Georgia congressman Paul Broun claimed after Tuesday’s State of the Union address that “There are more people killed with baseball bats and hammers than are killed with guns.” Explainer readers may remember Broun as the congressman who believes the Earth is 9,000 years old. What about his hammer and baseball bat claim?
He’s wrong again, but he’s getting warmer. According to FBI data, 8,583 people were murdered with firearms in 2011. Only 496 people were killed by blunt objects, a category that includes not just hammers and baseball bats but crowbars, rocks, paving stones, statuettes, and electric guitars. Broun was off by a factor of at least 17 this time, a significant improvement on his estimate of the age of the Earth. The blue planet is 4.54 billion years old, or more than 500,000 times older than Broun believes it to be.
Brian Palmer, Slate. Baseball Bats and Hammers Do Not Kill More People Than Guns: Why do people keep saying they do?
FJP: …but he’s getting warmer.
(via futurejournalismproject)
Source: futurejournalismproject
The fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods — all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy and the most severe drought in decades and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence.
Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late. …I urge this Congress to get together, (and) pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on a few years ago. But, if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take now and in the future to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.
(via climateadaptation)
Source: inothernews
Clinton led a dangerous expansion of the Department’s mission in Iraq. As reported in the Wall Street Journal on December 10, 2011, “In place of the military, the State Department will assume a new role of unprecedented scale, overseeing a massive diplomatic mission through a network of fortified, self-sufficient installations.”
To call this a diplomatic mission is a stretch. The State Department has hired thousands of private security contractors for armed details and transportation of personnel. Simply guarding the huge U.S. embassy in Iraq and its personnel costs more than $650 million a year – larger than the entire budget of the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA), which is responsible for reducing the yearly loss of about 58,000 lives in workplace-related traumas and sickness.
Another State Department undertaking is to improve the training and capability of Iraq’s police and armed forces. Countless active and retired Foreign Service officers believe expanded militarization of the State Department both sidelines them, their experience and knowledge, in favor of contractors and military people, and endangers them overseas.
Blurring the distinction between the Pentagon and the State Department in words and deeds seriously compromises Americans engaged in development and diplomatic endeavors. When people in the developing countries see Americans working to advance public health or clean drinking water systems within their countries, they now wonder if these are front activities for spying or undercover penetrations. Violent actions, fueled by this suspicion, are already jeopardizing public health efforts on the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Hilliary Bloody’s Legacy: Militarizing the State Department
What an exceptional example of western liberal feminism—we can now brag that now women are capable of imperialism and militarizing the state! Thanks America. Thanks for liberating me, Clinton! I’m sure you did a great job by contributing in building the American Empire! Kudos to capitalism!
(via jayaprada)
(via randomactsofchaos)
Source: jayaprada
President Obama is holding the line on making no-cost birth control available to women – no matter where they work! But before it can become reality, we must show support. Right now the administration is collecting comments from the public, and we need YOU to take action and share this with your friends.
Add your name in support of no-cost birth control here: http://bit.ly/W9tdWL
Source: ppmissouri
Michigan House Speaker Shuts Down Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill
Great news from Michigan!
Meet Your GOP Homophobes In The US Senate: Ten GOP Senators Sign Brief Supporting DOMA
Ten Republican U.S. senators — out of a total of 45 — have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting congressional leaders in their defense of the Defense of Marriage Act.
The 10 are Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Dan Coats of Indiana, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Richard Shelby of Alabama, and Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, both of Mississippi, reports Equality on Trial.
The brief comes in the case of Windsor v. United States, which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in March. As the Obama administration has declined to defend DOMA, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, led by Republicans in the Senate and House, has taken up defense of the antigay law.
Those who signed on to the brief claim their support of DOMA, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, is not based on hostility to gays and lesbians. “There is no basis to equate support for the traditional definition of marriage with unconstitutional animus or ‘a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group,’” the brief says.
Later, it continues, “It is simply not irrational or bigoted to oppose the redefinition of marriage in a manner ‘unknown to history and tradition,’ to use the language of the court below. … To the contrary, when faced with a proposed fundamental redefinition of the institution of marriage, it would be irrational not to consider ‘American society’s historical view of a marriage as being between a man and a woman.’”
Read more here.
Source: thepoliticalfreakshow
reagan-was-a-horrible-president:
Fox News goes full Reagan.
Well let’s see, what did Ronald Reagan do while President?
He ignored the AIDS epidemic for SIX years, following discovery of the first cases in 1981. Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.
Another of Reagan’s enduring legacies is the steep increase in the number of homeless people, which by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night – and 1.2 million over the course of a year. Many were Vietnam veterans, children and laid-off workers.
In early 1984 on Good Morning America, Reagan defended himself against charges of callousness toward the poor in a classic blaming-the-victim statement saying that “people who are sleeping on the grates…the homeless…are homeless, you might say, by choice.”
He encouraged class warfare. He proclaimed that the enemy of the middle class was not the wealthy, but the poor. He LIED about ”fur coat-wearing welfare queens picking up their food stamps in limousines” in order to divide our country.
The father of the Republican Party’s fiscal irresponsibility, Ronald Reagan made skyrocketing national debt, a dangerously reflexive aversion to taxes and a corrosive distrust of the people’s government a permanent fixture of American politics.
Ronald Reagan made people distrust and actually hate their own government, even when they directly benefited from it every day. ”Government is not a solution to our problem,” Ronald Reagan memorably remarked, “Government is the problem.” Or he put it on another occasion:
“‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever.
Plus…arms for hostages, no increase in the minimum wage for 10 years, gutting of environmental laws, and soooo many other things. These are just a few things that Reagan did.
This is the guy that all the Republicans worship. He was a horrible president.
Don’t forget that he wasted about $1 trillion on SDI/Star Wars, illegally funded and trained the Contras in the Nicaragua Civil War, during which over 50,000 people died, sent military aid to the Salvadoran Army and security forces during the Salvadoran Civil War, during which over 75,000 people were killed, sponsored the genocide of Mayans in Guatemala, killing over 200,000, reinstated Panama’s dictator Manuel Noriega to the CIA’s payroll, armed Saddam Hussein with biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war and covertly supported both sides, covertly funded and trained Islamic mujahideen guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion, and invaded Grenada, amongst countless other things.
Reagan did evil, evil things during his presidency.
(via destroyedforcomfort)
Source: articles.sfgate.com
ha ha ha ha
