Category Archives: FAIL

Mental illness: more profitable than you might think

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Add the mentally ill to illegal immigrants and non-violent drug offenders, and you have the magic profit formula for America’s private prison industry and its shareholders.

Mother Jones has a timeline illustrating how deinstitutionalization has moved thousands of mentally ill people out of hospitals—and into jails and prisons.

I’ve taken just the past 35 years of that timeline and pasted it below — notice Saint Raygun’s heartwarming contributions towards mental health services in 1981:

1977 There are 650 community health facilities serving 1.9 million mentally ill patients a year.
1980 President Jimmy Carter signs the Mental Health Systems Act, which aims to restructure the community mental health center program and improve services for people with chronic mental illness.
1981 Under President Ronald Reagan, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act repeals Carter’s community health legislation and establishes block grants for the states, ending the federal government’s role in providing services to the mentally ill.  Federal mental health spending decreases by 30 percent.
1984 An Ohio-based study finds that up to 30 percent of homeless people are thought to suffer from serious mental illness.
1985 Federal funding drops to 11 percent of community mental health agency budgets.
1990 Clozapine, the first “atypical” anti-psychotic drug to be developed, is approved by the FDA as a treatment for schizophrenia.
2004 Studies suggest approximately 16 percent of prison and jail inmates are seriously mentally ill, roughly 320,000 people. This year, there are about 100,000 psychiatric beds in public and private hospitals. That means there are more three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in hospitals.
2009 In the aftermath of the Great Recession, states are forced to cut $4.35 billion in public mental health spending over the next three years, the largest reduction in funding since deinstitutionalization.
2010 There are 43,000 psychiatric beds in America, or about 14 beds per 100,000 people—the same ratio as in 1850.

Read the whole thing: TIMELINE: Deinstitutionalization And Its Consequences

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From 2009 – 2012, these six states made the deepest cuts to their mental health budgets: South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Illinois, Nevada, District of Columbia, and California.

I wonder how many private prisons are in these states?

three pie charts in a row

Image: Mother Jones

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Largest Prison-Owning Corporation Issues Massive Dividend of $675 Million to Shareholders

If you want to make money these days, owning stock in a prison company is the place to do it.  The confinement of human beings, while selling their cheap labor to companies seeking to save on labor costs has become a cash cow.  One company that has benefited handsomely from the profit boom is the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

CCA is the largest owner of private prisons in the nation, behind only the federal government and three states. The company just announced that it’s Board of Directors has declared a special dividend to shareholders of $675 million dollars.

…The CCA operates a total of 67 prison facilities throughout the United States, with a total capacity of 92,500 beds in 20 states and the District of Columbia.  The company was heavily criticized for offering to buy prisons in 48 states, in exchange for a guaranteed occupancy rate of at least 90%.

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It’s not just the private prison industry. Something else to consider:

A jury on Wednesday awarded a total of $240 million to 32 mentally disabled turkey processing plant workers in Iowa for what an expert witness described as years of “virtual enslavement” by [Henry's Turkey Service, of Goldthwaite, Texas] that oversaw their care, work and lodging…

During the weeklong trial that ended Wednesday, officials testified about the squalid conditions they found during a 2009 inspection of the bunkhouse where the men were housed. The building, which was in a rural area several miles from the West Liberty Foods turkey processing plant where they worked, was falling apart, infested with rodents and full of fire hazards.

Social workers spoke of the physical and verbal abuse the men said they had been subjected to by the Henry’s supervisors who oversaw their work and care. They said they had been forced to work through illness and injuries, denied bathroom breaks, locked in their rooms, kicked in the groin and, in one case, handcuffed to a bed…

By 2008, Henry’s was being paid more than $500,000 per year by West Liberty Foods, but it was paying the men the same $65 per month that it always had. The company docked the men’s wages and Social Security disability benefits, telling them it was to pay for the cost of their care and lodging, and it never applied for medical care or other services for the disabled that the men would have qualified for in Iowa.

Henry’s began employing mentally disabled men in the 1960s and 1970s who had been released from Texas mental institutions. Hundreds of them were sent to labor camps in Iowa and elsewhere in the coming decades, where they were supplied on contract as workers to local employers. Company officials argued that the arrangement was a benefit to the men, and that they were once praised for giving them employment opportunities…

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Related: 

Don’t ever say Republicans–with their deregulation and “pay workers less so CEOs can get more” and “corporations  are people” mentality–aren’t job creators. Companies like private prisons and Henry’s Turkey Service are just selective about the wages they want to pay and the type of workforce “willing” to work for those wages. Remember, it was the glassy-eyed Teaparty Queen, Michele Bachmann, who said that the federal minimum wage should be eliminated for the benefit of job growth.

Clearly if you deinstitutionalize the mentally ill / disabled, you’ll be able to make a handsome profit on their confinement in labor camps or prisons — with the added bonus that you won’t “waste” money on having to care for them. If the Republican Party had its way, we’d all be working for $65 a month in company housing that was falling apart.

American fundamentalist Christianity combined with deregulated Capitalism in 2013 – same as it ever was:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” – Ezekiel 16:49

10 years later: documenting the true history of the Bush Administration

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“The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.” — George W. Bush

On this day in 2003, a U.S. led coalition invaded Iraq. President Bush said the goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The Iraqi invasion was strongly supported by Vice President Cheney. As Defense Secretary during the 1991 Gulf War, he opposed an invasion of Iraq, saying it wasn’t worth the casualties or “getting bogged down.” The U.S. combat role in Iraq ended last year after 4,486 Americans were killed, another 32,223 wounded. Direct spending on the Iraq war is estimated at $757 billion, a figure that does not include interest on money borrowed to finance the war — or taking care of veterans. A Brown University study in 2011 said it may also cost $1 trillion more (through 2050) to care for veterans of the 105-month war. On this day in 2011,  President Obama ordered air strikes on Libya.

MARCH 19: On this day in 2003, a U.S. led coalition invaded Iraq. President Bush said the goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The Iraqi invasion was strongly supported by Vice President Cheney. As Defense Secretary during the 1991 Gulf War, he opposed an invasion of Iraq, saying it wasn’t worth the casualties or “getting bogged down.” …A Brown University study in 2011 said it may also cost $1 trillion more (through 2050) to care for veterans of the 105-month war.

OFFICIALS KNEW Iraq Had No Weapons of Mass Destruction

British and U.S. intelligence agencies “were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries,” according to the Guardian.

MOTHER JONES: According to the first-ever comprehensive count of the true toll of the combined wars, the estimate the [Bush Administration] used to sell the invasion in 2003 was about 100 times too low. (i.e. $50-60 billion):

So what did that $6 trillion get us, exactly? Since we borrowed to pay for much of the war, we’re facing nearing $4 trillion in cumulative interest between now and 2053, according to the 30 researchers who worked on the Costs of War report for Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

To date, according to the report, medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans of Iraq have reached $84 billion; ongoing care for wounded Iraq war vets and their families is expected to require nearly $500 billion more over the next several decades. Homeland Security got $245 billion in additional funding thanks to increased threats of terror—real, imagined, and staged—over the last ten years. On-the-ground operations alone ended up being 16 times more expensive than the Bush cabinet’s original estimate for the entire enterprise.

Apparently the Office of Management and Budget was really, really bad at math for a while there in 2003.


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PAUL KRUGMAN wonders why there seems to be so little coverage of the 10-year anniversary:

Well, it’s not hard to think of a reason: a lot of people behaved badly in the runup to that war, and many though not all people in the news media behaved especially badly.

It’s hard now to recall the atmosphere of the time, but there was both an overpowering force of conventional wisdom — all the Very Serious People were for war, don’t you know, and if you were against you were by definition flaky — and a strong current of fear. To come out against the war, let alone to suggest that the Bush administration was deliberately misleading the nation into war, looked all too likely to be a career-ending stance. And there were all too few profiles in courage.

The war, then, was a big test — a test of your ability to cut through a fog of propaganda, but also a test of your moral and to some extent personal courage. And a lot of people in the media failed.

42% OF AMERICANS REMAIN COMFORTABLY DELUSIONAL, IGNORANT

53% of Americans believe the United States “made a mistake sending troops to fight in Iraq” while 42% say it was not a mistake. — a new Gallup poll

FACT: 100% of that 42% also believe this woman should lead the country

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY:

Cheney: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked.  That’s been a major success.
Martha Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
Cheney: So?
Martha Raddatz: So?  You don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No.

TEN YEARS LATER: “I did what I did. It’s all on the public record, and I feel very good about it. If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.” — Cheney in a new  documentary which aired last Friday.

10 COMPANIES PROFITING THE MOST FROM WAR: The 10 biggest arms producers accounted for more than half of the 2010 sales. The composition of those sales reflects the state of modern warfare, as battles are now often fought with remote surveillance and air strikes instead of ground combat.

Click here for a closer look at each company.

“In this charmed circle of American capitalism, Lockheed Martin-, Boeing-, and Raytheon-manufactured munitions destroy Iraq; George Schultz’s Bechtel Corporation and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton rebuild Iraq; and Iraq oil pays for it all.” — Who Benefits from Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System

Unfortunately military contractors and the politicians they handle walked away from the Iraq-Oil Party with greatly increased wealth and power, and left generations of American taxpayers to foot the bill.

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NEVER FORGET:

“Maybe the American people can be brainwashed into forgetting why we supposedly went to war. Near as I can tell, our national memory span is down to about two weeks, and the media have been spectacularly unskeptical on this issue. But the rest of the world is not going to forget that WMDs were our primary reason for an unprovoked, pre-emptive war.” — the late Molly Ivins’ from April 29, 2003, barely a month after Shock ‘n Awe

CPAC2013: Keep F*cking That Chicken

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On Bill Maher’s New Rules segment this week, he talked about a “relatively small group of very shrill people [who are] devoted to — and succeeding at — convincing us that this is a much more conservative and religious nation than it is.”

Maher goes on to explain that CPAC is merely an extension of such devotion:

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Maher discusses his term Shit Kicker Inflation ”the phenomenon of all things conservative being portrayed as way bigger than they really are” with the following examples:

  • ONE MILLION MOMS: the number of followers that One Million Moms has on Twitter: 2,258. 
  • THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE: just as there aren’t a million moms in One Million Moms, there is no “league” in The Catholic League. It’s one guy with a fax machine.
  • OBAMACARE: as an idea, it’s unpopular. But ask voters about the elements in it, they’re all very popular. It’s like saying “I hate pizza! I love tomato sauce and melted cheese on dough, but pizza? I hate that shit.”
  • GUNS: gun ownership is actually DOWN in this country… way down. And yet the NRA, with just 4 million members, has a stranglehold on the gun policies in a nation of 300 million.
  • CPAC2013: Among the featured speakers at CPAC this year include Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Wayne LaPierre, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin… a virtual who’s who of what the fuck.

Here are some highlights from a few of CPAC’s featured who’s who of WTF:

Sarah Palin: ”We’re not here to rebrand a party [but to] put on a fresh coat of rhetorical paint.” Then she said: “More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Should’ve started with yours.” Fresh birther paint!

Next, she dazzled the audience with a boob joke followed by heroically (according to crowd reaction?) drinking from a Big Gulp. Wolverines!

“Outside the ballroom afterward, CPAC attendees raved about the stunt. “Hilarious.” “I thought that was awesome.” “I loved that.” One woman I spoke to said the moment “just really symbolized American freedom.” A man named Tomas told me that Palin holding up the Big Gulp “gave a new look to the Statue of Liberty.” Whether or not anyone, including Palin, realized that Mayor Bloomberg’s soda restrictions wouldn’t even have affected Big Gulps is not clear.” – Dan Amira




Freedumb!

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Donald Trump: “Behold, the scene at Donald Trump’s CPAC speech this morning in the main ballroom. Empty seats were everywhere, although it’s not entirely Trump’s fault. He was given an 8:45 a.m. speaking slot, the very first of the day. Many CPAC attendees aren’t even out of bed yet. Still, Trump was invited not because of his conservative bona fides (he’s donated more money over the years to Democrats than to Republicans), but because he’s supposedly a crowd-pleasing draw.”

Pre-speech:

Post-speech:

These empty seats are Totally False.

Photos via ‘flunky’ Dan Amira

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Mitt Romney: “‘It’s up to us to make sure that we learn from our mistakes — and my mistakes,’ Romney told the crowd Friday. [...] Romney’s re-emergence at CPAC comes after months spent almost entirely out of public view. People close to him say he consumes large volumes of news every day on his iPad and on Fox News. He stews as he reads the coverage of the various budget showdowns in Congress, frustrated that the president has pursued what he sees as an aggressively liberal agenda that won’t solve the country’s economic problems.”

So to Mitt Romney, “learning from his mistakes” includes continuing to bravely watch Fox and continuing to bravely label the President’s insistence on a balanced approach to deficit reduction (spending cuts alongside closing loopholes and subsidies for the wealthy) an “aggressively liberal agenda.” Sure. Apparently the only mistakes Mitt made with his CPAC speech were omitting some birther jokes and not drinking from a Big Gulp.

Let’s be honest: the theme “America’s Future: The Next Generation of Conservatives” really doesn’t describe CPAC. This annual gathering of wingnuts could be more efficiently labeled “Keep F*cking That Chicken.”

Related: Keep F*cking That Chicken

God Save Us from the next generation of conservatives.

Maybe Michelle Malkin *should* quit her day job

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Besides the fact that you’re probably wondering “is she still around?” comes Malkin with a parody video of ‘libs’ in general and the First Lady in particular. Remind me how she makes a living again?

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I get the wig (bangs) but what are the sunglasses for? I hope she didn’t put as much work into this as it appears she did.

Reactions:

Buzzfeed: “it’s definitely something.”
Gawker: “We can see how it would be mildly amusing to right-wingers, considering the low bar that conservative humor faces.”
TBogg: “Michelle Malkin should never attempt to do anything remotely calling for precision movements.”

But that still isn’t her most embarrassing performance:

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‘Twitchy’ isn’t just the name of her website — it’s really symbolic of her life’s work. You kind of feel bad for her.


Our “liberal lamestream” media: the President is golfing!

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I’m constantly amazed by how much our “liberal lamestream” media has reported on President Obama being on another vacation over the weekend, how he’s golfing, he’s on a separate vacation from Michelle and the girls, he’s not working, etc. etc. etc.

Has there been any reporting about how the Republican-led House voted itself ANOTHER week-long break? Or that because they voted themselves another vacation, when they finally return to “work” on Feb. 25 they’ll have exactly FOUR DAYS to work on the Sequester before it goes into effect on March 1? Has there been any kind of reporting by network media on the fact that NOT ONE Democratic member voted for this break? Or that Nancy Pelosi and the other Democrats were angry because they wanted to stay and work on a bill to replace the Sequester?

Your tax dollars at work, Teabaggers.

Deconstructing the 5 most ridiculous myths about Barack Obama – The Week

More government will hold you back! (unless you’re a Republican)

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via sandandglass

But my point is: f*ck you.

The GOP’s rebranding effort continues to fail miserably: Ted Nugent’s SOTU invite

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Texas Republican invites Ted Nugent, an aging rocker and the official spokesman for Impotent White Male Rage, to the SOTU: 

TPM: Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), who threatened President Obama with impeachment over his plan to reduce gun violence, has offered a ticket to the State of the Union to Ted Nugent — whose criticism of the president once resulted in a sitdown with the Secret Service. “I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama,” Stockman said in a statement Monday. “After the Address I’m sure Ted will have plenty to say.”

image source: UTMB (yep, created here)

“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” — Ted Nugent

Still alive. Still free. We’re still waiting, Ted.

Republican Rep. Stockman apparently finds the following Nugent facts admirable: 

  • HOW NUGENT BRAVELY SHIT HIS PANTS TO AVOID THE VIETNAM DRAFT: In a July 15, 1990, Detroit Free Press interview, Nugent crowed about how he managed to dodge the draft. He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical, he disavowed personal hygiene. The last ten days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and with a week to go until the physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether. When the big day came, he had been living in excrement-caked and urine-stained pants. Always the hero, however, Nugent reassured the Free Press, “But if I would have gone over there, I’d have been killed, or I’d have killed all the Hippies in the foxholes. I would have killed everybody.” (via: campusprogress.org)
  • FAMILY VALUES: Ted Nugent fathered SEVEN kids with FIVE different women, to which only two of whom he was married.(via: debbieschlussel.com)
  • RICK PERRY’S 2007 INAUGURAL BALL:  The Motor City Madman played his scorching set draped in a confederate flag shirt – a symbol of slavery in just about everyone’s book – showing his pride for the South and his disrespect for African-American heritage in one crushing blow of 70’s-era guitar force. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly. (via: austinist.com)
  • NUGENT ON SUPPORTING PERRY’S 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: “If I’m not given an authorized position in the campaign [it’s] because I’m too divisive,” Nugent told Billboard.com “I don’t know if I’ll get a stamp of approval because I am so volatile and because the line in the sand in a political campaign can be so ambiguous — and I’m anything but. […] on a rock ‘n’ roll stage, I can tell Hillary Clinton to straddle my machine gun.” (via: Rick Perry blog)
  • COMPARED GUN OWNERS TO ROSA PARKS’ CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION: “There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed,” said Nugent in an interview to WorldNetDaily.
  • THINKS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR: “Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.” — Seattle PI
  • NUGENT, BORN IN 1948, is now 64 years old. An old man with no wisdom.

Want to see President Obama “lashing out” at a cameraman?

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Clear the children from the room and prepare yourself for 24 seconds of emotional bedlam – it’s not pretty:

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So maybe not many (any?) of us would describe what transpired in that 24-second video as even remotely close to what we’d consider “lashing out” (as we currently understand the term on our home planet of Earth). However, that’s exactly how this man with the unfortunate head, Jim “Hurr Durr” Hoft, saw it.

Hurr Durr posted that video on his blaugh (Gateway Pundit) with the following description (my emphasis below):

Obama Berates Cameraman During Press Conference “Come on Guys! You’re Breaking My Flow!” (Video)

During his press conference today on fiscal issues and the upcoming sequester, Barack Obama lashed out at a cameraman in the Briefing Room, “What’s up cameraman? Come on guys. You’re breaking my flow all the time.” The rest of the lapdog media loved it.

First of all (and obviously), H.D. doesn’t use a dictionary. Doesn’t need one! Secondly, we can tell H.D.’s not a lapdog, right? Clearly. Not only DIDN’T Hoft “love it,” he hated it with every inch of his rather large head. And — here’s the important part – he’s so not a lapdog that he actually sees things that no one else can see.  Alternate-reality vision is like a weird, wingnutty gift.

It’s as if H.D. said to himself: “Self? The president doesn’t act like an angry black man. But that shouldn’t matter since he IS a black man, and that’s two out of three. Maybe if I describe humorous moments with the president and make it seem angry by using… words, then it won’t matter if my description doesn’t relate to what I’m describing. My readers love when I do that.”

So here’s to you, Jim Hoft, and your internal dialogue and your magic words and your readers. It’s no wonder conservatives are proud to call you a member of their team (and why all the other teams are so relieved).

[Via LGF, Wonkette]

  
  
obama2016 – ”What’s Up, Camera Man”

Bonus comments from Hoft’s impressive readership below the cut:  Continue reading →

LOL Glenn Beck: “Stop being such a chick, Mr. President.”

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Glenn Beck Calls President Obama A Girl

Glenn Beck Called President Obama A Girl…

…says the very manly, lavender sweater-wearing, doughy pants-load, who’s angrily pointing his manicured finger at the empty space in his studio, and who’s so afraid of absolutely every harebrained conspiracy theory imaginable (and most of his own fans) that he pays $1 million a year for personal security.

Glenn Beck is undoubtedly the very essence of masculinity (to the heavily-medicated):

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Don’t cry for me, Filipina

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Wonkette: “Several news outlets — including your vaunted Washington Post — published a photograph of the handwritten notes former Rep. Gabby Giffords read from at a gun-control hearing [last week]. The lie? Giffords is not the one who wrote the notes. She can’t write up her own notes? What, is her brain not working right or something? Don’t worry, Michelle Malkin was on the case…”

In Conservativeland, this is considered the Big Reveal and somehow takes away from Gabby’s testimony and her current limitations and recovery. The thing is, I’m not sure how “mad” any “libs” were over hearing that Gabby is physically unable to write her own planned remarks, after sustaining a near-fatal bullet wound to the head two years ago.

One thing we do know: Malkin won her honorary ‘Angry Conservative White People’ award long ago by happily serving up this kind of garbage and mud for years and years. For example: as a child born on U.S. soil to Filipino immigrants over four decades ago, and who automatically became a citizen by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, who better to screech and froth against the evil of ‘anchor babies‘ on Fox ‘news’ than this Filipina-American? It all makes some kind of sense in Conservativeland (where the white people are angry and the sheep are afraid). Michelle Malkin is truly — albeit, honorarily – One of Them.

Wednesday’s selections from the annals of ‘Republicans are terrible people’

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Jezebel - After tons of outrage over her horrendous bill that would make rape victims criminals if they sought an abortion, because they’d be  ”tampering with evidence,” New Mexico Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R-Dingbat) clarified: House Bill 206 isn’t meant to target victims of sexual assault but to discourage rapists. She’s revised the language so it’s clear that abortion providers would be penalized, not rape survivors. — You’re probably thinking: how does punishing 1) a woman who was raped and impregnated or 2) a doctor who performs an abortion for her actually “discourage” rapists? You’re right – it doesn’t. Brown is still a idiot (or she thinks we are).

It’s back! The Republican-mandated invasive transvaginal ultrasound has returned in Arkansas (they never stop trying), where Sen. Jason Rapert (yes! Rapert was his name-o!) is hiding the ultrasound requirement in … yet another “fetal heartbeat” anti-abortion bill: Spread ‘Em, Ladies: Rapert Toughens Anti-Abortion Bill. The new Rapert bill would prohibit an abortion if a heartbeat is detected, a limitation that moves the potential prohibition in Arkansas law to the 5th week of pregnancy, far beyond the pre-viability protection period that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld… – Charles Johnson

Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) on Tuesday defended his proposal to tie a family’s welfare benefits to their children’s academic success. [...] Under current law, parents can lose up to 20 percent of their benefits from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program if a child does not attend school. Campfield’s bill would increase the penalty to 30 percent and require children to make “satisfactory academic progress” in school. – Raw Story

Phillip Walker Sailors was charged on Sunday with the murder of Rodrigo Abad Diaz. A 69-year-old war veteran and former missionary was arrested over the weekend on the suspicion of killing a 22-year-old Cuban immigrant who mistakenly arrived in his driveway because of faulty GPS directions. [...] Diaz tried to turn the car around to leave, but Sailors fired another shot, striking the immigrant on the left side of the head. The group, which included a 15 and an 18 year old, said that Sailors held them at gunpoint until police arrived. - Raw Story

A top Hispanic Republican advocacy group co-chaired by Jeb Bush has list of “messaging dos and don’ts for immigration reform,” they say: Don’t use phrases like “send them all back” – Daily Kos

In light of Paul Ryan‘s newfound rediscovered appreciation for the spending sequester’s automatic defense and domestic cuts, let’s take a trip back in time to four months ago when Ryan was making the case during the 2012 vice presidential debate that the sequester’s potential spending cuts emboldened the terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Responding to a question about Mitt Romney’s rash response to the attack, Ryan said: “[...] And we should not be imposing these devastating defense cuts, because what that does when we equivocate on our values, when we show that we’re cutting down on defense, it makes us more weak. It projects weakness. And when we look weak, our adversaries are much more willing to test us. They’re more brazen in their attacks, and are allies are less willing to…” And with those ellipses Vice President Joe Biden could not take any more of Ryan’s nonsense. He interrupted Ryan, and said that Ryan’s statement was—you guessed it—”a bunch of malarkey.” – DailyKos

Huffington Post - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has upped his already harsh rhetoric against outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, claiming that she “got away with murder”… “I haven’t forgotten about Benghazi. Hillary Clinton got away with murder, in my view,” Graham said on Fox News Monday evening, speaking to Greta Van Susteren. “She said they had a clear-eyed view of the threats. How could you have a clear-eyed view of the threats in Benghazi when you didn’t know about the ambassador’s cable coming back from Libya?” — And I’m quite certain Ms Graham must have been equally upset about the revelation of the “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” memo that George W. Bush shrugged off in August of 2001 at his ranch in Crawford. Or when, 10 years ago this week, George W. told us all in his SOTU that Saddam Hussein had WMD in the form of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent!, mobile biological weapons labs!, nuclear capability! – and worse, Hussein was seeking uranium from Africa! We invaded Iraq 51 days later and now, 10 years and counting, and after hundreds of thousands of deaths and an enormous cost to our nation’s treasury, we all know it was a manufactured lie. 

Dick Cheney may have accidentally shot a man in the face while he was vice president, but that didn’t stop Fox News from flying to Nevada to get his advice on recently-proposed gun control laws. Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins caught up with Cheney over the weekend at the Safari Club International convention for gun owners and manufacturers, where the former vice president and his daughter, Liz, participated in a discussion about gun rights and the realism of torture in the film “Zero Dark Thirty.” – Raw Story

There’s no point in pursuing universal background checks for firearms purchases, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre plans to tell the Senate today, because bad guys will get guns anway. LaPierre is among those scheduled to tesify at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s gun violence hearing Wednesday. The NRA sent out his testimony Tuesday. LaPierre once again plans to tout the NRA’s call for armed guards in every school as well as the group’s call for loosen privacy laws the group says keep mental health records from being included in the extisting background check system. But when it comes to expanding background checks to cover all firearms transactions, LaPierre will tell the Senate there’s little point. - TPM

Neil Heslin, of Shelton, holds a portrait of himself and his son, Jesse Lewis, one of the children killed in the Sandy Hook School shooting, during testimony before the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Monday, January 28, 2012. Photo: Brian A. Pounds / Connecticut PostConnecticut Post - Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state. “There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened,” said Heslin… “That wasn’t just a killing, it was a massacre,” said Heslin, who recalled dropping off his son at Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly before Lanza opened fire. “I just hope some good can come out of this.” He asked the crowd why assault weapons should not be banned. …The Connecticut Post put the number of hecklers at “as many as a dozen.” — Watch the video below where he asks his question and the pro-gun crowd is silent at first… then, like brain-wiped, well-programmed drones, they’re simply impelled to screech and howl their meaningless NRA propaganda like,”The Second Amendment!” and “The Second Amendment shall not be infringed!” These soulless bastards just can’t let it go, not even once, not even for a man whose precious 6-year-old son was mowed down in a kindergarten classroom with 19 other children in a hail of bullets. The video starts at his question / their response at 13:29:

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Think Progress – When the Senate passed the long-delayed $50.5 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package Monday, 36 Republicans voted against the bill. But of the 32 no-votes from Senators who are not brand-new members, at least 31 came from Republicans who had previously supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states. [...] The “hypocritical” list includes:

1. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): Requested disaster aid after Hurricane Sandy.
2. John Barrasso (R-WY), Republican Policy Committee Chair: Requested disaster aid after flooding.
3. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Republican Conference Vice Chair: Demanded the Senate be called back from recess to pass disaster aid during a drought and boasts: “When a disaster surpasses the ability of states and communities to rebuild, Senator Blunt believes the federal government should prioritize spending to help the people whose lives and livelihoods are impacted. During his time in the Senate, he has fought tirelessly to ensure that Missouri gets its fair share of those federal resources specifically dedicated to disaster recovery.”
4. John Boozman (R-AR): Requested disaster aid after snow storms in January 2013.
5. Richard Burr (R-NC): Requested disaster aid after severe storms.
6. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): Requested disaster aid after flooding.
7. – 31. Read more…

Screenshot of names of senators who voted no on Sandy relief bill.

 

Facebook and Instagram are demanding what?

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TPM: “Over the past week, a number of users of the popular photo sharing app Instagram and parent company Facebook have been locked out of their accounts and prompted by both services to upload images of their government issued photo IDs to regain access, as CNET first reported on Tuesday.”

I personally stopped using FB months ago, for various reasons. I would definitely stop using it after this demand.

The female Republican from New Mexico who doesn’t understand much of anything

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Can we talk about Cathrynn Brown for a minute? Is she evil or idiotic:

State Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R-Carlsbad) introduced a bill yesterday that requires rape victims to see their pregnancies through during the course of their sexual assault trial, or be charged with third-degree felony evidence tampering.

From House Bill 206: Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.

If convicted, a rape victim could face up to three years in prison.

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Huffington Post: “Brown said in a statement Thursday that she introduced the bill with the goal of punishing the person who commits incest or rape and then procures or facilitates an abortion to destroy the evidence of the crime. “New Mexico needs to strengthen its laws to deter sex offenders,” said Brown. “By adding this law in New Mexico, we can help to protect women across our state.””

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HUH? Brown brings an entirely new level of dumbshittery to the GOP. It’s amazing how again and again these types of people wander out of their homes / hospital rooms and find their way to the Republican Party. Way to go, New Mexico!

Selections from the annals of ‘Republicans are terrible people’

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Liars, phonies, cheats, and hypocrites — and that’s on a good day:

MOAR GUNS!

  • Teaparty freshman Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) is arguing that the 2nd Amendment could be interpreted broadly enough to allow ordinary citizens access to the same equipment that the military uses.
  • “Dear Patriot, You and I are literally surrounded. The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights. On your freedom. Just the other night, President Obama urged them to act. And then he went one step further, spelling out the 23 different Executive Orders he will take to get your guns.” — Mitch McConnell in a fundraising email sent Jan. 22
  • On Tuesday afternoon, the nation experienced its 49th school shooting since the Columbine massacre in 1999, when an altercation between two individuals set off at least five gunshots at Lone Star College in north Houston, Texas, injuring both parties and a nearby janitor caught in the crossfire. Now, top Republican lawmakers — including Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Tim Poe — are using Tuesday’s incident to call for more weapons on campus.
  • Speaking to fans during an NBC-sponsored gun show, Ted “Ol’ Shitty Pants” Nugent said that Obama “is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776,” adding: “If you want another Concord bridge, I’ve got some buddies.”
  • Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), after having been a senator for three weeks, [said on "Meet the Press"]: “You know, there actually isn’t the so-called gun show loophole. That doesn’t exist.” And why not? Because as Cruz sees it, licensed firearm dealers are the ones conducting sales at gun shows, and these dealers already follow the law on background checks, so there’s no problem. Except, the senator is confused — as we’ve seen over and over again, background checks aren’t conducted at gun shows, and the loophole does exist.
  • Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), the fifth-ranking House Republican, laid the blame for gun violence at the feet of an unusual suspect: the children of “welfare moms” who commit fraud.
  • On Monday of last week, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) announced that if President Barack Obama attempted to enact new gun violence prevention measures through executive order, he would have no choice but to file articles of impeachment. By Tuesday, he was comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein for using children as props at a speech introducing a gun control package. By Wednesday, he had stepped back from the precipice, asserting that “impeachment is not something to be taken lightly.” After all, where did anyone get that idea?

The Podpeople of Dumbfckistan

  • A map that shows states where representatives voted on both Katrina and Sandy aid bills but changed their attitude on emergency relief (Katrina yes, Sandy no).
  • The Virginia state Senate is split 20-20 between Republicans and Democrats. On Monday, while state Sen. Henry Marsh (D) — a 79-year-old civil rights veteran — was reportedly in Washington to attend President Obama’s second inaugural, GOP senators forced through a mid-term redistricting plan…

What’s the Washington Post say about it? BOTH SIDES DO IT: Shame on the witless Democrats for not anticipating that Republicans, given the chance, would resort to dirty tricks. And shame on Republicans for continuing their campaign to transform the General Assembly into a nasty, underhanded clone of Congress.

  • Republican Party Chair Brent Kovac in Pennsylvania says that he doesn’t regret hanging at least three American flags upside down to protest President Barack Obama’s second inauguration because “our nation is in a horrible place.”
  • Ohio State Board of Education President says she wasn’t comparing Obama to Hitler when she compared Obama to Hitler.
  • Remember the priest who called 911 for help getting out of his handcuffs and mouth gag? Today that priest’s boss, Diocese of Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki (left), is telling the press that that there was “no sexual component” to the incident because the priest had been alone at the time… According to Paprocki, “self-bondage” was merely the priest’s way of alleviating the stress of his job. Earlier this month Paprocki appeared at the Illinois state house to testify against that state’s proposed same-sex marriage bill… In September, Paprocki posted a YouTube video in which he warned that Satan “will take the souls” of any Catholic who votes for a Democrat.
  • Fox News’ resident psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow believes that President Barack Obama advocates “disempowering” people through gun safety legislation because he was “abandoned” as a child.
  • Freshman Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) claims to be new to Capitol Hill: “I’m new. I was sworn in just three weeks ago as a member of the 113th Congress. I don’t know how they do things in Washington, DC.” But beginning in 2001, Wagner served as co-chair to the Republican National Committee for four years. She also served as the ambassador to Luxembourg for four years after that — a position that requires a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.
  • And, holy shit!