America Hating Conservative Freak E.W. Jackson’s ‘Prosperity Gospel’ Is Fraud Perpetrated On Low-Income Virginians

America Hating Conservative Freak E.W. Jackson’s ‘Prosperity Gospel’ Is Fraud Perpetrated On Low-Income Virginians

Ever since Virginia’s Republican Party chose E.W. Jackson as its nominee for the Lieutenant Governor’s race last week, media outlets and political commentators have shed light on the pastor-turned-politician’s alarmingly extremist views. But as Americans balk at Jackson’s often vitriolic statements about LGBT people and AIDS victims, there is another side of his public persona that could spell even worse news for low-income Virginians: His theology.

Potential lawmakers such as Jackson are entitled to their own religious views, and the U.S. Constitution prohibits subjecting political candidates to a “religious test.” But Jackson, a former minister of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” insists on making public connections between his theological convictions and his political actions. According to Jackson’s campaign website, he is founder of Staying True to America’s National Destiny, or S.T.A.N.D., an organization “dedicated to restoring America’s founding values which were informed by the principles found within the Jewish and Christian faiths.” What’s more, Jackson, who has accused Democrats of being “anti-God,” is also head of “Exodus Now”, a national effort that encourages “Christians and other people of moral values within the black community” to leave the Democratic Party.

To get a better look at what Jackson’s politicized theology could mean for Virginians, Think Progress looked at a copy of Jackson’s 2008 book Ten Commandments To An Extraordinary Life. In it, Jackson offers an extensive – and often unsettling – peek at his bizarre religious views.

Jackson, for instance, suggests in his book that people should prioritize giving to the wealthy, not to the poor:

    “One of the common mistakes made by those who have a heart is to assume that the only appropriate giving is downward, i.e. to the poor. While giving to the poor is important, the most powerful giving for wealth building is upward giving.” (page 177)

In fact, Jackson seems to hold up wealth as the ultimate religious ideal, and even indicates that having money makes someone a better person in God’s eyes:

    “Money is not evil, nor does it make people evil. Money magnifies the character of an individual. It gives you more opportunity to be who you really are. God is the creator of silver and gold. He has nothing against money, in fact he values it.” (page 172)

Finally, Jackson provides a framework for how the simple act of positive thinking can force God to provide believers with personal wealth:

    “God says He will prosper you. Believe it in the face of overwhelming financial hardship, and your poverty will become prosperity. God says he has healed you. Believe it when every fiber screams sickness, and your sickness will become health.” (page 18)

These unorthodox religious claims may appear inscrutable, but Jackson’s theology is actually a form of American Christianity known as the “prosperity gospel.” The controversial — but growing — movement teaches believers that they can get rich by thinking positive thoughts and by giving large sums of their money to their church and pastor. Not surprisingly, prosperity gospel preachers have been fiercely criticized by a wide array of religious leaders, including conservative evangelical leaders such as Rick Warren and Jerry Falwell, who decry its rabid focus on accruing personal wealth as heretical.

In fact, the lavish lifestyles and questionable financial practices of several prosperity gospel preachers led to a federal probe by Senator Chuck Grassley (IA-R) in 2007. Grassley attempted to evaluate the records of six prosperity gospel televangelism ministries to see if they violated federal regulations, but the probe ended in 2011 after most of organizations refused to cooperate with investigators.

E.W. Jackson continues a long tradition of using religion as an instrument of hate and profit. No wonder so many Americans are trending towards not being affiliated with any organized religion.

Red States Rejecting Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Need It Most

From the beginning, the defining irony of the never-ending debate over Obamacare is this: health care is worst in those states where Republicans poll best. The map of the states with the worst health care systems largely mirrors GOP strongholds in the Electoral College. Red state residents are generally the unhealthiest and more likely than their blue state cousins to be uninsured. Nevertheless, the New York Times reminded readers on Friday, Republican governors and legislators are rejecting the ACA's expansion of Medicaid that could bring health insurance to millions more of their residents.

Conservatism is a special kind of cancer, composed partly of pure spite. Many conservative politicians would rather their constituents be in bad health or dead, than adopt a program passed by Democrats, but which ironically, was first conceived by a conservative think tank.

Anti-American Conservative Zealots Distort Attorney General Holder's Words To Suit Their Wacko Agenda

Anti-American Conservative Zealots Distort Attorney General Holder's Words To Suit Their Wacko Agenda

Fox News distorted the testimony of Attorney General Eric Holder to claim that he committed perjury before the House Judiciary Committee last week.

It was recently revealed that the Justice Department obtained a search warrant for the communications records of Fox News reporter James Rosen in an effort to track down a leaker who provided him with classified information on North Korea in 2009. On May 15, during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) asked Holder about the warrant and the potential for prosecuting journalists accused of publishing classified information that they obtained from government sources. Holder responded (emphasis added):

    With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. That is not something that I've ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.

On May 24, the Justice Department released a statement clarifying Holder's involvement in the approval process for the warrants in question (emphasis added):

    "The Department takes seriously the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. In recognition of this, the Department took great care in deciding that a search warrant was necessary in the Kim matter, vetting the decision at the highest levels of the Department, including discussions with the Attorney General. After extensive deliberations, and after following all applicable laws, regulations and policies, the Department sought an appropriately tailored search warrant under the Privacy Protection Act. And a federal magistrate judge made an independent finding that probable cause existed to approve the search warrant."

Fox News' Special Report on May 24 argued that these statements were inconsistent and concluded that the Attorney General had previously lied to the Judiciary Committee and thus had committed perjury. Host Shannon Bream began the show stating, "It's his story, but he's not sticking to it," claiming that Holder has "chang[ed] his tune" on his involvement in the scrutiny of journalists. Contributor Steve Hayes claimed that Holder's two statements were "incongruent" and Charles Krauthammer speculated that it may be "a case of perjury."

In fact, the statements are not "incongruent" whatsoever. Holder's comments to the Judiciary referred to the possibility of prosecuting journalists for publishing classified information, but that is not the crime the Justice Department's warrant accused Rosen of committing. DOJ investigators were concerned with Rosen's solicitation of classified information, not any subsequent publication of it. Wired explained (emphasis added):

    According to the affidavit (.pdf), FBI Agent Reginald Reyes told the judge there was probable cause to believe that Rosen had violated the Espionage Act by serving "as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" in the leak. The Espionage Act is the same law that former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is accused of violating when he leaked information to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks.

    To support his assertion, Reyes quoted an email exchange between Kim and Rosen, in which Rosen told him that he was interested in "breaking news ahead of my competitors" and had a particular interest in "what intelligence is picking up." He also told Kim, "I'd love to see some internal State Department analyses."

    The suggestion was that Rosen broke the law by soliciting information from Kim, something that all journalists do routinely with sources.

    Nonetheless, the federal judge found there was probable cause to believe that Rosen was a co-conspirator and approved the warrant.

In other words, Holder's on-the-record denial of involvement in any prosecution of news organizations for publishing classified information in no way conflicts with any knowledge he may have possessed or action the DOJ may have taken against reporters for soliciting said information. Fox's perjury accusations simply don't align with the facts.

All anyone with basic reading skills has to ask themselves is, do the words prosecution and search warrant mean the exact same thing. Rosen violated the Espionage Act, he is a leaker, not a whistle-blower. Rosen and Fox News may have comitted treason. But because the radical conservative movement wields so much influence, the DOJ will let it pass to placate conservatives.

What Patriots Should Know About The IRS "Scandal"

What Patriots Should Know About The IRS "Scandal"

Conservative Groups Were Not “Targeted,” “Singled Out” Or Anything Else

You are hearing that conservative groups were “targeted.” What you are not hearing is that progressive groups were also “targeted.” So were groups that are not progressive or conservative.

All that happened here is that groups applying to the IRS for special tax status were checked to see if they were engaged in political activity. They were checked, not targeted. Only 1/3 of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Once again: Only 1/3 of the groups checked were conservative groups.

Conservative groups were not “singled out,” were not “targeted” and in the end none were denied special tax status — even though many obviously should have been.

From last week’s House hearings on this:

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-IL: “How come only conservative groups got snagged?”

Outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steve Miller: “They didn’t sir. Organizations of all walks and all persuasions were pulled in. That’s shown by the fact that only 70 of the 300 organizations were tea party organizations, of the ones that were looked at by TIGTA [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration].”

Bet you didn’t see that blasted all over your TV news that night.


And from Bloomberg reporting: IRS Sent Same Letter to Democrats That Fed Tea Party Row, (emphasis added, for emphasis)

    One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected. Progress Texas … faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

    In a statement late yesterday, the tax agency said it had pooled together the politically active nonpartisan applicants — including a “minority” that were identified because of their names. “It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” the IRS said in its statement.

Again, for emphasis: “It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” the IRS said in its statement.”

.....A Few Facts

Fact: The IRS is required to determine whether organizations applying for special tax status are “social welfare” groups or are instead engaged in political activity. Political groups cannot get the special tax status these groups were applying for.

Fact: Only 1/3 of the groups that were passed to specialists for a closer look were “conservative.” Lots of other organizations were also checked, including progressive organizations.

Fact: No groups were audited or harassed or “targeted” or “singled out”. This was about applications for special tax status being forwarded to specialists for a closer look to see if they were engaged in political activity that would disqualify them for the special tax status. This closer look is the kind of review all organization should get, but the IRS was swamped because of the flood of groups applying for a status that let them mask their donors, after Citizens United.

Fact: No groups were harmed. There were delays while the groups were checked to see if they should have special tax status. That’s it. But the rules are that they are allowed to operate as if they had that status while they waited for official approval.

Fact: The only groups actually denied special tax status were progressive groups, not conservative groups. In 2011, during the period that “conservative groups were targeted” the NY Times carried the story, 3 Groups Denied Break by I.R.S. Are Named . The three groups? Drum roll … “The I.R.S. denied tax exemption to the groups — Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts — because, the agency wrote in denial letters, they were set up specifically to cultivate Democratic candidates.”

Fact: The IRS commissioner in charge at the IRS at the time this happened was appointed President George W. Bush.

Fact: According to the IG Report (p. 10) in the “majority of cases, we agreed that the applications submitted included indications of significant political campaign intervention.” 

The pdf of the Inspector's report is here. There is no real scandal, certainly not a scandal that justifies all the whining and victim playing we are hearing from conservatives. Conservatives see themselves as poor little victims because the sun comes up and shines on them. As we all know, zombies prefer the night.

When Discussing Leaks, Freedom of the Press and The Obama Administration, Shameless Hypocrisy is Synonymous With Conservative Republican

When Discussing Leaks, Freedom of the Press and The Obama Administration, Shameless Hypocrisy is Synonymous With Conservative Republican.

On the heels of reports that the Justice Department had subpoenaed e-mails from a James Rosen, a reporter with Fox News, Rubio came out with a statement accusing the Obama administration of harassing journalists “they deem unfriendly” to the White House. Now, never mind that Rubio seems to be saying that Fox reports are unfriendly to Obama (that’s a no-no that contradicts the “Fair and Balanced” meme). The worst thing is pretending that this was a targeted attack on a reporter who had undertaken a mission against the White House. Rosen did his job and did it well; sweeping him up into partisan hackery is a disservice to his role as a journalist.

The real story is contained in the F.B.I.’s affidavit in support of the search warrant, filed in May 2010 at Federal Court for the District of Columbia. Reading the document makes clear that this was no targeting of a reporter who was after the administration but a legitimate national-security investigation.

I’ll get into the details in a minute. First, a side trip.

Yes, I think it’s wrong for the government to subpoena records from journalists involved in national-security reporting (particularly since I do it myself). I do believe it has a chilling effect on the ability to gather news about potential abuses masked by inappropriate classification. And most reporters don’t disclose things that should remain secret—like the names of undercover C.I.A. agents (see Bush administration: Valerie Plame), war plans, or locations of troops. And I know for a fact that if government officials ask that a story not run on national-security grounds, good news organizations always hear them out and sometimes agree.

And I was delighted to see that, finally, Republicans are starting to agree with me. Take Rubio’s own statement on the Fox controversy, where he states:

    National security leaks are criminal and put American lives on the line, and federal prosecutors should, of course, vigorously investigate. But we expect that they do so within the bounds of the law, and that the investigations focus on the leakers within the government—not on media organizations that have First Amendment protections and serve vital function in our democracy.

Thank you, Marco! And welcome to the side of the journalists! I promise, now that there is a high-level government official proclaiming that, yes, media organizations should not be the focus of such investigations because of Constitutional protections, Rubio’s statement is going to be used from now until forever in every case involving investigations of journalists that print leaked information.

Too bad that Republicans don’t sing the praises of the First Amendment when the White House is held by the G.O.P. In fact, they do the exact opposite. In fact, they did the exact opposite when the Republican administration does the exact same thing that is now at the center of the Obama scandal involving the Associated Press—that is, seizing phone records of reporters. (Please note: The issue here isn’t whether they are right or wrong. What I’m talking about is the utter hypocrisy of the G.O.P. on this matter.)

Let’s take the most important disclosure of a classified program that occurred in my lifetime: the 2005 article in The New York Times that revealed the existence of the program to allow the government to wiretap Americans and others in the United States without a warrant if it was part of a national-security investigation. Somehow, I don’t remember Republicans banging the First Amendment drum when that story came out— instead, they were calling for reporters to be charged with treason, which could have led to them being executed.

But let’s look in more detail at how the Bushies handled that situation by reviewing an affidavit filed in 2011 by James Risen, one of the two Times reporters who broke the warrantless-wiretapping story.

    The Bush Administration was embarrassed by the disclosures I made and eventually singled me out as a target for political harassment. That administration speculated publicly about prosecuting me under the Espionage Act . . . I was told by a reliable source that Vice President Dick Cheney pressured the Justice Department to personally target me because he was unhappy with my reporting and wanted to see me in jail. After he left office in 2009, Cheney publicly admitted that the fact that I won a Pulitzer Prize for the NSA story “always aggravated me.”

I take it now, with their new celebration of the First Amendment and their recognition of the importance of journalists in a democracy, conservatives like Rubio are outraged by what happened to Risen. But that wasn’t all. Right-wingers, now clamoring for impeachment because of the use of subpoenas on reporters by the Obama administration, back in the Bush days were joining in the calls for charges, Risen says in his sworn statement.

    . . . an organized campaign of hate mail from right wing groups with close ties to the White House was launched, inundating me with personal threats. Meanwhile, protesters supporting the Bush Administration picketed my office, calling for me to be prosecuted. Right wing pundits and bloggers supporting the Bush Administration took to television and the Internet to call for the White House and the Justice Department to prosecute me for espionage. Failing that, they called for the Justice Department to subpoena me in a leak investigation, which right wing pundits said would have the same effect as prosecution, since it could force me to go to jail if I refused to testify about the identity of my confidential source(s) . . . In mid-March, after Attorney General Gonzales raised publicly the possibility of prosecuting journalists, the Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, suggested that it was his “hope” and “aim” that the leak investigations would lead to subpoenas requiring me to testify about the identity of my confidential source(s). Only two months into the investigation, Goss explained: “It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information.”

Administration. Umm . . . huh. Can’t hear that Right Wing First Amendment Marching Band that seems to be out in force now that Obama is using subpoenas against reporters. But you know, at least Bush wasn’t doing what just happened—that is, getting hold of phone records of reporters to see who they were calling and who was calling them, which is the current Obama scandal involving the Justice Department and the Associated Press. Oh, wait . . . just read more of the Risen affidavit:

    Brian Ross and Richard Esposito of ABC News reported on May 15, 2006, that senior federal law enforcement officials had informed them that the government was tracking the phone numbers of journalists without the journalists’ knowledge as part of an effort to root out the journalists’ confidential sources . . . the journalists’ phones were not being “tapped,” but the government was tracking the in-coming and outgoing numbers called and received on the journalists’ phones. The story stated that the government was examining the phone calls and contacts of journalists from ABC News, The New York Times, and the Washington Post (as) part of a “widespread CIA leak investigation.” . . . I have learned from an individual who testified before a grand jury in this District that was examining my reporting about the domestic wiretapping program that the Government had shown this individual copies of telephone records relating to calls made to and from me.

Where were the G.O.P. legislators and right-wing punditocracy when Bush was doing the same thing as Obama? Why, they were cheering! The hypocrisy is astonishing. How do they justify being in favor of the government obtaining the phone records of reporters during the Bush administration, while calling it a scandal under Obama? I don’t know . . . maybe they think the First Amendment applies only to the Associated Press and Fox News or something.

Which brings us back to the Fox situation and to Rubio’s claim that this was targeting enemies of the White House. The similarities with the reactions to the warrantless-wiretapping case are astonishing (even the reporters’ names are off by just one letter: James Risen at the Times, James Rosen at Fox).

The Fox case involved a report by Rosen in June 2009 that American intelligence officials had issued warnings that, should the United Nations adopt sanctions that were under consideration, North Korea would begin conducting new nuclear tests. According to the F.B.I. affidavit in the case, the information was top secret and was contained in an intelligence document disseminated to a small number of government officials that same morning. The report was marked top secret.

One of the people who accessed the report that morning was Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a man of Korean descent who is a naturalized citizen (just mentioning that to say, hmm . . . where are the G.O.P. conspiracy theories about that?) and a nuclear specialist who was detailed at the time to the State Department. Kim worked in the same building where Rosen maintained a desk in a section for reporters. According to the affidavit, between the time the intelligence analysis was issued and the report on Fox News, the electronic user identification and password for Kim were used to access the classified document three times. And Kim’s phone records show that he called Rosen several times that morning. Moreover, about the same time that Kim’s user profile was viewing the classified document, two calls were place from his desk phone to Rosen. From there, the F.B.I. obtained security-badge access records that the F.B.I. says shows the two men left the building at the same time; the affidavit suggests that this involved a meeting between the two men. Within an hour, Fox News made its report.

An analysis of Kim’s desk and mobile phones showed dozens of calls between him and Rosen. During a September interview with the F.B.I., Kim told the agents that the best e-mail to use to reach him was a Yahoo! account. The next day, he called and said he was getting rid of the Yahoo! account and the F.B.I. should instead use a Google account he had set up. A forensic analysis of Kim’s hard drive, the affidavit says, found an e-mail from Rosen; the affidavit suggests that the e-mail had been deleted. Moreover, electronic records showed that after his interview with the F.B.I., Kim’s user profile accessed his Yahoo! account—which he told the F.B.I. he was getting rid of the next day—and viewed e-mails that had been sent from Rosen’s account.

At that point, the F.B.I. obtains subpoenas for the Yahoo! accounts of both Kim and Rosen. There, they find communications between the two of them in which they are using aliases—Kim is “Leo” and Rosen is “Alex.”

So, here is the scenario: Kim is one of a few officials who sees classified information about possible nuclear tests by North Korea. He speaks to Rosen of Fox. And shortly thereafter, Fox runs the story about the classified information. The F.B.I. questions Kim and then comes to believe that he is deleting information from his computer. So, knowing already that Kim is in communication with Rosen, it subpoenas both Kim’s and Rosen’s e-mail accounts.

Again, I don’t like this, but I also know it is the risk reporters take when they are covering national-security issues. But what I do find appalling is that the G.O.P.-ers who would never stand for this if the leaks came out of the Bush administration think it’s all hunky dory if classified information goes out from the Obama administration.

So Fox News reveals national security information to the world, including North Korea. Conservatives leap to the defense of Fox News, because if Fox News blew snot on their food, conservatives will always eat it and say thank you very much. There is a vital difference between the press leaks during the BushCo years and now. The leaks during the Bush years showed that Bush-Cheney-Rice et al, were breaking the law. Now it appears that if Fox News James Rosen maliciously compromised national security as a pure act of spite against the Obama administration. That Rosen acted in the interest of North Korea instead of being a patriot is no surprise, just look who he works for, anti-American Fox News. The home of perverts, weirdos, nationalistic ideologues, homophobes, overpaid millionaires with bad haircuts, sleazy pundits and conspiracy theorists. Those that do not like what the Obama administration did, well that fine. But they got subpenas from the courts and did not break the law. So until we change the laws, there is no scandal.

IRS Audited Democratic Groups Under Bush, No Outrage from Wacko Republicans

IRS Audited Democratic Groups Under Bush, No Outrage from Wacko Republicans

While Republicans attack the Obama administration over some IRS agents auditing conservative groups with the words "Tea Party" and "patriot" in their names, they weren't particularly outraged when the IRS targeted liberal groups during President George W. Bush's presidency, noted Salon.com.

“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told MSNBC on Monday (video below).

One of the liberal groups targeted by the IRS under the Bush administration was All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, reported the Los Angeles Times.

The IRS actually threatened to revoke the church's tax-emption because Pastor George Regas said: ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine," on the Sunday before the 2004 election.

Ironically, conservative churches that actively campaigned for President Bush in 2004 were not audited by the IRS, reported the New York Times.

According to the Baltimore Sun, the IRS also went after the NAACP after they said Bush was the first president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization.

In 2006, the IRS investigated the liberal environmental group Greenpeace after a conservative group called "Public Interest Watch," which had financial ties to Exxon, pushed for an investigation, reported Democracy Now.

While a few low level bureaucrats seemed to have misbehaved, let's also remember that some of these conservative groups may have been up to some political shenanigans, thus abusing their 501 status.

Republicans have no sense of shame or irony. Comparing Obama to Nixon is more LSD fueled fantasy than reality.

Poor, poor Sarah. They should have named her failed reality show, The Ridiculous Things Palin says, Did Sarah Palin have her own Umbrellagate?

Getting to Know Conservative-Libertarian Jeff Goldstein and Protein Wisdom

Getting to Know Conservative-Libertarian Jeff Goldstein

Jeff Goldstein is a real piece of work, a posterchild for the inferiority complex and resultant over-compensation issues delineated in Adlerian psychology. As is so often the case, the inferiorities he feels are both real and, simply, perceived. There’s nothing wrong with being a Mr. Mom or failed academic, yet Goldstein’s behavior indicates he feels differently — he’s so very touchy about it. On the other hand, there is something wrong with being a chickenhawk coward, a paste-eating cretin, and a talentless hack. Hence his overcompensation in the form of obnoxious aggression (often to the point of violent threats), pseudo-intellectual windbaggery, atrociously banal “short-fictions”.

To the casual observer, Goldstein might seem to be a garden-variety internet wingnut, a suburban douchebag whose sad and petty hatreds, frustrations over stagnated ambitions and innate cowardice lead him to adopt a sort of Walter-Mitty-As-Rambo-As-Whackjob-Blogger schtick, whereby all his fantasies of action and genocidal crusade and manly-man aggression are sated through internet jackassery. Of course if Goldstein really wanted some adventure, he could go to the recruiting office, but — hahahahaha — everyone knows that ain’t gonna happen. And yeah, all of this is common enough on the WingNet, although Goldstein has a curiously ambitious drive to be the biggest jerk of them all, and he very nearly succeeds. Added to this drive and his deep, abiding fear that he might be a weenie is his status as “Literature Wingnut” and the unique salad of sex and violence issues which reside in his otherwise empty brainpan; Goldstein’s a hell of a case study.

His sex and violence issues I’ll deal with first; if by the end you’re not also convinced that Goldstein is certifably crazy and that, therefore, he ought to be straitjacketed and shot-up with elephant tranquilizers, then you should be drubbed to death with a giant dildo.

A Little Penis Fixation

Jeff Goldstein has without a doubt the biggest macho complex at least since George Thorogood’s. Which is why the “chickenhawk” epithet is so injurious to him. (Goldstein is so discombobulated by the Chickenhawk label that he, like Jonah Goldberg, has to rely on Christopher Hitchens’s argument against it; both are too stupid or dishonest to acknowledge that Hitchens was revising himself; and of course none of this prevents Goldstein from turning right around and applying a derivative of the term to Rod Dreher.) Like all the rest of the 82nd Chairborne Brigade, his affected stance is broadly swaggering, hypermasculine, chock-full of bravado and chest-thumping — all of which is not only self-serving, but also a distended reaction inspired by how Goldstein sees the Left: as a collection of wimps. The irony of course is that if Goldstein were really so tough and so confident of his pro-war righteousness as all his rhetoric insists, he’d be in Iraq. But then he, like all chickenhawks, regards such moral logic as unreasonable and impossible. Actually, the very idea of 101st Keyboarders putting, so to speak, their money where their mouth is, is liable to make them terrified to the point of incontinence. And though I’m fairly sure that Goldstein’s barcalounger has more than its share of urine stains, the Left’s perception that Goldstein isn’t heroic material inspires in him a great deal more than that. Goldstein the Chickenhawk is reduced to violently asserting that he too is a macho man!Reduced to soiling himself not in fear but in anger! To asserting that he is more manly than any lefty, to be sure, (despite what his adenoidal, wimpy voice sounds like, which he is always quick to say is the fault of technology, not lack of testosterone!) and it is with monomaniacal fixation on his genitals and those of others that he means to demonstrate his ultimate masculinity. Thus Goldstein-Chickenhawk becomes Goldstein-Cockvulture and his garden-variety wingnut resentment becomes a thematic demonstration of his unique insanity.

This is only about a quarter of a well done post about one of the more evil denizens of the internet and radical Right politics. There are more details, with some graphic language at the link. The language is graphic and unsettling because it is the kind of language that JG uses. Maybe he is a sociopath, a nut, a freak, weirdo, an assclown. The psychological analysis is up for debate. Judging purely by his words, there is no doubt he is evil. This fact based, rational column by the WaPo's Ezra Klein is the reason for one of of Goldstein's latest dives in the the unhinged depths of anger and depravity. I'm just posting part of it so that anyone can see, it is the kind of column that one can agree with, find some disagreement or depending on  one's politics, dismiss it because it does not advance your agenda. It is hardly something to read and turn into Joesph Goebbels over, The scandals are falling apart by Ezra Klein

Things go wrong in government. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s rank incompetence. Sometimes it’s criminal wrongdoing. Most of the time you never hear about it. Or, if you do hear about it, the media eventually gets bored talking about it (see warming, global).

But every so often an instance of government wrongdoing sprouts wings and becomes something quite exciting: A political scandal.

The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political repercussions. Government wrongdoing is boring. Scandals can bring down presidents, decide elections and revive down-and-out political parties. Scandals can dominate American politics for months at a time.

On Tuesday, it looked like we had three possible political scandals brewing. Two days later, with much more evidence available, it doesn’t look like any of them will pan out. There’ll be more hearings, and more bad press for the Obama administration, and more demands for documents. But — and this is a key qualification — absent more revelations, the scandals that could reach high don’t seem to include any real wrongdoing, whereas the ones that include real wrongdoing don’t reach high enough. Let’s go through them.

1) The Internal Revenue Service: The IRS mess was, well, a mess. But it’s not a mess that implicates the White House, or even senior IRS leadership. If we believe the agency inspector general’s report, a group of employees in a division called the “Determinations Unit” — sounds sinister, doesn’t it? — started giving tea party groups extra scrutiny, were told by agency leadership to knock it off, started doing it again, and then were reined in a second time and told that any further changes to the screening criteria needed to be approved at the highest levels of the agency.

The White House fired the acting director of the agency on the theory that somebody had to be fired and he was about the only guy they had the power to fire. They’re also instructing the IRS to implement each and every one of the IG’s recommendations to make sure this never happens again.

If new information emerges showing a connection between the Determination Unit’s decisions and the Obama campaign, or the Obama administration, it would crack this White House wide open. That would be a genuine scandal. But the IG report says that there’s no evidence of that. And so it’s hard to see where this one goes from here.

2) Benghazi: We’re long past the point where it’s obvious what the Benghazi scandal is supposed to be about. The inquiry has moved on from the events in Benghazi proper, tragic as they were, to the talking points about the events in Benghazi. And the release Wednesday night of 100 pages of internal e-mails on those talking points seems to show what my colleague Glenn Kessler suspected: This was a bureaucratic knife fight between the State Department and the CIA.

As for the White House’s role, well, the e-mails suggest there wasn’t much of one. “The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago,” report The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung. As for why the talking points seemed to blame protesters rather than terrorists for the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans? Well:

    According to the e-mails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, and angry demonstrators.

    White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the e-mails show, nor did they object to its inclusion in the public talking points.

    

    But CIA deputy director Michael Morell later removed the reference to Ansar al-Sharia because the assessment was still classified and because FBI officials believed that making the information public could compromise their investigation, said senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal debate.

So far, it’s hard to see what, exactly, the scandal here is supposed to be.

One assumes that Goldstein belongs to the Benghazi conspiracy theory camp. As is the tradition of evil and it's practitioners, they would much rather rant and deflect the facts, than embrace rationalism and ethics. Goldstein seems to have some loyal followers - judging from his comment section. Throughout history, evil has always had it's appeal.

Radical UnAmerican Sites The Weekly Standard, The Daily Mail, Townhall, The American Thinker, Hot Air, and Breitbart Misrepresented White House Benghazi Email

Radical UnAmerican Sites The Weekly Standard, The Daily Mail, Townhall, The American Thinker, Hot Air, and Breitbart  Misrepresented White House Benghazi Email

CNN is challenging the accuracy of reporting on a supposed email from a White House aide that seemed to suggest an effort to provide political cover for the administration following the September attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The new revelations regarding the email comes after the allegedly flawed reporting has spread through the media.

CNN host Jake Tapper reported today that a newly obtained email from White House aide Ben Rhodes about Benghazi "differs from how sources inaccurately quoted and paraphrased it in previous accounts to different media organizations." Tapper writes that the email shows that someone provided outlets like ABC News and The Weekly Standard with "inaccurate information" to make it appear that the White House was "more interested in the State Department's desire to remove mentions of specific terrorist groups and warnings about these groups so as to not bring criticism to the State Department than Rhodes' email actually stated."

From Tapper's report:

    In the email sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 9:34 p.m., obtained by CNN from a U.S. government source, Rhodes wrote:

    "All -

    "Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

    "There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don't compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

    "We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies."

    You can read the email HERE.

    ABC News reported that Rhodes wrote: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting." The Weekly Standard reported that Rhodes "responded to the group, explaining that Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council's Deputies Committee the following morning."

    Whoever provided those quotes seemingly invented the notion that Rhodes wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed. While Nuland, particularly, had expressed a desire to remove mentions of specific terrorist groups and CIA warnings about the increasingly dangerous assignment, Rhodes put no emphasis at all in his email on the State Department's concerns.

The allegedly inaccurate characterizations of the Rhodes email by ABC News and The Weekly Standard were repeated in numerous media outlets, and a Republican research document. 

ABC News' alleged misquote of the Rhodes email -- filed by Jonathan Karl -- was cited and repeated in numerous outlets, including USA Today, Politico, The Daily Mail, National Review Online, and Fox News. During Special Report's panel discussion on May 10, contributor Charles Krauthammer cited the email to claim the White House was more interested in "political cover for all the agencies and not about the truth."

    KRAUTHAMMER: There is in one of the memos that you mentioned the deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes. So he is writing in the heat of this when they're trying to get revisions and redactions. He writes, "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities." Not reflect the truth, but reflect -- an "agency equity" is a way of saying, bureaucratese, reflects the interests and the political cover of all of the agencies. The point of the exercise is what he is saying, it has to reflect stuff that will be political cover for all the agencies and not about the truth. And we know now that it was a document completely rammed through by the White House and the State Department reflecting all their objections. And the bottom line is in the end they redacted the truth.

ABC News' report about the email was also cited in a Republican National Committee research document about "Obama's Bungled Benghazi Response":

The Weekly Standard's alleged mischaracterization, filed by Stephen Hayes, was cited and repeated in conservative outlets like Townhall.com, The American Thinker, Hot Air, and Breitbart.com.

Media Matters has previously noted numerous problems with the media's Benghazi reporting.

UPDATE: NBC News' Chuck Todd is also reporting that he obtained Rhodes' email and it paints a "different picture" than previously reported and "contradicts" ABC News' Benghazi report.

UPDATE 2: The Washington Post's Erik Wemple reports that a "spokesman for ABC News says, 'Assuming the email cited by Jake Tapper is accurate, it is consistent with the summary quoted by Jon Karl.'" While ABC News has reportedly suggested that Karl's reporting on the email simply provided a "summary," Karl's ABCNews.com piece actually purported to present a direct quote from the Rhodes email -- a quote which does not appear in the email posted by CNN

That list of web sites are the same people that helped spread the lies about Iraq, John Kerry, the housing bubble and the economy. So now these punk-pretend patriots are using the flag to warp more lies in. Someone needs to check their citizenship status. They might have been born here, but there is nothing American about them. Another anti-American conservative myth bites the dust - and for the umpteenth time - Ambassador Stevens twice said no to military offers of more security, U.S. officials say. Why do conservatives hate America and American values.

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former.

Not to worry. The anti-American tea bagger political groups which were basically operating as a charity, will get away with it, as conservatives always do by way of political intimidation and whining like the little plastic patriots they are. Certainly everyone, regardless of their politics should not be breaking the law, and they should all be prosecuted. Don't hold your breath waiting for that.

Wacko Anti-American Site Townhall Defends Right-wing Conservative CBS Sharyl Attkisson's Spurious Reporting on Benghazi

Wacko Anti-American Site Townhall Defends Right-wing Conservative Sharyl Attkisson's Spurious Reporting on Benghazi

One of the mainstream media journalists whose pursuit of the truth has been truly tenacious and nonpartisan is CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson.  Her tough reporting has made life difficult for everyone from Hillary Clinton to the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans.  She's also been relentless on the Obama administration's Fast & Furious gun-running scandal -- and, of course, Benghazi.  As we mentioned this week, Attkisson's tough investigative journalism is starting to bother unnamed CBS News executives.  Here's Politico's scoop, in case you missed it..

But from where Attkisson is sitting, there are actually two Goliaths, one of which is almost entirely absent from the Post profile. The second Goliath is CBS News, which has grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson's Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told POLITICO. Attkisson can't get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized.

Anti-American conservative hacks like Guy Benson and his America hating buddies at Townhall love Attkisson because she is piping out radical right-wing conspiracy theories instead of the truth and this is not the first time she has been caught aiding the radical conservative movement. First the facts about Benghazi: The Truth About The Right's Latest Benghazi Attacks

In coverage of a May 8 House Oversight Committee hearing, conservatives are pushing new myths about the Obama administration's response to the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Here is the truth about what really happened.

Exposing The Myths Behind The Right-Wing's Trumped Up Benghazi "Cover Up"
MYTH: The White House And State Department Edited References To Terrorism Out Of Talking Points For Political Purposes

FACT: The CIA Signed Off On The Changes For Tactical, Not Political Reasons. Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA, testified in November that the intelligence community signed off on the final draft of the talking points, and that references to terrorist groups in Libya were removed in order to avoid tipping off those groups. [The New York Times, 11/16/12]

FACT:  President Obama Had Already Referred To The Attacks As An Act Of Terror. On September 12, President Obama  referred to the attacks as an act of terror when he spoke from the White House Rose Garden. One day later, Obama again referred to acts of terror at a campaign event. These comments undermine the myth that edits to a document that were made on September 14, after Obama had already labeled the attack an act of terror, demonstrate that the administration was trying to downplay the role that terrorism played. [Media Matters for America, 5/10/13]
MYTH: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks Is Being Prohibited From Talking To Investigators And Members Of Congress

FACT: Hicks Was Interviewed Twice As Part Of The State Department's Independent Internal Investigation. After Gregory Hicks sat down for an initial interview with the State Department's Accountability Review Board, he asked for a follow-up interview to expand on issues that he felt needed amplification. And he was granted one. [Media Matters for America, 5/9/13]

FACT: Hicks Was Only Told He Was Not Allowed To Speak With A Member Of Congress Without A State Department Attorney Present. Following the attacks, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) traveled to Libya, seeking to interview witnesses and survivor, including Hicks. Hicks testified that the State Department had instructed him not to speak to Chaffetz without a State attorney present -- a condition Hicks says was unusual, but which the State Department says is standard procedure. Hicks ended up speaking to Chaffetz without a State Department attorney present because, according to his testimony, the lawyer lacked the proper security clearance. [Media Matters for America, 5/9/13]
MYTH: Cheryl Mills Tried To Intimidate Hicks After His Meeting With Chaffetz

FACT: Hicks Admitted Mills Offered No Criticism Or Reprimand, Only That She Had Asked For A Report. While being questioned by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Hicks elaborated on a phone call from Cheryl Mills, at the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's chief-of-staff. Hicks made clear that he had received no direct criticism from Mills. It was the "tone of the conversation," he testified, that led him to believe Mills was unhappy with him. But MSBNC reported that Philippe Reines confirmed to them that he witnessed the conversation and that it was supportive. [Media Matters for America, 5/11/13; MSNBC.com, 5/8/13]

FACT: Congressional Republicans Are Falsely Framing The Phone Call As "Threatening." Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) repeatedly asked Hicks if Mills was "upset" with him during the phone call. Hicks answered in the affirmative. After Hicks finished describing his phone call with Mills, Jordan immediately characterized it as an act of retribution for not going along with the "cover-up." Rep. Ronald DeSantis (R-FL) told Hicks at one point that "we need to know who actually gave the order to stand down. I'd like to know why you've been demoted, why they -- the secretary's chief of staff called you and spoke with you the way she did." [Media Matters for America, 5/11/13]
MYTH: Hicks Is Being Punished For Speaking Out And Has Been Demoted And Received Criticism Of His Management Style

FACT:  Hicks Testified That He Voluntarily Chose Not To Return To Libya And That The Overriding Reason Was Because Of His Family. During his testimony, Hicks said that "based on criticism that I received, I felt that if I went back, I would never be comfortable working there, and in addition, my family really didn't want me to go back. We had endured a year of separation when I was in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. That was the overriding factor. So I voluntarily curtailed." [House Oversight Committee Hearing, 5/8/13, via Nexis]

FACT: Embassy Staff Told ThinkProgress That People Were Upset With Hicks' Management Style Before The Attacks. State Department employees, who spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity, said that the staff was upset with Hicks' performance since he was first assigned to Tripoli on July 31. Contrary to Hicks' claim that he was demoted out of retribution,  the sources said that Assistant Secretary Jones' meetings with the staff prior to Oct. 2 were "entirely" focused on Hicks' performance as a manager. ["EXCLUSIVE: Embassy Staff Undercut 'Whistleblower' Testimony On Benghazi," ThinkProgress, 5/10/13]
MYTH: The White House Refused To Send A Second Team To Benghazi Because Of Political Motivations

FACT: The Decision Was Made By The Head Of The Military's Africa Command, Who Was Concerned About Embassy Security In Tripoli. Diplomats on the ground the night of the attacks were concerned about threats to the Tripoli embassy complex, and a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that the assessment of Special Operations Command Africa leadership at the time was that "it was more important for those guys to be in Tripoli" for embassy security. [Media Matters for America, 5/09/13]

FACT: Additional Reinforcements Would Not Have Been Able To Get To Benghazi Before The Second Attack Was Concluded. Transcripts of an interview Hicks gave to congressional investigators show that he said that the flight these special forces were scheduled to take, but did not, was scheduled to take off after 6:00 a.m., local time -- approximately 45 minutes after the attack at the CIA annex that killed two people. [Media Matters for America, 5/7/13]

Who is hiding the truth and engaging in a cover-up, Anti-American zealots like Townhall and Fox News. UPDATED: What Everyone Should Know About The Benghazi Attack

September 20: CBS reports that Libyan witnesses maintain that there were no protests immediately prior to the attack on the outpost in Benghazi. The statement contradicts Rice’s statements on the Sunday morning shows that the attack was sparked by the Cairo protest against the anti-Muslim video.

September 20: Fox News begins pushing the idea that the administration’s shift in narrative on the Benghazi attack is a “cover-up,” first on Sean Hannity’s show, then elsewhere.

September 21: Clinton appoints an independent panel, led by veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering, to investigate potential failures in the State Department’s procedures in Benghazi.

September 21: Citizens in Benghazi protest against the militias based in their city, culminating in the expulsion of the Ansar al-Sharia militia — the group suspected of the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens — from their headquarters.

September 24: President Obama speaks before the U.N. General Assembly on the need to protect freedom of speech. Right-wing commentators later criticize the President for focusing on the video rather than terrorism.

So CBS reports were wrong from the beginning. The video may not have been the cause and effect, but the terror group did seem to use the general unrest caused by the video as the opportunity for the attck. CBS has never issued a retraction. This is not the first time CBS and Sharyl Attkisson have pushed radical conservative talking points in what seems to be an anti-American and anti-truth crusade by her, CBS and the jack booted thugs at Townhall, Birther Organization To Award CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson For Attacks On Clean Energy

CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson is set to receive a journalism award at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference from Accuracy in Media, a right-wing group which promotes conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s citizenship. In announcing its award recipients, AIM specifically lauded Attkisson for her green energy report purporting to reveal 11 “New Solyndras.” But Attkisson was counting companies that didn’t even receive federal funds, companies that haven’t actually gone bankrupt, and companies that have sold the government-backed projects to other firms.

The Conservative Political Action Conference is a well known UnAmerican hate organization that has campaigned against science, rational thought and unbiased studies used for public policy, health care for women, against voting laws that protect college students and people of color. They certainly wave their flags al ot, unhinged blind nationalists usually do in order to hide their sinister agendas.

How Conservative Republicans Are Giving The USA The Shaft This Week

How Conservative Republicans Are Giving The USA The Shaft This Week

Corporate Cowards Divert Shareholder Funds into “Dark Money”

But don't front groups have to report (at least to election authorities) who's really behind their ads, so voters can make informed decisions? No. Thanks to the Supreme Court's infamous Citizen United edict in 2010, such groups can now pour unlimited sums of corporate cash into elections without ever disclosing the names of their funders. This "dark money" channel has essentially established secret political campaigning in America.

REPORT: Republican Senate Nominee Gabriel Gomez Claimed $281,500 Tax Deduction Under What IRS Called A ‘Tax Scam’

GOP cabinet boycott reaffirms Senate is archaic embarrassment

This Is How the NRA Lies to Gun Owners About Obama's Agenda

The survey, provided to Mother Jones by a reader, claims that "President Obama has supported a national gun registration system allowing federal government officials to keep track of all your firearm purchases." This is an all-too-common NRA talking point. NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre echoed it in January, saying that Obama "wants to put every private, personal transaction under the thumb of the federal government, and he wants to keep all those names in a massive federal registry."

That's not true.

Federal law has long banned a national gun registry. And the recent gun control bill that died in Congress, which was cosponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) and fully supported by Obama, did not create a national gun registry. In fact, the bill expressly prohibited such a registry. Obama emphasized this point repeatedly, and award-winning mainstream media fact-checkers backed him up.

The Demi-God of Conservatism, Foreigner Rupert Murdoch: Journalism's Jack the Ripper

Another conservative lie bites the dust, Fox-Promoted Claim That Benghazi Witness Was Threatened Falls Apart

Proto-Fasicst Corporations whine that Obama's a Socialist even as business profits skyrocket to all-time record high

Obama's been called an anti-business president and a socialist, yet corporate profits are at all time record highs and the share of the nation's output that goes to corporate profits has never been higher. If Obama were truly a socialist, wouldn't you see more for workers? That has not been the case. Obama can be blamed for many things, but being anti-business is not one of them.

Conservative Republicans Are Out To Shaft Women With Working Families Flexibility Act

Conservative Republicans Are Out To Shaft Women With Working Families Flexibility Act

House Republicans are launching their first concerted effort to win back female voters on Tuesday with the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013, a bill that’s being packaged as a lifeline to working moms across the country.

Unfortunately, the legislation is a particularly cruel hoax—a slick attempt to give employers more power, and hourly workers much less.

At first blush, the idea sounds good. The bill would allow hourly workers to convert overtime pay into time off: in other words, instead of getting paid for extra hours, they could stockpile additional vacation time. The pitch here is that working parents could have more flexibility in their schedule and an enhanced ability to balance work and family. “This week, we’ll pass [Representative] Martha Roby’s bill to help working moms and dads better balance their lives between work and their responsibilities as parents,” House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday.

The GOP is specifically invested in convincing women this bill is for them. The GOP spent $20,000 last week on a digital ad campaign focusing on so-called “mommy blogs,” like Ikeafans.com and MarthaStewart.com, and geo-targeting Democrats in swing districts. “Will Rep. Collin Peterson stand up for working moms?” one iteration of the ad asked.

A fawning National Review profile of Roby, the bill’s sponsor, explains how she wasn’t sure she could handle a run for Congress in 2009 because of concerns about taking care of her children while running for a House seat and potentially becoming a member of Congress—and how those concerns have now inspired her to push this important legislation.

But it’s not too hard to see how pernicious this legislation truly is. “Flexibility” is a word that should make hourly workers check for their wallets—employers hold most of the power in the relationship with hourly workers, which is all the more true if they are not unionized. So “flexibility” to decide if you want to get paid for overtime work, instead of getting fewer hours later on, can quickly become a way for employers to withhold payment for overtime work while also cutting your hours down the road.

Over 160 labor unions and women’s groups sent a letter to members of Congress on Monday, protesting that the Working Families Flexibility Act is “a smoke-and-mirrors bill that offers a pay cut for workers without any guaranteed flexibility or time off to care for their families or themselves.”

Republicans say this isn’t true, and that there are safeguards in the bill that would prevent employers from muscling their employees into surrendering overtime pay. “It is illegal for them to do that. There are enforcement mechanisms in the bill,” Eric Cantor said in February.

But this is where they’re being really tricky—the bill does give workers the right to sue over such intimidation, but denies them the right to use much quicker, and cheaper, administrative remedies through the Department of Labor. It also gives the Department of Labor no additional funds to investigate nor enforce provisions of the act.

So if hourly workers get intimidated into giving up overtime pay in exchange for working even fewer hours down the road, they’re more than welcome to hire a lawyer and sue—a rather improbable outcome given how expensive that might be. Otherwise, tough luck.

There also isn’t quite as much flexibility in the act as it seems. As the National Partnership for Women and Families points out, while the bill does allow hourly workers to turn overtime pay into as much as 160 hours of comp time, it gives them no right to decide when they can use that time—even if there’s a family emergency. That’s still entirely up to employers.

Further hampering workers’ flexibility is that once they bank more than eighty hours in comp time, employers can unilaterally decide to cash out any additional hours. Also, workers who decide later that they need to cash out the comp time they’ve earned can do so—but employers have thirty days to cut the check, which could certainly be a problem for hourly workers on a tight budget.

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Moreover, this isn’t even a new idea. Republicans proposed this same bill ten years ago, prompting the late Molly Ivins to remark “the slick marketing and smoke on this one are a wonder to behold.”

The legislation, simply, is a straightforward boon to big employers. “It pretends to offer time off but actually asks [employees] to work overtime hours without being paid,” Judy Lichtman of the NPWF told reporters on a conference call Monday. She added that it’s simply a “no-cost, no-interest loan to the employer.”

House Democrats will be nearly, if not entirely, unified in opposition. “The Working Families Flexibility Act sounds good, but it is a sham and we are going to call it out for what it is. It would cause more harm than good and we are going to reject it,” Representative Rose DeLauro said yesterday during the same conference call.

Patriots have values, like not shrouding legislation that once again gives American workers the shaft, in propaganda and doublespeak. Shame on conservatives for being back stabbing plastic patriots.

Conservative Republican America Where Workers Are Treated Like Soviet Dissidents

Welcome To Conservative Republican America Where Workers Are Treated Like Soviet Dissidents

Imagine you’ve just landed a job with a big-time retailer. Your task is to load and unload boxes from trucks and containers. It’s back-breaking work. You toil 12 to 16 hours a day, often without a lunch break. Sweat drenches your clothes in the 90-degree heat, but you keep going: your kids need their dinner. One day, your supervisor tells you that instead of being paid an hourly wage, you will now get paid for the number of containers you load or unload. This will be great for you, your supervisor says: More money!  But you open your next paycheck to find it shrunken to the point that you are no longer even making minimum wage. You complain to your supervisor, who promptly sends you home without pay for the day. If you pipe up again, you’ll be looking for another job.

Everardo Carrillo says that's just what happened to him and other low-wage employees who worked at a Southern California warehouse run by a Walmart contractor. Carrillo and his fellow workers have launched a multi-class-action lawsuit for massive wage theft (Everardo Carrillo et al. v. Schneider Logistics) in a case that’s finally bringing national attention to an invisible epidemic. (Walmart, despite its claims that it has no responsibility for what its contractors do, has been named a defendant [3].)

What happened to Carrillo happens every day in America. And it could happen to you.

How big is the problem?

Americans like to think that a fair day’s work brings a fair day’s pay. Cheating workers of their wages may seem like a problem of 19th-century sweatshops. But it’s back and taking a terrible toll. We’re talking billions of dollars in wages; millions of workers affected each year. A gigantic heist is being perpetrated against working people: they’re getting screwed on overtime, denied their tips, shortchanged on benefits, defrauded on payroll, and handed paychecks that bounce like rubber balls. A conservative estimate of unpaid overtime alone shows that it costs workers at least $19 billion per year.

The laws protecting workers are grossly inadequate [4], and wage thieves go unpunished. For giant companies like Walmart, Citigroup and UPS, getting fined is just the cost of doing business. You could even say that they're incentivized to cheat because punishment is so unlikely, and when it happens, so light. The protections we used to take for granted, like the right to receive at least the minimum wage, the right to workers’ compensation when hurt on the job, and the right to advocate for better working conditions, are nothing more than a quaint memory for many Americans. Activist Kim Bobo, author of Wage Theft in America,calls it a "national crime wave."

The sheer scope of the problem is jaw-dropping, sweeping across key industries and inflicting massive damage on individuals and society as a whole. In 2009, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a ground-breaking study, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” which found that in America, an honest day’s work is frequently rewarded with theft and abuse. A survey of over 4,000 workers in Chicago, L.A. and New York found that minimum and overtime violations were rife, and any attempt to complain or organize was swiftly met with punishment. Among the revelations:

    26 percent of low-wage workers got paid less than the minimum wage.

    76 percent of workers toiling over 40 hours were denied overtime.

    Workers lose an average of $2,634 a year due to these and other workplace violations.

Who gets cheated?

Women, minorities, immigrants, and workers at the bottom of the wage scale are hardest hit, but wage theft is thriving across the employment spectrum.

The people at the top who are stealing these wages are not going broke. They are not in need of food and shelter. They have money. They just want more. They're the ones always yelling about how regulation is hurting American business. Regulation is not hurting business or capitalism. What is hurting business, American culture, American values and capitalism is greedy immoral thugs who call themselves patriotic conservatives and libertarians.