Florida Joins Wisconsin In Union Busting

Florida City Paying $2,500 A Day To Radical Union-Busting Firm To Stop Workers From Organizing:

All over the country, right-wing lawmakers are waging a war on Main Street America’s labor rights, purporting to do so out of a desire for fiscal restraint (while also backing budget-busting tax breaks for the wealthiest among us).

Now, the city of Winter Park, Florida, is going to new lengths to stop nearly 150 city workers from joining a union. Apparently more concerned with stopping the union than saving money, Winter Park hired consultants at Kulture LLC, “a firm specializing in labor relations” at the rate of $2,500 a day to persuade workers to vote against organizing this summer:

Winter Park is paying a consultant $2,500 a day to help the city’s staff dissuade about 150 city workers from joining a union. [...] Employees in the public works, parks, fleet maintenance and water departments are likely to vote in June or July on whether to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, known as AFSCME. In the past few years, the city has done away with longevity bonuses and pay increases because of the economy. [...] Members of AFSCME have criticized the use of tax money to pay a group that they say has a politically right-leaning agenda.

A spokesman for the city told the Orlando Sentinel that it didn’t “do a political background check” on Kulture before hiring the firm and that the city just wants to inform workers about their options. Yet a cursory look at Kulture and the activities it conducts shows what the firm is all about: union-busting.

Kulture’s website is replete with right-wing ideology. It hosts op-eds claiming that sweatshops are an opportunity for the “third world poor” and bragging that the “labor movement is dead.” Its webpages direct users to far-right sources of information such as the Ayn Rand Institute and The Federalist Society. It also hosts the anti-union laborunionreport.com, which hosts anti-labor articles and a monthly “anti-union report.” The organization’s CEO, Peter A. List, has said that “unions are a by-product of a bad relationship.”

“We’re basically hiring them to make sure that factual, accurate information is given to our employees before they make a vote on whether or not to join a union,” says Winter Park spokeswoman Clarissa Howard. But one has to wonder how hiring a radical, Ayn Rand-promoting anti-union organization will do anything but try to scare workers into submission.

NFTOS

Andrew Breitbarts Big Government Used "Distorted" Video In Latest Sting

University Of Missouri Concludes

Last month Andrew Breitbart made good on his promise to "go after the teachers," as his Big Government website published a series of misleadingly edited videos attacking the University of Missouri's labor studies program. Big Government's editors claimed the video showed two labor studies professors at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Missouri-Kansas City teaching students that "fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools."

But the claims Big Government writers made about those videos are simply not credible. And this isn't just our view; after reviewing all of the tapes, the chancellor and provost of the University of Missouri-St. Louis reached the same conclusion.

From an open letter published on St. Louis Activist Hub:

We have finally completed viewing the videos originating at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) from the UMSL course Introduction to Labor Studies. The excerpts that were made public showing the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) instructor Don Giljum and students as well as the UMKC instructor and students were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.

As stated previously, our campus supports academic freedom, civility, diversity, open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. We support the academic freedom of faculty, staff and students at UMSL. Contrary to some reports, Don Giljum has not been fired from the campus faculty, and in fact, is completing the course; he remains eligible to teach at UMSL. We sincerely regret the distress to him and others that has been caused by the unauthorized copying, editing and distribution of the course videos.

The full text of the letter is available here.

CEO Bonuses Rose By Nearly 20%

As most American families continue to struggle with high unemployment and stagnant wages, CEOs at the country’s 350 biggest companies saw their pay jump 11% last year to a median of $9.3 million, according to a study conducted for the Wall Street Journal. The survey looked at direct compensation — salary, bonuses, and long-term incentive awards — and did not include assets like stock options:

For the surveyed CEOs, the sharpest pay gains came via bonuses, which soared 19.7% as profits recovered, especially in some hard-hit industries. … Net income rose by a median of 17%; shareholders at those companies enjoyed a median return, including dividends, of 18%.

Corporate profits may be at sky-high levels, but they are not translating into shared prosperity for all. Median household income has fallen nearly 5% over the past decade and in 2010 was $50,221. The lack of wage growth has made it difficult for average Americans to keep up with rising prices on everything from gas to food.

This latest report is further evidence that the gap between the rich and everyone else is widening, with economic inequality in the U.S. at its highest levels since the Great Depression.


NFTOS

Governor's Actions Weaken Virginia’s Classrooms

Gov. McDonnell’s public broadcasting cuts actually will strip funding from Virginia’s classrooms.

VA GOV BOB McDONNELL

On Tuesday night, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced that he was using his line-item veto power to cut $424,000 in funding state legislators had approved for public broadcasting. McDonnell wrote in his veto letter:

Such grants are not core services of government, and especially given the scarcity of resources during these difficult economic times, such grants ought to be eliminated. … I believe it to be an appropriate reduction given the discretionary nature of this funding and the realities which face us on the budgetary front. I am confident that the excellent work done by public television and radio will continue with generous contributions from the private sector.

The funding McDonnell eliminated with the veto doesn’t actually go towards developing television or radio programming. Rather, its for the Instructional Telecommunications Services contract with the public broadcasters, a program dedicated to developing and providing low-cost or free electronic educational materials for Virginia schools. When legislators agreed to an earlier round of public broadcasting cuts in February, they did so in exchange for an increase in educational broadcast funding. That’s the funding that McDonnell cut.

Bert Schmidt, the president of WHRO, a public broadcasting unit owned jointly by 18 school systems in the Hampton Roads area, told us that McDonnell’s strategy was in direct opposition to the governor’s own priorities on virtual learning. And Schmidt said the cuts could end up costing the state more money in the long run, if school systems have to turn to private education companies to develop high-quality programming as a replacement. Before the cuts, WHRO received $870,000 in state funding annually, and estimated that it saved those school districts $7.6 million each year by creating programming they share.

“We have 50,000 video elements that have been created to provide formal education,” he said. “We had a member of the Virginia House saying you can just do a Google search. If you’re teaching in a health class about breast cancer and you Google breast cancer, guess what you’re going to find…It’s insulting to teachers, it’s insulting to schools to think they’d allow teachers to do a Google search to meet students’ needs.”

And Schmidt says McDonnell’s framing of education cuts as an attack on public broadcasting is clearly aimed at the 2012 elections.

“We believe he will do the second phase, to completely defund us next year around the same time that some Republican candidate is going to be looking for a vice presidential candidate. He’ll be able to say he was able to quote, unquote, defund PBS, even though that’s not what’s happening,” Schmidt said. “He’s putting his political aspirations ahead of Virginia students.”

Way to go Bob, you get tool of the day award!


NFTOS

George Bush Cries Fowl and Snubs POTUS Invite, Beacause…….

He’s peeved that he hasn’t gotten enough credit for the Bin Laden killing.

President Obama will visit the New York site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks today, but former President George W. Bush won’t be at his side. Originally, a Bush spokesperson said the former president declined Obama’s invite because “has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight,” though he “appreciated the invite.” This morning, however, the New York Daily News quoted sources saying that Bush won’t be at Ground Zero today because he feels Obama hasn’t given the Bush administration enough credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden:

“[Bush] viewed this as an Obama victory lap,” a highly-placed source told the Daily News Wednesday. [...]

“He doesn’t feel personally snubbed and appreciates the invitation, but Obama’s claiming all the credit and a lot of other people deserve some of it,” the source added.

“Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way.”

Obama and Bush spoke briefly after Bin Laden’s death was confirmed, and Bush issued a statement shortly thereafter congratulating him. President Obama campaigned on a promise to capture and kill the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and revived the search for Bin Laden after it had lapsed during the Bush presidency. That hasn’t kept conservatives from offering the former president praise while virtually ignoring Obama, nor has it prevented former Bush administration officials from taking to the press to claim credit for Bin Laden’s death.

A spokesperson for Bush said the former president has plans to visit Ground Zero in September to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks.  

If George Bush wants credit where it’s due surely he should stand up and take full credit for the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.


NFTOS

George Bush Getting Credit Where Its Not Due

ANALYSIS: Bush’s Lackluster Hunt For Bin Laden.



Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb

 Politico reports that supporters of George W. Bush are “irked” that the former president isn’t getting more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, despite the droves of conservatives lawmakers and pundits who have been rushing to give Bush equal credit as Obama.

But this praise for Bush relies on rewriting history to obscure the fact Obama re-prioritized the hunt for Bin Laden after Bush had largely abandoned the effort to focus on Iraq.

While many conservatives are triumphantly replaying Bush’s September 2001 declaration that he would find Bin Laden, just months later, by Bush’s own account, he was unconcerned about the terrorist mastermind. Asked about the hunt for Bin Laden at a March, 2002 press conference, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added.

By 2006, the trail for Bin Laden had gone “stone cold” and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes said Bush told him that hunting Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” (Indeed, there was a flailing war in Iraq to fight.)

That year, it was revealed that the administration had shuttered the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in late 2005. As the New York Times reported at the time, the move reflected a shift in resources to Iraq:

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials. For instance, much of the military’s counterterrorism units, like the Army’s Delta Force, had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.

But Bush’s biggest misstep in the Bin Laden hunt occurred years before, in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. As a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report found, the Bush administration blew a critical opportunity to capture Bin Laden in 2001. Bin Laden was wounded and on the run, but top Bush national security officials rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials fighting the terrorist leader in the caves of Tora Bora, despite the availability of resources:

Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias.

Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, [Commanding Gen. Tommy] Franks refused to deviate from the plan.

The report “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora,” but that decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputies, and other top administration officials allowed Bin Laden to escape.

The consequence of this missed ooportunity are tremendous. As Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told NPR yesterday, “if bin Laden had been killed in Afghanistan eight years ago in the caves of Tora Bora, al-Qaida might well have died with him. Now the organization is diversified enough it could weather bin Laden’s death — and hardly miss a beat.”

Moreover, as Rumsfeld himself acknowledged, Bush’s extra-legal torture and rendition policies did not help capture Bin Laden. Enhanced interrogation techniques did not work. Bush ordered one final push to capture Bin laden shortly before he left office, but this effort too was unsuccessful.

UPDATE: Rumsfeld Flip-Flops: Now Says Harsh Interrogation Of Detainees Was ‘Critically Important’ In Bin Laden’s Death


NFTOS

Meet The Deathers



King Asshat Andrew Breitbart



Andrew Brietbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead



When it comes to asshats there is none bigger than Andrew “Andie” Brietbart! Period!

Mere hours after President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, supported by incontrovertible DNA evidence, the conspiracy theorists are hard at work. Andrew Breitbart, a prominent right-wing commentator with close ties to the Republican Party and the Tea Party, is pushing the theory on his website Big Peace.

On Breitbart’s website, J. Michael Waller, suggests Obama take a number of extraordinary steps so he can “make sure [Osama] is dead.” Pictures are apparently not enough. Walker asserts that he needs to be able to “walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it.” More:

The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead. No shroud for dignity’s sake, please – bin Laden’s naked, bullet-riddled corpse should be put on display in lower Manhattan for all the world to see. The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out – and made available for everyone to take his or her own picture.

Walker ads that “For us Doubting Thomases out there – we need to see in order to believe.”

Brietbart isn’t alone. On Twitter, Emily Miller, a senior editor at the Washington Times demanded “proof” that Osama is dead.

With birtherism quickly losing steam after the release of Obama’s long form birth certificate, will the right-wing follow Brietbart’s lead?

NFTOS knows of one follower.......AKA Dana Loesch, as she has her head so far up Breitbarts posterior she is suffocating to death.

NFTOS

BIN LADEN….DEATH BY HEAD SHOT

President Obama authorized the development of a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s compound in March, but later called it off because the raid would have likely inflicted many civilian causalities and destroyed Bin Laden’s body, thus eviscerating proof Obama needed to ensure the world he had killed the terrorist leader.

The body of Bin Laden will be handled “in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition,” according to a White House official. In Islam, bodies must be buried within 24 hours, and U.S. officials confirmed that Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea. Handling the body according to custom is “something we take very seriously,” the official said.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney congratulated President Obama on Osama bin Laden’s death, calling it “a victory for the United States and a tremendous achievement.” President Bush joined Cheney in congratulating Obama and the U.S. forces, marking the moment as a “momentous achievement” that deserves “our everlasting gratitude.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated calls for quicker pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, citing Osama bin Laden’s death near the Pakistani capital as proof that “the war on terror is not in Afghanistan.” Other Afghan politicians said “the Americans have achieved their goal” in bin Laden’s death and thus “have no reason to stay.”

The Taliban vowed terror attacks in revenge for the death of Bin Laden. “We will do it by carrying out attacks in Pakistan and America,” Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said. There was a bomb attack at a Pakistani mosque near the site of Bin Laden’s killing, although it was unclear whether the attack was committed in response to the killing of the terror leader.

Stocks and futures both gained upon the announcement of bin Laden’s death, while the dollar also snapped a nine-day slump and oil prices dropped to a two-week low. “This is a positive development in the campaign against terrorism,” said one market strategist. “In the last 10 years, bin Laden’s presence has been a serious threat to global stability.”

Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the nation’s Arab American capital of Dearborn, Michigan, celebrated upon hearing the news of Bin Laden’s death. “The world is definitely a better place without the patron of all terrorists,” said Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, the head of the city’s largest mosque.

Yesterday, Sohaib Athar, a 33-year-old computer programmer who lives in Abbottabad, Pakistan, became, in his own words, “the guy who live-blogged the Osama raid without knowing it.” Throughout the night, Athar (@ReallyVirtual) tweeted about the unusual events unfolding in his city with messages like, “Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter,” not realizing until much later what had occurred.

And finally: Revelers who descended on the plaza in front of the White House late last night to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden were joined by several celebrities, including Friends star David Arquette, several Capitan Americas, and Spider Man, who could be seen climbing the trees in front of the executive mansion.

Great job Seal Team 6!!! You have made your country proud!

NFTOS

Allen West Leads Radical Buffoonery

Allen West To Town Hall: ‘If You Support Medicare…You Can Kiss The United States Of America Goodbye’

As Republicans across the country face a backlash from voters in their home in their districts for supporting the Medicare-ending GOP budget, Florida Rep. Allen West (R) has attempted to squash protesters and avoid tough questions at his town halls. In Ft. Lauderdale Tuesday, West only answered pre-screened questions that were read aloud by a staffer. In Boca Raton last night, protesters were removed from the town hall before it began.

But the preventive measures didn’t stop West from having to defend his vote last night, telling attendees that those who are fighting to save Medicare as we know it are putting the United States on a path toward destruction:

WEST: I gotta tell you something: if you support Medicare the way it is now, you can kiss the United States of America goodbye.

Watch it here at NFTOS:  

 
Voters in West’s district have plenty to be angry about. In the past month, West voted against funding the government, thus risking a shutdown, announced that he was willing to hold the debt ceiling hostage over corporate tax breaks, and voted to end Medicare while extending tax breaks to the wealthy. Now, he’s accused Medicare beneficiaries, along with those who support the widely popular program, of contributing to the country’s downfall.

Unfortunately for West, facts tell a different story. The GOP budget attempts to save money not by curbing health costs, but by shifting those costs to senior citizens. The Congressional Budget Office found that most seniors would pay more for health care under the Republican plan, with 65-year-olds in 2022 paying double what a 65-year-old pays now. Meanwhile, ending Medicare as we know it would have an adverse effect on the nation’s health care costs, as the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that it would increase health care costs by $34 trillion over the next 75 years.

Republicans like West are following ideology instead of fact in their dismantling of Medicare. In 2009 and 2010, Republicans used scare tactics to drum up opposition to a health reform plan that actually will curb costs and expand access, the Affordable Care Act. In 2011, with voters targeting them, West and his Republican colleagues are using similar scare tactics to protect a plan that does just the opposite.


NFTOS

SARAHNOYA DISPLAYS YET MORE RAMBLINGS OF UNINTELLIGABLE GIBBERISH

Palin’s Incoherence……. U.S. Has No Interest In Libya, But U.S. Must ‘Help Freedom Fighters’ In Libya

In an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin criticized the President for engaging in a military conflict in Libya, then almost immediately contradicted herself, telling Van Susteren it is America’s “responsibility to help freedom fighters”:  

PALIN: He’s been extremely inconsistent in the reasons given for our involvement in Libya. … Why aren’t we intervening in Syria, why not Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain? We cannot afford to be engaged in any of these military interventions unless America’s interests are being challenged. And we need to hear from our President, what is our interest there in Libya?

VAN SUSTEREN: Do we have an interest in Libya, what’s your answer?

PALIN: Well, you know, to whom much is given, much is required. America is such a blessed and prosperous nation, we are that beacon of hope for those who seek freedom. So yes, I believe it’s our responsibility to help freedom fighters.

Watch it here at NFTOS:  

 
Palin seems to tacitly acknowledge that she agrees with the President’s rationale for intervening. It’s unclear, though, if Palin is willing to back up her insistence that the U.S. has a “responsibility” to help freedom fighters, or whether it’s just empty talk.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Palin has used the conflict in Libya as an excuse to publicly admonish the President. He had barely finished his Oval Office Address on the intervention when Palin was on TV, describing the speech as “profoundly disappointing.” In both instances, Palin complained that the President has failed to explain America’s interest in Libya, when he has in fact explicitly done so on several occasions. The blog ThinkProgress reported, Palin also dramatically exaggerated the cost of the Libyan conflict in that interview.

Palin has consistently demonstrated that her only interest is attacking the president, regardless of whether she actually disagrees with his positions. Ironically, on Van Susteren’s website, the segment is described as “Palin: Make Up Your Mind, Mr. President.” A more accurate title would be “Palin, Make up Your Mind.”

Once an idiot always and idiot!

NFTOS

FAUX NEWS STILL CAN’T GRASP THAT PRESIDENT IS U.S. CITIZEN

Fox News: White House Releases ‘What It Says’ Is The President’s Birth Certificate

The mentality or intelligence quota of the radical right wing nut job reveals its low score once again, and Faux News is always the group whom fuels the fire to these idiots.  

Earlier this morning, the White House distributed copies of President Obama’s “long form” birth certificate, an effort to quiet anyone in the delusional birther movement who claims that the President was not born in the United States. Indeed, Faux News is already doing its part to feed the birthers’ collective delusion. Immediately after the news broke that Obama’s long form birth certificate is available, Fox ran a banner headline claiming that the White House had only released “what it says” is the President’s birth certificate:

Of course, today’s birther-stoking is nothing new for Faux News. As Media Matters reports, Faux News has promoted the birther myth in at least 52 different segments. You would think Faux News advertisers would want better sustenance or meat for their hard earned dollar!


NFTOS

Allen West: Liberal Women Are "Neutering American Men"

Last week, Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) addressed his base at a Women Impacting Nation (WIN) meeting in Boca Raton, FL. WIN’s mission is to “educate and equip women with knowledge of God’s truth” and “to support those who take a stand for those Judeo-Christian values upon which our country is founded.” West used examples of “historical fiction” to instruct attendees on the proper role for American women — namely, to make strong men.

West first weaved the ancient society of Sparta — a culture that practiced eugenics and inspired Adolf Hitler — into an example of the role of women. “What made the Spartan men strong, it was the Spartan women,” he said. “Because the Spartan women at the age of nine gave up their male sons” to train for the army. West then exulted conservative women to come forth and “lock shields” to “strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you.” Painting women’s rights advocates as “women that have been neutering American men,” West charged attendees to fight these apparent castrators who want to force male subservience:

WEST: We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side — these planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow…deficits will continue to grow.

Watch I here at NFTOS:  

 
West’s blatant misogyny is made all the more ludicrous by the sources of his historical wisdom. In heralding Sparta, West holds up Spartan Queen Gorgo as the essential example of a woman who, speaking “out of turn” to a male emissary, said “Persian, beware, for it is Spartan women who raise Spartan men.” But this stirring confrontation comes not from ancient history but from slightly-less-ancient director Zack Snyder’s 2006 film, 300. In the movie, Queen Gorgo confronts a Persian man as West describes. But according to Plutarch, who first recorded the statment, Gorgo “is said to have” uttered the principle in response to “some foreign woman.”

West continues in this vein, next heralding the 2003 film The Last Samurai as an example of the Samurai women raising “300 Samurai warriors.” West recounted a story of Samurai leader Saigo Takamori who West said died to protect “the old way” and to stand “against that technology that was brought before them, the repeating rifles, the Gatling guns, the cannons.” Of course, the fact that Takamori had 400 Samurai at the Satsuma Rebellion and actually used the Western military methods, guns and cannons takes away from the more dramatic interpretation starring Tom Cruise. “That’s a true story,” said West of the 2003 film. “That’s historical fiction.”

Mr. West never lacks material for lat night fodder!

NFTOS

Rising Gas Prices Expected To Increase Exxon’s Earnings By More Than 50%

The country’s five biggest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — made a total profit of nearly $1 trillion over the last ten years. In 2008, ExxonMobil broke its own record for most profitable year for a public company in history by making more than $45 billion. And according to an analysis in the Wall Street Journal, rising oil prices in 2010 mean that Big Oil’s profits this year “could come close to rivaling the industry’s record year in 2008”:

First-quarter crude prices averaged about $100 a barrel, or about 20% higher than a year ago, pushed upward by oil-supply concerns due to political unrest in the Arab World and a recovering global economy. That spike is expected to lift earnings by about 50% at Exxon Mobil Corp., and about 33% each at Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, compared with a year earlier.

Despite these sky-high profits, House Republicans voted unanimously last month to preserve the billions in subsidies that oil companies receive from the federal government every year. Gas prices in many parts of the country are currently higher than $4 per gallon.

UPDATE: House Republicans are planning "legislation aimed at expanding domestic oil production in response to high gasoline prices," but CNN Money provides a reminder that more drilling won't drive prices noticeably lower:

According to a 2009 study from the government's Energy Information Administration, opening up waters that are currently closed to drilling off the East Coast, West Coast and the west coast of Florida would yield an extra 500,000 barrels a day by 2030.


The world currently consumes 89 million barrels a day, and by then would likely be using over 100 million barrels.

After OPEC got done adjusting its production to reflect the increased American output, gas prices might drop a whopping 3 cents a gallon.

NFTOS

Rep. Allen West Slams POTUS

Allen West: It’s Fair To Call Obama A ‘Low Level Socialist Agitator’ Because He Called Paul Ryan An ‘Accountant’.

Bomb throwing tea bagger Rep. Allen West (R-FL) appeared on Fox News host Greta Van Susteren’s show last night to defend his latest attack against President Obama, whom he’s now dubbed a “low-level socialist agitator” with a “third world dictator-like arrogance.” When pressed by Van Susteren about whether his hyperbolic rhetoric was constructive, West suggested the attack was warranted because President Obama — whose middle name West made sure to pronounce clearly — had called Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) an “accountant”:

VAN SUSTEREN: I’m just curious whether calling him a low level socialist agitator…if that really helpful to advance, you know, the great depth of your conviction?

WEST: There’s a great depth of my conviction, and part of my conviction is telling the truth. I don’t think it’s very presidential when Barack Hussein Obama refers to my colleague, Paul Ryan, as a simple little accountant, either. So I think when you look at what a community organizer’s turning out to be, it does seem to be like a low-level socialist agitator.

Watch it here at NFTOS:




West was referring comments Obama made at a fundraiser last week in which he said Ryan was trying to be “America’s accountant and trying to be responsible.” While many would likely not be offended to be called a “responsible” accountant, West apparently views this as a slur on par with accusing the president of the United States of being an insignificant socialist.

Typical Allen West, this is the same buffoon whom thinks his DoD Clearance status is higher than the President of the United States.

NFTOS

Radical Right Wing Extremism At Its Best

Koch Industries Instructed 50K Employees How They Were Supposed To Vote In 2010 Elections

KOCH BROTHERS

Writing yesterday in the Nation, Mark Ames and Mike Elk reveal that Koch Industries mailed a letters to 50,000 employees instructing them on who to vote for in the 2010 midterm elections. The Koch packet given to employees included candidate names, a letter from a Koch lobbyist, and a right-wing screed from the company and the Washington Examiner, an outlet owned by Phil Anschutz, a billionaire who is close to the Koch family. (View a copy of the packet here.)

Corporate coercion of employees is perhaps the most profound repercussion from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year. The Nation spoke to several law experts who noted that “Citizens United frees Koch Industries and other corporations to propagandize their employees with their political preferences.” Before the decision, businesses were prohibited from instructing their employees to vote a certain way.

Not only was Koch active in helping push the Citizens United decision (several of the groups filing amicus briefs supporting unlimited corporate spending were funded by Koch), but Koch actively planned for exploiting the decision. When we exposed a memo outlining the 2010 secret Koch political strategy meeting with fellow right-wing donors, we noted that the summit included a presentation from Karl Crow. Crow is a Koch operative who had penned a memo calling for corporations to exploit Citizens United and aggressively use “employees, vendors, and customers” as tools for advancing business interests in the political sphere:

She predicts the Citizens United decision will correct the law’s imbalance and open the door for businesses to educate “their employees, vendors and customers about candidates and officeholders whose philosophies and voting records would destroy or permanently damage America’s free enterprise system.” For many nonprofits the Citizens United decision creates a host of new political opportunities in the 2010 elections and beyond. Under the ruling, trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, classified as a 501(c)(6) group by the IRS, and 501(c)(4) grassroots advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity can now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates and legislation. In a memorandum Mitchell outlined the new communications possibilities for 501(c)(4)s and 501(c)(6)s. They include voter guides, candidate questionnaires, voting records and public advertising.

Currently, Crow is heading up a vast new Koch-funded project called “Themis” to mobilize voters for the 2012 election cycle.

The group ThinkProgress has covered this disturbing trend of corporate political coercion since 2009. While researching the health insurance industry’s efforts to kill health reform, they discovered that a consulting firm called Democracy, Data and Communications (DDC) that actually specializes in helping large corporations organize their employees into mini-lobbyists. DDC currently consults for Koch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, several banks, the tobacco industry, and health insurance companies.

All we can say is WOW……. you just can’t make this stuff up!

NFTOS

AZ Gov. Signs Law On Gadsden Flag

Gov. Brewer Signs Law Giving Tea Party Flag Same Status As American Flag

If you look back at our blog history you will see a plethora of blogs on the Gadsden Flag. So not to go into great detail here – a short synopsis:

The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Positioned below the snake is the legend "DONT TREAD ON ME." The flag was designed by and is named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden. It was also used by the United States Marine Corps as an early motto flag. The Gadsden flag was considered one of the first flags of the United States, the flag was later replaced by the current Stars and Stripes (or Old Glory) flag. Since the Revolution, the flag has seen times of reintroduction as a symbol of American patriotism, a symbol of disagreement with government, or a symbol of support for civil liberties - Hence where the tea baggers come in.

Beginning in 2009, the Gadsden Flag has become an adopted symbol of the American Tea bag movement. Nationwide it serves as an alternative to the stars and stripe, for Tea bag protesters who feel patriotism for their country and are upset at the government. It was also seen being displayed by members of Congress at Tea bag rallies. Some lawmakers have dubbed it a political symbol due to the Tea bag connection, and the political nature of Tea bag supporters.

While Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is rightly being praised for vetoing a so-called “birther bill” yesterday, she also quietly signed into law legislation that gives the Tea bag-associated Gadsen Flag the same protection as the American flag when it comes to home owners associations (HOA), the Arizona Daily Star reports:

Brewer also signed separate legislation Monday to expand the list of flags that HOA residents could fly despite regulations to the contrary.

Current law overrides any rules when it comes to the U.S. flag, the flags of any branch of the military, the state flag, the POW-MIA flag and the flag of any Indian nation. The new law will add the Gadsden flag to that protected list, that yellow flag with the drawing of a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me.”

While the yellow banner dates back to the American Revolution, the flag and its “don’t tread on me” slogan have been appropriated by the modern day tea party movement and are now closely associated with the right-wing activists (it’s even on the tea party race car). The legislation came into being in the wake of a national controversy last summer sparked by an Arizona man who refused to comply with his homeowners association’s request that he remove a Gadsen flag from his house.

We at NFTOS feel this a huge slap in the face into what the Gadsden flag is all about, but hey, it’s what tea baggers do best – which is annoy the hell out of everyone not republican.


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The Donald Has Trouble Recounting his BS

Donald Trump: “Reagan Was A Con Man Who Couldn’t ‘Deliver The Goods”

Yesterday, real estate mogul Donald Trump proudly declares that Ronald Reagan is the President he admires most. Here’s Trump on the April 14 edition of Hannity:

HANNITY: Who are our past presidents that you admire most?

TRUMP: Well, I really like and knew a little bit Ronald Reagan, and I really liked him. You know, not only his policies, smart guy and so much smarter, you know, I always sort of have to laugh to myself when people try and criticize that level of intelligence. And I loved his style. I loved what he represented. … I thought he represented something very special for this county.

Watch it here at NFTOS:



But in his bestselling book, Art of the Deal, published at the conclusion of the Reagan presidency, Trump cited Reagan as an example of someone who could “con people” but couldn’t “deliver the goods.” Trump said Reagan was “so smooth” that he “won over the American people.” But at the conclusion of his presidency, “people are beginning to question whether there is anything beneath that smile,” Trump writes. Here is page 60 from Art of the Deal:

 
Currently, Trump is the one who is creating “excitement,” doing “wonderful promoting,” generating “all kinds of press,” and testing the theory of how long you can “con people.” After promoting “birther” conspiracy theories about President Obama, recent polls show him leading the Republican field.

Donald..."Your Fired"!


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After Pledging To Not Raise Taxes, Walker Proposes Hiking Taxes And Fees On The Poor And Students

One of the most important ideological commitments of the modern conservative movement is an opposition to tax increases. It is with this ideology that then-Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker signed Americans For Tax Reforms’ “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” a vow not to raise taxes on the people of his state.

Yet in his newly proposed budget, now-governor Walker appears to have already broken this pledge. While the budget would lower taxes overall — it includes $83.3 million in tax cuts “primarily for businesses and investors” — it would make up for lost revenue by eliminating tax credits and exemptions that primarily benefit the poor and even some in the middle class.

Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau — the state’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office — finds that this would amount to a $49.9 million tax increase on people who receive these credits over the next two years:

Low and middle income people would lose tax credits worth about $49.4 million over two years, the new Legislative Fiscal Bureau report said.

Those affected most by Walker’s proposal would include low-income families who qualify for the earned income tax credit program, and low-income homeowners who receive tax rebates under the homestead tax credit.

In addition to eliminating these tax credits, Walker also has proposed a spate of new fee increases. The “bulk of the fee increases are for tuition at University of Wisconsin campuses, totaling more than $105 million over two years.”

It appears that Walker is less committed to keeping taxes down on everyone than he is to cutting taxes for some of society’s most fortunate members, while raising them on some of its most vulnerable. He joins many other conservative state legislators across the country who are cutting taxes on the richest while slashing services and raising taxes for Main Street America.

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Scott Walker Caught With Pants Down

Scott Walker Admits Union-Busting Provision ‘Doesn’t Save Any’ Money For The State Of Wisconsin.

Wis Gov. Scott Walker busted for busted unions

Yestrerday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called Govs. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Peter Shumlin (D-VT) to testify in a hearing titled “State and Municipal Debt: Tough Choices Ahead.” Much of the hearing was spent probing Wisconsin’s spate of anti-union restrictions it recently passed.

At one point, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) confronted Walker about his crackdown on public employee unions. The congressman referenced a provision Walker signed into law that would require union members to vote every year to continue their membership. Kucinich asked the governor how much money the state would save from the provision. Walker repeatedly dodged the question and eventually admitted that it actually wouldn’t save anything at all.

Kucinich then asked Walker how much money would be saved by barring union dues from being drawn from employee paychecks, another provision of Walker’s legislation. Walker claimed that it would save workers money, but was unable to explain how it would save the state any money. Kucinich then produced a document from the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office, that concluded that Walker’s measures were “nonfiscal” — meaning they had no impact on the state’s finances. Kucinich asked that the letter be included in the public record, but Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) refused:

KUCINICH: Let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposals to strip collective bargaining rights. First, your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?

WALKER: That and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re going to ask, if you’re going to put in place a change like that, we wanted to make sure we protected the workers of our state, so they got value out of that. [...]

KUCINICH: Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, Governor?

WALKER: It doesn’t save any. [...]

KUCINICH: I want to ask about another one of your proposals. Under your plan you would prohibit paying union member dues from their paychecks. How much money would this provision save your state budget?

WALKER: It would save employees a thousand dollars a year they could use to pay for their pensions and health care contributions.

KUCINICH: Governor, it wouldn’t save anything. [Goes on to present letter from LRF and is denied unanimous request for it to be placed in the public record by Issa]

Watch it here at NFTOS:



Walker’s admission is crucial because he had long claimed that his anti-union “budget repair bill” was designed to save the state money, not bust unions. But his words yesterday echo those of Wisconsin state senate leader Scott Fitzgerald (R), who last month effectively admitted that the union fights are not about budgetary issues, but rather about winning the next election by depleting the ranks of organized labor.  
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Michelle Bachmann Never Disappoints

Michele Bachmann Calls For Stripping Judges’ Power To Enforce Parts Of The Constitution She Doesn’t Like

My favorite idiot is at it again! It comes to a point when anytime Michele Bachmann speaks its complete nonsense and utter gibberish.  

Republicans treat the Constitution like a toy that they can manipulate however they choose. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) claims that all federal education programs — including Pell Grants and student loan assistance — are unconstitutional. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says that they are constitutional problems with the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) suggested that child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. And when the Ninth Circuit held that yes, the Constitution does have a First Amendment, Newt Gingrich’s political advocacy group called for that court to be abolished.

With so many Republicans claiming that the Constitution can mean whatever they want it to mean, it should be no surprise that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) wants a piece of this action. Recently, Bachmann told a gathering of social conservatives in Iowa that if the courts insist on applying the Constitution’s requirement that no state may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” to gay people, then Congress should strip federal judges of their power to hear marriage equality cases:

Something else that we can do to reinforce our pro-marriage, pro-life, pro-family agenda is to limit the subject-matter jurisdiction of the courts. At the federal level with what are called Article III courts, Article III of the United States Constitution, we can limit the subject matter that justices can rule on. We have it within our authority to decide what judges can rule on and what they can’t. Any time the people speak, they say with one voice that marriage is one man, one woman.

Watch it here at NFTOS:  



Bachmann is, of course, wrong about the public’s view of marriage equality — 53 percent of Americans believe that gay couples should not be denied their constitutional right to marry. It is also not entirely clear that Congress actually has the power to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing a marriage equality case, although Congress could prevent lower federal courts from hearing these lawsuits.

At the end of the day, however, Bachmann’s court-stripping plan is nothing less than an assault on the Constitution itself. Bachmann does not like the fact that the Constitution requires gay people to be afforded the same legal protections as everyone else, so she wants to hamstring the courts from according equal protection to all Americans.

Typical Michele Bachmann!


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150 Years Later, Tea Baggers Still Aren’t Over The Civil War

NFTOS Editor-in-Chief Roger West has always said that tea partiers and civil war confederate ideology go hand in hand - and the below blog supports his theory.

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning, when secessionists fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. According to a new poll from CNN, the Civil War’s legacy remains unresolved. The poll finds that Republicans and Tea Party supporters are more likely to support the Confederacy and confederate leaders than Democrats or Independents.

According to the poll, nearly one in four Americans sympathize with the Confederacy more than with the Union. That number grows to nearly four-in-ten among white Southerners. Among Tea Bag members, 26 percent sympathize with the Confederacy more than the Union, and that number grows to 28 percent among Republicans.

Meanwhile, while respondents overall viewed slavery as the main reason for the war by a 54-42 margin, Tea Bags and Republicans held different views. Fifty-two percent of Republicans believed slavery was not the main reason, and that number rose to 54 percent among Tea Partiers.

The poll comes at a time when Republicans and Tea Partiers are rehashing the battles that both led to and came out of the Civil War. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and others have come out in support of nullification laws. In both Texas and Tennessee, lawmakers have floated the possibility of secession. And across the country, Republicans have attempted to revoke the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship. And, of course, there was Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-GA) reference to the “Great War of Yankee Aggression” on the House floor.

Even though these battles are radical and out of the mainstream, it isn’t that shocking that these Republicans are attempting to refight them. According to these poll numbers, that’s exactly what large segments of their base want them to do.



YEEHAW Maw, get out the bib overalls, take out our false teeth and dawn our Gadsden Flag -cause then we can do some real radical republcian tea partying!


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Virginia Tea Party Senate Candidate Jamie Radtke Endorses Elimination Of The Minimum Wage

In Virginia, dissatisfaction on the right with former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) is causing many GOP activists to consider alternatives in the 2012 Republican Senate primary. The likely beneficiary of this discontent is Tea Party leader Jamie Radtke, who is positioning herself as the über-conservative alternative to Allen.

ThinkProgress sat down with Radtke this past weekend at The Awakening 2011, a gathering of social conservatives held at Liberty University. During the conversation, we discussed the role of the minimum wage in America. Radtke argued that “government setting price controls rather than letting the free market set it I think is a bad policy.” Radtke went on to contend that the “time has come and gone” when women were underpaid, employers were “taking advantage of employees,” and concern about factory conditions was justified. As a result, Radtke agreed that the minimum wage has outlived its usefulness:

RADTKE: I think there’s all sorts of challenges with minimum wage. You are creating a market, you are eliminating an entire market of people that would potentially—who need work. Price controls are never good. And government’s never been good at price controls.

KEYES: Do you think it’s something we can just maybe get rid of?

RADTKE: Well “can we” or “should we”? I mean, you know—

KEYES: Well, either one.

RADTKE: Yeah, I mean—I remember my first job, I was fourteen years old, and I had to get a worker’s permit to go get a job, and I believe that the wage, the minimum wage, was $4.20. Now, there are times when the market will demand more than what minimum wage should be, and then people are being underpaid. And there are times when the market just cannot pay the minimum wage, because you’re in a great recession, but you could employ people, if you could pay them a little less. And those ideas of the government setting price controls rather than letting the free market set it I think is a bad policy.

KEYES: So it might be better to scrap it in favor of just letting the market set whatever the minimum wage should be?

RADTKE: Yeah, I mean, you haven’t seen… There was a time when this effort to set minimum wages was set in, and people didn’t feel that women were getting paid justly, and you had the concern of what was going on in the factories, and employers taking advantage of employees. And we’re not there anymore. That time has come and gone.

KEYES: So, it might have outlived its usefulness?

RADTKE: Yeah.

Watch it here at NFTOS:


Radtke’s points are misguided on a number of levels. First, the notion that women’s income doesn’t still lag behind men’s is laughable. Second, Radtke’s argument that we no longer need to concern ourselves with the inner-workings of factories is simply not true, as a recent Los Angeles Times article detailing the conditions for Ikea workers in the United States shows. Finally, Radtke’s point that a minimum wage is counterproductive because “there are times when the market will demand more than what minimum wage should be, and then people are being underpaid” ignores the fact that employers are free to pay higher wages in prosperous times. Nothing in minimum wage laws prevents employees from earning more than the minimum wage.  

The federal minimum wage currently sits at $7.25 per hour. Over the course of a year, a minimum wage worker will earn approximately $14,500, well below the poverty line for a family of four ($22,350) and even below the poverty level for a two-person family ($14,710).


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Trump Insists Obama’s Grandparents Planted His Birth Announcement To Obtain Welfare Benefits

Add Doanld Trump to the radical republican "bither asshat" club. Since his "I can't say I'm running for preisdent until apprentice is over" -  he has been seen daily ranting about president Obama's birth status.

Haven't we already cleared this up? Apparently not!

In July 2008, a researcher “looking to dig up dirt on Obama” instead came across a birth announcement from 1961 in the Honolulu Advertiser documenting the birth of then presidential candidate Barack Obama in the state. For many, the announcement, together with Obama’s birth certificate, conclusively proved that Obama was born in the United States and is eligible to run for president.

Rumored presidential hopeful Donald Trump isn’t convinced. On CNN’s State of the Union today, Trump claimed that Obama’s grandparents planted the announcement to obtain welfare benefits:

TRUMP: The grandparents put that [birth announcement] in [the newspaper] because obviously they want him to be a United States citizen because in those days, people were much more proud than they are today unfortunately for being a United States citizen.
So they wanted him to be a citizen of the United States, for that purpose, and also for hospitalization, for welfare, for this, for that, for all the other assets you get from being a United States citizen. So there are a lot of very smart people who say that is routinely done and that was done by his grandparents. [...]

CROWLEY: I will tell you we’ve checked with both these papers early on — not to the latest when you brought it back in the headlines — but the fact is that the hospitals reported this information to the papers, and the papers printed it.

TRUMP: Who knows? You’re talking fifty years ago.

Watch it here at NFTOS:



On several occasions, Trump has implied that Obama’s grandparents essentially lied about his citizenship “for social reasons.” The other “smart people” who agree with him include conservative blogger Tom Maguire who claims the birth announcement was planted to win a potential custody battle involving “a black Kenyan baby sought by the black Kenyan father and his African family.”

Yet, as Crowley pointed out, the birth information printed in the Honolulu Advertiser always came directly from the state health department (via the local hospital), not Obama’s grandparents or relatives. It’s also worth noting that since Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen, he was automatically conferred citizenship and all of its “assets” no matter where he was born, thus making him eligible anyway for the benefits Trump claims his family committed fraud to obtain. Unless his grandparents somehow knew that baby Obama would one day want to run for president, there wouldn’t really be a reason for his family to fabricate a convoluted lie regarding his birthplace.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe dismissed Donald Trump’s birther beliefs today, noting that “there may be a small part of the country that believes these things, but mainstream Americans think it’s a side show.” In fact, more than half of GOP primary voters believe Obama was not born in the U.S., compared to 11 percent of the general public.

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Government Shutdown Avoided...BUT

Deal To Avert Government Shutdown Saves $38 Billion — Bush Tax Cut Deal Spent $150 Billion

Late last night, just minutes from an impending government shutdown, congressional negotiators and President Obama reached a deal to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, cutting $38.5 billion under current funding levels, per Republican demands. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Republicans hailed the deal as an important step to reining in the deficit. In a speech addressing the deal, Obama compared the compromise to the one he helped broker late last year on extending the Bush tax cuts for two years.

But a look at those two deals suggests Republicans are not as interested in cutting the deficit as they claim. In both cases, Democrats made big concessions on key Republican agenda items — tax and spending cuts — in the face of intransigent opposition from the GOP. But while the appropriations deal from last night cuts $38.5 billion in spending over the next six months (through the end of the fiscal year in September), the tax cut deal deprives the government of roughly $150 billion in revenue over a similar period of time.

Extending the Bush tax cuts “would result in a $200 billion to $300 billion cost to the US Treasury compared to what had been expected” in one year — or $100 to $150 billion in six months. So while they very nearly shut down the government to extract painful spending cuts, Republicans had already wiped out those spending cuts many times over with the revenue lost from extending the Bush tax cuts.


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