Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Religion - often involves ignoring a LOT of the Holy Book


Religion - it's all about the ignorance


Please run a candidate Working Families Party. Please?

Andrew Cuomo realizes he has a problem on his left (Click here to read more)


Rss@dailykos.com (kos)
Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 7:17 pm
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Asshole Democrat and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is apparently wigged out at the Siena poll showing substantial support to his left for a Working Families Party candidate. The poll is certainly emboldening the WFP party to think big, either with a general election candidate that would seek to supplant the GOP as the state's #2 party (and its preferential place on the ballot and on commissions), or even by backing a Democratic primary challenge to Cuomo.
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After spending months gleefully shitting on liberals and rival elected Democrats (pretty much everyone not named "Cuomo"), the governor is suddenly on the defensive.
Cuomo gave a defense of his liberal street cred today http://t.co/...
- @CapitalTonight
Cuomo says that if liberals want public financing, Dream Act, WEA passed, then work to elect people who support those measures
- @CapitalTonight
Cuomo on WFP challenge: "I don't know if there's a lot of space to my left."
- @CapitalTonight
There is as much space to Cuomo's left as there was to Joe Lieberman's left, which is to say quite a bit. Heck, on economic matters, he's a Republican.
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But he's particularly wrong on that second tweet above. He says liberals should work to elect people who want those great liberal policies. Fair enough.
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But it was Cuomo who signed into law the extreme GOP gerrymander that gave Senate Republicans an unfair advantage in a state in which they can barely garner a third of the vote statewide. He even supported the GOP gerrymander after spending a year pretending to fight to reform the redistricting process. Kind of like how he pretended to clean up corruption in Albany.
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And still, Democrats took over the State Senate in 2012, despite that extreme gerrymander. But did Cuomo celebrate that? No, he tacitly supported a breakaway faction of Democrats that kept effective control of the chamber in Republican hands.
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And don't even get Bill de Blasio started on the ways the governor is sabotaging his initiatives, in a city in which three-quarters of the electorate voted for him.
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So liberals have done their part to shape New York to their liking. The only impediment left is Andrew Cuomo himself.

Shooting report

How do bad guys get guns? Buy them legally? Steal them? Buy them from someone else who stole them? The only way to reduce the number of guns in the hands of "bad guys" is to check to see who is buying them to begin with, and then training those people in how to keep their guns safe from theft.






Gun control: Some training required of every gun owner might prevent stupid and dangerous behavior.


Is there a growing backlash against the "prisons for profit" move in the U.S.?

Corporations Divest Nearly $60 Million From Private Prison Industry (Click here to read more)

Katie Rose Quandt
Monday, April 28, 2014, 6:33 am
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Three corporations announced their divestment from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies in the United States, late last week.
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Scopia Capital Management, DSM North America, and Amica Mutual Insurance pulled nearly $60 million in investments from CCA and GEO Group in the final quarter of 2013, marking full divestment for DSM and Amica and a 27 percent decrease in shares for Scopia. (Scopia has decreased its private prison stock by 59 percent since December 2012.) Their announcements mark the first round of success for civil rights nonprofit Color of Change, which has been pushing over 150 companies to divest from for-profit incarceration companies since last year. Color of Change is one of 16 organizations working towards these divestment goals as part of the National Prison Divestment Campaign.
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"Companies that continue to stay with their investments in CCA and GEO Group are making a real decision about where they want their money and the ethical obligations they have to the greater society," Color of Change Executive Director Rashad Robinson told Mother Jones. Human rights advocates strongly oppose private prisons, alleging that they prioritize profit over rehabilitation and help fuel mass incarceration. Privately owned prisons have also been shown to have higher levels of violence and recidivism.

Leave it to Fox News to support the racists.

Fox News sends reporter to ask NBA if punishing racists is a 'slippery slope' (Click here to read more)

By David Edwards
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 15:08 EDT
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Jo Ling Kent, a reporter for Megyn Kelly's Fox News show, was the first and possibly only voice offering a defense for Donald Sterling at Tuesday's NBA press conference by asking the commissioner if it was a "slippery slope" to punish him for racist comments.
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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced at the Tuesday press conference that Sterling had been banned from the league for life, and would be fined $2.5 million after audio tape emerged of the billionaire allegedly telling his girlfriend not to bring African-Americans to his basketball games.
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Following those announcements, Silver invited questions from reporters.
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Many journalists, like Inside Edition's Lisa Guerrero, wanted to know why the NBA had not acted sooner. Others wanted to know how quickly league owners could force Sterling to sell the LA Clippers.
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But Kent became the first to offer what sounded like a defense of the accused racist.
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"Should someone lose their team for remarks shared in private?" she asked. "Is this a slippery slope?"
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"Whether or not these remarks were initially shared in private, they are now public," Silver explained. "And they represent his views."

Is America going to wind up with a range war?

Nevada lawmaker: Cliven Bundy supporters are setting up 'checkpoints' against residents (Click here to read more)

By Arturo Garcia
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 18:38 EDT
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A Nevada congressman contacted law enforcement saying supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy have set up checkpoints for drivers' "residency" before letting them pass, KVVU-TV reported on Monday.
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Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) expressed his concerns in a letter to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, citing comments from his constitutents in the state's 4th congressional district, which includes Bunkerville, the site of the camp that sprung up following Bundy's declaration of defiance against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) earlier this month.
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"We must respect individual constitutional liberties, but residents of and visitors to Clark County should not be expected to live under the persistent watch of an armed militia," Horsford wrote. "Residents have expressed their desire to see these groups leave their community."
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Horford also stated in the letter that, according to constituents, members of militia groups have also "established a presence" on both highways in the area and churches and schools.
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Buoyed by early support from conservative media, Bundy's dispute with the BLM won him support from several self-avowed militia members and anti-government advocates, including James Yeager, the guns and weapon training company leader who threatened to "start killing people" last year over the prospect of stiffer gun safety laws and the group known as the "Oath Keepers."
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But first-person accounts from the camp posted on the Daily Kos suggest a rift has developed, with Oath Keepers members reportedly being barred by individuals identifying themselves as the Bundy camp's security leaders.
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"This man and the gentlemen that obeyed that order violated my personal creed," one leader was quoted as saying. "You don't f*cking walk in and say "I'm sorry' and you're back in brother. You can walk in and say you're sorry and you're lucky you're not getting shot in the back because that's what happens to deserters on the battlefield."

Some good advice from Bill Clinton


Can we get conservatives to protect a woman's right to choose?


North Carolina's Amendment One is drawing a legal challenge.


Fracking - we allow the frackers to pollute our water.


Dr John O'Connor on the environment


Tim Kane on the Keystone XL pipeline


Raul Grijalva on the Keystone XL pipeline


Borowitz on Sterling - Update


Borowitz on Sterling


Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Always accuse others of your own faults - it's an effective tool for the clueless


The God Excuse


In the red-state south, don't disagree with group think, or face the consequences

Oklahoma Court Could Face Impeachment (Click here to read more)

Sean Murphy
Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 5:25 pm
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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A member of the Oklahoma House drafted a resolution Wednesday seeking the impeachment of state Supreme Court justices who granted a delay of execution to two death row inmates.
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Republican state Rep. Mike Christian told The Associated Press that the five justices engaged in a "willful neglect of duty" when they granted stays of execution Monday to Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, both of whom were scheduled to be executed this month.

Shooting report

It's time to pass better gun control laws. How simple is that?








Gun control: Because those good guys with guns have little knowledge of how dangerous they are to themselves and others


Religion teaches values - just maybe not the ones we want.

Four Ultra-Orthodox Jews Arrested for Attacking Gay Man in Brooklyn(Click here to read more)

Taylor Berman
Wednesday 3:55pm
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Four Hasidic Jews have been arrested for attacking a 22-year-old gay man in Williamsburg last December.
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The New York Daily News reports that two of the four suspects had fled to Israel. All four are expected to be arraigned on Wednesday, and more suspects will likely be arrested in the coming days.
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Early December 1, Taj Patterson was attacked as he walked home from a party in Williamsburg. Patterson said he was jumped by about 20 Hasidic men, who allegedly yelled anti-gay slurs-"Stay down, faggot!"-as they beat him.
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"I'm walking down some block by myself and then the next thing I know, I'm surrounded by a group of Hasidic Jewish men and they're attacking me," Patterson told Gothamist in December. "I was alone. I was an easy target. I'm black. I'm gay, a whole slew of reasons."
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Based on witnesses' accounts of their clothes, the assailants may have belonged to Williamsburg Shomrim, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group.
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After the attack Patterson was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated for a broken eye socket, a torn retina, and blood clotting.
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UPDATE 4:25 pm: From the New York Daily News:
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    Aharon Hollender, 28, Abraham Winkler, 39, Mayer Herskovic, 21, and Joseph Fried, 25, were charged with gang assault and other counts, but not with any hate crimes, sources said Wednesday.

Welcome to Comcast Country (Click here to read more)

By DANIEL DENVIR
APRIL 23, 2014
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PHILADELPHIA - COMCAST'S executive vice president, David L. Cohen, did not seem fazed when Senator Al Franken warned at a recent Judiciary Committee hearing that the company's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable would "result in fewer choices, higher prices and even worse service for my constituents." Comcast argues that the merger will not decrease competition among cable television or broadband Internet providers because the two companies do not directly compete - though the reason for that is that they already maintain virtual monopolies in many of their service areas.
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In Comcast's case, that monopoly is predicated upon exerting overwhelming political control. Just ask anyone who lives in Philadelphia, where the shiny 975-foot Comcast Center looms over the skyline. As buttons at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia proclaimed: "Welcome to Comcast Country."
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Here, politicians heap unalloyed praise on Comcast's chairman and chief executive, Brian L. Roberts, and his father, the company's founder, Ralph J. Roberts.
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"You will have to search long and hard in this city to find anyone who will say anything bad about Comcast or the Robertses," the former governor of Pennsylvania and mayor of Philadelphia, Edward G. Rendell, told a reporter in 2001. Not incidentally, Mr. Cohen served as Mayor Rendell's chief of staff before taking over Comcast's political shop and becoming the Robertses' consigliere.

Republicans - by my standards, they have a strange set of standards. But it could just be me.


That's how I roll


Now we just need to convince them of that, Bruce.


That's how the GOP rolls.


Republicans support a return to 5th century values.


Conservatives - still disappointed they lost.


It's difficult to explain.


Bring back the American space program!


Just a little more proof you don't have to be bright to Senate Majority Leader


Health insurance for all - it's a winning idea.


Monday, April 28, 2014

Why is this not a big surprise? Too many government employees think they are the all mighty. Even government needs controls.

Lawsuit: FBI Used No-Fly List to Bully Muslims Into Becoming Informers (Click here to read more)

Hamilton Nolan
Wednesday 11:41am
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Four Americans, all of them Muslims, are suing the FBI, charging that the agency unfairly placed them on its "No-Fly List," and tried to use that as leverage to turn them into informers.
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Why do people get placed on our government's no-fly list? It's a secret. Ostensibly it has something to do with terrorism and public safety, but the government will not answer any questions about it. The process is completely opaque. The four plaintiffs in the suit all have different stories, but the gist is that 1) They did not deserve to be on the no-fly list, and 2) The FBI tried to use their inclusion on the no-fly list as a blunt tool to recruit them to be spies on the Muslim community. Here, for example, the story of Naveed Shinwari, born in Afghanistan but living in Nebraska, who was repeatedly hassled and visited by FBI agents after trying to fly home after being married in Afghanistan. From The Guardian:
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    The following month, after Shinwari bought another plane ticket for a temporary job in Connecticut, he couldn't get a boarding pass. Police told him he had been placed on the US no-fly list, although he had never in his life been accused of breaking any law. Another FBI visit soon followed, with agents wanting to know about the "local Omaha community, did I know anyone who's a threat", he says.
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    "I'm just very frustrated, [and I said] what can I do to clear my name?" recalls Shinwari, 30. "And that's where it was mentioned to me: you help us, we help you. We know you don't have a job; we'll give you money."
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Sometimes it seems as if the FBI's clumsy attempts to use unjust laws and regulations to bludgeon Muslim people into becoming informers is a sign that the FBI does not have a strong relationship with the American Muslim community. But that seems impossible, since the FBI is only trying to protect us all.

The group has an agenda, but it's still an interesting hypothesis

Killer Asteroid Coming Relatively Soon (Click here to read more)

It is not a question of if a killer asteroid will strike our planet, devastating at the very least a city, and at most the entire race. It is just a question of how soon. The current consensus: it won't be too long now.
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A new study by a group called the B612 Foundation-a group dedicated to fighting the asteroid menace, which is a pretty weird mission, but its leadership includes real live astronauts and scientists, so let's take them as reasonable-finds that relatively large asteroids strike the earth with a pretty high frequency. Since 2000, earth-based sensors have detected 26 asteroid explosions at least as powerful as a nuclear bomb. None of them have landed upon our heads... yet. But the group's extrapolation of how often really, really big and bad asteroids hit our planet is pretty scary. From USA Today:
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    None of the 26 asteroids in Brown's data was big enough to destroy a city, because of their size and composition and because all exploded high in the atmosphere. But Lu says this database of harmless asteroids can be extrapolated to shed light on the frequency of their fearsome cousins. The results suggest that a city-killer strikes once a century, though Lu says he wouldn't be surprised if the true rate were actually less worrisome, perhaps once every 150 or 200 years or less frequent still.

Obama working out details of his spying plan.


Poor Republicans? Talk about blind!


Republican policies


Jon Stewart - know the origins of your laws


Hat in the Cat's views on Ted Cruz


What is YOUR existance like?


We're sinking - political cartoon


They would only have a little less in their Cayman Islands account


Employers - you get what you pay for.


Your vote counts as much as theirs - if you vote.


Sunday, April 27, 2014

The delusions of religion can make you crazy


Just a reminder - religion DEPENDS on your ignorance. Knowledge sets you free.



An historic review of modern Republican attitudes

Stealing, Murdering, and Raping Like the Barbarians of Old (Click here to read more)

Nacktman (noreply@blogger.com)
Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 1:24 am
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The Republican Party has come to embrace stealing, and in its worship of the gun culture and stand your ground laws, murder…
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Republicans are always complaining about class warfare but since 2001 they have been on what can only be described as an extended plundering expedition on behalf of the rich. Their most recent activities since the Gilded Age may have begun in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they have hardly let up since George W. Bush left office. The only difference now is that while before it was foreign nationals and American taxpayers shared the dangers, today American citizens are their victims, and the annual Ryan Budget has become the crown jewel of this scheme.
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The ancient and medieval worlds were plagued by attacks from outside what were considered "civilized" areas, by what were deemed "barbarians." My ancestors were members of one of these groups, the Norse. The Norse had a concept of what they termed, in Old Norse, the innangarðr (the community) and utangarðr (the lawless wilds). The innangarðr was sacred and enjoyed frith, or peace. Those who violated this peace were outlawed and forced into the utangarðs (where life, in Hobbesian terms, was nasty, brutish, and short) for their sins. In a historical side note, Leif Eriksson was one such outlaw.
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But my point here is, if my ancestors qualify in most history books as barbarians, what does this make the Republicans, who don't spare a second thought for their own community, who look upon their own people with a rapaciousness once reserved for the utangarðr?
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And it has never been more clear that the Republicans want to deprive those of us in their own community of the comforts of home and the necessities of life, right down to the food we eat and the water we drink, and even their air we breathe. Depriving us of medical care seems to be just a bonus for them, a few more profits to squeeze out of the victims of their plundering before consigning them to their deaths. Gated communities will form the new inangarðr in the plutocratic Utopia. The rest of us will slave in a dystopian, distinctly Hobbesian, utangarðr to sustain their shameless lifestyles.
Where is their morality?  [...] But there is no place for altruism in the Republican worldview unless it is that of one rich person for another.
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The Republican Party, on the other hand, has come to embrace stealing, and in its worship of the gun culture and stand your ground laws, murder. Where is the morality, you ask? There isn't any. The Republican Party has done away with the inconvenience of morality. It is not congenial to their profit margins. Their view of economic and social justice is as warped as their view of religion.
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It is easy to see why they would oppose the idea of liberal governance. Government, we are taught, is of the People, by the People, for the People, and as such, it is an unhappy barrier between the 1 percent's desires and its victims. Government restrains. What the Republican Party wants is a government that, rather than regulating corporations, facilities their plundering of the taxpayer. Corporate welfare, obscenity that it is, is only the tip of the iceberg.
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If, as studies show, America is fast becoming a second-rate nation, there is a very good reason for that, and one need look no farther than the Republican Party and its rich patrons, who have become the new barbarians at the gate.

Shooting report

The shootings - incidental, accidental and purposeful continue and won't stop until we reduce the number of weapons in circulation.