Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Saturday, June 25, 2016

England's Historic #Brexit Shakes Up the World

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Britain voted on a referendum to either leave the European Union of nations or remain part of the network. The conventional wisdom was that England would never vote to leave, yet that's exactly what happened yesterday, sending shockwaves around the world as the pound sterling decreased in value overnight, and markets responded to the new uncertainty by falling around the globe.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the Brexit were those who admitted on the news that they though their "protest votes" to leave wouldn't matter, that London would vote to remain and that would save the empire - or something like that. In effect, the voters sounded ignorant and regretful that their votes mattered.

Brexit is a cautionary tale for the world - elections have consequences.











































































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Monday, August 24, 2015

#BlackMonday ~ DOW plunges over 1000 points

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source: Reuters

A crash in China markets is causing a domino effect around the world today.

From the New York Times
Stocks in the United States tumbled on Monday morning as another sell-off that started in China roiled markets around the world.
Immediately after the opening bell in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 1,000 points — one of the most precipitous such plunges in recent years.






















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Sunday, November 23, 2014

Epic Fail ~ Smithsonian Honors Sarah Palin as "Significant American" - Omits Barack Obama

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Will the Sarah Palin Derp Train every grind to a halt? Now the revered Smithsonian Institution, the premier archive of American History, is honoring her as a "Significant American," even though she mangles her history as well as the English language every time she opens her mouth. Why exactly is she significant, beyond the creation of the shameful and racist Tea Party movement and hours of bad reality TV? Remember #Palin Brawl?

And to add insult to injury, Smithsonian left another "Significant American" off the list - President Barack Obama, the first African American President, and one of the most revered men in the world. What? Woodrow Wilson and George Bush are more "significant" than Barack Obama? Hells Bells and Cottontails!

A sad day for our country. Smithsonian deserves ALL the mockery that the Left can throw at them!

Smithsonian List of 100 Most Significant Americans

Their editorial explanation of how they chose the names:

In a culture so saturated with information and so fragmented by the search possibilities of the Internet, how do we measure historical significance?
Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward have come up with a novel answer. Skiena is the Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Stony Brook University and a co-founder of the social-analytics company General Sentiment. Ward is an engineer at Google, specializing in ranking methodologies. Their answer involves high-level math. They subject the historical zeitgeist to the brute rigors of quantitative analysis in a recent book, Who’s Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank.
. . . we asked Skiena and Ward to separate figures significant to American history from the world population. Then, rather than simply taking their top 100, we developed categories that we believe are significant, and populated our categories with people in Skiena and Ward’s order (even if they ranked below 100). This system helped mitigate the biases of Wikipedia.
We have highlighted what we decided was the most interesting choice within each category with a slightly fuller biographical sketch. And finally, we made an Editors’ Choice in each category, an 11th American whose significance we’re willing to argue for.

Or maybe it was just a money-makin' deal? Seems that the Koch Brothers gave them a hefty donation, which might explain why they left the Foreign-Born Kenyan Imperial Emperor off their list.



From Daily Mail
The Smithsonian's Board of Regents announced the goal Monday and revealed more than $1 billion already has been raised in a quiet phase since October 2011. This is the first institution-wide fundraising effort and the largest campaign in history for any cultural institution, Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough said. The campaign will continue through 2017.
Several large gifts were previously announced for large projects.
David H. Koch donated $35 million for a major renovation of the Smithsonian's dinosaur hall.

According to Mother Jones, this has been ongoing since at least 2010
..The museum has defended Koch, the ninth richest man in the United States, as a "philanthropist who is deeply interested in science." Moreover, Smithsonian Human Origins Program director Rick Potts said, "our donors have no control over the content of our science or scholarship of our exhibits." Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm, however, argues that the new exhibit "whitewashes the danger of human caused climate change." See his post for more on the subject.















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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Racist Rescue: @GoFundMe Allows Page for #Ferguson Killer #DarrenWilson

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Previous Related Posts:
Heading to #Fergustan
Ferguson Update: Shooter Identified as Darren Wilson
Zimmerman Verdict: Not Guilty
Best Tweets From the Zimmerman Trial

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Fundraising Site GoFundMe.com is allowing people to raise money for the defense of Ferguson, Missouri, policman named Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown dead in broad daylight on a city street for no apparent reason. I guess they are doing it because they like cops who kill unarmed teenagers. This echoes the NRA and Fox News support for George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin in Florida. But of course they aren't racist just for supporting a white officer who gunned down a teen, didn't write a report, and has been in hiding ever since.

Wilson Supporters also had a Rally for him today to whitesplain the Rule of Law to those who think gunning down unarmed people isn't a good idea, especially for police. But we are obviously ignorant.



I agree with this comment about the video:

these people dont know darren wilson, darren wilson hasnt issued a statement, darren wilson has filed no report regarding the incident. as far as they know darren wilson told everyone he wanted to kill the kid for fun. they have nothing of substance they are backing a person who has made no statement one way or the other. that shows their ignorance
~ JustinHolt2000

And the real tragedy is that the Ferguson Police Department is enabling this fundraiser by connecting it to their own at "Shield of Hope." How tone deaf, dumb and blind are they? Helping a child killer right after the Attorney General of the United States was in their city investigating Civil Rights Abuses - by the POLICE?

Also it has been noted by many on Twitter that the GoFundMe organization skims off some of the donations to the tune of 8%. So in this case, they are profiteering from a death which is being investigated by both the Justice Department and a local Grand Jury.

Did I mention that many of the comments from those donating were so racist they were taken down by GoFundMe?
Mother Jones screencapped a bunch of the comments here

Here's another screencap in a tweet - click to enlarge:



Officer Darren Wilson GoFundMe Page

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Here is the message:

New GoFundMe site through Shield of Hope: https://www.gofundme.com/OfficerWilsonFundraiser

Good Afternoon,

We (being the admins of the page) began this GoFundMe site after our Facebook page “Support Darren Wilson” grew and we saw that there was a need for an online donation site for those who wanted to donate. We set up this GoFundMe page and it quickly gained enormous support for Officer Darren Wilson. Then, once we located the local charitable foundation, Shield of Hope (a non-profit organization), that has been designated as the authorized charity for donations on behalf of Darren Wilson, we began working together to have a GoFundMe page set up to collect and disburse donations for Officer Wilson through the Charitable Foundation. Unfortunately, to do so requires us to end collection on the current page that you are viewing now. GoFundMe does not allow transfer of existing campaigns, even to charities. Please know that all funds received from our events, this GoFundMe site and our TeeSpring campaign will be donated to Officer Darren Wilson, and in the future, donations will still be donated to Officer Wilson, but will be tax deductible for donors as well. Shield of Hope is a Certified Charity on GoFundMe, is available via public search with GoFundMe, and has been designated by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

. . . The Ferguson Police Department has requested that all donations that supporters may wish to mail be made payable to “Shield of Hope” and mailed to Shield of Hope, 9620 Lackland Rd., St. Louis MO 63114.

New GoFundMe site through Shield of Hope: https://www.gofundme.com/OfficerWilsonFundraiser

Mailing Address for All Mail in Donations:
Shield of Hope
9620 Lackland Road
St. Louis, MO 63114
Phone Number: 314-423-8003

Contact E-mail Regarding T-shirts and questions about the original GoFundMe page: istand4darren@gmail.com

As a group, "Support Darren Wilson" is comprised of many people who want to give others the opportunity to support Officer Darren Wilson during this time. 

We truly hope that everyone who has donated understands the transition. If not, please reach out to us. We do not want this to become a hindrance of the support Officer Darren Wilson is receiving.
Thank you for your understanding. We truly appreciate your time, efforts, prayers, kind words and donations. It means more than you could possibly know.
God Bless






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Saturday, May 10, 2014

#BundyRanch Militia Moves To Utah

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Previous Related Posts:
Cliven Bundy Talks About "The Negro" as #GOP Stampedes Away From #BundyRanch
Bye-Bye Bundy
Wingnuts Declare Victory as Feds Leave Bundy Ranch
Bundy Ranch Stand-Off in Nevada Attracts Militia

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The Militia members who flocked to Bundy Ranch a month ago made a spectacle of brandishing their firearms and pointing them at law enforcement. There are countless hours of video from Alec Jones's "Info Wars" on YouTube, as well as video from Fox News, CNN, NBC and local Nevada TV. The militia crowd cheered when the Bureau of Land Management pulled back and let some of Bundy's cattle go free, but maybe their celebration was premature. Justice is often delayed, but usually it comes back to bite people who threaten the government. Just because the Bureau of Land Management high-tailed it out of there that day doesn't mean this is over.

And some of these guys went so far as to threaten Senator Harry Reid with extreme bodily harm, which is also a no-no.

Don't poke the wolverine with a sharp stick, Harry,
unless you want your b*lls ripped off.
~ Mike Vanderboegh



Sorry, Posse Comitatus ~ you may have just shot yourself in the proverbial ass, or the b*lls or whatever body-part you are obsessing over today.

There was also the story that the Bundy Militia were stopping motorists near Bunkerville, Nevada, and asking people to see their official citizenship papers. Yeah, nothing wrong with that except ILLEGAL.

From Talking Points Memo
Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who represents the area, sent the letter Sunday to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, asking him to investigate.

"I am writing to bring your attention to the ongoing situation in northeastern Clark County which has caused many of my constituents to fear for their safety," Horsford wrote. Residents in the area "have expressed concern over the continual presence of multiple out-of-state, armed militia groups that have remained in the community" since Bundy's dispute with the Bureau of Land Management came to a boil.

The militia, as reported by Horsford's constituents, "have set up checkpoints where residents are required to prove they live in the area before being allowed to pass," the letter said.

Here is one of the snipers interviewed at Bundy Ranch:



Yeah, he's a brave foot-soldier in the fight against the government, and he has no problem using children as human shields. What a guy! But now the FBI is investigating, so good luck with that.

From the Las Vegas Sun
Clark County sheriff's officials say they've been interviewed by the FBI as part of an investigation into armed supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy.
Assistant Sheriff Joe Lombardo tells KLAS-TV that federal agents are looking into the conduct of people who reportedly pointed guns at officers during a standoff at Bundy's ranch April 12.

More From 8 News Now Las Vegas
Last week, the I-Team talked with Metro officers who intervened to protect the lives of federal employees from the 400 or so Bundy supporters and armed militia members. Officers told the I-Team they feared for their lives that day because of the assembled firepower, and because many in the crowd had pointed weapons at officers, taunted them, told them they should be ready to die.

. . . FBI agents also spoke to an entire squad of Metro officers, who were on the scene to act as a buffer between the crowd and the BLM. Bundy supporters have insisted in emails and calls to 8 News NOW that no one in the crowd pointed weapons at BLM or Metro, but officers told the I-Team that is exactly what they saw, that many with guns set up behind women and children.
"It is not a rumor. When we first got out there and made a left to divide I-15, that is all you saw. You saw kids and women and horses in the backdrop and then men with guns, laying on the ground, in the back of pickup trucks. We're going, 'wow, this would never happen in Las Vegas,' But it was there. That is not a rumor. It is reality and I saw it with my own eyes," Metro Police Sgt. Tom Jenkins said.

Sgt. Jenkins has been interviewed by the FBI. A second squad is expected to be interviewed by week's end. The bureau does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation but the I-Team have confirmed from multiple sources that a criminal investigation is underway.

It is illegal to point loaded weapons at federal agents, and most people know what would happen, if a suspect pointed a gun at a Metro officer in the Las Vegas valley.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Funny thing - as soon as it was announced the other day that the FBI was investigating these guys, the gun nuts on Twitter started chirping that THEY were the victims, that the BLM was scary and had pulled guns on THEM - "So shut up you Libtards, don't you know the Militia is in our desert saving our Liberty?" Also, they ain't skeered of no FBI!!! It was all someone else's fault - the BLM, Harry Reid, Barry Obummer, and Benghazi - don't ever forget Benghazi!!!!!









Meanwhile, the Locals are ready
for the Militia to Leave



And the Militia is obliging for now, taking their act of defiance on the road - to Utah.

From Las Vegas Sun
Ryan Payne, a Montana resident who had been staying at the ranch for a month, said he drove eight hours to arrive in the eastern Utah town this morning. Three militia members from the ranch and a handful of people from a group called Citizens Action Network came to Utah, too, he said.
"This is where it’s happening Saturday,” he said.
They and others Saturday will be armed, he said, and ride ATVs into Recapture Canyon, an area the BLM declared off-limits to motorized vehicles in 2007. The ride is organized by San Juan County, Utah, Commissioner Phil Lyman.
Payne met Friday morning with the San Juan County, Utah, Sheriff Rick Eldridge. Afterward, he said he expects Saturday’s protest to be peaceful because Eldridge pledged to “protect us from the BLM.”

More from Mother Jones
This Saturday, angry residents of San Juan County, Utah, plan to illegally ride their ATVs through Utah's Recapture Canyon—an 11 mile-long stretch of federal land that is home to Native American archeological sites—because they don't think that the federal Bureau of Land Management should have designated that land off-limits to motor vehicles. The protest was meant to be a local affair. But on Thursday, Bundy, the rancher who wouldn't pay the feds grazing fees and sparked a gun-drenched showdown in Nevada, called on his supporters to join the anti-government off-roading event, Phil Taylor reported. Bundy, whose crusade against the federal government became tainted by his racist comments, is looking to spread the cause from cattle to cross-country cruising.

"We don't expect any violence," San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge told the Denver Post last week. Others aren't so sure, especially since the out-of-staters in attendance could help rile things up—which is what happened during the Bundy stand-off. "This may blow up to be significantly more than they thought," Bill Boyle, a resident of San Juan and publisher of the San Juan Record newspaper told the Post. "I think there are those who would like everyone with an AK-47 to be here."

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From the Houston Chronicle
"This is where it's happening Saturday," Bundy backer Ryan Payne of Montana told the Las Vegas Sun. "This is a continuation of the Bundy affair."
. . . A 14-mile section of trail in the canyon is closed to motorized vehicles, BLM officials said, but there are more than 2,800 miles of trails open to them on public lands around Blanding.
Environmentalists and Native Americans criticized the protest ride, saying the ban is needed to preserve fragile artifacts. Mark Maryboy, a former Navajo Nation Council delegate, called it disappointing that the group had no respect for Native American culture.
"The American tradition of civil disobedience doesn't change the fact that the rule of law needs to mean something," Josh Ewing of the conservation group Friends of Cedar Mesa told The Tribune. "I'll be very disappointed in my government if it doesn't follow through on upholding the law."

Denver Post
. . . Juan Palma, Utah's director of the BLM, issued a less conciliatory statement.
"The BLM-Utah has not and will not authorize the proposed ride and will seek all appropriate civil and criminal penalties against anyone who uses a motorized vehicle within the closed area," Palma's statement read in part.

San Juan County, with more than 90 percent of its land public or belonging to the Navajo Nation, is a likely setting for another set-to.
It has long been a hotbed of far-right anger over federal intrusion into local affairs, especially after what were viewed locally as heavy-handed federal raids that rounded up dozens of longtime residents for artifact looting in the 1980s and in 2011.

San Juan County residents who support Saturday's protest ride identify themselves on their Facebook pages as fans of Bundy and guns-rights rocker Ted Nugent. They express hatred for President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.
BLM employees in San Juan County have had windows shot out of their homes and their yards torn up by ATVs in the middle of the night.









From Salt Lake Tribune
Under the watch of several horse-mounted sheriff’s deputies, some 50 ATVs carrying multiple riders, including children without helmets and militia members with weapons at the ready, motored across an invisible line in the dust where the canyon was off limits.
"We are here to keep the peace and safeguard the constitutional rights of everybody," said San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge. "We don’t want to see clashes between citizens and clashes between BLM and militia. This is not going to be Bunkerville."
The sheriff was referring to BLM’s recent stand-off with armed supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has long refused to pay grazing fees. Bundy’s son, Ryan, joined the protest ride into Recapture Canyon.

The Militia members want to make it sound as if everything is just a peaceful ride in the desert, but just the other day a Bureau of Land Management employee told police he was accosted by a group of "hooded" men on a lonely road in Utah. Is this group part of the Bundy Militia? Are they targeting BLM employees? If so, the FBI needs to make their own round-up of these thugs quickly.


From the Southern Poverty Law Center - HateWatch
At first, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) livestock wrangler driving on Tuesday along Interstate 15 in Utah, about 260 miles from the scene of the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada, thought he was experiencing fairly standard road rage. But then it quickly escalated into a freeway stalking with masks and guns, and ended with a law enforcement manhunt.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the wrangler was pulling a load of burros and horses northbound on the freeway when a dark blue extended-cab Dodge pickup pulled up alongside him and a man gestured at him with a one-fingered salute. The wrangler eased up and let the men drive past him, then he continued on. Just after passing the town of Nephi, the men caught up to him again.

This time, they were wearing hoods. And they showed him a sign that read: “You Need to Die.” Then one of them pointed what appeared to be a Glock handgun at the wrangler.

As the wrangler again dropped back, he tried to get a license plate number. But it had been covered with duct tape.

. . . In response, Utah BLM employees began removing the agency’s decals from their vehicles as a “precaution,” according to Eric Reid, the wrangler’s supervisor at the BLM field office in Fillmore. “We’re toning things down.”
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Friday, April 4, 2014

Charles Koch-splains the #Kochtopia with #ConjuringWords like #Collectivism

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Just a few days after conservatives on the Supreme Court handed multi-billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson the gift of buying future elections, poor unpopular Charles Koch took to the Wall Street Journal to express his poutrage at the "Collectivists" (Socialists/Liberals/Democrats) who are against him. In his Op-Ed he tells "merica how things are 'sposed to be, with he and his brother at the top of the ruling class, and we rabble way down below.

The tone is defensive and some would say "hurt," possibly aimed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is going full-honey badger again as he shakes the tail of the Tea Party Snake in attacking the Koch Brothers. With language straight out of his father's John Birch Society pamphlets from the 1950s, and using Tea Party dog whistles, Koch tries to Koch-splain just how misunderstood he is. Because Patriotism, and because those darn "Collectivists" are saying things about him, something no Republican would ever do to that Feckless Communist/Collectivist/RadicalSoros-cialist Kenyan Emperor who is destroying the country from the White House and taking all our guns.

And the biggest derp - WSJ used clip-art also used by Democratic blogger site Daily Kos to illustrate the Op-Ed. #EpicFail

Charles Koch in the Wall Street Journal
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen. "The natural progress of things," Jefferson wrote, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better. The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle. Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them, the promised end justifies the means.

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers.

. . . Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On April 1st, Harry Reid wrote several tweets about #Kochtopia
(More Quotes and Videos from Reid at Bottom of Post)







Then he wrote more on April 3-4 while Supporters Chimed In.
The #Kochtopia Hashtag is Here to Stay









~~~~~~~

About the Daily Kos Figurehead used by WSJ



From the Pundits:

Just to put the whole joke in context. Here we have the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch. Here we have a full-page Op-Ed piece that just happens to come out after the (Supreme) Court decision (on McCutcheon). Ghost-written for Charles Koch. Who knows who writes this stuff for him? He pays for it as if he's literate. I'd like to put that guy in a room for an hour and see if he could actually write an Op-Ed piece!
~ Chris Matthews on Hardball

Let’s us have a moment of silence for the plight of misunderstood businessmen. Time’s up.
~ Joe Romm, ThinkProgress

Poor Charles Koch who fancies himself an American Patriot. Just tryin' to do what's right! Who only has access to a small little outlet called the Wall Street Journal! Charles Koch "I'm trying to restore a free society."
. . . Mary! Oh, Mary! Zuzu! Zuzu! You're alive, and I'm here, and Mr. Potter's here. That mean man, Barack Obama, who's trying to take wings from angels!
. . . This is the essence of big government and Collectivism. Things like food stamps and why can't you go out and own your own Big Ag company. Why I remember there was a time when my Daddy could just go out and hire a couple a' thugs with baseball bats. And you know, do a little bean bag on people's heads.
. . . Collectivists seek to intimidate members of the press. I could barely get into the pages of the Wall Street Journal to write this. In fact, I had to make two phone calls. Well, my assistant did.
They engage in character assassination. Why, why - I almost couldn't get that documentary about me on PBS squashed. That's how HARD it is for folks like me.
. . . That's why I spend so much money in politics - 'cause I don't want any favors.
~ Sam Seder on Majority Report






STOPPPPPP YOU’RE HURTING MY FEEEEEELINGS is apparently the new clarion call of the conservative movement. I’m still a little shocked by it.
. . . When you spend a ton of money to control democracy, particularly on ads that are shamelessly dishonest like the Koch ads have been, people are going to say things. They’re going to say mean things that aren’t nice, and if your best response is to go crying to your mommy you’ve exposed just how weak your soft underbelly is.
And we’ll get louder.
~ Oliver Willis on The Daily Banter

So the trouble is that his critics attempt to “discredit” and “intimidate” him and employ “character assassination.” All these terms appear to be Koch synonyms for “saying things about Charles Koch that Charles Koch does not agree with.” In the kind of “free and open” debate he imagines, Koch would continue to use his fortune to wield massive political influence, and nobody would ever say anything about him that makes him unhappy.
Luckily, Koch restrains himself from overtly comparing the Obama administration to Hitler and Stalin, instead likening it to unnamed 20th-century “despots." No character assassination here!
~ Jonathan Chait, NYMag

Like the spoiled kid whose extravagant birthday party is ruined by one of the kids his mom made him invite, Charles Koch is sick and tired of being yelled at for trying to remake the entire country as he sees fit.
~ Philip Bump, The Wire

Is this what your little rant is all about? You know you've lost the war on Obamacare, and so now it's all about "collectivism?"
The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle.
I'm suppressing the urge to scream "neener neener neener" in your face. It really is about health care! Wow, you're truly angry that I have access to affordable health care. Too damned bad.
~ Karoli on Crooks and Liars

A liberal sparrow does not fall from the sky that these guys (the Koch Brothers) do not know about."
. . . Modern conservatism have been really good at creating "conjuring words" that with their base, that all they have to do is say them: Alinsky, Benghazi, Acorn. . . . The Right has been very good at creating political symbols that are durable for political purposes within their own base. Harry Reid is trying to turn "Koch Brothers" into a conjuring spell for Democrats and I think he's doing it.
Harry (Reid) is starting from a deep hole because he doesn't have a megaphone and he doesn't have the Right Wing Media Bubble to strengthen the "conjuring words."
~ Charles P. Pierce of Esquire on "In with Chris Hayes"


I think I must be getting under their skin. Most people here are familiar with the Koch brothers. If I've helped make them a little more infamous or famous, I'm glad I've done that. These two men are a pair of shadowy billionaires spending millions of dollars to rig our political system. And who does it help? Them.
~ Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, via Washington Post

(The Paul Ryan Budget is) ...a blueprint for a modern… how would we say this? Koch-topia. Yes, that’s it. Call it whatever you want. We might as well call it the Koch budget because that’s what they’re doing, protecting the Koch brothers.
It’s a fool’s errand for the Koch brothers to think they can use their money to frighten me or to brainwash Nevadans or the rest of the country. There have been times in my life I’ve been a little afraid, but I’m not afraid of them.
. . . To any and all groups who wish to attack me on behalf of multibillionaires, fire away … I am very happy, I’m proud to be the target of those attacks. I will gladly endure them in order to call attention to the unscrupulous acts of these two barons
~ Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid
Via Politico










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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Supreme Court #McCutcheon Ruling Guts Campaign Finance Reform

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Whoa, SCOTUS just made another ruling that could change the course of future elections. While Democrats might also benefit, the answer to creating a stronger democracy can't be to flood political campaigns with even more money! All politicians are too beholding to special interests as they are. *sigh* I guess all Campaign Finance Reform laws are moot now, or will be overturned by the Supremes?

From Business Insider
The Supreme Court struck down caps that individuals can make to candidates or political parties during a two-year election cycle, in an opinion issued Wednesday by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, marks the most consequential campaign finance ruling from the high court since the landmark Citizens United decision in 2010.

Critics immediately denounced the decision, saying it would give wealthy donors more freedom to influence an election.

. . . In 2014, the limit on all contributions was $123,200.

The Supreme Court's decision does not do away with limits on individual contributions to candidates for president or Congress, which now stands at $2,600 an election.























































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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Jan Brewer Vetoes Arizona Anti-Gay Bill

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Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, announced that she has vetoed bill #SB1062 which would ostensibly give business owners the right to turn away anyone based on their sexual orientation (or whatever) for religious reasons.



"Reality Trumps Prejudice"
~ Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, 
on Up with Steve Kornacki




Some Folks Are Ecstatic!











~~~~~~~

But is Brewer just a pathetic Moneygrubber?









~~~~~~~

The Right Wingers - "Jan, You Gutless PC RINO!"


































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