kpete
kpete's JournalFox guest mocks liberals on Keystone pipeline: Cars don’t run on ‘unicorn tears’
but you should see what a unicorn fart can do:
“I mean, I’m all for alternative energy, but until we come up with something that actually works and is efficient, we have to live in the real world,” Hunter said. “We’re not to the point where we can have car that runs on unicorn tears, and hopes and dreams.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/21/fox-guest-mocks-liberals-on-keystone-pipeline-cars-dont-run-on-unicorn-tears/
Justice Stevens’s Solution for ‘Giant Step in Wrong Direction’ (suggests amendment to override)
Source: New York Times
“Essentially,” he wrote, “five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”
.................
The occasion for our talk was Justice Stevens’s new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.” One of those amendments would address Citizens United, which he wrote was “a giant step in the wrong direction.”
The new amendment would override the First Amendment and allow Congress and the states to impose “reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.”
I asked whether the amendment would allow the government to prohibit newspapers from spending money to publish editorials endorsing candidates. He stared at the text of his proposed amendment for a little while. “The ‘reasonable’ would apply there,” he said, “or might well be construed to apply there.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/us/politics/justice-stevenss-prescription-for-giant-step-in-wrong-direction.html?hp&_r=0
Obama plans clemency for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of (non-violent) drug offenders
Source: Yahoo News
Thousands and thousands of people like Scrivner are serving punishingly long sentences in federal prison based on draconian policies that were a relic of the "tough on crime" antidrug laws of the '80s and '90s. Thirty years after skyrocketing urban violence and drug use sparked politicians to impose longer and longer sentences for drug crimes, America now incarcerates a higher rate of its population than any other country in the world. This dubious record has finally provoked a bipartisan backlash against such stiff penalties. The old laws are slowly being repealed.
Now, in his final years in office, Obama has trained his sights on prisoners like Scrivner, and wants to use his previously dormant pardon power as part of a larger strategy to restore fairness to the criminal-justice system. A senior administration official tells Yahoo News the president could grant clemency to "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of people locked up for nonviolent drug crimes by the time he leaves office — a stunning number that hasn't been seen since Gerald Ford extended amnesty to Vietnam draft dodgers in the 1970s.
The scope of the new clemency initiative is so large that administration officials are preparing a series of personnel and process changes to help them manage the influx of petitions they expect Obama to approve. Among the changes is reforming the recently censured office within the Justice Department responsible for processing pardon petitions. Yahoo News has learned that the pardon attorney, Ronald Rodgers, who was criticized in a 2012 Internal watchdog report for mishandling a high-profile clemency petition, is likely to step down as part of that overhaul. Additional procedures for handling large numbers of clemency petitions could be announced as soon as this week, a senior administration official said, though it could take longer.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-plans-clemency-for-hundreds-of-drug-offenders--162714911.html
UPDATE:
Justice Department Expands Clemency for Drug Offenders
Todd Ruger, Legal Times
April 21, 2014
"The White House has indicated it wants to consider additional clemency applications, to restore a degree of justice, fairness and proportionality for deserving individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety," Holder said in a video message. "The Justice Department is committed to recommending as many qualified applicants as possible for reduced sentences."
Holder's statement did not detail which prisoners might benefit from the changes. But he referenced the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, which reduced the sentencing difference between crack and powder cocaine. The law did not apply to drug offenders sentenced before the law took effect.
"But there are still too many people in federal prison who were sentenced under the old regime—and who, as a result, will have to spend far more time in prison than they would if sentenced today for exactly the same crime," Holder said. "This is simply not right."
Deputy Attorney General James Cole is expected to announce more details on expanded criteria for clemency later this week.
....................
http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/home/id=1202651906701/Justice%20Department%20Expands%20Clemency%20for%20Drug%20Offenders?mcode=1202615034968&curindex=0&back=NLJ&slreturn=20140321165222
We decided not to invite CNN to our Easter egg hunt.
from a few days ago:
We decided not to invite CNN to our Easter egg hunt.
https://twitter.com/AlbertBrooks/statuses/455719351891787776
The Tina Conservatives
SAT APR 19, 2014 AT 08:13 PM PDT
The Tina Conservatives
by vickijean
My mom and I have a running joke when we go out to eat: are you going to leave a Tina tip or a Bob tip. My late father, Bob, overtipped. He had been a country club manager and knew how overworked and underpaid waiters were. Tina is my mom's neighbor. She not only looks for a reason not to tip, she looks for a reason not to pay: the food is overcooked, undercooked, inedible. After she has eaten most of it, of course.
Tina is the new conservative: always aggrieved, always inconvenienced, always annoyed. When we first met her, she was a Democrat, and her husband was a Foxfan Dittohead. But by the time Obama was elected, she was a rabid conservative. Was it racism? Partially. But it was more. She was angry about a school bond vote, because she doesn't have children. Selfish? Sure. She was enraged about the government shutdown because her husband, retired military, works as a civilian at Ft. Rucker. Hypocritical? Uh huh. She hates Nancy Pelosi. Why? Because.
But the incident that to me most exemplifies the Tina conservative mindset involved a patio set. She had a patio set she wanted to get rid of. She called my mom to see if she wanted it. She was offering to give it to her. Mom didn't need it, she has patio furniture. She suggested Tina give it to Goodwill, they would even pick it up. Tina said no, she would put it on the street for trash pickup. But first, she said, she would smash it. When mom asked her why she said that she paid for it and she didn't want anyone to have it for free. Tina Conservatives are selfish, racist, hypocritical, but most of all, vindictive. They will destroy it, even if they don't need it, before they will let THEM have it.
New ending: Tina Conservatives are not the majority. They are just a loud aggressive new voice calling themselves conservatives. Most conservatives want what is best for their communities. But this new group is given power by their aggression and their volume. Traditional conservatives, at least up to now, have been slow to correct them.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/19/1293280/-The-Tina-Conservatives
Reaganomics killed America’s middle class
Reaganomics killed America’s middle class
This country's fate was sealed when our government slashed taxes on the rich back in 1980
THOM HARTMANN, ALTERNET
......................
If you compare a chart showing the historical top income tax rate over the course of the twentieth century with a chart of income inequality in the United States over roughly the same time period, you’ll see that the period with the highest taxes on the rich – the period between the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations – was also the period with the lowest levels of economic inequality.
You’ll also notice that since marginal tax rates started to plummet during the Reagan years, income inequality has skyrocketed.
Even more striking, during those same 33 years since Reagan took office and started cutting taxes on the rich, income levels for the top 1 percent have ballooned while income levels for everyone else have stayed pretty much flat.
http://www.relandothompkins.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Wealth+Distribution.jpg
Coincidence? I think not.
MORE:
http://lategreatmiddleclass.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-end-result-of-unfettered-free.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/reaganomics_killed_americas_middle_class_partner/
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf
Bush Administration labeled Bundy Ranch-style outlaws domestic terrorists
The Bundy Ranch controversy has now divided Nevada's two United States Senators. While Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) referred to Bundy's armed supporters as "domestic terrorists," his Republican colleague Dean Heller praised them as "patriots."
Their disagreement begs the question: What do you call someone who owes the United States government a million dollars and threatens violence against federal officials seeking to collect it? Whatever you may believe, for the Bush administration there was no doubt about the answer. The likes of Cliven Bundy and his gun-toting militia allies would indeed be considered domestic terrorists.
That's the inescapable conclusion from the FBI's report, "Terrorism 2002-2005." The document didn't merely define "domestic terrorism" as "the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives." The Bureau also provided some helpful histories of domestic terrorism the FBI successfully prevented.
For example, consider the 2003 arrest of David Hinkson, a tax evader who owed the IRS over a million dollars. As the FBI's terrorism report summed it up:
Now, Cliven Bundy, backed by his well-armed well-wishers, claims he "a citizen of Nevada and not a citizen of the territory of the United States." Of course, he is a United States citizen, one who owes the government of his 317 million fellow citizens a million dollars for the privilege of receiving what it is, after all, "food stamps for cows." At best, that makes Bundy a deadbeat. And by threatening federal officials just trying to collect the long overdue payment on the money he owes, Bundy and his Bundy Ranch gunmen make themselves domestic terrorists.
At least according to President Bush's FBI.
,,,,,,,,,,,
More to support this here:
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/19/1293258/-Bush-Administration-labeled-Bundy-Ranch-style-outlaws-domestic-terrorists
"We knew when one went, the other was going to go."
...............................
Helen Felumlee (FEHL'-uhm-lee) of Nashport in central Ohio died April 12. She was 92. Her husband, 91-year-old Kenneth Felumlee, died April 13.
The couple's children say the two met as teenagers and had been inseparable since then.
Their daughter, Linda Cody, says the two were deeply in love to the end.
Cody says her father began to fade about 12 hours after her mother died and told them that he didn't want to leave her by herself.
She says, "We knew when one went, the other was going to go."
Read more: Ohio couple married 70 years die 15 hours apart - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_25599416/ohio-couple-married-70-years-die-15-hours#ixzz2zLhADafx
Charlie Crist to a STUNNED Lt. Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera: "Give me Scott.''
After Charlie's speech, reporters were hovering around the LG to ask about it. Carlos was talking much smack until Crist came up from behind to greet him. As he walked away, reporters were shouting questions on all the garbage Carlos was spewing and asked him to respond.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/19/1293173/-NICE-Charlie-Crist-Drops-the-Mike-On-Rick-Scott-Lackey-video
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