February 23, 2014

BUSINESS BACKLASH Builds Against Arizona’s HATE BILL

Shock waves are running through Arizona’s business community in response to the final passage of Senate Bill 1062. The measure is the state’s right-to-hate-and-discriminate law, aimed at the gay and lesbian community. In true Jim Crow fashion, it would allow any individual or business to refuse to serve anyone to whom they object. They only have to claim that doing so would violate their ‘religious convictions’. The state House passed its version on Thursday. The bill will be sent to Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday.

Protesters and businesses are united in urging governor to veto the law.
Hundreds of protesters gathered on Friday at the state capitol in Phoenix, as well as in Tucson, to demonstrate against SB 1062. At the Phoenix protest, an organizer announced that four businesses, once planning to locate in Arizona, had already signaled their intention to withdraw if the bill is signed into law. Each business would have employed at least 1,000 workers. Barry Broome, president of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC), confirmed that he had sent a letter to Gov. Brewer, stating:



Broome further told the Arizona Daily Sun that he has been contacted by existing Arizona businesses who report that customers are dropping them because of SB 1062. He expressed the worry that’s on the minds of most of the state’s business owners:





The Ku Klux Klan once tried the same tactic.

He dismisses the idea that the law is needed to protect religious ‘freedom’ by saying:



No business sector is more concerned with the fallout than the tourism industry, especially at the prospect that next year’s Super Bowl XLIX will pull out of Arizona. Many critics are urging the NFL to do just that. Kristen Jarnagin, of the Arizona Lodging & Tourism Association, said:





cont'


http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/02/22/watch-business-community-freaks-azs-hate-bill-pressures-brewer-veto/

February 21, 2014

Media Finally Catches On and BUSTS Darrell Issa’s Clinton/Obama SMEAR

You’ve probably been told by outraged Republicans that President Obama and/or Hillary Clinton issued a “stand down” order in Benghazi. That allegation belongs to Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, who seems unable to discern fact from GOP wish-fiction these days. This allegation earned four Pinocchios for Issa. Fact checker Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post has reported on domestic and foreign policy for more than three decades. He is not impressed with Darrell Issa’s latest Benghazi smears against Hillary Clinton and President Obama. During a fundraising dinner in New Hampshire, Tony Schinella, an editor at the Patch, reported that Rep. Darrell Issa said “he suspected that either Clinton or Obama told Panetta to stand down and not act or Panetta was told to do something and just didn’t do his job.”


Issa is referencing yet another false flag planted in his Benghazi witch hunts, which recent congressional reports have debunked – including a report by Republicans. Yes, his own party can’t manufacture enough smoke and mirrors to give Darrell Issa’s whoppers cover. But as you know, Issa’s active imagination is not at all hindered by facts. Kessler detailed the facts that destroy Issa’s allegation:





There was NO STAND DOWN ORDER and there is NO EVIDENCE of his allegations. Issa knew this when he made them just days ago at a fund raising dinner. This dinner is part of Issa’s tour in which he urged Republicans to unite against President Obama’s “imperial presidency”. We wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Issa also sees dead people and they tell him what to investigate next. And so, the harsh conclusion to yet another of Issa’s fantasies, per WaPo:





Darrell Issa held on the truth about Benghazi for a year in order to attack President Obama and former Secretary of State and potential 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton over a tragic matter that might have been avoided if only House Republicans had not denied the Obama administration the funding for embassy security that they requested.





cont'


http://www.politicususa.com/2014/02/21/fact-checker-awards-darrell-issa-pinocchios-allegation-obama-hillary-clinton-issued-stand-order-benghazi.html

February 21, 2014

BAM!! Matt Taibbi SLAMS David Gregory: 'I Don't Know How He Can Call Himself A Journalist'

Matt Taibbi called out David Gregory on Thursday while lamenting the media's treatment of Glenn Greenwald.


Taibbi announced Thursday that he is leaving Rolling Stone for First Look Media, Greenwald's new venture with Pierre Omidyar. He joined HuffPost Live to preview his plans and the conversation turned to Greenwald, who has been criticized by some journalists and public officials for working with Edward Snowden and revealing the NSA's secret domestic surveillance programs.


David Gregory, for example, asked Greenwald last June, "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" On Thursday, Taibbi called Gregory's tone towards Greenwald "outrageous."


"I don't know how he can call himself a journalist and talk like that," he said. "Look, this is the job. The job is we're supposed to report the truth. If whistle blowers come forward, we're supposed to take the risk along with those whistleblowers and society long ago decided we should have protections when we do this."


"Modern journalists just don't recognize how serious it is," Taibbi added.






http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/matt-taibbi-david-gregory_n_4825247.html

February 21, 2014

EDITORIAL: Port Authority Chairman David Samson SHOULD RESIGN:

(Tony Kurdzuk / The Star-Ledger)


Samson changes 'YES' vote to 'INTENDED TO RECUSE' vote.......




Wednesday’s apology by Port Authority Chairman David Samson, for the agency’s role in the George Washington Bridge entry lane closures, rings hollow. He hit bottom when he called the weeklong traffic bomb his co-workers dropped on Fort Lee last September an “inconvenience.” Mea culpa came five months too late. Worse still, Samson’s half-hearted attempt at remorse ignored his own failures as head of this hopelessly broken agency — a list of ethical lapses, broken promises and business-as-usual, with new examples breaking by the day. Samson must step down. His resignation would mark a strong first step in an overdue overhaul of the entire Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.



Heading the Port Authority isn’t Samson’s only job. He’s also a partner in the powerful Wolff & Samson law firm that has moved heavily into the government lobbying business since Samson’s pal, Chris Christie, was elected governor. It was Christie who appointed Samson, a former state attorney general, to the Port Authority’s top job. Samson’s jobs are supposed to be separate, but the media’s Bridge­gate spotlight has exposed several instances when his Port Authority role overlapped with the interests of his law firm’s clients — creating clear conflicts of interest.



For instance:

•?Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer accused the Christie administration of threatening to withhold Hurricane Sandy aid if she didn’t approve a real estate development represented by Samson’s firm. Under Samson, the Port Authority paid $75,000 for a land-use study that recommended the development plan proposed by the Rockefeller Group — a Wolff & Samson client at the time. Zimmer’s charge was credible enough to attract an investigation by the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.



•?In March 2012, Samson voted for the $256 million reconstruction of the Harrison PATH station just months after a builder, also a Wolff & Samson client, proposed a plan to refurbish a nearby warehouse into luxury apartments.
•?A month earlier, the Port Authority voted to give NJ Transit — yet another client of his firm — a 49-year, $1-a-year lease on a North Bergen park-and-ride lot. NJ Transit had been leasing the lot from the Port Authority for $900,000 a year. Despite earlier reports that he had voted for the deal, the Port Authority says Samson recused himself from the North Bergen vote. Samson appears to treat his Port Authority appointment as an extension of his legal career. Or is it just coincidence that his firm’s lobbying revenue — just $42,000 the year before Christie was elected governor and hired Samson — exploded to annual revenues of more than $1 million shortly afterward?




cont'



http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/02/port_authority_chairman_david_samson_should_resign_editorial.html#incart_m-rpt-1

February 20, 2014

LOL!!: Tom DeLay: People Keep Forgetting That GOD ‘WROTE THE CONSTITUTION’

WOW,.....A turd talkin'......nice trick!......

Did it ever occur to DeLay and other RW ideologues that maybe the election of Barack Obama was an "awakening" for this country??




Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) this week warned Americans to remember that God “wrote the Constitution” based on the Bible. During an appearance on John Hagee Ministries’ Global Evangelism Television (GETV) network on Wednesday, host Matt Hagee asked the Texas Republican where the country had gone wrong. “I think we got off the track when we allowed our government to become a secular government,” DeLay explained. “When we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that he wrote the Constitution, that it’s based on biblical principles.”





“Governments like we have are very easy to destroy,” Hagee later noted. DeLay recalled that he had closed the Capitol rotunda for three hours as Majority Leader so that members of the House and Senate could get “on our knees seeking the face of God and praying.” “And I really feel now, Pastor Matt, the Lord has heard us, I see the Holy Spirit moving. And I pray every day for an awakening in this country,” he said, adding that people should get involved.



“Join a group, a tea party or whatever.”







http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/20/tom-delay-people-keep-forgetting-that-god-wrote-the-constitution/

February 20, 2014

Arizona’s Senate Passes Bill To APPEASE ‘CHRISTIANS’ And DISCRIMINATE Against GAYS

Arizona Democrats did their most unexceptional to stop the bill.

Senate Democrats in Arizona attempted to derail the law with eight amendments, which were quickly disposed of by the Republican majority. The Democrats also warned that Arizona is in for another round of being shunned by businesses, conventions, and tourists who don’t appreciate the continual hanging of a “NOT Welcome” sign. That would echo what happened in 1993 when Arizona lost $500 million and the Super Bowl over its refusal to approve the Martin Luther King holiday. Or in 2010, when companies avoided Arizona en masse over the outrageous anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070.








Republican allegiance is to fundamentalist Christians.

But the diehard Republicans in the legislature know which asses they want to kiss, and they’re white, heterosexual, fundamentalist Christian ones — the business community be damned. Local columnist E.J. Montini describes it very well, and a bit more politely, in the following video. He says it’s a ‘solution in search of a problem’. A similar bill is making its way through the state House and heading for certain approval. The Senate version is much like a measure initiated last year by the same senator, Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, but vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer. The current bill has been changed, by the removal of a provision about suing the government for infringing on religious beliefs, in the hope that Brewer will sign it. Yarbrough, of course, insisted that the measure isn’t about what it’s really about. During the senate debate, he said:





He believes that “one’s faith, at least in America” should be “extended to the workplace, to the public square and to all aspects of our lives.” And that means being able to refuse service to anyone, based on the claim of religious conviction. Okay, then, countered Sen. Robert Meza, D-Phoenix. If a hotel worker believes that Mormonism is a cult, he can refuse a room to a family wearing Brigham Young t-shirts. Or, as Sen. Ed Ableser, D-Tempe, pointed out, Satanists can also use the law to their advantage. Or any ‘faith’ that is as narrow, biased, and mean-spirited as fundamentalist Christianity — if there is such a one. Doesn’t matter to Yarbrough and his cronies. Possibly they think Christians have a God-given immunity to consequences. However, they certainly have to appease the ultra-conservative Center for Arizona Policy, which is behind most of the Christian-oriented and anti-choice legislation in the state. One can hope that Gov. Jan Brewer is more concerned with the business community than with narrow religious oppression, and will veto the bill when it hits her desk next week. If not, let the backlash — and the boycotts — begin.



http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/02/20/arizona-christian-senators-anti-gay-law/

February 20, 2014

No Protester Is Safe From Snipers Or AK-47s In Ukraine (GRAPHIC)

With the death toll already at 50 and rising in two days of violence, clashes in Kiev, Ukraine, show no signs of slowing down, despite President Viktor Yanukovych's announcement of a truce on Wednesday evening. Though the protests have persisted for nearly three months, the bloodiest days of unrest have come this week after both Russia and the European Union maneuvered to further influence the former Soviet state.

WARNING: THESE VIDEOS CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENT

A multitude of videos circulating the Internet show the outrageous levels of violence in the Ukrainian capital. In one video from Radio Svoboda, Radio Free Europe's Russian service, a riot policeman with an unmistakable AK-47 assault rifle fires off the screen. Bodies line the streets of Kiev, and no end to the bloodshed appears to be in sight. Protesters have taken 67 policemen hostage, and the government has declared riot police "have the right to use" combat weapons to free the police hostages.

The violence in Ukraine has drawn condemnation from around the world, and has put the tug-of-war between East and West in Ukraine into full public view. U.S. President Barack Obama urged on Wednesday for Ukraine's military to show "restraint and for the government to withdraw riot police." But earlier Thursday, Russia stoked the fires, with Russian Prime Minister warning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to not allow opponents to walk over him "like a doormat."





cont'



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/ukraine-riot-videos_n_4822931.html

February 20, 2014

What Happened When STRANGERS Saw A Little Boy SHIVERING Outside WITHOUT A COAT

When an 11-year-old boy sat at a bus stop without a jacket in Oslo, Norway, hidden cameras captured a series of very special moments.


The experiment was filmed by the Norwegian branch of the SOS Children's Villages International charity as part of a campaign to provide warm clothing for displaced children in Syria, according to The Nordic Page.


In the video above, the majority of bystanders offer their coats or gloves to the boy.


"People should care as much about children in Syria as they care about this boy," Synne Rønning, the information head of SOS Children's Villages Norway, told The Local. She also noted that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the filming.





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/norwegians-boy-without-jacket_n_4815716.html

February 20, 2014

CHRIS HAYES: Scott Walker May Be The Next Chris Christie — And That’s TROUBLE FOR REPUBLICANS

MSNBC host Chris Hayes said on Wednesday that the revelation of tens of thousands of emails from a former staffer puts Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) in much the same boat as a fellow prospective GOP presidential candidate — his New Jersey counterpart, Chris Christie (R). “It turns out that Scott Walker has more or less the exact same baggage that Chris Christie has,” Hayes said. “In fact, when it comes to misdeeds and abuses of power in your inner circle, the Wisconsin governor may already have Chris Christie beat.” Walker had won the favor of big-money Republican backers in the wake of his successful union-busting and recall-beating efforts, Hayes explained.



“If you’re one of those one-percenters who wants to use your fortune to influence politics, and you’re looking for a general election-friendly alternative to Tea Party-aligned candidates like [Senators] Rand Paul (R-KY) or Ted Cruz (R-TX), the sudden fall of Chris Christie has left you taking a long, hard look at Scott Walker,” Hayes said. But Wednesday saw the release of more than 28,000 emails from former deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch. The messages suggested Walker, a former executive for Milwaukee County, was part of a secret email system using hidden wireless routers, which he and his staff used to coordinate his 2010 gubernatorial bid during office hours.



While Walker has denied being connected to the email ring, one message from administration director Cynthia Archer to Rindfleisch welcomed Rindfleisch to the “inner circle.” “I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and [then-chief of staff Tom] Nardelli,” Walker wrote. “You should be sure you check it throughout the day.” Hayes noted that “SKW” stood for Walker’s whole name, Scott Keith Walker.



Another email from Walker himself told the staffers, “We cannot afford another story like this one” after a staff member resigned for posting partisan comments online during work hours, threatening to scuttle the private laptops his staff had been using for the illicit emails. Walker was also shown to have organized a daily conference call involving members of both his campaign staff and his county employees. The Washington Post reported that the emails were gathered as part of an investigation that did not find any wrongdoing on Walker’s part, but still led to convictions for six former staff members.



cont'



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/19/scott-walker-may-be-the-next-chris-christie-and-thats-trouble-for-republicans-msnbcs-chris-hayes/

February 20, 2014

Bridge Scandal Panel Asks Judge To COMPEL CHRISTIE ADVISERS To Produce Records

TRENTON — The attorney representing the legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures filed a request today asking a judge to compel two former advisers to Gov. Chris Christie to answer a subpoena and produce records about their involvement in the controversy, the panel's co-chairs said today. The joint committee will seek an order from a Superior Court judge in Mercer County forcing political strategist Bill Stepien and former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly to comply with the subpoenas requesting records related to the September closings, state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Assemblyman John Wisniewski said (D-Middlesex). Attorneys for Stepien and Kelly said Tuesday their clients would not comply, saying it would violate their clients’ Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.



The U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating the actions that led the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to temporarily block two lanes from Fort Lee to the bridge for four days in September. Christie fired Kelly last month after e-mails turned over to the committee revealed she was involved in the decision to close the lanes. "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," she wrote to David Wildstein, a Christie ally at the Port Authority. At the same time, Christie cut ties with Stepien — who was a consultant for the Republican Governors Association and slated to become chairman of the state Republican Party — because of derisive language used in emails and texts to describe the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich.



"I can think of no lawful way the committee can obtain documents responsive to its subpoena from Mr. Stepien," his attorney, Kevin Marino, wrote in a letter to the committee’s attorney, Reid Schar. "Stated simply, his principled objections to the subpoena raise significant legal issues that are no less valid because they here arise in the context of a politically-charged investigation." Michael Critchley, Kelly's attorney, said Tuesday he considered the subpoena "legally defective and I will not comply, respectfully." Wisniewski said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman has not commented on his office's investigation, so no one knows if he is looking to bring criminal charges against Kelly or Stepien. The committee is not even seeking their testimony, he added. "From my vantage point, it seems hypothetical," Wisniewski said. "if the clients in the subject of as probe they have a concern but there is no information to suggest they are. We have rights under the constitution to issue subpoenas and the subject matter for these subpoenas is valid. We would like to have an answer."




cont'

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/bridge-scandal-panel-asks-judge-compel