Last Call For Mission Accomplished

Republicans and the Right Wing Noise Machine have managed to make freeing a POW into a crime prosecutable by the court of public opinion.

Public opposition to the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for captive Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has less to do with Bergdahl himself and more with how President Obama handled the transfer, according to a new USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll.

The poll shows 43% of Americans say it was wrong for Obama to make the deal, compared with 34% who say it was the right thing to do.

Thirty percent of those surveyed have a strong opinion of Bergdahl, whose decision to leave his post in 2009 and subsequent capture by the Taliban is under investigation by the Army. Half of respondents say they were sympathetic, and half say they are angry with Bergdahl.

The 128 veterans included in the poll are much more harsh in their assessment of the 28-year-old sergeant. Only 6% of veterans who responded say they sympathized with him, while 33% say they were angry. By 68%-16%, veterans say Obama made the wrong decision.

"If he was a captured prisoner of war, we wouldn't be having this discussion," says Joe Davis, the director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "He put his teammates in jeopardy, and you absolutely don't do that in a combat zone."

Veterans are worried about the precedent set by the transfer, Davis says. "We have a long history in this country of not negotiating with terrorists," he says. "And we just did."

So a week of smearing Bergdahl and his family in order to attack President Obama has generated some quality poutrage for the right.   But it was fine when Bush released hundreds more prisoner for Guantanamo.  Not a peep from the VFW, no national shame campaign from the GOP, no hatred from the "liberal" media.  Obama does it, it's criminal.

We deserve the country we've allowed the GOP to shape for us, because we're not smart enough to know better.

Virginia's State Senate Flips Out

Just another day in state politics, folks.  Go about your business.

The Washington Post reports that Virginia state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat, “will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission.” Currently, the Virginia senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam holding the balance of power. If Puckett resigns, Republicans will gain control of the body for at least as long as it takes to elect a replacement.

The full details of this arrangement, including whether or not Puckett was explicitly offered the position as deputy director of the tobacco commission in return for his agreement to resign his senate seat, are not yet known. Although the executive director of the commission is appointed by the governor — who is currently Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe — the deputy director is appointed by the commission itself. Both the chair and the vice chair of the commission are Republicans.

Sure, that seems totally ethical and moral to bribe a politician.  It's what we do here in America.  Of course, the only thing that matters is if it's legal or not, but by the time that question gets answered, the damage to Virginia will be done.

In any event, the circumstances of this anticipated resignation — in which a Democratic senator throws control of the state legislature to the GOP, and then immediately receives a job from a commission controlled by a Republican chair and vice-chair — is suspicious. It also could have very serious consequences for Virginia’s least fortunate residents.

Gov. McAuliffe is currently embroiled in a fight with Republicans, who control the state house, over whether Virginia should accept Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. If Republicans take the state senate, even briefly, they can use their control over the entire legislature to pass a budget that does not include the Medicaid expansion. Though McAuliffe could veto the budget, Republicans could use that veto to try to blame him for an ensuing government shutdown.

So yes, this is how Republicans win the Virginia state Senate with the express goal of blocking health care for the state's poor people.  Either they die or go to another state, either way, problem solved, the GOP way!

Virginia's government is rapidly veering toward a shutdown if neither side budges from its Medicaid position before July 1. McAuliffe says an expansion must be part of the new budget, while Republicans have so far resisted his calls.

Virginia is one of 24 states that has not expanded the Medicaid program under the law known as Obamacare. McAuliffe campaigned on a promise to change that.

The state's Medicaid office estimates that as many as 400,000 Virginians would be eligible for Medicaid coverage under a possible expansion. According to a study from The Commonwealth Institute, a supporter of the expansion, more than 20,000 of those people could come from Puckett's district alone.

Oh well, not his problem anymore, he's resigning.  Oh, and by doing so, that clears the way for Puckett's daughter to get a cushy new judgeship.

Puckett’s daughter, Martha Puckett Ketron, is already on the bench in Southwest Virginia, serving as a Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court judge. Circuit Court judges in that region gave her a temporary appointment last year while the General Assembly was not in session. The House approved her appointment to a six-year term when it reconvened early this year, but the Senate declined to confirm her. The Senate has a policy against appointing the relatives of active legislators to the bench.

After the legislature concluded its regular session in February, the judges reappointed Ketron to serve until the legislature reconvenes. If Puckett resigns, the legislature plans to appoint her to a full six-year term. “It should pave the way for his daughter,” Kilgore said of Puckett’s resignation. “She’s a good judge. . . . I would say that he wanted to make sure his daughter kept her judgeship. A father’s going do that.”

So Puckett and his daughter get theirs, and all it will cost is health care for 400,000 poor Virginians.  What a great deal.

There Appears To Be An Awful Lot Of Treading Going On

Please continue to ignore America's pesky right-wing white supremacist domestic terrorist problem in favor of whatever outrage President Obama did this news cycle for the much more serious crime of being President while not a Republican.

Two Las Vegas police officers were killed Sunday in what appears to be a politically motivated ambush in a pizza restaurant that spilled over to a nearby Wal-Mart, where the two shooters committed suicide after killing a woman in the store.

Details are sketchy, but Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that “this is the start of a revolution” before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists.

I know, I know, it's really a complex and frightening false flag operation cleverly designed to lead us toward martial law under the Kenyan Usurper and totally not about a bunch of homegrown extremists trying to bring down our government.

The shooters then stripped the officers of their weapons and ammunition and badges, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. They then covered the officers with something that featured the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on Me.”

The flag is named for Christopher Gadsden a Revolutionary War general who designed it. It has recently come back in vogue as an adopted symbol of the American tea party movement.

Proof that it's clearly a liberal false flag operation as there is no white supremacist militant terrorist problem in the United States, because Chief John Roberts has assured us racism is over, Q.E.D. and stuff. Perhaps more guns would have prevented this.

One unconfirmed report is that the two exchanged gunfire with a citizen who was carrying a concealed weapon, and that one of the shooters was injured.

Well, even more guns then.  Freedom.

Anyway, please go about your business because tens of thousands of black thugs kill each other like animals in our inner cities every day, so stuff like tea party sovereign citizens murdering cops doesn't prove anything other than black people are thugs who kill each other like animals in our inner cities every day, and cops too, so shut up libtards, how much blood is on your hands, yadda yadda DON'T TREAD ON ME.

StupidiNews!

• More than 20 college students in India were swept away when a dam in Himachal Pradesh state opened its floodgates without warning and flooded a river.
• At least 27 are dead after Taliban militants attacked Jinnah international airport in Karachi, Pakistan, pretending to be security forces and storming the airport's gates.
• Embattled LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling's lawsuit against the NBA is the only thing holding up sale of the team, according to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
• FIFA corporate sponsors Sony and Adidas are pressing the world football body to investigate allegations of bribery and corruption in awarding Qatar the 2022 World Cup.
• A supercomputer named Eugene revealed at the Royal Society of London may be the first artificial intelligence to pass the Turing Test.