Hypocrisy Of A Teapublican

Definition of a teapublican

Since President Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, Teapublicans have reversed their stances on several different policies and beliefs. Here is just a smattering of them.

1. Health Care Mandates - Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act by Democrats, Teapublicans widely supported the idea of an individual health care insurance mandate, Newt Gingrich being perhaps the chief supporter. Teapublicans have always preached about how people need to take responsibility for themselves, and now that a law exists that makes people take responsibility, the GOP is rejecting it simply on the grounds that President Obama and the Democrats passed it.

2. The Nuclear START Treaty - Teapublicans shamelessly filibustered the ratification of the Obama START Treaty for quite a period of time and criticized it tremendously and continue to try and find ways to circumvent the treaty today. What Teapublicans conveniently forget is that Ronald Reagan, the man that Teapublicans worship like a God, negotiated the very first START Treaty which was signed by yet another Teapublican, George H. W. Bush in 1991. That treaty expired in 2009 so President Obama negotiated a new one to continue the Reagan legacy. But since President Obama negotiated this treaty, Teapublicans retreated from Reagan’s policy faster than the decade it took to create the START Treaty in the first place.

3. Dream Act - Immigration reform has been touted by Teapublicans for decades now. Reagan granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in the 1980′s. Most recently, Teapublicans worked on immigration reform under the Bush Administration and failed. President Bush and Senator John McCain both supported immigration reform and were willing to cross the aisle to work with Democrats, most notably Edward Kennedy. All of that work and bipartisanship ceased after the 2008 Election. Staunchly opposed to President Obama and anything his administration supports, Teapublicans turned their backs on immigration reform in favor of militarizing the border and laws that violate the civil rights of Hispanics. Obama’s Dream Act would do much that Reagan would approve of, but Teapublicans refuse hear anything of it.

4. TARP - Teapublicans supported TARP when they helped pass it in response to the economic collapse in 2008. President Bush even signed the legislation into law. But since it’s been up to the guiding hands of President Obama to deal with TARP, Teapublicans have since revoked their support and have been highly critical even as they take credit for it when presenting stimulus checks to their local constituents. The fact is, TARP is successful because President Obama oversaw it and Teapublicans hate that fact.

5. Bail Out of Auto Industry - Teapublicans once supported this too but abandoned it once President Obama called for it. The auto industry is a vital manufacturing sector that supports millions of American jobs and Teapublicans WANTED the industry to fail simply because President Obama wanted the bail out. If it had failed, Teapublicans would have blamed President Obama for not supporting the American auto industry. The bail out has been a resounding success with most of the money plus interest paid back to the taxpayers. Mitt Romney has since tried to take credit for the idea because it has been so successful.

6. Israel Going Back To Pre-1967 Borders - Many Presidents have suggested this, even George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. But once President Obama repeated it, Teapublicans immediately denounced the President and threw their support to Israel’s President. This action by Teapublicans is totally unprecedented. It is reprehensible for American politicians to support a foreign leader more than the American President. Imagine if the Teapublican Party had overtly supported Hitler over FDR during World War Two. The only reason Teapublicans are rejecting President Obama’s plan is because they cannot bring themselves to endorse any idea he suggests, even if it is a Teapublican one.

7. Gun Control - Teapublicans overwhelmingly reject any and all gun control measures today. Which is very strange considering Ronald Reagan himself supported the Brady Handgun Act. But, it’s still true. Teapublicans did indeed support gun control measures in the past. It’s different now. Today’s intolerant, prejudiced, and extremist Teapublican Party is only against gun control now because they believe there needs to be a war against liberals and minority groups. It’s all about fear and war.

8. Public Education - Even the Founding Fathers believed in education for all. Every teapublican President in United States history has been supportive of the public education system in this country. Ronald Reagan campaigned on axing the Department of Education but not only did he NOT eliminate it, he amped up its budget. It is only now that President Obama seeks to improve the education system that Teapublicans are against public education. When President Bush sought to improve public education, Teapublicans were on board but now that Obama is President, Teapublicans have decided that all public schools are evil liberal institutions that must be destroyed.

9. Infrastructure Spending - Teapublicans have always believed in strong infrastructure, until now. Teapublicans used the power of the federal government to build the railroads in the 1860′s and 1870′s, the Panama Canal in the beginning of the 20th century, and the interstate highway system in the 1950′s. Yet when President Obama called for new infrastructure spending to improve America’s crumbling roads and bridges and to improve our rail lines, Teapublicans immediately reversed their long-held belief in a strong American infrastructure. Why? Because they hate President Obama and oppose everything he believes in, even if it was once a part of the Teapublican platform.

10. Child Labor Laws - This one is surprising. Teapublicans were the ones that championed child labor laws in the first place. Starting in 1852, in the once Teapublican state of Massachusetts, child labor laws have been fought for by both parties. The only opponent of child labor laws has traditionally been big business. Teapublicans tried to pass a Constitutional amendment in 1924 and it didn’t succeed. It wasn’t until Democrats passed the Fair Labor Standards Act that child labor laws became federal law. Teapublicans oppose child labor laws now because of their deep ties with corporations. The goal of the corporate world is to find cheap labor and because President Obama is against huge corporations, Teapublicans must stand with the corporations, even if that means killing child labor laws.

11. Civil Rights - Teapublicans were once the champions of civil rights as well. They ended slavery and adopted the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. They splintered over the Civil Rights Act in 1964, although it was a Teapublican led Supreme Court that ruled in the Brown v Board of Education case, and have become more and more opposed to civil rights ever since. President Obama has called for increased civil rights and because of that, Teapublicans now oppose civil rights for everyone except Christian white males.

12. Environmental Protection - Originally championed by Theodore Roosevelt, Teapublicans used to support efforts to protect the environment. Over the last century, however, that support has reversed. Teapublicans even once supported the environment in the 1970′s when Nixon created the EPA, but no longer. Teapublicans are now in complete support of the irresponsibility of the oil and coal industry and want to open the entire American coastline and even federally protected lands to drilling and mining.

 Teapublicans even used to support cap-and-trade. The first George Bush signed legislation in 1990 that implemented the cap-and-trade system and many Teapublicans still do support cap-and-trade. But because President Obama supports it, most Teapublicans are now against it.

13. Deficit Spending - This one is huge. Teapublicans have employed deficit spending since the Reagan years and abused it during the Bush administration to pass the conservative agenda and to fund wars. Reagan doubled the national debt and George W. Bush proceeded to double it again. But because Democrats controlled the White House and the Congress from 2008 to 2010, Teapublicans completely reversed their stance on deficit spending and still oppose deficit spending solely on the grounds that a Teapublican isn’t President. If a Teapublican were President right now, you can bet the farm that they would abuse deficit spending once again to slam the destructive anti-middle class, anti-poor, anti-women, and anti-America agenda through Congress with no thought about fiscal responsibility whatsoever.

14. Federal Reserve - The Federal Reserve is now a target for most Teapublicans, which is puzzling because it was a Teapublican idea. Proposed by Teapublican leader Nelson Aldrich to organize and regulate the banking system and to enforce monetary policy, and thus stabilize our financial system, the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Teapublicans now want to dismantle or weaken the Federal Reserve because President Obama needs it to enforce Dodd-Frank which will make banks more responsible and accountable, and will protect consumers.

15. Women’s Rights - The women’s rights movement was born in and grew with the Teapublican Party in the mid 1800′s. Many Teapublicans supported voting rights for women although to pass the 19th Amendment it took women threatening to cause Teapublican losses in the 1920 Election to persuade them to help pass it in Congress. As women gained more equality, they also demanded equal pay for equal work and reproductive rights. Ronald Reagan legalized abortion as Governor of California in the 1960′s and a moderate conservative Supreme Court handed down the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. Today’s Teapublican Party is now waging a war against women and the harder Democrats and President Obama fight for women’s rights, the harder Teapublicans will fight to eliminate them because of orders from white Christian extremists.

16. End Of Life Counseling - Teapublicans referred to this as “death panels” in 2009 in response to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But Teapublicans wholeheartedly supported end of life counseling in their own 2003 Medicare bill. Both of the Bush Presidents supported end of life counseling and even Sarah Palin herself supported it before she suddenly turned against it. In fact, Teapublicans had supported end of life counseling for decades. So what happened? Easy. President Obama supports it, so Teapublicans are now against it. It’s really that simple. And petty.

17. Financial Disclosure - Teapublicans were all for this in 2002 when they passed and President Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law. Campaign financing laws have always been supported by Teapublicans and Democrats alike, until now. Because of their hatred of President Obama, who supports campaign finance laws, and their desperation for absolute power and authority, Teapublicans are now completely against financial disclosure. They have allied themselves with the corporate world over the American people in their effort to steer elections their direction and do that, campaign finance laws must not exist. That is why the activist conservative Supreme Court struck down the laws to begin with.

18. Minimum Wage - The way Teapublicans have been talking about abolishing the minimum wage, you would think they’ve always been against it, right? Wrong. 82 House Teapublicans and 39 Senate Teapublicans joined the Democratic majority in passing the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. President Bush signed the bill into law. It is only now that President Obama stands with the American workers that Teapublicans oppose the minimum wage on behalf of their corporate masters, most notably, Koch Industries. If Teapublicans were so against the minimum wage, they would not have voted to raise it. Three times.

19. Military Intervention In The Middle East - This should really convince you that Teapublicans are simply opposing policies because a black President supports them. Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 all supported military intervention in the Middle East yet when President Obama uses the military to intervene in Libya, Teapublicans all of a sudden become doves? They’ve really revealed themselves with this policy reversal. The fact that under President Obama, Libya successfully overthrew their dictator without one American life being lost must infuriate the GOP.

20. Abortion - It may sound really far-fetched but there are many pro-choice conservatives out there and some politicians are part of that group. Take Ronald Reagan for instance. He made abortion legal in California as Governor of the state. And most recently, it was discovered that extreme right-winger Rick Santorum’s wife had an abortion to save her own life. In my opinion, that means Santorum is for the procedure when his wife’s life is on the line, but every other woman needs to die rather than exercise their right to an abortion which was ruled to exist in Roe v Wade by a conservative leaning court in 1973.

21. Economic Development Administration - Never heard of this you say? This program provides grants to local projects which have created jobs. Teapublicans such as Susan Collins, Chuck Grassely, and even John Cornyn have supported it in the past. Cornyn stated in March 2010 that funds from an EDA grant “would pave the way for the creation of new jobs and business opportunities, which will strengthen the region’s economy,” according to a local East Texas NBC news affiliate. But now that the GOP plan to crash the economy on purpose is in full swing, Teapublicans are now calling for an end to the EDA.

22. Lower Taxes - Teapublican do support lower taxes, except they only support them for the wealthy, NOT the rest of us. Even as they crusade to eliminate taxes on corporations and the wealthy, Teapublicans fully support a new proposal that would actually raise taxes on the rest of us. And guess who opposes it? That’s right. President Obama. Teapublicans usually crusaded for lower taxes for everyone, but since they support class warfare now, they have partly reversed themselves.

23. Medicare - I’m aware that Teapublicans initially opposed Medicare when it was passed, but since its passage into law, Teapublicans have largely defended it, especially when they try to pander to senior citizens for votes. But if Teapublicans really wanted to kill Medicare, they would have actually done it when Ronald Reagan was in office. Reagan opposed Medicare when it was created but then did something quite unexpected as President. He saved it. By saving Medicare, Teapublicans practically endorsed it. Even Theodore Roosevelt supported national health care. And now the GOP has come full circle once again by opposing it, and are trying to slaughter it and the millions of seniors that rely on the popular health care program. Why? Because President Obama is in favor of keeping Medicare around for a very long time and Medicare represents just how popular government-run universal health care can be. So technically speaking, Teapublicans were against Medicare before they were for it before they were against it.

24. Social Security - Social Security is popular with everybody, even the staunchest right wingers. Ronald Reagan and Milton Freidman supported the New Deal programs of the 1930′s and even Ayn Rand collected Social Security up to her dying breath. Ronald Reagan even saved this program too by raising payroll taxes. This action also saved Medicare as it is part of the Social Security Act. The idea to privatize Social Security has popped up many times but has been met with negative reactions by a majority of the people so those ideas usually die in infancy. President Bush wanted to privatize it, but never did. Teapublicans had control of Congress and the White House from 2001-2006. If they had wanted to kill Social Security, they would have done so. But now all of a sudden they feel now is the time to privatize it, even as big bankers have proven that they are untrustworthy with money - and it just happens that President Obama supports Social Security. Just another reason for Teapublicans to hate it.

Undoubtedly, one could add even more to the list. We now can see what policies teapublicans once supported and why they are now against those very same policies. If we take teapublican claims to love America and their claims that the Founders were teapublicans seriously, we could also now say that teapublicans were for America before they were against her.

I was challenged on my facebook page today regarding a bitch about teapublicans and their galactally stupid mentality. I was asked "why do I not see a solution for your problem"? - the answer is easy Bob, don't vote teapublican.


NFTOS

"Your A Mean One Newt Gingrich

We just couldn't pass posting this one to NFTOS!






NFTOS

Faux News Proves That Math Is An Important Subject In School

Math Fail: Faux News says 8.6 percent unemployment is greater than 8.8 and equal to 9.

For Faux News, math is tricky. After all, the subject does require a working knowledge of fractions, percentages, and knowing that 9 is greater than 8. Yesterday Faux took a stab at those concepts in a chart tracking unemployment rates over the past year. As Media Matters noted, Fox determined that the 8.6 percent unemployment rate in November is higher than the 8.8 percent rate from March and equal to the 9 percent rate from April:

Note how the 8.6 percent unemployment rate in November looks higher than March's 8.8 percent rate, and about the same as the 9 percent unemployment rate in October.

Faux News Chart

           The actual chart of 2011 unemployment looks like this:

Seven polls have found that Faux News viewers are the most misinformed. Seven is also the integer between 6 and 8. We at NFTOS guess polls don't lie, especially in this instance!

In 2009, Faux reportedly sent an email to staff announcing "zero tolerance for on-screen errors." Apparently the memo hasn't stuck.

NFTOS

Too Advertise Or Not

Lowe’s, Bank Of America, and others pull ads from Muslim reality TV show after pressure.

The TLC reality TV show All-American Muslim chronicles the lives of a group of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. The show has been well-received for its fair and realistic portrayal of the Muslim American experience in the United States. Watch a trailer for the show here.

But a reality TV show that lets Americans relate to the lives of Muslims in the United States is an offensive idea to those who want to demonize Islam. The Florida Family Association (FFA) launched a campaign earlier this year to get companies to pull their advertising from the program. FFA claims that 65 of the 67 companies targeted have done this, including home improvement giant Lowe’s and megabank Bank of America:

The Florida Family Association, a Tampa Bay group, has led a campaign urging companies to pull ads on “All-American Muslim.” The FFA contends that 65 of 67 companies it has targeted have pulled their ads, including Bank of America, the Campbell Soup Co., Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, McDonalds, Sears, and Wal-Mart.

 
One of the companies that FFA claims pulled commercials, Amway, told the Washington Post that such reports were “misleading” and that it has done no such thing. Lowe’s told the paper that it did indeed pull advertising. “We understand the program raised concerns, complaints, or issues from multiple sides of the viewer spectrum, which we found after doing research of news articles and blogs covering the show,” said Katie Cody, a spokeswoman for Lowe’s.


The Islamic Circle of North America is urging concerned citizens to call Lowe’s and protest their withdrawal of advertising: “We urge the American Muslim community and our friends, family, neighbors and all people of conscience to call Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock at (704) 758-2084 or Executive Support Mr. Andrew Kilby at (866) 900-4650 and respectfully complain about this decision.”


UPDATE:

Lowe’s issued this statement on Facebook confirming that it pulled the ads: “Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program.”

The Florida Family Association, the right-wing group responsible for manufacturing a campaign against All-American Muslim, says this about the show:

Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.

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The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas

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Radical Teapublican Females Prove They Are Just As Callous As Teapublican Men

Conservative women’s group applauds Senate decision to deny military rape victims abortion coverage.

The Senate decided last week to keep in place a policy that denies abortion coverage for military rape victims who became pregnant as a result of their sexual assault. Female service members who fight and die for their country are not extended the same rights as civilian government employees, who can use their government-funded insurance to pay for abortion if they’re victims of rape or incest, or even rape survivors in prison who receive government-funded abortion coverage.

Rape is rampant in the military, with nearly one in three women sexually assaulted while serving. Yet the Senate declined to vote on Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-NH) amendment that would restore abortion coverage and give military rape victims the same options as civilians and prisoners.

Anti-abortion activists are cheering the decision, and the conservative group Concerned Women for America had some particularly infuriating things to say about the Senate’s inaction:

Concerned Women for America (CWA) revealed exactly how little concern they have for actual women, much less for America, this week when they sent out a letter attacking women who defend our country for having the nerve to believe they deserve full medical care after being raped.

The mind-bogglingly vicious swipe at female soldiers had a couple of doozies, including the claim that allowing raped service members to access abortion “serves as a political distraction” from national security, as if it’s in the interest of national security to subject raped service members to forced childbirth.

But in a letter dripping with congratulatory faux concern and naked disregard for female service members who have been raped, the most attention-grabbing quote was this: Women deserve better than simply being given abortion as a ‘cure-all.’

CWA also described being raped and forced to bear a rapist’s child as merely “difficult circumstances” requiring “compassion and support.”

The Senate’s cowardice in refusing to even bring the amendment to a vote is also disappointing. Declining to vote on a measure is a sneaky tactic that effectively kills the amendment, but allows senators to avoid going on the record denying rights to service members. Earlier this year a Republican-led House committee also shot down a Democratic measure like Shaheen’s.

According to very conservative Defense Department numbers, fewer than 20 percent of military sexual assaults are reported, and only 8 percent of assailants are prosecuted — in no small part because of the military’s pervasive blame-the-victim culture.


NFTOS

Corporate Tax Dodging

Corporate tax dodging has cost states more than $42 billion in revenue over the last three years.

Repeated tax dodging of large corporations, some of which, like GE, have gone entire years without paying taxes despite hauling in massive profits. Now, that phenomenon has spread to the states, where many corporations have largely avoided paying state corporate income taxes despite growing profits. Some companies, like DuPont, avoided state taxes altogether, paying nothing from 2008 to 2010 even as its profits piled up.

DuPont would rather sponsor race cars than pay taxes

But DuPont wasn’t alone. According to a study from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 68 corporations avoided state taxes entirely for at least one year from 2008 to 2010, costing state governments at least $42.7 billion, as the New York Times reports:

To gauge how much Fortune 500 companies are paying in corporate income taxes, the study looked at the 265 of them that are both profitable and disclose their state tax payments. It found that 68 reported paying no state corporate taxes in at least one year between 2008 and 2010. All together, the study found that the companies reported $1.33 trillion in domestic profits from 2008 to 2010, but paid states only about half of what they would have if they had paid at the average corporate income tax rate of all states — reducing their state taxes by some $42.7 billion.

As the Times notes, the share of state revenues coming from corporate taxes has steadily declined since 1980, from about 10 percent then to less than 6 percent now. And despite Republican rhetoric calling for lower corporate taxes on the national level, America’s rate there remains low as well. Corporations continue to sit on huge amounts of cash without investing in job creation, but GOP politicians and corporate leaders have called for even larger tax giveaways.

Meanwhile, the lost tax revenue would have gone a long way toward plugging budget holes that were instead filled by cutting education, social services, and programs that helped states’ most vulnerable and needy residents.



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Radical Group Suggests When It Comes To Rat Poisoning And Your Kids...They are On Their Own

ALEC deems kids eating rat poison an ‘Acceptable Risk’!

It has been reported for some time, the corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been colluding with the billionaire Koch brothers to privatize government and eliminate environmental regulations that interfere with profits.

GOP legislators in many states have given ALEC free reign to write anti-health care reform and anti-environment legislation. Now, ALEC is fighting to kill Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting the sale of rat poisons that pose a serious health threat to children and the ecosystem.

A top representative for the ultra-conservative group said kids eating rat poison is an “acceptable risk” that does not justify government intervention:

“There are certain levels of acceptable risk in society,” says Todd M. Wynn, director of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force, in an interview about the EPA rules with the Heartland Institute’s Heartlander website. “And parents play an important role by weighing the potential risks and benefits of using a product.”

“Unfortunately, EPA expands its reach into the American economy more and more each and every year,” Wynn said. “This year it will be d-Con, but next year another useful product will be burdened by additional regulations or banned outright from the market.”

Aaron Colangelo, an attorney for the NRDC…told the Center for Media and Democracy that “there is not an undue economic burden associated with reformulating these products,” pointing out that the rest of the industry had complied with the new rules without adverse economic impact. Additionally, he said, “the health care costs for treating these kids certainly outweigh the economic costs of reformulation.”

Wynn’s startling admission illustrates the extent to which ALEC is willing to sacrifice the health of Americans to advance their radical agenda. For decades, at least 12,000-15,000 children a year have become ill after accidentally touching or ingesting rat poison that’s spread in pellet form. Poisoned children experience internal bleeding, bloody urine, bleeding gums, and blood coming from their ears. Poor and minority children are disproportionately affected.

Exposure often occurs in settings outside parents’ control, and giving companies the option of voluntary adopting changes has done nothing to help. After thirteen years of studies, hearings, reports and legal battles, “the EPA announced in 2008 rodenticide manufacturers would have three years to adopt limits on the sale of the products.”

For years, ALEC has successfully killed these kind of regulations on environmental toxins and pollutants on behalf of corporations. At their annual conference in New Orleans this year, ALEC distributed a pamphlet titled “The Many Benefits Of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment,” complete with pictures depicting happy wildlife and a healthy environment. Companies like Koch Industries, BP, WalMart, and others join forces to fund this little-known organization that works behind the scenes to fight the dirty battles that no corporation would want to be publicly associated with.



NFTOS

Faux News Says Fear Muppets

Faux News Business: The Muppets are ‘Brainwashing’ young people to hate the oil industry.

Faux News Attacks The Muppets

Life’s a happy song, but not when Faux Business is singing along. The network is upset that the new Muppets movie, The Muppets, features an oil tycoon as a villain, with various contributors complaining last week that the film amounts to “indoctrination” of young people into “hating corporate America” that borders on “Communist[ic].” Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center agreed with host Eric Bolling that “liberal Hollywood is using class warfare to brainwash our kids” and the discussion rambled on from there. Watch it, via Media Matters:

 

If any of these talking heads had actually seen The Muppets, they would know that Tex Richman (played by Chris Cooper) isn’t out to destroy the Muppets because he wants oil, but because he wants only money and despises love. In his rap song “Let’s Talk About Me,” he tells you that all there is to him is that “I got mo’ money.”

The discussion unraveled into attacks against President Obama, the 99 Percent movement, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). Andrea Tantaros, host of “The Five” over on Fox News, implored that Tex Richman embodies “The American Dream,” and Bolling suggested that teaching that wealth is bad amounts to Communism.

The Muppets, on the other hand, offers a very simple message of friendship and love to its viewers in its final number:

We’ve got everything that we need, we can be whatever we want to be. Nothing we can’t do, the skies are blue when it’s me and you and you and you. Life’s a happy song when there’s someone by your side to sing along.

It’s nothing new for Faux News and Faux Business to defend corporate interests, but who knew they seemingly oppose the unimpeachable messages of cooperation that the Muppets have been promoting for decades?

This is why it is important for teapublicans to please remember to breed responsibly, as there is no life guard at the gene pool. Really the "Muppets".


NFTOS

What You First Amendment Right Gets You

Under a new policy unveiled late this week by the Walker administration, protesters who apply for permits to protest outside government buildings in Wisconsin may be charged for clean-up costs and the presence of police officers. “Gov. Scott Walker now wants to charge protesters for the time that the police that will monitor them and presumably pepper spray them,” Current TV’s Keith Olbermann observed the other night.



Marquette University Law School prof. Edward Fallone told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he’s “skeptical about charging people to express their First Amendment opinion. … You can’t really put a price tag on the First Amendment.”

Recently, the city of Nashville billed Occupy Nashville $1,045 for security the day before it decided to evict the entire encampment. The Republican governor of that state, Bill Haslam, is also in the process of formulating a new policy to restrict the ability of protesters to occupy state grounds.


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MERRY GINGRICH

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Disgusting Rhetoric From Eye of Newt

Gingrich doubles down on blacks and poor and Rev. Al Sharpton is there to call him out on it.

Conceding ever so slightly to flak he’s taken for calling child labor laws “stupid” and suggesting that schools fire janitors and replace with them poor kids, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich got more specific yesterday, saying working-class students should be limited to jobs like cleaning bathrooms. Bowing to concerns that janitorial work is dangerous, Gingrich floated, “What if they became assistant janitors and their jobs were to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?”

Incredibly, Gingrich compared making kids work as janitors to a successful program that paid kids to read books. Of course, reading books is not hard labor and is directly relevant to education — cleaning bathrooms is not.

Gingrich said his idea would be beneficial because the kids “have no habit of work.” Certainly, cleaning up the soiled bathrooms of their classmates will break these children of their bad habits.

       

Amen Rev. What's amazing is that we're supposed to believe that Gingrich actually thinks it's going to help him win the GOP primary to do something like this and go about one inch shy of just outright calling black people lazy negros, which is what he did here. This wasn't a dog whistle. It was a siren. And it was meant to inflame people like Sharpton, and liberals or anyone else who's not just openly racist in the United States and would dare to speak out about it.

Rev. Sharpton rightfully pointed out, there are 45 million working poor in America and 22 million children in poverty, and there are another 51 million that are working just above the poverty line, but Gingrich wants to paint them all as a bunch of lazy slackers looking for a handout with no work ethic and drug dealers.

Eye of Newt went fishing and he caught Rev. Al. It comes as no shock to me that Newt crossed this line, as teapublicans espouse racism like the Pope is catholic.

Here is the adulterers take on the poor:

Responding to controversial comments he made about child labor in late November at Harvard University, Newt Gingrich yesterday told a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa, that children in poor neighborhoods have “no habits of working and nobody around them who works"

Gingrich was asked by an audience member to clarify the comments he made last month in which he called the current child labor laws ”stupid” and would replace janitors with schoolchildren to work in the community school.

“They have no habit of showing up on Monday and staying all day or the concept of ’I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich said that successful people he knows started work early by doing small jobs like babysitting and shoveling snow.

“You have a very poor neighborhood. You have students that are required to go to school. They have no money, no habit of work,” Gingrich said. “What if you paid them in the afternoon to work in the clerical office or as the assistant librarian? And let me get into the janitor thing. What if they became assistant janitors, and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?”

The drugster (Limbaugh), UnBeckistan (Glenn Beck) and now the adulterer (Eye of Newt) have all shown their true colors, and African American is not a favorite.


NFTOS

Prelude To The Anatomy Of A Teapublican

NFTOS is preparing itself for a in-depth onslaught into radical teabagging. This ongoing series will address the dangers that lie ahead when the likes of Bill Looman III exist in our country.

Anatomy of a Teapublican

This country is in trouble if the likes of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, 999 or Eye of Newt gain access to the oval office.

I can take full credit — or blame — for this analysis. This thoery originated with the mid-term elections no sot long ago. This analysis troubles me for one simple reason: it makes sense.

So here is how it goes. The genteel, pragmatic Republicanism of the past has been supplanted by a pitchforks and torches mentality, a funhouse mirror distortion of traditional conservatism. Meaning, of course, the tea party, tea baggers or teapublicans.

These are the very same folks who don’t just support the death penalty; they cheer for executions. They don’t just oppose health care reform, they shout “Let him die” to the uninsured individual who faces life-threatening illness. They are the true believers: virulently anti-government, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-tax, anti-facts and, most of all, anti the coming demographic changes represented by a dark-skinned president with an African name. They are the people who want “their” country back.

The old guard of the GOP doesn’t much like them, but it likes winning so it keeps its mouth shut.

You might think Obama’s re-election would solve this, offering as it would stark repudiation of the politics of panic, paranoia and reactionary extremism this ideology represents. The problem is, these folks thrive on repudiation, on a free-floating conviction that they have been done wrong, cheated and mistreated by the tides of history and progress, change and demography. So there is every reason to believe, particularly given the weakness of the economy, that being repudiated in next year’s election would only make them redouble their intensity, confirming them as it would in their own victimhood.

And ask yourself: what form could that redoubling take? How do you up the ante from this? What is the logical next step after two years of screaming, rocks through windows, threats against legislators and rhetoric that could start a fire?

An awful, obvious answer suggests itself. You reject it instinctively. This is, after all, America is not some unstable fledgling democracy.

Then you realize it was not so long ago that a man blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City out of anti-government sentiment not so different from that espoused by the teapublicans. And you remember how that tragedy exposed an entire network of armed anti-government zealots gathering in the woods. And you read where the Southern Poverty Law Center says the number of radical anti-government groups spiked to 824 in 2010, a 61 percent increase over just the previous year.

And then you wonder.

This is not a prediction, only cogitation — and a suggestion that those of us who have regarded the craziness of recent years as an aberration, a temporary temper tantrum from people who feel threatened and dislocated, may have been entirely too sanguine. In less than 20 years, the locus of radical anti-government extremism has moved from remote woods to Capitol Hill and to Bill Looman's facebook page.

He is a sample of Looman's work:

http://www.facebook.com/bill.looman/posts/2575265668289 (if you want a sign like mine...)

http://www.facebook.com/bill.looman/posts/2575297789092 (westboro baptist church)

http://www.facebook.com/bill.looman/posts/2575200266654 (good morning patriots)

How should the rest of us respond? That’s a question we urgently need to answer. They say they’ve come to take “their” country back.

Maybe it’s time we took them at their word.



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Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

The Herman Cain Train

Cain’s latest allegations sound like ‘Leave it to … let’s not say Beaver’ says Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert.

Colbert begging 999 to stay in race

Stephen Colbert has long been a staunch supporter of Herman Cain, and he’s not giving up on the former pizza CEO and one-time Republican presidential frontrunner over a paltry 13-year affair. But Colbert is worried we could lose him, after Cain said Tuesday he is “reassessing” his candidacy.

“Herman, don’t you leave this election-lovers pizza half baked,” Colbert said Tuesday. “There’s no reason for you to leave. A 13-year affair just proves you can carry on a stable relationship. Two, counting your marriage!”

And this affair, unlike the earlier allegations, was apparently consensual. “I’d say things are looking up,” Colbert said. “Compared to all that reaching-for-the-lady-parts-like-a-dachshund-going-after-a-ball-under-the-couch, these new allegations sound like leave it to … let’s not say beaver.”

Plus, Colbert added, if the allegations prove true, Cain’s only one extra-marital affair puts him well behind Newt Gingrich.

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Teapublicans and affairs seem to go hand in hand of late. Its apparent [with polls having Mr. 999 (Cain) handing the baton to Eye of Newt whom is now holding the top rung as leading teapublican ] radical teas accept infidelity and groping with open arms and they treat it like its a leading quality for the seat in the oval office.

The once Former House Speaker Eye of Newt Gingrich was having extramarital affairs even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. I have always said that teapublicans are the most hypocritical beings on the planet, and its never been more evident than with Mr. 999 and the eye of Newt. Extramarital affairs have dogged Gingrich for years as a result of two messy divorces, but even this is not enough to cause consternation amongst teapublicans.

When the Atlanta businesswoman came forward in an interview broadcast Monday to say she had a 13-year affair with Herman Cain, the latest in a string of women to make allegations of improper conduct by the presidential candidate, teapublicans seemed unfazed.

To prove her assertions, the woman, Ginger White, told Fox News in Atlanta that she had records of 61 phone calls or text messages to or from a number starting with the area code 678 that she said was Mr. Cain’s number.

She said that she met Mr. Cain in the late 1990s in Louisville, Ky., and that they often stayed together at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead, Ga. She added that the physical affair ended eight months ago.

Mr. Cain denied the woman’s assertions during an interview on CNN Monday afternoon, in which he first publicized word of Ms. White’s charges.

                 “I want to give you a heads up and everyone a heads up,” he told Wolf Blitzer.

                  “Here we go again,” he said of the allegations. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

On its Web site Monday afternoon, Fox 5 Atlanta identified the woman as Ms. White.

“It was pretty simple,” Ms. White told the station. “It wasn’t complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation, relationship.”

Fox said that it texted the number Ms. White gave them and that Herman Cain returned the call. Fox said Mr. Cain said he “knew Ginger White” and and that she had his number because he was “trying to help her financially.”

In the CNN interview, Mr. Cain said the latest allegations would not cause him to leave the presidential race. He said the woman was an acquaintance.

Ms. White is the fifth woman to come forward with allegations of improper conduct by Mr. Cain.

When will teapublicans have moral fiber? Its like the owl in the Tootsie Roll Pops advertisement trying to get to the center of that tootsie roll tootsie pop......"The world may never know"!


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Hey Jamie, "Your Only Pledge Should Be To Uphold The Constitution Of The United States"

Constituents rebuke GOP congresswoman for her allegiance to ‘No Tax’ pledge instead of the Constitution.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)

Last week, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) continued the trend of Republicans avoiding angry constituents by holding an invitation-only “community coffee.” But even the small number of constituents at the exclusive event did not let Herrera Beutler off the hook, asking her tough questions about her allegiance to a “no tax” pledge:

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler said Tuesday she’s happy with the smaller settings of her invitation-only “community coffees” and isn’t planning to hold another large-scale town hall. About 60 people attended her latest gathering at Judy’s Restaurant in Longview on Tuesday morning, a fraction of the attendance at earlier town halls in her Southwest Washington district.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the more intimate setting didn’t cause people to shy away from criticizing the congresswoman. Kathy Thompson, a Longview real-estate broker, blasted Herrera Beutler for signing conservative activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to support any tax increase of any kind.

“I think this is totally un-American. I think your only pledge should be to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Thompson said.

Avoiding constituents is nothing new for Herrera Beutler — in October she even asked a local paper to keep her town hall meeting a secret. Her office does not send advance notice of meetings to local media and she doesn’t post alerts on her website. She admits that she decided to limit attendance after she was confronted at a May town hall by attendees who asked “hostile questions” about the House GOP budget, which would have effectively eliminated Medicare.

Other GOP representatives have also faced a backlash from constituents for their uncompromising, ideologically rigid commitment to Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist’s “no tax” pledge. (Norquist considers any tax increase, for any reason, a violation of the pledge.) One audience member told Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY), “We are your constituents, not Grover Norquist.”

More and more Republican congressmen, though, are disavowing the pledge after witnessing the ill effects of promising never to raise taxes under any circumstance. GOP Rep. Frank Wolf (VA) said the pledge had the effect of “paralyzing Congress” and making it impossible to even discuss ways to reform the tax code. Onetime devotee Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) also denounced the pledge, explaining, “We have to have the flexibility to do the right thing for American people.”

While this is a start, we know that republicans often only use the Constitution when it suits their radical ideology, and when it doesn't they then want to amend it or even do away with it.


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Hey (R-KS) Governor Sam Brownback.....YOU SUCK!

High School student fights back against Gov. Sam Brownback’s intimidation and will not write apology.

Last Monday, Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan attended a speech by radical tea bag Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), during which she published a tweet critical of the governor. In response, Brownback’s office reported Sullivan’s critical tweet to her high school’s administration, and the high school principal ordered her to write a letter of apology — despite the fact that this punishment is unconstitutional because Sullivan’s tweet is protected by the First Amendment.

Last night, Sullivan sent out another tweet — announcing that she will not obey her principal’s unconstitutional command to apologize to the thin-skinned governor:

Among other things, this incident highlights the incompetence of Brownback’s communications team. At the time of her first tweet, Sullivan had only a few dozen followers. Had the governor’s office simply ignored the tweet, it’s doubtful that more than a few people would have read it. Instead, they decided to intimidate the dissenting teenager by reporting her — and the incident blew up into a major national news story. As of this writing, Sullivan has more than 4,000 Twitter followers.


Team Brownback justifies its heavy-handed response by claiming that Sullivan’s original tweet — which said that Brownback “sucked” and ended with the hashtag “#heblowsalot” — wasn’t respectful.” Perhaps it wasn’t, but the First Amendment cares very little whether a persons’ speech is respectful or not. One of the Supreme Court’s seminal First Amendment cases held that the words “Fuck the Draft” are protected speech. And, while a public school student’s First Amendment rights are somewhat reduced, schools typically cannot discipline students for speaking out unless their speech is likely to disrupt the school’s learning environment.

Now that Sullivan has chosen to assert her First Amendment rights, the ball is in the school’s court. If they are smart, they will recognize that their attempt to punish Sullivan unambiguously violates the Constitution and save themselves from expensive potential litigation that they are exceedingly unlikely to win.


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Who Says Americans Go Hungry?

Last year, 17.2 million households in the United States were food insecure, the highest level on record, as the Great Recession continued to wreak havoc on families across the country. Of those 17.2 million households, 3.9 million included children. With Thanksgiving just ending lets take a look at hunger in America, as millions of Americans struggle to get enough to eat in the wake of the economic crisis:

17.2 million: The number of households that were food insecure in 2010, the highest number on record. They make up 14.5 percent of households, or approximately one in seven.

48.8 million: People who lived in food insecure households last year.

3.9 million: The number of households with children that were food insecure last year. In 1 percent of households with children, “one or more of the children experienced the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA, very low food security, in which meals were irregular and food intake was below levels considered adequate by caregivers.”

6.4 million: Households that experienced very low food security last year, meaning “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”

55: The percentage of food-insecure households that participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs (SNAP, WIC, School lunch program).

19.4: The percentage of food insecure households in Mississippi, which had the highest rate in the nation last year.

3.6 percent: The amount by which food prices increased last year.

30 percent: The amount by which food insecurity grew during the Great Recession.

44: The percentage increase in households using food pantries between 2007 and 2009.

20 million: The number of children who benefit from free and reduced lunch per day.

10.5 million: The number of eligible children who don’t receive their free and reduced lunch benefits.

$167.5 billion: The amount that the U.S. lost in 2010 due to hunger (lost educational attainment + avoidable illness + charitable giving to fight hunger). This doesn’t take into account the $94 billion cost of SNAP and other food programs.

8: The number of states (FL, TX, CA, IL, NY, OH, PA, GA) where the annual cost of hunger exceeds $6 billion.

Last year, “nearly half of the households seeking emergency food assistance reported having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food. Nearly 40 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food.” This Thanksgiving, as you sit down to enjoy a meal with family and friends, please spare a thought for those who, due to the country’s continuing economic woes, may not have enough to eat.

Its turly said that in the richest county in the world we have this type of hunger!

Below are two apropos videos

See Jimmy Kimmel Video here.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM NFTOS

Faux News Viewers Again Top Stupid List

Study after study, year after year, polls prove that Faux News viewers are a little less than coherent on topics or subject matter regarding national politics and worldly affairs .

Quick, were Egyptian protesters successful in their bid to overthrow longtime president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year?

According to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University, if you watch Faux News you are significantly less likely to know the correct answer to that question than if you mostly avoid news shows and newspapers all together.

"Faux News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University."

The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Faux News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and "6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government" compared to those who watch no news.

Overall, 53% of all respondents knew that Egyptians successfully overthrew Hosni Mubarak and 48% knew that Syrians have yet to overthrow their government.

Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson, explained in a statement:

 "Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."

This isn't the first study that has found that Faux News viewers are more misinformed in comparison to others. Last year, a study from the University of Maryland found that Faux News viewers were more likely to believe false information about politics.

This speaks volumes about the quality and style of Faux News, but also about the makeup and intellectual prowess of their audience. This is truly amazing, imagine what abysmal journalism this must be, for people who don’t watch any news to know more than Faux viewers! News can inform people, if done properly, but Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch et al would rather interject bullshit and fear into its' ["the most watched news source"] viewers.

Roger Ailes and Faux News deliberately manipulate it's news coverage and its effective, just review the plethora of polls suggesting that its viewers are a benighted group.

Credit to huffpo and old friend BP for this story.

Post Script: To my neighbor R.S. and to the facebook chum whom was hurt and won his purple heart from playing basketball on the gym court......quit watching Faux News for your an ignorant lot


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Mittens And Coterie Chuck Mail To Avoid Scrutiny

Romney admits he destroyed government records to keep them from political opponents.

Last week, a Boston Globe investigation uncovered that former Gov. Mitt Romney’s administration destroyed emails, purchased hard drives, and otherwise obliterated all digital records of his time as governor of Massachusetts. This happened as Romney was leaving the state to campaign for president (the first time), and observers immediately speculated that the systematic destruction was politically motivated to hide embarrassing data.

Romney and his campaign have so far denied this, with the candidate saying this weekend in New Hampshire that his staff took the highly unusual step of purchasing their work hard drives because they might contain “confidential and private” information. Meanwhile, he’s made calls for greater White House transparency a part of his campaign message.

But in a fairly stunning admission during an interview with the editorial board of the Nashua Telegraph in New Hampshire, Romney suggested that his administration deleted emails because they didn’t want “opposition research teams” to have access to them:

ROMNEY: Well, I think in government we should follow the law. And there has never been an administration that has provided to the opposition research team, or to the public, electronic communications. So ours would have been the first.

While Romney’s claim that no previous administration had kept emails may be true, that’s hardly a strong precedent given that emailing was not commonplace for very many years before Romney took office.

Meanwhile, Romney clearly broke precedent with the hard drive buybacks, as staffers for previous administration called the purchases “unheard of.” Terry Dolan, who worked in six previous administrations in the state, told the Globe, “That had not happened prior to the end of the Romney administration.” “I don’t remember anybody buying their hard drives. I don’t remember anybody buying anything,’’ said Stephen Crosby, who worked for Romney’s two predecessors.


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Rick Perry's Plan

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has staked his presidential hopes on a radical revamping of Washington’s political structure, reshaping the tax code, making the legislature part-time, enacting term limits on the Supreme Court, and closing multiple government agencies.

Perry took his radical new vision for America to a new level the other night at the Iowa FAMILY Leader presidential forum. Going against the Constitution, centuries of American history, and the wishes of our nation’s founders, Perry claimed that the United States military should not be “micromanaged” by civilians and needed military commanders to be “truly in charge”

PERRY: There is a time and a place for us to intervene, and intervene militarily. But when we intervene militarily, we best make the decision on how we are going to win and how we are going to win convincingly and quickly, send those young men and women with the equipment to win. Don’t let some congressman sitting in an air-conditioned office in Washington DC deciding what the rules of engagement are. … And for us to micromanage them, in a civilian way, without their commanders truly in charge, is absolutely irresponsible and as commander-in-chief of this country I will not let it happen.

By design, the U.S. military has always been under civilian control. While the president acts as the military’s civilian commander-in-chief, Congress has the Constitutionally-mandated authority to apportion military funding and approve any declaration of war. The military’s nuclear weapons, meanwhile, are owned and controlled by the civilian Department of Energy (which Perry, incidentally, wants to abolish).

The civilian structure of the military Perry has no use for wasn’t an accident — it is the norm in liberal democracies and what America’s Founding Fathers wanted. As Samuel Adams wrote in 1768, “Even when there is a necessity of the military power, within a land, a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and jealous eye over it.” The founders feared giving too much power to military could lead to an oppressive federal government, the specter of which Perry has built his entire political ideology against.

Not only is Perry’s Constitutional history lacking, but his knowledge of current events is too. American military commanders — whom Perry asserts aren’t currently in charge — back the timetable to begin removing troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year.


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Does She Really Have A Clue?

The fact that Michelle Bachmann ever imagined she had any chance of getting the Republican nomination not only shows how FUBAR the party has become. Seriously, there is no part of her that is in any way connected with reality. Rather, she lives in a parallel reality that has many of the same names and faces as our own, but where everything's distorted and weird, and more than a little creepy. Kind of like Mardi Gras, but without the fun.





Michele Bachmann prides herself for pressing Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but during an appearance at Webster City, Iowa Wednesday night, the Minnesota congresswoman proved that she’s also leading the charge in developing outrageous new attacks against the legislation. At the town hall, Bachmann complained that undocumented immigrants are exempt from paying for the law, claimed that a seven-foot doctor told her the IRS had to approve medical procedures, and reiterated her long-standing view that doctors and hospitals would provide free care to the uninsured if they were shielded from malpractice claims:

“Under Obamacare illegal aliens don’t have to pay for Obamacare. Only American citizens pay for Obamacare. Illegal aliens have the possibility of getting the care, but they have no requirement to pay for the care. Only the citizens do.”

“One man stood up, he was over 7-feet tall. He was a physician in the community. And he said, ‘I had a little lady in my office and because of Obamacare, I had to call the IRS and I had to get a number to put on a form before I could see her.’”

 “When I was a little girl…There were people who could not pay [for health care]. I mean they just did not have any money at all. And so the doctor would just write it off. It’s very different today. Now, doctors don’t feel like they can do that…they worry about liability.”

 It’s hard to make sense of any of Bachmann’s claims. Republicans successfully fought to keep undocumented immigrants from receiving tax credits through the exchanges and the ACA does nothing to change the existing Reagan-era law that requires hospitals to provide health care to everyone in need of emergency services. Undocumented immigrants also paid $11.2 billion in taxes in 2010, including $8.4 billion in sales taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.2 billion in personal income taxes.


The seven-foot doctor’s claims are similarly dubious, since the IRS does not begin enforcing the individual requirement to purchase health insurance until 2014 — and even then, the penalty is processed through personal income tax returns and would not require a medical provider to call the agency. Finally, Bachmann’s oft-repeated solution to reducing the number of uninsured — shield doctors from lawsuits and they’ll provide free health care to anyone who needs it — is a poor idea, to put it charitably, and hasn’t actually increased access to providers in states with existing “liability shield” regulations.

Seriously readers, could Bachmann truly be so ignorant of the healthcare law that she really believes there's some element of this story that makes sense? What number could the IRS possibly be giving him for a Medicare recipient? Exactly what part of Obamacare supposedly made this happen? And why would this doctor be the one on hold for two hours, instead of his receptionist? Could she have dreamed up the whole thing, and if she did, would her staff let us know? Perhaps someone should ask Ed Rollins about it, as he always seems eager to dish dirt on her.

Most of all, the 64 thousand dollar questions is - we need to know precisely which drugs Bachmann was on when this tall doctor supposedly told her this, as well as which drugs she was on when she told the story. Because whatever it was, people need to be warned about it. They could just put a picture of Bachmann on the label and everyone would know what that meant. I wonder if she was suffering from another migraine during either episode.

With Bachmann only holding 5% in the latest polls, isn't it about time she just went back to doing......whatever it is she does?


NFTOS

Eye of Newt Takes Lobbyist To New Level...Then Lies About It

Not just Freddie Mac, Newt Gingrich’s long history of influence peddling for his corporate clients.


Caught flatfooted in the CNBC debate when a moderator asked about his past work for Freddie Mac, Newt Gingrich has since twisted and turned, making up every excuse under the sun to obscure his post-politician career as a K Street operator. Despite the revelation that he was paid at least $1.6 million by the troubled mortgage giant to do far more than give “history” lessons, the former Speaker has stubbornly stuck to his guns. On Laura Ingraham radio show yesterday, Gingrich, again attempting to spin his work for Freddie Mac, claimed that his firm literally does “no lobbying”:

To help clear the record, here

To help clear the record, here is compiled short history of Gingrich’s influence peddling: (Collection brought to you by thinkprogress).

Helping To Secure Health IT Earmarks For GE, Microsoft, IBM: Gingrich headed a for-profit health care consulting firm that engages in activities identical in nature to lobbying. As Business Week reported, firms like GE have hired Gingrich to figure out “on how to grab some of the $19.6 billion in federal stimulus money” on healthcare IT grants. A follow-up investigation found that Gingrich had been paid to bring health IT lobbyists together with lawmakers like Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

The Ethanol Lobby’s “Consulting” Contract With Gingrich: Growth Industry, the trade association for the ethanol energy lobby, provided a $312,500 contract to Gingrich’s consulting firm in 2009, according to a report by iWatch News. An association publication conceded that Gingrich was paid for “strategy and communication issues.” The retainer allowed the lobby group, then pressing for further government subsidies, to use Gingrich to “speak positively on ethanol related topics to media.”

Gingrich Lobbied To Deregulate Insurers, While Accepting Hundreds Of Thousands From Health Insurance Corporations: Through his for-profit healthcare consulting firm, Gingrich accepted up to $200,000 in annual fees from insurers like WellPoint and UnitedHealth. Gingrich not only pushed anti-health reform conspiracies like the infamous “death panel” smear, but he also crafted model legislation that formed the basis of GOP deregulatory proposals for health insurers. In March 2009, Gingrich met with Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) and other members of the GOP Doctors Caucus to help write conservative health reform alternative legislation. “Gingrich provided us with great insight as we work to craft health care solutions for the 21st Century,” proclaimed Gingrey after the meeting. Gingrich also wrote healthcare legislation introduced by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), and “consulted” with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on health reform legislation that would deregulate the insurance industry. During this blitz of what many would consider lobbying-like activity, the BlueCross & BlueShield Association and AHIP, the umbrella lobbying group for the health insurance industry, paid Gingrich fees as well. 

“Sharing Resources” With The Oil Industry’s Top Lobbyists: In February of last year a public relations executive close to the oil industry who said that Gingrich’s political attack group, called ASWF, had been “sharing resources, coordinating efforts” with the American Petroleum Institute (API), the main oil lobby association. In an interview later Gingrich confirmed that he had been working closely with API.

Gingrich Sells His “Strategic Advice” To Lobbying Giants Like The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce: James Oliphant reported on the latest controversy over Gingrich’s lobbying for Freddie Mac, noting that Gingrich’s firm has also been paid by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the mega-corporate lobbying coalition, for “strategic advice.”

Gingrich may defend his unregistered lobbying by claiming that he does not meet the legal threshold in terms of legislator contact. However, news reports have painted a picture of Gingrich as constantly in communication with lawmakers and other public officials. According to the New York Times, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) has been known to discuss strategy on a “regular basis” with Gingrich. The Hill reported that Gingrich attended whip meetings with the GOP caucus to “educate” rank and file Republican lawmakers on the health reform debate. And as a separate piece from the Times noted, Gingrich fires off what have become known as “Newtgrams” — personal e-mails and messages with tactical advice — frequently to Republican legislators in both the House and Senate.

Gingrich was once asked why he never registered as a lobbyist, despite his clear history of pressing Congress on behalf of his clients. Gingrich defended his actions by stating that his lobbying is not technically lobbying because it “benefits the country at large.”

You know when the republicans have the eye of newt leading the polls, that their bar isn't set too high..really president Newt? With three marriages, ( leaves one wife while under going cancer treatment and cheats on another) ethics is the furthest thing from the radical teas mindset, as it appears any warm body will do. But what do we expect when "Mr. I Don't Know" (Rick Perry) and The Groper (Herman Cain) are the bar setters?



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