August 6, 2014

No one likes kidnapping, child abuse, mail fraud-Maybe it would be good if president banned them...

....a question for all the well-meaning people who praise President Obama for “banning” torture:

Would you also find it helpful for the president to ban kidnapping? Child abuse? Mail fraud?
............................

But of course, it would be incoherent to talk of the president banning such practices—because these things are all illegal. And in a democracy—in a country under the rule of law—the president has no more power to prohibit what’s illegal than he does to permit it.

Fair enough, you might say, but isn’t banning what’s already illegal just kind of a suspenders-and-a-belt thing? A bit of emphasis, an arguably redundant exclamation point?

No, it’s not. Purporting to ban what is already illegal is in fact terribly insidious. And here’s why, in two axioms.

What you get is not a proscription of law, but a policy of choice.

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/08/dont-cheer-obamas-ban-torture

August 6, 2014

Rand Paul: "Running Away From Things"

?1407331325
That blur in the striped shirt is Rand Paul running away (with his beer).
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6EC013D1-3A0C-497D-A2BF-F8870EDD4BDC










http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2014/08/rand-paul-running-away-from-things.html
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2014/08/rand-paul-running-away-from-things-ctd.html

August 6, 2014

Nice Boehner Pic.....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-usa-budget-boehner-idUSTRE74453D20110505

August 6, 2014

New GOP Leader Lets Lobbyist Sit In On Interviews

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise got some help interviewing potential new hires for his press shop from an unlikely source: a federal lobbyist.


Quinn Gillespie & Associates’ John Feehery sat in on and participated in multiple official interviews with job candidates last month for the new majority whip’s press operation. Scalise has not yet announced who he will name as his communications director.


Sometimes lawmakers rely on lobbyists for strategic advice. But inviting a lobbyist into an interview is highly unusual. Several ethics lawyers and current and former leadership aides said they have never heard of a similar arrangement.


Scalise enjoys closer relationships with lobbyists than many House conservatives — a reality that is sometimes helpful but also adds to his reputation of being closer to the establishment wing of the party than some in the conference had wanted.


MORE:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/steve-scalise-staff-john-feehery-109739.html

August 6, 2014

Nonpartisan Study: Sovereign Citizens Pose Bigger Threat To USA Than Islamic Extremists

Nonpartisan Study: Sovereign Citizens Pose Bigger Threat To USA Than Islamic Extremists
byScientistocratFollowforScientistocrat

Cliven Bundy, I'm calling you out.

A study conducted by the nonpartisan agency the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism has found in a study reported to the US Department of Homeland Security that sovereign citizens, people who claim that they are only answerable to their own interpretation of the law and a pseudo-nation of in and of themselves (and surprise, surprise often think with prejudices that belong in the 1800's), pose a more dangerous threat to our national security than Islamic extremists. 4500 officers from 2100 federal, state, local, and tribal agencies agree:





MORE:
https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_UnderstandingLawEnforcementIntelligenceProcesses_July2014.pdf
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/05/1319448/-Nonpartisan-Study-Sovereign-Citizens-Pose-Bigger-Threat-To-USA-Than-Islamic-Extremists

August 6, 2014

Billions for domination, not one cent for decency.

TUE AUG 05, 2014 AT 05:57 PM PDT
Billions for domination, not one cent for decency.
byarendt


No fact is of any value except insofar as it is useful to someone's agenda.


We will spend hundreds of millions without hesitation to send weapons to Israel, military advisers to the Ukraine, non-lethal aid to the completely compromised Syrian resistance (a creature of the Saudis from day one). We will waste close to half a trillion dollars on the F-35 - a turkey that only seems to win in the cost-overrun and failure categories. We will hand out surplus military vehicles and communications intelligence equipment like party favors to our increasingly militarized internal security forces. We spy on everyone; vacuum up every phone call. Supposedly we do this in the name of "security", but it is really in the name of domination.

OTOH, we let Katrina drown; and we will let Detroit rot. We will let our infrastructure crumble. We will let veterans starve and beg for medical care. We will deny Obamacare to half the country out of pure spite. We will cut already threadbare SNAP programs. This civic neglect is malign. It is designed to induce compliance to the corporate agenda.

We have been immersed in an anti-democracy propaganda bubble for over a generation now. It's gotten to the point where people do not even understand that you cannot have a democracy when every interaction between citizen and increasingly-fused government/corporations is reduced to domination by the powerful and compliance by the powerless. You cannot have a democracy or honest diplomacy when no divergence from the "party line" is allowed, when those who diverge are verbally savaged as traitors, subversives, and perverts (or when those epithets are laughably counter-factual, as wimps, bleeding hearts, purists, sanctimonious people, hippies, socialists, etc.).

..........


and yes there is MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/blog/classwarfarenewsletter

August 6, 2014

“The fastest growing Protestant movement in North America is referred to as the prosperity gospel"

“I love all fictional presentations of Jesus. I think they are fantastic, whether it is the Last Temptation of Christ or The Passion — both of which are fiction. But — sorry about that, did I break that to you? — but again for me what is fascinating about those is it is just a representation of what I have been talking about all along, which is the incredible malleability of the Christ story, the way that it can become whatever you want it to become.”

........................



The fastest growing Protestant movement in North America is this movement that is referred to as the prosperity gospel,” he said. “This is the gospel preached by people like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes — and when I say people, I mean charlatans. The argument of the prosperity gospel, if I can put it flippantly, is that Jesus wants you to drive a Bentley. That is basically what the argument is. That what Jesus wants for you is material prosperity, and that if you literally give, you will literally be given tenfold. That’s not a metaphor, as it is in most churches. It is literal. You give me $10 and Jesus will give you $100.”

“This is as profoundly an unscriptural interpretation of Jesus that exists,” Aslan remarked. “I mean, if there is one thing that is just so clear cut and just not open to interpretation at all of any kind when it comes to Jesus’s message, it is his condemnation of wealth.”

“And yet, not only does this version of Christianity exist, as I say, it is honestly the fastest growing version of Protestant evangelical Christianity in North America. That’s because Jesus can be whatever you want him to be, and the Christian message can be whatever you want it to be.”

Video & more:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/05/religious-scholar-reza-aslan-destroys-charlatan-joel-osteen-jesus-hated-wealth/

August 6, 2014

LOL!!! - - - MSNBC reports that Obama backs Africa summit because he’s ‘from Kenya’

NBC White House Correspondent Chris Jansing incorrectly reported Tuesday that President Barack Obama wanted to have a successful U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit because he was “from Kenya.”

“The White House clearly, I assume, hoping that this will be part of president’s legacy given his background,” MSNBC host Joy Reid noted while introducing Jansing.

“Yeah, the fact that he’s from Kenya,” Jansing agreed. “And that fact that when he was elected there were expectations from the African continent that he would do great things for them. This is a concerted effort by this administration to get American companies to invest.”


Following Jansing’s remarks, Reid added that the president’s father was from Kenya, but did not directly contradict the correspondent.



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/05/oops-msnbc-reports-that-obama-backs-africa-summit-because-hes-from-kenya/

August 6, 2014

Video games are now good for kids?

?Video games are now good for kids?
August 5, 2014 at 12:00 pm Aaron Carroll
New paper in Pediatrics, “Electronic Gaming and Psychosocial Adjustment“:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/07/29/peds.2013-4021.abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The rise of electronic games has driven both concerns and hopes regarding their potential to influence young people. Existing research identifies a series of isolated positive and negative effects, yet no research to date has examined the balance of these potential effects in a representative sample of children and adolescents. The objective of this study was to explore how time spent playing electronic games accounts for significant variation in positive and negative psychosocial adjustment using a representative cohort of children aged 10 to 15 years.

METHODS: A large sample of children and adolescents aged 10 to 15 years completed assessments of psychosocial adjustment and reported typical daily hours spent playing electronic games. Relations between different levels of engagement and indicators of positive and negative psychosocial adjustment were examined, controlling for participant age and gender and weighted for population representativeness.

........................

This study took a large sample of kids in the UK, about 5000 to be exact, between the ages of 10 and 15 years, and measured a ton of outcomes for them. They looked at how often they “engaged” with video games. They also looked at whether they had emotional problems or prosocial behavior, and whether they were satisfied with life.

Compared to those who played no video games at all, those who played them “lightly”, or less than 1 hour a day, had more prosocial behavior, more life satisfaction, and lower levels of emotional problems. Compared to those who played no video games at all, those who played “moderately”, or 1-3 hours a day, showed no difference in these outcomes.

Children who played a lot, though, or more than 3 hours a day, had less prosocial behavior, less life satisfaction, and higher levels of emotional problems compared to those who played no video games at all.

So, the take home message from this study is that playing video games up to one hour a day is associated with better outcomes than not playing at all. Playing more than 3 hours a day is associated with worse outcomes.


the rest:
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/video-games-are-now-good-for-kids/

August 5, 2014

BREAKING NEWS: Bundy son arrested on criminal contempt charges

Source: KLAS TV

BREAKING NEWS: Bundy son arrested on criminal contempt charges
Posted: Aug 05, 2014 12:58 PM PDT
Updated: Aug 05, 2014 12:58 PM PDT
By Natalie Cullen, Online Editor - email


Cliven Lance Bundy


LAS VEGAS -- The son of a Nevada rancher, who faced off with the Bureau of Land Management earlier this year, has been arrested.

Cliven Lance Bundy, 34, was arrested Monday on criminal contempt and probation violation charges. In July, a warrant was issued for his arrest because Bundy did not appear before a Clark County District Court judge who oversees a drug diversion program.

He could face two to eight years in state prison, if he is found in violation of terms of the five years’ probation imposed after he pleaded guilty in February 2013 to felony burglary and weapon theft charges.

Bundy has blamed his issues on an addiction to pain killers.

Read more: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/26203914/breaking-news-bundy-son-arrested-on-criminal-contempt-charges