GOP, STILL NOT READY TO GOVERN!

PORTION OF THE "WILLFULLY IGNORANT FUCKSTICKS

With these "Willfully Ignorant Fucksticks" [term used by CNN anchor Bill Weirs], you just can't make this shit up.

Less than 24 hours after authorizing a lawsuit against President Obama for taking executive action, Speaker Boehner yanked the border crisis bill from the floor as House Republicans issued a statement calling for the President to act on his own - and use his executive privilege.



Take a good look at your government at work readers. With 435 voting members in the house at 175k per year per member, that's 76.1 million dollars of waste per year.

Actual numbers on XO [Executive Order] by President. As you can see. Obama has had very few compared to the 13 previous Presidents.

I know a guy who is an artisan pencil sharpener. He contributes more to society than every Republican in Congress. The GOP, embarrassing our country since it inception.

Its time to send these obstructionist packing!

Breaking update: The planned House recess for five weeks has been delayed until tomorrow.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SARAH PALIN TV?

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY PRESIDENT SARAH "Caribou Barbie" PALIN

Stephen Colbert rips the part time grifter and her new experiment, "Sarah Palin TV".

God help us all!

There truly is no better way to deal with an empty headed, sanctimonious, right winged bag of hot air than sophisticated mockery. Stephen Colbert is a national treasure.

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Editor-In Chief

Roger West

IS JOHN BOEHNER HITTING THE SAUCE AT WORK?

TIN FOIL HAT SPCIETY LEADER JOHN BOEHNER

House Speaker John Boehner speaking with reporters on Tuesday morning:

"This whole talk about impeachment is coming from the president's own staff and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they are trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year's election," Boehner told reporters Tuesday morning. "We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans."

Yeap, straight from the horses ass, Boehner and his fellow Tin Foil Hat Society members say impeaching President Barack Obama is a “scam” ginned up by Democrats to raise campaign money.

The specter of impeachment was first raised by former part time Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - and has since been picked up by a few other conservative insurgents. But it has minuscule support among most sane conservatives on Capitol Hill.

Three weeks ago Boehner, who is shepherding a lawsuit that many see as his alternative to impeachment talk, was fending off questions about impeachment thanks to Sarah Palin.

When it comes to these troglodytes, nothing is beyond the pale of these "special patriots".

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

THE SATANIC TEMPLE DEMANDS EXEMPTION FROM ABORTION CITING HOBBY LOBBY SUPREME COURT FINDING

THE SATANIC TEMPLE

The Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision, which allowed some for-profit companies to claim a religious exemption to Obamacare’s contraception mandate, has sparked a heated debate over the definition of religious liberty and its role in modern society. At this point, even a Satantic cult has decided to weigh in.

The Satanic Temple — a faith community that describes itself as facilitating “the communication and mobilization of politically aware Satanists, secularists, and advocates for individual liberty” — has launched a new campaign seeking a religious exemption to certain anti-abortion laws that attempt to dissuade women from ending a pregnancy. The group says they have deeply held beliefs about bodily autonomy and scientific accuracy, and those beliefs are violated by state-level “informed consent” laws that rely on misleading information about abortion risks.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, the Satanists point out, it strengthens their own quest to opt out of laws related to women’s health care that go against their religious liberty. “Because of the respect the Court has given to religious beliefs, and the fact that our beliefs are based on best available knowledge, we expect that our belief in the illegitimacy of state mandated ‘informational’ material is enough to exempt us, and those who hold our beliefs, from having to receive them,” a spokesperson for the organization said in a statement.

The Satanic Temple, sometimes referred to as “the nicest Satanic cult in the world,” falls somewhere between satire, performance art, and activism. The group says its central mission is to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.” It has a set of seven tenets that closely track with humanism. Typically, wherever issues of church and state are overlapping, the Satanic Temple isn't far behind.

Members of the Satanic Temple first made national headlines when they rallied in support of Florida Gov. Rick Scott for approving a bill that allows prayer in public schools, saying they’re glad the new policy will allow children to pray to Satan.

Since then, they've also held “a formal ceremony celebrating same-sex unions” on the grave of the mother of the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, declaring that she has posthumously become a lesbian, and commissioned a seven-foot-tall Satanic statue near a monument to the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

And now, the Satanic Temple is turning its attention to “campaigns to assert our religious protection for women with health needs that are being complicated by unreasonable laws,” focusing on the abortion-related legislation that goes against science.

State-level abortion restrictions that aren't actually based in medicine have swept the nation. “Informed consent” laws, which typically require women to receive biased counseling before being allowed to proceed with an abortion procedure, are now in place in 35 states. Many of those laws require doctors to tell their patients misleading information about abortion’s potential link to mental health issues and breast cancer. Some of them put words directly in doctors’ mouths, forcing them to refer to the fetus as an “whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

Members of the Temple of Satan are encouraging all women who share their belief in medical accuracy to seek their own exemption from these laws, even if they don’t personally identify as Satanists. They've drawn up a sample letter to help women talk to their doctors about the issue, as well as created “Right to Accurate Medical Information” t-shirts for purchase.

Satanists aren't the only activists fighting back against the junk science used to justify anti-abortion laws.
The secular humanist group Center for Inquiry recently launched a “Keep Health Care Safe and Secular”
campaign to encourage more Americans to fight back against laws limiting women’s access to health services. Similarly, NARAL Pro-Choice America sometimes uses the slogan “Politicians Make Crappy Doctors.”

O' the can O'worms this ruling has unearthed. 

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

PASTE EATING TIME WITH STEVE DOOCY

Bill Maher got another shot in on Rupert Murdoch for his desire to take over Time Warner during this Friday's New Rules segment.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

DR. SEUSS, TEA BAGGERS AND IMMIGRATION

Well, that's it in a "nut"shell.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

THE MORE YOU NO

The Republican Party - standing tall for all this country is not - for a government of the privileged, by the privileged.




With such small closed minds, they never give any of this a second thought. They really think this is the way things should be. God bless their bloviated ignorance!

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

DRAFT DOGGING PANTS SHITTER CALLS NATIVE AMERICANS "UNCLEAN VERMIN".

PANTS SHITTING DOUCHE BAG TED NUGENT

Douche bag and knuckle-dragger Ted Nugent is at it again. Ted Nugent lashed out after a native American tribe in Idaho cancelled his show over his history of racist remarks.

Conservative mouthpiece Ted Nugent lashed out after a native American tribe in Idaho cancelled his show over his history of racist remarks. "I take it as a badge of honor that such unclean vermin are upset by me and my positive energy," Nugent told Gannett Wisconsin Media in reference to those opposed to his show. 

"Put your heart and soul into everything you do and nobody can stop you. Sometimes you give the world the best you got and you get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you got anyway."

"By all indicators, I don't think they actually qualify as people, but there has always been a lunatic fringe of hateful, rotten, dishonest people that hate happy, successful people," Nugent said.

Nugent, who dodged the draft by shitting in his pants, continued to say, "I have been blessed to be welcomed into the lives of U.S. military heroes forever and have come to know the serious price paid for freedom and the American dream."

"I have vowed to these warriors that I will put to use to the best of my ability those freedoms and rights that they have sacrificed to provide we the people in this sacred experiment in self-government," he said. "I believe raising hell and demanding accountability from our elected employees is Job One for every American. I am simply doing my job," he said.

Since he brought up the military, this is (in Nugent's words) what he did to avoid serving:

I got my physical notice 30 days prior to. Well, on that day I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin' and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin' kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer-stuff I never touched-buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I'd drink the syrup, I was this side of death, Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up.

Ted Nugent is another right wing hero with a dubious record. Suddenly, Nugent isn't too fond of the Free Market.  

Wasn't this pants shitter supposed to be dead or in jail by now? 

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HEY TEA BAGGER, "WATCH LESS FOX NEWS"!

THIS IS YOUR BRAINS ON FOX NEWS

Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes didn't think much a C-Span caller's litany of grievances against the Obama administration, suggesting he watch less Fox News.

Nothing like a Liberal slamming the cognitive dissonance of the conservative.

Jim Hines, you get the golden star for the day.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Jon Stewart Tackles MH17, Indirectly Responds to Everyone Yelling at Him About Israel

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STAFF WRITER

MISSISSIPPI GOP WAR TAKES CENTER STAGE

Mississippi Republicans continue to be the gift that keeps on giving. Virginia ex-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has entered the fray (any similarity here to a Republican Super Smash Brothers is, I assure you, intentional), targeting Senate Republicans who backed fellow senator Thad Cochran over preferred insane person Chris McDaniel. Specifically, he says:

These senators fully funded ads that urged Democrats to cross over and vote in the republican primary and claimed that a McDaniel win would be a loss "for race relationships between blacks and whites." 

They also helped pay for fliers that said, "The Tea Party Intends to Prevent You From Voting" and suggested McDaniel would roll back civil rights.

In response, he's demanding no less than a defunding of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which I think we can all get behind merely for the humor factor.

On the other side of the fence you've got Mississippi's Republican political machine. They're not backing down from pointing out that McDaniel is pretty much a horrible human being even for a Republican.

“That conduct was reprehensible and was not good for Mississippi or the Republican party,” [Henry] Barbour says. “Many Mississippians, who were already disgusted by McDaniel’s race-baiting talk-radio-show comments, heard the code words that insinuated that African Americans were not welcome in the Republican primary.”

That defense was offered after it turned out that one of the outside PACs running incendiary ads against McDaniel was funded in entirety or near-entirety by Henry Barbour's group. Yes, it is possible to be too racist for the Mississippi political machine to stomach—or at least, too vocal in your racism. So that's something.

As for the head pouter himself, he's in full spite mode.

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel said the Republican Party should be "purged" of people who paint their fellow members as racists.

"It goes to show that there are elements within our own party that have to be purged … There are elements within our own party that have no business being Republicans. Republicans should not behave in that fashion."

So it's open war between the half of the party that want to purge radio loudmouths with a history of racist-tending comments and the half of the party that want to purge or defund anyone that points out their racism exists. There isn't enough popcorn in the world for watching that fight.

Cross Posted from daily Kos

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STAFF WRITER

AGENDA 21 MEETS STAND YOUR GROUND

Jose Antonio Fernandez is not your ordinary tea bagging nut job, no this numbnutz is ready for a straight jacket with a padded cell.

Jose Antonio Fernandez, 54, found that out the hard way Tuesday when he stepped up to the microphone - that threatening to shoot members of the Miami-Dade County Commission will land a guy in jail. Fernandez warned that if the county were to take his property, he would have "the right to shoot every one of you."

"Shoot 'em," he said.

According to the Miami Herald, Fernandez, sporting a prominent beard and a T-shirt that read "No to United Nations Agenda 21," accused the commission of "confiscating the land of small farmers."

The Miami Herald reports: 

Fernandez lives just outside a rural South Miami-Dade enclave locked in legal battles with county environmental regulators over wetlands violations. The small nurseries and farms just east of the Everglades and west of Krome Avenue in the Las Palmas community - known as the 8 ½ Square Mile Area - have repeatedly run afoul of the Division of Environmental Resources Management. 

A judge ruled in 2011 that Fernandez's nursery - which was on a separate property from his home - owed the county $316,000 in restitution that Miami-Dade has yet to receive.
The home, which is not in Fernandez's name, is scheduled to be sold in a foreclosure auction this month. 

An undated photo in Google Maps purportedly of Fernandez's home shows a sign affixed to a tree outside that reads, "DERM must be stopped."

The true tragedy here in this instance is - that this dipshit is in more trouble for talking about shooting someone than he would be if he actually shot some one and said he was afraid and stood his ground.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

TEA PARTY NUMBSKULLS AND MILITARIZED POLICE

Bill Maher asks the Tin Foil Hat Society -  who are constantly complaining about "big government" - that when are they going to show some concern over the militarization of our police forces across the country.





The tin foil hat society isn't freaking out, because in their diluted cognitive dissonance they believe that our increasingly militarized police is "on their side" and is meant to protect them from "threats" which exist mostly in their heads. Their minds are also freighted with more "important" issues like illegal immigration and women's reproductive rights.

Matter- of - fact, that as long as this militarized policing coincides with, or is not counterproductive to their astroturf creators, public demonstrations for the interests of the 1% will be afforded a kind of leniency [Bundy] not found in the police's treatment of liberal demonstrators seeking to address the true problems at the heart of our society. [OWS]

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

RUSSIA HAD A HAND IN THIS?

President Obama made it clear today that he holds the Russians responsible for failing to stop the violence that made the Malaysian plane shoot-down possible.

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STAFF WRITER

UNARMED PLANE TAKES MISSLE STRIKE

BUK M1 MISSILE SYSTEMS

Though the situation in the Ukraine has been out of front-page headlines for the past weeks, the struggle between the government in Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists in the east has been ongoing. That conflict surged back into the public consciousness with reports that a Malaysian passenger airplane was shot down over Ukraine on Thursday, leaving hundreds feared dead and blame already being traded between Russia and Ukraine over just who is at fault for the downing of the Boeing 777 jet.

Mayalsian Airlines on Thursday morning confirmed that it had lost contact with MH17 flying out from Amsterdam on route to Kuala Lampur. Its last known position — and that of its 280 passengers and 15 crew — was over Ukrainian airspace, specifically the eastern territory that has been resisting the control of the central government. Ukraine’s military in recent weeks has shown a number of successes against the rebels there, shrinking the territory that they control down to portions of two main enclaves: Donetsk and Luhansk. The wreckage found on Thursday was discovered near Grabovo, a city in the area that separatists have declared as the Donestk People’s Republic.

However, the rebels have not been ceding territory quietly. There have been in the last month a number of incidents where aircraft were shot down, but until now they’ve all been military in nature. In June, separatists shot down a Ilyushin-76 transport plane landing in Luhansk, killing all 49 on-board. On Monday, Kyiv said that an An-25 transport ship was shot down in a rocket attack launched from across the border in Russia. And earlier on Thursday, Ukraine accused Russia of deploying a military jet into Ukrainian airspace last night to down an Su-25 fighter jet.

The alleged rocket launch on Monday, which the U.S. corroborated on Thursday, would be the first time an attack originated on the Russian side of the border. But for months now, Russia has been sending military hardware to support the rebels. Almost since the conflict began in the aftermath of the massive protests that led to former president Viktor Yanukovych stepping down, Moscow has been accused of not just arming and supplying the rebels, but sending Russian forces to take part in operations. In June, the State Department called out Russia for sending tanks and other heavy weaponry, such as the BM-21 rocket launcher system, into Ukraine. “Russia will claim these tanks were taken from Ukrainian forces, but no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in that area,” the State Department said then. “We are confident that these tanks came from Russia.”

The separatists have also shown some successes of their own in recent weeks, even while being hammered on the battlefield. A Voice of Russia article shows that the so-called “self-defense forces” of the Donetsk People’s Republic had seized a Ukrainian anti-air military instillation, according to Russian wire service RIA Novosti. “The forces of Donetsk People’s Republic assumed control of A-1402 military base,” the militia’s representative said, with Voice of Russia adding that the facility was “equipped with Buk mobile surface-to-air missile systems.” Those very systems — which are much more powerful that any shoulder-launched or other man-portable system — are the ones that the Ukrainain Interior Ministry has claimed were used to down the Malaysian flight. But Donestsk rebel leader Aleksandr Borodai insist that they do not possess weapons that could shoot down a plane flying at 1000 km as the Malaysian flight was.

And according to a screenshot being passed around Twitter, rebel leader Igor Strelkov — who many suspect to be a member of the GRU, Russia’s external intelligence service — may have taken credit for shooting down the plane, thinking it was Ukrainian. That theory is being backed by several prominent experts on the region, including Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. “Russian GRU officer Strelkov admitting that he ordered the missile strike against the Malaysian jet,” McFaul tweet out from his account.

As the Ukrainian offensive has been taking place, diplomatic efforts to bring the months-long conflict to a close have shown fewer tangible outcomes. “While Russia says it seeks peace, its actions do not match its rhetoric,” the State Department said on Monday. “We have no evidence that Russia’s support for the separatists has ceased. In fact, we assess that Russia continues to provide them with heavy weapons, other military equipment and financing, and continues to allow militants to enter Ukraine freely.” The same day, NATO confirmed that 10,000 Russian troops had marshaled in border areas, ten times as many as a month ago.

All of this lead to the Obama administration on Wednesday evening to announce that it was upping the sanctions imposed on Russia. The fourth round levied since Russia first claimed control of the Crimean peninsula in March, these new sanctions stop just short of the sector-wide embargoes that the White House has previously threatened. They do, however, strike out at some of Russia’s largest energy and banking entities, including Gazprombank and Rosneft, the latter of which recently declared itself the largest oil-production company in the world. The new sanctions also targeted several prominent Russians and Ukrainian separatists. A senior administration official told reporters that “what we have seen time and again from Russia is a refusal to follow through on necessary commitments and conditions for de-escalation,” adding that the new sanctions were coordinated with European leaders.

While details about the exact nature of the crash remain murky, it appears that Ukraine has already made its mind up about the nature of the matter. “This is not an incident, not a disaster, and terrorist act,” Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said via his spokesman.

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STAFF WRITER

STEWART SKILLFULLY SHAMES THE GOP OVER YOUNG IMMIGRANTS

Last night Jon Stewart visited the situation with the 52,000 kids — most of them escaping poverty and violence in Central America — who have been picked up trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border since October. Stewart then addressed the Americans wondering why we can't just deport these children: "Well, first of all, what the fuck is wrong with you? These are children, why would you even ask that? And second of all, good question."

The answer, it seems, is that President George W. Bush signed a law in 2008 that prevented the immediate deportation of children not from Canada or Mexico. But Stewart wasn't done shaming those agitating for a quick send-off for a bunch of kids who didn't complete the complicated immigration paperwork. He saved special scorn for the protesters gathering near the detention facilities to confront busloads of scared children to "yell at them in a language they don't understand," and for Texas GOP Reps. Louie Gohmert and Blake Farenthold. He also mocked these Neanderthals who publicly promote America as the "greatest country ever" then wonder why would-be immigrants believe them.

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Nothing says conservative Merica like hate pouring out on innocent children! So much for lady Liberty's
“Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free”

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

TODD AKIN, A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID

TODD AKIN TODAY'S ASSHAT OF THE DAY

Dipshit Todd Akin has recently re-emerged in the public sphere to defend his claim in 2012 that women who were victims of “legitimate rape” could not get pregnant. In a phone interview with St. Louis Dispatch, the former congressman compared himself sympathetically to Sen. Joe McCarthy, who spearheaded an infamous Communist witch hunt in the 1950s. Akin argued that McCarthy was another victim “assassinated by the media.”

“I use McCarthy as an example of someone who was assassinated by the media, so he had no credibility,” Akin told the Dispatch, drawing parallels to his own experience with what he believes were “intentional and dishonest” misreading of his statement. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down,” Akin said in 2012 in response to a question about allowing abortions in the case of rape or incest.

McCarthy has become synonymous with anti-Communist hysteria after he led a series of hearings targeting government workers and artists considered to be left-leaning or suspected of homosexuality. Because of his crusade, hundreds were jailed under suspicion of Communist ties with no evidence. Many more lost their jobs.

Akin rescinds his apology for the offensive and inaccurate remarks in his new book, “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom,” insisting that the liberal media and certain conservatives ganged up on him to sink his campaign. Akin reiterated this belief to the Dispatch, saying, “It wasn’t that the Republican Party left me wounded on the battlefield. They came out on the battlefield and tried to dispatch me.”

The Republican establishment did try to publicly distance itself from Akin as his campaign floundered, though a sizable number of right-wing groups kept funding him. In an attempt to prevent another debacle this campaign cycle, the GOP has tried to train candidates to stop talking about rape and start being more conscious of female and non-white voters. Despite these efforts, the GOP’s 2014 candidates have already opined on what counts as legitimate rape and argued that marital rape should be legal.

Toddy, you are today's asshat of the day. Congrats numbnutz!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

FOR NOW, RUBIO SIDES WITH RUBIO

Sen. Marco Rubio has seized on the migrant crisis at the U.S. – Mexican border to dust off his advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform, bucking the Republican party and aligning himself with President Barack Obama.

“Let’s not just throw $3.7 billion at this problem to take care of it as a one-time issue,” the junior Florida senator told a local Florida Fox affiliate this week. “Let’s put in place permanent border security measures, more fencing, more agents, more technology, E-Verify, an entry-exit tracking system to prevent visa over-stays.”

All of those measures are part of a comprehensive immigration bill Rubio helped draft and voted for in the Senate in June of 2013, but eventually abandoned as the legislation proved increasingly unpopular among the party’s more conservative base.

“I think supporters of immigration reform need to be realistic. The House is just not going to jump on board for whatever the Senate passes,” he said in October of 2013. Later that month, Rubio agreed with critics that Obama will simply refuse to enforce the bill’s border security provisions and discouraged House Republicans from taking it up.

But now, while most Republicans are using the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the border as another reason to delay reform, Rubio appears to have had another change of heart.

“I think this crisis we’re facing should be a catalyst [for comprehensive reform],” he said during an interview Wednesday on The Ed Morrissey Show. Rubio described reform as a three-stage process that starts with border security, the establishment of a merit-based legal immigration system and concludes with a prolonged legalization process for the 11 million undocumented residents. As Rubio explains on his website, the immigration bill he voted for in the senate includes “triggers” that reflect a very similar sequence.

Ironically, Rubio’s decision to re-embrace reform puts him at odds with Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan — who told a local Wisconsin radio station on Friday, “right now, the reason we’re not going to do more broader immigration reform is because an absolute collapse of confidence that the president is willing to enforce the laws” — but mirrors Obama.

Last month, the president argued that the lack of comprehensive reform “meant fewer resources to strengthen our borders” and undermined the nation’s economy and security. “We now have an actual humanitarian crisis on the border that only underscores the need to drop the politics and fix our immigration system once and for all,” he said, chiding Republicans who “are using the situation with unaccompanied children as their newest excuse to do nothing.”

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STAFF WRITER

TIANNA GAINES-TURNER SCHOOLS THE TEA BAGGERS

On Thursday, Rep. Paul Ryan held his fifth hearing on the War on Poverty, and for the first time he allowed a person actually living in poverty to testify. Tianna Gaines-Turner shared her personal experiences struggling to make ends meet and provide food for her three children who suffer from medical conditions along with her husband. She works as a seasonal employee with children for $10.88 an hour, while her husband works at a grocery store for $8.50.

But when Rep. Todd Rokita got the chance to ask questions of Gaines-Turner and the two other witnesses, he directed much of his attention toward calling into question whether she is dependent on government programs, whether she has tried to find more work, and if she is partisan. He gave a “theoretical example” in which the government would increase spending on government programs like food stamps and welfare by 500 percent and asked, “They [people on the programs] would be out of poverty and that would be a good thing?” to which Gaines-Turner responded, “Yes, the programs work, yes it would be good to move them out of poverty.”

He followed up saying, “But the cycle of dependency would certainly still be there which you also don’t like… The cycle of dependency, you wouldn't be independent.”

“I’m independent now on the program,” Gaines-Turner told him. “You’re independent on this?” Rokita asked. 

“Yes, I consider myself to be very independent. I work just as hard as anybody in this room,” Gaines-Turner replied. “I’m very independent.” 

“You’re independent, but you’re here testifying that you have to have these programs, you need these programs,” Rokita responded.

Later in his questioning, Rokita interrupted Gaines-Turner to ask her about her job. When she said that she works for six months of the year at a recreational center for children, Rokita asked, “And is that by choice so you can spend more time with your kids the other six months or have you tried to get other employment or not?” But Gainer-Turner has tried to find work. And had no success. “I’ve tried to find a lot of employment but due to health issues and things like that I haven’t been able to find adequate jobs,” she responded. As she previously said, “No one wakes up in the morning and says I think I want to be in poverty today.”

He also questioned her on whether she is “partisan” because she serves as a ward leader in Philadelphia, helping people to vote, and is a Democrat.

Rokita’s questioning seemed to imply that Gaines-Turner could make more money and escape her “dependence” if she worked harder. But for many of those living in poverty, that’s just not the case. The majority of adult, able-bodied, non-elderly poor people work. But in this economy, finding extra work, or any work at all, can be nearly impossible. In May, the most recent month for which there is data, there were more than two times as many job seekers as job openings. And unemployment rates are even higher for those with less education, who also tend to have lower incomes.

Gaines-Turner is also right that the programs that her family and millions of others turn to work. Safety net programs such as food stamps, welfare, housing assistance, Social Security, and others keep millions out of poverty each year. And it’s hard to claim that the impoverished are dependent on government programs when those who receive benefits are far more frugal than those who don’t, spending more of their budgets on the necessities and less on things like eating out or entertainment.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ZOMBIE LIES

Bill Maher asks why the liars club, [NECONS about Obamacare] why they have not been held accountable for their bullshit.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

IF WE CAN'T REPEAL IT, WE'LL SUE BECAUSE OF IT

TAN DARK DRUNK MAN SET TO SUE OBAMA

House Republicans intend to sue the Obama administration for unilaterally delaying the employer responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act, Politico reported on Thursday, in effect trying to speed up the implementation of the health care law.

The lawsuit will come after the administration twice delayed the provision — which requires employers with more than 50 employees to pay a fine if they don’t offer affordable quality coverage — citing complaints from firms that claimed they wouldn't be ready to meet its requirement by 2014.

But Republicans did not immediately question the legality of the postponement. Instead, the GOP called on Obama to also delay the individual mandate and vowed to take another vote on the matter.

“Is it fair for the president of the United States to give American businesses an exemption from his health care law’s mandate without giving the same exemption to the rest of America? Hell no, it’s not fair,” Boehner told House Republicans. “We should be thinking about giving the rest of America the same exemption that Obama last week gave businesses.”

House Republicans soon pressed the administration to release its internal communication on the matter and Boehner, in a letter to Obama, even admitted that the employer mandate “cannot be implemented within the current time frame.” The party has referred to the provision as a “jobs killer” and has sought its repeal.

Obama officials initially delayed the provision until 2015 in July of 2103, and announced in February of this year that companies with 50 to 99 employees will have until 2016 to extend insurance to their employees, while larger businesses with 100 or more workers can avoid paying a fine if they offer health care to at least 70 percent of their workers next year, and cover 95 percent of their workers in 2016.

The administration claimed that it was relying on the Treasury Department’s “transition relief” authority, which allows the government to grant relief by section 7805(ca) of the Internal Revenue Code. “The authority has been used to postpone the application of new legislation on a number of prior occasions across Administrations,” Mark J. Mazur, the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, wrote in a letter to Rep. Fred Upton and pointed to occasions when the Bush administration cited the authority to delay implementation of laws.

Ninety-six percent of large businesses already provide health care coverage and the law’s employer mandate would only affect an estimated 10,000 businesses or one percent of the U.S. workforce. Ninety-six percent of businesses employer fewer than 50 employees and were not impacted by the delay.

However, even if Boehner wins his legal challenge, which Republicans plan to vote on before leaving for August recess, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would reach a final decision on his case until June 2016, months after the employer mandate is supposed to go into effect anyway.

“It is disappointing that Speaker Boehner and Congressional Republicans have decided to waste time and taxpayer dollars on a political stunt,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “At a time when Washington should be working to expand economic opportunities for the middle class, Republican leaders in Congress are playing Washington politics rather than working with the President on behalf of hardworking Americans.”

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

EVEN MORE FACTS THE BULLSHIT MOUNTAIN [FOX NEWS] STRUGGLES WITH THE TRUTH

For liberals, it’s not exactly “breaking news” to find out that Fox News is mostly comprised of misinformation or flat-out lies. Anyone with even a shred of common sense can watch just a handful of their featured shows and see that the entire channel is nothing more than a propaganda mechanism for the Republican party.

Punditfact, a branch of Politifact, has put together profiles for CNN, MSNBC and Fox News detailing just how honest each of these networks are. And while it’s obviously not a completely comprehensive profile (it would be nearly impossible to fact check every single thing said on each network) it’s a decent measure of the honesty of each.

And what do you know, Pundifact found Fox News to have only told the truth 18 percent (15 of 83) of the time for the statements they checked. And even of that 18 percent, only 8 percent of what they said was completely “True.” The other 10 percent was rated as “Mostly True.”

A staggering 60 percent (50 of 83) comments were found to be either “Mostly False,” “False,” or “Pants on Fire.” The other 22 percent were rated “Half True.”

Essentially well over half of what Punditfact has fact-checked on Fox News has been a lie and only 18 percent has been deemed factual.

Although, I am quite positive that any conservative who reads this article, or the Punditfact profiles, would simply dismiss the results as “liberally biased lies.”

You know, because anything that’s not approved by Fox News or some other radical right-wing media source is clearly “liberally biased propaganda.”

Which is really a fantastic piece of priceless rhetoric.  Fox News, and other extreme right-wing media sources, can lie as much as they want. Then if any other source debunks the nonsense they’re spewing, the conservative media simply dismisses it as “lies perpetuated by the liberal media.”

It’s how conservative conspiracy theorists manipulate their sheeple. They perpetuate some kind of asinine conspiracy, then when it’s completely debunked, they claim the information debunking it is “all a part of the conspiracy.”

And that’s exactly what the right-wing media does.

Which is why tens of millions of conservatives believe that Fox News is a “fair and balanced” beacon of truth, despite the fact that Punditfact found only 18 percent of their comments to be factual among a fairly large sampling of 83 relatively important statements made on the network.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ONLY IN VIRGINIA

A 17 year-old Virginia teenager who is under investigation for sending a consensual sext to his 15-year-old girlfriend may be forced to have an erection in front of police as evidence in the case.

The boy, who the Washington Post will not identify for privacy reasons, is being charged with two felonies — one for possession of child pornography (sexts from his girlfriend) and one for manufacturing child pornography (taking video of himself). He faces time in prison, as well as permanent placement on the sex offender registry.

Police have already taken photos of the boy’s genitals as a part of their investigation, his lawyer told the Post. But they want to bring the teen to the hospital and inject him with something that will force an erection, to compare his erect penis to that in the video found on his phone.

University of Pennsylvania law professor David Rudovsky, who specializes in invasions of privacy by police, doubts that there is legal standing for police to pursue such measures.

“In my view, it’s not [a legal search] for this reason: Normally the police can get a warrant to conduct a search if they have probable cause that it will find evidence they can use in criminal trial,” Rudovsky said. “What the courts have said in a number of situations is that even if there’s some cause to believe that the procedure might lead them to evidence, where it involves a serious intrusion of personal dignity and privacy, you have to balance that with the nature of the intrusion.”

Rudovsky cited specifically a case, Winston v. Lee, in which police sought to extract a bullet from a man’s body to use it as evidence that he had been involved in criminal activity. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that such an invasion was unreasonable, citing the fourth amendment’s guidance on search and seizures.

“It seems to me that this case is similar to that one,” Rudovsky said. Taking pictures of a boy’s erection is “too invasive in terms of his personal dignity… therefore the police need to have good reason, it needs to be a serious case and they need to have need for this evidence. I don’t think they have either.”

He also pointed to several other problematic factors in the case: “If they’re complaining about the child pornography, that’s what they’re incidentally creating. And they’ll want to use it in court,” he said. “Why they’re going after this guy to felony charges also seems like a misapplication of discretion of resources.”

Upon request for comment, the Manassas City police department referred reporters to the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, citing the fact that the boy is a juvenile. The Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

As technology advances and teens find new ways to express their sexuality, legislators and law enforcement are grappling with how to deal with sexting. At least 20 states have criminalized sexually explicit messages between teens. There is a perception that sexting has dangerous implications for young people. There are actual risks when it is used for cyber bullying, but teens actually overall report positive experiences sexting, and there is no indication that it leads to more “deviant” behavior. Meanwhile, the amount of manipulative sexting is on the decline.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

THE BILL OF RIGHTS EXPLAINED - SO EVEN THE CONSERVATIVE CAN UNDERSTAND

Not too long ago I wrote a piece where I expressed an opinion that if conservatives had their way, they’d repeal and rewrite our First Amendment.

Why wouldn't they? The First Amendment is what keeps them from turning the United States into the theocracy that they so desperately want it to be

And an argument I hear from many conservatives is that the First Amendment isn’t about freedom of religion, because it doesn't say that. Which is true. It doesn't say “freedom of religion” in the First Amendment.

But let’s take a look at what it does say:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

Though many conservatives seem to believe that the Tenth Amendment (states’ rights) gives them the right to run each Republican controlled state like a theocracy.

Just one slight problem:

The states’ rights argument still doesn't give a state the right to violate any American’s Constitutional rights.

States’ rights allow states like Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, even though it’s still illegal federally, because those laws don’t violate anyone’s Constitutional rights.

It’s why laws banning gay marriage are being overturned. Those laws do violate the Constitutional rights of Americans. So while the First Amendment doesn't literally say “freedom of religion,” it’s impossible for Americans to be free from established religious rule (as per our First Amendment) if states are allowed to pass laws based on religion.

As for the “free exercise thereof,” that clearly pertains to what Americans do in their private lives. Because how can someone forcibly exercise their religious views on someone who doesn't share those beliefs, while still allowing the individual on which they’re trying to force their views to enjoy their freedom of (or from) religion?

It’s simple, they can’t. By forcing someone to adhere to laws based on a religion they do not follow, they immediately violate that person’s First Amendment rights. Even if a state passes such a law. Which is why it’s unconstitutional (though states continue to do it anyway) for states to pass laws which violate an American’s Constitutional rights.

This is really not that complicated. Just follow one simple rule: If even one person who doesn't subscribe to your religion is

Cross Posted from Forward Progressives written by Allen Clifton.

Well written young man, well written!

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SCHOOLING RICK PERRY

Martha Raddatz, host of ABC’s This Week, grilled Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) Sunday about the growing number of unaccompanied children coming to the United States from Latin America from Central America seeking asylum. When Perry insisted the issue is solely one of border security, Raddatz quickly debunked his talking points.

Perry blamed the influx of children on President Obama, complaining that there are not enough border patrol agents along the border between Texas and Mexico (despite agents monitoring every mile of the border every day). Raddatz pushed back, noting that the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires that those seeking refugee status from Central American countries receive due process:





Despite Perry’s suggestion, President Obama did not create the migrant children influx. The current process of dealing with unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico was set by the Bush administration, according to Dara Lind at Vox. Under the law, the Border Patrol agency is required to take in these children, screen and vaccinate them, then turn them over to the Department of Health of Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

As Raddatz noted, the Customs and Border Protection Agency launched an ad campaign last week aimed at discouraging child refugees from coming to the United States and has stepped up efforts to deport those who do. He also requested last week that Congress make changes to the law to expedite deportation decisions.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

MEET HOLLY FISHER, A FEMALE AMERICAN TALIBAN-ER

HOLLY FISHER, TODAY'S WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

Above is Holly Fisher, conservative blogger and activist. You can find her at: http://hashtagholly.blogspot.com/.

Holly is not your A-typical "Murica Patriot". Here we have a right wing nut job, who has never served her country in any shape or form - this right-wing nut is one of our "special" countrymen, who bleed extremism and mix religion - and we get what Murica calls church today, "organized religion", better known as "The American Taliban."

The difference between this numb nutz and a real terrorist is? [Jared Page Photo] 

Yes, according to Holly, like most religious zealots, an assault rifle and bible go hand-in-hand.

This is what happens when low IQ and fear clash.

Having served my country for 32 years now, this type of patriot disgusts me to no end. I do expect white pasty men with low IQ's, no teeth, an using rope for belts to upstage the country in this fashion, but when the Holly's of the world step up to take the reign of phucktoidism, I sit and SMH.

I am sure the humans that pro-created this dipshit must be proud.

How does it go? "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."?

HOLLY FISHER'S VERSION OF CHRIST

Congrats Holly Fisher, you are today's asshole, asshat and worlds worst person for the day. Wear your awards proudly!





NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

WEAPONS AND JESUS

GOT YOU SOME WEAPONS AND JESUS?

Colorado allows guns everywhere - and an eatery called Shooters Grill is arming their waitresses and welcoming all gun owners to bring them along. What's confounding is - is just how much Jesus plays an important role to them in all of this.




NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

From the archives of NFTOS:

WE'VE BEEN TEA BAGGED

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

HANDING OUT CONDOMS AT HOBBY LOBBY?

A group of clergy handed out condoms to customers in front of an Illinois Hobby Lobby store on Wednesday, staging a creative, faith-based protest against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant the craft store giant religious exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

The action, which was reportedly initiated by a local United Church of Christ (UCC) minister in Aurora, Illinois, included representatives from the UCC, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and Planned Parenthood. Hobby Lobby’s health care plan covers male condoms and various other forms of contraception — and its case to the Supreme Court had to do with other kinds of measures to prevent pregnancy — but the religious leaders said the protest was ultimately about exposing the multiplicity of religious beliefs around contraception.

“I’m just hoping that (people who see the demonstration) realize that this opinion (of Hobby Lobby’s owners) is not the opinion of religious people as a broad spectrum, but that religious people have many different opinions,” Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher, a UUA minister who was at the protest, told the Daily Herald.

Religious leaders also said they hoped the move would draw attention to the danger of allowing employers to privilege their own religious beliefs over those of their employees.

“You can make the religious freedom argument, you can make the argument about contraception, but ultimately, for me, this is about power,” said Rev. Mark Winters, a UCC minister. “Jesus had a lot of issue with powerful people using power over the powerless.”

The action in Aurora is part of a growing number of religious Americans who are publicly expressing their frustration with the Supreme Court’s decision. Several faith leaders have spoken out against Hobby Lobby’s position even before the decision was announced, and Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, was quick to blast the ruling, saying, “I am horrified by the thought that the owners of Hobby Lobby as Christians think their corporation has a soul, and I’m even more appalled that the Supreme Court agrees.”

Just hours after the court issued its ruling on Monday, a Baptist minister held a prayer vigil outside Hobby Lobby’s flagship store in Edmond, Oklahoma, to decry the decision. According to a statement released by Faithful America, a progressive Christian group that helped organize the vigil, the crowd of religious faithful gathered to pray for “Hobby Lobby employees who will now have difficulty accessing health care they need to responsibly plan for their families’ futures.”

“There are many of us Baptists, as well as other Christians, who believe that religious liberty rights are something inviolable for individuals and not for corporations,” Dr. Bruce Powell, the leader of the protest, told News Channel 4 in Oklahoma City. “The right of religious liberty is a fundamental human right. Corporations are legal constructs. They are not human beings.”

NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

THE REALITY OF THE HOBBY LOBBY FIASCO

THE REALITY OF THE HOBBY LOBBY DECISION

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum; Hobby Lobby owner David Green and his "Christian" based company supplied their female employees every contraceptive available, [which included the now banned ones] in their health plan - that is until Obamacare was passed. Then all of the sudden their "Christian Faith" and "Moral Compass" hit them, and then...........

........The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Store, Inc. was stunning both in its sexist nature and in ignoring long-standing precedent preventing corporations from imposing their religious beliefs and values on employees.

On one side of the decision were the court's five conservative justices - all men appointed by Republican presidents - saying it was OK for Hobby Lobby and another company, Conestoga Wood Specialties, to ignore the federal health law requirement that the insurance policies they provide include free contraception coverage for women. Whether women take advantage of the coverage is, of course, up to them and their doctors.

On the other side of the 5-4 ruling were the three women on the court, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer - collectively representing the liberal wing - who decry in their dissenting opinion the majority's ruling that the religious positions of a few corporate leaders trump the personal freedoms of their female employees.

The two corporations challenged the contraception mandate on the grounds it includes methods that the corporate leaders consider tantamount to abortion because they can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb. Forcing them to include the methods in coverage would make them complicit in the practice, they argued.

The court's decision hinges on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1994 that prevents the government from "taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest."

In other words, it is a bad and unclear decision based on a bad and unclear law.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., seemingly recognizing the thin constitutional ice on which he was treading, sought to narrow the scope of the decision.

"The companies in the cases before us are closely held corporations, each owned and controlled by members of a single family," Justice Alito writes, arguing that the ruling should only be viewed in that narrow context.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg looks through that transparent curtain.

"Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private," she writes.

Given the majority's expansive interpretation of the RFRA, why couldn't a Catholic corporate ownership deny any form of birth control coverage based on the church's teaching? Some religious sects oppose vaccines and transfusions, others medications derived from certain animals. Could owners with these beliefs refuse to provide insurance coverage for such treatments, Justice Ginsburg asks.

For that matter, she continues, the conservative majority's reasoning could extend outside of health policy, throwing out laws that prevent corporations from using their own religious standards to discriminate against unmarried people living together, or homosexuals, or those in inter-religious or inter-racial marriages.

Best case, the decision is so narrow that it is only OK for a closely held corporation to impose its beliefs on employees when the topic is the reproductive rights of women. Either way -broad or narrow - the ruling is a terrible one.

In 1982, the high court ruled on the case of an Amish farmer who believed that withholding Social Security taxes from his employees or paying the employer's share of such taxes would violate his faith. The court said he could not use a religious rights' argument to deny his workers participation in Social Security.

"When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed … on others in that activity." An employer, that court found, cannot "impose (its) religious faith on the employees."

That is what Hobby Lobby is doing to its female employees. Maybe just maybe this court should have followed its own precedent.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"WOMENS USE OF BIRTH CONTROL IS LARGELY FOR RECREATIONAL BEHAVIOR"

Sen. Mike Lee (Tea Bagger) agreed on Monday that women use birth control to protect themselves from “recreational behavior,” just hours after the Supreme Court ruled that some companies can refuse to provide health insurance coverage that includes contraceptive services.

During an appearance on Sirius XM’s The Wilkow Majority, host Andrew Wilkow argued that the real question in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., was about “whether or not a person who runs a business should be forced to provide something that is largely for recreational behavior, if it goes against their religious beliefs.”

Lee, responded by saying “Yea, that’s right, that’s right,” before claiming that “this administration is using the often coercive power of the federal government to force people into their way of being and their way of existing, their way of believing and thinking and acting.”

However, the overwhelming of women report using contraception for economic and medical reasons. Sixty-two million women in the U.S. are currently in their childbearing years and most — 99 percent — use birth control to prevent pregnancies, the National Women’s Law Center finds. Nearly 60 percent have relied on contraception for medical reasons like reducing cramps or menstrual pain, ensuring menstrual regulation, treating acne, and treating endometriosis. And according to a recent study from the Guttmacher Institute, 63 percent of women who use birth control say that they rely on contraception to take better care of themselves and their families.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West