DAVID BRAT DOESN'T BELIEVE IN THE "COMMON GOOD"

TIN FOIL HAT SOCIETY MEMBER DAVID BRAT - LOONEY TUNES TIMES TWO

When tea party challenger David Brat sent Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader, to the ash heap on Tuesday night, vanquishing the incumbent by more than 10 points in the primary race, the politerati were stunned. Political journalists scrambled to answer a question: who is this guy? The political pros knew that Brat had mounted a campaign largely based on two issues: bashing Cantor on immigration (that is, excoriating the congressman, who was quite hesitant about immigration reform, for not killing the possibility of any immigration legislation) and denouncing Cantor for supporting a debt ceiling deal that averted possible financial crisis. But not much else was widely known about this local professor who dispatched a Washington power broker.

A quick review of his public statements reveals a fellow who is about as tea party as can be. He appears to endorse slashing Social Security payouts to seniors by two-thirds. He wants to dissolve the IRS. And he has called for drastic cuts to education funding, explaining, "My hero Socrates trained in Plato on a rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money."

An economics professor at Randolph-Macon College in central Virginia, Brat frequently has repeated the conservative canard that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae brought down the housing market by handling the vast majority of subprime mortgages. That is, he absolves Big Finance and the banks of responsibility for the financial crisis that triggered the recession, which hammered middle-class and low-income families across the country. (In fact, as the housing bubble grew, Freddie and Fannie shed their subprime holdings, while banks grabbed more.)

In his campaign speeches, Brat has pointed out that he isn't worried about climate change because "rich countries solve their problems":

If you let Americans do their thing, there is no scarcity, right? They said we're going to run out of food 200 years ago, that we're goin' to have a ice age. Now we're heating up…Of course we care for the environment, but we're not mad people. Over time, rich countries solve their problems. We get it right. It's not all perfect, but we get it right.

Update: After Mother Jones published this piece, several videos referenced were set to private.

He did not say what might happen to not-so-rich countries due to climate change and the consequent rise in sea levels, droughts, and extreme weather.

Asked about cuts to Social Security Disability Insurance*, Brat replied that he supported drastic reductions in payouts from social programs for seniors:

I'll give you my general answer. And my general answer is you have to do what's fair. Right. So you put together a graph or a chart and you go out to the American people, you go to the podium, and you say, this is what you put in on average, this is what you get out on average. Currently, seniors are getting about three dollars out of all of the programs for every dollar they put in. So, in general, you've got to go to the American people and just be honest with them and say, "Here's what fairness would look like." Right. So, maybe the next ten years we have to grandfather some folks in, but basically we're going to move them in a direct line toward fairness and we have to live within our means.

He frets about the state of morality in schools and about Beyoncé:

For the first 13 years of your kid's life, we teach them no religion, no philosophy, and no ethics…Who is our great moral teachers these days? Every generation has always had great theologians or philosophers by the century that you can name. Who do we got right now? [Audience: Jay-Z] Right. Right. [Audience: Beyoncé] Right. Beyoncé. When you can't name a serious philosopher, a national name, or a serious theologian, or a serious religious leader, at the national level, your culture's got a major problem. We got a major problem.

Brat railed against Cantor for supporting a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Brat called this a policy of "amnesty" and accused Cantor of "getting big paychecks" from groups like the Chamber of Commerce for his position:

If I misspoke and said "secretly," he's been pretty out in the open. He's been in favor of the KIDS Act, the DREAM Act, the ENLIST Act [which Cantor blocked in May]…On the amnesty card, it's a matter of motivation. I teach third-world economic development for the past 20 years, I love all people, I went to seminary before I did my economics, and so you look at the motivation. Why is Eric pushing amnesty? It's not a big issue in our district, everyone's opposed to it, and so why is he doing it? And the answer is, 'cause he's got his eye on the speakership. He wants to be speaker, and big business, right? The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce wants cheap labor. So he actually is selling out the people in our district. He's not representing the district, the will of the people, and he's getting big paychecks by doing so. So he's very clear on amnesty.

Brat is, not surprisingly, no fan of the United Nations:

"Common-" anything I'm against. United Nations. Common everything. If you say common, by definition you're saying it's top-down. I'm going to force this on you. That's what dictators do.

His view of who deploys a top-down approach, naturally, includes President Barack Obama:

The left does not believe in diversity. They believe in top-down, I'm going to force my way onto you. Obama is forcing un-diversity onto everybody. It's not diversity. It's top down, central planning, on everything.

As Mother Jones's Timothy Murphy noted, Brat, a libertarian but not a full Randian, and he doesn't buy the idea that there's anything dangerous about playing chicken with the debt ceiling. Bring it on, he says.

In November, Brat will face Democrat Jack Trammell, a fellow Randolph-Macon professor, in the general election in this Republican district.


Cross Posted from Mother Jones

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STAFF WRITER

ERIC CANTOR, POMPOUS ASS, IS DONE AS A CONGRESSMAN

But is the alternative any better? Probably not. While I am ecstatic that this pompous ass has been kicked to the curb, is the tin foil hat society member who wants to replace at better path?

Since the news broke, conservatives have been frothing at the mouth, eating their own, infighting over the shocking news that Cantor is to be….no more.

This feat, of dethroning a Majority Whip, it hasn’t happened in over 115 years.

Eric Cantor did not fall asleep at the wheel. He spent around $5 million. He ran lots of TV ads. He knew this was going to be a close one. He campaigned, and yet he still got his ass handed to him.



And here’s the other thing: Cantor was not an enemy of the Tea Party. He was in fact the Tea Party’s guy golden boy in the leadership for much of the Barack Obama era. He carried this vile tea into the speaker’s office, and yet he still got his ass handed to him.

While many will say Cantor’s demise was immigration reform, and while the tin foil hat society member, David Brat ran solely on this platform, this was the tea bagger saying, we are still here and a force to be reckoned with. This was agenda twenty one, anti-science, anti-government statement.



This will be a huge disruption to the narrative of the Republican establishment, which thought it would take control this year. No so fast Mr. NECON.



This win for Mr. Brat has far more reaching effects, as no real conservative shall ever step over the line and compromise with POTUS. The House GOP wasn’t exactly ready to start cutting deals with Obama even with Cantor in the leadership. Now that he’s been beaten by a tin foil hat society member, a true right-winger…no one, not a single Republican in the House will take a chance on anything. The legislative process, already shut down, will only be more so.

For Virginia and the country, this situation is a lose-lose all the way around. Yes, Cantor is a condescending putz, but I fear that this Brat character, could be a continuum of things to come.

Democrats said it was clear Cantor's loss proved the Tea Party had won its battle with establishment Republicans.

"Tonight's result in Virginia settles the debate once and for all — the Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period," Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

"When Eric Cantor, who time and again has blocked common sense legislation to grow the middle class, can't earn the Republican nomination, its clear the GOP has redefined 'far right.' Democrats on the other hand have nominated a mainstream candidate who will proudly represent this district and I look forward to his victory in November."

While the mid-term elections are still a few months away, I am not sure that its time to push the panic button yet.

Only after Cantor conceded did the fun really begin:



So, another instance where we sit back, grab out favorite soda pop, pop some popcorn and watch the circus.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HOME IS WHERE THE HATE IS

Perhaps you've read that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former POW and current political lightening rod, is a traitorous deserter who converted to Islam along with his Muslim-looking father. Jon Stewart spent most of last night's Daily Show unleashing his unrelenting arsenal of "facts" and "context" to examine those and other accusations, as made primarily on Fox News.

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Roger West

BRIBING FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOOD

The Washington Post reports that Virginia state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat, “will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission.” Currently, the Virginia senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam holding the balance of power. If Puckett resigns, Republicans will gain control of the body for at least as long as it takes to elect a replacement.

The full details of this arrangement, including whether or not Puckett was explicitly offered the position as deputy director of the tobacco commission in return for his agreement to resign his senate seat, are not yet known. Although the executive director of the commission is appointed by the governor — who is currently Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe — the deputy director is appointed by the commission itself. Both the chair and the vice chair of the commission are Republicans.

If Puckett was offered the seat on this commission in exchange for his decision to resign from the state legislature, however, he may have committed a very serious crime. Under Virginia’s bribery law, it is a felony for a state lawmaker to “accept or agree to accept from another … any pecuniary benefit offered, conferred or agreed to be conferred as consideration for or to obtain or influence the recipient’s decision, opinion, recommendation, vote or other exercise of discretion as a public servant or party official.”

Given this statutory language, two questions need to be answered before Puckett could be prosecuted. The first is whether Puckett agreed to accept the tobacco commission job “as consideration for” his resignation from the state senate — that is, whether there was a quid pro quo deal where the job was offered up as the prize Puckett received if he agreed to resign. The second is whether Puckett’s resignation counts as an “exercise of discretion as a public servant.” Based on a search of Virginia court cases using the legal search engine Lexis, there does not appear to be a court decision answering this question.

In any event, the circumstances of this anticipated resignation — in which a Democratic senator throws control of the state legislature to the GOP, and then immediately receives a job from a commission controlled by a Republican chair and vice-chair — is suspicious. It also could have very serious consequences for Virginia’s least fortunate residents.

Gov. McAuliffe is currently embroiled in a fight with Republicans, who control the state house, over whether Virginia should accept Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. If Republicans take the state senate, even briefly, they can use their control over the entire legislature to pass a budget that does not include the Medicaid expansion. Though McAuliffe could veto the budget, Republicans could use that veto to try to blame him for an ensuing government shutdown.

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STAFF WRITER

Thanks Obama For 'Keeping Benghazi Alive' With Bergdahl Prisoner Swap

Says Lindsey Graham

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STAFF WRITER

HERE COMES GUNNY BOO BOO

Bill Maher slays the open carry gun hugger.

Episode 320 by BillMaher1956

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Bergdahl Is A Jihadist....

Pointing to a Fox News report, which claims that Bergdahl “converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a ‘mujahid,’” the network’s morning hosts bantered about Bowe’s comfortable experience in captivity and his noticeable good health, implying that he did not deserve to be rescued or exchanged for five Taliban-linked prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. Then, Fox & Friends anchor Steve Doocy asked, “did we trade five Islamic warriors for one Islamic warrior?”

But the Fox News story that sparked the discussion, written by reporter James Rosen, is based on “secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account.” The documents also claim that Bergdahl had at one point escaped his captors and was later recaptured and placed in a metal cage. These on-the-ground reports are based on dispatches collected by the Eclipse Group, which Rosen describes as “a shadowy private firm of former intelligence officers and operatives.” The firm is run by Duane R. (“Dewey”) Clarridge, who was indicted for lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Though details of Bergdahl’s capture remain murky, the Pentagon has repeatedly said that it will investigate the circumstances surrounding his captivity and take appropriate disciplinary action, if necessary.

Earlier in the week, the network suggested that Bowe’s father looks like a member of the Taliban, implied that Bowe may have deserted his unit because he danced ballet, and linked the incident to the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

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STAFF WRITER

OLIVER 'IRAN-CONTRA" NORTH

MR. IRAN CONTRA, OLIVER NORTH

Oliver North, America's greatest congressional liar is complaining about Obama using tax free dollars to fund the POW exchange of Bowe Bergdahl. Yes, Mr. Iran-Contra has the stones to question another about shoddy, illegal funding forPOW exchanges.

If anyone is an expert at giving tax free funds to terrorists [via selling arms to Iran while funneling the resulting cash to administration-backed guerrillas in Central America and then lying outright to Congress] its Oliver North.

Of all asshats to pull this stunt - the gall and chutzpah of this NEOCON is extremely bold, considering his own actions. In fact, its Ollie's own history that makes his comments so rich.

Below Jon Stewart took to taking Mr. Iran-Contra to the woodshed for a liberal verbal ass whipping.





Me thinks that fiction and irony are going to be buried next to each other.

Congratulations Mr. Iran-Contra, you have been assigned today's worst person in the world.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

KEITH ALBO - A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID

KEITH ALBO - TODAY'S ASSHAT OF THE DAY

Fox News regular Keith Ablow speculated on Wednesday morning that President Obama orchestrated the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay because the commander-in-chief “doesn't affiliate with patriotism” and “wants out of America.”

“Barack Obama does not have the will of the American people, Americanism in his soul,” Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist who is part of the Fox News Medical A-Team, explained. “And this swap, somebody who may not feel very American for five people who definitely don’t, is symptomatic of that.”

Referencing evidence that Bergdahl may have deserted his brigade in Afghanistan and grew disillusioned with America’s war mission, Ablow speculated that the Bergdahl family “may have a tendency to distance oneself from institutions, to diminish the rule of law and to elevate the individual above all else.” He also specifically referenced Bowe Bergdahl’s history of dancing in a ballet to suggest that he is narcissistic.

Republicans and conservatives have presented a united front against Obama’s prisoner swap, but Fox News has taken the criticism to new heights, suggesting that Obama should be impeached for the trade and that Robert Bergdahl, Bowe’s father, looks like a member of the Taliban.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

George W Bush Would Have Made Same Deal To Free Sgt. Bergdahl

Ex-Bush administration official John Bellinger told Fox News that "we don't leave soldiers behind" and defended Obama's decision to make the trade. “I think we would have made the same decision in the Bush administration.”

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"STARTING FIVE" OF ALL TERRORISTS

Rep. Jason Chaffetz gives an off the wall appearance on MSNBC by calling the five Taliban prisoners traded the "starting five," of all terrorists.




REMINDER: Jason Chaffetz is one of the men responsible for outing the CIA in Libya during one of their Benghazi hearings is now aghast at the deal that released our only Afghanistan POW. le for outing the CIA in Libya during one of their Benghazi hearings is now aghast at the deal that released our only Afghanistan POW.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HANNITY PANEGYRIZES DISPICABLE ME PHIL ROBERTSON

I am just wondering when Sean Hannity is going to prove that waterboarding is not torture? Be a man of your word Sean, let me waterboard you for charity.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Sarah Palin: "A Disgraceful Political Opportunist And A Morale Coward"

Sarah Palin choose to give us her expertise on military and mission.



"The Reagan Doctrine" Mr. Hannity....

Saint Ronnie Reagan lost 276 marines in the Lebanon bombing and retreated; sold weapons to the Iranians after they held American hostages, supported the Nicaraguan death commandoes, and invaded Granada. Bush Senior got us into Gulf War 1, Clinton got us into the Balkans, Bush Jr. ignored warnings about Al Qaeda and running airplanes into buildings...until 9/11, got us into Gulf War 2 (Iraq) and into Afghanistan and never did find Osama Bin Laden.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

THE TEA IS JUST NOT THAT INTO WOMEN

Women aren't invited to the tea party this year.

National Tea Party organizations play a major role in Republican primary elections, helping boost far-right candidates with money, volunteers, and attention. These groups include Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks, and Club for Growth, the last two of which existed before the 2009 rise of the Tea Party but nonetheless share a virtually identical mission in GOP primaries.

However, much like the Republican Party they aim to take over, the Tea Party has its own woman problem.

Of 80 candidates who were endorsed or funded by national Tea Party groups so far this election cycle, just four were women. Two of those four — Katrina Pierson and Karen Handel — have already lost their primaries, while Joni Ernst is leading in the Iowa Republican Senate primary and Mia Love is the Republican nominee in Utah’s fourth congressional district.

Though the overall number of Republican women running for Congress has dropped this year, the Tea Party is not supporting the vast majority who have thrown their hat in the ring. The Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University has identified 74 women running or likely to run this cycle. In addition, the Tea Party has been heavily involved in recruiting candidates to run for office, and thus bear some responsibility if they find a dearth of conservative women candidates.

What’s more, multiple women currently serving in Congress have faced attack ads from the Tea Party. Club for Growth has spent money to defeat Reps. Martha Roby and Renee Ellmers , both of whom were elected with Tea Party support in 2010.

Conservatives and the Republican Party as a whole have developed a reputation for attacks on women. This was especially evident in recent election cycles where two Republican Senate nominees, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, both lost to Democrats in red states after espousing their views on rape and abortion. The party’s “war on women” image is also reflected in the gender gap among voters. In 2012, women voted for President Obama by a 55-44 margin, whereas men opted for Mitt Romney 52-45, an 18-point gender gap.

National Republicans have expressed concern about the ongoing problem their party has with women. “We recognize that we need to speak to single women under 35,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said recently. “It’s a demographic issue that we want to do better with.” Indeed, following their loss in the 2012 presidential election, Republicans released an autopsy that determined acknowledged “the Party’s negative image among women” and the “growing unrest within the community of Republican women frustrated” by that fact. The GOP establishment created several outreach arms ahead of the midterms specifically to pitch women and non-white voters. Many of these efforts have thus far gone awry.

However, concern over the party’s anti-woman image seems yet to have sunk in with Tea Party activists. Given the Tea Party’s continued control of the Republican Party’s policies and base, until it begins recruiting and endorsing more women candidates, it will continue alienating huge swaths of voters





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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

NRA'S PREY AND PARANOIA

NRA'S VERSION OF RESPONSIBLE GUN HUGGER

The gun industry has a problem. Despite the United States having a reputation for being a “gun-loving” country, interest in gun ownership is actually declining, fairly dramatically in fact. Nearly half of American households had a gun in the '70s, but since then it’s sloped downward. Now only 34 percent of American households own a gun. Demographic changes are a huge factor, with younger Americans showing very little interest in gun ownership. Only 23 percent of people under 30 live in households with a gun, down from 47 percent in the 1970s. How does the gun industry keep selling guns and making money when the customer base for guns appears to be rapidly shrinking?

It seems the industry has figured out an ingenious solution to the problem: Convince people who are interested in guns to buy more guns. Indeed, having a bunch of highly invested repeat customers might make for an even more profitable strategy than simply trying to get a gun into every household. Convincing the small number of gun lovers in the United States to create individual arsenals has kept gun sales numbers high. The result is that gun ownership is becoming a highly concentrated activity. Nearly half of gun owners own four or more guns. Twenty percent of gun owners—around 7 percent of Americans overall—own a whopping 65 percent of the guns in this country.

The gun industry has clearly figured out how to make a lot of money convincing a small number of Americans to own a whole bunch of guns. Unfortunately, the result is a subculture of gun fanatics whose combination of masculine insecurities, paranoia and hostility to their fellow Americans make them quite possibly the people you least want to be around, armed and dangerous. Sadly, the most recent mass shooting in California that left 6 people murdered is all too good an example of this, as the shooter, Elliot Rodger, was quite open about his masculine insecurities and power fantasies.

The gun industry, through its direct marketing and through industry front organizations like the NRA, has settled on a marketing scheme they’ll never openly admit to but which is completely evident in their press releases, advertisements and other marketing materials. They target men who have high levels of insecurity when it comes to issues of masculinity and power, and suggest that buying guns will make them feel powerful and manly and chase those insecurities away.

The centerpiece of the pitch is the fantasy of putting down a home invader. Anxious men are encouraged to believe there’s a high chance that someone will break into their home—their castle—for some raping and pillaging, and that they can play the role of the brave and stalwart hero by shooting the invader. (A corollary pitch is the power fantasy of armed resistance to some vague government “tyranny,” where the insecure man gets to imagine himself as a brave resistance fighter, his masculinity put beyond a shadow of a doubt as he gets to play at being a revolutionary.)

That a gun in the household is far more likely to cause an accident, or be used for suicide or interpersonal violence than to fend off a home invader doesn’t matter. It’s a fantasy of masculinity, used to paper over insecurities, and facts cannot compete.

That these power fantasies used to sell multiple guns are explicitly masculine is hard to dispute. For one thing, gun manufacturers don’t really try to hide it. The Bushmaster rifle Adam Lanza used to murder elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut was advertised in magazines with the tagline, “Consider your man card reissued.” Doesn’t get more blunt than that in admitting that the customers are concerned about not being masculine enough and the gun is being sold as a panacea.

Other ads collected by Mother Jones show the same anxieties: Guns being sold with promises that they will make you more soldier-like, more powerful, and even more sexually vigorous. Between these ads and the NRA-stoked fantasies of shooting down a home invader, the pitch to men is obvious: You may be a soft-handed, khaki-wearing suburbanite, but with this expensive arsenal at home, you will be The Man. No wonder men are three times as likely to own guns as women.

In the world of masculine power fantasies, women exist merely as objects with which to prove your manhood, either by protecting them from the imaginary hordes of rapists at the door or by having them around showing skin to demonstrate how heterosexual the men are. Women who speak up for themselves or, God forbid, actually disagree with the manly men are disruptive to the power fantasy and regarded as human garbage.

That’s what Mark Follman of Mother Jones found out when he investigated the trials facing female gun control proponents. Women who speak out, in favor of the mildest of gun restrictions like background checks and improving the child safety features on guns, face unbelievable amounts of misogynist vitriol from gun lovers. Follman spoke to one woman, who is wheelchair-bound after a shooting, who has had men spit in her face, tell her she should have died from being shot, and shot her with waterguns to mock how easy it would be to murder her.

He also chronicled the way one group, Open Carry Texas, flaunted its misogynist fantasies proudly by shooting up a female mannequin they named after the group Moms Demand Action. “They positioned the figure with her hands raised in surrender, naked from the waist up. Afterward, they posed with the bullet-riddled mannequin, her arms blown off and her pants down at her ankles.” Masculine dominance restored in a group outing of fantasies about sexual abuse and murder of women who dare to disagree with you.

Shortly after Follman published his expose, the mostly male members of Open Carry Texas decided that they needed to treat the suburban sprawl of the Dallas area to a display of their masculine fantasies. They descended on a local Chipotle to eat burritos while showing off their comically huge assault rifles, an action that Moms Demand Action immediately denounced. The display was so pathetic that it really takes the edge of fear off the realization that it’s so easy for people with such a zeal for drama to buy as many guns as they want. The whole thing was such a perfect distillation of what gun marketers want: A group of middle-aged American men, made deeply insecure by the bland suburban strip mall safety of places like Chipotle, react by buying a bunch of guns in a desperate bid to feel more powerful and important. The guys are assholes, yes, but more fundamentally, they are dupes.

If the fetish object of masculinity for these uptight, insecure men was harmless, we could all just point and laugh (and make their insecurities worse, no doubt) and get on with our day. But the fetish objects in question are deadly. It’s not just the now semi-frequent occurrence when an Adam Lanza or James Holmes or Elliot Rodger takes those power fantasies to the next level, shooting up a public place to show the world he’s an expert dealer of death. It’s also in the outrageous accidents that happen every day because people treat guns like toys. It’s the thousands of people who would still be with us today, except that they had easy access to a gun while experiencing a suicidal moment (which usually passes, if the person survives the attempt, which is less likely with guns). It’s all the people who are murdered by someone who lost his temper and had easy access to a weapon. Convincing a bunch of highly insecure people to stockpile weapons makes money for the gun industry, but for the rest of us, it’s nothing but trouble.


Cross posted from Alternet.com

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

MAYA ANGELOU

To a true inspiration, you will be surely missed.


Courtesy of William J. Clinton Presidential Library




Farewell to one of America's greatest voices.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE SANDY HOOK"

Following his impassioned words against the NRA during Saturday afternoon’s press conference, Richard Martinez, father of Chris Martinez, one of the people Rodger Friday evening, spoke to CNN about his loss and what he plans to do to help prevent even more incidents like this one.

“He’s our only child and he died on Friday. I’m 61 years old now. I’ll never have another child and he’s gone,” Martinez said through tears. “So the reason I’m doing this to try to see if we can do anything to make my son’s death mean something. Because that’s all we have got.”

Martinez castigated the media for focusing on the shooter while ignoring the victims. “If there’s all these things in the media about the shooter, and there’s nothing about the victims, then it sends the wrong message and the people need to understand that real people died here,” he said.

When he was asked about Congress’ lack of action on guns following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Martinez asked in return, “What kind of message does it send to the world when we have such a rudderless bunch of idiots in government? I can’t tell you how angry I am it’s just awful!”

He continued, growing more heated and hysterical with every word:

“What has changed? Have we learned nothing? These things are going to continue until somebody does something, so where the hell is the leadership? Where the hell are these people we elect to Congress that we spend so much money on? These people are getting rich sitting in Congress, what do they do? They don’t take care of our kids.

My kid died because nobody responded to what happened at Sandy Hook. Those parents lost little kids. It’s bad enough that I lost my 20-year-old, but I had 20 years with my son, that’s all I’ll have. But those people lost their children at six and seven years old. How do you think they feel? And who’s talking to them now? Who is doing anything for them now? Who is standing up for those kids that died back then in an elementary school? Why wasn’t something done? It’s outrageous!”





As the video shows, Martinez continued to rail against a system that he believes failed to protect his son along with so many others....CNN choose to cut away for commercial.

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Editor-In -Chief

Roger West

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"CRAVEN POLITICIANS AND NRA"

Richard Martinez rails against the NRA, "Stop The Madness"!




I'm starting to think the NRA isn't up to the task of protecting us. They keep missing mass shooters and hitting unarmed black kids!

The NRA will go silent for the mandatory 72 hours like they do after all mass shooting incidents, and then they shall release a statement.." if only more students had guns"....rinse and repeat.

To the gun huggers I say: "Life is perverse in the sense that, the more you seek security, the less of it you have." When gun huggers say guns aren't the problem, mental illness is, our response should be....they're both problems and we aren't doing shit about either of them.

The real Benghazi - 33 mass shootings in America in the last nine years. I wonder if the Guns Over People, the right wing regime, will they demand eight investigations into the corrupt gun culture in our society? Something tells me no.

There is a promising note today, its 9:48 AM EST and we haven't had a "good guy with a gun" in America conduct any mass shootings, but then again it is still early.

I see humans, but no humanity.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

JESUS CHRIST VISITS SARAH SILVERMAN

Jesus Christ visits Sarah Silverman to discuss women’s reproductive rights.






NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

IMPEACH MARK HERRING

Says radical tea bagger Bob Marshall.

Virginia Del. Bob Marshall is a longtime opponent of LGBT equality, and he’s now calling for the impeachment of Attorney General Mark Herring , primarily for his refusal to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Marshall filed the resolutions seeking an inquiry for Herring’s impeachment last week, but in a new email to supporters, he outlined his reasons for doing so. “Removing all standards against same sex or sodomy ‘marriage,’” he explained, is “to the detriment of children and the well-being of society.”

According to Marshall, “Mark Herring’s actions constitute a radical structural alteration in our representative form of government.” In addition to objections that Herring has chosen not to defend the state’s marriage ban, a decision that is not unprecedented, Marshall also claims he “usurped legislative authority” by inviting undocumented immigrants (DREAMers) to pay in-state tuition rates at Virginia state school.

Marshall’s attacks include something that Herring did not actually even do. According to the email alert, Herring publicly announced that he is allowing same-sex couples to file joint tax returns, but Herring has made no such announcement. Just before leaving office, Herring’s predecessor Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion specifically banning recognition of same-sex couples’ marital status for income tax returns. The opinion illuminates a conflict between Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and state law requiring that taxes be collected at the state level in the same way that they are at the federal level, which would require recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages. Though Gov. Terry McAuliffe is investigating reversing this precedent, Herring has not issued a contradicting opinion of his own.

In the email, Marshall also extended a threat to impeach judges who might overturn bans on same-sex marriage. Rulings based on the 14th Amendment’s equal protection “make no sense,” he argued, because when that Amendment was ratified, “sodomy was a felony in nearly every state.”

A long reputation of anti-gay comments precedes Marshall’s impeachment attempts. In 2012, he opposed the appointment of openly gay Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland because “sodomy is not a civil right.” In a 2011 letter attacking Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley  for supporting marriage equality, Marshall compared homosexuality to pedophilia, prostitution, polygamy, necrophilia, and bestiality. He believes that homosexuality is a “disordered behavior” and after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he tried to ban “active homosexuals” from joining the Virginia National Guard.

As of publication, Marshall’s public petition to rally support for Herring’s impeachment has garnered 110 signatures, one of the most recent of which was from “FuckYou Bob.”

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

THE DISGUSTING TROGLODYTE THAT IS ALLEN WEST

FORMER CONGRESSIONAL ASSHAT ALLEN WEST

We all remember what Republicans and Saxby Chambliss did to former Senator Max Cleland, a disabled war hero when they ran against him in 2002. They ran ads picturing Cleland and Osama Bin Laden together to denounce his patriotism which is unconscionable considering Cleland won the Bronze and Silver Stars in Vietnam while also losing both legs and his right forearm in service to his country.

We now move to the present and former Iraq war torturer Alan West who is going Cleland on Rep. Tammy Duckworth, who has lost both her legs in the Iraq war also by saying she's not loyal to her country. This isn't the first time she's been attacked for her military service by Tea Party Republicans.

Allen West, you are today's worst person in the world!

Mr. West is no relation to this blogger.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ACCORDING TO FAUX NEWS, ITS ALL OBAMA'S FAULT

Just ask Megyn Kelly:

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly had conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D’Souza on her show for his first interview after he pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance law. Calling it a sympathetic interview would be an understatement, because Kelly used nearly the entire time to suggest that President Obama is the real person to blame.

“The Obama administration gets to call one of its top critics a convicted felon,” Kelly began the segment. “Is this what they wanted all along?” In January, D’Souza was indicted for illegal donations to a Republican’s campaign, where he used fake donors to exceed donation limits.

“Your defense in this case was not I didn't do it,” Kelly said. “It was, I didn’t do it with intent, I didn’t do it with the right requisite of mind, and it’s selective prosecution of the government who doesn’t go after anybody for this kind of crime except coincidentally one of the president’s biggest critics.”

An array of Fox News hosts have come to the conservative activist’s defense in the past, including Sean Hannity calling him a “victim,” The Five panning the charges as liberals “rediscovering their inner Stalin,” and Neil Cavuto calling it “conservatives under attack.” But that was before D’Souza pleaded guilty himself to the charges in federal court, admitting he “knew that causing a campaign contribution to be made in the name of another was wrong and something the law forbids.” Kelly’s interview only made one passing mention of the fact that D’Souza had actually knowingly broke the law. Kelly asked him, “why’d you do it.”

“I shouldn't have done it,” he said.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

NO JAIL TIME FOR MAN WHO DRUGGED AND RAPED WIFE

David Wise was convicted of six felony counts for drugging his wife, raping her in her sleep, and videotaping the rapes. But he won’t spend a day in jail.

Wise was sentenced by an Indiana county judge to eight years of home confinement, and the remaining 12 years of his 20-year sentence suspended. Prosecutors asked for 40 years in prison. His former wife, Mandy Boardman, called the sentence “unfathomable.” “I never thought that he would be at home, being able to have the same rights and privileges as I do,” she told the Los Angeles Times.

Boardman recalled years in which there would be powder residue in her drink. She would wake up with a half-dissolved pill in her mouth. After she found videos of sexual encounters on Wise’s cell phone and confronted him, he wrote in an email to her, “I was taking advantage of you in your sleep and you kept coming to me and telling me it was NOT ok. I needed to stop.” The rapes went on for more than three years unbeknownst to Boardman.

Marion Superior Court Judge Kurt Eisgruber declined to explain his reasoning, particularly because Boardman is appealing the sentence. But he did ask Boardman to forgive Eisgruber during the sentencing hearing, saying, “I hope that you can forgive him one day, because he’s obviously struggled with this and struggled to this day, and I hope that she could forgive him.” He is running for re-election unopposed this November.

Wise was convicted on one count of rape and five counts of criminal deviate conduct. These are each Class B offenses carrying sentences of six to 20 years in Indiana. The recommended sentence is ten years. But a judge may sentence an individual concurrently for multiple offenses, and he may choose to suspend parts of that sentence in many circumstances.

During Wise’s eight years of home detention, he will be monitored by a GPS device and permitted to leave home for work, or other limited travel allowances. Particularly as prison populations explode and questions emerge about the conditions of prisons, home detention is viewed as a useful alternative for those who can be monitored remotely without threatening public safety.

But Wise’s sentence is one of a number of recent cases involving rape or sexual assault in which defendants have been given sentences far less stringent than recommended for the crime, and not proportional to sentences for other offenses. In a recent Texas case, a judge sentenced a defendant who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl to just 45 days in prison, followed by mandatory volunteer service at a rape crisis center. In a Delaware case, the wealthy heir of a chemical magnate was sentenced to only probation and no jail time for sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter. In Montana, teacher got 30 days in jail for raping one of his students. And another man in Alabama received only probation for raping a teen.

These sentences stand in contrast to mandatory minimum sentences that start at five or ten years in jail for even low-level drug offenses, and ratchet up from there. Home detention is not an option for these offenses, nor is probation, suspension, or volunteer alternatives. But even in the context of sex offenses, many others are drastically over-sentenced. After Hayes County, Texas, prosecutors seized on a 2011 law intended to curb sex trafficking, a man who slept with a 14-year-old he met on eHarmony was sentenced this week to life in prison without the option for parole. The girl initially lied about her age on the online dating site, although Robert Ritz, a prison guard, continued to see her even after he learned she was a minor. Even the law’s author said the sex trafficking statute was improperly applied to this case, and intended to target commercial exploitation. Life without parole is the harshest U.S. sentence short of execution, and the number of U.S. prisoners serving that sentence has increased 22 percent since 2008.

Many more U.S. prisoners are sentenced to a life behind bars with the possibility of parole. While David Wise is likely to never again see the inside of a jail cell (he spent some time in jail while awaiting trial), one in nine U.S. prisoners are serving life sentences.

NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

WANNA BE AZ RIGHT WING NUT JOB CLAIMS DEMOCRATS ARE 99 PERCENT RESPONSIBLE FOR MASS SHOOTINGS

RIGHT WING NUT JOB GARY KIEHNE




A Republican congressional candidate in Arizona recently asserted that 99 percent of mass shootings in the United States had been carried out by Democrats.

At a Republican District 1 primary debate in Florence on Saturday, candidate Gary Kiehne was asked how he was going to "protect our gun rights" after other states had passed new background checks and other laws following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

The candidate declared that "without our gun rights," President Barack Obama "would be after us pretty hard."

After bragging that he probably had "more guns and ammo than any one of my competitors," Kiehne urged Americans to stand up for gun rights.

"It's totally ridiculous if you look at all of the fiasco's that of occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people," he added. "So, I don't think you have a problem with the Republicans."

"But I can assure you that if you don't have a firearm, you ought to go buy one."

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

ENCRYPTION

WEB ENCRYPTION

People have started taking Edward Snowden’s advice on using Web encryption to shield their movements online, according to a new study. After the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor leaked documents on the government’s surveillance programs, encrypted web traffic has more than doubled worldwide.

In March, Snowden told a room full of tech industry workers at the SXSW Interactive conference that the only way people can protect themselves from government surveillance was to use Web encryption. He said that the United States didn’t even know all the documents he had because “encryption works.” And it looks like people worldwide are heeding that advice.

According to a recent study by broadband network equipment company Sandvine, Americans started using encryption over 60 percent more often after the NSA leaks, using SSL for nearly 4 percent of all peak Internet traffic. But Web users in Europe and Latin America bested Americans’ privacy efforts by encrypting websites three- and five-times more than before, respectively.

The uptick in encryption use aligns with growing public concern for privacy online and elsewhere. In recent years, almost all Web users have taken steps to minimize their digital footprints, such as clearing their browser history and cookies. But encryption adoption is still low, with only 14 percent of American Web users saying that they've encrypted their communications, according to a Pew study published in September.

Another possible contributor to the surge in encryption use could be from changes in the tech industry. Internet companies such as Google and Facebook have been automatically turning on encryption for their sites. Google recently announced that it would begin encrypting all Chinese Web traffic as part of its global encryption project. The move would cripple the country’s infamous censorship program, as well as those in Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, by blocking government’s ability to home in on users searching for banned terms or content.

Encryption makes it so that any one “listening in” on a user’s online activity can only see the website’s domain name, not the exact page. Any website can be encrypted simply by manually typing “https” instead of “http” before the web address, but it’s often not a default setting. Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook all started using default encryption for email and messages in response to the NSA leaks.

The study also comes on the heels of the Heartbleed bug discovered in April that left thousands of encrypted websites — up to 70 percent worldwide — vulnerable to hackers. The flaw, which the NSA exploited, was a part of the encryption coding that shields online traffic and went undiscovered for two years exposing millions of passwords, credit card and other personal information. Yet even after people heard about the Heartbleed bug, only 61 percent took action and changed their passwords, suggesting there is still more work to be done to convince people to protect their information.




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

DERELICTION OF HAPPINESS

BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI.

Bill Maher schools the right wing nut job.


Episode 318 by BillMaher1956

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION....IS A FLOP

EPIC FAIL FOR THE RIGHT WING NUT JOB

The rally of 10-30 million right wing nut jobs were to descend on Washington to overthrow the Federal Government, but a funny thing happened on the way to the forum........

When Col. Harry Riley announced his plan for an Operation American Spring, he sought to evoke the same kind of populist uprising that toppled regimes in the Middle East, protests that were collectively given the moniker Arab Spring.

And while the photos that poured in from Tahrir Square were incredible, depicting tens of thousands of people in the streets, the pictures from American Spring were…less so impressive.

THE REVOLUTION THAT WASN'T




The “second American revolution” got off to a slow start in Washington, DC on Friday, falling roughly 9,999,950 people short of their goal of 10 million angry, constitution-weilding participants. (That was the low-end estimate. They were prepared for upwards of 30 million).

The few who did make it to Washington, D.C came with a laundry list of grievances, ranging from Benghazi, to Obamacare, to President Obama’s birth certificate, to general lawlessness.

“Our main goal is to return our government to the constitutional government,” said Marty Church, a protestor who traveled to Washington, D.C from the Maryland suburbs. “The whole administration is based on lies,” added Fred Lachance, another protester from Maryland“

Benghazi’s a lie and a cover-up,” said Church. “And if you’re lying about something as stupid as that, what else are you lying about?”

Wiley Drake, a pastor and talk radio host from California, knows the truth behind the Benghazi cover-up.

“What caused Benghazi was a kidnapping gone awry from Barry Soetoro,” he said, referencing the name Birthers have ascribed to Obama based on a widely-circulated (and hastily photoshopped) Columbia University student ID. “He was going to kidnap Mr. Stevens, and he got killed in the process. That’s what really happened, that’s the truth.”

When pressed to cite other breaches of the constitution, one protester referred us back to Operation American Spring’s website, which offers little more than an outline of the group’s three-phased mission (Phase 2 calls for 1 million of the 10 million gathered to camp out in Washington, D.C. until their demands are met).

Those demands — removing Obama, Biden and Nancy Pelosi from the federal government — are not achievable ones even according to many of the attendees. “It’s a good goal, but it’s not a realistic goal,” said Lachance. Others, though, were more optimistic.

“The Obama administration is lawless, and we want him out,” said Carrie “Beth” Koncar, who led a small group up from Georgia. “And basically that is the goal here, for the resignation of Obama, Biden, Pelosi. The Lord God is behind this, the Lord is the breath in this. He puts kings and kingdoms in their places, and he takes them down.”

As for the paltry turnout, several attendees could barely contain their dismay at the low-key affair. “I took a day off from work to come down,” said Art Skillman. “Where they are, I don’t know.”

Right wing nut jobs, you are today's worst persons in the world.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Cheif

Roger West

FCC DELAYS NET NEUTRALITY FOR 120 DAYS

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC) has voted to delay adopting a policy on net neutrality for 120 days.

In a heated debate that saw several protests including one observer physically removed from the chamber, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler announced that there will be a 120 day consultation and response period - an indecisive result that came as a shock to many.

The commission will listen to arguments for and against the adoption of either Section 706 of the Open Internet Act of 2010, which promotes competition among internet service providers (ISPs), or their reclassification under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 as "telecommunications services".

Wheeler began by telling the assembly, "There is one internet. Not a fast internet. Not a slow internet, one internet," an emphatic exclamation that emphasized his publicly held belief that the end of net neutrality will not, in fact, be the result of his proposal.

Wheeler said that it is unacceptable that any internet user should be provided an internet connection slower than what they had paid for, saying that the solution might come by allowing the leasing of unused capacity. This risks end users being denied the maximum speed their ISP is capable of delivering, to ensure that there is enough 'spare' capacity to offer to paying content providers. In other words, fast and slow lanes via the back door.

Several commissioners admitted in their remarks that they did not believe that the decision should be made today, saying that it was being rushed, and some even said that five non-elected officials had no right to decide on behalf of the entire American people.

The vote was split three votes to two in favor of a 60 day consultation period, followed by 60 days for the FCC to develop its response.

The INQUIRER will be following the fallout of the FCC vote and will present a full review of the decision tomorrow.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

STEWART SLAMS TURD BLOSSOM

Jon Stewart goes after Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove.



LOBOTO LENSES

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Just When You Think "Turd blossom" [Karl Rove] Couldn't Be Anymore Disgusting , He Exceeds Himself.

KARL "TURD BLOSSOM" ROVE BEING RETURNED TO THE ASYLUM

Karl Rove, the heir apparent to Lee Atwater, who has a history of anal raping political opponents, is now trying to say he never used the phrase "brain damage' when discussing Hillary Clinton at an LA Speaking event last week, but only pointed out that she had serious health issues. He joined his home network, Fox News and refuted the claims made from Rupert Murdoch's tabloid NY Post. But did he really? He repeated used the term "serious health episode," over and over again while talking to host Bill Hemmer and them immediately pivoted on to smear her because of her age.



Turd Blosom, you are today's worst person in the world!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

'The Endarkenment'

Rep. Alan Grayson has always spoken out against the crazy, anti-intellectual side of the GOP party.





Grayson explains that politicians like Cruz understand what their actions will cost the American government and the taxpayers, but don't care. This past Sunday, Senator Marco Rubio joined the ranks of Ted Cruz , Louis Gohmert and many others as a disbeliever in truth and facts when he denied that climate change was influenced by mankind and said scientists were all wrong when asked if climate change was threatening cities in Florida.

To some Christian conservatives, climate change is nothing more than a sign of the approaching "end of times", but for Rubio, it's just outlandish nonsense - but to people who objectively consider the calculus of the evidence, it's a threat to our planet's entire existence.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

From NFTOS, to all mothers out there, Happy Mothers Day!




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

BUGGED, "SPEAKING YOUR MIND"

Bill Maher discusses the 4th amendment and your right to privacy.



Episode 317 by BillMaher1956

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

NOT ALL FAMILY MEMBERS ONBOARD WITH BENGHAZI WITCH-HUNT

A member of one of the victims of the Benghazi tragedy’s family reached out to Congress recently in support of a speech railing against the newly formed special committee in the House of Representatives, countering the conservative narrative that all of their investigations are being done in the name of the victim’s relatives.

Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that after months of refusing, he would approve with moving forward to create a select committee designed specifically to investigate the attack against a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya in Sept. 2012. “I intend for this select committee to have robust authority, and I will expect it to work quickly to get answers for the American people and the families of the victims,” Boehner said in a statement announcing the committee.

At a news conference denouncing the committee’s formation on Friday, however, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that family members of two of the four Americans who died the night of the attack had reached out to oppose the formation of the committee. “They have called us and said: Please don’t take us down this path again,” the former Speaker said. She did not offer further details on which of the families had contacted Congress.

One of those is the family of former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods. “A family member from the maternal side of Tyrone Woods’ family called Rep. Slaughter yesterday while she was on the floor to express support for the Congresswoman’s position”. Slaughter’s office declined to offer more details out of respect for the family. Woods was present the night of the attack in the Central Intelligence Agency’s annex in Benghazi and was one of the security forces that responded to the original attack against the diplomatic outpost. Woods, along with fellow CIA security contractor Glen Doherty, died under mortar fire the night of the attack.

The speech that was Woods’ relative supported was delivered on the House floor on Thursday, when the New York Democrat said that Congress has “bottomed-out on Benghazi.” In lamenting the Republican politicizing of the issue, and recent fundraising initiatives, Slaughter asked why more wasn’t being done to prevent the next tragedy on Benghazi’s scale. “What the families of the victims and Americans want is to ensure it never happens again,” she said. “But we’re doing nothing in to ensure that.”

That it was the maternal side of Woods’ family who reached out is notable as Woods’ father has been active in speaking out on conservative media outlets about the administration’s handling of the attack since the days after his son was killed. Charles Woods early on repeated the claim that “the White House Situation Room was watching our people die in real time, as this was happening,” which he first heard on right-wing media and has since been debunked.

As recently as a few days ago, Woods disagreed with the family member who contacted Slaughter. “The people of the United States as well as the families need to know what actually happened,” he told Sean Hannity, calling the select committee “an answer to prayer.”

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West