Krugman: Congratulations America, You’ve Been Scammed.
So you go out for dinner with a wealthy acquaintance. “I’ll take care of everything,” he says, and orders you a hamburger. Then he orders himself an expensive steak and […]
How ordinary people made Charlottesville possible
the tragedy that took place in Charlottesville last weekend could not have occurred without the tacit acceptance of millions of ordinary, law-abiding Americans who helped create such a racially explosive […]
Pence’s record
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the desire for Trump to be impeached early on in his presidency, but it’s becoming clearer by the day that Mike Pence […]
Being “better than” is not sufficient
Being “better than” is not sufficient A Kaiser Health News article titled “Preexisting Conditions And Continuous Coverage: Key Elements Of GOP Bill” lays out the pitfalls that the Trumpcare snake oil […]
Judah P. Benjamin
Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 11, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was a lawyer and politician who was a united states Senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate […]
It Took Donald Trump 8 Days To Bring The U.S. To The Brink Of A Constitutional Crisis | The Huffington Post
“Obedience to specific court orders is what keeps us from being a banana republic or fascist dictatorship. That’s a really big deal.” “Saturday’s ruling does not undercut the president’s executive […]
Ex-Breitbart Alt-Nazi promoter Steve Bannon is author of Trump’s executive orders
In one of the most comprehensive investigations of fraud, Justin Levitt of Loyola law School, Los Angeles turned up 31 credible instances of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion […]
What Those Who Studied Nazis Can Teach Us About The Strange Reaction To Donald Trump | The Huffington Post
We should not waste our time or imaginations trying to reconfigure Trumpism to explain why all of the “good people” supported him. It is more important to see it for […]
U. S. Electoral College: 2016 Key Dates
The official U.S. Electoral College web site, providing current presidential election state electors timeline and roles and responsibilities, laws and requirements, and vote distribution. U.S. Electoral College Home […]
Top House Republican Unveils Plan To Gut Social Security | The Huffington Post
Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on social security, released a plan Thursday to reform Social Security that would drastically reduce benefits. Johnson […]
Senate Republicans fighting on Obamacare repeal, Democrats passing the popcorn
Speaking of replacement, it’s pretty telling that they can’t even get on the same page on how to repeal the damn law. There’s not a chance in hell they can […]
Trump’s top pick for Health and Human Services believes all women can afford contraception
The part of the law that says your insurance company has to cover your prescription birth control without charge (beyond your office visit co-pay) will almost certainly be gone. Source: […]
Donald Trump’s racist immigration advisor is drafting instructions to begin deportations on day one
Kris Kobach is the architect of the most racist law in modern America history. He devised Arizona’s S.B. 1070 law that gave police the power to stop people with brown skin […]
Abbreviated pundit roundup: How Trump will affect your federal and state taxes, Medicare, and more
According to the Tax Policy Center, nearly half the benefits from the Trump plan would go to the top 1% of households—those earning more than about $700,000. It could also […]
Presidential Election 2016: An American Tragedy – The New Yorker
All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow […]
Bully
bully noun A person who hurts, frightens, or tyrannizes over those who are smaller or weaker Someone who is mean to others and who throws his weight around. An overbearing […]
Did you pay your Fair Share?
2014 Budget of the united states federal government From Office of Management and Budget $3.506,000,000,000 (3.5 trillion) (actual)[5] 2014 Gross Personal income in the United States 14,740,000,000,000 (14.7 trillion) (actual) 2014 Amount of […]
Ted Cruz (and most Republican politicians) are hypocrites.
The proof? Just listen to what they say; look at the laws they are passing. To deny any individual basic human rights based on your individual beliefs is outrageous, unethical, and […]
Quotes from James Madison, Father of the Constitution.
From veto message, February 21, 1811. “Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor […]
Some of my favorite quotes
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jefferson and the “Living” Constitution
The biggest difference between conservatives and liberals over filling the current vacancy on the supreme Court is perhaps the question of interpretation of the Constitution. Conservatives insist that the Constitution […]
The Constitution of the Five Nations
The Constitution of the Five Nations – or – The Iroquois Book of the Great law … survives after some 500 or 600 years, and was originated by people that […]
Treason
The actions of the Bundys, in Nevada and Oregon, are not the first time that arms have been taken up against agents of the Federal Government because someone didn’t want […]
Right and Wrong
What is right? What is wrong? It is a societal problem because individuals in a society will see things differently. If there existed a universally shared bases for distinguishing between the two, there would be no problem but there doesn’t
Government Handouts The Rich Get
In case you are still skeptical the rich receive benefits from government (for which we don’t make them pee in a cup or promise not to buy luxuries),
1. The mortgage interest deduction for big houses and second homes. Thanks to this tax break, the 5 million households in America making more than $200,000 a year get a lot more housing aid than the 20 million households living on less than $20,000. Deductions for mortgage interest incentivize people already capable of buying big homes to buy even bigger ones.
Missouri Voters Repeal Anti-Discrimination Law
Missouri Voters Repeal LGBT Anti-Discrimination Law | ThinkProgress.From comments on the article.The law now gives Christians the right to treat people as second class citizens just as Nazi Germany did with the Jews. Germany was a supposedly Christian nationa nd most of the churches went along with the Nazi’s.
The “Special Snowflake”
It’s the religious far-right’s “special snowflake” syndrome: conservative Christians thinking that because they believe God sanctions their particular brand of bigotry, they’re special snowflakes who shouldn’t be restrained by human decency, much less the pesky laws that the rest of us are obliged to follow. If you hate hard enough, the rules don’t apply to you because you are a special snowflake, who really, really believes in what you’re doing.
Another red state lying to the Supreme Court
Another red state caught lying to the Supreme Court about health insurance exchanges.
The Supreme Court might have already held its vote on King v. Burwell, the case challenging federal tax credits to people buying Obamacare health insurance on the federal exchange because they live in states which did not create their own exchanges. The challengers posit that Congress intended it this way—that they wrote the law to explicitly exclude these millions of people from subsidies as incentive to states to create their own exchanges.
You Cannot Be A Republican And A Christian
Republicans used to be moderate, business-minded civic boosters and unapologetic patriots who were the linchpins and bulwarks of small towns across the Midwest, the enthusiastic backers of projects for the civic good, usually in partnership with the town liberals (the librarian, the bar owner, a lawyer or two, the Methodist minister, the banker’s wife). These Republicans were uniters and diehard optimists and persons of compassionate conscience, inveterate doers of good deeds.Even today, there are probably some Republicans who still fit that description.
47 U.S. Senators in violation of The Logan Act
On March 9th, 2015, forty-seven United States Senators committed a treasonous offense when they decided to violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.
G.O.P. Is Planning to Replace Health Law
As Supreme Court Weighs Health Law, G.O.P. Is Planning to Replace It
BY JONATHAN WEISMAN
The prospects of legal victory have raised practical and political fears that Republicans will take the blame for the health care crisis that would follow. The New York Times
“Senior Republicans in Congress hope that … the Supreme Court will invalidate the subsidies that 7.5 million Americans in 34 states have been given to purchase health insurance … But … raised … fears that Republicans will take the blame for the health care crisis that would follow. … Representatives Paul D.
Great Quotes
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” John Steinbeck
Worst Voter Suppression Bill In The Nation
“if it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that wants the government to give them everything, so be it.” “the law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.”
Don Yelton was a precinct chair in the Buncombe County, North Carolina
Common core is not a federal law
“Common core is not a federal law and, therefore, cannot be repealed by the federal government. “
Every Claim In This Ted Cruz Statement Is Completely False
It started with a tweet.
North Carolina Republicans empower magistrates to refuse to marry blacks, Jews, gays
If you cannot reconcile your personal beliefs with your job duties, you need to find a different job.
Trans Pacific Partnership
Global deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership will boost the profits of Wall Street and big corporations, and make the richest 1 percent even richer.
But they’ll bust the rest of America
How Trade Deals Boost the Top 1% and Bust the Rest
Suppose that by enacting a particular law we’d increase the U.S.Gross Domestic Product. But almost all that growth would go to the richest 1 percent. The rest of us could buy some products cheaper than before.
Rich, White Kids Have ‘Affluenza’
“Rich, White Kids Have ‘Affluenza,’ Poor, Black Kids Go to Prison.”
Paul Ryan calling for law enforcement to do their jobs
I don’t remember Ryan calling for law enforcement to do their jobs at the Bundy Ranch.
This is not about politics
This is not about politics. If there were a Republican President doing the same thing, I would feel just as strongly.
Hobby Lobby and Religious Freedom
July 11 2014
“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.
HOBBY LOBBY
“In the Hobby Lobby cases, five male Justices of the Supreme Court, who are all members of the Catholic faith and who each were appointed by a President who hailed from the Republican party, decided that a huge corporation, with thousands of employees and gargantuan revenues, was a ‘person’ entitled to assert a religious objection to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate because that corporation was ‘closely held’ by family members.
IN THE NAME OF RELIGION
September 11, 2003.
IN THE NAME OF RELIGION
Three years ago today a group of men flew planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
Why? Religion.
Another Example of Religious Hypocrisy
From the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/pastor-suit-against-oklahoma-license-plate-ok_n_3455129.html) ‘Rain God’ Oklahoma License Plate: Pastor Keith Cressman Lawsuit Approved By 10th Circuit Court Of Appeals.
I wonder if this pastor would support a similar law suit over the act of the McCarthy era Congress law that inserted “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance or the printing of “In God we trust” on all our money?
Unbelievable:
Just saw a news report that North Dakota has passed a law that proclaims that life begins at conception. They’re wrong. Eggs are already alive. Sperm are already alive. Everyone agrees that life “began” long ago (whether you believe in evolution or not.) It’s never ended. What they are trying to say is that a new human being comes into existence at conception. I guess they will be issuing “Conception Certificates” instead of “Birth Certificates” now. So all conceptions will have to be reported to the state and recorded.
Thomas Jefferson on intellectual property
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives …
Faulty Logic
Making it illegal to make or sell meth and cocaine hasn’t stopped them from being made and sold. Making prostitution illegal hasn’t eliminated prostitution. Banning child pornography hasn’t stopped kids from being sexually abused. Making it against the law to run red lights hasn’t stopped people from ignoring them. Making driving under the influence a crime hasn’t stopped people from being killed by drunk drivers. So we should just repeal all these laws since the things they outlaw haven’t stopped people from doing them. That’s the logic people who oppose gun control laws are using.
Being innocent
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=419893721417661&set=a.378515252222175.85285.378258698914497&type=1&ref=nf
Being “innocent” is not sufficient to qualify one to own a gun … or it shouldn’t be.
Rights come with responsibilities. If you don’t accept the responsibility then you give up the right and that includes the right to own a gun. Responsibilities may not be specified by law, but they still exist.
Jefferson on Change
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country.
Thomas Jefferson on Private Property
This may come as a shock to a lot of conservatives. Just one more example of the “Socialist” tendencies of the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson ranked Locke, https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html) along with Locke’s compatriot Algernon Sidney, as the most important thinkers on liberty. (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/) But he changed Locks words (“Life, Liberty, and Property”) to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. These letters to Isaac McPherson and James Madison explains why.
The Good Old Days
Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude. It rests on doubt in human nature; it distrusts improvement, clings to traditional institutions and prefers the past to the future.