TRUMP ATTACKS PHARMA BRO

COLUMBIA, SC — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has no idea what he would do to combat rising drug prices, but he does know how to launch a vicious personal attack.

In a press conference in Columbia, South Carolina on Wednesday, Trump sharply criticized the former hedge fund manager who has become known as the “Pharma bro,” saying the man is a “disgrace” and a “spoiled brat.”

“This young guy raised the price to a level that’s absolutely ridiculous and he looks like a spoiled brat doing it,” said Trump. “You want to know the truth? He looks like a spoiled brat. And he’s a hedge fund guy — as you know, the only one who I’m raising taxes for. They’re going to be paying up. But I thought it was a disgusting thing what he did.”

The CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, has attracted attention since he hiked by 5,000 percent the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat severe infections in AIDS patients and infants. He has since backed down as a result of the outrage, saying there were “mistakes made” and that he would lower the cost.

While an extreme example, the Pharma bro’s action highlights the bigger issue of rising pharmaceutical drug prices in the United States — an issue other presidential candidates have recently addressed. Trump, however, was unable to propose a solution.

“It’s terrible,” he said when what he would do to combat rising drug prices. “But particularly there’s something about that one — the way he raised it and to that extent. And then he sat back smug, like he was hot stuff. That guy is nothing. He is zero. He is nothing.”

When pressed on what he would do to address the issue, he again avoided the question. “Probably at some point the public is going to get him to reduce it somewhat,” he said. “But I think what he did was a disgrace. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

The Darapim price hike is not uncommon — Judith Aberg, a spokesperson for the HIV Medicine Association, told USA Today that every week she learns about another drug that has increased in price because of a change in marketing or the distributor. Recent studies have found that more Americans are cutting back in other areas because they’re having a hard time paying for their prescriptions.

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have both recently released plans to take on the rapidly increasing prices of pharmaceutical drugs. Clinton tweeted about the pharma bro on Monday and then announced on Tuesday her plan to cap out-of-pocket drug costs and decrease the monopoly marketing period for biologics, among other measures. Sanders linked to the recent news about Daraprim on his campaign website alongside a link to his plan to lower drug costs. And earlier this month, Sanders introduced a bill that would allow patients to import cheaper drugs from Canada.

Trump has been criticized for his inability to answer questions on actual issues. He has released a small number of policy papers including a recent one on guns which is indistinguishable from the National Rifle Association’s agenda. In a town hall with Sen. Tim Scott Wednesday night, he promised the audience that he’ll soon be releasing a tax plan that is “very long on policy.”

He also is not known for his fair business practices — he has run a scam university without a license and, despite his disdain for undocumented immigrants, hired many of them to build his newest hotel. He has also made millions of dollars by extolling a marketing company that has faced regulatory investigations in three countries for running a pyramid scheme and for deceptive trade practices.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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TRUMP AND HIS FOLLOWERS PROVE THAT TROGLODYTES STILL ROAM THE EARTH

For several months, Donald Trump has campaigned for president by largely ignoring traditional notions of decency. Thursday night, however, Trump and his ignorant followers attained a new low.

At a Trump campaign rally in Rochester, New Hampshire a man in a “Trump” shirt took the microphone and said, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims.”

“We know our current President is one,” he added. “You know he’s not even an American.” 

“We need this question,” Trump replied, smiling.

Then things turned even darker, as the man discussed his beliefs that Muslims were in training camps plotting to kill.

“That’s my question. When can we get rid of ‘em?” the man said.

Trump was unfazed at the casual suggestion of cultural genocide. “We are going to be looking at a lot of different things. A lot of people saying that,” Trump said.





Notably, Trump did not correct or object to the man’s false characterization of Obama as a Muslim.

Trump also did not dispute the man’s contention that Obama was not an American. Trump has been one of the most prominent “birthers,” insisting that Obama’s birth certificate from Hawaii was faked.

In 2008, a woman at a John McCain event insisted that Obama was “an Arab.” “No ma’am,” McCain replied. “He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

Trump currently leads the GOP field by 10 points.

The man directing the question to Trump, congrats asshat, you are today’s most stupid person of the week. Enjoy numbnutz!

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HUCKABEE OFFERS UP EXPLAINATION WHY KIM DAVIS CAN DISCRIMINATE

Extreme right wing nut job Mike Huckabee has been the most vocal supporter of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriages licenses. He has said he would go to jail on her behalf and has used her situation to argue for strengthening “religious liberty.” But during Wednesday night’s GOP debate, he proved he doesn’t actually understand the meaning of religious freedom.

In response to a question about Davis during the debate, Huckabee argued that she should be allowed to exercise her religious beliefs and discriminate against same-sex couples because the United States has allowed others, including prisoners, to exercise their own religious beliefs.

“We made accommodation to the Fort Hood shooter to let him grow a beard,” Huckabee said. “We made accommodations to the detainees at Gitmo — I’ve been to Gitmo and I’ve seen the accommodations that we have to the Muslim detainees who killed Americans. You’re telling me that you cannot make an accommodation for an elected Democrat county clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky?”

He continued, alleging the only difference is the “criminalization of her faith.”





The First Amendment guarantees Americans the freedom to practice their religions, but does not guarantee someone the right to discriminate and deny other people their rights because of his or her religion.

Davis was released from jail last week and returned to work — she has said she will not interfere with her deputies as they issue same-sex marriage licences.

Huckabee made a similar false comparison in an op-ed he published in Fox News in which he argued that Davis should be allowed out on bail because “many of the America’s most evil and notorious serial killers, murderers, rapists, mafia bosses and presidential assassins were actually let out on bail.” He went on to list Al Capone, Ted Bundy, and Jack Kevorkian, among others, without acknowledging that none of them were held in contempt of court like Davis.

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MAHER CONFRONTS MSNBC WITH ITS INCESSANT NON-STOP COVERAGE OF DONALD TRUMP LOVING DONALD TRUMP

Bill Maher made an appearance last night on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and when the topic of Trump being given so much coverage came up, Maher let them have it: On MSNBC, Bill Maher Calls Out MSNBC’s Coverage of Trump’s ‘Rambling Brainfarts’:




Maher also blasted Matthews for their continual scandal mongering over Hillary Clinton's emails and said she can't win for losing when it comes to yielding to the demands of the Republicans, and the media for that matter.

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Roger West

FERGUSON REPORT IN

On Monday, the 16-member Ferguson Commission created by Governor Jay Nixon released its report about how race and economic inequality exacerbate problems within St. Louis’ criminal justice system — and how to go about fixing it. Citing previous findings from the Department of Justice reports about racist policing, the use of excessive force, and the broken court system in Ferguson and St. Louis County, the Ferguson Commission outlined 189 specific policy solutions for lawmakers to consider in the near future.

But the commission’s report goes far beyond the policing and court issues that first inspired the investigation, painting a much broader vision to improve not only the criminal justice system but schools, public health, and poverty.

Counting police reform among its signature priorities, the commission details crucial steps to ensure “justice for all” in Missouri. It calls on police departments to direct their officers to use minimal force when protecting public and officer safety. It also suggests that the Attorney General take on use of force cases as a special prosecutor, and that a database of excessive force cases be created for public consumption.

With regard to the region’s high incarceration rate, the commission calls on courts to prohibit incarceration for minor offenses and make nonviolent offenses civil, as opposed to criminal, violations. It recommends the establishment of justice centers, where people who cannot pay off their violations can participate in community service projects instead. Moreover, the commission concludes that judges and prosecutors should not be involved in court proceedings when there is a conflict of interest.

While the report outlines policies in direct response to DOJ findings, it also delves deeper into the systemic disparities in education, public health, and economic opportunities that create problems for black and brown communities and increase the likelihood of interacting with law enforcement.

A key tenet of the policy outline, for example, is investment in a holistic childhood development model that includes comprehensive education reform. All schools, it says, should have in-house health centers that provides mental and reproductive health resources, as well as trauma services. State and local officials should also be at the forefront of ending childhood hunger, by connecting kids in need of free and reduced meals with food providers during school breaks and making Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollment easier for families.

For adults, economic opportunity is imperative. The commission points to the need for a higher minimum wage, and recommends the creation of financial empowerment centers that offer “community development banking, multi-generational financial education, and convenient financial services with reasonable interest rates.” Collaboration between educational institutions and potential employers can also improve job-readiness and access, in addition to specialized job training programs.

Although the new policy guide addresses Missouri, specifically, it follows a similar set of national policy proposals released by Black Lives Matter (BLM) in August, shortly after Hillary Clinton implored BLM activists to develop a concrete policy proposals.

“There has to be some positive vision and plan that you can move people toward,” she replied, after she was confronted by BLM representatives about police brutality and mass incarceration. Explaining that former civil rights movements had action plans, she told them that making specific policy asks is the way to make change. “The people behind that consciousness-raising and advocacy, they had a plan ready to go.”

Weeks later, proponents of law enforcement reform and racial justice launched Campaign Zero, a comprehensive guide for federal, state, and local officials to follow.

While less focused on economic and health factors that contribute to discriminatory — and deadly — policing that the Ferguson Commission put forward, the campaign narrows in on national law enforcement issues that the Ferguson team overlooked, such as broken-windows policing and police union contracts that make accountability near-impossible to achieve. For instance, Campaign Zero offers specific changes to policing tactics, such as stopping people who look like they are acting nervous or people who match a generic description of a suspect, which disproportionately entrap people of color in the criminal justice system. It also calls on the removal of officer contract provisions that prevent civilians from questioning officers and leaves the power to discipline officers to police chiefs.

In addition to the Ferguson Commission report and Campaign Zero, presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley released their own criminal justice solutions in the last two months, including the enactment of ban-the-box laws, scrapping for-profit prisons, and the establishment of a national use of force standard.

[Crossp-posted from thinkprogress]

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LAWYER SAYS KIM DAVIS IS LIKE ABE LINCOLN

Matt Staver — a lawyer from theocratic law firm The Liberty Counsel — said on Sunday that his client, Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, is like President Abraham Lincoln because of her stand against marriage equality for all Americans.

Staver made the remarks in an appearance on C-SPAN after which a caller said that Davis should do her job or step down.

“Well, she is doing her job quite well,” Staver said. “By the end of this year, she will have saved the taxpayers in Rowan County $1.5 million in her first year as the elected official since 2014, so that’s quite substantial, to be able to do that.”

“Secondly,” he went on, “if we told Abraham Lincoln, ‘Abraham Lincoln, you should just go along with the Dred Scott decision. After all, it is what the racist Chief Justice Taney wrote and it’s the law of the land.’ And yet, Lincoln advocated something different than that and unfortunately because of that Dred Scott decision we had to fight a Civil War. It was a terrible time in our history.”

In the U.S. Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, the court ruled that blacks could not be U.S. citizens, whether slaves or free. As such, they could not sue U.S. citizens in federal court in order to obtain their freedom.

The case is held by many to be an embarrassing error by the highest court in the land, with some historians calling it “unquestionably, our court’s worst decision ever.”

Staver and other Davis supporters assert that the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage on a national level in June is similarly misguided.



Dred Scott was overturned by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the ratification of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says that any person born in the U.S. or its territories is automatically an American citizen.

“Talking about someone like Kim Davis,” Staver said Sunday, “she is just simply saying she wants to do her job, she does it well. Just give her a reasonable accommodation.”

Staver has made previous statements comparing Davis to Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Jews living in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

“This is the Rosa Parks on the bus. If they tell you to go to the back of the bus because your skin color doesn’t match what they want, don’t go to the back of the bus. This is the time for peaceful resistance, and this is the time to stand with people who are engaged in peaceful resistance,” said Staver in an interview on Christian radio.

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Roger West

DRESSING LIKE THE SCARECROW GARNERS MAHER'S ATTENTION

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO

Bill Maher Friday night took a shot at the husband of Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis for showing up for her nationally televised release from jail wearing overalls and a battered straw hat with a green visor.

After mocking a Florida man for being arrested for masturbating in a Burger King, and pointing out to Native American tribes that rain dances don’t work (“Rain dances don’t fucking work, people. My front lawn is now made of dirt.“) Maher turned — once again — to Kim Davis, the anti-gay county clerk who chose to go to jail rather then allow her office to give out marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Specifically, Maher drew attention to the widely ridiculed picture of Davis and her husband Joe posing with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“New rule: Someone has to tell Kim Davis’ husband who showed up for her big release event looking like this,” Maher said , pausing for viewers to take the photo in,” That when people already think you’re brainless, it doesn't help to dress up like the scarecrow.”

A DISGUSTING TREND IS EMERGING

The New York City Police Department on Friday released a security camera video showing ex-tennis star James Blake being tackled, thrown to the ground and handcuffed by an undercover officer in a now infamous case of mistaken identity.

The incident occurred as Blake, formerly the world’s fourth-ranked player, was calmly standing by the entrance of a midtown Manhattan hotel, waiting for a car to take him to the U.S. Open.

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NEVER FORGET!

To my fallen brethren, may you rest in everlasting peace!

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Roger West

WHEN IT COMES TO CONSREVATIVES - CHERRY PICKING MAN’S LAW AND GOD’S LAW - ITS THE RULE AND NOT THE EXCEPTION

Wing-Nut Mike Huckabee argued on Wednesday that the 1857 Supreme Court ruling which declared that blacks did not have a right to be citizens was “still the law of the land” even though the 14th Amendment overturned it.

During an interview with radio host Michael Medved that was obtained by BuzzFeed, the former Arkansas governor complained that he had been “drilled by TV hosts” after claiming that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis did not have an obligation to issue same-sex marriage licenses because the Supreme Court’s recent decision on marriage equality was not “the law of the land” until lawmakers codified it with legislation.

“Because that’s their phrase, ‘it’s the law of the land,'” Huckabee explained.

“Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”

Medved reminded the candidate that the 13th Amendment had overturned slavery. And as BuzzFeed’s Christopher Massie noted, the 14th Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision by establishing birthright citizenship.



Huckabee insisted that a constitutional amendment would not be required to overturn the same-sex marriage ruling because it was not valid in the first place.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” the former governor opined. “Because, in the case of this decision, it goes back to what Jefferson said that if a decision is rendered that is not borne out by the will of the people either through their elected people and gone through the process, if you just say, it’s the law of the land because the court decided, then Jefferson said, ‘You now have surrendered to judicial tyranny.’”

“The Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage decision made a law and they made it up out of thin air,” he added. “Therefore, until Congress decides to codify that and give it a statute it’s really not an operative law and that’s why what Kim Davis did was operate under not only the Kentucky Constitution which was the law under which she was elected but she’s operating under the fact that there’s no statute in her state nor at the federal level that authorizes her.”

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Roger West

CAN THIS MAN POSSIBLY BE THE MOST STUPID TO EVER LIVE?

Louie Gohmert, who is possibly the most stupid person to ever hold an office in U.S. government -awkwardly invoked the Old Testament in order to condemn Planned Parenthood during a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday.

“[I] was reading about a woman that came complaining to the Prophet. She was in a city that was under siege. And she complained that another woman had talked her into a deal where the first time, they would boil her little baby and eat the child,” he said. “And then after that, they would boil the second woman’s child and eat that child. Well, let’s face it: this hearing we’ve heard over and over, ‘If it’s to save lives, it’s OK.’ I could not believe how reprehensible that was, how immoral.”

The Tea Party lawmaker was apparently referring to 2 Kings 6:29, which states that “So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.”




The meeting was called following the release of a series of videos by an anti-abortion group, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) claiming that it showed Planned Parenthood officials saying they made a profit off of fetal tissue donations. The agency was not represented in the list of identified speakers during the hearing.

Gohmert did not mention that the CMP videos were quickly debunked following their release. He also neglected to mention that both the federal Health and Human Services Department and investigators in five states have determined that Planned Parenthood did not violate any regulations in separate investigations.

Congrats Louie, you are today’s most stupid human of the week. Enjoy numbnuts!

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

HYPOCRITICAL OATHER KIM DAVIES RELEASED WITH CONDITIONS

U.S. District Judge David Bunning issued an order Tuesday afternoon releasing Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from jail in Kentucky. She had been held in contempt for defying Bunning’s order requiring her to do her job of issuing marriage certificates.

During proceedings on Thursday, Davis was offered to avoid jail if she allowed her deputies to issue the marriage licenses. She refused, and on Friday they began issuing them. The release order requires that Davis “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.” If she refuses — as she seemed to promise to do last week — she would again be held in contempt.

The lawyers for the deputies issuing licenses were also ordered to file a “Status Report” every 14 days to confirm their compliance with the order. They are forbidden from following Davis’ “no marriage licenses” policy should she try to enforce it again.

Davis is being released just as a rally in her support, featuring Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz and numerous anti-LGBT organizations, is set to commence outside the correctional facility where she’s been held since Thursday. The Republican presidential candidates had planned to visit her in jail, but she was released before they had the chance.

It should be noted that Davis' release from jail might not last very long. Her lawyers have indicated that she will, in fact, halt the issuing of marriage licenses in direct violation of the order.

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Roger West

WING-NUT HUCKABEE IF ELECTED WOULD DEFY COURT AS WELL

Wing-Nut Mike Huckabee said on Sunday that U.S. citizens only have to follow court orders if judges get “it right,” and that he would follow his conscience as president even if it meant the type of jail time Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis is serving.

Speaking with host George Stephanopolous, the GOP presidential candidate claimed court orders only become binding upon citizens when state or federal legislatures take the ruling and codify it into law.

Huckabee — who has hitched his fading star of a campaign to the fortunes of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who is currently sitting in jail for contempt after refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples — explained that there is no specific law Davis should have been following.

“George, can you cite for me what statute Kim Davis would be required follow in order to issue a same-sex marriage license in Kentucky when her state specifically says, by 75 percent of the voters, that marriage means one man, one woman?” Huckabee asked. “Can you cite the statute at the federal or state level that she’s supposed to follow? Even the very form that she fills out specifically lists a male and a female. Does she have the authority just to scratch that out and create her own?”

“Doesn’t she have to the duty to obey a legal order from the court?” Stephanopolous pressed.

“Well, you obey it if it’s right. So I go back to my question. Is slavery the law of the land?” Huckabee attempted as way of an explanation. “Should it have been the law of the land because Dred Scott said so? Was that a correct decision? Should the courts have been irrevocably followed on that? Should Lincoln have been put in jail? Because he ignored it.”

Turning to presidents following their conscience, Stephanopolous played a clip of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 stating: “When if the time should ever come and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible, when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.”



“Would you make that same statement in your candidacy for president?” the host asked Huckabee.

“I can’t see any circumstance in which I would be required to violate my conscience and — and the law,” Huckabee conceded before adding, “And if so, I think maybe there is a point at which you say either I’ll resign or put me in jail.”

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DIPSHIT PALIN WANTS TO BE TRUMPS ENERGY SECRETARY

THIS IDIOT WANTS TO BE TRUMPS ENERGY SECRETARY

Snowbillie Sarah Palin says that if Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, she wants to be his Secretary of Energy.

As Palin was speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, the conversation shifted to a discussion of businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who recently said that he would “love” to have her in his cabinet if he won the White House. When asked which position she would want in a hypothetical Trump administration, Palin was quick to answer: Energy Secretary.

“I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby: oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind’s use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations,” she said, using a conservative theological argument to justify wanton use of fossil fuels — an argument that has been debunked by none other than Pope Francis.

Palin went on to explain that her theoretical tenure as Energy Secretary would be short, primarily because she would immediately disband the entire department.

“If I were head of [the Department of Energy], I’d get rid of it,” she said. “And I’d let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. If I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job, but it would be really great to have someone who knows energy and is pro-responsible development to be in charge.”

Palin isn’t alone in her desire to disband the Department of Energy, a crucial component of the federal government established by President Jimmy Carter that oversees, among other things, the safety and security of America’s nuclear weapons. Several Republicans have called for its abolishment in the past, and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has said in the past that he wanted to close it down, although he famously forgot the name of it during a debate in 2012.

Every time this idiots opens her mouth - she is a mockery to everything human. God help us all if this dipshit ever holds a Presidential cabinet office.

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

WHITE CHIC WHO GOT BLACK MANS SPERM IN ERROR LOSES IN COURT

An Ohio judge has tossed a lawsuit filed by a white woman against a sperm bank that accidentally provided her with the sperm of a black man after she and her partner specifically requested sperm from a Caucasian man with blue eyes so their baby would look like them.

According to the Washington Post, Jennifer Cramblett filed suit against Midwest Sperm Bank in 2014 when her mixed-race daughter Payton was 2-years-old, saying the clerical error had caused her and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, “stress, pain, suffering and medical expenses.”

Stating that she loves her daughter, Cramblett asserted in her suit that her daughter would grow up feeling like an “outcast,” and that she and her partner have “limited cultural competency” around African-Americans.

“Getting a young daughter’s hair cut is not particularly stressful for most mothers, but to Jennifer it is not a routine matter, because Payton has hair typical of an African American girl,” the lawsuit reads. “To get a decent cut, Jennifer must travel to a black neighborhood, far from where she lives, where she is obviously different in appearance, and not overtly welcome.”

“Jennifer’s stress and anxiety intensify when she envisions Payton entering an all-white school,” the lawsuit continued. “Ironically, Jennifer and Amanda moved to Uniontown from racially diverse Akron, because the schools were better and to be closer to family.”

Cramblett also asserted that her own “unconsciously insensitive” family members might have trouble accepting her daughter, now 3-years-old.

DuPage County judge Ronald Sutter threw out couple’s lawsuit, agreeing with attorneys for the sperm bank who argued that “breach of warranty” and “wrongful birth” claims lacked legal merit in the case. The judge advised that the couple could refile under a negligence claim.

According to the sperm bank, which maintains handwritten records, the couple were supposed to receive sperm from donor No. 380, a white man; instead, they were given sperm from donor No. 330, a black man. The sperm bank apologized in a letter stating “we are so very sorry,” and issued the couple a partial refund.

The original lawsuit asked for at least $50,000 in damages.

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COP LIES ABOUT BEING SHOT AT

Days after Lt. Joe Gliniewicz was shot and killed in Illinois, setting off a widely publicized manhunt, a Massachusetts officer was fired Thursday for lying about being shot at and causing an hours-long manhunt the day before.

Before his termination on Thursday, the unidentified officer, who was on his way to becoming a full-time member of the Massachusetts State Police (MSP), claimed he crashed his car because a white male fired several shots at him in Millis, Massachusetts. Residents of the town were on high alert after the incident, and schools were shut down for safety precautions. But a ballistics report conducted after the alleged shooting concluded the bullets discovered in the officer’s vehicle actually belonged to him. Investigators are also looking into whether or not the officer torched his vehicle as well.

The former officer now faces criminal charges. His motive for lying has not been determined.

The fabricated story comes in the midst of media hysteria over the “war on cops.” In response to a string of officer murders (eight have been killed in 10 days), pundits have argued that “incendiary, anti-police rhetoric” has inspired a wave of cop killings. Fox News has gone so far as to call Black Lives Matter organizers — whose mission is to put an end to violence against black bodies that is largely perpetrated by police — a murder movement and hate group. It has also zeroed in on anti-police acts, such as Arby’s employees’ refusal to serve an officer in Florida.

Police officers have also said they are too concerned about public backlash to fulfill their duties, resulting in the so-called “Ferguson Effect.” The theory, which gains momentum every time an officer is killed, says there is an uptick in violent crime because officers are too weary to do their jobs.

In reality, while officer deaths are tragic and should be cause for concern, the number of police fatalities pales in comparison to the number of people killed by police every year. More than 1,000 people were killed by officers in 2014, compared to 126 officers who were killed in the line of duty. Fifty of them were shot — up from a record-low number of firearm deaths the year before, but still below the decade average. In fact, the number of officers killed by firearms annually has experienced a downward trend since the 1970s, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

This year, 83 officers have died in the line of duty — 24 by gunfire. Motives for the killings in the last ten days have yet to be determined, and so far, no one has cited Black Lives Matter as the driving force.

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HUCKABEE SUGGESTS THAT KIM DAVIS AND LINCOLN HAVE THINGS IN COMMOM

KIM DAVIS, THE EPITOME OF TODAY'S CHRISTAIN

Mahatma Gandhi — 'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.'

President Abraham Lincoln has something in common with Kim Davis, according to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee: They both nobly ignored the U.S. Supreme Court.

Davis, the now-infamous Kentucky county clerk, is refusing to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couples, despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling giving gay couples the constitutional right to wed. On Thursday, Davis was held in contempt of court for her refusal, and taken into custody. (Huckabee immediately condemned the decision, deeming it a “criminalization of Christianity.”)

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Huckabee said that’s just like Abraham Lincoln, who was not in favor of the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision which held that African Americans were not full citizens.

“Look, you would have hated Lincoln, because he disregarded the Dred Scott 1857 decision that said black people aren’t fully human,” Huckabee said when host Joe Scarborough questioned him about his support of Davis. “[Lincoln] disregarded [Dred Scott] because he knew it was not operative, that it was not logical.”

Aside from Huckabee’s equation of marriage equality to a decision that held that black people are “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” his comments also indicated his aversion to the Supreme Court in general. Echoing sentiments he’s expressed before, the former Arkansas governor said the high court should not be able to impose that ruling on individual states unless they’ve passed their own legislation echoing the ruling.

“When you say [marriage equality is] the law of the land, can you quote the statute that has been passed by the people’s elected representatives? No,” Huckabee said. “The only law she’s following is the Kentucky law which, by constitutional amendment, defines marriage as between a man and a woman.”

Scarborough, however, wasn’t buying it, noting that Supreme Court rulings supersede state laws. In other words, even though Kentucky’s constitution states that marriage is between a man and a woman - that became null and void when the Supreme Court ruled for federal marriage equality.

“Whether I agree with you or not on states being able to regulate this or not,” Scarborough said, “anything that Kentucky passed becomes irrelevant as soon as the Supreme Court of the U.S. makes a constitutional determination, right?”

“That’s not — no,” Huckabee answered. “That’s not true.”

Mike Huckabee, you are today’s moronic imbecile of the day, congrats!

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

“BLUE KOOL-AID”

Prior to yesterdays trial start of six officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, outspoken former Baltimore officer and anti-police brutality activist Michael A. Wood, Jr. discussed the need for fundamental changes in American policing.

The officers are facing a slew of charges, including second degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Gray, 25, who died with massive injuries he sustained in a police van in April. His death led to widespread protests and civil unrest which was quelled when the indictments were announced.

Wood, who retired with a medical injury, has since spoken out about his time as an 11-year Baltimore PD officer and his observations about what’s broken in the criminal justice system.

In an interview with the Real News Network, Wood said the very basis of police work is wrong. Police are measured by the number of arrests they make, not by their success in deescalating and resolving situations peacefully.

“So, you have the metric in policing, which is arrest,” he said. “So every officer is judged upon their arrests. So you don’t get credit for deescalating a situation. Say it takes an hour to deescalate a situation but you could have moved on in 5 minutes by making an arrest, well then the easy route is that you’re going to get credit for the arrest… so you may as well do it.”

Wood said there are no “official” arrest quotas, but officers that don’t make enough arrests are seen as not working hard enough, he said. As a supervisor, Wood expected his officers to make about 10 arrests a month.

“Certainly that’s part of the problem, I was pushing them for arrests,” he said. About 90 percent of what he did as an officer was “go chase drug arrests.”

He was “brainwashed” by the “blue Kool-Aid,” but began to break out of the mindset doing surveillance. That’s when the “us versus them” mentality broke down, because Wood said he was watching the people he was targeting having normal, human lives.

“We planted a tree of criminal justice in this evil soil, so everything we get out of it is going to be bad as well,” he said. “It’s the proverbial fruit of a poisonous tree, because we’re starting from a bad foundation.”

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Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

KIM DAVIS, KENTUCKY CLERK SUFFERS FROM SABS

KENTUCKY CLERK AND SABS SUFFERER KIM DAVIS

Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has staged a weeks-long campaign of resistance to marriage equality, came under fire from an unexpected source on Tuesday — the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Davis, who suffers from the hypocritical Christian disease - which allows ignoramuses like Davis to invoke SABS [Selective Application of the Bible Syndrome] while on the job. Davis a three time divorcee; on her fourth marriage, two kids out of wedlock, and once again, refused yesterday to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couple despite a recent order from the Supreme Court denying her request for a temporary stay enabling her to ignore the Constitution. Just a few hours later, a federal judge ordered her to appear in court this Thursday, where she is likely to be held in contempt.

RELATED: Dan Savage destroys thrice-divorced Kim Davis: ‘This is about someone hypocritically cashing in’

According to Ryan Anderson, Heritage’s most visible anti-gay voice, Davis is indeed wrong to refuse to issue marriage licenses altogether in order to spite same-sex couples who wish to marry. “The citizens of Rowan County have a right to receive in a timely and efficient manner the various government provisions—including licenses—to which they are entitled,” Anderson writes for one of Heritage’s websites.

He adds, in an argument that closely maps criticisms of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, that “saying your religion requires your entire office to stop issuing marriage licenses to everyone . . . cannot be reasonably accommodated without placing undue hardships on the citizens unable to receive their licenses in their county and forced to drive to another.”

Anderson’s solicitude for the Constitution, it should be noted, only goes so far. He devotes much of his piece denouncing Davis to an alternative proposal that permits individual state officials to recuse from issuing licenses to same-sex couples while also “mak[ing] clear that no one can be denied a marriage license.”

This proposal is unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court explained in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Constitution “does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.” So if an opposite-sex couple will be served by whichever clerk happens to be on duty when they arrive seeking a marriage license, a same-sex couple must be allowed to obtain a license on the same terms.

Nevertheless, the fact that this prominent anti-gay luminary believes that Davis has gone off the deep end - is a sign of just how off the reservation this lunatic is.

Kim Davis, you are today’s asshat and worst person of the world. Congrats numbnuts!

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

FEDERAL JUDGE RICHARD LEON DROPS THE BALL

In a significant escalation of the birth control wars, a federal judge held on Monday that employers who object to contraception can refuse to include birth control coverage in their employees’ health plan — even if their objection to birth control has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Judge Richard Leon is a George W. Bush appointee with a history of handing down conservative opinions. His opinion in March for Life v. Burwell is no exception. In it, Leon holds that the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, an anti-abortion group which claims to be non-religious, may refuse to comply with federal rules requiring employers to include certain forms of contraception, even though their objections to birth control are entirely secular.

Leon’s reasoning on this issue is, frankly, hard to follow. It is even more difficult to summarize in writing. In essence, however, Leon appears to object to the government’s decision to exempt churches and other inherently religious organizations from the birth control rules without also extending this exemption to secular employers because such a rule discriminates against secular employers.

The problem with this argument is that the Supreme Court has explicitly held that when the government “acts with the proper purpose of lifting a regulation that burdens the exercise of religion” there is “no reason to require that the exemption come packaged with benefits to secular entities.”

In an apparent attempt to work around this Supreme Court decision, Leon digs up two obscure sentences published by the federal government which note that “houses of worship and their integrated auxiliaries that object to contraceptive coverage on religious grounds are more likely than other employers” to employ people who share the same view. From this statement, however, Leon deduces that the government’s real purpose in exempting certain religious employers from the birth control rules was actually to protect “a moral philosophy about the sanctity of life.” It is an extraordinary leap of logic that, even if it did reach a sound conclusion, does not obviously lead to Leon’s ultimate legal conclusion that a religious exemption must come packaged with benefits to secular entities. And yet Leon reaches this conclusion, regardless.

A separate section of Leon’s opinion sides with two March for Life employees who claim that they should be allowed to purchase an employer-provided plan that does not offer birth control coverage because they have religious objection to “participating in a health insurance plan that covers” certain forms of contraception. In a post-Hobby Lobby world, this is not a frivolous claim — although it is far from a slam dunk. In any event, the appropriate remedy if these two plaintiffs ultimately prevail is to grant them — and only them — the right to purchase a plan that does not otherwise comply with federal law.

Leon’s first conclusion that secular employers may exempt themselves from a federal rule they wish not to follow, however, goes far beyond what the Supreme Court said in Hobby Lobby.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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GEORGIA JUDGE SETS WIFE BEATER FREE BECAUSE…….

Domingo Santiago plead guilty to “gagging his wife, binding her wrists together, and beating her with a cord.” Yet a Georgia judge tossed out the state’s prosecution of Santiago after a series of questions that seemed much more concerned with whether Santiago’s wife would gain some advantage from her abusive husband’s conviction than with enforcing the law of his state.

During Santiago’s trial, South Georgia Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge A. Wallace Cato discovered that Santiago “beat his wife after learning that she was having an affair,” and that the couple had since reconciled. Judge Cato also asked whether Santiago and his wife “get in bed together and get it on?” When they said that they do, indeed, have sex, the judge complained that the prosecution was “a little ridiculous” and asked Santiago if he thought that his wife would hold a conviction “over his head” in order to “make you do what she says.”

After Santiago responded that, yes, he did think his wife would hold it over his head if he was convicted for tying her up and beating her, Judge Cato dismissed the case.

Last week, an appeals court reinstated this prosecution, holding that Cato exceeded his lawful role by making a decision that rested with the prosecutor. In reversing Cato, the appeals court also criticized his conduct at the trial. “We consider the trial court’s questions to Santiago and his wife about her adultery, their sex life, and whether she would hold a conviction over his head highly inappropriate and irrelevant,” Judge Yvette Miller wrote for a three-judge panel. “By dismissing the case without any legal basis and over the State’s objection, the trial court impermissibly abridged the State’s right to prosecute Santiago.”

Judge Cato’s decision to focus on Santiago and his wife’s post-abuse reconciliation ignored the fraught emotions that often lead victims of abuse to return to their abusers. According to one scholarly paper, “victims of domestic violence are more prone than other crime victims to recant or refuse to cooperate after initially providing information to police.” Indeed, “evidence suggests that 80 to 85 percent of battered women will recant at some point.”

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Chris Christie, speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Saturday, compared legal immigrants to FedEx packages, arguing they should be tracked continuously by the government. Christie even promised to bring in FedEx founder Fred Smith to set up the system.

“At any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is. It’s on the truck. It’s at the station. It’s on the airplane. Yet we let people come to this country with visas, and the minute they come in, we lose track of them,” Christie said.

FedEx tracks its packages so efficiently by affixing a bar code to every package and scanning them at regular intervals.

Martin O’Malley’s campaign criticized the remarks as “dehumanizing.”

Donald Trump has taken a commanding lead in the Republican presidential primary with an extremely hard line on immigration. The other candidates have scrambled to follow his lead — embracing the slur “anchor babies,” rejecting birthright citizenship and supporting Trump’s proposal for a wall across the entire southern border.

Christie previously supported a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When he started running for President, he reversed his position. His remarks today appear to be an effort to further toughen up his rhetoric on the issue.



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MAHER TAKES ON FEMALE VIAGRA, RELIGION AND SEXUAL FREEDOM

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Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

THIRD TIME NOT A CHARM

A gay couple in Kentucky was denied a marriage license for a third time by a defiant county clerk.

James Yates and William Smith Jr. went Thursday morning to the Rowan County Courthouse to seek a license to be married but found that County Clerk Kim Davis still was refusing to issue them one as she fights federal court orders, reported the Courier-Journal.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday slapped down the latest challenge filed by Davis, with help and encouragement from the conservative Liberty Counsel, ruling that county clerks are obligated to follow the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and not their own personal beliefs.

VIDEO BELOW IS OF SECOND DENIAL




Yates and Smith, who have attempted to obtain a marriage license each time the clerk is dealt a legal setback, were told by an apologetic deputy clerk that Davis believes a previous stay granted by a judge remains in effect until Aug. 31 despite the appeals court ruling.

“Sorry, guys,” the deputy clerk says in video recorded during the attempt.

“It’s just making us want to press more,” Yates said. “She can’t get away with this.”

The couple said they would return next week and ask for a marriage license a fourth time.

Davis has twice denied David Moore and David Ermold, another gay couple from Rowan County, a marriage license.

Another defiant county clerk, from Casey County, suggested this week he was willing to be jailed or killed for refusing to follow the law.

“If it takes it, I will go to jail over — if it takes my life, I will die for because I believe I owe that to the people that fought so I can have the freedom that I have,” said Casey Davis, the Casey County clerk.
 

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FATHER OF SLAIN JOURNALIST MAKES PLEA TO WING NUT CABLE SHOW CALLING FOR GUN CONTROL

Fighting back tears, the father of one the journalists killed on live TV Wednesday morning made an impassioned plea for gun control on Fox News. Andy Parker, father of WDBJ reporter Alison Parker, told Megyn Kelly that “we’ve got to do something about crazy people getting guns.”

“My mission in life… I’m going to do something to shame legislatures into doing something about closing loopholes and background checks and making sure crazy people don’t get guns,” Parker said.

Her father’s comments were reinforced by her boyfriend, Chris Hurst. “Clearly something went wrong here between him leaving our station and being able to purchase a gun and commit a premeditated act,” Hurst told Kelly.

Bullshit Mountains’ following story featuring radical right wing-nut job Dana Loesch - who rejected calls for gun control and blamed the murder on elements of society that “don’t teach a respect for life,” like Planned Parenthood.

Loesch lost her sheen many years ago after her exit from the offices of the dead Breitbart. But in typical Loesch fashion, more diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.

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Roger West

“KEEP YOUR DAUGHTERS HOME IN THE KITCHEN TO PREVENT FRATERNITY RAPES”…..

…Says the Fox News host of Outnumbere. Harris Faulkner suggested on Tuesday that daughters could be put into convents or kept “home in the kitchen” to prevent them from getting sexually assaulted at college fraternities.

After the Sigma Nu fraternity suspended their Old Dominion Chapter this week for hanging banners warning parents that daughters should be “ready for a good time,” Fox News host Harris Faulkner said that it was a sign that she needed to get her daughters “ready for the real world.”

“These guys are teenagers and in their twenties and they were probably drunk when they were writing the signs,” Faulkner explained. “And they’re just having a good time.”

Co-host Andrea Tantaros predicted that college women would go to the fraternity in spite of the signs if there were “hot boys.”

“Ray Rice in the NFL, how many women were still wearing his jersey after we all had seen the video and knew what was going on?” Faulkner recalled.

“The signs are disgusting and the university has to take a stand on this because of what’s going on with rape culture,” Tantaros continued. “The university has to stand up and say, ‘If something happens at that house, we cannot be responsible.’ But not even that, it’s PR. They have to protect the brand of Old Dominion University.”

According to co-host Kennedy Montgomery, the signs were “a backlash that these guys are feeling about being told that they are predators. And oftentimes, you see the pendulum swing the opposite way.”

“I hope they are focusing on keeping the women safe,” Faulkner said.

“My daughters are going to a convent,” Montgomery volunteered.

“I’m going to keep them home in the kitchen,” Faulkner agreed.

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

TAXING THE RICH TRUMP STYLE

On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump struck a populist tone when talking about hedge funds and the taxes they pay. “They’re paying nothing and it’s ridiculous,” he told John Dickerson on Face the Nation. “They make a fortune, they pay no tax, its ridiculous okay.”

He went on to say they “are getting away with murder” and that “they have to pay tax.” Without specifying exactly how he would change that, he added that he wants to lower tax rates for middle-class Americans. “The middle class is the one, they’re getting absolutely destroyed.”





The money made by hedge fund managers is taxed at significantly lower rates than ordinary income made through wages: capital gains, or investment returns, are subject to a top tax rate of 23.8 percent, compared to a 39.6 percent payroll tax. The benefit of the lower tax rate accrues almost entirely to the wealthy — nearly 70 percent of the money goes to the top 1 percent of income earners, but just 7 percent goes to the bottom 80 percent.

Economists have said that the lower tax rate for capital gains income is “by far” the greatest contributor to growing income inequality, which harms the middle class.

But Trump has not always stuck up for the less well off in his tax reform proposals.

As recently as 2011, in his book Time to Get Tough, he actually called for lowering the tax rate on capital gains income as well as dividends. He also called for eliminating the estate tax — which is already a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Americans — and getting rid of the corporate tax rate altogether.

He also proposed changing income taxes so that income over $1 million would only ever be subject to a 15 percent rate, while taxing lower incomes at 1, 5 or 10 percent, depending on the bracket. As Richard Phillips of Citizens for Tax Justice has written of the plan, “the lower tax rate structure would provide the wealthy with huge tax cuts.” Those plus the changes to the corporate tax rate, capital gains and dividends, and the estate tax would create a “multi-trillion dollar hole” in tax revenues, he added.

More recently, Trump has floated other tax reform ideas that could constitute a big benefit for the best off. In an interview with Time Magazine, he voiced support for a flat tax or fair tax. Different details of a flat tax would produce different results, but an analysis of one such plan put forward by Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) found it would raise taxes for Americans at the bottom of the income scale by $102 to $462, while reducing the tax burden for those making more than $1 million a year by about a half million dollars.

In the same interview, he said that he wants to take on corporate tax inversions, where American companies merge with foreign-based ones in countries with lower tax rates so they can move their headquarters to avoid paying higher taxes. But he said he wants to bring companies back by letting them return to the U.S. by either paying nothing or something like a 10 percent tax rate on their overseas profits. Such a move, called a repatriation tax holiday, has already been tried in 2004. At that time, firms mostly used the repatriated profits not to invest in American jobs but to inflate their own stock prices while laying off large numbers of workers.


[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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TRUMP LIKE MOST TEABAGGERS, NO PLAN FOR HIS LUNACY

Donald Trump has made a hard-line stance on undocumented immigrants a hallmark of his campaign. On ABC’s This Week, he was pressed repeated on his pledge to immediately deport every undocumented immigrant. Although credible sources estimate there are around 11 million such immigrants, Trump claimed there were as many as 30 million.

But pressed repeatedly on how he would accomplish this monumental feat, Trump had no answers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So if there’s no idea, how are you going to round them all up?
Where are you going to get the money, where are you going to get the forces?
Exactly how are you going to do it?
What are the specifics here?
TRUMP: George, it’s called management. And the first thing we have to do is secure the border. But it’s called management. And we’ll get people back in, the really good ones, we’re going to expedite it so they get back in, so they can at least come in legally.
But we have to do it…
STEPHANOPOULOS: You keep declaring how you’re going to do it…
TRUMP: It’s management.
STEPHANOPOULOS: — but you don’t say…
TRUMP: We don’t…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — how.
TRUMP: Excuse me, George?
STEPHANOPOULOS: You declare how you’re going to to it, but you don’t say how.
TRUMP: George, I’m telling you, it’s called management. You can do this and we can expedite the good ones to come back in. And everybody wants that. But they have to come in legally.

An analysis by the Center For American Progress estimates deporting 11.3 million people would cost $10,070 per person, or $114 billion. That only covers the “direct cost of physically deporting unauthorized immigrants.” The conservative American Action Forum, considering the total cost to the economy, estimates mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants would cost between $420 billion and $620 billion and take 20 years.

At the end of a lengthy exchange with Trump, Stephanopoulos stressed that he still hasn’t “heard the specifics on how you are going to do that.” Trump appeared to acknowledge he hasn’t offered any. “Oh, you’ll hear it, George. Don’t worry about it,” Trump said.

A recent Gallup poll found that just 19 percent of Americans supported mass deportation.

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HE WASN'T FUCKING ARMED

Video captured by a bystander, a woman screamed “He wasn’t fucking armed! You killed my husband” as Maryland State Police subdued her following an officer-involved shooting that left a 30-year-old man dead in a Walmart parking lot Friday night.

The Cecil Daily reports that Charles S. Hall was shot and killed by Trooper Daryl K. Brackett, a three-year veteran of the force who claimed he recognized Hall and knew there was a warrant out for his arrest.

According to State Police spokesperson Greg Shipley, Brackett attempted to arrest Hall but Hall allegedly resisted and fought with the trooper before getting into his vehicle and attempting to take off.

During the struggle, the trooper fired his assigned duty pistol, striking Hall in the upper torso,” Shipley said.

Hall was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to police, Hall was wanted for violating his probation and failure to appear for drug counseling. Hall also had another outstanding warrant for possession of drug paraphernalia.

A witness at the scene filmed an unidentified woman who claimed to be Hall’s wife struggling with police and pounding on the hood of a police car while screaming, “You are a murderer! He was not armed! He was not f*cking armed! You killed my husband!” as she tried to reach him laying on the ground.

According to witnesses, the woman was eventually strapped to a stretcher where she continued to attempt to break free while screaming at the officers.

In the video, a discussion can be heard with one man commenting Hall had been maced by the cop, saying, “He maced him. They should have been away from the car, telling him to get out,” before adding, “This is gonna be big time here — worse than other ones.”

“Is he colored?” the man asks only to be told, “No, he’s white, I think,” before replying, “That don’t even matter, that don’t even matter.”

A third man then adds, “Cause it don’t matter, he was a human.”

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STAFF WRITER

AMERICAN GREED

Bill Maher closed the show on Friday with a scathing reprisal of the “sharing economy,” saying that the US spent 60 years fighting communism only for everyone to lose their jobs not to immigrants, but to robots and driver-less cars.



Maher slammed Americans for being their own worst enemies sometimes when it comes to the acceptance of this new sharing economy .

After taking apart the likes of Uber, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Instacart, Luxe and Etsy, and plugging TRSRDeal.com, who will soon be renting Bill's pants for the low, low price of $5.95 a day, Maher asked how American ended up spending sixty years fighting communism and "end up in a barter economy on Craigslist?" And then there's the next big thing, which is humans being replaced by robots and driver-less cars. But as Maher noted, that's not the root cause of the problem.




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Blogger-In-Chief
Roger West

DUGGAR’S, ONE FUCKED UP FAMILY

Anna Duggar won’t likely leave her husband despite his admitted cheating and will instead blame herself, according to a new report.

Josh Duggar, the former reality TV star and anti-LGBT activist, admitted Thursday to an addiction to pornography and infidelity after reports revealed he paid for two accounts on the adultery website Ashley Madison.

This comes three months after revelations that he molested four of his sisters and a family friend as they slept more than a decade ago, when he was a teenager.

A source told People magazine that Anna Duggar, who gave birth last month to the couple’s fourth child, would likely “absorb some of the blame” for her husband’s cheating.

“Anna will not leave him,” the source said. “As with her in-laws, she is turning more to her faith than ever. She and Josh are probably praying around the clock right now, I would assume.”

The 27-year-old Josh Duggar blamed Satan for building a “fortress” in his heart — but that statement, along with several others, was edited out of the confession he posted on the family’s website in the hours after it was originally released.

The source, who claims knowledge of the Duggar family, told People that Anna Duggar, also 27, would likely feel pressure from her in-laws, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, to shoulder some of the blame for her husband’s recent disgrace.

“Maybe not publicly, ever, but privately, there will be some suggestion of whether or not she should have been more aware of the pressures Josh was under, of the issues he was facing, and how she could have better counseled him or helped him,” the source said.

Her mother-in-law, Michelle Duggar, advises married women to have sex with their husband whenever he wants.

“Be available,” the 49-year-old said in an interview last year. “Anyone can fix him lunch, but only one person can meet that physical need of love that he has. You always need to be available when he calls.”

The family’s popular reality TV show, “19 Kids and Counting,” was dropped by TLC in the wake of the molestation scandal, but the Duggars have been desperately trying to return to television in some way, according to reports.

That appears even less likely now.

The source said Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who are part of the patriarchal Quiverfull religious movement, would be determined to make sure their son and daughter-in-law remained married.

“As for Josh, in this moment, I would assume he feels like his life is ruined,” the source said. “It will be such a steep and practically impossible climb to come back from this.”

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

JARED FOGEL: “THE YOUNGER THE GIRL THE BETTER”

TOUR DE PANTS



Before Subway icon Jared Fogle was charged with multiple counts of child pornography and paying for sex with a minor, he was traveling the country speaking to children about how to improve their lives.

Fogle, who is expected to plead guilty to the charges, has been visiting grade schools for over a decade to promote healthy eating and exercise. Though he was speaking to groups of kids as early as 2003, his Subway-sanctioned “tour de pants” saw him visiting dozens of elementary and middle schools over the course of a year to talk about “healthy options.” Before that, Subway launched “Jared’s School Tour,” another national tour that saw Fogle speaking to kids about his weight loss, symbolized by a very large pair of pants.

Overall, it appears that Fogle made hundreds of presentations to children over the course of his career as a Subway spokesman. “The kids love the pants,” he said at one school visit.

That Fogle worked so closely with kids is particularly jarring given the contents of a plea agreement released by the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Indiana on Wednesday. According to USA Today, the document alleges that Fogle had sex with “at least two minors,” reportedly 16 and 17 years old, between 2010 and 2013. He allegedly asked one of the victims to “provide him with access to minors as young as 14 years” for sex. “The younger the girl, the better,” he allegedly said.

In a statement Subway spokesperson said Fogle’s actions “are inexcusable and do not represent our brand’s values.” She noted that the company had already ended its relationship with him.

While traveling the country and meeting kids for Subway, Fogle also partnered with charities like the Children’s Better Health Institute and the Oklahoma Fit Kids Coalition to push his message of combating childhood obesity. In 2011, he helped establish a “child wellness” program in Arizona schools. His foundation, established in 2004, was specifically geared toward kids.

“As adults we know about the healthier options that are available, but kids need to be directed a little bit more,” he said in 2008.

Subway cut its business ties with Fogle in July following the initial revelations that he may have been involved in child porn.

Fogle is not the only person with ties to The Jared Foundation who has been accused of child abuse. Russell Taylor, the former director of the foundation, was also accused of possessing — and producing — child pornography.

Jared Fogel, you are this year’s most putrid human of the world.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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DOES ANN COULTER GET PAID EXTRA BY DONALD TRUMP FOR BOOTY SEX?

As republicans eat their own with Donald Trump leading the wing-nut circle jerk poll - A GOP consultant apologized on Tuesday after insulting conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter in the midst of a dispute with Breitbart.com, the Daily Caller reported.

Rick Wilson said on Twitter that he replied out of “parental anger” when he asked Coulter, “Does [Donald] Trump pay you more for anal?” after she mocked him for his “hilarious public meltdown” against the conservative news site. This meltdown reminds me of the Andy Brietbart meltdown at CPAC a few years ago.

BREITBART MELTDOWN

Wilson’s quarrel with Breitbart.com started when the site criticized him for calling Trump supporters “low-information voters.” [ if the shoe fits] Wilson later said on Twitter that one of its readers emailed him threatening to rape his daughter.

Other conservatives accused him of using the girl as a political prop to avoid criticism. Wilson later deleted his insult against Coulter and said Breitbart was not responsible for the threatening message.

Coulter later said that Wilson’s “only remaining move is to use the Anthony Weiner ‘MY TWITTER ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED!’ defense.”

Wilson did not do that, but did apologize to family and friends for his response to Coulter’s remark, which he called “vile.”

“I reduced myself by dropping to her level,” he wrote. “My comment was shocking to many of you, and for that I offer a sincere apology.”

I love it when the freak show goes full throttle against each other, talk about reality TV. Reagan's 11th commandment is abused again. 

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Roger West

CNN THE NEW FOX NEWS?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD OF CNN

CNN Seemed surprised when a Hip-Hop movie didn’t cause violence - and they ran a segment on Monday reporting that there wasn’t violence at movie theaters during the opening weekend of the hip-hop oriented film Straight Outta Compton.

CNN host Ashleigh Banfield reported, “Some movie theaters were worried about violence when Straight Outta Compton hit the screen. Instead, it only led to longer lines, ticket lines and some big money, too.”

Costello brought on CNN law enforcement analyst Cedric Alexander to discuss the reaction to the film.

“There are some police organizations that are calling on people — members and maybe even beyond their members — not to see this movie because of the message they think it sends,” said Alexander, who was a police officer in the 1980s when the group’s hits first came out. “We really have to get away from this whole ‘f the police’ to ‘support the police.'”

The film tells the story of the group N.W.A., a group from Compton, California that was highly influential in the early days of hip-hop, and included several members that are still famous today, including Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, who also produced the film.

The film earned $56 million on opening weekend, a record for an R-rated film opening in August. Police reportedly patrolled theaters showing the film, but violence failed to materialize.

Universal, the company behind Straight Outta Compton, said they had “not solicited enhanced security for theaters” showing the film last weekend.

Some movie theaters have stepped up additional security screening after 59-year-old John Russell Houser, a white man, shot several at a movie theater in Louisiana at a screening of the Amy Schumer film Trainwreck. Reporting in the Wall Street Journal suggested the increased security was inspired not only by the shooting, but also ongoing racial tensions and “the rap biopic’s gang-oriented subject matter.”

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