COULD ORANGE HITLER PASS A SANITY TEST?

OLBERMANN ASK'S, CAN TRUMPENSTEIN PASS A SANITY TEST?

Keith Olbermann attempted to understand Republican presidential nominee Orange Hitler aka [Donald Trump] this week through the lens of clinical psychology and determined that the candidate could not pass one of the most widely used “sanity” assessments used to predict criminal and antisocial behavior.

In a column for Vanity Fair that was published on Thursday, Olbermann noted that Trump had repeatedly questioned the sanity of his rivals, including Glenn Beck, Ben Carson, Barack Obama, Ted Cruz and Megyn Kelly.

VIDEO COURTESY OF VANITY FAIR



To evaluate Trump, Olbermann chose a test developed by Canadian criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare. “The Hare Psychopathy Checklist,” Olbermann explained, “serves as a kind of triage device to separate the injured from the tripping from the psychopathic.”

The test awards points for 20 different personality traits. With a maximum score of 40, the test sets the threshold for clinical psychopathy at 30 points.

The Hare checklist considers traits like grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, shallow affect, lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, promiscuous sexual behavior, early behavior problems, irresponsibility and failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions.

And out of 40 possible points, Trump scored 32 — putting him over the 30 point threshold for a diagnosis of clinical psychopathy.

“The implications are clear,” Olbermann wrote. “Our Trumperor’s New Clothes media rightly sees the latest Trump ‘event’—whatever it is this time—as one of the most unbelievable developments in American political history. But the simple mechanics of following, reporting, and writing the proverbial ‘new high in low’ every single day means that they could be missing one overriding truth about the health of the most remarkable presidential candidate since at least 1864.”

“In short, our amateurs’ exercise with the very professional Hare Psychopathy Checklist suggests that if you were betting on it, you’d probably want to bet that Donald Trump couldn’t pass a sanity test—open book,” Olbermann concluded.

We miss Oblermann’s political daily input, and I for one certainly wish we could get him back on the airwaves - as there is not a better slayer of the green slimy two toed sloth [GOP] than Olbermann!

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Roger West

CLOWNSTICK NUTTERS COME UNGLUED AS CRUZ FAILS TO ENDORSE DON THE CON

In a highly-anticipated speech to the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz congratulated Donald Trump for securing the GOP nomination for president, but stopped short of endorsing him.

As his speech drew to a close, the thousands of delegates who had sat in respectful silence and cheered for Cruz minutes earlier began booing, screaming, giving thumbs down, and chanting “endorse Trump” and “say his name.” Cruz jokingly acknowledged the angry noises coming from the front-row New York delegation, but never offered the Trump endorsement they sought.

South Carolina delegate Cindy Costa maintained a tense smile on her face as her husband leaped onto his chair and screamed at Cruz.

VIDEO COURTESY OF PBS

“We were hoping [Cruz] would do the right thing, but he didn’t. That’s his bad,” she told ThinkProgress. “At the very first debate, when he was asked if he’d support the nominee, he said he would. This shows he is not true to his word. He’s not a truth-teller.”

As he made the rounds at the RNC this week, Cruz indicated he’s open to another presidential runi n 2020. But Costa predicted the non-endorsement of Trump during a time of uncertainty for the Republican Party will “absolutely” hurt Cruz’s political future.

“He had a grand opportunity to help us coalesce, and he didn’t take it,” she lamented.

Yet other delegates said they were proud of Cruz for refusing to back Trump.

Texas delegate Nicholas Allman, a leader of the state’s College Republicans, said that the decision was “perhaps a rejection of demagoguery as a campaign tactic and an endorsement of values and rules and classical liberal ideology.”

Allman, who hovered on the edge of the convention floor wearing the cowboy hat required of all Texas delegates, said while he voted for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in the Republican primary, Cruz had impressed him by withholding his endorsement.

“That took some serious serious guts,” he said. “A huge percentage of the crowd was booing. And if Donald Trump does become president, he’s going to be a powerful man, and he’s not going to forgive Cruz for doing this to him.”

As Allman and other delegates observed, Cruz’s speech itself had a decidedly un-Trumpian flavor. He called on delegates to “cast aside anger for love” and “vote your conscience.”

As the crowd railed against Cruz, some also directed their anger at his wife Heidi.

And while many of the delegates vented their anger spontaneously, Time reported that the Trump campaign also had a hand in whipping up the crowd’s reaction.

Things got ugly between Trump and Cruz in the final months of the Republican primary, and Wednesday night suggests the two have not yet reconciled. At the nadir of their feud, Trump retweeted a meme suggesting that Cruz’s wife Heidi is unattractive. He later suggested Cruz’s dad might’ve been responsible for assassinating JFK. But through it all, Cruz vowed to abide by a promise he and all the other non-Trump candidates made in the summer of 2015 to support whomever ended up winning the Republican nomination.


[Cross-Posted from thinkprogress]

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UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO THEM

MAHER: "CLOWNSTICK'S FATHER A ORANGUTAN FROM BORNEO WHO SPOKE NO ENGLISH"

Bill Maher says republicans only care about an issue - only when it happens to them.

Take a look:

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO - THE EMPATHY GAP


Funny how that is isn't it readers?



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Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

HEY BEN, IF YOU'RE SO SMART....

Ben Carson is not a fan of the uneducated.

At his town hall meeting in Iowa City on Friday, the Republican presidential candidate insulted people with low IQs and lamented that they were allowed to vote. He said it was “disturbing” that many people are unable to pass the written test to get into the military. He urged the audience to “read up” on the history of Islam, and said progressives are “dumbing down our society” with calls for political correctness.

All of this intrigued Daniel Schnall, 29, a graduate student at the University of Iowa and registered independent. Schnall asked Carson: If you’re so passionate about being educated, then why don’t you accept the science of human-caused climate change?

Can you explain… why you’re not willing to listen to the experts?

“You’ve spoken a lot about using common sense and using your brain, and I really appreciate that,” Schnall said. “And in some of the questions in the debates, you responded that you really seek the input of experts.”

He continued: “The experts in the scientific community overwhelmingly agree that climate change is a problem. Can you explain that discrepancy, and why you’re not willing to listen to the experts?”

For the entirety of his presidential campaign, Carson has been unwilling to say he accepts the mainstream scientific opinion that carbon emissions from human activity cause climate change, and that climate change will have catastrophic effects if left unchecked. “There’s always going to be either cooling or warming going on,” Carson has said, implying that humans have nothing to do with how hot the Earth is becoming.

On Friday, he responded to Schnall’s question by saying that the climate science is “politicized.”

“I don’t subscribe to the politicization of the environment, because that’s what leads to things like the Clean Power Plan,” Carson said, referring to Obama’s regulations to limit carbon emissions from coal power plants. “The EPA has said that if we implement every aspect of the Clean Power Plan, it will lower the temperature of the Earth by 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit… that’s the benefit. The cost is billions of dollars and millions of jobs. That doesn’t make any sense, because that is ideologically driven.”

There’s a lot to unpack about Carson’s comments on the Clean Power Plan. For one, he said that regulations would be useless because they would only make a small dent in global temperatures. But that’s scientifically misleading — no one regulation in any one country can be significant enough to make a big dent in global temperatures. However, considering the United States is currently the world’s second-largest carbon emitter and by far its largest historically, the idea is that the U.S. must act first to motivate other countries to do the same.

If he’s going to stand up there and say we need to listen to the experts, and we need to use our brains — 97 percent of the scientific community agrees on this one.

And his claim that putting carbon regulations on the already-dying coal industry would cost “billions of dollars and millions of jobs” is also dubious — according to multiple studies, the regulations would actually create jobs in renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors, since both will have to be increased to meet the regulations’ requirements.

But the most notable portion of Carson’s response was what he didn't say — and that’s anything about the actual science of human-caused climate change. Carson said the EPA had become politicized and that the Clean Power Plan wouldn't work, but he didn't say anything surrounding the actual question, which was why, scientifically, he doesn't accept that climate change is a problem.

Schnall recognized this, saying that he was “not really” happy with the candidate’s answer. Schnall said that while he’s “not the biggest climate change advocate,” he asked the question because he was frustrated with the polarization of climate change in politics. And for Carson in particular, he just didn't understand how someone could preach the importance of education while denying mainstream science.

“If he’s going to stand up there and say we need to listen to the experts, and we need to use our brains — 97 percent of the scientific community agrees on this one,” he said. “It’s not just politicizing the issue. It’s a little more than that.”

[Cross-Posted from thinkprogress]







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STAFF WRITER

SNL's RUTHLESS MOCKING OF THE LATEST GOP DEBATE

NUTTER CLUB 2016

None of the nine escape mockery.

Right after the last Democratic presidential debate of 2015, SNL looked back at the last GOP debate with all nine candidates represented — but with ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former-HP CEO Carly Fiorina on the receiving end of the most brutal mockery.

Taron Killiam’s Ted Cruz was suitably smarmy, admitting that everybody –Democrats and Republicans alike — hates him because he has a “punchable face.”


Darrell Hammond’s Donald Trump was very Trump-esque, continually insulting Beck Bennett’s jittery and frantic Jeb Bush.

After a sniveling Bush complains that Trump is a bully trying to “insult his way into the White House,” Trump returns fire.

“Oh realy, jughead?’ Trump replies. “Cuz I’m at 43 and you’re at three — Jeb, you’re a nice guy, but you’re a lightweight, and I know for a fact that you pee sitting down.”

Cast member Cecily Strong turned in a brutal takedown of Fiorina, as she explained that she knows Russian strongman Valimir Putin because she once sold him an HP printer.

“I know Valdimir Putin personally,” she claimed. “I sold him an HP printer and now he hates my guts. It doesn’t work, it never worked. And when Putin calls me to complain, I just smile that classic Carly Fiorina smile,” she continued while grimacing painfully.

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Roger West

FIORINA SPEWS MORE BULL SHIT ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Female conservative lunatic and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina doubled down on her assertion that Planned Parenthood was harvesting fetal parts for profit, while at the same time stating that linking the shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood to anti-choice activists was “typical left-wing tactics.”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the deposed HP CEO stated that, since Planned Parenthood was no longer going to transfer fetal part to medical researchers, it was a tacit admission of guilt.

Fiorina has been under fire for claiming she saw “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,” in the highly edited videos created by anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. Fact checkers have repeatedly said no such video exists. This, however, has not deterred Fiorina from repeating it.

Speaking with Wallace, Fiorina blasted critics of her over the top rhetoric when it comes to abortion, saying, “It is so typical of the left to begin demonizing the messenger because they don’t agree with your message.”

“The vast majority of Americans agree. What Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong,” Fiorina asserted. “And that is why the vast majority of Americans are prepared, not only to defund Planned Parenthood, but also to stop abortion for any reason at all after five months.”

“So, what I would say to anyone who tries to link this terrible tragedy to anyone who opposes abortion, or opposes the sale of body parts, is this is typical left-wing tactics.”

Fiorina did not address comments made by the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, who reportedly told police investigators “no more baby parts” after he was apprehended for killing three — including a police officer — as he shot up the health clinic.

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MEGYN KELLY CLAIMS “GOOD JOURNALISM” SAYS SHE WON’T STOP

Bullshit Mountain host Megyn Kelly did not directly address the personal attacks against her by Donald Trump on Monday, but did not back down from pressing the Republican presidential candidate over his history of sexist remarks.

“Trump, the front-runner, will not apologize. And I certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism,” she said. “So I’ll continue doing my job without fear or favor. And Mr. Trump, I expect, will continue with what has been a successful campaign thus far.”

The former reality TV star accused Kelly of having “blood coming out of her wherever” for bringing the issue up at last week’s candidate debate.

He was subsequently disinvited from an event hosted by the conservative site RedState.com, and later demanded an apology from Kelly. Kelly noted the attacks during a short commentary on her show, saying she declined to respond.

“I felt he was asked a tough but fair question. We agreed to disagree,” she said, later adding, “This is a tough business, and it’s time now to move forward.”

CNN reported that Trump and the network’s CEO, had what was described as a “blunt but cordial” conversation on Monday morning.

“We discussed our concerns, and I again expressed my confidence in Megyn Kelly,” Ailes said in a statement. “She is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent.”

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STAFF WRITER

NO HE DIDN'T

Yes he did......

Unfiltered numbnuts Donald Trump, who leads the polls for the Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin, received a series of tough questions during the Fox News debate on Thursday. Notably, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly confronted Trump about his history of insults about women. Over the years, Trump has referred to women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” Kelly noted.

Appearing on CNN Friday night, Trump suggested that Kelly asked him “ridiculous questions” because she was on her period. Specifically, Trump said she had “blood coming out of her whatever.”




On Thursday night Trump dismissed concerns that he was a misogynist, saying he didn’t “have time for total political correctness.” “What I say is fun, it’s kidding, we have a good time,” Trump added.





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Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

MEGYN KELLY CORNERS TRUMP ON WOMEN BASHING

Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators during Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate, challenged Donald Trump over his long history of sexist comments towards women. During the first few minutes of the first prime time debate, Kelly pressed Trump on his description of women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”

Trump responded by saying that he only reserved such language for Rosie O’Donnell and went on to defend his language. The business mogul argued that the country is overrun by political correctness and that he is the only presidential candidate who truly speaks his mind.





Vox has a full rundown of Trump’s insults against women, including more details about his long-running feud with O’Donnell.

“We lose to Mexico”, yet Trumps clothing line is in Mexico. Priceless asshat!

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

VIRGINIA’S OWN KEN CUCCINELLI – STILL AN IDIOT

TEA-BAGGER CUCCINELLI STILL LIVING IN A CAVE

Former Virginia Tea bagger andAttorney General Ken Cuccinelli argued on Sunday that many Americans objected to the “Black Lives Matter” movement because it suggested that the lives of black people mattered more than whites and other races.

CNN political contributor Bakari Sellers explained during a panel discussion that the “Black Live Matter” movement had become a hot topic in the Democratic presidential primary because the lives of so many black people had ended during confrontations with police officers.

“You have African-Americans who literally do not get the benefit of their humanity,” he pointed out. “And that’s a problem. You know, in my next interaction — I’m the only person at this table whose next interaction [with law enforcement] may cause them to be a hashtag.”

“And that’s something that we feel, that’s a very deep pain,” Sellers said.

Cuccinelli argued that it was important to add the word “too” to the end of the “Black Lives Matter” slogan.

“Adding t-o-o at the end puts it in a context that makes sense,” the former Virginia attorney general insisted.

“But it’s implicit though,” Sellers noted.

“Well, you may say that,” Cuccinelli replied. “And there’s plenty of reason to understand that. But I don’t think every American hears it that way. They hear, ‘Here we are, yes we have this political motivation that we’re separating out this one category of Americans and saying they matter more than everybody else.’ That’s actually what a lot of people see.”

“We’re saying stop killing us,” Sellers remarked. “We’re saying, my life matters.” 

“I understand that, but that’s why you have the retort,” Cuccinelli opined. 

“No, all lives matter. We’re not leaving these out.”

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

AND HERE IS WHY THE FLAG MUST GO

RIGHT WING TEABAGGER LEE BRIGHT

Before he could address his belief that the Confederate flag should remain flying on the South Carolina State Capitol property, ultra-radical teabagger state Sen. Lee Bright decided to show the legislature the extent of his bigoted beliefs. In an almost three minute rant, he stood before the legislature and ranted against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage across the country and called out the White House for shining the “abomination colors” the night of the Court’s decision.

“Like President Reagan said, if we’re not one nation under God, we’ll be one nation gone under,” the lawmaker from Spartanburg, SC said early in Monday’s state Senate session. “And to sanctify deviant behavior from five judges… It’s time to make our stand and we’re not doing it. We can rally together and talk about a flag all we want, but the devil is taking control of this land and we’re not stopping him.”

He added that “we cannot succumb to what’s being done to the future of this nation” and that the state legislature should take a stand against “sin in the state of South Carolina.”





Bright has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Confederate flag in the state Senate. He proposed an amendment to allow voters to decide the fate of the flag which died during debate with a vote of 36-3. He also posted a “Keep the Confederate Flag” petition on his website offering other flag supports the chance to explain why it should stay flying.

“Let’s stand together and preserve a piece of our history that symbolizes states’ rights,” his petition said.

Bright ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham, now a presidential contender, in the 2014 election. He has championed a number of extreme conservative views, including believing that the state should allow high schools to teach students to shoot guns and that anyone enforcing Obamacare should get a year in jail. He also also repeatedly sought to ban public funding for abortion for victims of rape and incest and funding for rape crisis centers.

Congratulations Lee Bright, you are today's asshat of the day, enjoy the recognition numbnutz! 

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

MEXICANS MORE DANGEROUS THAN SHARKS?

Conservative asshat Ann Coulter over weekend compared shark attacks to Mexican immigrants, who she concluded were much more dangerous.

During an interview on Fox News, Coulter argued that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial assertion that immigrants were rapists had been vindicated because a because the suspect in a recent San Francisco killing was an undocumented immigrant who had been deported five times.

“I’m dying to know if Jeb Bush attacks Donald Trump for his comments the actual day [Kate Steinle] was murdered by an illegal immigrant or the next day,” she quipped. “I’m gathering he won’t be speaking at her funeral.”

“You know, going into this weekend, the media was consumed with stories, Americans have to be on the lookout for ISIS attacks and terror attack expected, and oh, shark attacks,” Coulter declared. “I will bet you by the end of the weekend, more Americans will have been killed by Mexicans than by ISIS or by sharks.”

According to Coulter, the story of Steinle’s death had not been “covered up” like most crimes committed by immigrants because it had happened in a liberal city.

“There are so many drunk driving accidents, so many Americans being killed and raped in places liberals don’t go,” she opined. “They just take the cheap labor.”

Coulter argued that Republican candidates were making a mistake by campaigning to Latino voters because it was a lost cause.

“Whether it’s feminist, the abortion ladies, the gun hysterics, and now they are obsessed with getting the Hispanic vote,” she explained. “It repeatedly doesn’t work. And the most His-pandering president we ever had was George Bush, and it was ‘Oh whoa, he got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.’ Well that’s still losing.”

[h/t The RAW Story]

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STAFF WRITER

COMICS REJOICE AS FODDER KING DONALD J. TRUMP AKA “FUCKFACE VON CLOWNSTICK” ENTERS THE CIRCUS

STEWART REJOICES OVER TRUMP RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

 As we all hoped and prayed he would, Jon Stewart opened The Daily Show Tuesday night with the “gift from heaven” that Donald Trump — “Fuckface Von Clownstick” himself — was entering the presidential race.

“Thank you, Donald Trump, for making my last six weeks my best six weeks,” Stewart said. “He is putting me in some kind of comedy hospice, where all I’m getting is just straight morphine

Stewart quips started early, with Trump riding “Stair Force One” to make his announcement at Trump Tower in New York City.

“I haven’t seen an entrance that majestic since my friend met me at The Gap after grabbing an Orange Julius”.

Stewart said, was a half-hour of “beautifully ridiculous jibber-jabber” from Trump that included smearing Mexico for allegedly sending drug dealers and rapists to the US while claiming “no disrespect.”

“It’s amazing! America’s id is running for president. Trump is the part of your brain at 3 a.m. that’s like, ‘let’s go take a shit in a mailbox. Come on, who’s gonna know?'”

Stewart’s final show, slated for Aug. 6, falls on the same night as the first GOP primary debate, which could include Trump if he stays among the top 10 Republicans.

VIDEO COURTESY OF COMEDY CENTRAL

The comedy alone from Fuckface Von Clownstick should be enough entertainment to last for eons. 

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

THE LEGEND OF CURLY'S FOLD - WHITE SOMALIA

Bill Maher has long held Rand Paul in high regard, but certain position shifts on the campaign trail have left Maher increasingly disappointed with the libertarian 2016 candidate. He said Paul didn't even wait a week into his campaign before “setting fire to everything he used to believe.”

Maher complained that Paul used to be the kind of Republican who, like his father, would “tell a crowd what they didn't want to hear,” but now he’s “jumped the shark o gay marriage” and dipped his toes into more of the Republican “crazy.”

And the reason Paul’s likely doing it, Maher thought, is because “in the Republican Party, crazy is a constituency.” Which brought him to the crazy conspiracies surrounding Jade Helm 15. Maher said almost no Republicans would dare “call out nutty people for being nutty because they’re not a small group” in the GOP.

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

JAMES INHOFE IS A SPECIAL KIND OF FUCKING STUPID!

The traditional definition of chutzpah involves a guy who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy because he is now an orphan. The modern definition of chutzpah involves - and now enters Sen. James Inhofe .

The chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has an Earth Day (!) op-ed arguing we should embrace carbon-free nuclear power because of the threat posed by global warming. You remember Inhofe, the guy who called global warming a hoax, the guy who for over a decade has trashed climate scientists, such as James Hansen, whom he called in 2006 a “NASA scientist and alarmist.”

Apparently, however, Inhofe no longer sees Hansen as radioactive. He writes, without a trace of irony:

James Hansen, the former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in 2013 that ‘continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.’

How mind numbing is it that Inhofe is now apparently on board with top climatologist Hansen on the urgent need “to avoid dangerous climate change” by accelerated deployment of zero-carbon technologies? Presumably he’ll soon be on board with Hansen’s call for a high and rising carbon dioxide fee (returned to the public as a dividend), and a World War II scale effort to return CO2 levels back to 350 parts per million from their current level of 400 ppm (and rising 2+ ppm a year).

As an aside, what’s holding nuclear power back is its exorbitant price. Indeed, just this week a panel of experts unanimously agreed that nukes have all but priced themselves out of the market. Perhaps Inhofe should have supported the climate bill that came out of the House of Representatives in 2009, since its carbon pricing mechanism would have been nuclear power’s best chance at a resurgence.

As for Inhofe’s newly found love affair of Hansen, One could imagine it is unrequited, but then they say politics does make for strange bedfellows. Or at least for new definitions of chutzpah.

Congratulations James, you are this week's asshat of the week. Enjoy the recognition numbnutz!

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

WHY THE KOCH’S WANT THE KOCH WHORE TO BE PRESIDENT

The billionaire Koch brothers indicated during an event on Monday that they will likely support the Koch whore Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to be the Republican presidential nominee. According to two New York Times sources who attended the New York State Republican Party fundraiser, David Koch told the crowd that Walker should be the Republican nominee.

David Koch’s statement was later disputed by his spokesperson who said the brothers plan to remain neutral during the primaries. “But Mr. Koch’s remark left little doubt among attendees of where his heart is, and could effectively end one of the most closely watched contests in the ‘invisible primary,’ a period where candidates crisscross the country seeking not the support of voters but the blessing of their party’s biggest donors and fund-raisers,” the Times reported.

The Koch brothers have said they plan to spend almost $1 billion in the 2016 campaign cycle, so their support could go a long way to helping a candidate like Walker to secure the Republican nomination. An endorsement would also follow the big-spending political donors’ history of lending support to Walker, even when the Republican governor’s policies sometimes contradict their intentions.

Walker has enjoyed the Kochs’ enthusiastic support for much of his political career. Koch Industries was one of the largest contributors to Walker’s first gubernatorial campaign, giving him $43,000, his largest out-of-state contribution. And Walker’s 2014 reelection campaign was one of the top recipients of Koch Industries cash. Tim Phillips, president of Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, has also heaped praise on Walker. “The difference Scott Walker has made with his policy achievements is as transformative as any governor anywhere in a generation,” Phillips said in an interview.

After Walker was elected governor and took office in 2011, he almost immediately set out his plan to cut pay and eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin — he claimed the cuts were necessary to close a budget gap he created by enacting tax cuts for businesses. As protests against Walker escalated, groups associated with Koch Industries including Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity helped to bus in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign.

Club For Growth also ran an attack ad against Wisconsin unions as a way to support Walker. “In the face of a grass roots labor movement, millionaires and billionaires are doing the governor’s dirty work for him,” MSNBC’s Ed Schultz reported in 2011. “This isn’t Governor Walker all by himself.”

During the heat of the protests, Americans For Prosperity went as far as launching a website, www.standwithwalker.com, which attacked collective bargaining and urged every state to adopt Walker’s “common sense reforms.”

The Koch brothers openly supported Walker during the 2012 recall election, which Walker eventually won. The financial backing from the Kochs led to reports that David Koch’s willingness to discuss his family’s efforts to support Walker may have crossed the line into illegally coordinating with a political campaign.

“We’re helping him, as we should,” David Koch told the Palm Beach Post in early 2012. “What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He’s an impressive guy, and he’s very courageous.”

The governor also embodied the Kochs’ profit-driven goals when he began cutting environmental regulations when he took office, to the benefit of Koch businesses which are known to emit thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants in the state. Walker also quietly worked to allow Kochs’ many Georgia Pacific paper plants to pollute Wisconsin by pouring thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the water.

Yet there is one major policy area in which Walker and the Kochs disagree. The Koch brothers have said they support an overhaul of the country’s criminal justice system and have partnered with other organizations working toward criminal justice reform. But Walker is one of a number of candidates who continue to receive Koch money, despite his tough on crime record.

During his nine years in the Wisconsin state house, Walker sponsored dozens of bills to make more activities crimes, increase mandatory minimum sentences and curb the possibility of parole for many offenders, among other actions that contradict the Kochs’ criminal justice agenda. Under Walker’s governorship, spending on prisons eclipsed the dollars allocated for higher education for the first time in state history.

Cross posted from thinkprogress

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STAFF WRITER

Climate Warming Is Just GOD Farting

Bill Maher ended his show tonight by going after Republican “zombie lies” on the environment and basically calling them “prostitutes” for denying climate change just to satisfy donors.

He ripped into candidates like Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz for raising serious questions about established science on climate change, before saying the whole thing was “never about facts to begin with.”

Maher said the donors are “making their money killing the planet” and as long as people like the Kochs.

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

TED CRUZ COMPARES HIMSELF TO GALILEO

TED COMPARES HIMSELF TO GALILEO

A few days after accusing “global warming alarmists” like California Governor Jerry Brown of ridiculing and insulting “anyone who actually looks at the real data” around climate change, Darwin award winner Ted Cruz upped his rhetoric against those who care about the issue.

Speaking to the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, Cruz said that contemporary “global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers.”

“You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier,” he said.

In Cruz’s opinion, when it comes to climate change, his denier position places him alongside 17th Century scientist Galileo Galilei, who was also considered to be denying the mainstream knowledge of his day. According to Cruz’s logic, he is taking the minority view that human-caused climate change is not happening, just as Galileo took the minority view that the scientific method should be trusted over the Catholic Church.

Galileo, who helped perpetuate the notion that the Earth rotates around the sun, was eventually excommunicated from the Church for his views. In the centuries since he has come to be known as the “father of modern physics” and “the father of modern science.”

Cruz mentioned in the interview that his parents were mathematicians; however he himself studied public policy before going to law school.

Cruz also said he had read a 1970s Newsweek article that morning about “global cooling.” He explained how all the people who believed in global cooling suddenly switched over to global warming when the evidence on cooling didn’t line up.

The solutions to both warming and cooling, Cruz said, involved “government control of the energy sector and every aspect of our lives.”

Either Cruz is suddenly interested in minor 1970s scientific theories or he is scrambling to find ways to push back against the overwhelming evidence that human-caused climate change is happening.

Cruz is not the first to compare Galileo to those who speak out against the accepted science of climate change. In 2011, former presidential candidate and Texas governor Rick Perry dropped Galileo’s name as justification for his anti-climate position.

As the website Skeptical Science points out, “the comparison is exactly backwards.”

“Modern scientists follow the evidence-based scientific method that Galileo pioneered,” the website reads. “Skeptics who oppose scientific findings that threaten their world view are far closer to Galileo’s belief-based critics in the Catholic Church.”

President Obama seems to have gotten the analogy correct when he said in 2013 that “we don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society” when it comes to doing something about climate change.

“The planet is warming. Human activity is contributing to it,” Obama said at the time. “We know that the costs of these events can be measured in lost lives and lost livelihoods.”

Fact: No one in Galileo's time thought the world was flat. If you're being stupid Ted, at least use a factual comparison. While being factual, Galileo was convicted by the Inquisition, and he was sentenced to lifelong house arrest. He was not excommunicated, which during the time was considered a far more severe sentence.

Ted Cruz, proving yet again, that just when you think his level of stupidity has hit its acme - he proves us wrong yet again.

Ted, you are today’s moronic idiot of the day, congrats numbnutz!

[H/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS A VILLAGE IS MISSING ITS IDIOT

TEXAS VILLAGE IDIOT TED CRUZ

Sen. Ted Cruz who launched his presidential campaign on Monday, was one of the key architects of the Republican opposition to raising the country’s debt ceiling. He’s now touting that effort as part of his jobs plan.

Under the “Jobs & Opportunity” section of his website, which says that “Ted Cruz has led the way to bring back jobs, growth, and opportunity to America,” one bullet relates to his key role in getting Republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, which has been routinely raised for decades to allow the government to borrow more money so that it can meet all of its obligations. It says he “set an early, high standard for meaningful Republican opposition to increasing the debt ceiling,” including his opposition to a simple majority vote to lift it in 2013 and refusal to let an increase be part of a budget deal.

Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee originally teamed up to get 14 other senators to sign on to a letter demanding that Obamacare be defunded in return for raising the debt ceiling and keeping the government open. That strategy led to the eventual government shutdown at the end of 2013 and a near default on U.S. federal debt that was only avoided with the passage of an eleventh hour deal.

Cruz may want to claim this moment as part of his economic plan, but economists agree that this strategy hurt, not helped, the economy. A report from the Peterson Institute on International Economics found that the threat of default on American debt and other ways that Congress has governed crisis to crisis meant the loss of 750,000 jobs and sliced 1 percent off of GDP economic growth. The shutdown itself cost the economy an estimated $24 billion and 120,000 jobs in just two weeks. Another report found that uncertainty created by Congress’s manufactured crises over short-term spending bills, the fiscal cliff, and debt ceiling battles had already cost 900,000 jobs before the government shutdown.

Some Republicans have since distanced themselves from the shutdown and debt ceiling tactics. But some used the tactic again to nearly shut the government down a second time at the end of last year over Obamacare funding. Cruz himself has refused to rule these tactics out in his crusade against the Affordable Care Act.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

SETH MYERS TALKS CLIMATE CHANGE WITH TED CRUZ

Despite his comments at a recent speaking event in New Hampshire, Sen. Ted Cruz definitely does not think the world is on fire.

That became clear after a conversation with talk show host Seth Meyers this week, during which Meyers used Cruz’s “the whole world’s on fire” quote in reference to the Obama administration’s governance to ask the senator about climate change.

“First, I got excited, because I thought maybe you were coming around on global warming, but that’s not the case, right?” Meyers said. “Because I think the world’s on fire, literally — hottest year on record — but you’re not there, right?”

Meyers was right — Cruz isn't there yet. The senator talked about the cold weather he experienced while in New Hampshire this weekend, and said that the climate hasn't warmed in over a decade — a claim he’s relied on in the past.

Cruz’s claims against climate change are well-used by the senator, and both have been debunked by the science that Cruz claims should be at the forefront of climate change debate. Last year, Cruz also said in an interview with CNN that the Earth had experienced “no recorded warming” over the last 15 years. That’s a claim that climate scientists have dismissed. The Earth has experienced warming over the last 17 years, but much of it has been going on in the oceans.

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West