INFOTAINMENT CONFUSION SYNDROME

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart weighed in on the Brian Williams debacle and his tales about taking fire in Iraq and whether or not he was suffering from a case of "infotainment confusion syndrome" where the “celebrity cortex” gets its wires crossed with the "medulla-anchor-dala."

After having a bit more fun with Williams and showing the media frenzy over the scandal, Stewart told the audience that this might seem a bit overblown, but he was actually happy.

Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War! Finally! Now, it might not necessarily be the first person you'd want held accountable on that list, but never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot at in a war we probably wouldn't have ended up in if the media had applied this level of certainty to the actual fucking war.

After verbally bitch slapping the whiners opining over whether the media has a "credibility problem" following the ruckus with Williams, Stewart reminded his audience of the batch of lies we were fed leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and wondered if the incident with Williams would cause any reflection on their part. I think we all already know what the answer to that question is.

NFTOS

Blogger-In Chief

Roger West

TUCKER CARLSON, NO ORDINARY IDIOT

TUCKER CARLSON PUNCH CLOWN

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Sunday declared that all slavery in the world had been eradicated thanks to the Christian faith.

At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, conservatives accused President Barack Obama of comparing Christianity to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS when he observed that many religions had been used to justify violence throughout history.

"So we're responsible for the Crusades a thousand years ago?" Carlson complained. "Who's 'us' anyway? And by the way, who ended slavery and Jim Crow? Christians. The Rev. Martin Luther King. Christians."

"Christianity is the reason we don't have slavery in the world today," he added. "I mean, talk about a historical."

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt said that Obama's remarks were "completely inappropriate" because there were many evangelical Christians at the National Prayer Breakfast.

"Know your audience," she recommended. "No one expected the Inquisition to be mentioned at the National Prayer Breakfast."

"What's so striking though is his mention of the Crusades as a way to make the point, 'Before you judge ISIS, keep in mind that that Christians did it too,'" Carlson asserted. "The Crusades is a fixation among jihadis. There's not a press release from ISIS or from al Qaeda that doesn't call us Crusaders."

"And so for the president to use that specific word, aping the language of the jihadis is ominous and bizarre."

According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, there are an estimated 35.8 million slaves in the world.

Late last year, leaders of the largest religions in the world -- including Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths -- met to sign a declaration of commitment to end slavery by 2020.

At the time, Pope Francis called slavery an “atrocious scourge present on a large scale throughout the world."

It's difficult for mentally challenged sociopaths such as Tucker Carlson to find any level of success in this world. I guess he is to be congratulated for coming as far as he has, even if his methods are less than admirable.

NFTOS 

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

"RAPE-NUTS"

CONSERVATIVES HAVE A SICK PERVERSION FOR RAPE

This blog in its entirety is from addictinginfo.org


Republicans are obsessed with rape.

Republicans are obsessed with rape. It is perhaps the one issue that caused the GOP to implode during the 2012 Election. The foot-in-mouth disease carried by the party has revealed much about the current beliefs of conservatives and it has spread like a plague in just the last year or two, and as Republicans have continued to attack rape victims, they have united women like never before against their extreme anti-abortion agenda.

In just the last six months alone, Republicans have forced draconian anti-abortion legislation into law in Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Arkansas even after they acknowledged that they needed to do more to attract women voters. Well, apparently Republicans don’t care about what women think because they have done nothing but double down on the war on women they have been viciously waging since 2010, when Tea Party Republicans took control of state legislatures and governorships in states across the nation. Today’s Republican is required to oppose abortion exceptions for rape victims in order to avoid a primary challenge from someone further to the right. And because of that, Republicans have been saying some really stupid things about rape and rape victims. Here is a comprehensive list of 40 quotes uttered by Republicans about rape that women should keep in mind the next time they go into the voting booth in 2014.

When the next election rolls around, let’s not forget these 40 egregious rape quotes from the GOP.

1. “Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that’s been raped? We need to protect innocent life. Period.”

-Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, declaring that raped women must be additionally forced to carry and give birth to their rapist’s baby against their will in front of an all male crowd at the National Catholic Men’s Conference, June 2007.

2. “Nobody plans to have an accident in a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded. You have to buy extra insurance for those two.”

-Barbara Listing, leader of Right To Life, comparing rape to a car accident, May 2013.

3. “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.”

-Texas State Senator Jodie Laubenberg, absurdly claiming that rape kits are used to abort a pregnancy, June 2013.

4. “Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”

-New Mexico State Rep. Cathrynn Brown, HB 206 language stating that rape victims would be charged and arrested for getting an abortion, January 2013.

5. “Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don’t know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don’t know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act.”

-California GOP assembly President Celeste Greig, saying rape victims don’t get pregnant because it’s a traumatic act, March 2013.

6. “Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.”

-Rick Santorum, stating that God sanctions rape to give women the “gift” of pregnancy, January 2012.

7. “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

-Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, repeating Rick Santorum’s belief that rape is sanctioned by God, October 2012.

8. “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

-Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, claiming that women can shut down the reproductive process during rape to prevent pregnancy, August 2012.

9. “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low. But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment.”

-Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, claiming that getting pregnant via rape is rare therefore there shouldn’t be any exceptions for rape victims in anti-abortion bills, June 2013.

10. “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.”

-Iowa Rep. Steve King, saying he’s never heard of a child becoming pregnant by rape and that he won’t support abortion under any circumstance until proof of such a thing is presented to him, August 2012.

11. “What Todd Akin is talking about is when you’ve got a real, genuine rape. A case of forcible rape, a case of assault, where a woman has been violated against her will through the use of physical force where it is physically traumatic for her, under those circumstances, the woman’s body — because of the trauma that has been inflicted on her — it may interfere with the normal function processes of her body that lead to conception and pregnancy.”

-AFA’s Bryan Fischer, agreeing with Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment, August 2012.

12. “Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape. I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”

-Mike Huckabee, defending Todd Akin’s rape comments and zero exceptions for rape victims by talking about how much of a positive gift rape is, August 2012.

13. “Abortion is never an option. At that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it.”

-Missouri Republican central committee member Sharon Barnes, echoing Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock that rape is God’s way of blessing women with children, August 2012.

14. “I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”

-Paul Ryan, referring to rape as a method of conception after being asked about Todd Akin’s rape comment, August 2012.

15. “He also told me one thing, ‘If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry. Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.’ All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, ‘If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape.’ So the way he said it was, ‘Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.’

-Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard, claiming that some girls are just easy to rape, October 2012.

16. “I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape… Uh, having a baby out of wedlock… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.”

-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, comparing rape pregnancy to getting pregnant out of wedlock, August 2012.

17. “A life is a life, and it needs protected. Who’s going to protect it? We have to. I mean that’s, I believe life begins at conception. I’m not going to argue about the method of conception. It’s a life, and I’m pro-life. It’s that simple.”

-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, saying that rape is just another method of conception, August 2012.

18. “You know, I’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”

-Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle, claiming that God plans rapes, June 2010.

19. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”

-Sharon Angle, saying that a 13 year old who gets pregnant by her father should get over it and have the baby, July 2010.

20. “I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak.”

-Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, claiming that Todd Akin’s rape comments were “partly right,” January 2013.

21. “If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception… and he also immediately issued a clarification saying that he was referring to the act of conception and he condemned rape. Romney has condemned rape. One part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent american i know condemns rape. Okay so, why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?”

-Newt Gingrich, defending Richard Mourdock’s rape comment by telling women to get over it, October 2012.

22. “There are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage… Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? They just don’t want to have a baby!”

-Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett, falsely claiming that rape pregnancy is rare, September 2012.

23. “Each of these lines attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement. But nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on lines distract from the agency’s broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s public health.”

-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, referring to raped and battered women as ‘distractions’ after vetoing funding to prevent rape and abuse, July 2012.

24. “Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.”

-Idaho State Rep. Chuck Winder, saying women don’t even know what rape is, August 2012.

25. “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life? I have spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

-Kansas State Rep. Pete De Graaf, saying that women should plan ahead to be raped, August 2011.

26. “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…”

-Alaska State Rep. Alan Dick, suggesting that all women, including rape victims, should have to get permission from men to get an abortion, March 2012.

27. “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, and I would give them a shot of estrogen.”

-Ron Paul, echoing Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment 7 months before Akin actually said it, February 2012.

28. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.”

-Former Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck, claiming that the victim may not have really been raped even though the perpetrator admitted that he committed the crime, March 2006.

29. “Through our conversations, I’ve heard, ‘what if somebody has a sincerely held religious conviction about dispensing the emergency contraception medication? What about their rights? How do we address those… It’s not about the victim.”

-Scott Brown, putting religious belief above the needs of rape victims, 2005.

30. “When you enter into a marriage, you enter into a contract for all sorts of different things with your spouse. Why should we take it to a Class 2 felony and put a husband away who’s been a good husband for however many years … based off of something that was OK in a marriage up until that point?”

-Arizona State Rep. Warde Nichols, equating spousal rape to consensual sex, March 2005.

31. “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.”

-North Carolina Rep. Henry Aldridge, making the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” claim over a decade earlier, April 1995.

32. “Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

-Texas Gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, March 1990.

33. “The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.”

-Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephen Freind, ignoring medical science, March 1988.

34. “Fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.”

-Arkansas Republican Fay Boozman, making the Todd Akin claim, he also allegedly called this “block” “God’s little shield,” 1998.

35. “Sometimes we’re actually right when we go with our gut and stand on principle in supporting underdog candidates.”

-Sarah Palin, responding to Todd Akin’s rape quote, August 2012.

36. “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.”

-Bill O’ Reilly, claiming that a murdered rape victim was asking to be raped because of the way she dressed, August 2006.

37. “I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That’s what marriage is all about, I don’t know if maybe these girls missed sex ed.”

-Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, saying that men can force their wives to have sex against their will, March 2007.

38. “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”

-Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee, in a 1980 letter.

39. “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”

-John Cornyn, standing by Richard Mourdock’s rape comments, October 2012.

40. “The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So we’ve got to be very careful how we address it on our side.”

-Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, blaming the outrageous number of rapes in the military on hormones, June 2013.

… and click here for the worst Republican rape quote of all.

It’s time to take America back from these Republican rape nuts.

As anyone can see, conservatives have been saying stupid things about rape since at least the 1980s. But up until recent years, the extreme Republican stance on rape had remained on the fringe of the party. Today, Republicans proudly wear their extreme views on rape in the open for all to see. It doesn’t compute with them that the vast majority of women reject those views, and that medical science and rape statistics completely refutes them. That’s why it is so important to make sure people across the nation know all about what Republicans have said about rape and rape victims, and what they have done as a result. The most important election in our lifetimes will be in 2014 and we cannot afford to sit out like many did in 2010. There is a reason why Republicans gained the power to push their crazy anti-women agenda. It’s because voters failed to show up, thus handing victory to a party that doesn’t deserve it. Americans must do better in 2014.

We must take back state legislatures, governorships, and the House of Representatives away from the GOP. It is the only way to preserve the rights and freedoms that women have fought so long for. That includes the right to choose whether or not to end an unwanted pregnancy. Republicans have no right to make reproductive health decisions for women, especially since the great majority of those in the GOP making such laws to do so are men. That being said, women should resoundingly say ‘no’ to Republicans in 2014 and beyond until the GOP war on women is not only ended, but reversed. If Republicans ever want to hold public office again, they will abandon their anti-women agenda and their vile rhetoric. Until then, women will always remember in November.



NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

"You Betcha I Was Wrong About Sarah Palin"

Bill Maher ended his show last night talking about Sarah Palin‘s rambling Iowa speech that was the final straw for many Republicans and conservatives. But Maher had just one question for them: “What took you so long?!”

Maher mocked the revelation as an “emperor has no clues” situation and asked Republicans why they took so long, saying, “The rest of us have been watching this dog eat grass for seven years!”

However, while Maher was that many conservatives are finally admitting Palin “is a crazy person,” he said they should maybe consider what else they’ve been “wrong” about, like climate change or trickle-down economics.

Video Courtesy of HBO

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER SUBSTANTIATES BRIAN WILLIAMS STORY

CWO RICH KRELL SPEAKING TO CNN SUBSTANTIATES WILLIAMS CLAIM

UPDATE: Since this post the pilot in this story has now recanted his original statement.

Yesterday we wrote about the mega Brian Williams lie; as it turns out, maybe ole Brian deserves an apology himself, as the pilot of the Chinook helicopter flying Williams substantiates some of Williams’ claim.

The pilot of the Chinook helicopter that Brian Williams was riding in back in 2003 says their chopper was hit by small arms fire, and that the lead chopper in their group was hit by an rocket-propelled grenade. These new details add confusion to the story in which Williams has been blasted for not telling the truth about the RPG hitting his helicopter.

“Mr. Williams was on board my aircraft. We took small arms fire,” the pilot, former chief warrant officer Rich Krell, told CNN exclusively today. “All I know is one RPG was fired. It struck the lead aircraft, which was about what we call six rotor disks in front of me.”

Those incoming bullets, he said “struck the belly up in the forward cabin area and one or two other side hits, but it didn’t cause any major damage, just some minor damage to electronic components.”



Krell said Williams would have been aware his helicopter had been hit because of the ping of the bullets and the fact the crew was returning fire.

“The door gunners were returning fire. M60s (machine guns) are very loud. The pings of the bullets hitting us…there were only a few, but it’s a distinct sound.”

Krell’s account of the incident stands in marked contrast to Stars and Stripes’ interviews with several crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s helicopter was struck by the RPG. They said Williams was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire.” Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday that “Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.”

And, on Wednesday, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists, told Stars and Stripes: “No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft.”

“Some of things he’s said are not true. But some of the things they’re saying against him are not true either,” Krell told CNN today of the Stars and Stripes report.

According to Krell, three helicopters were flying in close formation, not four, as Williams had said; one of the choppers broke down, Krell said.

Williams was in the back of Krell’s aircraft along with three other NBC staffers. Krell referred to his Chinook as the “second bird” in the formation. The “first bird,” right in front of the “second bird,” was struck by the RPG.

All three of the helicopters were hit by small arms fire, Krell said, supporting Williams’ past claims about that.

Krell said his helicopter was hauling metal bridges, which “took most of the hits.”

He said the three Chinooks took evasive maneuvers and his helicopter dropped off its payload, then met up with the other two about 45 minutes later.

Krell said he had “not taking issue” with other elements of Williams’ account, adding “I agree he needed to apologize” to those on the helicopter that did in fact take an RPG hit that day. “That’s a life-or-death situation they walked away from. I can understand why they take issue” with Williams’ years-long incorrect account of what happened.

Williams’ claim his helicopter came under attack and was hit — “that is a true statement,” Krell said, adding, “We were all scared. That’s the truth…He was there at the time of the attack.”

Several times in since that day in 2003, Williams has said that he was aboard a U.S. Army helicopter when it was hit by an RPG on one of the first days of the Iraq War in 2003. He acknowledged on last night’s newscast he actually was in a different helicopter than the one hit by the rocket propelled grenade.

Yesterday's interview with the pilot of Williams’ helicopter would seem to help Williams survival chances at NBC News. The division has remained mum on the incident since Stars and Stripes broke the story that Williams’ account of taking an RPG hit — a story he’s been telling for years — was not true.

Stars and Stripes said Williams admitted on air that he was not on the Chinook that was struck by enemy fire. But the publication took Williams to task for saying he was “instead on a following aircraft,” reporting that Army flight crews said the NBC anchor was actually flying with a different helicopter company altogether — in a different direction, and linked to the attacked unit by radio only. The publication called it “another example of the anchor muddling the facts or providing misleading details” of the incident that he covered in the opening days of the Iraq invasion.

Confused yet? Stay tuned as NFTOS will keep you abreast of the ever changing saga of the Williams war story. 

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC GOLDEN BOY TAKES A PAGE FROM FOX NEWS ANCHORS

NBC BRIAN WILLIAMS APOLOGIZING FOR LYING FOR 12 YEARS

Brian Williams, NBC golden boy has a problem. It appears Brian has a problem with facts and truth from his own life. His job is to present the facts, yet all we got for 12 years was a fairy-tale story:

WASHINGTON — NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.

The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.

“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”



Williams made the claim while presenting NBC coverage of the tribute to the retired command sergeant major at the Rangers game, and the fans giving the soldier a standing ovation.

“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on the broadcast. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”

Williams and his camera crew were actually aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that came under fire, according to crew member interviews.

That Chinook took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert, according to Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists.

“No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft,” Williams said Wednesday.

Unfortunately Williams is no different than those I bash at Faux News [the liars club].

How does one go about misrepresenting themselves at such an event? I’ll tell you, deliberately and purposefully. In defense of Williams, Don't be too hard on yourself big guy. The whole fucking "war" was one colossal bullshit story, why should your heroics there be any exception?

Hey Brain, I hear Fox News is hiring.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

IF SHE IS “UNCONSCIOUS” IS IT RAPE?

REPUBLICAN ASSHAT BRIAN GREENE OF UTAH

According to a conservative asshat in Utah, there is a loophole in rape cases if she or he is unconscious during sex.

Seriously?!


A bill in the Utah legislature would clarify the state’s rape statute by making clear that a person who is unconscious cannot give their consent. According to local prosecutors and advocates, the ambiguity is making it difficult to pursue some rape cases and may be discouraging women from coming forward.

As the bill was considered by the Utah Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Representative Brian Greene voiced his concerns. He wasn’t sure that having sex with an unconscious person should always count as rape. Green said the sex with an unconscious person seemed like rape to him in a “first date scenario” but questioned having a bright line rule for married couples or other individuals with a prior relationship.

BRIAN GREENE OF UTAH

Greene clarified for the committee that he was “not at all trying to justify sexual activity with an unconscious person.”

Greene was not alone in his concerns. Representative LaVar Christensen said always counting sex with an unconscious person as rape would make the definition too “broad.”

Ultimately, however, Green and Christensen overcame their misgivings. The bill passed the committee unanimously and moves to the full house.

I wonder if robbing an unconscious person in Utah is acceptable? Utah, the state where men are men, and the sheep run scared.

Brian Greene, congratulations numbnutz, you are today’s asshat of the day.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

DOCTORS ON ATTACK OF ANTI VAXXER POLITICIANS

This week, potential presidential contenders are increasingly weighing in on the issue of vaccine safety — sparking considerable controversy amid a worsening measles outbreak that’s sickened more than 100 people in the past month alone.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie kicked it off on Monday by telling reporters that the government must “balance” public health concerns with parents’ rights to refuse vaccines if they believe the shots may harm their children. The comments put the spotlight on Christie’s long history of pandering to anti-vaccine parents, who have a strong presence in New Jersey, a state with a particularly high rate of autism.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul further fueled the debate by saying that most vaccines should be voluntary, claiming that some children develop “profound mental disorders” after being immunized even though there’s no evidence to back that up. Paul, who is an eye doctor, attracted particular scrutiny for his comments because of his medical background.

Hillary Clinton waded into the firestorm late on Monday, tweeting that “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids.” Her statement echoes recent comments from President Barack Obama, who said in an interview with NBC News that the science is “indisputable” and “you should get your kids vaccinated.”

And Dr. Ben Carson, a former pediatric neurosurgeon, broke from his fellow GOP candidates on Monday and told Buzzfeed that “certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country and we should not allow those diseases to return by forgoing safe immunization programs, for philosophical, religious, or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them.”

The unfolding controversy threatens to turn vaccinations into an election issue. The Huffington Post quickly rounded up the rest of the potential GOP contenders’ positions on vaccines. And the New York Times reported that the debate is posing a challenge for Republican candidates, “who find themselves in the familiar but uncomfortable position of reconciling modern science with the skepticism of their core conservative voters,” similarly to issues related to climate change.

But making measles into election fodder comes with some risks. Medical experts are wary about the recent vaccine controversy stemming from potential presidential contenders. They say that approaching vaccine safety as if there are two equal sides to the debate gives anti-science conspiracies too much credibility.

“When you see educated people or elected officials giving credence to things that have been completely debunked, an idea that’s been shown to be responsible for multiple measles and pertussis outbreaks in recent years, it’s very concerning,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh, told the Washington Post.

Seth Mnookin, an MIT professor who has authored a book about the myth that vaccines are linked to autism called The Panic Virus, told the Washington Post that the latest remarks from Christie and Paul “basically fail at the first duty of a politician, which is to calm his constituents in moments of irrational crisis.” He called their statements about vaccines “incredibly, incredibly irresponsible.”

Writing in the Daily Beast on Monday, one pediatrician argued that “clueless politicians” have made his job even harder. “Between them, Sen. Paul and Gov. Christie have left a shameful mark on their party’s prospects in two years. Neither of them have any business being in charge of American public health policy,” the doctor, who writes under a pseudonym, concluded.

Controversy over vaccines has flared up during previous elections, too. During the 2012 presidential race, GOP contender Michele Bachmann attacked one of her opponents, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), for mandating that girls in his state receive the recommended doses of the HPV vaccine.

The medical community sharply chastised Bachmann for stoking unfounded fears that the HPV vaccine, which helps prevent a range of cancers, could lead to “mental retardation.” But the damage was done — Perry publicly reversed his position on vaccine, and public health experts lamented the potentially negative effects of the bad press. The United States’ HPV vaccination rates are still extremely low, and about a quarter of parents surveyed by the CDC in 2013 said they don’t believe the immunization is necessary for their kids.

[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

WHO NEEDS EDUCATION, SPORTS STADIUMS ARE MORE IMPORTANT

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker R will unveil a budget Tuesday night that aims to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s public universities over the next two years. Students, professors and state lawmakers are already blasting the plan — the deepest cut in state history .

Ahead of his presentation of the budget to the state legislature, Governor Walker told local right-wing radio host Charlie Sykes that his budget cuts over the past few years have created positive “efficiency” at the university, and offered: “Maybe it’s time for faculty and staff to start thinking about teaching more classes and doing more work.”

At the same time, Walker is calling for a nearly $500 million new basketball stadium in Milwaukee for the Bucks. Under his plan, the state would take out $200 million in bonds to pay for the arena, and the county and city of Milwaukee would have to chip in as well. The team’s owner has promised some private funding, and Walker claims the taxes the NBA players will pay will make up the difference.

Many university students and workers, including Eleni Schirmer with the Teaching Assistants Association, are outraged that the Governor would propose increasing sports funding while telling universities to shoulder cuts by developing “efficiencies.”

“It shows a fair amount of ignorance about what happens at a university,” she said. “He’s not telling the Bucks: ‘You should become an actually interesting team so people will watch your games.'”

Schirmer, the co-president of the UW graduate student workers’ union, told ThinkProgress her hundreds of members will hold an emergency meeting this week to organize against the proposed budget. She says campuses across the state are already suffering from cuts imposed by the Walker administration over the past few years.

“As TAs, we see the burdens on undergrads. We see that first-time college students’ acceptance rates are declining, that the number of students of color is declining. It changes the texture of the university,” she said, noting that financial aid is likely to drop further if the new cuts are approved.

An analysis of the UW-Madison’s enrollment data found that the percentage of students of color in the incoming class declined by more 1 percent between 2010 and 2014.

Schirmer also noted that a loss of public funding for research has pushed the universities to lean more heavily towards corporate-sponsored projects. “It’s a threat to academic freedom,” she said. “There’s an incentive to study what’s interesting and relevant to corporate interests, and what’s antagonistic or uninteresting to a corporate agenda will not be explored.”

In exchange for these cuts, Walker is offering the University of Wisconsin–Madison — where his own son currently attends — more autonomy, such as control over employee wages and benefits.

It’s a nearly identical plan to the one the governor unsuccessfully proposed four years ago, except this time around the price of autonomy for the school is about $50 million more expensive. And unlike in 2011, the new proposal would keep a tuition freeze in place for several more years, leaving the school less able to make up the lost money, and bringing fears of a massive tuition spike when the freeze expires in 2017.

Students at UW campuses across the state are preparing to fight against the proposed budget. They’ll be gathering in Madison in late February to lobby the state legislature to reject Walker’s plan and provide adequate funding to the universities. One of the main organizers of that effort is Amanda McGovern, the President of the United Council of UW Students and a Sociology major at UW Stevens Point.

“We’re going to show the UW Board of Regents and the legislators that students actually care about this,” she said. “Our faculty are already talking about resigning, and we’ll lose the quality of their teaching which will then hurt the quality of a UW degree. Programs are already being cut from some of our four-year institutions while students are still enrolled in them. And in popular programs like Agriculture and Engineering, the schools are accepting more out-of-state students [who pay higher tuition], leaving some Wisconsin students unable to get those degrees that can really move them forward. It’s terrifying.”

As he begins his second term in the Governor’s mansion with a rumored eye on the White House, Walker is dedicating himself to building his national profile with trips around the country and national ads touting his “bold, fresh and new ideas.” But he will continue to grapple with discontent back home as he attempts to dig the state out of the $928 million hole.

[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS 

STAFF WRITER

CARTOONS AND MUHAMMAD

Cartoonist Mark Fiore takes a look at the Paris terror murders and the "disrespect" of cartoonist to the prophet Muhammad, supposed prophet to God. Is it really disrespect; I guess it depends on who (and when) you ask.







NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

SUDDENLY, THE GOP NOW CARES FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS?

Bill Maher used his New Rules segment this Friday evening to go after Republicans and their sudden new found love for the middle class and for pretending that they actually want to do something about income inequality in the United States. He also took aim at the snowbillie from Wasilla and her long, rambling, incoherent speech at  Steve King's [flat earth society leader] Iowa Freedom Summit last weekend.

Video Courtesy of HBO





The ignorance that is Sarah Palin




When Republicans say they're embracing the Middle Class, I automatically picture the Middle Class encircled in the suffocating coils of a starving boa constrictor.

The wingnuts 'embracing" the middle class, right, and next they'll be meeting immigrants at our borders to welcome them.

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN YOU GET CAUGHT BULL-SHITTING ABOUT OBAMACARE

The Republican attorneys general of six states, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, all signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to gut the Affordable Care Act. Yet one of the central claims in this brief — a claim that cuts to the heart of whether the Supreme Court should shred much of Obamacare or leave it intact — is at odds with a pile of evidence to the contrary. This evidence includes explicitly contradictory statements from the Republican governors of several states, including three of the states represented by these six attorneys general. And the six attorneys general were unable to muster any contrary evidence that supports their central claim.

This weakness in their case is unlikely to be unnoticed by the justices, however, as a brief filed Wednesday by a much larger group of state officials rounds up much of the considerable evidence undercutting the six Republican attorneys general’s claim.

To explain, the Affordable Care Act explicitly says that states should have “flexibility” to decide whether they want to operate health exchanges where their residents can buy health insurance, or whether the federal government should operate an exchange for them. Nevertheless, a lawsuit called King v. Burwell alleges that the residents of states who chose the second option lose access to tax credits intended to help them pay for insurance. If this lawsuit prevails, 13 million people, many of them children, could become uninsured.

To prevail, however, the plaintiffs in King must do more than simply show that they have discovered the best way to read Obamacare’s text. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, a state cannot be bound by an alleged condition tucked into a federal grant program “if a State is unaware of the conditions or is unable to ascertain what is expected of it.” Rather, when Congress says that it will only pay out money if a state takes a particular action, the Supreme Court insists “that Congress speak with a clear voice.” Thus, if there is uncertainty about how to read the law, that uncertainty must be resolved against the plaintiffs’ reading and in favor of the view that the law does not make tax credits conditional upon anything.

And that’s not all the bad news for the King plaintiffs. Under the Supreme Court’s opinion in Arlington Central School District v. Murphy, the question of whether a state is able to ascertain whether federal money comes with conditions must be evaluated “from the perspective of a state official who is engaged in the process of deciding whether the State should accept . . . the obligations that go with those funds.” Thus, if there is a wealth of evidence showing that state officials did not read Obamacare in the same way the King plaintiffs do — and it turns out that there is — that evidence also cuts strongly against a decision for the plaintiffs in King.

The brief filed by the six Republican attorneys general appears designed to address this weakness in the plaintiffs’ argument. It claims that state officials were “well aware” that the Affordable Care Act “conditioned the availability of tax credits on States establishing exchanges,” although it cites no actual evidence to support this claim.

On Wednesday, a much larger bloc of 22 states plus the District of Columbia filed their own brief opposing the King plaintiffs’ attempt to cut of tax credits. After reading that brief, it is not hard to guess why the smaller group of anti-Obamacare attorneys general were not able to muster any evidence for their position — there are piles of evidence demonstrating that the six attorneys general are simply wrong about how state officials understood the law.

Recall that the six attorneys general who filed in opposition to Obamacare include officials from Nebraska, South Carolina, Georgia, West Virginia and Oklahoma.

In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman explained his decision to allow the federal government to set up his state’s exchange by stating that “[o]n the key issues, there is no real operational difference between a federal exchange and a state exchange.”

In South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley wrote that “[b]y refusing to implement state-based exchanges, the state is ceding nothing,” a statement that is incompatible with the view that the state was actually ceding tax credits for its citizens.

In Georgia, an advisory committee established by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal determined that “Georgians will be eligible for [tax credits under Obamacare] whether the AHBE in Georgia is established by the state or federal government.” When Deal announced that his state would not set up its own exchange, deal made no mention of whether tax credits would be available, though he did complain about “Obamacare’s one-size fits all approach,” an approach which suggests that the law would operate similarly in every state.

In West Virginia, according to the brief by the pro-Obamacare states, “State officials answered ‘yes’ in June 2012 to the question ‘Will individuals who are enrolled in coverage through a federally facilitated Exchange have access to premium tax credits.'”
Only in Oklahoma is there any evidence that state officials might have thought that tax credits were unavailable in federally-run exchanges. There, Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) brought a similar challenge to Obamacare to the one advanced by the King plaintiffs, and Gov. Mary Fallin (R) cited her support for this lawsuit when she announced her decision not to operate a state-run exchange. Nevertheless, Fallin contradicted herself in a 2013 press release entitled “Governor Fallin Announces Extension of Insure Oklahoma.” That press release explains that “those individuals above 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Level qualify for the federal Health Insurance Marketplace and related advance premium tax credits, which will be offered to individuals and families earning up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.”

Nor is this the extent of the evidence showing that state officials were not “well aware” that they risked losing tax credits if they did not set up their own exchange. Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell said that he was unaware of any “clear benefits of a state run exchange to our citizens.” Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker said that “there’s no real substantive difference between a federal exchange, or a state exchange.” A brief filed by the governors or attorneys general of 24 states the last time the fate of Obamacare was before the Supreme Court explained that the law “can only operate in the manner that Congress intended” if the tax credits are “intact.”

On Tuesday, the Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent quoted multiple state officials who explained that the subject of whether a state risked tax credits by opting for a federally-run exchange never even came up. Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, a Republican, told Sargent that “the discussion was never about what happens to the subsidies.” Rather, “[h]ad it occurred to us that not doing a state exchange would somehow jeopardize citizens in Kansas being eligible for subsides, we would have made that argument loud and clear. And we never did. It never entered our minds.”

Similarly, Cindi Jones was appointed by Virginia’s McDonnell to lead the governor’s Virginia Health Reform Initiative panel. Jones told Sargent that “there was no discussion at any meeting that one of the reasons we would want to do a state based exchange was that it would be the only way we would get subsidies.”

Now, however, the plaintiffs in King and the six attorneys general who support them want the justices to believe that states were “well aware” that many of their citizens would lose their ability to afford health insurance if the state elected for a federally-run exchange. This claim simply cannot be squared with the clearly stated views of multiple state officials, all of whom were “engaged in the process of deciding whether the State” should set up its own exchange, and many of whom are Republicans.

[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

“DEFLATEGATE”? SCIENCE GUY TELLS MERICA TO GIVE A FUCK ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

SCIENCE GUY BILL NYE TELLS AMERICA TO WAKE THE FUCK ABOUT ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week or so, it’s likely that you’ve heard about the now infamous “Deflategate” controversy swirling around the New England Patriots and the fact that 11 of the 12 footballs they used during the AFC Championship game were found to be under-inflated. Words cannot express how sick and tired I am of hearing about this story. I understand that the Super Bowl is approaching and this isn’t the first questionable thing that’s been tied to the Patriots, but the coverage over this whole situation has been just silly. How many times can reporters ask Bill Belichick or Tom Brady the same questions? They’ve said all they’re going to say. Until some sort of new, concrete information comes out regarding this issue – let it go.

Bill Nye recently debunked Belichick’s claim that the weather might have been the cause of the under-inflated footballs in a video he recorded for Funny Or Die. But what this clip was clearly meant to do was mock the “outrage” and attention people have given this controversy, while often giving a fraction of that attention to “small” things like climate change. We remember climate change, right? It’s just the human-driven phenomenon that threatens to end life as we know it and possibly even make the planet uninhabitable for human beings.

You know that “little” thing. And as pretty much everybody knows, Nye has become quite a spokesman for those of us who know climate change is real and trust the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that says humans are the ones causing it.

It was a bit of a genius move on Nye’s part to take this opportunity to use a sports/pop culture story like Deflategate to emphasize that people need to start caring about climate change as much (if not more) than they do nonsense like under-inflated footballs.

“While we have a few minutes here, I’d like to talk about something else,” Nye said. “Climate Change is real! While we’re all obsessed with Deflategate, let’s keep in mind that’s there’s something about which you should give a fuck! Yes, like Tom Brady, the world is getting hotter and hotter, because we humans are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

This is Nye at his best, perfectly emphasizing a very important issue that we should be discussing every single day, but it was done in such a way to get the attention it deserves. So, what does Nye think we need to do?

“You should vote for congressmen and senators that appreciate the threat of climate change and the rate at which the world is getting warmer, so that we can preserve the Earth for humankind for generations to come,” he said.

Bill Nye The Science Guy Tackles DeflateGate from Funny Or Die

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

WAS BEN CARSON REALLY A BRAIN SURGEON?

Ben Carson Suggests That Congress Should Remove Pro-Equality Judges, Which Is Unconstitutional

Federal judges had better make sure that their future rulings don’t conflict with the policy preferences of a President Ben Carson. Otherwise, despite a lifetime appointment, they might quickly find themselves out of a job.

During an interview last week with conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace, Carson, who is considering running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, discussed the wave of recent rulings by federal courts striking down same-sex marriage bans. He argued that statewide ballot initiative results should be the final word, saying it was “unconstitutional” that judges have ruled in favor of equality despite these votes.

Carson continued that, when federal judges make rulings like this, “our Congress actually has the right to reprimand or remove them.”





Setting aside Carson’s premise that the Constitution’s promise of equality should be put up to a vote, he is misguided about what the Constitution provides with respect to judges. Despite his assertion, Congress cannot simply remove a judge for ruling in a way the majority disagrees with. Judges may only be removed for impeachable offenses, which the Constitution defines as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Under other circumstances, the Constitution declares that “judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior.

Admittedly, there are precedents for reducing a sitting judge’s jurisdiction. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, for example, was split into two courts in 1981. That was not done to punish the judges on that court, however, but rather because the old Fifth Circuit was viewed as too large an unwieldy. It would be something entirely different to strip a judge — and that judge’s court — of all of their authority.

Carson is not the only Republican to propose this type of governing through intimidation. Multiple times during his presidential bid, former Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested eliminating entire courts in order to punish judges he disagreed with.

Of course, it’s not terribly surprising that Carson would propose removing pro-equality judges, given his fervent opposition to LGBT rights. In 2013, he gained notoriety for comparing marriage equality to pedophilia and bestiality. He reiterated this view before eventually backing down and apologizing.



[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS 

STAFF WRITER

“HOMOSEXUALITY MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM”

WING NUT SALLY KERN OF OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma is currently one of the most conservative states to have marriage equality (Alabama just got a two-week delay in holding that title). Same-sex couples are carefully beginning to exercise their new right, like Tracy Curtis and Kathryn Frazier, whose anxiety over every wedding invitation was thoughtfully profiled by the Washington Post this weekend. But conservative lawmakers have expressed their interest in circumventing that freedom to marry in several creative ways.

State Rep. Sally Kern is leading that charge. She infamously insists that homosexuality is “more dangerous” than terrorism, and has attempted to make a martyr of herself over the backlash for saying so. Last week, she filed three separate bills designed to circumvent equality for the LGBT community by either licensing discrimination or outright promoting harm.

Her first bill, HB 1597, specifically empowers businesses to refuse service to the LGBT community. Unlike the slew of bills in other states that use “religious freedom” language to create a carve-out for anti-LGBT discrimination, Kern’s bill explicitly identifies LGBT people: “No business entity shall be required to provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges related to any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person, group or association.” This bill may be the most blatant “license to discriminate” of any legislation recently proffered by conservative lawmakers across the country.

While several states are considering following the lead of California and New Jersey in banning ex-gay therapy for minors — so that the harmful, ineffective treatment cannot be forced upon them by unaccepting parents — Kern takes the opposite approach. HB 1598 would create the “Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act,” insisting, “The people of this state have the right to seek and obtain counseling or conversion therapy from a mental health provider in order to control or end any unwanted sexual attraction, and no state agency shall infringe upon that right.” This includes minors, as the bill specifically empowers parents to obtain ex-gay therapy for their children “without interference by the state.”

Lastly, Kern wants to try to prevent couples like Tracy and Kathryn from getting married even though federal courts have guaranteed them that right. Her third bill, HB 1599 (the so-called “Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act”), borrows directly from similar legislation proposed in Texas to prevent government employees from receiving a salary if they issue a same-sex marriage license. “No taxpayer funds or governmental salaries shall be paid for any activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage,” the bill declares. Not only would clerks lose their salary, pension, and benefits, but any judge who issued a same-sex marriage license “shall be removed from office.”

Kern is not alone in trying to block marriage equality at the clerk level. State Rep. Todd Russ has proposed a bill (HB 1125) that would no longer allow clerks or judges to even officiate marriages anymore. If couples do not have a formal ceremony with a religious leader, they would have to file an affidavit of common law marriage instead, and they would never actually receive a marriage certificate. Russ, himself a credentialed Assemblies of God minister, told The Oklahoman that though he joins many Oklahomans in opposing same-sex marriage, “the Supreme Court stuck it down our throats,” but “marriages are not supposed to be a government thing anyway.”

It’s unclear whether lawmakers are willing to get behind these bills that clearly target the LGBT community for harm, discrimination, and unequal access to government services, nor whether they would be upheld in a federal court. Republicans do enjoy supermajorities in both the Oklahoma House and Senate, so passage cannot be ruled out.

Congratulations Sally Kern, you are today's dual award winner. The coveted asshat and worst person in the world are yours today. 

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

TEEN SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE AT POLICE STATION

Kristiana Coignard

Last Thursday, 17-year-old Kristiana Coignard was shot dead by three police officers in the lobby of the Longview Police Department. Coignard arrived at the station around 6:30 p.m. and asked to talk to an officer. Police say the girl was “brandishing a weapon” before she was shot four times.

The three officers, who have not been identified, have been placed on leave. The investigation of Coignard’s death is now being handled by the Texas Rangers.

The incident, at this point, is shrouded in mystery. Officials could not “confirm the type of weapon Coignard brandished at the officers.” Beyond the alleged, unspecified weapon, virtually no details about the events that immediately preceded Coignard’s death have been released.

Coignard was living in Longview with her Aunt, Heather Robertson. In an interview Robertson raised questions about the circumstances of Coignard’s death. “I think it was a cry for help. I think they could have done something. They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us.”

Robertson said that her niece had been struggling with mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder, since her mother died when she was four. She had been hospitalized twice in recent years after suicide attempts. One time, she tried to hang herself. Another time, she drank toilet bowl cleaner. Since arriving in Longview in December, Coignard had been taking medication and regularly seeing a therapist. She had no criminal record and “was only violent with herself, ” Robertson said.

Robertson and Coignard’s grandmother, Holly McGuire, spoke to a Longview police officer on the night Coignard was killed for about 30 minutes. They were provided with few details of what transpired but were told that a video of the incident, including sound, exists. They have not been contacted by the Texas Rangers.

Kristian Brian, a spokesperson for the Longview Police Department, declined to comment further on the case, citing the ongoing investigation by the Texas Rangers. Brian did confirm that a video of the incident exists.

Police officers frequently encounter the mentally ill, but often do not receive training. As a result “rash stigmatization and misinterpretation of the intentions of the mentally ill can cause vital errors and ultimately make the difference between life and death.”

Coignard’s death also raises questions about use of force protocols in the United States. British citizens, for example, “are about 100 times less likely to be shot by police, according to the Economist.”

Officers in Longview were involved in two fatal shootings in 2014, including one involving a 15-year-old. In both instances, the officers were cleared by a grand jury.

With the hiring mentality of police departments, “too smart, application denied”, mixed with trigger happy officers, what else are we to expect?

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

JAMES INHOFE IS A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID

Wednesday was a big day for conservative for flat earth society member and wing nut Sen. James Inhofe . In the morning, he officially took the gavel as chairman of the Senate’s Environment Committee. In the afternoon, he took the Senate floor for a long speech about how human-caused climate change is fake.



In sum, the speech has everything. References to the oft-debunked “ClimateGate” stolen e-mail “scandal”, a poster of a Time Magazine cover from 1974 claiming an ice age is coming, and multiple references to former Vice President Al Gore. It has a mention of a survey of weather-casters who think global warming is caused by natural variation, but does not mention that weather-casters are not climate scientists. It even includes the claim that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “started” the whole idea that climate change is happening, even though the idea was conceived about 200 years ago.

The video above actually begins a couple minutes in to Inhofe’s speech, with a quote from Richard Lindzen, a former MIT professor and one of the most-cited voices of scientists who think global warming is fake. Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist, has often been characterized as having contrarian scientific opinions. He has also said that the evidence that cigarettes cause lung cancer is not “so strong that one should rule that any questions were out of order.”

Behind Inhofe in the beginning of the video is a list of climate scientists — Lindzen included — who don’t agree with the vast majority of climate scientists who say human-caused carbon emissions are contributing to climate change. Inhofe says he has compiled a list of 4,000 “renowned scientists” scientists who disagree (“this is all in my website,” he said). Inhofe’s list actually has 650 people, some of whom are television meteorologists, geologists, anthropologists, and even a man with no college degree.

Conversely, one of the most recent peer-reviewed studies on the state of climate science showed that out of 4000 abstracts from peer-reviewed papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of global warming — 97 percent of these endorsed the point that it was human-caused. In the video, Inhofe says this is “just not true.”

Inhofe also criticizes climatologist Michael Mann’s famous hockey stick graph, which displayed temperatures going back half a millennium, and cites the controversy it received as a reason to believe climate change is fake. He does not mention that the National Academy of Sciences vindicated the hockey stick graph in 2006 as good science, as have multiple other peer-reviewed studies since.

It’s also worthwhile to point out that even if the hockey stick was wrong, even if it didn’t exist, we would still have enough scientific evidence to prove climate change is real and caused by humans. “Climate deniers like to make it seem like the entire weight of evidence for climate change rests on the hockey stick,” Mann told the Atlantic in 2013. “And that’s not the case. We could get rid of all these reconstructions, and we could still know that climate change is a threat, and that we’re causing it.”

Don’t expect this speech to be the end of climate denial in the Senate. Indeed, Inhofe ended his speech by promising more of it, citing his new position as head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“Now I’m back in that position so we’ll have a chance to have hearings, and Mr. President, we’re going to have hearings with prominent scientists to come in and talk about this thing,” he said. “We’ll be there to be the truth-squad.”

James Inhofe, you are this week's worst person of the week. Congrats numbnutz!

[h/t thinkprogress]



NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West