Sunday, February 07, 2016

Let's get our thoughts together, shall we?

I've planned today's post to edify and entertain you.

First, let's go through a few things you need to know to help you vote and understand your media, which has contributed greatly to the right-wing political context we now suffer under.

After that...movies!

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Republicans want to mandate Quiverfull.
They also want to mandate early death
from breast cancer, reproductive cancers,
and STDs and AIDS.
 
There's gonna be a lot of sickness and misery
before high early death rates
cancel out Republican demands
for mandatory birth
in America's poor.
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First, some news and information:

Let's look into Bernie Sanders's voting record and see if he really is all that.

...Yep, he sure is! Check out his key votes here.

And here are some of his sponsorships.

The list of selected Bernie sponsorships is amazing.

Anyone who says Bernie doesn't support women 100% is lying!

Bernie also supports sensible restrictions on guns, suspected terrorists (i.e., not letting them buy
guns), and government surveillance overreach.

4th amendment, anyone?

All of that said, and despite the fact that Bernie has been consistent through the years while Hillary has changed her mind many times on many issues, there is less distance between Hillary and Bernie than some progressives would have you think.

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Old news but still relevant: FOX News disparages women and discourages them from voting.

Young women shouldn't be on juries, says Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, because "they just don't get it." Young women also shouldn't bother voting, she added, because their opinions are bad and wrong, and only older people who have evolved into cranky conservatives should be allowed to participate in democracy.

Guilfoyle believes that young women simply don't have the life experience to vote responsibly (no word on whether "life experience" should be a requirement for men to vote). "They're [young women] like healthy and hot and running around without a care in the world," she said. "They can go back on Tinder or Match.com."

Of course, Ann Coulter doesn't think women should have the right to vote, either. Go figure--do you really think she doesn't want the vote?

Then there's FOX guest Gavin McInnes, who really can't seem to hate on women enough (but it ain't for lack o' trying)....
 
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My bud David Franke sent me this piece from the NY Times: it offers a very plausible explanation of why Hillary, despite her many qualifications, is struggling and why Bernie, who strikes many people as sounding like a gruff old man, is building momentum.

Hillary Battles Bernie Sanders, Chick Magnet

Maureen Dowd FEB. 6, 2016
                           

In 1969, Hillary Clinton (then Hillary Rodham) was an idealistic student at Wellesley College. Sygma/Corbis

So it’s passing strange to watch her here, getting rebuffed by young women who believe that she lacks idealism, that she overplays her feminist hand and that she is the paternalistic establishment.
Bernie Sanders may be a dead ringer for Larry David, but Hillary is running the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” campaign. She can’t fire up young voters by dwelling on what can’t be done in Washington and by explaining that she’s more prose than poetry.
 
She’s traveling around New Hampshire with a former president who could easily layer in some poetry, and a handful of specific snappy plans for the future, to her thicket of substance and stack of white papers. But somehow, Hill and Bill campaign side by side without achieving synergy.
Is it that he’s as tired as he looks or does she feel too competitive with him to ask for that kind of help?
 
As one Hillary booster in Hollywood marveled: “There’s no chance her husband doesn’t understand the problem. The look on his face during her speeches evokes a retired major league All Star watching his son strike out in a Little League game. This is so fixable.”
 
Hillary is like a veteran actor who doesn’t audition well. Bill could tell her not to shout her way through rallies, that it doesn’t convey passion but just seems forced, adding to her authenticity problem. Her allies think mentioning her shouting is sexist, and sexism does swirl around Hillary, but her campaign cries sexism too often. In 2008, Barack Obama used race sparingly.
 
Even after all this time watching Bill and Barry, she still has not learned the art of seduction on stage.
 
She’s surrounded by former Obama and Bill Clinton strategists, but they are not helping her achieve “the goose bump experience,” as Lily Tomlin called it. Hillary has ceded the inspirational lane to the slick Marco Rubio, who’s more like the new John Edwards than the new Obama.
 
In the MSNBC debate on Thursday night, Hillary huffily said she could not be an exemplar of the establishment, as Sanders suggested, because she’s “a woman running to be the first woman president.”
 
But she is establishment. So is Nancy Pelosi. So was Eleanor Roosevelt. Hillary must learn to embrace that and make it work for her, not deny it. As a woman, as a former first lady, senator and secretary of state, she’s uniquely equipped to deliver a big, inspiring message with a showstopping speech that goes beyond income inequality, that sweeps up broader themes of intolerance, fusing the economic, cultural and international issues at stake.
 
She could, as one talented political speechwriter riffed, say something like this: “We’re a stronger country when more people have higher incomes; when women get paid the same as men; when we draw on the diverse talents of immigrants; when we show the world that America is a place that embraces all religions, that offers refuge to the persecuted and the terrorized. When a few old rich white men are the only ones who succeed, that’s not just unfair, it’s untenable.”
Hillary’s most poignant moment came during the CNN town hall on Wednesday night when she said that, as a young woman, she had never expected to run for president herself, given that her husband was “a natural.” It was her misfortune in 2008 to run into another natural. She was not “likable enough” that year.
 
But it was at least fathomable. She was running against the Tulip Craze Barack Obama. Now she’s running against a grumpy gramps, a stooped socialist with a narrow message, brusque manner and shaky grasp of world affairs. But the Clintons are still leveling the same charges, that her opponent’s stances are fairy tales and that his idealism masks tough tactics.
 
And she’s still not likable enough for the young women who were supposed to carry her forward as a Joan of Arc. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, Sanders won among young men and women in Iowa by 70 points. And in New Hampshire, going into the weekend, polls showed him leading with women, racking up yawning margins with women under 45 and with both sexes under 30.
 
Lyndon Johnson said that the two things that make politicians more stupid than anything else are sex and envy. With Hillary, there are three things: sex, money and the need for secrecy.
 
She was in on sliming her husband’s ex-girlfriends who told the truth about liaisons. She has long been driven by a fear of being “dead broke,” as she put it — and a conviction that she deserved the life and perks she would have had if she had gone into the private sector. That led her to do her suspiciously lucrative commodity trades while Bill was Arkansas attorney general and to make Wall Street speeches on the cusp of her 2016 campaign, even though she and Bill had already made more than $139 million between 2007 and 2014.
 
The Nixonian obsession with secrecy by the woman who was once an idealistic lawyer on the Watergate committee staff — on Whitewater, health care and her State Department emails — caused her to unnecessarily damage herself and leave Democrats perennially spooked.
 
While she was giving three speeches to Goldman Sachs for $675,000, her party was changing. As the economy slowly healed, Democrats were seething with anger over the big banks that never got punished for wrecking the economy and the reckless billionaires who are still living large. A tone-deaf Hillary was there sucking at the teat and that rubs people the wrong way.
 
Sanders noted in Thursday’s debate that Hillary’s “super PAC” had raised $15 million in the last quarter from Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal calculates that since the Clintons first entered national politics in the early ’90s, Wall Street has given more than $100 million to their campaigns, foundation and personal finances.
 
When Anderson Cooper asked why Hillary had taken the obscene Goldman Sachs windfall, she gave a stupefyingly bad answer to a predictable question. “Well, I don’t know,” she said, throwing up her hands and shrugging. “That’s what they offered.” She was reluctant to release the texts of her “Don’t worry, I’m one of you” speeches.
Typical of the Clintons, she tried to drag in others to excuse her own ethically lax behavior, noting that “every secretary of state that I know has done that.” After the Monica scandal broke, Clinton aides cited Thomas Jefferson, F.D.R. and J.F.K. to justify Bill’s Oval Office cavorting.
But the other secretaries of state were not running for office, Cooper pointed out.
 
“To be honest I wasn’t — I wasn’t committed to running,” Hillary said.
 
It’s that sort of disingenuous answer that has spurred so many Democrats to turn to the straight-shooting, Wall Street-bashing Sanders.
 
When Hillary accused Sanders during the debate of doing an “artful smear” on her, charging him with insinuating that she engaged in pay-for-play with Wall Street, drug companies and other special interests, some Republicans predicted that the moment would go down as a Gary Hart-style challenge that would come back to haunt her.
 
They said that surely Matt Rhoades, the Hillary oppo-research expert at America Rising, must already be plotting ads slamming the disturbing cat’s cradle of foreign money that came into the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was at State, and the unseemly tentacles of Teneo, the global firm run by Bill Clinton’s former body man, Doug Band, where Huma Abedin, Hillary’s closest aide, worked while she was at State. 
 
Sanders’s populist surge — he raised $20 million last month, $5 million more than Hillary — has led some top Democrats to wonder if President Obama will have to step in and endorse her.
Wouldn’t that be rich? The Wellesley idealist-turned-realist needs the Chicago idealist-turned-realist who beat her last time to save her from the Vermont idealist clinging to a simple reality: Wall Street fleeced America and none of the big shots got punished.
 
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So, who else on FOX News thinks women shouldn't vote?

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a tea party activist that’s appeared several times on Fox News, and founder of an organization where Sean Hannity serves as an advisory board member, said in a sermon recently published to YouTube that America’s greatest mistake was allowing women the right to vote, adding that back in “the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.”

In the video, published to YouTube in March, Peterson explains that he believes women simply can’t handle “anything,” and that in his experience, “You walk up to them with a issue, they freak out right away. They go nuts. They get mad. They get upset, just like that. They have no patience because it’s not in their nature. They don’t have love. They don’t have love.”
Despite his statements being online for more than a month, Hannity welcomed Peterson on his show last Tuesday to castigate the Obama administration over “taking credit” for the Osama bin Laden assassination — but the segment didn’t exactly go as planned.
In his March sermon, Peterson adds that Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student who recently spoke to a House Democratic hearing on contraception coverage, was actually revealing “all the sex” college students are having. “It’s really all about maintaining the freedom to kill babies in the womb,” he says. “Women are now degraded. Women have no shame.”
At roughly 8:30 into his 12-minute sermon, he doubles down, amazingly, saying that he believes America went wrong when it gave women the right to vote.
“I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,” Peterson says. “We should’ve never turned this over to women. And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees with them who’re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction.”
“And this probably was the reason they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman,” he adds. “They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.”
Peterson, founder of the conservative religious group Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny (BOND), appeared on the Fox News Channel on May 1, more than a month after giving his controversial sermon. Fox News host Kirsten Powers even confronted Peterson about his “mysogynistic” speech and challenged Hannity to repudiate it, but the Republican opinion host did not, and instead gave Peterson a platform to denounce “liberal, women policies.”
That may not be a surprise, however: Hannity has hosted Peterson numerous times and even serves on BOND’s advisory board. “BOND continues to fight the good fight standing for the values of God, family, and country, and are deserving of our support,” he said, according to the group.
Speaking to Peterson on May 1, Powers protested his appearance on Hannity’s show, explaining that she was “hijacking” it because “I didn’t know I was going to be on with him.” She then accused him of “using God’s word to teach misogyny.”
“I don’t know if you noticed or not, but the liberal Democrat womens are calling themselves whores,” Peterson replied. “They came out with their so called group of women who are within the Democrat party, and they are admitting that they’re whores and they are saying that they are proud of it. I’m okay with that, I just don’t want to pay for it.”
“I have a responsibility to tell the truth,” he added “You’re on the side of lies. Why shouldn’t I be on the side of truth? And it’s the truth that’s gonna make us free. Somebody gotta tell the truth, so I’m going to tell the truth.”
That “truth,” it would seem, isn’t just about liberal women, or even women in general. Peterson made headlines in January after telling a Huffington Post reporter that he would like to see black people put “back on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working… They need a good hard education on what it is to work.” On his website, Peterson has published an open letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that advocates the arrest of New Black Panthers members.
In another post, he explains what he calls “the end of one-sided defense,” in which Peterson insists that men should re-take the right to physically strike women. “While I certainly do not sanction men attacking women, neither is it right for men to allow themselves to be beaten by a woman,” he wrote. “It’s time for men to re-assert their right to self defense.”
Peterson has also been on the leading edge of racially-motivated Republican attacks on Planned Parenthood, alleging at a press conference in 2008 that the group is responsible for killing “over 1,500 black babies” every day.
Neither Peterson nor a Fox News spokesperson responded to requests for comment.
The video of Peterson on FOX was published to YouTube on March 5, 2012.
 
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My Tea Party Christian friend thinks that George Soros is contributing more to Democrats than the Koch brothers are to Republicans. He's wrong, according to OpenSecrets.org, which provides a detailed write-up and graphics excerpted below:

Koch vs Soros Lobbying Expenditures.bmp

VERDICT: When it comes to the combination of institutional lobbying, 527 group donations and PAC expenditures, Koch Industries far out-spends Soros’ hedge fund and think tank, $57.4 million to $12.8 million. Most of this money is attributable to lobbying expenditures.
Individual-Funded Political Activity
Soros and the Koch brothers have all donated to federal political campaigns and committees. While Soros has far out-spent the Koch brothers in donating to 527 groups, especially when considering his incredible $23.7 million in donations to the groups between 2003 and 2004, the Koch brothers have donated more money to federal candidates and committees.
The Koch brothers give almost exclusively to Republicans just as Soros donates predominately to Democrats and Democratic organizations. Overall, Soros has spent $34.24 million and the Kochs have spent $4.06 million. (Note: This study only covers donations to federal candidates – to see donations to state candidates, go to Followthemoney.org and search for Soros and Koch. For example, as Ben Smith of Politico wrote recently, David Koch and his wife have given $74,000 to a Democrat, Andrew Cuomo, New York’s State Attorney General.)
Individual donations to federal candidates, parties and political action committees (1989 to 2010)
Koch Brothers: $2.58 million
George Soros: $1.74 million

David Koch: $2,224,170
Charles G. Koch: $363,100
George Soros: $1,748,627
David Koch’s Favorite congressional members:
$17,100 – Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)
$7,600 – Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.)
$7,200 – Mark Foley (R-Fla.)
$6,600 – James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
$5,000 – Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)
George Soros’ favorite congressional members: 
$6,500 – Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)
$6,200 – Jon Cranley (D-Ohio)
$6,000 – Ken Salazar (D-Colo.)
$6,000 – Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.)
$5,500 – Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
Individual donations to 527 organizations (2001 to 2010)
George Soros: $32.5 million
Koch Brothers: $1.5 million
So-called 527 groups are non-profit, tax-exempt organizations that are allowed to raise money for political activities including voter mobilization efforts, issue advocacy and other actions. They are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations and unions. Until earlier this year, they could not use these unlimited contributions to expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a federal candidate. Federal court rulings — including Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission — have broken down that restriction. For more information go here,here and here.
As mentioned previously, Soros spent $24 million in under two years and did so in his determination to defeat George W. Bush in 2004. He told the Washington Postin November 2003, “America under Bush, is a danger to the world. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.” Since December 2008, Soros has only donated $4,000 to these types of groups. On June 30th of this year, David Koch made a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association, his largest one-time donation to date.
David Koch: $1,472,000
George Soros: $32,506,500
Soros certainly wins the 527 group spending battle, beating the Koch brothers $32.5 million to $1.5 million. A graph below show the history these donations (click on graph for full size):
 
Soros vs Koch 527 donations CORRECT.bmpVERDICT: Soros rules this category, having poured more than $34.2 million into political channels, compared to $4.06 million for the Koch brothers.
 
Think Tanks and Political Organizations
In addition to donating directly to political candidates, parties and committees, the Kochs and Soros have funded numerous political think tanks and advocacy groups. These groups are not required to reveal their donors, therefore making it hard to come up with a comprehensive list of organizations that have financial ties to these individuals. The institutions mentioned are those most well-connected with the Koch brothers and George Soros.
Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, along with Edward Crane in 1977. Charles and David Koch, along with Richard Fink and Jay Humphries, co-founded the Citizens for a Sound Economy in 1984. In 2004, CSE broke off into two groups: Koch-linked Americans for Prosperity andFreedomWorks, headed by former congressman Dick Armey. According to itswebsite, Americans for Prosperity “is committed to educating citizens about economic policy and a return of the federal government to its Constitutional limits.” In addition to those mentioned above, Charles Koch has helped to buildthe Institute for Humane Studies, the Bill of Rights Institute and the Market-Based Management Institute.
David Koch is currently on the board of directors at Cato, as well as the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a research center dedicated to “market-oriented ideas.” He is a trustee at the libertarian Reason Foundation whose goal is to advance “free minds and free markets.”
George Soros founded the Open Society Institute which is his primary philanthropy organization. According to the website, “The Open Society Foundations fund a range of programs around the world, from public health to education to business development.” While the foundation spends much of its resources on democratic causes around the world, OSI has also contributed to political advocacy groups such as the Tides Foundation. In 2004, Soros pledged$3 million to the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress. Soros is also a major financial backer of the Democracy Alliance, an organization committed to drive progressive activist funding and the recently formed Institute for New Economic Thinking, which was jump started by a $50 million pledge from Soros.
Both the Koch brothers and Soros have given generously to nonpartisan charitable organizations. David Koch, who is still receiving treatment for prostate cancer has donated $120 million to cancer research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $40 million to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, $100 million to renovating New York City Ballet and Opera Theater, and $20 million to the American Museum of Natural History, among other donations. Soros recently pledged $100 million to Human Rights Watch, and he has made many other charitable donations such as $50 million for the Millennium Promiseinitiative to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa. In 2003, PBS estimated Soros had donated more than $4 billion since the 1980s.
VERDICT: Given the difficultly in tracking donations to nonprofits and charitable organizations, it’s almost impossible to quantify whether the Koch brothers or Soros dominate this political realm. That said, both the Kochs and Soros have spent incredible riches in this area with no sign of stopping.
If you want to track political donations to both parties, use Nick Rubin's app, Greenhouse. Here's a short article on how Greenhouse came to be. With brains and drive like that, Nick could be President some day! Oops, probably not--he's too objective...and very probably too smart. D'oh!

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STOP Republicans from mandating birth.
The court order McFall v. Shimp states that,
in the use of bodily tissues or organs,
“one human being
 is under no legal compulsion
to give aid or to take action to save another
human being.”
WOMEN must decide
how their bodies will be used--
not religious extremists, not the state.
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Talk about screwed-up priorities...

This Michigan legislator is attempting to ban sodomy while the Flint water crisis rages on
Senator Rick Jones Republican of Michigan. Photo: campaign website

The people of Flint, Michigan are continuing to suffer from the effects of lead poisoning, desperately trying to find bottled or clean water and hoping that somehow political officials that caused the crisis will eventually be brought to justice. Meanwhile, the Michigan Senate passed a bill outlawing anal sex and labeling it as a felony.
Michigan has an existing state law that punishes anal sex with up to a 15-year sentence in prison. However, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the landmark 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas that laws against sodomy are unconstitutional, invalidating them in 13 states. The legislature insists that the law doesn’t target gay people but claims that it applies to both same-sex and heterosexual couples. It reads in part, “the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal.” Because the law uses the word “mankind” many suspect that it reaffirms the sodomy laws that are already on the books.

The peculiar nature of the Michigan legislation is that this anti-anal sex with humans provision appears as part of an amendment to a bill that addresses bestiality. While the legislature hopes to prevent cases of animal abuse, it is unclear if there is a rampant epidemic of bestiality in Michigan. A Google news search doesn’t heed any results.
The bill was well-meaning; it began as an attempt to create a registry of animal abusers. Many states like Tennessee and New York are turning to this as a solution to prevent animals abuse, but it also serves the dual purpose of identifying violence against children, families, and future killers of humans.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead worked extensively to understand the link between animal abuse and human on human abuse. Mead was one of the first researchers to conclude that cruelty to animals from children could be a precursor to future violence.
In 1964, she wrote:
“One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it… [as] such children, diagnosed early, could be helped instead of being allowed to embark on a long career of episodic violence and murder.”
The bill has passed the Senate, but the state House still has an opportunity to strip the unconstitutional provision. Republican Senator Rick Jones is urging his colleagues to refrain from doing so because it could put a crucial bill to protect animals in jeopardy.
“The minute I cross that line and I start talking about the other stuff, I won’t even get another hearing. It’ll be done,” Rep. Jones explained to The New Civil Rights Movement. “Nobody wants to touch it. I would rather not even bring up the topic, because I know what would happen. You’d get both sides screaming and you end up with a big fight that’s not needed because it’s unconstitutional… If we could put a bill in that said anything that’s unconstitutional be removed from the legal books of Michigan, that’s probably something I could vote for, but am I going to mess up this dog bill that everybody wants? No.”
Logan’s Law is named after a Siberian Husky that died tragically after having acid intentionally poured over him.
Meanwhile, despite the gross risks to human life and health, e-mails show that Snyder & Co didn't switch water sources to save money--Detroit was planning to offer a discount on the clean water. Snyder had a political agenda, which drove his reckless, malicious act. An excerpt from the linked article:
 
An e-mail obtained by Motor City Muckraker shows the deal would have saved the city $800 million over 30 years, which was 20% more inexpensive than switching to the Karegnondi Water Authority.
 
A high-ranking DWSD official told us today that Detroit offered a 50% reduction over what Flint had been paying Detroit. In fact, documents show that DWSD made at least six proposals to Flint, saying “the KWA pipeline can only be attributed to a ‘political’ objective that has nothing to do with the delivery – or the price – of water.”
 
The offer by DWSD raises serious questions about whether Gov. Rick Snyder was lying when he insisted the water switch was motivated by saving money for Flint, which was under the control of a state emergency manager. [...]
 
The e-mail was first obtained by the Bill Johnson Group, a Detroit-based media consulting firm, and confirmed today by DWSD.
 
“If Snyder had accept[ed] this deal, the catastrophe would have been avoided,” Bill Johnson said. [emphasis mine. --Dot Calm's shadow]
 
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Conservative Clown Car has a few questions
for Money Boo Boo and Rapture-Ready Teddy
regarding the Zika virus:
Would you tell a woman bitten
by the wrong mosquito
she has no option but to carry
a micro-encephalitic fetus to term?
Should the government provide resources
to assist in raising the child
she was forced to bear?

What is your
Compassionate, Conservative
answer, gentlemen?

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Phil Robertson, Canuckistani Cruz's "joyful voice of truth," has been spreading hate, especially directed at LGBTQ, for years!! Click the link to see videos of Cruz's good Christian preacher bud that make his GQ interview  look like Sunday school for the kiddies! (This is just one article--there are many more out there.) Apparently, Reverend Phil "loves" other races just like he "loves" LGBTQ. Blerch. Here is a tidbit (or two) from the linked article:

If you were appalled by Phil Robertson's homophobic and racist remarks in the recent GQ interview, then this sermon will really bake your noodle!
The Duck Dynasty patriarch has apparently been preaching hate for YEARS!!!
We stumbled across this 2010 sermon from Pennsylvania's Berean Bible Churchand we were SHOCKED by the cruel words that came out of Phil's mouth!!!
He makes multiple disparaging remarks about the LGBT community, calling gay people "insolent, arrogant God-haters" and heartless, senseless, sinners!

Wow, REALLY? Phil basically just told the entire LGBT community to, well, duck off!!

We wonder whether A&E Network was aware of Phil's ill-spirited sermons before they gave him his own reality TV show!! All it took was a simple YouTube search, so it's hard to imagine they didn't see this coming!!

Ugh!! We're just so disgusted! Why would anyone say such vile things?

Why indeed? You'd almost think that Phil Robertson doesn't think that LGBTQ and Black people are...well...people!! Isn't it good to know that Rapture-Ready Teddy feels the same way? We know that because he welcomed Robertson's endorsement, duh.
 
Speaking of people's disgusting political beliefs, apparently Peyton Manning (oh noes!) has more than a few. A devout evangelical (uh oh!), Manning maxed out his personal contribution to FRED THOMPSON in 2007. Remember him? - He pitched for a company that got caught preying on the elderly. I guess there are worse people Manning could have supported back then, but I'd be hard pressed to name very many. These days, Manning shills for Papa John's Pizza. OMG--Papa John's is one of the many corporate welfare queens demanding that WE pay THEIR employees' medical bills, regardless of whether or not you or I ever set foot in a Papa John's Pizza. Here's an excerpt from Forbes:
The cost of Papa John’s professed fealty to its shareholders at the expense of its employees?
These workers, who typically earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to afford health insurance for their families on what Papa John’s pays them, will find themselves facing a fourth down and long without a play to call when a member of that family faces a serious illness.
But it’s not just these employees who are being left to run a passing route with no ball ever coming their way.
Other fans of the NFL—people like you and I who pay our already expensive monthly premiums for our family’s health insurance needs—will be left to pick up the tab for Papa John’s employees when they show up in the emergency room because they have no other option for their care. That means that Papa John’s will make more money at my expense, despite the fact that I have never set foot in a Papa John’s restaurant nor ordered up one of their pizzas. This means that I will personally be subsidizing Papa John’s profits without ever once becoming a customer—as will a great many of you—because this pizza company is willing to shirk its responsibilities in favor of letting you and me pay the bill.
...and I thought Peyton Manning was such a nice man...!
 
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Love > hate
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A word from If You Only News

Republican Oklahoma governor wants to balance budget by STEALING from the WORKING poor, which should be an oxymoron, by taxing the poor  and shorting vouchers

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has driven the state into the ground. The state once held a stable economy and things were looking up, but it has now been taken into a projected $1.2 billion budget shortfall. The problem came largely from reckless republican spending in the form of tax cuts that just took effect in January while businesses also got tax cuts for building businesses in the state.
This is the outcome of a trickle-down economic policy system. It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It will never work. So stop trying it. But Fallin and her GOP pals just keep on trying it. Only now they’re going to try something even more insane.
This week was Governor Mary Fallin’s State of the State Address and it was a doozie. She had two options as the leader of a failed state: 1. Pretend everything is awesome and tell everyone if we just stay the course we’ll be fine, or 2. Acknowledge things are terrible and propose a solution.

Bless her heart, she didn’t opt for the Brownback way, she actually admitted things were terrible. But the solution she proposed is what is the most heartbreaking. She wants to raise taxes, but not income taxes so that those making more money would be paying their fair share, she wants to raise sales taxes which disproportionately hurt the poor. “Apparently the governor has finally discovered what we’ve known all along: we can’t cut our way to prosperity,” Minority Leader Scott Inman said in a release.
“For more than a year, the governor has maintained that Oklahoma doesn’t have a revenue problem,” Inman said. “And just last week, House Speaker Jeff Hickman told State Capitol journalists that Oklahoma doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a structural budgeting problem.”
House Democrats worked many, many times in 2014 to try and stop the income-tax cut from taking effect in January, but all 71 of the House republicans refused. These tax cuts were flat out fiscally irresponsible, and yet the GOP carried on.
If the sales taxes aren’t bad enough, Fallin also proposed going to school vouchers. Vouchers which will steal money from public schools and give it to people to pay for private schools that they won’t be able to afford even with the vouchers. She also proposed closing more than 100 of Oklahoma’s rural schools, which would have the effect of killing off 100 small communities around the state.
Pathetic. Oklahomans deserve better than this crap. But I guess this is what we have all come to expect from Mary Fallin and her failed policies.
 
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The jobs report shows that the economy is doing
its best in 8 YEARS
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And now, a few petitions (because, let's face it, public outcry is one of the only weapons we have left):
Tell President Obama: Don’t let Republicans block overtime pay
Petition to President Obama and Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez:
"Don’t let Republicans block a raise for millions of Americans by stalling overtime reforms – implement the new rule as soon as possible."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

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Maggie Hassan for U.S. Senate for New Hampshire asks us to sign her petition to help protect Social Security:
Without it, 59 million Americans could lose their safety net and nearly 15 million more seniors would live in poverty.
It's critical that we maintain our commitment to our senior citizens. That's why, as Governor, I signed a law that strengthened protections for seniors by making financial exploitation of elderly, disabled, or impaired adults a criminal offense. And it's why, as Senator, I'll make protecting the promise of Social Security a top priority.
But here's the thing: Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to chip away at the protection Social Security provides. They've pledged to hike up the retirement age, they've attempted to cut benefits, and they've pushed to privatize the program.
With every good wish,
Maggie Hassan

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The governor of Kansas just announced that his state would be the latest to move to defund Planned Parenthood. Will you chip in $15 to help stop him?
Donate Now
Kansas just became the latest state to move to defund Planned Parenthood--joining five other states to attack Planned Parenthood by barring the organization from participating in Medicaid since last July.1
Anti-choice extremists know that President Obama will veto any legislation to defund Planned Parenthood nationally, so they've focused their efforts in states like Kansas where their right-wing allies control the legislature and governorship.
Anti-choice legislators in states like Ohio are pushing to defund Planned Parenthood as well, but we're going to fight them no matter where they attack.
Decades ago, anti-choice activists realized that if they couldn't ban abortion outright, they could achieve the same outcome by simply shutting down all the clinics in a state.
The latest wave of attacks on Planned Parenthood began with the release of heavily edited videos that have been discredited by independent analysts.2 The perpetrators of this smear campaign have even been indicted for crimes committed in the course of the conspiracy.
But still anti-choice politicians are attempting to defund Planned Parenthood nationally and in the states. We've also seen a spike in clinic violence, including a tragic mass shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic that killed three and injured nine.
But Planned Parenthood won't back down, and we're standing with them all the way.
The good news is that the vast majority of Americans oppose defunding Planned Parenthood, and we're going to make the anti-choice politicians supporting it pay a price in November.
Thank you for helping to make reproductive freedom real for all women.
Ilyse G. Hogue
President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
DONATE NOW
Sources:
2. Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds, The New York Times, August 27, 2015
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Gov. John Kasich has a bill headed to his desk that would defund Planned Parenthood and curb access to health care in Ohio. Sign the petition to demand he trusts women and vetoes the bill.
Take Action
Even after 12 different states conducted investigations of Planned Parenthood and cleared the organization of any wrongdoing.1
Even after David Daleiden, the anti-choice extremist who spearheaded the smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, was indicted by a grand jury in Texas.2
Even after months of inflammatory anti-abortion rhetoric culminated in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, leaving three dead and nine injured.3
Even after all this, states are still pushing legislation to defund Planned Parenthood, and Ohio—a political battleground state and home to almost 6 million women—is leading the charge.
Will you add your name to tell Ohio Gov. John Kasich—a Republican presidential candidate—to trust women and veto the bill defunding Planned Parenthood in his state?
Here's the truly shameful thing about this bill: The wording is so irresponsible and dangerous that it could block whole cities and counties from accessing critical public health funding. That includes money for domestic violence prevention, breast and cervical cancer screening, infertility prevention, HIV/AIDS treatment, and sex education.4
No president should sign a bill this dangerous and ill-advised, but that's exactly what John Kasich aims to do in his state of Ohio. What's more, he's campaigning in New Hampshire right this minute on the idea that he's a *moderate* in this election, and maybe that's because New Hampshire voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice and support Planned Parenthood.5,6
It would be the height of hypocrisy if Kasich were to win New Hampshire by selling himself as a moderate and then turn around and destroy access to reproductive health care in his home state.
Click here to sign the petition to tell John Kasich to trust women and veto the bill to defund Planned Parenthood.
If Kasich is so willing to obliterate access to basic health care in his own state, there's no telling what he'd do if elected president. His views are severely out of line with the 7 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion, but under a Kasich administration, we could easily live in a country with a 20-week abortion ban, a defunded Planned Parenthood and very few clinics left with their doors open.
Thank you for all you do for reproductive freedom.

Sasha Bruce
Senior Vice President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
 
 
 
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The fight for wage equality is far from over. Will you stand with me to get this done?

http://takeaction.delbeneforcongress.com/equal-pay

Thanks for your support,

Suzan del Bene for Congress

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CREDO action
Tell financial cops: Investigate predatory lending by Warren Buffett company
Petition to the Department of Justice and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
"Investigate and punish Warren Buffett’s Cayton Homes, Inc. for its history of racist, predatory lending."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

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Yesterday, we learned that another 12.7 million people have been insured thanks to Obamacare.

We can’t allow Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, Cresent Hardy and their cronies in Congress to threaten our healthcare and deny insurance to millions of Americans.



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CREDO action
Tell the Federal Trade Commission: Fight Big Pharma monopolies
Petition to the Federal Trade Commission:
"Fight further consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry and break up monopolies that contribute to skyrocketing American pharmaceutical drug prices."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

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The Center for Popular Democracy wants Congress to EXPAND Social Security in 2016

You’re in your 60s. You’ve worked your entire life, saving what money you could here and there. You’re tired. You’re ready to rest. But when you sit down and prepare for your retirement, you realize -- there is not enough money to keep you, your family, or your medical bills covered.  
That’s the reality millions of workers are facing as they head into old age and find their safety net won’t keep them fed, healthy, or off the streets. 
Social Security is one of our country’s best tools to help people retire with dignity, but it must be expanded. That’s why I’m writing you today to ask you to sign our petition calling on Congress to expand Social Security in 2016. 
Women, low-wage workers, and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the social security crisis. 
Throughout their lifetimes, women are paid less than men and more frequently take time away from work for caregiving. By spending less time in the workforce, they get a smaller slice of the pie when it comes time for retirement. And while some workers have access to pensions and other retirement benefits, they are often inaccessible to low-wage or hourly workers. 
There aren’t many resources for lower-wage workers, either. Over the past few decades, employers have replaced pensions with 401(k)’s, private, do-it-yourself retirement savings accounts that are market-driven. So, when Wall Street takes a gamble and loses, working families lose their wealth and, sometimes, their ability to retire. 
We’re joining more than 20 other national organizations across the country to demand Congress expand Social Security benefits for millions of Americans. Right now, more than 30% of Americans between the ages of 65 and 69 are still working. 
People who work hard and pay in their fair share shouldn’t have to choose between working until they die, or living on the street. We need to expand Social Security and help our friends and loved ones retire at the end of their hard-working lives. Sign our petition now. 
In solidarity, 
Brian Kettenring

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CREDO action
Tell Congress: No legal immunity for the gun industry
Tell Congress:
“Repeal immunity for the gun industry by passing the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act.”
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

 
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Texas Republicans closed down
all but a handful
of Planned Parenthoods in the state.
Texas is now experiencing
an "unplanned" baby boom
of greater proportion than after WWII.
They crunched the numbers:
there aren't fewer abortions--
just less access to birth control,
especially for poor women.
More poor babies for Texas--a lot more.
Republicans must be SO proud of themselves!
 
Kansas and other states, apparently eager
for a LOT more 
disadvantaged babies and families,
are following suit as quickly as they can.
 
My Tea Party Christian friend,
who gets his information
from Fux, Limpballs, etc.,
laments that Muslims outbreed Christians.
Assuming that the majority of poor Americans
are Christian,
do you think that the "unplanned" baby boom
is part of their plan
to keep America "a Christian nation"...
state-mandated quiverfull?
 
The only problem:
Republicans won't provide food stamps,
welfare, medical care, or education
for all these disadvantaged babies and families.
For Republicans,
live begins at conception
and ends at birth.
So who knows if all these babies
Republicans insist on bringing into the world
(without taking responsibility, of course)
will live long enough
or be healthy enough
to suit Republicans' purpose?

Seriously,
sometimes, I think Republicans are just sadists.
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Movie time!

The real God--
an epiphany that will really make you think!


What it takes to believe in Jesus:

 
What would happen if God really did answer prayers?


 
The fool hath said in his heart that there is no god. Just think about that statement--that literal statement, which Christians love to bash atheists with because they don't think about what they're really saying--for a minute before you watch this video:



God's God:


Intelijunt Dezine:

 
The great flood:

 
Biblical family values (these will sound familiar if you've taken Dot Calm's shadow's biblical literalist quiz):

 
Let's make sure we really understand Christian justice, shall we? (Remember, the rapist has to pay the woman's father $500 to buy his victim and marry her for life--no backsies.)
 
 
One more (it's just too funny--be sure to read the label on the rented video)...hey, Ken Ham, were you there? (Please--someone tell him that his awful beard makes him look like a goat. He's scaring all the Christian children because they think he's You-Know-Who...no, not Voldemort from Harry Potter...Christians aren't allowed to read Harry Potter!)

 

posted by Dot Calm @ 5:12 AM