Marco Rubio's radical denial of climate change

Snow in May, devastating wildfires in California - and Senator Marco Rubio still denies the existence of scientifically proven Climate Change. Ed Schultz, Mike Papantonio and Former Governor Brian Schweitzer discuss.

Want to Know If Your Food Is Genetically Modified?

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/want-to-know-if-your-food-is-genetically-modified/370812/

Why Karl Rove Uses Dirty Tricks: They Work

By Peter Beinart

Karl Rove reportedly hinted that Hillary Clinton may have brain damage from a fall—then quickly backed away. His history suggests it's a calculated maneuver.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Karl Rove now denies reports that he said Hillary Clinton may have brain damage. “I never used that phrase,” he said on Fox News. True. What Rove said was, “Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she’s wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what’s up with that.”

In other words, Rove didn’t say Hillary Clinton has brain damage. He hinted it, thus giving himself deniability while ensuring that the slur lingers in the public mind. Which is what he’s been doing his entire career.

In 2004, Joshua Green reported in The Atlantic that Texas insiders accused Rove of spreading allegations that his rival, Republican consultant John Weaver, had made a pass at a young man at a GOP event. Green also quoted an aide to a 1994 state Supreme Court candidate in Alabama who accused Rove of having quietly insinuated that his boss was a pedophile. Similarly, when George W. Bush ran for governor of Texas that same year, rumors swirled about the sexual orientation of incumbent Ann Richards. “No one ever traced the character assassination to Rove,” wrote Bush biographer Louis Dubose, “Yet no one doubts that Rove was behind it.”

Most famously, when Bush was fighting for his life against a surging John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, fliers, emails, and push polls accused McCain of having fathered an African-American “love child” (he had actually adopted a girl from Bangladesh) and of suffering from mental instability as a result of his incarceration in Vietnam. McCain staffers, and McCain’s daughter, have accused Rove of orchestrating the rumors; Rove denies any involvement.

Why does Rove allegedly smear his opponents this way? Because it works.

Consider the Clinton “brain damage” story. Right now, the press is slamming Rove for his vicious, outlandish comments. But they’re also talking about Clinton’s health problems as secretary of state, disrupting the story she wants to tell about her time in Foggy Bottom in her forthcoming memoir.

 

Assuming she runs, journalists will investigate Clinton’s medical history and age. Now Rove has planted questions that will lurk in their minds as they report. 

Assuming she runs for president, the press will investigate Clinton’s medical history and age no matter what Rove says. But he’s now planted questions—about the December 2012 blood clot that forced her into the hospital, and about her mental condition as she ages—that will lurk in journalists’ minds as they do that reporting. If she has a moment of Rick Perry-like forgetfulness sometime between now and the fall of 2016, Rove’s comments make it more likely that voters will wonder whether she’s still with it mentally.     

Political consultants create narratives about the candidates they want to defeat: Al Gore fudged the truth; John Kerry was an elitist; Barack Obama wasn’t fully American; Mitt Romney didn’t care about ordinary people. Once you kindle public suspicion about your opponent, it’s easy to keep throwing logs on the fire. On the eve of the memoir that will launch Hillary’s pre-campaign public relations blitz, Karl Rove is starting that process now, despite having no evidence for the storyline he wants to convey.

For better—but mostly for worse—campaign 2016 is already here.

The cartoon hillbilly

Alan Grayson Calls Marco Rubio's Climate Change Denial 'The Endarkenment'

By John Amato

He explains that politicians like Cruz understand what their actions will cost the American government and the taxpayers, but don't care.

Rep. Alan Grayson has always spoken out against the crazy, anti-intellectual side of the Republican party and as I've written before, he always speaks truth to psychosis. Here's what he said about Ted Cruz after he shut down the federal government:

Grayson: No, not at all. Ted Cruz represent the element in the republican party that's trying to hasten the Apocalypse. These are people who understand that Obamacare actually does help save people's lives and they want to destroy it anyway.
These are people who understand that defaulting on the national debt would drive unemployment sky high and they want to do it anyway. Those are the people Ted Cruz speaks to today.

He explains that politicians like Cruz understand what their actions will cost the American government and the taxpayers, but don't care. This past Sunday, Senator Marco Rubio joined the ranks of Ted Cruz , Louis Gohmert and many others as a disbeliever in truth and facts when he denied that climate change was influenced by mankind and said scientists were all wrong when asked if climate change was threatening cities in Florida.

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientist are portraying it," Rubio said. "And I do not believe the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except, it will destroy our economy."

I emailed Rep. Alan Grayson after I watched Rubio's performance on ABC news about his ludicrous positions since he's from Florida too and here's how he responded via email:

Grayson: It’s insane, but that’s what passes for political discourse these days. It’s a complete rejection of facts, evidence and logic – the “Endarkenment.”

To some Christian conservatives, climate change is nothing more than a sign of the approaching End Times, but for Rubio it's just gobbledegook nonsense, but to people who objectively consider and weigh the evidence, it's a threat to our planet's entire existence.

I think "The Endarkenment" describes the Republican party perfectly.

The Big Puff of Wind Rush Limbaugh

Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder discuss Rush Limbaugh's ratings cataclysm.

North Dakota was the deadliest state to work in 2012

By Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

The workplace fatality rate held steady at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2012, which means that 4,628 workers were killed on the job in America in 2012, according to the AFL-CIO's annual "Death on the Job" report. Where you work makes a huge difference in the risk of death. Take North Dakota:

• The state’s 2012 job fatality rate of 17.7 per 100,000 is more than five times the national average and is one of the highest state job fatality rates ever reported for any state. The state’s fatality rate more than doubled from a rate of 7.0 per 100,000 in 2007, and the number of workers killed on the job increased from 25 to 65.
• Latino workers accounted for 12 of the North Dakota deaths in 2012, a fourfold increase from the three Latino worker deaths in 2011.
• The fatality rate in the mining and oil and gas extraction sector in North Dakota was an alarming 104.0 per 100,000, more than six times the national fatality rate of 15.9 per 100,000 in this industry; and the construction sector fatality rate in North Dakota was 97.4 per 100,000, almost ten times the national fatality rate of 9.9 per 100,000 for construction.

By contrast, the workplace fatality rate in Massachusetts was just 1.4 per 100,000 workers. Obviously some industries will always be more dangerous than others, but the elevated fatality rate for construction workers in North Dakota versus other states shows that it's not just that.

Who you are also matters: Latino workers were particularly at risk, with a workplace death rate of 3.7 per 100,000 workers; nearly two-thirds of the Latinos killed on the job were born outside the United States.

The state to state variations in fatalities remind us that regulation and oversight work. They save lives—something to remember when Republicans drone on about "job-killing regulations." That regulations necessarily kill jobs is just not true, but if you need more evidence that regulations save lives, consider that, according to the AFL-CIO, since the 1970 passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, "The job fatality rate has been cut by 81 percent; more than 492,000 workers' lives have been saved."

Then consider that Texas hasn't seen last year's devastating fertilizer plant explosion as a reason to push for new safety measures.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Thu May 08, 2014 at 10:36 AM PDT.

Also republished by WE NEVER FORGET, In Support of Labor and Unions, and Daily Kos.

Set Destroyed During Fight On Live Talk Show In Jordan

A talk show debate between two Jordanian journalists turned into a seat-clearing, set-destroying fight, Young Turks host Cenk Uygur reported amusedly on Thursday.

The Benghazis the GOP Will Never Touch

Posted By Rude One

The Rude Pundit was going to write a long, graphic, stomach-churning piece about various Republicans, like Darrell Issa, Lindsey Graham, and Trey Gowdy, doing horrible things to themselves and each other sexually using the bones of dead U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens as implements of penetration. There would have been dildo talk, there would have been cries of pain and joy, there would have been gushes of ejaculate and feces all over one another and all over the hearing rooms of the Congress and all over the media and all over their base, who just eat it up, and maybe even all over Hillary Clinton. It would have been vile and depraved, and some of you might have found it shocking and funny, and some of you might have found it shocking and gross, and more than a few of you would have been turned on, and perhaps some of you might have taken notes for use later. That's the kind of service this blog offers.

It would have all been written as a metaphor about the GOP's monomania about What Happened at Benghazi, something that really has no relation anymore to what happened at Benghazi, at that American consulate in Libya some twenty months ago, when four Americans were killed in the chaos of terrorist attacks and riots over whatever people were rioting about. The metaphor would have demonstrated, through nauseating imagery, exactly why Republicans are still beating this drum, even though the drumhead was worn out and torn a long time ago. Yeah, all of that was loaded and cocked and ready to fire.

And then, out of curiosity, the Rude Pundit was reading a bit, and this story came up: "4 Dead, 24 Wounded in Weekend Chicago Violence." It's about how many people were murdered or hurt, mostly by gunfire, in the Windy City just this past Saturday and Sunday.

If this was being written last Monday, the headline would have been "43 Shot, 5 Killed, in Spate of Weekend Violence in Chicago."

If it had been the week before last, the headline would have been "At Least 8 Dead, 44 Wounded In Weekend Shootings."

And on and on heading backwards for as long as you care to look.

In other words, there's at least a Benghazi every weekend in Chicago. Sometimes it's twice a Benghazi. Yet there are no congressional hearings about the dead Americans in Chicago. There's no admonishment of politicians for having policies that contribute to the violence, like the nation's lax gun laws (yeah, Chicago's got strict gun control, which totally doesn't prevent people from getting weapons an hour away). There's no movement on the federal government's part, through action by Congress, to pass things like the Youth PROMISE Act, which at least would establish ways to try to deal with the violence that plagues so many places.

But those are gangs doing most of the murdering, mostly black and Hispanic Americans killing mostly black and Hispanic Americans, not filthy Arabs killing noble white men.

Darrell Issa and Trey Gowdy and whoever else are going to lead the latest bullshit hearings on whatever bullshit committee bullshit leader John Boehner pulls out of his orange ass. If they won't even acknowledge the little Benghazis that are doing far more harm to the nation than a dozen burned-down consulates, they can go fuck themselves with...well, see above.

Jet Magazine to Stop Print Publication and Go Digital

By Breanna Edwards

Jet magazine will be bidding farewell to the newsstand, for the most part, moving forward with plans to transition into a digital magazine—available as an app—at the end of June, Johnson Publishing Co. announced Wednesday.

The black magazine, founded in the early 1950's as a popular news source for black people to get information about their community, has ranked among the top three African-American magazines throughout its existence.

Jet magazine says the new weekly digital-magazine app will harness the power of multimedia, telling stories using video interviews, enhanced digital maps, 3D charts and, of course, photography—along with its daily breaking news. The app will be available across all devices and platforms.

The magazine is not completely leaving the print space, however, and will produce a special print edition once a year.

"Almost 63 years ago, my father, John Johnson, named the publication Jet because, as he said in the first issue, 'In the world today, everything is moving faster. There is more news and far less time to read it,' " Linda Johnson Rice, chairman of Johnson Publishing, stated in a press release. "He could not have spoken more relevant words today. We are not saying goodbye to Jet, we are embracing the future as my father did in 1951 and taking it to the next level."

"The Jet magazine online presence is continuing to grow, and JPC feels strongly we can provide great and timely content to our readers with the first weekly digital magazine app in the African-American space," said Desiree Rogers, CEO of Johnson Publishing.

The GOP's 'Summer of Benghazi coverage'

Republicans manufacture hysteria over Benghazi in an attempt to distract the American public from the real issues ahead of the midterms. Ed Schultz, Rep. John Garamendi, and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson discuss.

Hey Democrats, Listen to Elizabeth Warren!

By Gary Bentley

It looks like Republicans have a shot at winning the Senate after the 2014 election, and Democrats need to understand why that is. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio fills in for Thom Hartmann on The Big Picture to discuss how Democrats need strong voices like Elizabeth Warren.

Here's how to debunk their favorite attacks

"Capital in the 21st Century" has sent conservatives into a rage. Here's how to debunk their favorite attacks

By Sean McElwee

Thomas Piketty’s wildly popular new book, “Capital in the 21st Century,” has been subject to more think pieces than the final episode of “Breaking Bad.” Progressives are celebrating the book — and its unexpected popularity — as an important turning point in the fight against global wealth inequality. This, of course, means that conservatives have gone completely ballistic.

Rush Limbaugh, for example, has come out guns a-blazing: “Some French socialist, Marxist, communist economist has published a book, and the left in this country is having orgasms over it,” he exclaimed during a recent broadcast.

When the right drops the C-bomb, the M-bomb and S-bomb all at once, you can be certain a book is having an impact. And “Capital” may well be the “General Theory” of the first half of the 21st century, redefining the way we think about capitalism, democracy and equality.

This, of course, means that the right-wing attacks have only just begun. That in mind, here is a handy guide to navigating the more absurd responses:

Claim: Piketty is a dirty Marxist

There are two Marxes. One, a scholar of capitalism of repute, put forward testable hypotheses, some of which you may accept, some of which you may reject. The other is a conservative boogeyman, the human representation of all they find evil. If they dislike something, it must be Marxist.

James Pethokoukis, a formidable writer, went full hack for his National Review review,

---

---

Thanks to Piketty, the Left is now having a “Galaxy Quest” moment. All that stuff their Marxist economics professors taught them about the “inherent contradictions” of capitalism and about history’s being on the side of the planners — all the theories that the apparent victory of market capitalism in the last decades of the 20th century seemed to invalidate — well, it’s all true after all.

How to respond: Most times someone drops the M-Bomb, he is intending to be provocative. With enough effort, you can make almost anything Marxist. While Marxists don’t agree on everything, and the term is very nebulous (Marx once said he wouldn’t describe himself as a Marxist), there are some pretty established rules for determining if someone is, indeed, a Marxist. First, he generally doesn’t write things like,

• “Marxist analysis emphasized the falling rate of profit — a historical prediction that turned out to be quite wrong” (“Capital in the 21st Century,” page 52)
• “Marx usually adopted a fairly anecdotal and unsystematic approach”. (“Capital in the 21st Century,” page 229)
• “Marx evidently wrote in great political fervor, which at times lead him to issue hasty pronouncements from which it is difficult to escape. That is why economic theory needs to be rooted in historical sources …” (“Capital in the 21st Century,” page  10)
• “… Marx totally neglected the possibility of durable technological progress and steadily increasing productivity.” (“Capital in the 21st Century,” page  10)

These are not the words of a Marxist, but rather a reasonable scholar, investigating the truth of the claims written by the greatest political economist who ever lived. The fact that Piketty abstains from the vitriol and misrepresentation that typify most writing on Marx are to his credit.

Piketty certainly does argue that capitalism will not inevitably reduce inequality, as economist Simon Kuznets had famously claimed. As to whether capital will accumulate without end, as Marx believed, he is more nuanced.

Piketty argues that capital will accumulate in the hands of the few when growth is slower than the rate of return on capital and dis-accumulate if not (This is the now famous “r>g” formula). As growth slows, companies can replace workers with machines (written by economists as “substitution between capital and labor”), but only if there is a high elasticity of capital to labor (higher elasticity means easier replacement). This means that the share of income going to the owners of capital will rise, and the distribution of that capital will become more unequal.

Piketty does not hold to a labor theory of value, he does not believe that capitalism is founded on the exploitation of the proletariat, and he does not believe the system will inevitably collapse on its own contradictions. But critics who call Piketty a Marxist don’t actually mean, “Piketty subscribes to a collection of propositions generally accepted by Marxists”; they mean it as a verbal grenade. Step over it and move to more substantive criticisms.

Claim: The social safety net has already solved the problem

In order to somewhat compensate workers for voluntary unemployment and the ludicrously low wages that “markets” pay them, modern societies have developed transfer systems, or social safety nets of various levels of robustness, to bolster the incomes of low-wage workers. Some conservatives argue that these transfers have solved the inequality problem.

Scott Winship, the lovable but irksome economist dedicated to upsetting the inequality consensus, writes in Forbes,

Most importantly, in the United States, most public transfer income is omitted from tax returns. That includes not just means-tested programs for poor families and unemployment benefits, but Social Security. Many retirees in the Piketty-Saez data have tiny incomes because their main source of sustenance is rendered invisible in the data.

How to respond: There’s not enough room to give his data claims a full airing. For our purposes, it suffices to say that, while America does have a transfer system, it’s far less robust than that of other developed nations. (See chart below, from Lane Kenworthy.)

Government revenues are far lower in the U.S. than in other countries, making redistribution more difficult, and thus our safety net is far more frail. (See chart below, from Sean McElwee.)

Far more interesting is what would happen if conservatives made this their line. After all, if transfers are what is preventing inequality from skyrocketing then the rising share of pre-transfer income accruing to the wealthy capital owners means we need more robust transfer system. Because few, if any, thinkers on the right have argued for a stronger transfer system (and are, in fact, attempting to violate it), they must accept the logical conclusion: Their policies will set off skyrocketing inequality (or, more likely: They don’t give a shit).

Claim: Inequality isn’t a problem because look at consumption!

There are lots of ways to look at inequality. You could look at income inequality by examining how much a person takes home every year from their labor, income from assets and transfers. You could also look at wealth inequality by figuring out how many assets they own, in the form of stocks, bonds, property, and subtract from it their debts. Or you could look at how much they are able to consume.

Some conservative economists argue that an increase in income inequality has not been mirrored by an increase in consumption inequality because the wealthy save or invest their income. Kevin Hassett, a former Romney economic adviser, illustrates this point, arguing:

From 2000 to 2010, consumption has climbed 14% for individuals in the bottom fifth of households, 6% for individuals in the middle fifth, and 14.3% for individuals in the top fifth when we account for changes in U.S. population and the size of households. This despite the dire economy at the end of the decade.

Although he initially made this argument against Piketty in 2012, he has revived it recently in a lecture on the subject.

How to respond: In large part, this is a common trope on the right — the “but they have cellphones!” argument. The empirical literature on this subject is still very much in flux, and there is not a consensus. Some recent studies find that consumption inequality has increased with income inequality. But even if we except the consumption inequality argument, conservatives have some explaining to do. After all, if income inequality has been rising while consumption inequality has stayed the same, where is the spending coming from? Debt. Which means that wealth inequality is increasing, as the rich save more and the poor fall further into debt. Research released this week by Amy Traub of Demos finds that the recent increase in credit card debt hasn’t been driven by profligate spending, but unemployment, children, the declining value of homes and lack of health insurance. Recent research by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show how the bottom 90 percent simply haven’t been able to save their incomes and thereby build wealth. (See chart below.)

Claim: We need lazy rich people 

Tyler Cowen is one of the more honest of Piketty’s critics, and there is certainly a lot to like in his review. However, this section is a head-scratcher:

Piketty fears the stasis and sluggishness of the rentier, but what might appear to be static blocks of wealth have done a great deal to boost dynamic productivity. Piketty’s own book was published by the Belknap Press imprint of Harvard University Press, which received its initial funding in the form of a 1949 bequest from Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr., an architect and art historian who inherited a good deal of money from his father, a vice president of Bankers Trust… consider Piketty’s native France, where the scores of artists who relied on bequests or family support to further their careers included painters such as Corot, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Degas, Cézanne, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec and writers such as Baudelaire, Flaubert, Verlaine, and Proust, among others.

How to respond: It’s very true that in the past, many artists, writers and thinkers benefited from familial wealth (or rich benefactors). This, however, is not to be celebrated! It means that marginalized people are frequently removed from mainstream discussion. It’s also a dreadful defense of inequality. As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr writes,“The fact that culture requires leisure, is however, hardly a sufficient justification for the maintenance of a leisured class. For every artist which the aristocracy has produced, and for every two patrons of the arts, it has supported a thousand wastrels.”

Poverty and oppression can also create other powerful types of art, from boheim to the blues. More important, there are far better ways to fund the arts than throwing money at rich families and hoping they cook up something nice. For instance, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, theater and visual arts. In the aftermath of the Great Depression the Works Progress Administration had an arm devoted to funding the arts that supported Jackson Pollock, William Gropper, Willem de Kooning, Leon Bibel and Ben Shahn. The CIA has even gotten into the game.

As Niebuhr notes, “An intelligent society will know how to subsidize those who possess peculiar gifts … and will not permit a leisured class to justify itself by producing an occasional creative genius among a multitude of incompetents.” It’s a wonder that conservatives want the wealthy financing art and philosophy — Marx, after all, would have died of penury without the beneficence of the wealthy Engels. Given that his economist friends have been impressed by Piketty’s cultural depth because of his ability to cite Jane Austen, I wouldn’t put much weight on their cultural defense of privilege.

Claim: Piketty is French, and we saved their butts in World War II

This is true. You’ve lost the debate.

Sean McElwee is a writer and researcher of public policy. His writing may be viewed at seanamcelwee.com. Follow him on Twitter at @seanmcelwee.

Don't shut the post office, expand their services

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary

What's the matter with the post office?

The US Postal Service, I mean – the corporate hierarchy that runs this enormously popular public institution. Yes, I know that USPS has lost revenue it traditionally got from first-class mail delivery, but I also know that letter carriers and postal workers have offered many excellent ideas for expanding the services that USPS can deliver, thus increasing both revenue and the importance of maintaining these community treasures.

Yet, the Postal Board of Governors, which includes corporate interests that would profit by killing the public service, seems intent on – guess what? – killing it. The board's only "idea" is to cut services and shut down hundreds of local post offices. Incredibly, their list of closures include the historic post office in Philadelphia's Old City, the very building where Ben Franklin presided as our country's first Postmaster General, appointed by the Continental Congress in 1775.

All across the country, post offices that are invaluable artistic and historic assets are slated to be sold to developers. One is the marvelous 1935 Bronx post office, with classic architectural flourishes and 13 museum-worthy murals. "It's not just a post office," says one customer fighting the closure, "it's part of my life." No one feels that way about a Fed Ex warehouse. Yet, says a USPS spokeswoman dismissively, the four-story building is "severely underused."

So, use it! Put a coffee shop in it, a public internet facility, a library and museum, a one-stop government services center – and, as USPS employees have suggested, a public bank offering basic services to the thousands of neighborhood people ignored by commercial banks. Come on, USPS, show a little creativity and gumption, and remember that "service" is a key part of your name!

"Protest Aside, Postal Service Is Taking Next Step to Sell Grand Property in the Bronx," The New York Times, February 5, 2014.

"Elizabeth Warren Proposes Replacing Payday Lenders With the Post Office," www.thinkprogress.org, February 3, 2013.

One Line Exposes the Entire Pile of Bullshit the NRA Is Selling

Posted By Rude One

The annual convention of the National Rifle Association this past weekend in Indianapolis was the usual Fellini-esque freak parade of intellectual dwarves, geeks, and cripples. It featured Pasolini-esque wallows in sadism, like dominatrix Sarah Palin, with a small, silver vibrator set on "Ultragasm" running in her snatch, let the world know that no one's got as big a swinging dick as she does, supporting waterboarding and guns in schools, condemning, oh, shit, yeah, right there, "clownish, 'Kumbaya'-humming, fairytale-inhaling" liberals. This is not to mention the Argento-esque hellscape that Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive, painted with virgin blood, a place where only the nobly beweaponed can survive.

Also the convention featured the debut of a new ad for the NRA titled, "Do you still believe in the good guys?", a question that seems like a dare. The blatant troll bait features three people - let's call the white dude "Bearded Bear," the black dude "Safe Negro," and the white chick "School Secretary." 

 

The ad is filled with the boring-ass blather you've come to expect: There's bad people who want to rape your face while burning the Constitution. But here's some good people who want to make everyone into good goodniks with some tough love and guns, motherfuckers, guns. Which side are you on?

And then we get to the line. Safe Negro says, "It takes a special kind of backbone to reject the world that surrounds you." Then Bearded Bear says, "To sign your name where everyone can see it."

That last phrase there made the Rude Pundit sit up and look around the empty room to ask if everyone heard what he just heard. An NRA ad saying that you're a pussy if you don't let people know what you stand for?

So there it is, as plain as the screen you're reading this on. The NRA just told everyone to believe in something that they themselves do not believe at all. Really, Wayne? Really, Bearded Bear? "Sign your name where everyone can see it"?

See, the Rude Pundit seems to remember that, right after the Supreme Court's 2009 democracy-murdering Citizens United decision, part of which allowed political groups keep their donor names secret, Democrats tried to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would have created at least some minimal disclosure about who is buying elections. One of the biggest opponents was the NRA, which feared all kinds of crazy shit, like that it would have to turn over member lists to the government and, more importantly, "disclose top donors on political advertisements."

But wait, one might think. Shouldn't you "sign your name where everyone can see it"? By its own words, the NRA is an organization that is financed by cowards, people who without backbone to say it's them.  It is merely a shill for gun manufacturers. It's a giant con game that exists to enrich a few people while demanding worshipful obeisance from politicians and members. What that line in the ad demands is that you, good, loyal NRA card-carrier, you should go out there and proselytize for the gun cult. You should put your name out there so that, say, the Walton family and Chinese gun factory owners, perhaps, don't have to.

The culture war the NRA says it wants is just a cover for a power-grabbing sham and a means to make sure that Wayne LaPierre gets the best comb-overs in the business. The fact that the organization can so nakedly lie means, of course, that it knows its members just don't care.

Lab Rats

Snoop Dogg’s Incredible Response To Sterling’s Racist Rant

By Alan J. McStravick

By now, you have no doubt seen the name ‘Donald Sterling’ trending across your social media platforms. If you are coming to the game late, be sure to catch Addicting Info’s own Randa Morris’ take on the obscenely racist rant of an obviously intoxicated NBA team owner.

After the 9 plus minute audio recording of the drunken Los Angeles Clippers owner was released by TMZ, the internet came together in condemnation of Sterling. From legendary sportscaster Keith Olbermann advising the Clippers to refuse to take the court to calls for newly crowned Commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver to act against the team owner, the anger has been swift and decisive.

But it was hip-hop superstar Snoop Dogg who shared his disdain for Donald Sterling in the most erudite and civil manner possible. Well actually, Snoop Dogg’s message for “the motherfucker that own the Clippers” was delivered by Instagram and is most certainly NSFW.



Snoop Dogg is nothing if not a masterful wordsmith, and I couldn’t agree with him more.

The Daily Show: 'The Broads Must Be Crazy'

By Brad Friedman

Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's fantastic --- MUST-WATCH (just for the crying clips!) --- take on the outrageously absurd and demeaning media-enforced double-standard faced by female politicians over their male counterparts...
 
PART 1

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

PART 2

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Swatting Hoax: Is Online Gamers' Revenge Turning Deadly?

"Police swarmed a Long Island home Tuesday, responding to what they thought was a hostage situation and possible murder scene only to learn the call was a hoax targeting a teenage boy.

"About 60 officers and emergency responders went to the home on Laurelton Boulevard in Long Beach after receiving a 911 call from someone claiming to have killed his mother and brother there.

"When they arrived, they found no evidence of a shooting and learned no one at the home had called 911. Instead, a 17 year old boy believed to be the target of a hoax was in the shower, and his family was fine."

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss the "Swatting" trend and its potentially deadly consequences during this segment of The Young Turks.

GOP attempt to regulate your micro-beer

Serious "buzz-kill" in Florida, as Republicans find their latest target to attack, the craft brewing industry. Ed Schultz and Joey Redner discuss the impact of conservative policies on your beer.