If Minimum Wage Were Living Wage

Costs $16 an hour at full-time work to live in Kentucky, where the minimum wage is $7.25.

 

Think Progress:

Here’s how much you’d actually need:

CREDIT: Dylan Petrohilos/ThinkProgress

Though $15 may sound high, the minimum wage would be at $22.62 if it had kept up with the income gains of the top one percent. Raising the minimum wage to $22 would increase the price of a Big Mac by about a dollar.

While the Fight for $15 has fought the economic model built on low wages, there is still a ways to go before achieving truly fair wages. As Jacobin Magazine points out, “fast-food wages are some of the lowest in the entire job market, and significantly raising them would likely lead to a major restructuring of the wage floor across the entire nation.”

Which Govt. Expenditure Pisses You Off More?

No coincidence that the two biggest are also the two that piss me off the most.

Down with Tyranny:

Government is More Expensive and Less Effective Because of Private Contractors

Here's the thing: government doesn't have to show a profit.  It doesn't answer to rapaciously greedy stockholders.  It's responsible to taxpayers who want good services at a decent price.

Which government can give them, if government hires and pays the workers.

If government gives a contract to a private corporation instead, then it has no control over the workers, no control over the services, and no control over the cost, which skyrockets to cover the corporation's greedhead profit margin.

 

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

As you may have heard, the libertarianish Cato Institute has published a new study to provide some documentation for the standard conservative complaint that federal employees have cushy jobs that soak the hard-working taxpayer etc. etc. More specifically, the study concludes that federal workers are paid 78% more (on average, of course) than workers in the private sector. Time to march on Washington and demand lower pay or better yet firings for these parasites, right?

Wrong, argues the University of Maryland’s Donald F. Kettl in a web exclusive at Ten Miles Square today. The numbers are right, Kettle says, but the idea that the pay disparity is the result of higher pay for the same work is exactly wrong. And the reason, ironically, is that privatizing of government jobs as urged over the years by organizations like Cato has hollowed out the federal workforce to where private contractors are doing a lot of the day-to-day work, at a much higher overall cost and with serious consequences for performance as well.

As I explore in my forthcoming book, Escaping Jurassic Government: How to Reclaim Government’s Lost Commitment to Competence (Brookings, 2016), the big movement to contract out federal jobs, led by groups like Cato, has had a huge impact on the federal workforce. From 1960 to the present, the average level of federal employees in the General Schedule has risen from 6.73 in 1960 to 10.33 in 2014. That alone accounts for half the difference in the public-private comparison that Cato found.

And why has the GS level risen? The nature of federal jobs has fundamentally changed. As the federal government contracted out more work, the number of clerical jobs in the federal government shrank 78 percent from 1973 to 2014, and the number of blue-collar jobs fell by 61 percent. It’s almost impossible to find a federal custodian, cafeteria worker, security guard, or mechanic because almost all of those jobs have been contracted out. In fact, at the now-shuttered Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats plant, which once manufactured the plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons, security was higher even than the White House—and the most dangerous stuff on the planet was carefully guarded. By Wackenhut.

Meanwhile, the number of administrative employees has grown 128 percent and professional workers are up 78 percent—all within a workforce that is just 2 percent larger. Fewer feds are providing front-line services. Fewer feds are providing support services. More feds are managing contracts and are performing more high-level technical work.

Between less accountable contractors and over-stretched government employees, rising costs have been accompanied by dangerous reductions in effective oversight:

The big boost in contracting out has led to a vast array of government programs over which the government has only loose control. For example, at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages some of the federal government’s biggest and most important programs, each employee is responsible, on average, for $144 million in spending. Stop and let that sink in: $144 million, on average, for each employee. This is for a collection of programs that already represents one of the most privatized systems in government. And it’s responsible for big problems, including $75.5 billion in improper payments every year, according to the Government Accountability Office. In fact, one of every eight dollars in the flagship Medicare fee-for-service program is spent improperly.

So keep it up, Cato—and the Republicans who like to quote Cato’s studies and recommendations—and you could intensify this baleful trend towards more contractors doing more expensive work with nobody really having a handle on what’s being done for the money.

Kick Cops Out of Schools

UPDATES below.

This is not enough.  The title "School Resource Officer" is a LIE.  These are COPS.  Cops are trained to beat, taze and kill.  Not teach. Not de-escalate. Not counsel. Beat, taze and kill. 

People trained to respond first, last and only to any problem no matter how minor by beating, tazing and killing have no place in any school.

Shame on every teacher, principal and administrator eagerly abandoning their responsibilities to work out problems with defiant children - because until they turn 18, they are CHILDREN - because they can just call a cop who will take the CHILD off their hands and beat, taze and kill them.

TPM:

The white South Carolina high school resource officer seen on video this week flipping a black female student out of her desk and throwing her across a classroom will be relieved of duty, NBC News reported Wednesday.

Videos posted online of Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields' confrontation with the Spring Valley High School student sparked a firestorm on social media. Fields was put on administrative leave pending a full investigation by local and federal authorities.

Fields allegedly has a record of aggressive arrests, the Guardian reported. A man named Carlos Martin sued Fields in federal court for allegedly pepper spraying him and using force with his wife after pulling the couple over for playing loud music, court records show.

The Justice Department announced Tuesday it would open a civil rights investigation into the incident.

The high school student involved in the confrontation was arrested and charged with disturbing school. Another female student was also charged. Neither have been identified.

UPDATES:

First, cop has been fired. Check your local cop shop to see if he's now terrorizing your neighborhood schools.

Second, the Rude Pundit beat me to this and said everything I was too angry to think through and write coherently.

And third, this is how good teachers handle problems without cops.

It's Not About Jobs: The Real Danger of TPP is Global Corporatocracy

Eric Loomis at LGM:

One of the biggest concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade agreements are the Investor State Dispute Settlement courts that have no accountability to anyone, can overturn national laws that improve labor and environmental conditions, and are utterly opaque. Here is a very useful run-down of the ISDS and the TPP:

In short, ISDS gives corporations the power to sue national governments for lost future profits related to public interest legislation, most commonly focused on the protection of the environment.

SNIP

Since we still don’t have the final text, we don’t know, but while there do seem to be some cosmetic changes that maybe could change these courts a bit to fight against dubious corporate suits, the reality is that these trade courts still give unaccountable judges authority to reject a nation’s climate change legislation if it hurts an energy company’s profit or repeal a minimum wage law if a corporation disagrees. Certainly creating courts that citizens have no ability to access is tremendously undemocratic and is a major problem with the modern trade framework. If these courts gave workers the ability to sue corporations or nations that undermined their rights or if citizens could seek redress for pollution and disease they experienced because some company parked a factory in their backyard, that might be a different story. But as constituted, the ISDS courts a prime reason to fight against trade deals like the TPP.

But environmental legislation is just the tip of the iceberg.  TPP would let corporations force countries to abandon any and all regulations, including those protecting clean air, clean water, safe food and everything else that defines civilization. 

Jim Hightower has been yelling about this for years.

How to Win in Deep-Red Districts.

Run as a real fucking Democratic candidate, that's how.

Down with Tyranny:

This week, Steve Israel's, Rahm Emanuel's and Chuck Schumer's anti-progressive theory of candidate recruitment was proven wrong again. In a deep red Oklahoma legislative district once held by now-Governor Mary Fallin, right-wing Republican Chip Carter was defeated by progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson 53.7-46.3%. It's a district that hasn't been in Democratic hands in living memory. And Munson is no Republican-lite Blue Dog-type preferred as "electable" by the DCCC, DSCC and DNC. Cyndi campaigned on a platform that included LGBT equality, women's Choice and repealing a tax cut for the rich that will take effect on January 1. Carter had been endorsed by Fallin and Senators Inhofe and Lankford and had massively outspent Munson. Beltway Democratic insiders need to rethink their recruitment strategies at the DCCC and DSCC immediately and stop pushing right-wing fake Democrats like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Monica Vernon (IA). - See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/#sthash.EwzQMfUa.dpuf

(In September), Steve Israel's, Rahm Emanuel's and Chuck Schumer's anti-progressive theory of candidate recruitment was proven wrong again. 

 

In a deep red Oklahoma legislative district once held by now-Governor Mary Fallin, right-wing Republican Chip Carter was defeated by progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson 53.7-46.3%. It's a district that hasn't been in Democratic hands in living memory. 

 

And Munson is no Republican-lite Blue Dog-type preferred as "electable" by the DCCC, DSCC and DNC. Cyndi campaigned on a platform that included LGBT equality, women's Choice and repealing a tax cut for the rich that will take effect on January 1. Carter had been endorsed by Fallin and Senators Inhofe and Lankford and had massively outspent Munson. 

 

Beltway Democratic insiders need to rethink their recruitment strategies at the DCCC and DSCC immediately and stop pushing right-wing fake Democrats like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Monica Vernon (IA). 

If a real Democrat can win in Oklahoma, real Democrats can win in Kentucky.  The First Congressional District is open, Floridian Ed Whitfield having retired ahead of the corruption investigators.

Secretary of Agriculture Jamie Comer has already declared his candidacy, as he is facing unemployment in December after losing his gubernatorial bid to libertarian freak Matt Bevin.

Comer's a weak candidate.  He's got a closetful of rumors that stink of decomposition.  A real Democratic candidate with the courage to run a fighting campaign has a chance.

Deadline for filing for 2016 races in January 29.  Get on it.

Public Service Announcement: Pull the Fuck Over

It's Sunday-Slow-Drive-in-the-Country Season, and Slow-Drive-on-Unfamiliar-Roads Drivers everywhere are courting homicide by not Pulling. The. Fuck. Over.

Glance in your reear-view mirror.  See that vehicle behind you? The one with the driver exercising superhuman restraint to keep from tailgating your slow-ass ass?

That driver is not taking a Slow Drive in the Country.  That driver is trying to get home to his kids before the babysitter ditches them.  That driver is trying to get home before the food he bought at the nearest grocery an hour away goes bad.  That driver is trying to reach his elderly parents who have a plumbing emergency.

You poke along, marveling at the woods and the fields and the hills and the lakes, never imagining that anyone might want to use these roads for anything but sightseeing.

News, asshole:  We live here.  We work here.  These roads connect us with civilization and with each other.

We're happy for you to use them for sightseeing - as long as you show some fucking courtesy.

Here's the rule:

If you are driving on a two-lane road (or, here in Kentucky, one-lane roads with two-way traffic), and you are moving at least ten miles below the speed limit (which unless you see signs to the contrary, is 55 miles per hour, no matter how scenic), and there is at least one car behind you ...

Pull. The. Fuck. Over.

No, there's no shoulder.  But there are driveways.  If you just pull in for people to pass you and then  pull back out, you won't get shot.

But if you keep blocking traffic like that, you might.

Debunked Repug Myths

They're not myths; they're deliberate lies.

Via Down with Tyranny:

Love Is Not Christian

Divine Irony:

Make It Like Starbucks

Thanks to commenter memzilla at Wonkette:

The Cost of Illegal Immigration

They pay social security and medicare taxes but can never reap the benefits.  They're supporting the fat retired asses of all those teabaggers screaming for deportation.  Including Donald Fucking Trump.  11 million undocumented immigrants are keeping this country afloat.

The Nation:

In the rural Arkansas town where Marisol Soto grew up, the 21-year-old student was the only undocumented immigrant in her high school. Her immigration status isolated her, but it also gave her a window into how little her neighbors understood about the realities of the issue. “It’s the South. It’s very country, and my story is not common here,” Soto told me. “They don’t know how we get here. They don’t know we have to cross a desert, cross rivers, to get to this country.”

But it wasn’t until the ascendance of Donald Trump this summer that Soto decided she had to start responding to the stereotype of undocumented immigrants as law-breaking, job-stealing murderers and rapists. “Hearing all these comments thanks to Donald Trump getting everyone all riled up, I had to find a way to fix it.”

Her answer was #Undocumoney, a social-media campaign meant to correct the belief that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes. In a short video, Soto ticks off report findings that show undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for many public programs, including federal student aid, Medicaid and Medicare, and Social Security, nonetheless pay into those systems. They are financing public investment programs, even as they’re barred from accessing the benefits.

Soto’s campaign resonated—grabbing headlines and airtime on Telemundo, the New York Daily News, and NBC—in part because so much of the political fight over immigration has been waged with misleading facts and figures. At the second GOP debate, for example, Trump repeatedly harped on a mysterious $200 billion the U.S. is supposedly spending annually to “maintain what we have” when it comes to undocumented immigrants. It’s still unclear what Trump was even referring to with the figure. (The cost of deporting every single undocumented immigrant from the country, as Trump would also like, has been estimated at $140 billion.)

So here are three simple facts to ground further debate over the supposed costs of undocumented immigration.

#1 Yes, undocumented immigrants pay taxes.

And they do so in multiple forms. Undocumented immigrants are not just workers, they’re also consumers who must pay standard sales and excise taxes. According to an April 2015 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $11.8 billion in state and local taxes in 2012. According to ITEP, half of undocumented immigrant households file income taxes using special ID numbers issued by the federal government to those who don’t have Social Security numbers.

#2 Undocumented immigrants are a net financial gain for Social Security, in particular.

In 2013, the Social Security Administration estimated that for the year 2010, undocumented immigrants paid $12 billion in excess tax revenue into Social Security—money they cannot currently withdraw. Or, as the SSA’s brief put it, “earnings by unauthorized immigrants result in a net positive effect on Social Security financial status generally.”

It’s true that while undocumented immigrants constitute an often unacknowledged boon for the federal government, studies have concluded that they tend to use more in local and state public services than they pay into those systems, the Congressional Budget Office found in 2007. But even subtracting the cost of local and state services for which undocumented immigrants are eligible—public education, for instance—from what they contribute in taxes, the CBO found that the “net impact of the unauthorized population on state and local budget…is most likely modest.”

But it’s not the numbers Trump and other GOP candidates have spouted off that have left the deepest impression on Soto; it’s the harmful idea that undocumented immigrants are leeches on the US economy. “He did not use the word ‘parasite’—but after hearing him say that we are more of a burden than a help to this country, that’s how it made me feel,” Soto said.

Her campaign asks supporters to stamp US currency with the phrase “#undocumoney” to show that even those who don’t have the authorization to be in the U.S. contribute to the economy. On Instagram, over 400 posts have included the tag in photos of people fanning their payday earnings or just taking photos of cold hard cash. “We’ve gotten e-mails from teachers saying: You’ve given me information I was not aware of,” Soto says. She adds that even “people who adore the Confederate flag” have told her she’s brave for speaking up.

“The problem with immigration is ignorance, and if you inform people of what’s really going on I think we would have so much better of a reaction,” Soto said.

#3 But the “cost” of undocumented immigration isn’t even the point.

Unfortunately, there’s a deeper racialized xenophobia that abets the kind of ignorance Soto wants to fight—one that facts and figures just can’t combat. The belief that immigrants are dirty and diseased thieves is so worn, and so reliable a fear-mongering tactic that casting them as such is practically engraved into the modern (and historical) US electoral politics playbook.

SNIP

The debate over whether immigrants do or don’t pay taxes is, in other words, a very old one. Or, as William Gaston, a domestic policy adviser in President Bill Clinton’s administration, told the Fiscal Times, “I’ve been listening to this argument for so long I can no longer figure out what’s new about it.”

That’s why some argue that those who support undocumented immigrants do themselves a disservice by focusing narrowly on correcting lies about dollars and cents. “When we’re positioned as and only valued as and only advocated for in terms of what we can contribute economically, we leave out so many people,” says Sonia Guinansaca, a writer and staffer at CultureStrike, a pro-immigrant arts organization.

And for the nth time, unless you are a full-blooded Native American, shut the fuck up.

Why Taxes on the Rich Should Be 99 Percent

Eric Loomis on foreign tax havens and how the rich are using them avoid taxes, thus stealing everything from the rest of us

Basically, it’s sheer greed and the only way to stop that is for the government to crack down and take the money. But it doesn’t do that. Instead, it provides incentives to keep doing it through proposing the repatriation holiday. 

Criminalizing the behavior and arresting and prosecuting the tax frauds who do this would be a lot more effective. As we see over and over, carrots do not work for the rich. Like with Volkswagen executives taking advantage of industry self-regulation to cheat the pollution standards, being nice to corporations leads to terrible policy outcomes because they are going to cheat the system any way possible. And with the chances of being caught relatively low and the government accommodating to corporate interests in most cases, the wealthy will continue with this sort of behavior.

Kimmy Admits She Has Illegal Second Job

Really, bitch?  I'm a sailor for Zeus, and Zeus says get babby jeebus to sign your paychecks or resign.

From AP:

The Kentucky clerk who found herself at the center of a heated national debate when she refused to license same-sex marriages described herself in an email as a "soldier for Christ."

Davis' emails, obtained by the Associated Press under the Kentucky open records law, offer some insight into her state of mind in the weeks leading up to her five-day stint in jail for defying a federal court order to issue the licenses.

"The battle has just begun," Davis wrote in the email to a supporter in July, hours after four couples filed a federal lawsuit against her. It was the start of a monthslong legal fight against licensing same-sex marriages.

13th Amendment Bars Forced Birth

A letter to The Nation:

In her article “A Better Roe v. Wade?” [July 20/27], Katha Pollitt talks about the 19th Amendment and the 14th Amendment but fails to mention the most relevant one: the 13th Amendment. No man will ever be forced to grow a fetus within himself; no woman should be either. This is a form of unpaid servitude: having one’s body taken over so that another can derive sustenance from it. If one wants a baby, it is an act of love; if one does not, it is a horror story.

Marie Cobb
merritt island, fla.

 

Vote Like the Rich

They don't just have all the money; they do all the voting, too.

 

The non-rich outnumber the rich 100 to one, but under-vote them by half.  

 

You want elected officials who will tax the rich out of existence?  Get out and fucking vote.

Via Down With Tyranny:

 

 

Kentucky's gubernatorial election is two weeks from today.  

Racist Idiot KY "Prosecutor" Pretends to Know Law

First of all, you don't even have to have a high school diploma in this state to be an "assistant county attorney".  Pass the bar, yes.  High school diploma, no. They are not elected, but rather hired by the elected county attorney, most of whom hand out "assistant" jobs to their idiot nephews who can't get real jobs.

Secondly, "assistant county attorneys" hardly qualify for the title "prosecutor."  They handle misdemeanor cases in traffic court.  My dog could do a better job.

Because my dog is not a racist shit-head.

Being Hispanic in Oldham County, Kentucky is enough to be pulled over by a cop, according to one prosecutor. You can also be coerced into a plea deal if you have a certain last name.

Last July, Mauro Martinez was pulled over for speeding but he was not charged. Instead, he was cited for not having a license because he only had a Guatemalan ID at the time. During a court hearing about the citation, Assistant County Attorney Travis Combs pointed out that the defendant’s issue was that he was pulled over for being Hispanic. In a video recording of the hearing, prosecuting attorney John K. Carter says “that’s probable cause.”

After a video of the exchange was circulated by the Courier-Journal, Carter reversed course and said the speed at which Martinez was driving was probable cause. But the judge presiding over the case and Martinez’ defense attorney, Dawn Elliot, did not interpret Carter’s remarks that way.

SNIP

“Clearly he had an opportunity to clear that up on the record over 24 hours ago, but now there’s buzz about it,” Elliot said. “My reaction and the judge’s reaction speaks for itself. We certainly interpreted him talking about probable cause for my client’s ethnicity.”

Elliot believes Carter’s comment highlights a growing trend of racially profiling Hispanics in the county. She claims that prior to Martinez’ trial, she was informed by an assistant attorney that there is a special form for “people that have that type of last name” to plead guilty. If people without driver’s licenses are stopped, as Martinez was, officers encourage them to sign the form and agree to two years of unsupervised probation. If they are caught driving again without proper ID, they can be sentenced to jail for 90 days.

Elliot is calling for an investigation of the county's officers.  Oldham County, by the way, borders Louisville, which spurred some white flight a few years ago when it merged the city and county.  Looks like Oldham got its share of racist shitheads.

Freakazoid Pig-Headedness Will Bankrupt Wilmore

Hey, Mayor Moron:  Google "Freedom From Religion Foundation."  They've spent years suing dozens of idiots like you and winning every time.  The real stupid cities keep appealing until they're bankrupt.

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

The longtime mayor of Wilmore said Sunday that a lighted white cross that sits on top of the city's water tower will not be moved despite a legal threat by a Madison, Wisconsin, group that says the cross is unconstitutional.

"In nearly 40 years, no one has ever complained about this cross except this group from Madison," said Wilmore Mayor Harold Rainwater, who has been mayor of the Jessamine County town of about 6,000 almost that long. "It means a lot to us. It's important to our town. There's nothing that's drawn our town together more than the possibility of losing this cross."

On Sept. 29, lawyers with the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent Rainwater an email asking that the cross be removed from the water tower and that pictures of the water tower and cross be removed from Wilmore's official website.

"It is unlawful for Wilmore to display a patently religious symbol such as a Christian cross on public property," wrote Rebecca S. Markert, a staff attorney for the foundation. The group could not be reached for additional comment Sunday.

The email cites several federal court cases regarding the separation of church and state, adding that "a majority of federal courts has held displays of Latin crosses on public property to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion."

In the email, Markert says the group successfully sued Whiteville, Tenn., in 2011 over a similar case. The Tennessee town had a large cross on its water tower that was also lit up at night. The case was settled for $20,000, with the town paying for the Freedom From Religion Foundation's legal fees. Whiteville also was sent a letter asking that the cross be removed, and a suit was filed after the letter was ignored, Markert wrote.

 And of course the freakazoids turned out to protect their invisible sky wizard.

Shooting God

Divine Irony:

A Con-Con Will Harm Democracy, Not Heal It

I wonder if Cenk Uygur, D.R. Tucker and the other Article 5 lovers would be so quick to dismiss the doubters if there were a better-than-even chance that a Constitutional Convention would be high-jacked by fanatics determined to restore black male slavery, rather than just female reproductive slavery.
 

Guns Are For Cowards

Real American heroes don't need them.

TPM:

A 75-year-old Army veteran who fought off a knife-wielding man who was threatening to kill children at an Illinois library says training he received nearly five decades ago helped him in the scuffle.

James Vernon was teaching a chess class with 16 children at Morton Public Library when authorities say 19-year-old Dustin Brown entered the room with two knives. According to a court affidavit, Brown told police afterward that he "failed in his mission to kill everyone."

SNIP

Vernon, a retired Caterpillar Inc. employee, told the newspaper he remembered the knife-fight training the Army had given him. Despite his cuts, Vernon contended he won his "90 seconds of combat" with Brown, "but I felt like I lost the war." He suffered two cut arteries and a tendon in his left hand as he blocked Brown's knife swipe.

He said he first tried to calm Brown and deflect his attention from the children attending his class.
"I tried to talk to him. I tried to settle him down," he said. "I didn't, but I did deflect his attention" from the children "and calmed him a bit. I asked him if he was from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his life sucks."

Vernon said the man backed away as he got closer to him, but he was able to put himself between Brown and the room's door, with the children hiding under the tables behind him.

"I gave them the cue to get the heck out of there, and, boy, they did that!" Vernon said. "Quick, like rabbits."

What Repug Tax Cuts Would Buy

This refers to jebbie's "plan," but all the repugs propose the same thing: stripping trillions from the public to further engorge the obescely rich.

Matt Yglesias:

The plan, as currently released, is not sufficiently detailed to permit credible independent scoring. But even four economists handpicked by Bush's team to analyze it say that under standard methods it would reduce federal revenue by about $3.4 trillion over its first 10 years. That's trillion with a T. Which is to say that if you had a stack of a billion dollars, you would need to add 3,399 more billion-dollar stacks to equal the cost of this program.

To get a sense of the scale, consider the following big government liberal proposals:

• Create subsidized job opportunities for 80,000 adults per year ($10 billion)
• The Center for American Progress' plan for high-quality day care ($40 billion)
• A bipartisan plan to boost the EITC to help the working poor that's held up in Congress because of disagreement on how to pay for it ($60 billion)
• Barack Obama's proposal for universal preschool ($75 billion)
• Eliminate the Highway Trust Fund fiscal gap ($168 billion)
• Hillary Clinton's plan for debt-free college ($350 billion)
• A national high-speed rail network ($500 billion)
• End sequestration, and adopt the Congressional Progressive Caucus's wish list of domestic discretionary funding increases ($1.9 trillion)

Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Especially if you don't specify how you are going to pay for it. But it all adds up to only $3.1 trillion in new budgetary commitments. Read too quickly and the difference between $3.1 trillion and $3.4 trillion can seem like just a decimal point, but $300 billion is a lot of money, even spread across 10 years. So much that it would be enough to add in the $30 billion a year it would take to end hunger globally.

Obviously, a person is free to believe that delivering a large tax cut to owners of corporate bonds will do more to boost social mobility than providing preschool to poor children, or that reducing the tax burden on people who inherit $10 million estates is more morally urgent than reducing global malnutrition. 

But that would make you a moral monster.  More honest to just admit that you don't give a flying fuck about anybody who is not a billionaire, except to the extent that the poor can be mined and exploited for every last dime they can still produce.

The Un-American-ness of "Constitutional Conservatism"

No, you can't argue with people who think letting people marry whom they love is cause for the violent overthrow of the government

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

This isn’t, by the way, just about incitement to violence. All this talk about liberal “tyranny” also illustrates the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of “constitutional conservatism.” Most liberals, even if they really, really hate conservatives, would concede that everybody has the right to contend for their point of view in the arena of elective politics. The central conceit of constitutional conservatism is to deny the equivalence of policy preferences, and to assert that favored conservative policies are permanently enshrined by the Founders—who in turn were inspired by divine and natural law—immune from popular majorities, no matter how large. It helps to understand that when someone like Ted Cruz talks about “liberties,” he’s not just talking about freedom of expression or even of religion, but the right to use your private property however you damn well please free from taxation or regulation or unions.

If you feel your own POV is the only legitimate set of ideas consistent with the Constitution or even the structure of the universe and the Will of God, then you are not going to be interested in compromise or limits on your exercise of power or civility towards the opposition, are you? I’m afraid that is more responsible for what Tom Mann calls “our current distemper” than is usually recognized.

In any event, in the short term progressives, responsible conservatives, and most of all the MSM need to challenge Second Amendment ultras either to repudiate the right to armed insurrection or stop using rhetoric that suggests one of our two major parties is promoting “tyranny” or trying to “destroy the country.”

Choose: Dystopian Hellscape or Powerful National Facing Real Problems

Conservatives have always played the politics of fear and hatred.   

 

Even Especially Ronald Reagan, who announced his candidacy for the presidency and promised to restore "states' rights" while standing not 3 miles from the spot where "defenders of states' rights" murdered three civil rights workers not 15 years earlier.  Reagan, who rode the lies of "welfare queen" and "buying vodka with food stamps" to victory.

 

Which side are you on? 

Digby: 

Republican America is a dystopian hellscape in which evil, violent foreigners are trying to kill us in our beds while rapacious jackbooted government thugs try to wrestle our guns from our cold, dead fingers and Planned Parenthood sociopaths are committing mayhem on children and selling the body parts. And that’s just for starters.

Democratic America is a very powerful nation struggling with a declining middle class and economic insecurity at the hands of the ultra-rich, requiring some energetic government intervention to mitigate income inequality, solve the looming crisis of climate change and manage global crises without plunging the nation into more wars. They also must hold off that anarchistic opposition which sees the world as a dystopian hellscape and that may be the greatest challenge of all.

No, No, NO, Planned Parenthood - NO!

When you're in a fight to the death with the demented forced-birthers of the GOP, you never, ever, EVER concede ANYTHING.

You double down.  You say "fuck you, we're obeying the law, you fuck off and die."

You ADVERTISE the fact that heroic women are donating fetal tissue to help cure HIV and Parkinson's and everything else.

You demand a ten-fold increase in your federal funding that you will begin immediately using to pay for abortions.

And you declare your intention to start performing second-trimester surgical abortions in every single county in the United States.

You do NOT do this stupid, suicidal shit:

Planned Parenthood said it will stop taking reimbursements for procuring fetal tissue used in medical research, a step to defuse the political maelstrom that includes a campaign by congressional Republicans to end federal funding for the group.

 GOP motherfucking liars want a fight, let's give them a goddamn FIGHT.

This Is YOUR $620 Billion They Are Stealing Every Year

Billionaire Motherfuckers like the Justices of West Virginia.

Coal companies controlled by a billionaire running for governor of West Virginia owe $3.5 million in delinquent property taxes in Eastern Kentucky, shortchanging schools and other public agencies at a time many are struggling.

The companies controlled by Jim Justice have delinquent taxes on mining equipment, land or coal reserves — or all three in some cases — in Pike, Floyd, Knott, Harlan, Magoffin and Breathitt counties, tax records show.

Jay Justice, the son of Jim Justice and an executive of a coal company controlled by his father, vowed that his father's companies ultimately will satisfy their tax debts.

Everybody who thinks the Injustices will pay a penny in taxes of any kind, stand on your head.

Because they never, ever, do.

New analysis finds that the 500 largest companies in the US are keeping some $2.1 trillion offshore in order to avoid paying $620 billion in corporate taxes yearly.

How many $50,000 a year jobs would $620 billion every year buy?  How many state-of-the-art schools?  How many cures for cancer and arthritis and AIDs?

Tax the criminals out of existence.

Where are the Social Worker Cards? The Safety Inspector Cards? The Mental Health Counselor Cards? The Firefighter Cards?

What they're really teaching children with these cards is to view cops as super-authorities to be obeyed instantaneously and never questioned.

Just exactly what the billionaires and corporations want in their serfs.

Kat Russell at the Paducah Sun:

Get ready to start collecting and trading because the Paducah Police Department has teamed up with Head Start to bring back its once-loved officer baseball cards.

Discontinued about 12 years ago due to budget constraints, the new cards, paid for by Head Start as part its community partnership efforts, will be hitting the streets in the next few weeks.

Each officer will have a card with his or her picture and name on the front. On the back it will give their rank and division, how long they've been on the force and some personal information about the officer, such as where the officer is from, hobbies they enjoy or sports teams they like.

In the past, the baseball cards were used as a way to encourage the community to get to know PPD's officers, said Gretchen Morgan, the department's community resource officer. The cards gave people a reason to approach officers, chat with them and ask them for their cards.

That, said Kristy Lewis, director of Head Start for Paducah Public Schools, is what she hopes to encourage children to do when the new cards come out.

"We want our kids to know that it's OK to go up to an officer and say hello and ask them for their cards," Lewis said. "I think in doing that, kids will see that the officers are here to support them and help them."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/10/10/4080871/police-in-paducah-ready-to-unveil.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

The Kids Are All Right: "Cocks, Not Glocks"

If only you could get away with this at your open-carry workplace ....

Think Progress:

Students at the University Of Texas at Austin are planning to protest a new law that permits the concealed carry of handguns on campus — with dildos.

The “campus carry” law passed by the Texas legislature and signed by the Governor in June, requires UT Austin and the other campuses in the UT system to allow students to carry guns on campus. It gives the schools some discretion on how to implement the law.

The protest is designed to draw attention to the fact that carrying a dildo to class could be “prohibited expression” under university rules. The rules prohibit “any writing or visual image, or engage in any public performance, that is obscene.”

“You’re carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE DILDO. Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play,” the organizer, Jessica Jin, wrote.

On Facebook, 1,800 people have registered for the event, which is scheduled for next August when the law goes into effect.


Last week, a tenured professor announced he would give up teaching at UT Austin because he was concerned about his safety in light of the new law.

The law is opposed by University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven. “I’ve spent my whole life around guns. I grew up in Texas hunting. I spent 37 years in the military. I like guns, but I just don’t think having them on campus is the right place,” McRaven told CNN.

Concealed carry is opposed by campus police chiefs. 9 out of 10 police chiefs think the best way to deal with guns on campus is to prohibit them. Only 5 percent of police chiefs think allowing concealed carry on campus would prevent shootings.

Concealed carry on campus is also opposed by 95 percent of university presidents, 94 percent of university faculty and 79 percent of college students.

College campuses also tend have a high level of alcohol and drug use which can lead to “impaired judgment about whether to shoot a gun.”

Solar is Winning, Even in Kentucky

It's going up right next to one of the biggest coal-burning plants in the state, which is either super ironic or yet another call to bury the decomposing corpse of Big Coal.


Greg Kocher at the Herald:

Plans are proceeding to build in Mercer County the largest solar-powered generating facility in Kentucky.

Louisville Gas & Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities announced Friday that they have secured a contract for engineering, procurement and construction of the facility, and that construction is expected to begin in November.

Amec Foster Wheeler, an engineering and project-management company, has won a competitive bid to build the state's largest photovoltaic facility at the E.W. Brown Generating Station near Burgin and Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. The generating station uses coal and natural gas to produce electricity.

"Our new solar facility will allow us to learn more about this technology," LG&E and KU Chief Operating Officer Paul W. Thompson said in a release. "From a pragmatic standpoint, we'll learn how commercial-scale solar energy is impacted by factors such as cloud cover and how it integrates with our existing generating units."

The new 10-megawatt facility, approved by the Kentucky Public Service Commission in December, will occupy about 50 acres of the E.W. Brown plant's property. It will consist of more than 45,000 solar panels on a fixed-tilt rack system.

The panels will be positioned to have the best available sunlight for producing energy. The site is projected to produce 19,000 megawatt hours of energy, enough to provide energy to 1,500 homes based on a usage of 1,000 kilowatt hours per month, the release said.

SNIP

The facility is expected to be operational by the late spring of 2016.

SNIP
In April, Amec Foster Wheeler completed one of the largest solar plants in the country at Boulder City, Nev. Situated on 1,400 acres, it taps into intense desert sun to produce energy for about 80,000 homes. 

One of those.  Get us one of those big-ass solar plants.  Put it on top of a coal-raped mountain.  Make my fucking electric company sell me solar energy.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/10/10/4081110/plans-move-forward-for-largest.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

Infinity of christianity

Divine Irony:

(Source: robertgreeningersoll)

Make Guns As Uncool As Smoking

Smokes aren't in the Constitution - although neither is the word "gun" - but social opproprium is a powerful force.  I am old enough to remember when people smoked unrestricted everywhere - planes, offices, schools - and anyone who dared suggest the smoker put it out was ignored as a rude freak.

It wasn't that long ago that no one would bet against Big Tobacco prevailing against even the hint of regulation.

But anti-tobacco advocates kept working, starting with local ordinances and then statewide anti-smoking laws, mostly in northern blue states.  Never happen in tobacco country, I scoffed.  And then Lexington, KY - burley tobacco capitol of the universe - banned smoking in restaurants and suddenly it was game over.

The tipping point won't be another gun massacre - we've proven we don't give a shit about those.  The tipping point will be the Surgeon General declaring guns a national health crisis.

Michael Maiello at TPM:

“Sorry, I can’t bring my kids to your place if there are unsecured guns in the house.”

“Thanks for coming over. Do you mind leaving your shoes in the hallways and your pistol off my property?”

“I can’t stay over if you keep a gun in the bedroom, especially if we’ve been drinking. Guns make things less safe when the lights go out.”

It’s surprisingly easy to imagine a society where gun ownership is looked down upon, if not scorned outright. This already happened with smoking, at least partly as a result of a public education campaign aimed at young people, and it happened when polite society finally came down against people flying the Confederate flag after the Charleston church shootings this year. Sometimes, when legislative action is difficult or downright impossible, a cultural approach works to curtail dangerous behaviors.

In short, we can make gun ownership uncool.

SNIP

Like cigarettes, guns are big business. Smith & Wesson has a $1 billion market capitalization and a CEO who made $1.9 million last year, Sturm, Ruger & Co. has a $1.1 billion market cap and a CEO who made more than $1.1 million in the latest fiscal year. The National Rifle Association boasts 4.5 million members and regularly takes in contributions approaching $100 million a year, in addition to its program revenues. In short, guns are part of the establishment and people who spend money on them are no more iconoclasts than people who fork over money to Phillip Morris on a daily basis.

Like the tobacco industry, the gun industry has obfuscated about the safety dangers of its products. It has sold a fantasy of self- and home-protection that is out of touch with reality. And like tobacco companies, the industry aggressively markets to young people. A presentation by Smith & Wesson from March 2015 says that two thirds of new shooters are 18-34 years old, that a quarter of first time purchases by a second gun within a year, and that 60 percent of new shooters are buying for personal defense or security.

Of course. when Smith & Wesson presents, it talks about marketing to younger adults. In many parts of the country (including New Mexico, where I grew up and was first told a rifle was “mine” before I was 10) kids take ownership of guns well before they can drive. Keystone Sporting Arms still advertises its Crickett .22 caliber weapon as “My First Rifle” even after a five-year-old Kentucky boy killed his two-year-old sister with the single shot rifle he had received as a birthday present. They also offer a youth-rifle called the “Chipmunk,” named for what kids are supposed to shoot with it.

The defense angle (whether self or society) is particularly vulnerable to clever media rebuke. There are the scores of dead children who have managed to get hold of the weapons kept by relatives. There are the sad tales of Oscar Pistorius and George Zimmerman. There was the well-intentioned gun owner who, during the heat of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, nearly shot an innocent bystander. There is probably no end of military and police veterans, highly trained and skilled with firearms, who will testify how even the most practiced shooter is vulnerable to involuntary behaviors during the height of a threat.

The gun industry has also made itself vulnerable to outright ridicule by opposing the most common sense reforms. The NRA opposes biometric trigger locks, for example, that would render weapons useless to anyone but authorized users because it fears it will lead to a ban on existing guns without such locks. The industry also opposes requiring gun owners to carry liability insurance. PSAs on such issues are unlikely to sway the current generation of gun enthusiasts but, as with smoking, it might be possible to get young people thinking early and viewing both the industry and culture of gun ownership more skeptically.

On the legislative front it seems America has made its choice and there is little chance for legal reform in the near future except at the margins deemed acceptable by the gun industry and a current generation of gun owners who believe that "things happen" is an appropriate reaction to gun deaths. When lawmakers can't lead, a social solution is certainly worth a shot.

Repug Extremists Will Never Quit Because What They Want is Impossible

It's not even a "return" to some pre-penicillin conservative paradise. It's a wingnut fantasy that never existed: every American man a white, straight, christian, self-made millionaire entrepreneur; every American woman a white, straight, christian, beauty-queen-turned-homemaker who gives perfect blowjobs and never expects anything in return; non-stop wars all over the globe pitting our brown and black cannon fodder against their brown and black cannon fodder, just because.

Don't worry; they'll come out of this congressional "chaos" stronger, crazier and more determined than ever.

Kevin Drum:

Look at this from a conservative point of view. They want things to move in a conservative direction. But compromise doesn't do that. In practice, it always seems to move things in a more liberal direction, with a few conservative sops thrown in that eventually wither away and die. This leaves them with little choice except increasingly hard-nosed obstructionism: government shutdowns, debt ceiling fights, filibusters for everything, voter ID laws, etc. etc.

 

SNIP

It's in this sense that our system of governance really is at fault for our current gridlock. Not directly because of veto points or our presidential system or any of that, but because these features of our political system allow conservatives to live in a fantasy world. They dream of what they could do if only they had the political power to do it, and they really believe they'd do it all if they got the chance. Thanks to all those veto points, however, they never get the chance. Full control of the government would disabuse everyone very quickly of just how far they're really willing to go, but it never happens.

We are living through an era in which conservatives are living a fantasy that can never be. But our system of governance denies them the chance to test that fantasy. So it continues forever. It will stop eventually, either because conservatives somehow do gain total political power and are forced to face up to its limits, or because it burns itself out through continual head banging that gets them nowhere combined with demographic changes that decimate their base. Probably the latter. It's only a question of how long it takes.

 No.  It's a question of how much irreversible damage they cause before that point.  

Matt Bevin Wants to Make Your Nana Pee in a Cup

OK, now I think Jack Conway has a chance against this asshole.  But never doubt the ability of DINO candidates to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Which is worse?  That Bevin didn't know Medicare covers everyone 65 and older, including rich white people?  Or that he backed off from his granny-pee plan after he found out it would affect rich white people?

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

During a debate between Republican Matt Bevin and Democrat Jack Conway at Centre College (Tuesday), Conway asked Bevin about his statement from April that recipients of Medicaid and Medicare should be drug-tested.

In April, Bevin said during a Louisville Tea Party forum that he supports random drug testing for recipients of both programs.

"I firmly believe we frankly should drug test people that are on Medicaid and Medicare," Bevin said at the time. "We just should."

During Tuesday night's debate, Bevin didn't back away from that call, saying "there should be expectation of you as somebody who is a recipient, or, as it's often referred to in this state, on the draw."

Conway interrupted Bevin to make clear that he was asking about Medicare and not Medicaid, to which Bevin responded: "Understood." Despite that, Bevin later argued that he was talking about Medicaid.

SNIP

Bevin spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said Wednesday night that "Matt does not support drug testing for Medicare recipients," adding that "what he said in April was a misstatement."

Hey, Matt:  Real libertarians want to get rid of Medicare along with every other government program, including air traffic control.  You're a coward.

Also, the new sign along I-64 next to Kentucky Democratic Party headquarters, the one Matty went crying to the building receptionist about? Twice?  It now reads:

"Matt: Next time bring your tax returns."

Versailles to Become KY Fairness City Number 9

Let's be clear:  Cities and counties that reject extending to LGBT citizens the discrimination protections already in place for citizens of minority race, religion, health and ethnicity are announcing flat-out that they are homophobic bigots and hypocrites.

I'm looking at you, Shelby County and Shelbyville.  For four years the City Council has been ducking and hiding and refusing to discuss a Fairness Ordinance. The joint city/county Human Rights Commission resigned en masse to avoid facing the issue, and County Judge-Executive Rob Rothenburger, confronted with a list of Human Rights Commissioner applicants who lack the hatred and homophobia he apparently wants on the Commission, has punted the question to a committee of the three most hateful and homophobic bigots on the Fiscal Court.

Cowards.

Greg Kocher at the Herald:

Versailles City Council moved forward Tuesday with a plan to draft an anti-bias ordinance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Mayor Brian Traugott asked council member Carl Ellis, chairman of the council's administrative and legal committee, to begin researching and drafting an ordinance.

"This is not something we're going to rush into," Ellis said. Other Kentucky cities worked for months writing and revising their ordinances.

Peggy Carter Seal, a member of the Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Human Rights Commission's fairness committee, encouraged the council to adopt an ordinance.

"It would send a clear message that everyone is protected by the law," Seal said.

Kent Ostrander, executive director of The Family Foundation of Kentucky, told council members they should pass such an ordinance "if you have a serious problem with this kind of discrimination."

But if there isn't a problem, considering an anti-bias ordinance "opens up a can of worms," he said.

"As I see Versailles and even Woodford County, it's not a discriminatory kind of place," Ostrander added.

Seal told the council that she isn't aware of local complaints from the LGBT community.

"However, it is my understanding that people often under-report or tend not to report at all when they know that nothing can be done," Seal said. "It often makes the person complaining extremely vulnerable and perhaps open to retaliation."

An anti-bias or "fairness" ordinance would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Racist Voters and the Dems

Zandar asks:

Do we want white voters who abandoned the Dems over a black president to come back to the party at all?

No.

And not just because they're racist motherfuckers who can't be trusted. 

They are the "registered democrats" who make it look like dems outnumber registered repugs in Kentucky, even though repugs keep winning race after race after race.

Like Kim Davis, they are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, gun-loving, misogynist, freakazoid motherfuckers who will never, ever, EVER vote for a Democratic candidate.

They are the fake dems who keep Democratic candidates running repug-lite campaigns chasing after votes they'll never get.

They are the fake dems who keep electing repugs-with-Ds-next-to-their-names like Joe Manchin who poison Congress with their repug votes.

They are the fake dems who give aid and comfort to the true enemies of Democratic values.

 

And the best part is, Democratic candidates don't need them. 

Not only can we win elections without them, but we'll start winning more elections as soon as we tell them to fuck off and die.

"Didn't vote for Obama?  Then don't vote for me."

Sauce For the Goose

Via Digby:

Raviv Ullman Verified account ‏@ravivullman

via a friend of a friend (& "momma goals" @kestrin)

America: The Exceptionally Immature Nation

Maybe that's why repugs are so hysterically frantic about bombing everybody everywhere forever: they are trying desperately to compensate for their infantile attachment to guns.

When the world's other frontier nation calls you a bunch of muzzle-sucking babies, it's time to grow up.

Think Progress:

In 1996, a gunman opened fire at a popular tourist destination on the Australian island of Tasmania. Using a semiautomatic rifle, he killed 35 people.

Australia responded by reforming their gun laws. High powered rifles and shotguns were banned and uniform gun licensing requirements were imposed for the guns that remained legal. The country also implemented a buyback program which resulted in the destruction of more than a million firearms.

In the last 19 years, there have been no mass shootings in Australia, defined as five or more people being shot.

The effort in Australia was not particuarly partisan. It was led by John Howard, Australia’s very conservative Prime Minister. Rather, the gun control measures were seen as a matter of basic humanity and common sense.

SNIP

After a string of gun massacres over the last 3 years that have left hundreds dead and thousands injured, the United States has had a much different response. America has done nothing.

In the wake of Oregon mass murder, Australians are disgusted and perplexed by the American response.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Pascoe blasted American society as immature and unable to take basic actions to save lives:

In his very fine speech this morning, full of sorrow and frustration, President Obama made a mistake: Australia is not like the United States. We decided not to be.

We decided to grow up instead and become a more reasonable, rational society that explicitly values human life and prefers to think the best of people, rather than the worst.

The US is too immature a society to be allowed to play with guns. It has never shed its Wild West mythology. Americans still use their courts to kill people, which sends a message in its own way… It’s a country that values property more than life.

An editorial in Brisbane Times castigates America’s inaction on guns:

At Oregon last week, four guns were recovered – three pistols and a semi-automatic rifle. Did Mercer have the right to bear those arms? Yes, he did. From that question and answer flows the grim crimson tide. And from that flows, as always, the arrant nonsense from the NRA, and those of like mind, that guns are good, that guns are not the problem, that the president is politicising the issue. He should be, indeed he has been, with limited success. However, such is the web of lobbying, money, political support and sway, interconnected with the myriad legal jurisdictions, that we despair of seeing radical progress.

Yet we must condemn. America prides itself on being a light in the world for democracy and liberty. Yet within its borders it is armed to the teeth. This is a tyranny, borne on a historical anomaly, that must end. Surely, if the phrase “land of the free” stands for anything, it is the embracing of the freedom not to have to live in fear of the gun.

SNIP

The disgust is not limited to Australian shores. The New York Times struck a similar note. “Mass shootings have become an unsurprising part of American life, with lame public rituals in which politicians express grief and then retreat quickly into denial about this scourge,” the paper’s editorial board wrote Friday.

This Culture of Crime Will Be Stopped Only With the Death Penalty

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Corporations simply cannot be trusted to self-regulate. It will never work because all the incentive is there for them to cheat. They want to profit and if the government isn’t watching, they will cut corners to do so. The auto industry has shown this for decades. Only sticks will work. You have to punish corporations–and specifically corporate executives with massive fines and jail time if you want corporations to obey the law and take safety and pollution seriously. One estimate has the Volkswagen emissions leading to approximately 106 deaths in the United States. VW will be punished for this, but if we want to stop other companies and other industries from similar evasion of regulations, we simply have to beef up our regulatory powers and funding for regulatory agencies significantly. Otherwise, other versions of this will happen again and again.

Missed Opportunity

Divine Irony:

atheistjack:

via  Atheists On Parade

"I will not sign another shortsighted, short-term spending bill like the one Congress sent me this week."

You're getting into serious no-fucks-left-to-give territory here, Mr. President. You can't executive-order a budget. Do you really think a Boehner-less Congress is less likely to allow a government shutdown?



Full transcript here.

Repug KY Judge Gives Freakazoid "Right" to Newspaper Space

No, Tatenhove: the First Amendment does not confer the right to have your words published in a private company's newspaper.

No, Tatenhove: the First Amendment does not bar "censorship" by private companies.  The ban on speech applies only to government entities.

No, Tatenhove: PopeyFrankie's implicit endorsement of freakazoid imposition of xian sharia does not give you the authority to impose Dominionism on the Commonwealth.

Greg Kocher at the Herald:

A federal judge found an effort by the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology to censor the parenting advice of nationally syndicated newspaper columnist John Rosemond to be unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove ruled Wednesday that the board had "unconstitutionally applied" state regulations to Rosemond's advice column. Van Tatenhove also permanently enjoined the board from "enforcing these laws in an unconstitutional manner against Rosemond or others similarly situated.

SNIP

The origins of the case date to Feb. 12, 2013, when the Lexington Herald-Leader ran one of Rosemond's columns, "Living with Children." Rosemond advised that the teen, who he referred to as a "highly spoiled underachiever," was "in dire need of a major wake-up call."

He described what actions might be taken, including taking away electronic devices and suspending his privileges until he improved his grades. The article bore the tagline: "Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents' questions on his website at Rosemond.com." This is typical of the taglines affixed to Rosemond's articles.

After Rosemond's article ran, a complaint was filed with the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology. The complainant, a formerly licensed Kentucky psychologist, characterized Rosemond's advice as "unprofessional and unethical." He also expressed concern that Rosemond claimed to be a psychologist when he wasn't licensed in Kentucky.

SNIP

It is against Kentucky law to practice psychology without a state license, or to use the title "psychologist" without having a state license. Rosemond does not hold a Kentucky license, but he is a licensed psychological associate in North Carolina. He is routinely identified as a "family psychologist" in a note at the end of his columns.

Rosemund is a freakazoid promoter of xian sharia who promotes beatings even for toddlers.  Tatenhove is a former aide to Mitch McConnell and fervent Catlick who belongs on late-night TV peddling disability claim advice.


And the Herald is cowardly for not just canceling Rosemund's column.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/10/01/4066241/federal-judge-rules-in-favor-of.html#storylink=cpy

Repeal the Second Fucking Amendment. Do It Now.

For what I sure is not within several dozen orders of magnitude of the last time: no one who is not law enforcement has any need for a handgun or semi-automatic weapon of any kind. Period.

Commenter memzilla at Wonkette:

Vote Supressers More Blatantly Racist Than the KKK

If you think this couldn't happen in Kentucky, if Matt Bevin wins Nov. 3 and the repugs take over the state house next year, you're kidding yourself.

TPM:

What happens when a state with a tough voter ID law suddenly makes it much harder for minorities to get driver's licenses? We are about to find out in Alabama.

Facing a budget crisis, Alabama has shuttered 31 driver's license offices, many of them in counties with a high proportion of black residents. Coming after the state recently put into effect a tougher voter ID law, the closures will cut off access -- particularly for minorities -- to one of the few types of IDs accepted.

According to a tally by AL.com columnist John Archibald, eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters saw their driver's license offices closed.

"Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one," Archibald wrote.

They should stop pretending and just announce that only white, straight, rich, male repugs are allowed to vote.  Who's going to stop them?

Popeyfrankie Not Catlick Piece of Shit. He's Far Worse

He knows exactly what he's doing: undermining America's secular constitutional government and giving aid and comfort to the freakazoids who want to destroy it and replace it with Dominionist theocracy that will make the Taliban look like Unitarians.

But I wonder if he realizes that under a freakazoid Dominionist regime, catlicks will be first against the wall.

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

So the Vatican is confirming that Pope Francis had a private meeting with Kim Davis and her husband, and did not dispute reports from her attorneys that the Supreme Pontiff gave the embattled Kentucky County Clerk a blessing, an admonition to “stay strong,” and rosaries for her Catholic parents. This is in addition to the earlier evidence Francis supplied to reporters of his agreement with Davis’ claim that government officials can claim a “conscientious objection” to laws that trouble their consciences.

What’s most interesting to me about these events is that the Pope is going out of his way to express solidarity with an apparent apostate (it’s possible she was never a Catholic before her fairly recent conversion to an exotic pentecostal faith community, but unlikely if her parents are part of the One True Church) who’s been divorced three times. No wonder conservative Catholics accuse Francis of doctrinal laxity.

I guess homophobia covers a multitude of sins.

Is that the deal popeyfrankie made with the murdering bastards in the Curia?  Let me throw the plutocrats and poisoners out of the temple, and I'll let you burn the homos and the women at the stake.