Is This Guy the Biggest GOP Jerk in Congress? | Alternet

Is This Guy the Biggest GOP Jerk in Congress? | Alternet
"Ted Cruz has nothing to lose and everything to win by opposing any reasonable policy and generally acting like a jack-ass. Our system is truly broken."

How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics | The Nation

How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics | The Nation
"The contemporary Republican Party has lost four of the last six presidential elections. It has won a plurality of the popular vote just once since 1988. A recognition of the challenges the party faces has led to a measure of soul searching, and that in turn has inspired public and private wrangling over electoral strategies. It may be the case that some Republicans still want to play the voter-suppression card, but they do their party no favors."

Art Pope Groups Push Extreme ALEC Tax Agenda in North Carolina

Art Pope Groups Push Extreme ALEC Tax Agenda in North Carolina
"An array of right-wing organizations in North Carolina are arguing loudly for Governor Pat McCrory to radically alter how corporations and people pay taxes in the state -- and the not-so-hidden hand behind the effort is North Carolina millionaire Art Pope, a close ally of the Koch brothers, who funds the groups and has been appointed as North Carolina's Budget Director. The John William Pope Civitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation, and the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), have been loudly calling for cuts to shift the tax burden away from rich folks like Pope and onto the backs of the working poor and middle class."

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet
"The motivation behind the world-wide economic con of austerity has been discovered. And, the source is none other than Pete Peterson – the debt-obsessed billionaire who stands to make billions off the privatization of our social safety net."

Sequestration 101: If a Budget Cut Doesn't Impact the Wealthy, Congress Won't Fix It | Common Dreams

Sequestration 101: If a Budget Cut Doesn't Impact the Wealthy, Congress Won't Fix It | Common Dreams
"And here is the last lesson sequestration has taught us: just how much more Congress cares about what’s bothering upper-middle-class citizens than what’s going on at the bottom of the income scale. There are tons of different programs expecting a big impact from sequestration. None of them saw multiple bills introduced in the Senate, one of which was passed with huge support on both sides of the aisle and signed within a matter of days. Had they continued, the furloughs would have been more than an inconvenience. They could have meant sharply reduced economic output. But the same could be said of many of the cuts to other programs. The lesson is not that the flight delays should have gone unaddressed. It’s that if a budget cut doesn’t impact a wealthy constituency, Congress can’t to be bothered to fix it."

Two Critics Of Government Spending Are Forcing The Army To Build Tanks It Doesn’t Want

Two Critics Of Government Spending Are Forcing The Army To Build Tanks It Doesn’t Want: Congress is forcing the Army to spend nearly half a billion dollars building tanks that Army officials insist they don’t want, with money they say could be better spent elsewhere, according to a new report from the AP. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the two members of congress at the [...]/p

Where's Fox News When White Right-Wing Extremists Commit Acts of Terror? | Alternet

Where's Fox News When White Right-Wing Extremists Commit Acts of Terror? | Alternet
"Fox News talkers showed little interest in these terror plots, and no interest in making sweeping generalization about whether a larger political or religious community was to blame for them."

How Austerity Is Literally Killing People

How Austerity Is Literally Killing People: Austerity in the United States and Europe isn’t just placing an unnecessary drag on economic growth that has harmed the global economic recovery from the Great Recession. The rapid deficit reduction efforts are also making people less healthy, causing higher rates of suicide, depression, and infectious disease, according to research from Oxford University economist David [...]/p

Big-Government Conservatives Set Sights On Cities

Big-Government Conservatives Set Sights On Cities
"The legislature is debating a bill to forcibly transfer the city of Asheville's municipal water system and 22,000-acre mountain watershed to a state-controlled regional authority, leaving a huge hole in the city's budget. The bill's author, state Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, and Rep. Bill Brawley, R-Mecklenburg, have connections with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, is on ALEC’s board of directors. They have cities in their sights."

The Koch Brothers and the Right Wing's Media Insurgency | Common Dreams

The Koch Brothers and the Right Wing's Media Insurgency | Common Dreams
"The U.S. news media was never “liberal.” At most, you could say there were periods in the not-too-distant past when the major newspapers did a better job of getting the facts straight. There also was an “underground” press which published some scoops that the mainstream media avoided."

Koch Brothers Retool Machine for 2014 Midterms

Koch Brothers Retool Machine for 2014 Midterms
"After their crushing defeat in 2012, Charles and David Koch are more determined, not less. They're kicking off the re-launch of Koch Politics, Inc with a big donor meeting this Sunday and Monday, and a brand-spankingnew arm of the Kochtopus."

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes
"Republicans have completely brainwashed themselves about the Bush years.

It would be interesting to see why exactly they consider Bush a success. Was it the fact that he was president during the worst attack on domestic soil since Pearl Harbor? Was it that his administration lied the country into a completely unrelated to 9/11 war? How about the fact that his administration went on a spending binge that wiped out the budget surplus that Bill Clinton left behind? Could they approve of the fact that President Bush launched the biggest expansion of government in decades, and never bothered to pay for it. Or is that his administration eroded civil liberties, and ignored the constitution with regularity? Could it be his inept response to Katrina, or maybe it is the fact that his policies collapsed the economy, and led to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression?

You don’t have to be a Democrat to understand that the Bush years were a total disaster for the country."

How We Ended Up with the Worst Congress Money Can Buy | Alternet

How We Ended Up with the Worst Congress Money Can Buy | Alternet
"If you want to see why the public approval rating of Congress is down in the sub-arctic range — an icy  15 percent by last count — all you have to do is take a quick look at how the House and Senate pay worship at the altar of corporations, banks and other special interests at the expense of public aspirations and need."

New Extremist Think Tank Is Born, And Ron Paul's The Daddy

New Extremist Think Tank Is Born, And Ron Paul's The Daddy
"Remember how Ron Paul said he only wrote the economic parts of his newsletters and the racist bits were written by someone else? Except then when the newsletters were challenged because they also had whacko conspiracy truther theories in them he also blamed that on other people even though the newsletters went out under his name? Remember that?"

The Right Wing Cult Machine Exposed

The Right Wing Cult Machine Exposed
"the right-wing media and its cult following are not serving the national political debate and not helping the Republican Party widen its appeal beyond its declining base of aging boomer cultists."

Crackpot Conspiracy Theories Enjoy Mainstreaming By Right

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Americans For Prosperity Protests Flight Delays After Urging For Sequester Cuts

Americans For Prosperity Protests Flight Delays After Urging For Sequester Cuts: Americans For Prosperity, a conservative group funded by the Koch brothers, is echoing the GOP narrative that sequestration cuts are largely President Obama’s fault. Back in March, AFP struck a different tone on sequestration, claiming it would help the economy. “By no means is the sequester perfect, but we must begin acting now to rein [...]/p

PERRspectives: George W. Bush's Magic Calendar Returns

PERRspectives: George W. Bush's Magic Calendar Returns
"In the run-up to today's celebration at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, America's 43rd President declared that "history will ultimately judge" his tenure in the White House. And that is precisely the problem for the custodians of Bush's legacy. After all, the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11, the catastrophic and unnecessary war in Iraq, illicit domestic surveillance and illegal detainee torture, the worst eight-year economic performance since Herbert Hoover, a near-doubling of the national debt (thanks in large part to tax cuts that will continue to drain the U.S. Treasury for years to come), the implosion of Wall Street and the disastrously bungled response to Hurricane Katrina all occurred on George W. Bush's watch.

Unless, that is, you don't just rewrite history but redefine time itself. According to the Republicans' Magic Calendar, George W. Bush somehow "kept us safe" despite the carnage on September 11, 2001. Miraculously, it was President Bush who killed Osama Bin Laden, despite his opposition to the very kind of raid ordered by Barack Obama two years after Dubya left office."

Austerity And Long-Term Unemployment

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How An Excel Spreadsheet Error Hurt The Economy

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50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet
"Amazingly, the Bush library seeks to ask visitors "What would you have done?" if you were in this president’s shoes. The ex-president’s defenders are betting that the public will reconsider their judgments after a hefty dose of historical amnesia. Bush has been absent from political debates in recent years, instead making millions in private speeches."

Having Spent Millions Influencing Three Branches of Government, Kochs Look to Buy Fourth Estate | Common Dreams

Having Spent Millions Influencing Three Branches of Government, Kochs Look to Buy Fourth Estate | Common Dreams
"By the Kochs extending their tentacles into the fourth estate, they can significantly expand their relative power and influence, particularly by controlling an institution that might expose their efforts to manipulate the other three branches. And by expanding their control over the press the Kochs could have even more power to reshape the American political landscape."

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror
"The fact, however, is that the speculation about right-wing extremism's potential role was entirely rational, considering that in the past four years, there have been nearly 70 acts of domestic terrorism committed by right-wing extremists in the United States, compared to just over 30 such acts committed by Islamist extremists here."

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation: A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law. Colorado is currently considering a major [...]/p

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet
"Has the party become "post-policy"? The modern GOP simply have given up on and lost the capacity for developing policy ideas."

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again
"New federal court filings allege that hundreds of thousands of Republican redistricting files in Wisconsin were deleted last year, in defiance of court orders to turn over all documents. The deletions fit into a pattern of the Wisconsin GOP covering their tracks and could result in sanctions for the attorneys or individuals involved in deleting the files."

Missouri Senators Cite Gun, U.N. Conspiracy Theories In Voting To Defund Driver’s License Bureau

Missouri Senators Cite Gun, U.N. Conspiracy Theories In Voting To Defund Driver’s License Bureau: In retribution against a Missouri agency’s record-keeping of concealed carry gun permits, the state Senate voted Monday to eliminate all funding for the Department of Revenue’s driver’s license bureau and slashed funding for several other agencies. If the measure became law, it would halt the issuance of driver’s licenses in the state, and would hobble [...]/p

After Demanding Senate Pass A Budget, GOP Refuses To Enter Budget Negotiations

After Demanding Senate Pass A Budget, GOP Refuses To Enter Budget Negotiations: House Republicans spent most of their time over the last three years reminding Americans that Senate Democrats hadn’t passed a budget in two, then three, then four years. It was a regular Republican talking point, a particular favorite of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s. But now that the Senate has returned to regular order [...]/p

Ayn Rand and the Horror at a Texas Fertilizer Facility | Alternet

Ayn Rand and the Horror at a Texas Fertilizer Facility | Alternet
"the central role that absolute free market libertarianism, as personified by the fictional John Galt, played in the horrific explosion in West, Texas that took the lives of fourteen people, most of whom were volunteer firefighters fighting a fire at an unregulated fertilizer facility. We have now learned that the facility had a checkered history of ignoring regulations and had 1350 times more ammonium nitrate on hand than the amount that triggers a legal requirement to report the facility to Department of Homeland Security. Of course, the facility’s owner chose to ignore that regulation along with the many other regulations he chose to ignore."

Tribune Company Scribes: Koch Brothers Purchase Could Turn Papers Into "Conservative Mouthpiece"

Tribune Company Scribes: Koch Brothers Purchase Could Turn Papers Into "Conservative Mouthpiece"
"In addition to the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, the Kochs are reportedly seeking to buy The Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT), The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), and the Daily Press (Hampton Roads, VA)."

Come To Texas, Where It's Better For Business!

Come To Texas, Where It's Better For Business!
"And why would they lie? They were storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They didn’t want EPA or the DHS in their business. That might cost them time and money.We all know how Rick Perry feels about the EPA, don’t we? He thinks its sole goal is to kill jobs."

Little Oversight at Texas Fertilizer Plant That Exploded Killing 14 | Common Dreams

Little Oversight at Texas Fertilizer Plant That Exploded Killing 14 | Common Dreams
"The fertilizer plant in West, Texas that exploded on Wednesday night killing 14 people was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1985, and had failed to disclose to the Department of Homeland Security that it was storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would bring oversight from that agency."

Resource Shock: How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion | Alternet

Resource Shock: How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion | Alternet
"For the U.S. intelligence community, which appears to have been influenced by the report, the response was blunt.  In March, for the first time, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper listed “competition and scarcity involving natural resources” as a national security threat on a par with global terrorism, cyberwar, and nuclear proliferation."

Arkansas Republicans: Shoot Lawmakers For Expanding Medicaid

Arkansas Republicans: Shoot Lawmakers For Expanding Medicaid: Republicans in Benton County, Arkansas are not happy that their state legislators have agreed to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. In this month’s newsletter, columnist Chris Nogy encouraged his fellow Republicans to utilize their 2nd Amendment rights to make sure that lawmakers — particularly Republicans who vote with Democrats — are held accountable: So what do we do?  While [...]/p

Koch Brothers Plan To Buy Up Eight Major Newspapers

Koch Brothers Plan To Buy Up Eight Major Newspapers: The millionaire oil moguls Charles and David Koch are pushing ahead with their plans to purchase several news outlets across the United States, according to a detailed report in the New York Times on Sunday. At a recent seminar in Aspen, one attendee reported that the brothers — infamous for bankrolling conservative candidates and causes [...]/p

American Right-Wingers Are No Longer Conservative — They're Extremists | Alternet

American Right-Wingers Are No Longer Conservative — They're Extremists | Alternet
"The Tea Party right fancy themselves right-wing revolutionaries. They reject long-standing jurisprudence and venerable traditions. And they don't fear rapid social change, as long as it comports with their worldview – they embrace it. Many of those whom we call conservatives today are, ultimately, reactionaries."

Glenn Beck: Boston Bombing? Buy Gold!

Glenn Beck: Boston Bombing? Buy Gold!
"Glenn Beck is using the Boston bombing attack to scare the rubes that still listen to and watch his shows into buying gold from his sponsors."

Did a Spreadsheet Error Cost You Your Job? | Common Dreams

Did a Spreadsheet Error Cost You Your Job? | Common Dreams
"Did an Excel error cost you your job? This is what people around the world should be asking after researchers at the University of Massachusetts uncovered a serious calculationmistake. The mistake was in an enormously influential paper by Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, two prominent economists, which purports to show that high levels of government debt lead to slow economic growth. This paper has been widely cited by political figures around the world who have been pushing the case for cutting back government spending and raising taxes. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan famously cited Reinhart and Rogoff when he laid out his budget earlier this year. So have many of the politicians now pushing for cuts in Social Security and Medicare."

At What Cost the Culture Wars? | Alternet

At What Cost the Culture Wars? | Alternet
"Things are tough these days if you’re a card-carrying Dominionist. To a one, they were humiliated in the summer primaries, obliterated in the November elections and now, the supposedly religiously conservative Supreme Court is threatening to go anti-family."

5 People Hijacking Boston Bombing to Push Their Nasty Politics | Alternet

5 People Hijacking Boston Bombing to Push Their Nasty Politics | Alternet
"From immigration to counter-terrorism to gays and lesbians, some figures are trying to use the Boston Marathon attack to their advantage. Here’s a list of 5 of them."

First Question at Deval Patrick Presser From Alex Jones Conspiracy Theorist

First Question at Deval Patrick Presser From Alex Jones Conspiracy Theorist
"It seems we just can't escape the wingnuts. From this afternoon's presser in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, the first question out of the box was from an InfoWars "reporter" who asked "Is this another false flag attack staged attack to take our civil liberties"?"

How Right-Wingers in Congress Came to Represent a Whole Different Country | Alternet

How Right-Wingers in Congress Came to Represent a Whole Different Country | Alternet
"With an assist from some long-term demographic trends, House Republicans have redistricted, propagandized and policed themselves into another country.

As a result, they have become unmoored from the political incentives that typically drive law-makers' decision-making process. Public opinion no longer sways them, and that is creating a potentially insurmountable problem for the party establishment's efforts to broaden the GOP's appeal beyond angry old white people."

6 Sneaky Ways the Christian Right Foists Its Biblical Agenda on America | Alternet

6 Sneaky Ways the Christian Right Foists Its Biblical Agenda on America | Alternet
"1) What they want: A rollback on environmental protections.  This is but one of many ways the religious right has merged its interests with that of corporate America."

OK Tea Party Founder Charged With Blackmailing State Senator

OK Tea Party Founder Charged With Blackmailing State Senator
"Oh dear. This patriot is being oppressed over his fight to protect our nation from U.N. conspiracies by threatening to disclose a state senator's alleged marriage problems! You'd think someone so obviously well-versed in our constitution would also know that extortion is a crime. Just imagine if teabaggers took all that energy and applied it to something useful -- like Medicare for all, or stopping the chained CPI"

The GOP-Fox Circus Act | The Nation

The GOP-Fox Circus Act | The Nation
"Fox News's shellshocked election night coverage, punctuated by Karl Rove's surreal meltdown upon hearing of Obama's victory in Ohio and, thus, the election, capped off a historic day of reckoning for the network and conservatives alike. Chastened by defeat, Republican politicians and right-wing pundits have subsequently been grappling with the repercussions of the caustic tone and incendiary rhetoric their movement has adopted. This ongoing debate about whether broadening conservatism's appeal requires new messages or just new messaging has ignored the 800-pound gorilla in the room, however. Noticeably absent from all the right wing's public self-criticism is any interest in confronting the potent role played by the Republican Party's single most important messenger, Fox News."

Give The People What They Want! Taxes That Pay for Jobs, Education, Healthcare and Science | Alternet

Give The People What They Want! Taxes That Pay for Jobs, Education, Healthcare and Science | Alternet
"Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus -- the kicker -- Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?

Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions -- or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes."

The Southern State Fast Becoming Ayn Rand's Vision of Paradise | Alternet

The Southern State Fast Becoming Ayn Rand's Vision of Paradise | Alternet
"As you would expect, this translates into hard times for its public school systems, which rank 48th in school revenues per student and 45th in teacher salaries. The failure to invest in education also corresponds with poverty: the state has the 40th worst poverty rate (15%) and the 13th highest state percentage of poor children (26%). 

Employment opportunities also are extremely poor for the poor. Only 25% have full-time jobs, 45% are employed part-time, and a whopping 30% have no jobs at all. So what do you do with all those low-income folks who don't have decent jobs? You put a good number of them in jail. In fact, only Louisiana, Georgia and New Mexico have  higher jail incarceration rates."

Rand Paul Struggles With Audience That Knows Better

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Five Ways Rand Paul Whitesplained Politics At Howard University

Five Ways Rand Paul Whitesplained Politics At Howard University: On Wednesday morning, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) gave an address at the historically-black Howard University designed to convince black voters to support Republicans. While some of his remarks, most notably on harsh drug laws and other civil liberties issues, were well-received, the majority of the speech consisted in Paul condescendingly explaining American racial history to [...]/p

Republican Congressman Says Appealing To ‘So-Called Hispanic Voters’ Is ‘Very Discouraging’

Republican Congressman Says Appealing To ‘So-Called Hispanic Voters’ Is ‘Very Discouraging’: Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) took issue with his party’s attempt to win over Latino voters after the drubbing it took in the 2012 election. “[It's] very discouraging,” Huelskamp told conservative radio host Steve Deace on Tuesday, that Republicans are trying “to win votes from the so-called ‘Hispanic voter.’” The conservative congressman argued that trying to [...]/p

I’m a Republican, Not an Idiot - Truthdig

I’m a Republican, Not an Idiot - Truthdig
"Parris tells The New York Times, when asked whether he thinks global warming is a threat. It’s not such a ridiculous question, when one considers the GOP’s long denial of climate change and its love affair with fossil fuels. This is no longer the party of Teddy Roosevelt, who loved the great outdoors and championed national parks, or Richard Nixon, another Californian and the president who created the Environmental Protection Agency."

The Real Monsanto Protection Act: How The GMO Giant Corrupts Regulators And Consolidates Its Power

The Real Monsanto Protection Act: How The GMO Giant Corrupts Regulators And Consolidates Its Power: Liberals and Tea Party members alike are up in arms over the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” a provision snuck into the emergency budget bill that essentially exempts biotech firms like Monsanto Company from judicial review. Now that President Obama has signed the law, Monsanto may plant genetically modified seeds even if a court of law [...]/p

Irrefutable Proof That Ted Cruz (R-TX) is Congress' Biggest Liar

Irrefutable Proof That Ted Cruz (R-TX) is Congress' Biggest Liar
"Guess you could say he's lying for Jesus."

GOP Official Apologizes To ‘Colored People’ For Using Racial Slur

GOP Official Apologizes To ‘Colored People’ For Using Racial Slur: Republican Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile used an offensive racial slur during an argument with a fellow commissioner, but he wants everyone to know that he isn’t a racist because he’s “built Habitat homes for colored people,” and also that he has a black friend: In a recording made by County Clerk Don Merriman of [...]/p

Paul Ryan Stumped: Can’t Name A Single Area Of Compromise In His Budget

Paul Ryan Stumped: Can’t Name A Single Area Of Compromise In His Budget: The budget plan President Obama released this morning is squarely aimed at brokering a long-term fiscal compromise with House Republicans, who have demanded entitlement cuts and other spending reductions to reduce the nation’s deficit. Obama’s budget mirrors the compromise offer he made to House Speaker John Boehner (R) in fiscal cliff negotiations, offering less in [...]/p

Thousands Rally To Protest Sequestration Cuts To Medical Research Programs

Thousands Rally To Protest Sequestration Cuts To Medical Research Programs: Thousands of researchers, patients, doctors, scientists, and advocates gathered rallied outside of Carnegie Library in Washington DC to protest sequestration cuts towards medical research. Organizers estimated that the Rally for Medical Research, protesting budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health, had around 10,000 attendees. “When [Congress] sees a grassroots movement rising up from doctors, [...]/p

How One Multi-Millionaire Is Turning North Carolina Into A Tea Party Utopia

How One Multi-Millionaire Is Turning North Carolina Into A Tea Party Utopia: In 2010, Republicans took over both houses of the North Carolina legislature for the first time since 1870, due in no small part to the spending of a single, very wealthy Republican. As Jane Mayer reported in 2011, “three-quarters of the spending by independent groups in North Carolina’s 2010 state races came from accounts linked [...]/p

MT GOP Legislator Tells Tenants They Should Die ASAP

MT GOP Legislator Tells Tenants They Should Die ASAP
"Montana Street Fighter, which broke this story, now reports that the Helena Vigilante has picked it up. The guy sounds like your basic extreme dyed-in-the-wool teabagger nut, worried about the government "printing money" and making people weak and lazy. (Guess that's why he voted against providing affordable housing to returning vets.)"

Conservatives Are Morphing into the Party of Doomsday Preppers | Alternet

Conservatives Are Morphing into the Party of Doomsday Preppers | Alternet
"The ominous prophecies of government tyranny, financial meltdown and violent anarchy featured on  Preppers inform more than just the survivalist movement circa 2013. They’re also being absorbed into contemporary conservatism, which has increasingly bought into these same doomsday storylines hook, line and bunker."

Is the GOP Sincere in Denouncing its Bigots? | Alternet

Is the GOP Sincere in Denouncing its Bigots? | Alternet
"There has been an outcry from some GOP members concerning GOP bigotry. But the sea change may be much less than meets the eye."

America Is Ruled by Billionaires, and They Are Coming After the Last Shreds of Our Democracy | Alternet

America Is Ruled by Billionaires, and They Are Coming After the Last Shreds of Our Democracy | Alternet
"The United States today qualifies as a plutocracy – on a number of grounds.  Let’s look at some striking bits of evidence. Gross income redistribution upwards in the hierarchy has been a feature of American society for the past decades. The familiar statistics tell us that nearly 80% of the national wealth generated since 1973 has gone to the upper 2%, 65% to the upper 1 per cent. Estimates as to the rise in real income for salaried workers over the past 40 years range from 20% to 28 %. In that period, real GDP has risen by 110% – it has more than doubled."

Republicans Criticize Government Spending Unless It Lowers Our Wages

Republicans Criticize Government Spending Unless It Lowers Our Wages
"So as the country converts from democracy (representative government for you nitpickers) to plutocracy, we should expect more of this. Or, alternatively, we can get corporate money back out of our politics, out of the think tanks, etc., and back into the corporations where it is only used to run the business. And then we can try to remember what a democracy is supposed to be like — where we do things to make our lives better."

Meet the GOPer Who Worked With Monsanto to Sneak the "Monsanto Protection Act" into Law | Alternet

Meet the GOPer Who Worked With Monsanto to Sneak the "Monsanto Protection Act" into Law | Alternet
"Anger at the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” — a biotech rider which protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks — has been directed at numerous parties in Congress and the White House for allowing the provision to be voted and signed into law. But the party responsible for anonymously introducing the rider into the broad, unrelated spending bill had not been identified until now.

As Mother Jones’ Tom Philpott  notes, the Senator responsible is Missouri Republican Roy Blunt — famed friend of Big Agrigulture on Capitol Hill."

The 'Chained CPI' and Why It's Bad for Social Security

Beyond Deficit Scare-Mongering

Beyond Deficit Scare-Mongering
"Conservatives’ real aim in their fiscal brinkmanship is to gut Social Security and Medicare."

Republicans Come To Silicon Valley To Offer Corruption For Cash

Republicans Come To Silicon Valley To Offer Corruption For Cash
"So there it is. We have opened the door to bribery, and bribery rules the day. If you can gain from corruption you gain an advantage that drives honest players out of business. In the end the ones with the most money buy up all the advantages and keep competitors and innovators down. They deliver the minimum they can get away with, while draining the economy. Which describes what we have as an economic system now."

New Report Exposes Extreme ALEC Agenda in Arizona

New Report Exposes Extreme ALEC Agenda in Arizona
"ALEC in Arizona identifies seventeen bills introduced in the 2013 session that appear to reflect ALEC model legislation. These bills would defund Arizona’s public school system (SB 1409 and HB 2617), eliminate collective bargaining rights (HB 2330), undermine the Affordable Care Act (HB 2588) and make it more difficult for Arizonans to sue corporations using class action lawsuits (SB 1452)."

Georgia Students Want To Hold The First Integrated Prom In Their High School’s History

Georgia Students Want To Hold The First Integrated Prom In Their High School’s History: Four students at Wilcox County High School in Georgia want to attend prom together — but under the current setup, they won’t be allowed to unless they throw their own. Wilcox County High School’s proms are still segregated by race, meaning Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, Quanesha Wallace, and Keela Bloodworth — half of whom are [...]/p

Chinese Investing Big Bucks in Florida Charter Schools

Chinese Investing Big Bucks in Florida Charter Schools
"Not that this comes as much of a surprise, but do we really want Chinese investors owning our children's education system? Republicans certainly don't, which is why they'll make sure their little darlings land in church schools after they voucherize the entire system.

Just remember where this scheme originated and who the governor was when you hear Republicans whining about the Chinese owning all our debt. I see Rick Scott has his priorities in the usual place -- his bank account."

Why Fox News Is Losing Its Audience

Mike Huckabee: Obama May Be Planning To Grab Guns And Launch A Nazi-Like Dictatorship

Mike Huckabee: Obama May Be Planning To Grab Guns And Launch A Nazi-Like Dictatorship: Since calls for stricter gun regulation have increased after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the gun lobby has deployed the Nazi comparison frequently. However, under Nazi rule, gun laws were actually relaxed. While Jews were banned from owning any weapons, the legal age to own a gun was lowered, while rifle and shotgun possession was deregulated. Experts say gun policy had little effect on Nazi power either way.

Even with no evidence to back up the confiscation conspiracy, gun advocates and Republican lawmakers have embraced rhetoric comparing President Obama to Hitler and Stalin. Meanwhile, 92 percent of the public supports mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including overwhelming majorities of gun owners and NRA members.

PERRspectives: For Many Republicans, Every Day is Confederate Heritage Month

PERRspectives: For Many Republicans, Every Day is Confederate Heritage Month
"With their latest attempts to resurrect secession, nullification and other evils of the antebellum era, for many Republicans every day is Confederate Heritage Month."

If Election Were Held Today, Democrats Would Win House In A Landslide — And Only Win A 5 Seat Majority

If Election Were Held Today, Democrats Would Win House In A Landslide — And Only Win A 5 Seat Majority: According to a Quinnipiac poll released today, if the election were held today 43 percent of the electorate would support a Democratic U.S. House candidate, as opposed to just 35 percent who would back a Republican. That 8 point lead for Democrats is significantly more than the GOP’s margin of victory during the 2010 Republican [...]/p

Eleven North Carolina Republicans Sponsor Resolution Saying Their State Can Ignore The Constitution

Eleven North Carolina Republicans Sponsor Resolution Saying Their State Can Ignore The Constitution: The Constitution “does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional” according to a resolution sponsored by North Carolina House Majority Leader Edgar Starnes (R) and ten of his fellow Republicans — a statement that puts them at odds with over [...]/p

OK Tea Partier Threatens State Lawmaker For Stalling Bill Promoting U.N. Conspiracy Theories

OK Tea Partier Threatens State Lawmaker For Stalling Bill Promoting U.N. Conspiracy Theories: An Oklahoma Tea Party group is under investigation following a warning to a State Senator that he had to bring a conspiracy-theory laden piece of legislation to the floor — or else. At issue is paranoia-induced anti-U.N. House Bill 1412 and its current status languishing in the Senate’s Energy Committee, much to the chagrin of [...]/p

PERRspectives: GOP Fights to Keep Texas Health Care Among Nation's Worst

PERRspectives: GOP Fights to Keep Texas Health Care Among Nation's Worst
"As it turns out, Texas is a role model only in the sense of being a horrible example to be avoided at all costs. As the numbers show, by almost every objective measure the Texas health care system ranks among the very worst in the nation."

Gary Bauer: 'Accurate Portrayal' of GOP Agenda is Slashing Social Programs to Give Tax Cuts to 'Billionaires'

Gary Bauer: 'Accurate Portrayal' of GOP Agenda is Slashing Social Programs to Give Tax Cuts to 'Billionaires'
"as Bauer pointed out, that Americans just aren't buying trickle-down anymore."

The Christian Right Is Panicking Because They Know They Are Losing | Alternet

The Christian Right Is Panicking Because They Know They Are Losing | Alternet
"They know the tide of public opinion has turned against them on gay marriage."

Memo To GOP: It’s Hard to Love Diversity When You Don’t Live It

Memo To GOP: It’s Hard to Love Diversity When You Don’t Live It: Republicans are having a wee bit of trouble reinventing themselves as a minority-friendly party.  One reason is that prominent Republicans keep doing and saying things that don’t seem, well, very friendly.  Consider the recent remarks of Republican Congressman Don Young from Alaska: My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks [...]/p