In another twist, Range Resources was also recently slapped with the largest-ever fine
against a Marcellus Shale driller in history — $4.15 million — for
violations at the Yeager site. Those violations, so bad that the site
has been forced to close,
were mostly of leaks from its wastewater impoundments, which is the
same thing Kiskadden alleged caused his own water well to be
contaminated. Indeed, the biggest concern about fracking and its
possibility to contaminate water is not from the drilling or fracking
process itself, but from the faulty disposal of the massive amount of contaminated wastewater it produces.
This diary covers two aspects of Ave Maria University's strangle-hold on
women. One aspect the Town of Ave Maria, Florida and the other is Ave
Maria University's which are owned and governed by the same person, Tom
Monaghan - who also founded Dominos Pizza.
Ave Maria University's founder, Tom Monaghan, also owns and governs
the entire Town of Ave Maria, Florida and he has banned contraception in
the entire town. In fact, the one and only OB/GYN in the Town of Ave
Maria will not ... will not ... prescribe contraception
medication to any woman for any reason at all. For kicks, you can call
the only OB/GYN in the town and find out for yourself: (239) 658-5100.
Tim Dickinson's fantastic expose of the Koch brothers in the latest issue of Rolling Stone
has gotten plenty of attention. For very good reason: it's a
well-sourced, deep dive into the very toxic—literally toxic—business
that earned the Kochs enough money to buy up an entire political party.
That and the wrongful death judgement, six felony and numerous
misdemeanor convictions, the tens of millions of dollars in fines, and
the trading with Iran are all included in the story, well worth your
time.
No one has given it more attention, it seems, than the notoriously thin-skinned Kochs. In typical Koch fashion, they don't argue the facts of Dickinson's story. They attack Dickinson, who responds here. Here's the nut of his detailed response.
Dickinson then provides an exhaustive, 14-point taken down of each of
the Kochs' complaints about his story, including every instance in which
the Kochs do not actually dispute the facts that he has reported, but
attempt to obfuscate them and whine about that fact that he reported
them. They also don't acknowledge that Dickinson attempted to give them
the opportunity to talk to him about his story whir reporting, but they
refused.
The Kochs clearly do not stand up well to close scrutiny, and clearly
are not prepared for it. For some reason, probably because they're
richer than god, they seem to assume that they should be able to swoop
into our political system and attempt to buy it without being subject to
close examination. That attitude, along with their long history of
abusing people, the environment, and the political system, is doing them
no favors. They've made themselves the subject of this election, and if
Democrats hold the Senate, it will largely be because the Kochs have
made themselves such good enemies.
Why are aged men making private decisions for women in this day and age?
More resources also need to go to supporting the one in seven women
who are poor. Only about a quarter of those living in poverty are
receiving welfare, and benefits are 50 percent below the poverty line.
The human costs are substantial. Millions of families suffer from
shortages in food and housing, and the inadequate safety net keeps many
women trapped in violent relationships. Ronald Reagan once famously
quipped that “we fought a war on poverty and poverty won.” The battle
lines are still drawn and women cannot settle for defeat.
Rape and domestic violence also call for more effective enforcement
strategies. An estimated 25 percent of women have experienced domestic
violence and 16 to 18 percent of women have experienced an attempted or
completed rape. The United States as the highest rate of spousal
homicide and the second highest rate of reported rape in the developed
world.
I was in Seattle, Washington, recently, to congratulate union and
community organizers who helped Seattle enact the first $15 per hour
minimum wage in the country.
Other cities and states should follow Seattle’s example.
Contrary to the dire predictions of opponents, the hike won’t cost
Seattle jobs. In fact, it will put more money into the hands of low-wage
workers who are likely to spend almost all of it in the vicinity. That
will create jobs.
Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have
more money and everyone else has less. But they’re wrong. It’s just the
opposite.
The real job creators are not CEOs or corporations or wealthy
investors. The job creators are members of America’s vast middle class
and the poor, whose purchases cause businesses to expand and invest.
As the U.S. escalates its bombing campaign against ISIS (or IS or ISIL),
U.S. officials seem to have found an enemy we can all love to hate and
fear. ISIS beheads hostages, conducts brutal ethnic cleansing and has
links to Al-Qaeda. DC power players have eagerly embraced a small war
made to order to restore America's wounded military pride after the
first Iraq debacle.
After initially helping to drive out Iraqi government death squads, ISIS
has outlived its purpose to Sunni Arab tribal leaders in northern and
western Iraq. Most Sunni Iraqis don't want to be part of a
fundamentalist Islamic state like Saudi Arabia, where 19 people were beheaded in August for offenses ranging from witchcraft to drug possession. Most Iraqi Sunnis just
want civil and political rights in their own country, Iraq. But they
justifiably fear the return of Shiite death squads more than they fear
ISIS.
The Islamic State has said, “Secular
statists are destroying America,” and that “God is not finished with the
U.S. yet.” When religious extremists make such proclamations we should
take them at their word. Equally we should demand “moderate Muslim”
voices to denounce such affronts to America’s secular values.
The above paragraph is true except for
one notable exception: the above proclamations are not attributed to
Islamic extremism or the Islamic State. They’re respectively owned by
the 2012 GOP nominee runner-up Rick Santorum, who provided the first
quote, and potential 2016 GOP front-runner Ted Cruz, who gave the second
- on day one of the 2014 Value Voters Summit.
America, your religious extremists are already inside the “Homeland,” so what are we going to about it?
To dismiss America’s Christian fascists
as a loony fringe is to repeat the mistake made by liberals when fascist
impulses first emerged in Weimar Germany. To equivocate the Christian
Right with ISIS risks having such claims dismissed as partisan
hyperbole. It’s not hyperbole. Family Research Council vice president
Jerry Boykin wondered why “cowardly” American Christians do not display
the same bravery as ISIS. “Think
about this, what if we had Christians that were that committed to what
they believe? I mean, here’s a guy who stands up and says, ‘I’m willing
to die, I’m willing to die for it.’ And what about the Christian church
these days? We’ve got Christians that are more cowardly than, I think,
at any time in the history of America because they won’t stand up to
evil.”
Over the past few years of economic torpor and social despair there’s
been a lot of discussion about the death of the American dream. This
shouldn’t be surprising. In a time when people feel they can’t keep up
or are falling behind, it’s hard to have faith in the idea that everyone
can achieve a base level of security and provide for their kids to do
better than they did. That was always the deal for working-class
Americans, immigrants and middle-class alike.
Generally, people agree that the lack of social and economic mobility
we see today — necessities for the achievement of the American dream —
is a result of the dramatic income inequality that’s grown dramatically
over the last couple of decades.
By cutting off federal funding for research and stymieing data collection and sharing,
the National Rifle Association has tried to do to the study of gun
violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global
warming. No wonder: When it comes to hard numbers, some of the gun
lobby's favorite arguments are full of holes. Myth #1: They're coming for your guns. Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it's clear there's no practical way to round them all up
Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people. Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more
people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a
gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates.
And you can’t let a week go by without Pat Robertson upping
the ante on fundamentalist crazy. Responding to a viewer who said
churches should be taxed, Robertson explained that a church’s money belongs to God. An
angry Roberston said: “I don’t know what handout you’re talking about.
We don’t take a handout from the government. Not paying taxes, it’s your
money. The fact the government doesn’t take it away from you is not a
government handout, and time immemorial, what belongs to God is what
belongs to God!”
This leaves many wondering what God plans to do with the billions of dollars he gets from his churches.
You might not know it from watching TV news, but FBI statistics show
that crime in the U.S.—including violent crime—has been trending
steadily downward for years, falling 19% between 1987 and 2011. The job
of being a police officer has become safer too, as the number of police
killed by gunfire plunged to 33 last year, down 50% from 2012, to its
lowest level since, wait for it, 1887, a time when the population was
75% lower than it is today.
So why are we seeing an ever increasing militarization of policing across the country?
Given the good news on crime, what are we to make of a report by the
Justice Policy Institute, a not-for-profit justice reform group, showing
that state and local spending on police has soared from $40 billion in
1982 to more than $100 billion in 2012.
He is a relatively young man with a family and could get the transplant for 1.5 million. Insurance says NO. All know he will die without the transplant.
Since
it is all but impossible to debate a republican or a Tea Partier on any
topic without having the subject instantly turned to “killing the
unborn,” this list is one that is meant to help those on the left regain
control of the conversation. It includes the ten leading causes of
pregnancy termination and infant death, nine of which involve policies
that are supported and even promoted by the GOP.
Anyone
who truly wants to “protect life” should understand that to
single-mindedly focus on one cause of death in the unborn, pretending
that it is the only thing that “kills the unborn,” is not a reasonable
way to address the issue. The truth is that GOP policies have killed
more unborn fetuses and newly born infants, than all of the abortions
performed on earth, in the history of the world, combined.
10 causes of death in unborn children.
Gun violence, Poor Maternal Health (lack of health care),
County Fairs are a big deal in Texas. They shut down school on the
first day of the Fair and have a big parade. Then everybody heads to
the Fairgrounds where there’s rides for the kiddos, animal judging, a
Fair Queen contest, baked good competition, and booths selling wares and
ideas.
I want to show you our Fort Bend Republican Party Fair Booth. It is
hard to cram this much hate and stupidity into a 5 by 15 foot booth.
The Middle East can be a confusing place, made all the more so by
America's own confusing and somewhat confused foreign policy there.
Fortunately, someone took the time to explain the region in its entirety
in a simple, super-short letter to the editor:
The enormity of the Koch fortune is no
mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40
billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly
well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered
the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy
Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the
Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised
some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another
$290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in
this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to
boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.
The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According
to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research
Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of
America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power
and Koch Industries. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill
giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the
nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper
combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution.
Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including
Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24
million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.
Relate
The Koch Brothers – Exposed!
For Koch, this license to pollute amounts to a perverse, hidden
subsidy. The cost is borne by communities in cities like Port Arthur,
Texas, where a Koch-owned facility produces as much as 2 billion pounds
of petrochemicals every year. In March, Koch signed a consent decree
with the Department of Justice requiring it to spend more than $40
million to bring this plant into compliance with the Clean Air Act.
I hate President Obama so I will vote Republican. It is interesting that these states take in way more Federal Tax Money to support the poor than the Blue States that support President Obama.
Last year, CityLab took a brief look at the disturbingly high number of accidental firearm discharges that take place in public bathrooms
across the United States. There were reports of accidental gunfire in
bathrooms at a Walmart, a hotel, a grocery store, an Internet cafe, and a
Carl's Jr. (The roundup somehow missed this one
at an Irish pub in Florida.) In most cases, the self-inflicted victims
were pulling up or lowering their pants when their concealed weapon fell
out, hit the floor, and fired.
Jon Stewart is great in talking about Congress, Republicans and FOX.
There have been quite a few times where I’ve written an article covering a segment on The Daily Show where
Jon Stewart absolutely hit a home run on whatever subject he was
discussing. But I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this might be
one of his best segments ever. - See more at:
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-crushes-diseased-minds-fox-news-fk-false-patriotism-video/#sthash.H1Ul73ET.dpuf
Jon
Stewart Crushes ‘Diseased Minds’ on Fox News: ‘F**k You And All Your
False Patriotism!’ (Video) - See more at:
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-crushes-diseased-minds-fox-news-fk-false-patriotism-video/#sthash.H1Ul73ET.dpuf
Jon
Stewart Crushes ‘Diseased Minds’ on Fox News: ‘F**k You And All Your
False Patriotism!’ (Video) - See more at:
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-crushes-diseased-minds-fox-news-fk-false-patriotism-video/#sthash.H1Ul73ET.dpuf
My scientific knowledge isn’t superb – not helped by three years of ACE – so I asked ProfessorPaul Braterman,a chemist at Glasgow Universityand a committee member of the anti-creationistBritish Centre for Science Education, what he thought. “Bullshit on stilts” came his reply, in a brusque email pointing out that snow has no magnetic properties. The prospect of generating free electricity from snow, he added, “bears no relationship to reality”.
“My clients were told there was nothing on the site at the very point in time this site had nothing but bad materials in it,” McClain explained.
Investigative reports conducted by the Missouri Department of Natural Resource found that BFI began dumping hazardous chemical waste at a landfill next to the Spences’ home after leasing the property in 1972. The report warned that the chemicals could damage the “central nervous system, kidneys, lungs, gingival tissue and skin,” KSHB reported.
Records showed that BFI shut down the landfill after state and government regulations were strengthened in 1983, but the government did not require the company to clean up the site.
A new study finds that scientists are seen as highly competent, and climate scientists in particular have the trust of Americans.
Unfortunately, that isn’t seen as a very clickworthy finding — at least in our modern cynical age — so the authors of the study and the news release chose to spin the results as “Scientists Seen as Competent But Not Trusted by Americans.” If you search that headline, you’ll find thousands of results for articles on and links to this Princeton study.
You’d never guess from the headline or the news release, that when the researchers surveyed “public attitudes toward climate scientists” on a “seven-item scale of distrust,” they found “distrust is low.”
“Look at the bare-bone facts of this guy’s life, what you are talking about is a poor – and I mean poorest of the poor – uneducated, very likely illiterate, marginal Jewish peasant from the backwoods of Galilee who, despite all of that, starts this movement on behalf of the poor, the weak, the dispossessed, the marginalized, (and) women,” Aslan said. “This is all about equalizing everyone, that everyone is on the same plane,” he continued. “But Jesus never talked about equality – he talked about the reversal of the social order. He was envisioning a world in which the last would be first and the first would be last. The rich would be made poor, the poor would be made rich. That is an incredibly revolutionary, radical idea.”
This man was an evangelical but with time has gone away from being a Christian. He writes letters to his Christian daughters to explain his feelings about Christianity now and why he changed.
Politifact recently compiled their 10 biggest claims on climate change into one neat, organized list. In it, they sift through claims made my politicians and pundits from both sides of the aisle, rating them from “Pants on Fire” lying to “True” statements.
Republicans have a world of truth hurled their way, and it is epic.
The outbreak of a new war becomes its own reality television show. The media rarely or ever questions the participant’s strategy, objective, or consequences. The same military generals whose foresight and judgment were proven wrong on Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan speak in the same cheerleading tones, and the media plays the dupe as long as the ratings remain high.
After $3 trillion and 7,000 American lives already wasted in the name of defeating shadows, and with a region set alight due to our earlier military interference, one would expect the voice of the anti-war movement to be omnipotent. Other than the courageous but ultimately futile protestations of a few brave CodePink women, the voices of dissent are silenced for no one really wants an interruption to their favorite new show.
After nearly a decade of sitting idly in the wardrobe, war is suddenly fashionable again. The brutal televised murders of Western journalists have sanctified the cause. “It is the first death which infects everyone with a feeling of being threatened. It is impossible to overrate the part played by the first dead man in the kindling of wars. Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim,” wrote novelist Elias Cannetti about the origins of the WWII.
One of the favorite myths that Christian conservatives like to tell about themselves is that they are champions protecting “religious freedom” from the supposed oppressions of a secular humanist society. But that argument is increasingly being tested by, of all people, Satanists. Yes, people who claim to worship the demon that Christians believe runs hell are quickly learning how easy it is to show that the Christian right never had any intention of protecting “religious freedom”. Instead, time and time again, Satanists are showing that the conservative Christian definition of “religious freedom” doesn’t apply at all to faiths, like Satanism, that offend them. Faced with the demands of Satanists, the supposed religious freedom crusaders of the religious right turn right back into the theocrats they always were, interested only in having government endorsement oftheir religion and often eager to demand that the government stomp out religious practices that offend them.
Bill Maher in his rather harsh piece chastises Americans for their gullibility. He expresses the frustration of many who realize that Americans once again are being conned into war. One only hopes that the repetition will work. Many with a platform are starting to speak up. The mistakes of the past can be abated if we spread the light. Light is the best disinfectant.
Bill Maher starts his skit graphicly enough. “When it comes to being baited into war," Maher said, “America has to try a little harder to not be so f*cking easy.”
Could you imagine if the United States was a country where we had universal health care and millions of people weren’t saddled with thousands of dollars in medical bills they can’t afford? It would be awful. Even worse, imagine if all of our electricity came from sun or wind energy? You know how terrible it would be to no longer have to pay for expensive electricity? I don’t know about all of you, but I love paying high electric bills. And I don’t know about you, but who needs vehicles with high MPG’s? Personally, I love paying for gasoline as frequently as possible. Speaking of that horrible “green liberal initiative,” who needs clean water? I’d much rather continue to pay exorbitant prices to companies to pour filtered water into plastic bottles than have it flow straight into my home for safe consumption. And safe food, who needs that either? I ask you, did our Founding Fathers eat clean, FDA-approved foods? Exactly! - See more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/exposing-horrifying-truth-liberals/#sthash.pmRtWHBk.dpuf
The big question, which Small pointed out, is this: Why are Tea Party protesters allowed to demonstrate armed with automatic weapons while peaceful protesters are not? Why are some protesters treated like war enemies, and not others?
“We have this history of using [military force] against veterans demonstrating for their fair bonuses, against protesters demonstrating against income inequality, and people demonstrating against police brutality,” Small said. “But when you had those people at the Bundy ranch a couple of months ago who showed up armed to face off with federal agents because they were doing their duty to collect taxes, no one sent any law enforcement.
She continued,
“When you had people going out in the streets and attacking busses that were bringing immigrant kids from across the border to shelter, I didn't see anybody doling out law enforcement against them either. And when you had tea party people brandishing guns and signs calling the president Hitler, and threatening members of congress and spitting on them, I didn't see anybody calling out law enforcement and SWAT teams against those people either.”
It’s not just a question of police militarization, Small said. “The fact that they can not respond in that way against armed protesters in Texas at the Bundy ranch, but they will respond heavy handedly against unarmed black people protesting tells me something about the way this power is being used.”
Under Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court has decided to expand the protections of major corporations and shrink the rights of consumers. It has decided that money is equivalent to speech and allowed the continued expansion of unprecedented spying efforts at home.
It’s rare that the Chief Justice speaks in public, however, his growing concern over the perception of party divide seems to have drawn him out to do so. Unfortunately, simply telling a group of law students that the Court isn’t influenced by political slants doesn’t change the record.
Daily Show host Jon Stewart blasted three Republican congressmen on Monday for being climate change deniers sitting on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Stewart showed footage of Reps. Larry Buschon (R-IN), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Steve Stockman (R-TX) each thinking they could counter White House scientific advisor John Holdren’s evidence during a hearing last week, only to get shut down.
Meanwhile, Holdren, Stewart said, had the Sisyphean task of “pushing a million pounds of idiot up a mountain,” including one exchange where Holdren told Buschon to “look at the scientific literature” regarding climate change.
The canola and flax export market from Canada to Europe (a few hundreds of millions of dollars) were recently lost because of genetic pollution. Did I mention superweeds, when RoundUp crops pass their genes on to RoundUp Resistant weeds. Apparently over 50% of fields in the USA are now infested and the growers have to go back to use other toxic herbicides such as 2-4 D. Many areas of Ontario and Alberta are also infested. The transgenes are also transferred to soil bacteria. A chinese study published last year shows that an ampicillin resistance transgene was transferred from local engineered crops to soil bacteria, that eventually found their way into the rivers. The transgenes are also transferred to humans. Volunteers who ate engineered soybeans had undigested DNA in their intestine and their bacterial flora was expressing the soybean transgenes in the form of antibiotic resistance. This is genetic pollution to the extreme, particularly when antibiotic resistance is fast becoming a serious global health risk.
Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) proves that firearms are rarely used to stop criminals, according to the Violence Policy Center (VPC) report Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use.
In 2010, across the nation there were only 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm reported to the FBI. That same year, there were 8,275 criminal gun homicides.
Using these numbers, in 2010, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, firearms were used in 36 criminal homicides. This ratio does not take into account the thousands of lives ended in gun suicides (19,392) or unintentional shootings (606) that year.
Every flu season, I resurrect this hysterical and snarky by Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Mark Crislip which was originally published in A Budget of Dumb Asses, which accurately states that healthcare workers who refuse to get a flu vaccine are Dumb Asses. Yes, complete and utter Dumb Asses. Even though this broadside against vaccine deniers is about the flu vaccine, it's all right to search and replace flu with say meningitis, pertussis, measles or anything. And just because it's about healthcare workers, it's all right to replace that with your neighbor, co-worker, or some other anti-scientific antivaccination Dumb Ass.
The upcoming 2014-2015 flu season is just starting, and many physicians and clinics (along with many pharmacies, government flu clinics, and other places) have this season's flu vaccine. One of the best ways, if not the only real way, to prevent contracting this year's flu is by immunization with the seasonal flu vaccine.
And it's time for intelligent, reasonable, and rational people to get their flu shots.
Today over 300,000 people marched in New York for climate action. Hundreds of thousands around the world joined in solidarity rallies, including myself. The pictures from New York were amazing.
At 5 PM (Pacific) I turned on NPR news to see what they say about the rally.
The lead item was about some US general who said the Ukraine cease-fire is not really there, quoting his analysis of the situation at length. To my knowledge nothing dramatic has happened over there in recent days. The second item was about 1500 firefighters fighting the huge California fires - a worthy item, no question. A slew of items followed, including a re-broadcast of what Rep. King (R-Iowa) had to say on Fox News about the guy who breached security at the White House (but caused no damage).
After a report from the Yale Center on Climate Change Communication showed that the term “climate change” elicits relatively little concern from the American public, leading scientists are recommending replacing it with a new term: “You will be burnt to a crisp and die.”
Homeschooling has no oversight or requirements or testing required. This web site was started by a child that was homeschooled and feels he life is much worse off because of it.
Organizers claim that more than 310,000 people attended the People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday. And while it might not have been thatbig, it certainly was immense and easily the largest climate action in world history with people attending from across the United States and around the world, with 2,808 other climate rallies held today in more than 150 countries.
The New York march was attended by notable figures in politics, entertainment, science and the environmental movement, including Former Vice President Al Gore, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, primatologist Jane Goodall, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Rep. Keith Ellision (D-MN), Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), actors Mark Ruffalo, Ed Norton, Evangeline Lily, and Leonardo DiCaprio, rock icon Sting, and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Vyckie Garrison was once a minor celebrity in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by TV’s Duggar family. As a devout, Bible-believing Christian and the mother of seven homeschooled children, Garrison spent 16 years, with her husband, publishing a newspaper for families on a similar path. Today, via a website called No Longer Quivering, she publishes resources for women leaving the movement. Recently she addressed American Atheistsabout her experience. This article is an abridged version of her remarks.
They started 2 unplanned wars and put them on a credit card. The wars got out of hand and there never was any kind of exit strategy. It seems people like this.
A new poll found that liberal parents put a much greater emphasis on teaching their children to be creative and tolerant towards others, while conservative ones focus on ensuring children are obedient and religious. And doesn’t that just sum up our nation’s ideological divide right there?
Still, it’s not just Varoga who’s finding that Democrats may be on to something. Astrategy memo summarizing recent polling for a group that has targeted Republican incumbents over climate change contained similar findings.
“One of the most intriguing findings in the polling is that the Koch brothers have emerged as a negative signifier for Republicans aligning with these powerful self-serving corporate fat cats,” wrote veteran Democratic strategist Chris Lehane in the September 10 memo, which was written for the group NextGen and obtained by Politico. It called the Kochs “an electoral millstone dragging down Republicans.”
A man who went on national television and told how family members of former Gov. Sarah Palin were involved in a brawl at an Anchorage birthday party says he was fired from a his job at a local paving company after speaking up. Eric Thompson, who appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" last week, posted a video on YouTube Tuesday seeking work.
He said he hopes his video will “get the word out that the Palins do have a lot of political power and can get you fired for telling the truth."
Thompson said he has no ill will toward the owners of McKenna Bros. Paving, whom he said fired him for giving his account of the brawl
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Two days after voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act, a law that would help women to obtain equal pay, the four female Republicans in the United States Senate co-sponsored a bill that would slash their salaries to seventy-one per cent of what their male colleagues earn.
The senators—Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)—said that the best way to take a stand against big government’s intrusive attempts to mandate equal pay for women was to take a twenty-nine-per-cent pay cut themselves.
Bishop John Shelby Spong describes faith and God in a way that makes our different belief systems feel less like dividers and more like unifiers of our humanity.
This is readily apparent to anyone who watched the national news networks since Michael Brown’s death on August 9th. Fox was only interested in the story for the sole purpose of race-baiting. They wanted to present young black males out of control. They wanted to focus on violence and rage and weren’t interested whatsoever in presenting a the entire picture. Fox was only interested in showing a largely black community in the grips of chaos and making it appear to all the world that an entire large metro area was on the brink of destruction at the hands of violent black thugs.
the Galt’s Gulch Chile founders have been engaged in a series of increasingly dramatic legal and personal squabbles. Litigation is being thrown around, as are ad hominem attacks. Nearly all of the anger is directed at Ken Johnson. One former co-owner, Jeff Berwick, who happens to run The Dollar Vigilante website, has called Johnson a sociopath and a fraud. A Facebook community has been established calling itself “Galt’s Gulch Chile Rehab and The Exposing of Ken Johnson” to serve as a support group for other investors who felt they were ripped off.
Meanwhile, Galt’s Gulch owes “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to hardware stores [and] service providers” in Chile for work done in preparation for the community. As the pyramid scheme of investors collapses, it seems likely that those workers – many of them poor laborers from small Chilean towns — will go unpaid. The workers being ripped off by the moochers? How very Randian.
The Grim Reaper lingers nearby. By the end of August, the entire online existence of Galt’s Gulch Chile had been scrubbed from the web. Every promotional YouTube video made to entice suckers freedom-lovers has been taken down. The GGC website comes back with an error message. Ken Johnson is in the wind.
It’s almost as if basing a community around people who hate other people and don’t want to have to pay for any services that don’t directly and concretely benefit themselves is inherently unstable. Who would have thought?
When it comes to controversies about curriculum, textbook content and academic standards, Texas is the state that keeps on giving.
Back in 2010, we had an uproar over proposed changes to social studies standards by religious conservatives on the State Board of Education, which included a bid to calling the United States’ hideous slave trade history as the “Atlantic triangular trade.” There were other doozies, too, such as one proposal to remove Thomas Jefferson from the Enlightenment curriculum and replace him with John Calvin. Some were changed but the board’s approved standards were roundly criticized as distorted history.
It only seems fair. I wonder how long before the Koran is given out? The Government cannot say what Religions are OK. (Remember: The Pilgrims left Holland because they were forced to be part of the Church Of England and they said NO. They found what is now the United States and Canada so they could do the Religion (not Church of England) they wanted.
This is bizarre. A teenager pretends he is getting a BJ from statue Jesus and puts it on Facebook. Charges are filed against him and he could get 2 years in jail. The Attorney who charged him had sex in Court after a Republican meeting. The lady filed charges against him. Which one is worth 2 years in jail?
(Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Saturday the spate of conflicts around the globe today were effectively a "piecemeal" Third World War, condemning the arms trade and "plotters of terrorism" sowing death and destruction.
"Humanity needs to weep and this is the time to weep," Francis said in the homily of a Mass during a visit to Italy's largest war memorial, a large, Fascist-era monument where more than 100,000 soldiers who died in World War One are buried.
"Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction," he said.
Obama said he would maintain minimal U.S. military presence in Iraq to keep ISIS at bay. With the militant group being as impassioned and violent as they are, there is some speculation as to how the U.S. will effectively maintain order in the Middle East. That has led the belief that there will be increased reliance of military contractors and defense developers.
Fortune reported that a number of defense companies stand to get a large payday as a result of the brewing ISIS conflict. Being that Obama wants to avoid the use of ground troops, “the drone builders are going to have field day,” said Dov Zakheim, former Pentagon Comptroller.
But according to my source, the initial fight started when Track and his buddy were aggressively pursuing… how shall I put this… “romantic relations” with some female guests. They were allegedly explicit and crude in their depictions of what they’d like to do with and to the ladies, expressing a desire to “bend them over on the lawn,” according to my source. Apparently the lawn was large enough to include places one could be “bent over.”
Hey. You guys wanted this… don’t look at me.
As Track and his companion were wooing the ladies with honeyed words, certain individuals took exception to it – namely the husbands of the women in question, whose presence right there with their wives the whole time was no deterrant to our confident and ambitious Casanovas from the Mat-Su.
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