SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA

TENNESSEE TESTING OF  WELFARE RECIPIENTS TURNS UP DRY

Epic fail for the state of Tennessee:

Less than one half of one percent of Tennesseans [.0023] who applied for public assistance flunked a drug test in the first six months of the state’s experiment with drug screenings for welfare recipients, according to recently released state figures.

Out of more than 16,000 applicants from the beginning of July through the end of 2014, just 37 tested positive for illegal drug use. While that amounts to roughly 13 percent of the 279 applicants who the state decided to test based on their answers to a written questionnaire about drug use, the overall rate among applicants is just 0.2 percent.

Such an infinitesimal rate of drug use among welfare applicants contrasts sharply with the state’s overall 8 percent rate of drug use. Across the country, states that implement drug tests for low-income families have found that economically vulnerable people are less likely than the general population to use drugs. Utah spent $30,000 on tests that caught just 12 drug users, for a positive rate of 0.2 percent of total benefits recipients, compared to 6 percent of all state residents who use drugs. Before a judge ruled Florida’s drug testing system was illegal, it had turned up a drug use rate of just 2 percent among public assistance users, compared to 8 percent of its total population.

Separate research has also found that the facts do not support the stigmatizing ideas about low-income Americans and drug use that motivate drug testing schemes like these. Less than 4 percent of welfare recipients have a drug abuse problem — the kind of habitual dependence on a drug that the tests are theoretically designed to root out — and the rate of non-abusive drug use among the welfare population is barely above that of comparable non-welfare families.

“Other physical and mental health problems are far more prevalent” among low-income people than substance abuse problems, social scientist and public benefits expert Harold Pollack wrote in the Washington Post, and “yet these less-moralized concerns receive much less attention from legislators or the general public.” Pollack’s research found that age is a better predictor of drug abuse than welfare participation, with men aged 18 to 24 being roughly twice as likely to have a substance abuse problem than a food stamps recipient. Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health have condemned dragnet drug testing for welfare recipients as ineffective, harmful, and unnecessary.

But the idea of drug testing poor folk before doling out food money and rental assistance continues to spread despite all the evidence and expert testimony against the practice. Texas lawmakers are hoping to start mandatory drug tests for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; their law would impose a three-strikes rule for drug testing, under which anyone who tested positive a third time would be permanently ineligible for the federal aid program. Maine is launching its own drug testing system for welfare early this year. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to drug test everyone who gets food stamps or jobless insurance money. Montana lawmakers have proposed a drug testing scheme this year, and El Paso County, CO has instituted a testing system.

The stubborn stickiness of the idea that drug testing low-income families is good policy reflects a broader misunderstanding about the lifestyles of the poor. In reality, people who rely on public assistance programs to make ends meet are thriftier than the average American, spending a smaller share of their budgets on eating out and entertainment.

[h/t thinkprogress] 

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

NSA HAS SPY SOFTWARE IN OUR COMPUTERS?

NSA HAS SPYWARE IN OUR COMPUTERS?

The U.S. National Security Agency may have been hiding spy software deep in consumers’ hard drives as part of its surveillance programs, according to a Reuters report.

Russian researchers found firmware planted in hard drives from top computer manufacturers such as Toshiba, Seagate, and Western Digital. Spyware was found in some form on personal computers in 30 countries, primarily in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria, according to a report published by Moscow-based security software company Kaspersky Lab, which has a track record of uncovering Western countries’ cyber espionage programs.

Targets of the spyware ran the gamut with computers belonging to government and military institutions, banks, Islamic activists, media, telecommunication companies, nuclear researchers, and energy specialists found to be infected.

The Kaspersky Lab doesn’t explicitly name who was responsible for planting the firmware but indicates the spy campaign is closely related to the NSA’s Stuxnet program used against Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and discovered in 2010.

Former intelligence analysts confirmed to Reuters the NSA still values Stuxnet-like programs and has become proficient in hiding spyware deep in computers’ hard drives. The NSA has not publicly commented to the allegations.

Public concerns over government surveillance have grown worldwide, and ignited calls for reform and better privacy practices. Document leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in late 2014 revealed how the agency both knowingly and unwittingly violated privacy laws, confirming earlier reports that it collected mass amounts data from ordinary citizens rather than suspected terrorists.

International governments have also taken more precautions to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies from eavesdropping on official communications. Germany and Russia vowed to switch back to paper communications such as handwritten notes and typewriters to avoid surveillance. Other countries have responded by beefing up their own spy programs or doubling down on American tech companies operating overseas.

[h/t thinkprogress]

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

“WELFARE CRAZY CHECKS”

WING NUT GENE ALDAY

A Mississippi state lawmaker said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”

In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.

Alday continued, saying that when he was mayor of Walls, MS, that the times he’d gone to the emergency room had taken a long time. “I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots,” he told the newspaper.

At issue is something called Mississippi’s “third grade reading gate,” a measure passed in 2013, which won’t allow students to advance to fourth grade if they can’t read proficiently. A survey of Mississippi’s school superintendents estimated that about 28 percent of the state’s third graders would have to repeat a grade because they couldn't pass the reading proficiency exams.

The idea for the policy came from Florida, where the state invested about $1 billion into schools to pay for reading coaches, teachers and increased attention to students who struggled with reading.

The Mississippi legislature recently advanced a bill that would provide exceptions to the reading policy for students with learning disabilities. The bill is opposed by Gov. Phil Bryant , who supports the third grade gate policy.

“It’s disappointing that 62 members of the House of Representatives would vote to socially promote children who cannot read,” Bryant told the Clarion-Ledger. “With votes like this, it is little wonder that Mississippi’s public education system has been an abysmal failure.”

Bryant’s critics suggest that he needs to change his approach. “If the governor is sincere about making universal literacy a gateway, rather than a gatekeeper, he would support full funding for what it will take to get the literacy job done,” said Mike Sayer, co-founder of Southern Echo, a grassroots civil rights group that works with African-American students.

Alday staunchly opposes increasing the funding. “I don’t see any schools hurting,” he said.

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STAFF WRITER

VIRGINIA WING-NUT WE DON'T NEED EDUCATION FUNDING BECAUSE "SOCRATES TRAINED PLATO FROM A ROCK"

VIRGINIA WING NUT DAVE BRAT

During a House Education and Workforce Committee proceeding on Wednesday to reauthorize the nation’s elementary and secondary education law, Rep. Dave Brat said, “Socrates trained Plato in on a rock and then Plato trained in Aristotle roughly speaking on a rock. So, huge funding is not necessary to achieve the greatest minds and the greatest intellects in history.”

Watch (remarks start at 46:08):




He began his remarks by saying, “The greatest thinkers in Western civilization were not products of education policy,” before mentioning Socrates and Plato. He later went on to say that he thinks the answer to improving education in this country “would be to get private sector folks into every one of our schools, get the CEOs in the schools and move beyond this just narrow policy debate and really have a revolution.”

The committee is considering a Republican version of reauthorization that could change the way federal funding is distributed to low-income students living in communities with high concentrations of poverty, or what is known as “portability.” To mitigate the challenges students face who are living in places with a high density of poverty, current law targets $14 billion to schools and school districts based on the number of students living in these communities. The Republican legislation would give states the option to allocate the same amount of federal dollars per poor student whether they live in a high poverty community or not. Under this provision, for example, Los Angeles Unified School District would lose out on more than $75 million while the Beverly Hills Unified School District would gain $140,000.

The bill was passed out of committee on Thursday on a party line vote after it refused to hold a congressional hearing on the legislation. The Senate, however, recently agreed to start over on a bipartisan approach to writing the bill.

Brat’s comments came the day before the U.S. Department of Education announced the national high school graduation rate had reached a record high, crediting significant federal investments in education.

Rep. Brat may not think formal education is important, but he himself was previously an economics professor at Randolph Macon College and holds both a Masters and a PhD.

[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS

Bill Maher last night in his New Rules section, visited the Brian Williams debacle and his take on what news should be.

You see Bill Maher doesn’t really care that much for Brian Williams‘ series of misstatements. No, the real reason Williams should “go away,” according to Maher, is that “NBC Nightly News sucks.” (But to be fair, he also thinks CBS Evening News and ABC World News Tonight suck too.)

See, what “destroyed” Brian Williams’ credibility in Maher’s eyes was “ten years of wasting precious news time with bullshit stories.” It really bothers him that national nightly newscasts shirk their “sacred responsibility” to report the news in favor of viral YouTube videos, cutesy human interest stories, and lots and lots of weather coverage.

Maher called it “journalistic malpractice” for Williams to spend so little time reporting on climate change and instead covering east coast blizzards “like white Godzilla is on the way.

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO






NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

FIRST GREY WOLF IN 70 YEARS TO BE SEEN NEAR GRAN CAYNON IS KILLED BY HUNTER

GREY WOLF

Officials have confirmed that the first gray wolf seen around the Grand Canyon in 70 years was killed in December by a hunter in southern Utah after he mistook it for coyote. The three-year-old female, named “Echo” through a contest held with hundreds of schoolchildren, was the first gray wolf to be spotted in the region since the 1940s. After being collared in Wyoming in early January 2014, the wolf had ventured at least 750 miles into the new territory — further evidence that gray wolf populations are coming back from the brink of extinction after decades of reckless killings.

“The fact the Echo had ventured into new territory hopefully signifies that there is still additional habitat where this vulnerable species can thrive and survive,” said Nidhi J. Thakar, deputy director of the public lands project at the Center for American Progress.

While the gray wolf may be making a comeback it still occupies only around 10 percent of its historic range, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which states that researchers have identified more than 350,000 square miles of unoccupied suitable wolf habit including remote stretches of the southern Rockies, Adirondacks, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade mountains. In the mid-20th century, the only places gray wolves could be found in the U.S. included a slice of northern Minnesota and Michigan’s Isle Royale.

The coyote hunter who shot Echo, and whose name has not been released, reported the killing to authorities as an accident. Gray wolves are on the Endangered Species Act and it is illegal to kill them anywhere in the U.S. except Idaho and Montana, eastern Washington and Oregon, and northeastern Utah. According to the Center For Biological Diversity, this partial removal of federal protections in the Northwest has lead to the deaths of thousands of wolves through state-authorized hunting and trapping in recent years. Congress is now considering a legislative rider that would preclude protecting wandering wolves like Echo, according to the wildlife conservation group.

“Echo’s killing illustrates the perils that wolves face and the imperative to maintain federal protections as called for under the science-based standards of the Endangered Species Act,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Keeping wolves on the endangered list is the basis for the public education we need, to enable more wolves to live and thrive and minimize conflict.”

There are now more than 6,000 gray wolves in the continental United States, concentrated in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, as well as the Rocky Mountain states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and eastern Oregon and Washington.

As urban boundaries sprawl across the West — encroaching further into wild areas suitable for large animals such as wolves — the issue of co-existence becomes more important as animals have limited alternative habitat to retreat into. While ranchers and sportsmen are familiar with the challenges of habituating among wild animals, larger and denser developments can cause the tensions to escalate.

“As urban habitats expand into undeveloped areas there is an increasing challenge with ensuring wolves can peacefully co-exist with humans,” said Thakar.

Existing with humans means far more than just learning how to cross the street: on top of sprawling development, expansive ecological damage associated with climate change and fossil fuel extraction cause massive habitat degradation. Even the species that thrive in this new human-dominated era, such as coyotes, are caught in a continuous struggle — and the results can be surprising.

This year a black bear killed a hiker in New Jersey for the first time in over 150 years as the bear population grows and spreads throughout the state. Polar bear attacks on humans are increasing in areas around the Arctic. And a new hybrid between coyotes and wolves, the coywolf, is rapidly expanding across the East as it combines the prowess of a wolf and cunning of a coyote — a bad combination for deer, another species that is thriving across suburban America.

With more species struggling to survive in a dramatically altered wild, this co-existence with unfamiliar species may become increasingly common as human populations continue to grow, urbanize, and demand more resources.

[h/t thinkprogress]

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STAFF WRITER

SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS GOVERNOR IS A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID

 SAM BROWNBACK

In 2007, the state of Kansas was forbidden from firing state employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity under an executive order signed by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

On Tuesday, the state’s sitting governor, Sam Brownback , abruptly rescinded this order. Before any state officials take Brownback’s action as a license to purge gay or trans workers, however, they should familiarize themselves with the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s decisions applying it in gay rights cases. If Kansas actually fires someone for being gay or trans, they are likely to find themselves on the wrong end of a federal lawsuit.

The Constitution forbids states from denying any person “the equal protection of the laws.” In the gay rights context, the Supreme Court explained most recently in its 2013 decision striking down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), “the Constitution’s guarantee of equality ‘must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group.'”

The Court’s precedents also establish that discrimination by a state official is no less offensive to the Constitution than discrimination by an act of Congress, so if a Kansas state official fires a state employee simply because they are gay, lesbian or bisexual, they violate the Constitution — regardless of whether a state has an executive order in place banning the practice. Mere anti-gay animus, divorced from another, legitimate justification for the state official’s action, cannot justify discrimination.

Yet, while the Court’s precedents indicate that state-sponsored discrimination against gay workers is unconstitutional, LGBT Kansans should be aware of two caveats to this conclusion. The first is that, while the arc of the Supreme Court’s gay rights jurisprudence has bent towards justice in recent years, gay Americans are still caught in an odd kind of constitutional limbo that creates some uncertainty regarding the scope of their rights.

Although the word “discrimination” carries negative connotations, most forms of discrimination are entirely constitutional — and rightfully so. The government may legitimately prefer job applicants who performed well in college to those with low GPAs. Or it can discriminate against people who did not graduate from law school when hiring lawyers. Or it can choose to only throw people who committed crimes into prison while treating the rest of the population differently.

No sensible legal regime bans all forms of discrimination, rather, the Constitution bars what is often described as “invidious” discrimination — discrimination against groups that have historically be subject to discrimination due to a trait that bears little relation to their “ability to perform or contribute to society.” This is why race and gender discrimination are typically forbidden by the Constitution. It is also why many courts recognize that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is largely impermissible.

The Supreme Court, however, has not yet gone so far as to hold that discrimination against gay people is subject to “heightened scrutiny” — although several lower courts have done so. This oversight creates enough uncertainty regarding the scope of gay rights under the Constitution that a minority of federal judges ruled against marriage equality even after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. If Kansas fires an employee because they are gay, and that employee sues, the fate of that lawsuit could hinge upon whether the case is heard by a judge who is inclined to construe the Supreme Court’s gay rights cases narrowly.

The second caveat is that, while the Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions protecting gay rights, they’ve had much less to say about the rights of transgender Americans. Although the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that “a government agent violates the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fires a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender non-conformity,” it is an open question whether the conservative Roberts Court will reach the same conclusion. Kansas is also located in the Tenth Circuit, and there is also no guarantee that Tenth Circuit judges will agree with the Eleventh Circuit.

Perhaps because of these two uncertainties, state-based LGBT rights groups in Kansas remain quite alarmed about what could happen to state employees who no longer enjoy the protection of Sebelius’s executive order. Equality Kansas, for example, tweeted out an admonition to reporters asking to speak to LGBT state employees — “To reporters asking us for LGBT KS State employees for you to interview: NO. They talk today, they’re fired tomorrow. Think about it. Thanks.”


Congratulations Sam, you are today's worst person in the world, enjoy asshat!


[h/t thinkprogress]

NFTOS
Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

CONSERVATIVES TRAMPLE KAYLA MUELLER AFTER DEATH

KAYLA MUELLER

On Tuesday, the radical Islamic group the Islamic State announced that 26-year-old hostage Kayla Mueller was dead, reportedly in a Jordanian bombing raid.

As Talking Points Memo reported, while much of the world reacted with horror and grief at the death, many conservatives took to social media to celebrate the killing and call the young aid worker a terrorist sympathizer and “anti-Israel bitch” because of her work on behalf of the occupied people of Palestine.

In a piece titled “Kayla Mueller: Dead ISIS Hostage Was Jew-Hating, Anti-Israel Bitch,” conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel wrote, “No tears for the newly-departed Kayla Mueller, the ISIS hostage whose parents confirmed today that she is dead.”

“Mueller was a Jew-hating, anti-Israel piece of crap who worked with HAMAS and helped Palestinians harass Israeli soldiers and block them from doing their job of keeping Islamic terrorists out of Israel,” Schlussel wrote.

“I have no sympathy for any of these ‘American’ (in name only!) hostages of ISIS,” she went on. “And my attitude when I hear they’ve been snuffed out is, so sad, too bad.”

One conservative website urged readers to pause before they mourn Mueller’s death and ask whether her support of Palestine was ultimately what killed her.

“People should be asking is why this young American girl was in Syria in the first place,” said Conservative-Headlines.com. “The fact is that Kayla Mueller was a Cultural Marxist who talked about her ‘privilege.’”

On Twitter, some conservatives mocked Mueller for being “liberal.”

The website Shoebat.com’s Lee Kaplan said, “(T)he press tries to paint Kayla as a selfless volunteer helping poor Arab refugees. She may have even helped some injured Arabs in refugee camps. But don’t be fooled where her sympathies laid; she was working to support the goals of Palestinian irredentist/terrorists and to interfere with the IDF on behalf of terrorist groups. As an ISM activist she was a tool for the worldwide jihad.”

And Jim Hoft, also known as the Gateway Pundit, called Mueller “pro-terrorist” for opposing Israel’s ongoing occupation of Gaza.

[h/t rawstory]

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

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