Why am I on food stamps?

The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving.

I mean, if that's okay with you:

· Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman.

· Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator.

· Mr. or Mrs. "welfare queen" letter-to-the-editor author.

· Mr. or Mrs. "fiscal conservative, reason-based" libertarian.

I do apologize for burdening you on the checkout line with real-life images of American-style poverty. I know you probably believe the only true starving people in the world have flies buzzing around their eyes while they wallow away, near-lifeless in gutters.

Hate to burst the bubble, but those people don't live in this country.

I do. And millions like me. Millions of people in poverty who fall into three categories.

Let's call them the "lucky" category, since conservatives seem to think people on welfare have hit some sort of jackpot:

Those living paycheck to paycheck? They're a little lucky.

Those living unemployment check to unemployment check? They're a little luckier.

Those living 2nd of the month to 2nd of the month? Ding! We've hit the jackpot!

The 2nd of the month being the time when funds gets electronically deposited onto the EBT card, [at least in NY] for those who've never been fortunate enough to hit that $175/month Powerball.

I fall into the latter two categories. But I've known people recently -- soldiers in the Army -- who were in the first and third. They were off fighting in Afghanistan while their wives were at home, buying food at the on-post commissary with food stamps.

And nobody bats an eye there, because it's not uncommon in the military.

It's not uncommon -- nor is it shameful. It might be shameful how little service-members are paid, but that's a separate issue.

The fact remains anyone at a certain income level can find it difficult from time to time to pay for everything. And when you're poor you learn to make sacrifices. Food shouldn't be one of them.

The whole concept is un-American. People living here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most abundant resources, should be forced to go hungry because of the intellectual notion of fiscal conservatism and the ideological notion of self-reliance.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I didn't risk my life in Afghanistan so I could come back and watch people go hungry in America. I certainly didn't risk it so I could come back and go hungry.

Anyone who genuinely supports cutting food stamps is not an intellectual or an ideologue -- they're a bully.

And nobody likes a bully. Except other bullies.

It's time for regular Americans to stand up to these bullies. Not cower in the corner, ashamed of needing help. Because if there's one thing life has taught me, it's that you never know when you'll be the one in need.

I know that the NRA asshat Wayne LaPierre spoke on meet the press this morning, but we at NFTOS have made a decision that this waste of human flesh will not get further air time on our blog.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"PARLIAMENTARY TRICK" IS SUGGESTED BY TIN FOIL HAT SOCIETY LEADER AMY KREMER

AMY KREMER TEABIRCHER RWNJ

For the second time in two days, Al Sharpton battled a conservative on Obamacare and the threat of a government shutdown. Tea Party Express chair Amy Kremer argued that Democrats are the ones who want to shut the government down, but Sharpton didn’t buy it, saying at some point, conservatives need to accept Obamacare is the law of the land and stop trying to take it down.

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:



Kremer argued that even Democrats have said the health care law is “not ready for primetime,” so the goal right now is just to delay. Sharpton went through all the steps of the law being upheld, from Congress approving it to the Supreme Court upholding it to Mitt Romney losing on a platform of repealing it, concluding, “You lost, it’s the law!”

Kremer shot back that Democrats used a “parliamentary trick” to pass it in the first place, while Sharpton brought up all the Republicans who are starting to sour on the defunding idea. Kremer was a lot more bullish, saying the very fact House leadership brought it to the floor is a victory, and citing several red-state Senate Democrats she believes might end up joining the GOP.

Towards the end of the debate, Sharpton pressed Kremer to say that if the Senate rejects the House bill, Congress can go ahead and fund the government without the Obamacare defunding provision. Kremer hedged, insisting the Republicans have no interest in shutting down the government.

Kremer is your A-typical "low-info" voter who found her calling when a non-White president was elected. Kremer is the original "Teabircher", incoherent, hysterical and low on facts. Amy Kremer is living in an alternate reality if she really thinks that a government Shutdown won't have a catastrophic outcome not only in this country, but the global economy as well.


O'REILLY TRYS TO EDUCATE FELLOW TEABIRCHER




Republicans' concern about the problems implementing Obamacare is touching but yet utterly disingenuous all in the same breath.

The synopsis of listening to the tin foil hat society: "We will decide what laws are actually laws!"

The bottom line here is - There is no lead in "pencil lead", there are no grapes and no nuts in "grape nuts", ... and there is nothing patriotic about a "tea party patriot". There is no doubt in this bloggers mind- clear evidence that Teabircher's wear the pants in the conservative family.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

CREEPY UNCLE SAM

THE CREEPY KOCH BROTHERS AND THEIR VERSION OF UNCLE SAM

I have said too many times to count, that nothing is beyond the pale of the slimy sloth aptly named the conservative.

The below video, courtesy of the Koch Whores, is, well, just watch for yourself. Prepare yourself for 62 seconds of pure, unadulterated WTF-ery.


CREEPY UNCLE SAM FROM THE KOCH WHORES

The very model, the foundation of the ACA was birthed by the once GOP Presidential loser, "keep your Mittens off me Romney." Why the ACA is diabolical under Obama and a success under Mittens you ask - this is the unlettered conservative we have come to know and love.

The facts are the World Health Organization who ranks the world's health care systems, ranked the USA 37th. Many of the higher ranked systems, you guessed it, were indeed single payer and government run systems.

MADDOW CREEPY UNCLE SAM

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Let me see if I have this correct, the GOP has mandated internal vaginal ultrasounds without blinking an eye, but is against mandating health insurance for all? How does that make sense? It doesn't!

Speaking of the definition of imbecile: Let's face it readers, if you're gullible and stupid enough to believe this Koch Brother's commercial, and you do choose not to get insurance, then you deserve everything you get. Why not take it a little further and not get car insurance, home insurance or better than that, decline life insurance as well!

An intelligent person who does stupid things is still stupid, also known as " a stupid is as a stupid does".

David and Charles Koch, you two brothers win the asshats of the decade award. Congratulations asshats!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GUNS OVER PEOPLE: KEEP THE SECOND AMENDMENT, SCREW THE REST OF THEM

On the heels of yet another senseless mass shooting, Jon Stewart posed a question: why are conservatives so eager to throw away all the amendments to keep the country safe… except the second one.

Stewart found it odd how someone with mental health and legal issues was able to legally own a gun and even pass a background check “with flying crazy.”

But more importantly, Stewart wanted to know why no form of gun control whatsoever seems to be acceptable. He called out conservatives from Senator John Cornyn to Fox News’ Eric Bolling for seemingly having no issue being lenient when it comes to most of the Constitution but being very gung-ho about guns. Stewart could only conclude, “With guns, the Constitution is ironclad, but with terrorism, it’s a list of suggestions.”

GOP Loves Second Amendment and The Rest Are Just ‘Suggestions’ Part 1
Video courtesy of Comedy Central

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

GOP Loves Second Amendment and The Rest Are Just ‘Suggestions’ Part 2
Video courtesy of Comedy Central

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

These videos are yet another hilarious take on the GOP hypocrisy – not that it’s anything we didn't already know.

The holier-than-thou Conservative patriots apply their own interpretations as they pick and choose parts of the Constitution – just as they pick and choose verses of the Bible – and then ignore or make exceptions to other parts of those same documents to fit the needs of their agenda.

This is the problem you have when you literally worship words written centuries ago and assume they are infallible, or applicable as written in today’s real world.

I played these videos for a Guns Over People nut prior to posting my blog today. He went absolutely batshit crazy. After fifteen minutes of pure unadulterated madness and seething blather, I suggested that perhaps if I played the clips at half-speed for him, that maybe he would understand what was being argued. This GOPer, a bona fide 'Fox News Listener' - I told him it must be tough for him to understand adult conversations. Its been three hours and I've heard nothing but crickets.

Yesterday we mentioned about Fox and Friends, their newest idiot, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and how this RWNJ suggested that video games and guns in said video games be monitored. And I got to thinking, if you think we need gun control in video games, but not in real life, it's time for you to relinquish your rights to breathing.

An example of just how archaic and useless some parts of the constitution are, look at the 3rd amendment:

"No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

The Constitution needs to be placed in a historical context. The authors of the constitution, didn't see into the future. Adhering to documents that are as old as Methuselah - without edits to reflect the times - are as useless as used toilet paper.

The second amendment was written with powered muskets in mind, not weapons that can shoot multiple rounds. I have written a plethora of times on the mindset of the American Talibaner - where only the first and second amendments are of value, I doubt, and would bet the farm that not a single solitary tin foil hat society member could tell you what the reaming amendments are.

The Guns Over People only show up to bitch when a big liberal voice like Jon Stewart attacks the second amendment - the need for gun control is obvious - but the GOP is so obsessed and OCD with the second amendment, that the remaining - the majority of Americans end up feeling like puppies that have been sodomized with a shotgun!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ELIZABETH HASSELBECK ENTERS THE GALACTALLY STUPID CLUB

Hasselbeck "Footwear Designer" Now Fox News Subject Matter Expert 

New Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Tuesday suggested that “the left” was trying to make Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about “gun control,” when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases.

“You know, certainly, this topic has already taken a turn again, the left’s already making this about gun control,” Hasselbeck said.

Co-host Steve Doocy noted that 34-year-old Aaron Alexis was thought to have taken a shotgun onto the Navy Yard and then possibly used it to acquire a handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle from someone at the facility.

“Is this about gun control or is this about a guy who has a history of drinking a lot, playing video games a lot and a few shooting incidents?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked.

“One thing that happens often in a situation as tragic as this is we start to spread blame where it possibly doesn't belong, right?” Hasselbeck remarked. “I think we all know where the blame truly belongs, and that would be right in Alexis’ hands.”

“But you talk about this guy’s background, as we look into it,” Kilmeade continued. “He’s got a friend, who said, ‘Yeah, he had an obsession with video games, shooting video games. In fact, he would come over and he would be playing so long — these video games, these shooting games — we’d have to give him dinner, we’d have to feed him while he continued to stay on them.’”

“Are more people susceptible to playing video games?” Hasselbeck wondered. “Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions?”

“What about frequency testing?” she added. “How often has this game been played? I’m not one to get in there and say, monitor everything, but if this, indeed, is a strong link, right, to mass killings then why aren't we looking at frequency of purchases per person? And also, how often they’re playing and maybe they time out after a certain hour.”

“You go to your room!” Doocy quipped.

If this wasn't so tragic id be laughing my ass off. Ignorance can be forgivable, taking pride in it cannot. I would tell Ms. Hasselbeck that its "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

The meme of the Guns Over People - anything to deflect the reality that more guns equals more murders, and its the ease of access to WMD's, not video games that are the culprit for mass murder shootings.The facts are, a "lone good guy with a gun" has never once in the history of mass murder ever stopped that individual from mass murder.

An argument could be made that there's been a significant increase in the number of mass shootings since the launching of the Fox News Channel. Is there a link between Fox News and gun violence? Perhaps instead of monitoring video game players, we should monitor Fox News viewers.

If ever there was an argument for smacking idiots in the head with a brick when they spread their stupidity........It's not the hours spent playing video games that is the problem, it's the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the NRA glorifying, protecting, and perpetuating the gun culture in this country.

NFTOS Editor-In-Chief Roger West was asked during a debate this week, "How about parents not buying those games for their children?":

"How about not letting kids smoke, drink, watch sexual content movies, watch violent movies. I am sorry, this instance, nor the thirty other mass shootings had little or nothing to do with playing games! Why do we placate other non-related bullshit into the calculus of gun violence? Columbine was done prior to FPS games, what's the excuse for that one? Kids watching Wiley Coyote trying to kill the road runner with Acme products?

Blame the source, and that source is the preponderance and overwhelming thunder of the Gun drums! Nothing else, to suggest anything else, only continues to fuel the fire of mass shootings - which also spreads the ignorance of the issue at hand - and this issue is enacting laws which restricts "the so called responsible" gun huggers from getting weapons with the intent of killing the masses."

Elizabeth Hasslebeck is a perfect match for Fox & Friends News, dumber than a box rocks and full of more shit than Christmas turkey. Maybe because Hasselbeck just showed up on the  Fox & Friends set- that she is just trying to earn her stripes as Fox News's bullshit artist extraordinaire.

Maybe the best solution is that we start registering, arresting and incarcerating the Galactally Stupid?

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

JUST ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICA, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ON!

Here we go again, yet another mass shooting, this time at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., claiming the lives of 13 people including the suspect.

George Zornick, of The Nation, called the scenario “the latest iteration of a now-familiar US news event,” which is a very sad commentary of our time. It’s hard to think that when he said “a now-familiar US news event,” he meant anything other than this has become frighteningly familiar, which is something that should never have been allowed to happen. His piece focuses on the U.S.’s growing gun problem, and how the NRA and their ilk, both in and out of Congress, fight against even reasonable measures in the face of these awful tragedies.

For instance, following the Sandy Hook tragedy, Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX), Governor of Virginia Bob McDonald, Governor of Texas Rick Perry, and others, issued statements to the effect that, had the teachers been armed, lives could have been saved that day. NRA President Wayne LaPierre also said something to that effect, and blamed violent video games for the escalating mass shootings here.

The NRA also proposed having armed guards at every school, which is something that may or may not be effective. Gunmen have cut down trained police officers before, Columbine High School had an armed guard with 15 years service in the Jefferson County sheriff’s department, who was unable to stop the shooters.

Known gun zealot Ted Nugent weighed in on the Aurora movie theater shooting, predictably suggesting that if moviegoers had been armed, lives would have been saved, despite strong evidence and even demonstration that the ability to accurately pull a concealed weapon, aim it, and fire it without also getting hit and without hitting innocents isn't something that can be done remotely well without extensive and ongoing training. To say nothing of the fact that James Holmes was wearing quite a bit of body armor.

After Sandy Hook, Ann Coulter weighed in on school shootings, saying that the way to stop them is more laws that allow concealed carry. She cited a study done by economists William Landes of the University of Chicago, and John Lott, of Yale University, who looked at mass shootings from 1977 to 1995, and says they found no evidence that waiting periods, stronger background checks, and other things touted by Democrats as “reasonable gun control measures” had any effect. However, apparently, they did find that concealed carry laws do have an effect. This reason is two-fold: One, the criminals won’t know who’s packing and who isn't, and will therefore be less likely to actually commit their crime. And two, people will be armed and able to take down a shooter before he fires off more than a couple of rounds.

The right-wing media is already pushing an agenda for even weaker gun laws, chanting the familiar, and frankly maddening, refrain that more guns there could and would have stopped this. According to MediaMatters, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum said that people aren’t allowed to carry weapons on a military base and that the shooters targeted the area because of that. That statement ignores research that only 23% of mass shootings occur at gun-free zones, according to author Matt Gertz.

Some random blogger thoughts:

What's the answer? I can think of many solutions for reigning in the Americans who favor guns over everything else, but unfortunately, there are not enough "patriots" that are willing to stand up to the four million strong of the NRA. Which is frightening in itself, where this organization can bully 316 million Americans.

One such solution, education, The Prevention Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about violence (and other issues), advocates approaching the issue from a public health perspective. One thing they support is the CDC’s restored funding to conduct research into violence, something the NRA opposes because they fear the studies will scare people into supporting stronger gun laws.

What can we expect when we live in a country where its harder to get a job, harder to vote, and harder to get healthcare than it is to purchase a weapon of mass destruction? At what point readers, do we get serious with gun laws? Americas narcissistic view of self preservation is irrational, stupid, ignorant and reckless - another mass shooting, and another chance to do absolutely nothing about gun safety and violence.

Praying for the victims is an empty gesture and does nothing to actually aide the problem......you want to help you say, then get off your ass and do something that will prevent the next shooting -  to those that say today is not the day to debate gun control, you're right, the day to do it was yesterday.

Another mass shooting, and conservatives immediately rush to say that there weren't enough guns on site. But the reality is, an armed citizen has never ever stopped a mass shooting in 30 years - yet we all know, all to well, that somewhere out there, this very moment, Wayne LaPierre revises his usual speech to explain how the NRA is the real victim in all these mass shootings!

So quiet is the night, as the Guns Over People, the bully pulpit, and the NRA ponder how they can keep screaming about Benghazi and ignore the Navy Yard massacre all in the same breath!

Congratulations NRA, you are once again today's worst organization in the world!



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West