January 31, 2013

Hannity EXPLODES After Confronted By ThinkProgress About HIS Offer To Be WATERBOARDED For CHARITY

Help make this story go viral by calling out this ALL-TALK-NO-ACTION, CHICKENSHIT HANNITY WHO WELCHED ON HIS OFFER TO BE WATERBOARDED FOR CHARITY, TROOPS & FAMILIES. Obviously, he wants us all to FORGET!






Fox News host Sean Hannity is so adamant that waterboarding is not torture that he once offered to be waterboarded at a charity event and donate the proceeds to soldiers’ families. Four years later, a yet-to-be-waterboarded Hannity did not take kindly to being called out about it on his own radio show.


On April 22, 2009, Charles Grodin appeared on Hannity’s Fox News show and asked Hannity, if he doesn’t believe waterboarding is torture, would he agree to be waterboarded. “Sure,” Hannity said. “I’ll do it for charity. I’ll let you do it. I’ll do it for the troops’ families.” But four years later, Hannity has yet to follow through on his offer.


When ThinkProgress brought up the matter at the beginning of an appearance on his radio show on Wednesday, Hannity’s displeasure was palpable. “I’m not getting into your five-year-old issue,” Hannity grumbled. We pressed on when he was planning to hold the event, the Fox host lost it. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. I get to ask the questions on the program,” Hannity said:






Hannity gave no indication that he was planning to follow through on his promise to be waterboarded for charity.


Immediately following the show, Hannity was so incensed that he personally called ThinkProgress to complain. He accused ThinkProgress of being “fixated” on the matter, baffled that we brought up an issue that he said hasn’t been news for years. After we respectfully disagreed and explained that it was disingenuous for him to offer to be waterboarded in order to prove that it’s not torture, only not to follow through on the offer, Hannity sighed, “what you’re doing here is really stupid.” He insisted, though, that it wasn’t a sensitive subject.




http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/31/1518741/sean-hannity-waterboard/

January 31, 2013

Lawrence O'Donnell DESTROYS Testimony Of Female Wing-Nut Gun Rights Advocate Gayle Trotter

The Lawrence O'Donnell Wing-Nut ' SMACKDOWN ' begins at 5:00 of video.




During an interview on The Last Word Wednesday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell challenged Trotter for not being able to provide one real life example of a case when an assault weapon specifically saved one woman’s life in that kind of a situation. “You don’t go to the Senate to imagine things!” O’Donnell said.

While speaking in front of the senators, Trotter described a hypothetical scene of a “young woman defending her babies in her home” when faced with “three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background” as a reason to own an assault rifle.

“The peace of mind that she has, knowing that she has a scary-looking gun, gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened, violent criminals,” said Trotter, who was the only woman on the five-person panel. “If we ban these types of assault weapons, you are putting these types of women at a great disadvantage–more so than men because they don’t have the same type of physical strength and opportunity to defend themselves in a hand-to-hand struggle.”



http://current.com/1hal8kc

January 30, 2013

Rachel Maddow Calls Out Sen.Ted Cruz, ‘THATS SOME BRASS SENATOR’

Another tough-talkin, belt buckle swaying POS RETHUG CHICKENHAWK!!




Rachel Maddow called out the “brass” of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz for claiming that decorated veterans Senator John Kerry (R-MA) and former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) don’t support the military. Why? Because Senator Cruz has never served in the military. Senator John Kerry has been nominated and now confirmed as the new Secretary of State and former Senator Chuck Hagel has been nominated as the Secretary of Defense. Republicans have been reaching deep to try to block both nominations (it’s what they do). Kerry, the son of an Army Air Corps veteran, is the recipient of the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts earned while serving in Vietnam. Hagel is the recipient of two Purple Hearts while an infantry squad leader in the Vietnam War.



Whereas, Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz is a junior tea party Senator from Texas who never served in the military. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban immigrant (his father) to the U.S., he did very well at Princeton and then went to Harvard Law School. Good for him. Naturally, given his expertise on the matter and his junior status in the Senate, he had no problem saying that two decorated war veterans don’t support the military.



Rachel didn’t take to that too well. She said, “It was therefore pretty breathtaking when Senator Ted Cruz voiced his opposition to Senator Kerry’s nomination to the State Department and to the nomination of Chuck Hagel to the Defense Department. Chuck Hagel received two purple hearts in Vietnam and walks around every day with shrapnel in his chest. It was pretty remarkable when we heard the reason that Senator Ted Cruz said that those two wounded combat veterans are not going to get his vote in the Senate.” Ms. Maddow then rolled a clip of Ted Cruz speaking at what appears to be a National Institute Review event. Cruz lectured, “We’ve got two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Both of whom are very prominently —” An audience member yelled out, “Anti-us!”



Cruz is very amused with himself. He might be doing stand up comedy, the set-up is that great. Cruz preened, “— less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.” Rachel deadpaned, “They don’t love the military, not like he does. He’s the junior Senator from Texas. Ah, there are no medals for a declaration like that, but technically speaking, I think what we’re supposed to say is, ‘That’s some brass, Senator.’” It seems there’s nothing a tea party representative does better than self-aggrandizingly elevate their own stature while heaping clueless scorn on others who have earned their positions through merit and bravery.

cont'


http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-gop-sen-cruz-thats-brass-senator.html

January 29, 2013

Obama CLEVERLY Plants the Seeds for Possible GOP SELF DESTRUCTION On Immigration Reform

The president said,








The president’s immigration reform proposal includes four parts, “First, continue to strengthen our borders. Second, crack down on companies that hire undocumented workers. Third, hold undocumented immigrants accountable before they can earn their citizenship; this means requiring undocumented workers to pay their taxes and a penalty, move to the back of the line, learn English, and pass background checks. Fourth, streamline the legal immigration system for families, workers, and employers.”



Since he came from the Senate to the presidency, Obama spent much of his first two years in office watching his agenda get bogged down in congressional trench warfare. The attitude of second term President Obama is completely different. He is the one telling Congress what he wants from them. If they drag their feet, or if Republicans in the House or Senate try to bog down the legislation, he is going to send his own bill to the Congress and demand a vote.



Obama wasn’t just showing leadership in his speech. He was also sowing the seeds for potential Republican self destruction. The scenario goes something like this. A group of congressional Republicans decide that they are going to kill immigration reform. They bog down the legislation in the congressional swamp of inaction that is our current legislative process. The president sends his bill to the Congress for a vote. Democrats and enough Senate Republicans come together to pass his bill. If House Republicans reject his legislation, the table is then set for Democrats to build on their support from Hispanic voters in 2014 and 2016.


cont'





http://www.politicususa.com/obama-cleverly-plants-seeds-gop-destruction-immigration-reform.html

January 29, 2013

WHY You Should CARE About the DECLINE of Labor Unions

Last week came news that the share of America’s workforce that’s unionized hit a 97-year low. A mere 11.3% of workers now belong to a union, and a great chunk of those are in the shrinking public sector. In the private sector, unionization fell to an abysmal 6.6%, down from a peak of 35% during the 1950s. Most Americans yawned at this news. On one level that’s understandable. After all, most Americans aren’t in a union. It’s a vicious cycle: as unions decline, fewer people see their fates as bound up with unions, which just accelerates the decline.


But on another level, America’s non-reaction is striking. We remain in the wake of the Great Recession. Inequality and wealth concentration are at levels not seen since just before the Great Depression. This would seem as ripe a time in modern memory for a revival of organized labor. Instead, a basic assumption now shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not in a union. That assumption is wrong in two critical ways.



First, the fact is that when unions are stronger the economy as a whole does better. Unions restore demand to an economy by raising wages for their members and putting more purchasing power to work, enabling more hiring. On the flip side, when labor is weak and capital unconstrained, corporations hoard, hiring slows, and inequality deepens. Thus we have today both record highs in corporate profits and record lows in wages. Second, unions lift wages for non-union members too by creating a higher prevailing wage. Even if you aren’t a member your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.


Unfortunately, the relegation of organized labor to tiny minority status and the fact that the public sector is the last remaining stronghold for unions have led many Americans to see them as special interests seeking special privileges, often on the taxpayer’s dime. This thinking is as upside-down as our economy. This country has gotten to today’s level of inequality because, ironically, those who work for a living think like atomized individuals while those who hire for a living organize collectively to rig policy in their favor. Today’s 97-year low is the result of decades of efforts to squeeze unions and disperse their power.


cont'




http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/29/viewpoint-why-the-decline-of-unions-is-your-problem-too/

January 29, 2013

If Republicans Think LATINOS Are Uneducated, They Should LOOK AT THEIR OWN BASE.

Republicans seem unaware of the composition of their base. How else can they explain this thinking, which echoes Mitt Romney’s misunderstanding of where the takers are: Republican Representative laments working on immigration reform because there’s no point in Republicans trying to woo Latinos when they are uneducated and low-skilled, “They will become Democrats because of the social programs they’ll depend on.” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) scoffs at immigration reform and warns Republicans to stop trying to cater to Latinos politically because they will never vote Republican. Via Think Progress:







This is more of the Republican propaganda that Obama is the “food stamp president” and that “all black people want are food stamps“.
Bartletta appears blissfully unaware of the largest segment of the Republican base (thanks to their southern strategy). Allow me to assist him in meeting them: Rural, uneducated whites from Southern regions. George Will explained this during the primaries as he lamented the southern strategy, “There’s also the problem that the Republican party has been, in recent years, too Southern. In the last five presidential cycles, they’ve got 79 percent of their electoral votes from the South. It’s too much.” Jack Cafferty at CNN pointed out that most of the ten poorest states in the country are Republican. This isn’t new, but Republicans keep behaving as if they are the party of the white country club makers.




The biggest strengths for the Republican Party according to CNN exit polling from the 2012 election are those who support the Tea Party and born again Christians. More high school graduates voted for Obama. By a slim margin (remember this is exit polling) more who attended college voted for Obama over Romney. More college graduates voted for Romney than Obama, but more post-graduates voted for Obama over Romney. The Washington Post’s exit polling concurs. In 2008, the National Journal warned, “The GOP’s focus on social, cultural, and religious issues cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.” Clearly the Republican Party doesn’t own education any more than they own Hispanics.



cont'





http://www.politicususa.com/gop-rep-thinks-latinos-vote-republican-uneducated-base.html

January 29, 2013

Standard RIGHT WING Propaganda: The Second Amendment Is Absolute! MOAR GUNZ!

Oh. My. God. This is it! THIS is the airtight argument that Second Amendment absolutists suffering from penis envy should be allowed to own whatever gun they want! Those damn hypocrites that keep saying the Founding Fathers only meant for unlimited ownership of muskets can’t beat this one! HAH! Now give me MOAR GUNZ! I won’t feel manly “free” “safe” until I have a dozen assault rifles! But wait a second, is the First Amendment absolute? Is there unlimited free speech on TV, radio, the internet and print? Well, no. There isn’t and you’d have to be some kind of imbecile to make this comparison. But, as always (ALWAYS) right wing propaganda sounds good until you take a second to think about it (something right wingers are notoriously bad at).



For instance, television is incredibly restricted. The FCC hands out numerous fines a year for obscenity violations. Nudity is still mostly taboo and forget about the word “fuck.” Apparently, it’s OK for Alyson Hannigan to strip, though. At least, according to The Onion. Radio is also heavily regulated. No cursing allowed. Ever listen to Eminem on the radio? Every other word is muted. It’s like playing Mad Libs with a song. Even AM Hate Radio has to walk a thin line between generating outrage and actually inciting violence against whatever minority group they’ve been directed to attack that day. The internet is the most “free” of all the media but guess what? Still not completely unfettered! Child porn is illegal. Snuff clips are illegal. Inciting violence in a YouTube video can get you arrested.




Clearly, this gun nut argument is deeply flawed (shocking). The real point of this meme is to deflect attention away from the ridiculous claim that the “original intent” of the Framers was unlimited gun ownership. The “original intent” could not have possibly taken into consideration the invention of a gun capable of slaughtering a roomful of children in a few minutes. Gun nuts don’t want to talk about that so we get the kind of shallow stupidity you see above. The truth is, there is no such thing as an unfettered constitutional right. Even worse for gun nuts, the word “regulated” is right there in the Second Amendment:






We can regulate guns all we want as long as we don’t ban them outright (that actually would be unconstitutional). We already ban plenty of different types of “arms” and no reasonable person not in the pay of the gun industry would oppose those bans. You cannot own a fully automatic machine gun. You cannot own a rocket launcher. You cannot own a plastic gun that can beat a metal detector. You cannot own Teflon coated cop killer bullets. The Second Amendment is not unfettered.

cont'



http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/01/29/standard-right-wing-propaganda-the-second-amendment-is-absolute-moar-gunz/

January 28, 2013

Israel Follows In Nazi Footsteps, Forces Birth Control On African Jews

At its essence, the evil of eugenics is what the Holocaust was about. The Nazis were obsessed with racial purity and that meant eliminating all “undesirables” like Negros, homosexuals, gypsies and, of course, Jews. Millions were killed in adherence to this sick philosophy in which other races were somehow “inferior.” This was the end result of an escalating series of sanctions carried out against those deemed unworthy. But before the Final Solution was enacted, a series of forced sterilizations was systematically carried out with brutal efficiency. One of the darkest secrets of America’s involvement in World War II is that the Nazis learned the concept of eugenics from the United States. We had been quietly sterilizing “undesirables” for some time. An even darker secret is that we didn’t stop until the 1970s, thirty full years after we had learned the horror that eugenics had wrought. It is not unreasonable to think that the country of Israel would recoil in disgust at this kind of barbarism. Unbelievably, this is not the case. Over the weekend, the Israeli government, after repeated denials that Jewish women immigrating from Africa where given birth control injections without their knowledge or consent, changed their narrative. Via The Independent:





In other words, this was a deliberate government program to suppress the growth of the black population in Israel. There is no indication that it would have been stopped had the program not been exposed. This is literally the same thing the Nazis did and for precisely the same reasons:





That the Israeli government would follow in the steps of the monsters that once tried to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth is sick on so many levels it is difficult to comprehend. The implicit racism is unquestionable and undeniable. That it was being carried out in secret is a clear indication the Netanyahu administration does not believe public opinion will be on its side. And for good reason; most Jews like myself, even if they were born decades after the Holocaust, have a keen awareness of the evils perpetrated during that time. A popular refrain, almost a mantra, is “Never Forget,” basically a short hand for, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” How long was it before mandatory sterilizations were implemented? It is now clear that the Israeli government has forgotten the nightmare that the eugenics movement spawned. They can no longer claim, as they often do, to speak for the Jewish people, whether in Israel or throughout the world. Any Jew who would knowingly emulate the greatest evil the world has ever seen has lost their moral compass.





http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/01/28/israel-follows-in-nazi-footsteps-forces-birth-control-on-african-jews/

January 28, 2013

Iceland President: Let BANKS Go Bankrupt

Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson on how letting the banks fail led to a remarkable recovery of the country's economy.

January 26, 2013

Senator Tom Harkin RETIRING, Won't Seek Reelection In 2014

CUMMING, Iowa — Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin says he will not seek re-election in 2014.

The 73-year-old Harkin tells The Associated Press in an interview, "It's just time to step aside," because by the time he would finish a sixth term, he would be 81. Harkin said it would also allow a new generation of Democrats to seek higher office.



The announcement comes as a surprise, considering he had $2.7 million in his campaign war chest and was planning a fundraiser next month. Harkin played a lead role in urging the Senate's more liberal members to back the 2010 health care bill.



No Iowa Republicans have taken formal steps toward seeking the seat. Harkin's decision eases the burden on the GOP, who have to gain six seats to win the majority.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/26/tom-harkin-retiring_n_2557708.html