What? Louie Gohmert says Obama is a bigot for deporting Mexicans instead of child refugees

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHeeHeeHeeHeeHeeHooHooHoo!

The silliness is here.

Today's 2nd Amendment Follies...

Anniston man accidentally shot son while shooting another man, police say

Story's here.

Arizona man arrested in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport after open-carry 'protest' terrifies travelers

The counts stem from when Steinmetz removed the AR-15 from his shoulder and the muzzle faced toward a woman and her daughter in a waiting area in Terminal 4, according to police. Both the woman and her daughter reported fearing for their safety, police said.

When confronted, Steinmetz said that he went to the airport only to buy a cup of coffee and had no other business there, police said.

It's here.

Like Mother, Like Daughter...

Fox hosts outraged that Texas 911 operators are ‘forced’ to help dying non-English speakers

The hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday were shocked to learn that emergency responders were “forced” to serve non-English speakers in life-threatening situations even if the callers were suspected of entering the country illegally.

“They stumbled across the border illegally and now they need your help!” Fox News host Steve Doocy complained, pointing to a 911 call in Brooks County, Texas where a man who could only speak Spanish asked for a helicopter rescue because his cousin was “turning purple.”

“A small Texas town forced to answer 911 from stranded illegals in Spanish!” Doocy exclaimed.

“Not only are they understaffed and lacking resources, now they’ve got to deal with illegal immigrants who have no business being here,” co-host Brian Kilmeade opined.

Brooks County Chief Deputy Urbino “Benny” Martinez pointed out to Kilmeade that his department had a duty to respond to all 911 calls.

“So, those calls you have to respond to, even though for the most part when you get there, you realize, they’re not an American citizen?” the Fox News host pressed.

“That’s correct, but they’re on U.S. soil, and due process comes into play, and that’s the way we’re taking them as,” Martinez explained.

The chief deputy added that he wanted Republicans and Democrats to drop partisan ideology and have a “sincere dialog” because his department was running out of funds.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/23/fox-hosts-outraged-that-texas-911-operators-are-forced-to-help-dying-non-english-speakers/

I Think, Therefore I Post Inna Blog.

Funny how so many on the right say it's evil libs who re-write history. I loves me some irony!

Righties re-write history on St. Ronnie's response to Rooshia's shoot-down of a KAL airliner.

My Heritage Is Irish, So Yeah...

Gov'ner Goodhair Patrols The Texas Border...

Yeah, I knows, this silly foto was taken in 2009 and featured on a rightie blog sayin' Gov'ner Goodhair was hunting liberals. I'ma use it now. It's called satire. Bite me.

Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island

And no, we didn't just send them packing.

Tasneem Raja traces the history of child migrants back to Ellis Island:

"An unaccompanied child migrant was the first person in line on opening day of the new immigration station at Ellis Island. Her name was Annie Moore, and that day, January 1, 1892, happened to be her 15th birthday. She had traveled with her two little brothers from Cork County, Ireland, and when they walked off the gangplank, she was awarded a certificate and a $10 gold coin for being the first to register. Today, a statue of Annie stands on the island, a testament to the courage of millions of children who passed through those same doors, often traveling without an older family member to help them along.

"Of course, not everyone was lining up to give Annie and her fellow passengers a warm welcome. Alarmists painted immigrants—children included—as disease-ridden job stealers bent on destroying the American way of life. And they're still at it. On a CNN segment about the current crisis of child migrants from Central and South America, Michele Bachmann used the word 'invaders' and warned of rape and other dangers posed to Americans by the influx. And last week, National Review scoffed at appeals to American ideals of compassion and charity, claiming Ellis Island officials had a strict send-'em-back policy when it came to children showing up alone.

"That's not true, according to Barry Moreno, a librarian at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and author of the book Children of Ellis Island. The Immigration Act of 1907 did indeed declare that unaccompanied children under 16 were not permitted to enter in the normal fashion. But it didn't send them packing, either. Instead, the act set up a system in which unaccompanied children—many of whom were orphans—were kept in detention awaiting a special inquiry with immigration inspectors to determine their fate. At these hearings, local missionaries, synagogues, immigrant aid societies, and private citizens would often step in and offer to take guardianship of the child, says Moreno."

More.

The Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Is a Game Changer

This conflict is now officially out of control

Malaysian Airlines just can't catch a break. Just four months after flight 370 disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean, Thursday brings news that Malaysian Airlines flight 17, traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, lost contact with ground control around the Ukrainian-Russian border. Initial reports say "50 km away from entering Russian airspace, the plane began descending, then it was observed burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory." The plane, a Boeing 777, is said to have been carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members.

Over the last couple of months, pro-Russian separatists have been downing Ukrainian military planes with increasing regularity—and mounting casualties on the Ukrainian side. Just earlier Thursday, separatists had shot down another one. All of that seemed to undermine the narrative, propagated by the Kremlin, that the separatists were just a ragtag people's militia who didn't stand a chance against a proper, organized military. The constant downing of Ukrainian jets showed that these men were equipped with some pretty serious stuff: You can't really shoot down a jet with a Kalashnikov. 

And, in fact, Russian a state media report from late June indicates the rebels got a hold of a Buk missile system, a Russian/Soviet surface-to-air missile system. Rebels are now denying that they shot down the plane, but there are now screenshots floating around the Russian-language internet from what seems to be the Facebook page of Igor Strelkov, a rebel leader in eastern Ukraine, showing plumes of smoke and bragging about shooting down a Ukrainian military Antonov plane shortly before MH17 fell. "Don't fly in our skies," he reportedly wrote. If that's true, it would seem rebels downed the jetliner, having mistaken it for a Ukrainian military jet.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118742/ukraine-russian-rebels-malaysian-airlines-plane

GOP Candidate Mistakes YMCA Kids For Migrants, Describes 'Fear In Their Faces'

A Republican running for Congress in Arizona snapped a photo of a passing school bus full of children on Tuesday near a housing facility for undocumented minors. He posted the picture to Twitter with a stern warning to his followers: "Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law."

Adam Kwasman later spoke with a local reporter and described seeing "the fear" in the children's faces, urging authorities to abide by the law and enforce the border against the influx of child immigrants crossing into the United States.

But there was a problem with Kwasman's story. The school bus was carrying local children on the way to a YMCA camp not far from the migrant shelter. A reporter at the scene said he saw the children laughing and taking pictures with their iPhones.

In an awkward interview caught on camera, Kwasman offered what could possibly be the fastest political walk-back in history.

"Do you know that was a bus with YMCA kids?" 12 News reporter Will Pitts asked.

"They were sad, too," Kwasman responded. "OK I apologize. I didn't know. I was leaving when I saw them. People are not happy down the line. That was an error by me."

"Those were not migrant children. That's fine," he added. "It was a mistake. That was a mistake. That was not correct and that's a mistake."

From: Huffington Post.

Numbers Don’t Tell the Mideast Story

After 3 Israeli teens were abducted and murdered, an Arab teen was abducted and murdered. Following these atrocities, Hamas began raining missiles down upon Israel. Then Israel began attacking sites they suspected of being associated with missile attacks. And so it goes in the Middle East.

Talk of equivalencies in death tolls or ideas of vengeance are misapplied in the Israel-Hamas fight, where the two sides play by very different rules.

The tit-for-tat dance of irreconcilable animus between Israel and Hamas—the democratically elected terrorist group that controls Gaza—continues with 365 rockets having been launched against the Jewish state and more than 200 airstrikes hitting Gazan targets. Approximately 90 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its counteroffensive—among them were 22 children. More than 500 have been injured. (All figures are accurate as of 7 p.m. EDT Thursday.)

No Israeli casualties have been reported thus far, although one man was reportedly seriously injured when a rocket struck his car.


We’ve been here before. Both in 2008 and again in 2012, Israel responded to unremitting rocket attacks from Gaza—the territory it had only recently abandoned in hopes that it would lead to the building of a Palestinian nation rather than a missile-happy next door neighbor—by unleashing its air force, and even its ground troops, to bring an end to the hailstorm of what was at the time 10,000 Hamas rockets, and still counting.

Not unlike its objectives this week, Israel’s targets in those operations were concealed rocket-launching sites, weapons storage and manufacturing facilities, terrorist command posts (usually located inside residential houses) and secret tunnels. And just like the present Operation Protective Edge, those earlier incursions into Gaza resulted in disproportionately unbalanced losses among Palestinians when compared to the Israeli dead.

Once again human rights organizations, the United Nations secretary-general, and even the American president, are imploring Israel to show restraint and be mindful of its superior military power being exercised in areas where civilians are within the line of fire. At the same time, however, Hamas spokesmen continue to warn Israel that they will seek vengeance against the Jewish state and that all Israelis are their intended targets.

The story is here.

Idiotic Right Wing Meme And The Response What Wins The Interweb

The Response:

Andy Tate Well, the right wing hasn't paid for its governing policies in my lifetime.

Let's see... The deficit has (comparing first to last/most recent fiscal years) went down under Obama, up under George W. Bush, down under Clinton, up under George H. W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon, and down under LBJ. So out of the last 50 governmental fiscal years, we've had 4 Democrats as presidents and 5 Republicans. 22 years of Democratic budgets, 28 of Republicans. During that time, Democrats have had 3 of 4 presidents see the deficit go down, Republicans have had 0 out of 5.

That's why this meme completely fails. Republican policies are responsible for the majority of our national debt as 54.1% of our national debt was accumulated under the 20 years of budgets under Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, and G. W. Bush.

Looking at the broader long term economic picture, every president to see the unemployment rate higher at the end of their term than the beginning in the last 100 years has been Republican, economic growth is higher under Democrats than Republicans (4.35% to 2.54%), and the list goes on.

The short version is that conservative economic policies are, in a very provable way, worse for the US than liberal economic policies.

Verily, shoot the chillen

Little ferreign chillen beware: Perry 'n Hannutty, showin' O'Bama how it's did, on patrol at the border with a big ole 'chine gun!

Apparently there is an update to the King James version of the Bible, what reads: But Jesus said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

The Noo Texas version reads: But teh Prophet Fox said: "Let the children suffer, and forbid them to come unto me, for verily they be all scabied, liced, and TB'd up: for such is the Republic of Texas. Yee Haw."

Perhaps the meeting didn't go the way Guv'ner Goodhair would have liked....

Best Worst President Evah

"To hear Mr. Newport Beach tell it, my president is a downright monster. Who cares if he ended the war, saved the economy, restored America’s stature in the world, nailed Osama bin Laden, invested billions in clean energy, partially reformed what is still the most expensive, least effective health care system in the industrialized world, or made the rich even richer? The guy’s the worst thing to ever happen to America. I mean, obviously. Now who wants more wine?"

Here.

Republican Implosion On The Border...

Read about it here.

 Fundamentalism in all it's forms is wrong.

O'Bama Is Really, Truly, The Awfulest President Evah!

A recent poll featuring answers by large numbers of Republicans concludes that O'Bama is the Worstest President Evah™. Here's some reasons why:

Let's look at Obama's sorry-assed record, shall we? Brace yourselves, cause it ain't pretty:

1. Passed Health Care Reform: After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 and mandates a suite of experimental measures to cut health care cost growth, the number one cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems.

2. Passed the Stimulus: Signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.

3. Passed Wall Street Reform: Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The new law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, requires derivatives to be sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid chaotic bankruptcies, limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit, and creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (now headed by Richard Cordray) to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.

4. Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last troops left on December 18, 2011.

5. Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan: From a peak of 101,000 troops in June 2011, U.S. forces are now down to 91,000, with 23,000 slated to leave by the end of summer 2012. According to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the combat mission there will be over by next year.

6. Eliminated Osama bin laden: In 2011, ordered special forces raid of secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was discovered.

Here's some other of his miserable "accomplishments:"

Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry

Recapitalized Banks

Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Toppled Moammar Gaddafi

Reversed Bush Torture Policies

Improved America’s Image Abroad

Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending

Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards

Coordinated International Response to Financial Crisis

Passed Mini Stimuli

Began Asia “Pivot"

Increased Support for Veterans

Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants

Achieved New START Treaty

Improved Food Safety System

Expanded Wilderness and Watershed Protection

Gave the FDA Power to Regulate Tobacco

Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology

Crafting Next-Generation School Tests

Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges

I know, I know...the list is mind-numbingly awful. Mitt Romney could have done such a better job. At least he understood what America is supposed to stand for.

Here's some more examples of Obama's God-awful rottenness:
44. Pushed Broadband Coverage: Proposed and obtained in 2011 Federal Communications Commission approval for a shift of $8 billion in subsidies away from landlines and toward broadband Internet for lower-income rural families.

45. Expanded Health Coverage for Children: Signed 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act, which allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover health care for 4 million more children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.

46. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon Dioxide: In 2009, EPA declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulate its production.

47. Expanded Stem Cell Research: In 2009, eliminated the Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, which shows promise in treating spinal injuries, among many other areas.

From Daily Kos.

#thingstimhowardcouldsave

Because some people (well, OK, occasionally me, too) have posted a lot of hate on soccer lately, I'ma post some good soccer stuff. USA goalie Tim Howard, who single-handedly kept Team USA in the game yesterday, is some a that good stuff!

Here's what the Twitters has to say about him under the hashtag listed above:

Sharia law comes to the land of corporate rule

Hobby Lobby mischaracterized several contraception drugs as abortion drugs and said they will not allow their insurance company to cover the acquisition of these drugs by their employees. The management claims this would violate their religious beliefs against abortion. 

Medical experts have said that the drugs and devices in question are not abortion drugs, since they work to prevent pregnancy, not to kill embryos. These, and other contraceptives are often used, not as birth control, but as treatment modalities to overcome serious health issues. But as is so often true with religious/political extremists, these facts are ignored by Hobby Lobby owners. 

So now we have a case decided by the Supremes in favor of Hobby Lobby owners that gives preference to their factually-ignorant beliefs over the health and welfare of their employees. What is frightening to me, in that it displays the scientific ignorance of so many people, is that there is widespread support for this denial of employees' right to proper medical care via commonly-accepted (until now) health insurance coverage.

This was not a narrow ruling, as some of the Supremes would have you believe. Soon we will see many other companies demanding to exclude necessary medical treatments, such as blood transfusions, and the like, from insurance coverage because of some ill-informed religious beliefs of corporate owners. 

The Supremes indicate that the federal government could cover these employees' insured costs of contraception. Imagine that. A group of conservatives calling for what amounts to single-payer healthcare! This idiotic, factually-challenged ruling is yet more proof that health care should be removed from corporate hands and placed in consumers' control by way of a universal healthcare system.

Meanwhile, we have a Supremes ruling that the Taliban would surely endorse.