J. Christian Adams and Fox Inventing New Conspiracy About Military and Move Act

Fox now promoting GOP activist Adams' false claim DOJ is "ignoring" military voting law

After trumpeting GOP activist J. Christian Adams' fabricated New Black Panthers Party story, Fox News is now reporting his false claim the Department of Justice is "ignoring" a military voting law by allegedly "encourag[ing]" states to use waivers to bypass the law. In fact, the waiver process is built into the law, and Adams offered no specific evidence to support his claim that DOJ is "encourag[ing]" states to use those waivers.

....Waiver process actually built into military voting law

Claim that DOJ is "ignoring" law by "encourag[ing]" waiver use is nonsensical. The MOVE Act requires states to send absentee ballots to overseas military troops 45 days before an election, but the legislation specifically allows states can apply for a waiver if it can prove an "undue hardship" in enforcing it, as well as outline a "comprehensive plan" by which military and overseas voters will receive ballots in time for them to be counted in the election. From a National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) summary of the MOVE Act:

....No direct evidence offered that DOJ "encouraged" waivers

Claims by Eversole, Adams lack evidence. FoxNews.com based its article on the accusations of J. Christian Adams and Eric Eversole, former DOJ attorneys who are Republican activists. Eversole asserted that the Justice Department "appears to be spending more time finding ways to avoid the MOVE Act rather than finding ways to ensure that military voters will have their votes counted." Adams claimed that "I do know that they have adopted positions or attempted to adopt positions to waivers that prove they aren't interested in aggressively enforcing the law." FoxNews.com did not indicate whether Adams or Eversole offered any specific evidence to back up these assertions.

Meeting excerpts offer no evidence of "encourag[ing]" waivers. FoxNews.com also highlighted a letter by Sen. John Cornyn expressing "serious concern" about "recent reports" regarding enforcement of the act, and went on to quote Cornyn saying that "according to recent information, the Department of Justice has expressed reluctance to protect the civil rights of military voters under the new law." The only evidence offered to support the claim is the "minutes from the 2010 winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), during which Rebecca Wertz, deputy chief of the DOJ's voting section, told state election officials that the legislative language regarding waivers is not completely clear." According to the minutes, FoxNews.com reported, Wertz said that "the DOJ is working to find effective ways to disseminate any information guidance that can help states with different questions about MOVE interpretation. She invited questions and dialogue from states, and said that litigation is always the last resort." The excerpts provided by FoxNews.com offered no evidence that DOJ is "ignoring" the law or "encourag[ing]" waivers.
Accuser Adams is GOP activist who pushed phony New Black Panthers story  

Abrams is Fox's favorite kind of nut job. he has visions in his pointed head and Fox "reports" those kool-aid addled visions as news. Megyn Kelly and Gary Sinise are Idioits

Actor Gary Sinise visited America Live earlier today, ostensibly to discuss his work helping wounded soldiers. But Megyn Kelly, who is supposed to host one of Fox News’ objective programs, blatantly tried to push him into criticizing the Obama administration over its handling of a military absentee ballot law, a subject Sinise obviously knew nothing about.

It's nice that Sinise is supposedly doing things to help the troops, but why is he part of the right-wing fake patriots club at Fox where no bizarre anti-Democrat bashing is off the table. Kelly and Sinise are both old enough to know that being a good citizen means acting like a responsible adult.

Paul Ryan (R-WI) Exposed Doubletalk Express

Liar Paul Ryan (R-WI) Exposed Doubletalk Express

OK, here’s Ryan’s reply. As I predicted, a snow storm of words, dodging the math questions.

Notice that Ryan does not address the issue of the zero nominal growth assumption, and how that assumption — not entitlement reforms — is the key to his alleged spending cuts by 2020.

I also see that Ryan is perpetuating the runaround on revenue estimates. If you read either this article or his original response to the Tax Policy Center, you could easily get the impression that nobody would do a revenue estimate, that CBO said it was JCT’s job, and JCT balked. Even Nate Silver has fallen for this. But read the original response carefully:

    The Tax Policy Center analysis covers a 10-year period, but the Roadmap is a long-term plan with spending and revenue projections covering 75 years. As such, the analysis is not consistent with the long-term horizon of the plan. Staff originally asked CBO to do a long-term analysis of both the tax and spending provisions in the Roadmap. However, CBO declined to do a revenue analysis of the tax plan, citing that it did not want to infringe on the traditional jurisdiction of the JCT. JCT, however, does not have the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years) [my emphasis]. Given these functional constraints for an official analysis, staff relied on its original work with the Treasury Department and other tax experts to formulate a reasonable expected path for long-term revenues given the tax policies in the Roadmap combined with the economic growth projections available at the time.

In other words, Ryan could have gotten JCT to do a 10-year estimate; it just wouldn’t go beyond that. And he chose not to get that 10-year estimate. So it was Ryan’s choice not to have any independent estimate of the 10-year revenue effects.

And bear in mind that the Tax Policy Center critique was five months ago. If Ryan disagreed with the center’s estimates, he could have gone back to the JCT to get a different set of estimates. He never did.

By the way, if you look at the artful way his excuses are constructed — giving the false impression that he couldn’t get a revenue score for love nor money — how is that not flimflam?

Finally, why is Ryan denying that he proposes dismantling Medicare as we know it? Replacing the system with vouchers surely fits that description.

Ryan wants Congress to pass a Bushonomic budget that stretches over 75 years into the future, but can't get his math together for scoring the effects of drastic cuts or spending. It is all conservative voodoo economics with a new and improved label.

Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Road Map Voodoo

Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Road Map Voodoo

In a report released yesterday, Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) critically examine the tax policies proposed recently in Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget alternative, conventionally titled, "A Roadmap for America's Future." Claims of the proposal "balancing the budget" and "reforming entitlements" have already been thoroughly debunked, but CTJ has contributed a valuable analysis of the young Republican's tax policies, which will actually cost the government "$2 trillion over a decade even while requiring 90 percent of taxpayers to pay more" than they already do in taxes.

Ryan is just another Voodoo economics conservatives. he is shifting the deck chairs around, but it is the same extreme right-wing  economics that caused the Great Recession. Like Bush he is really worried that the wealthiest people in America not have to pay a couple more percent in taxes. Like most conservatives he believes in rewarding wealth for it's own sake. Rewarding workers is against the wacky and dangerous Republican belief system..

Fox's Voodoo Dick Morris' Plan for Economic Recovery: Bankrupt States; Break Unions

The opening salvo: Frame aid to states as a "bailout".

    As long as the Democrats control Congress, they will continue to rubber-stamp Obama’s requests for bailouts of profligate states. But when the Republicans take control, they will be less than forthcoming. Republicans will ask the central question: Why should taxpayers from states that have cut their budgets and observed spending restraint, pay for the extravagances of the other states? Why should forty-seven states have to pay for California, New York, and Michigan?

Hmmmm. Will those 47 states refuse to accept the federal dollars which kept their states' budgets balanced last year? Why did Rick Perry accept the federal aid for Texas? So he could campaign on a balanced budget, of course.

But really, this is just the foundation. Morris' plan is much more evil than simply electing enough representatives to Congress to block federal aid to states.

Dick used to pay prostitutes to suck their toes so this is not a man who exactly knows the value of a dollar.

Republians Might Not be Insane They Just Appear to Be

GOP Rep. Inglis Tells CNN About Crazy Right-Wingers Who Ousted Him (VIDEO)

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), who lost his primary on June 22 by a whopping 71%-29% margin, appeared on CNN this afternoon to further discuss the forces that took him out of office: Crazy right-wing conspiracy theories, and his inability and refusal to go along with it.

CNN host Rick Sanchez went over a recent piece on Inglis in Mother Jones, in which Inglis talked about the crazies that he would come across on the campaign trail.

Sanchez read from Inglis's recollection of a conversation with some voters: "'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'"

Sanchez asked Inglis who these people were. And in response, Inglis conceded he might have done better politically had he humored them.

The problem with even marginally moderate Republicans like Inglis is they do not speak up and fight back against the insanity, racism, conspiracy theories and contempt for facts that permeate his party. Now it has come back to bite him in the a*s.


Church Carnival Sets Up Shooter Game With Obama As Target - The Obama target has been taken down, but can one imagine the outrage if someone had set up a target game like this of George Bush or Rush Limbaugh. Democrats might not be perfect, but they are not this loony.

Florida Gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott ‘Discriminated Or Cut Corners In Pursuit Of Profit,’ According To Lawsuits He’s Keeping Confidential

Rick Scott, a disgraced ex-hospital executive and anti-health care reform propagandist is poised to be the Republican nominee for governor in Florida. Still, Scott is dogged by legal trouble. The Miami Herald reports today that Scott and his health care company are hiding details about nearly a dozen lawsuits against them, lawsuits which “portray the company, and sometimes Scott by extension, as a ruthless employer who discriminated or cut corners in pursuit of profit”:

    Just six days before Rick Scott announced his bid for governor, he was deposed in a case that alleged his healthcare company Solantic had broken Florida law by filing false medical licensing information with the state.

    But what Scott said April 7 might never be known to the public.

    Within a month, Solantic settled the 2-year-old case and signed a confidentiality agreement with Dr. P. Mark Glencross, who claimed his medical license was misused by the Jacksonville-based chain of walk-in clinics. …

Scott is doing well in the polls. Conservatives do not care about Scotts criminal activity. Conservatives are still in love with that anti-American culture of corruption.

Why Do Republicans Hate George Washington and American Values

Flashback: George Washington in 1790 — The U.S. government ‘gives to bigotry no sanction.’

President George Washington wrote a letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, affirming the values of tolerance and religious freedom that he saw as the bedrock of the country that he had had helped found, and done so much to secure. “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy,” Washington wrote, “a policy worthy of imitation.” He continued:

    All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens. [...]

    May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

The debate over the Ground Zero Mosque is, in fact, a debate over American values. Newt Gingrich has been trying to claim that the construction of the mosque is “explicitly at odds with core American and Western values,” while Mayor Bloomberg correctly noted yesterday that “we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.” If the conservatives who have been attacking the mosque think that George Washington was wrong about American tolerance and religious freedom, let them say so explicitly.

Conservatives like Newt, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin do say, in so many words, everyday they hate American values and ideals. They can't come right out and say the words because than they would be exposed as the eliminationist fake patriots they are.

Conservatism: refusing to be an adult.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) exposed as a fascist America hating loon.

Top 10 Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts

Top 10 Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts

Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:

    * Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
    * Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
    * Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
    * Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Add to the Deficit
    * Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
    * Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
    * Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
    * Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
    * Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
    * Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already

Details, documentation and charts at the link. You don't have to be an economics expert to see how keeping Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have been and would continue to be a destructive force on the economic well being of the average American.

Colorado Republican Senatorial candidate Ken Buck joins the crazy Sharon Angle of Nevada in thinking the government should force rape and incest victims to carry their pregnancies to term.

Kentucky's Rand Paul Reaches News Low in Respect for Miners

Crazy Rand Paul claims mine safety regulations are unnecessary because ‘no one will apply’ for jobs at dangerous mines

In April, two miners were killed at the Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky after the mine’s roof collapsed. The non-union mine had been cited for 840 safety violations by federal inspectors since 2009, and the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing issued 31 orders to close sections of the mine or to shut down equipment during the same period. But when asked about the incident, Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate, Rand Paul, said “maybe sometimes accidents happen.” And as it turns out, Paul doesn’t believe that the federal government has any responsibility at all to set safety standards to protect mine workers:

    “The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia…“You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

As Amanda Terkel pointed out, a bunch of dirty coal groups lobbying for looser regulations have banded together to form a 527 to elect industry-friendly Republicans. One of the candidates they intend to back is, of course, Rand Paul. The Wonk Room takes a further look at how Paul’s positions favor law-breaking corporations over the safety of workers.

Deregulation has been the extreme Right's mantra for decades. Well we deregulated and during the Bush administration, enforcement of regulation reached new lows. People keep getting killed, thousands of acres of land have been destroyed for generation, but corporation profits are at record highs. Who's benefiting from the Rand Paul mentality - the wealthy at the literal expense of the dead.