***Official Political Discussion Thread***

Cats on Pennlive.com crying because Casey may block the SCOTUS pick :lol

You can't reason w/ those people and it sucks because when the country benefits from things, those idiots benefit as well.
 
RIP Alan Colmes
 
90


[h1]Fox News contributor Alan Colmes dead at 66[/h1]

Alan Colmes, a longtime contributor to Fox News Channel, and one of its original primetime hosts, has passed away at age 66.

“Alan Colmes passed away this morning after a brief illness. He was 66-years-old,” a statement from Colmes’ family said. “He leaves his adoring and devoted wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley. He was a great guy, brilliant, hysterical, and moral. He was fiercely loyal, and the only thing he loved more than his work was his life with Jocelyn. He will be missed. The family has asked for privacy during this very difficult time.”

The news was reported  on Fox News’s dayside program “America’s Newsroom,” on which Colmes regularly appeared. His former co-host on “Hannity & Colmes,” Sean Hannity, voiced a tribute to his life and career.

“The Fox family, Dr. Jocelyn Colmes, Monica Crowley and me personally have lost one of life’s most decent, kind and wonderful people you’d ever want to meet,” said Hannity in a statement. “When Alan and I started Hannity and Colmes, there wasn’t a day that went by where we didn’t’ say we were two most fortunate men in all television. Despite major political differences, we forged a deep friendship. Alan, in the midst of great sickness and illness, showed the single greatest amount of courage I’ve ever seen… I’m truly heartbroken at the loss of a dear friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jocelyn, Monica and his entire family. He will be dearly missed.”

Colmes, who got his start in media on talk radio, had been a liberal voice on the cable news channel since it launched two decades ago in 1996, co-hosting the show “Hannity & Colmes” alongside Hannity. Colmes co-hosted the program for more than a decade before leaving the program in 2009. As a contributor, Colmes continued to appear regularly on the network on various programs, often sparring jovially with hosts that disagreed with him.

Since 2003, Colmes had hosted “The Alan Colmes Show,” a weeknight talk radio program that was syndicated by Fox News and Sirius XM. He was also the author of two books about politics and was a regular blogger on liberaland.com and alan.com.

Colmes is survived by his wife, Jocelyn Crowley, the sister of former Fox News personality Monica Crowley.
And i was listening to his radio show for the past 3 weeks after work. I was absent the whole time due to illness. I didn't know it was that severe. 
 
http://europe.newsweek.com/sebastian-gorka-white-house-terrorism-adviser-angry-call-559805?rm=eu
 An embattled White House terrorism advisor whose academic credentials have come under widespread fire telephoned one of his main critics at home Tuesday night and threatened legal action against him,  Newsweek  has learned.
Sebastian Gorka, whose  views on Islam have been widely labeled extremist, called noted terrorism expert Michael S. Smith II in South Carolina and expressed dismay that Smith had been criticizing him on Twitter, according to a recording of the call  provided to Newsweek.

“I was like a deer in the headlights,” Smith, a Republican who has advised congressional committees on the use of social media by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and al-Qaeda, tells Newsweek. “I thought it was a prank. He began by threatening me with a lawsuit.”

Gorka apparently used his personal cell phone, with a northern Virginia area code, rather than making the call from his White House office or government-issued cell phone, where it would be officially logged, Smith says. The terrorism expert says he suspected Gorka “was trying to conceal the call.”

Smith says he did not begin recording the call  until after Gorka allegedly threatened to sue Smith. In an email to Newsweek, Smith said that, “Gorka asserted my tweets about him merited examination by the White House legal counsel. In effect, he was threatening to entangle me in a legal battle for voicing my concerns on Twitter that he does not possess expertise sufficient to assist the president of the United States with formulating and guiding national security policies.”

Gorka did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Smith has been a regular contributor to think tank and TV discussions on terrorism, particularly the use of social media by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State militant group. Last year Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of “100 Leading Global Thinkers.”

Smith has kept up a steady stream of jabs at Gorka since he learned that the Hungarian born, British-educated terrorism specialist had been hired by President Donald Trump’s top adviser Steve Bannon. Both Bannon and Gorka came from the far-right Breitbart News, where Bannon was editor-in-chief and Gorka was national security editor. On his Twitter page, Gorka describes himself as “deputy assistant to the 45th president of America” and an “Irregular Warfare Strategist.”

His views on the “global jihadist movement,” as he calls it, align with a small cadre of right-wing observers  who depict Islamist militants and extremists as being driven principally by passages from the Koran, rather than by government repression, or sectarian, tribal, political or economic factors.

On Tuesday, Smith tweeted that Gorka “doesn't know the enemies' ideologies well enough to combat them.” In an earlier tweet directed at Trump, Smith wrote: “You are endangering the lives of Americans by hiring fake ‘terrorism experts.’”

Gorka earned his doctorate from a Hungarian university in 2008 and “a few months later landed a faculty job at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA), a new Pentagon-funded school that was still working toward accreditation,” The Washington Post  reported. According to an online biography, he is also an associate fellow at the Joint Special Operations University, at the U.S. Special Operations Command, and holds the Major General Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University  Foundation, which was funded by Thomas Saunders III, a major Republican Party donor and chairman of the conservative Heritage Foundation. The program’s current director, James Howcroft, also a retired Marine colonel, told Politico  that Gorka only “periodically delivered lectures or served as a seminar leader.”

The White House advisor was clearly wounded by Smith’s taunts. “Why is this vitriol popping out of you, every day now?” Gorka asked Smith in his call. ”I look at your Twitter feed once or twice a day and it’s half a dozen tweets about me, and I’ve never even met you.”

“Wow,” Smith responded. “Are you defeating jihad by monitoring or trolling my Twitter feed?”

Gorka expressed puzzlement several times that he was being attacked “by someone who’s never met me.”  

“I’ve never met you and I’ve never attacked you,” he said to Smith, his voice rising in frustration and anger. “And your Twitter feed is an incessant berating of my professional acumen. Put yourself in my shoes, Mr. Smith. Have you done that? How would you like it if someone you’ve never met, daily and professionally attacked you?”

“Happens all the time,” Smith responded. Generally speaking, academics and journalists laboring in the field of public policy expect to be criticized for their views.

"It's not happened to me,” Gorka said, “I can tell you. Maybe you can show me some trick on how you deal with it. This is the first time ever.”

In fact, questions about Gorka’s views and credentials to speak authoritatively on Islam and terrorism were severely criticized in lengthy feature articles in The Washington Post  and Wall Street Journal  in recent days. He also received a wave of unfavorable publicity in January 2016 when he was arrested for trying to pass through a TSA checkpoint at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. carrying a loaded handgun. He was  charged  with a misdemeanor and sentenced to six months probation.

One of his most influential critics is Cindy Storer, a leading former CIA expert on the relationship between religious extremism and terrorism.

“He thinks the government and intelligence agencies don’t know anything about radicalization, but the government knows a lot and thinks he’s nuts,” Storer was quoted as saying in the Post.

Smith asked Gorka why he didn’t telephone Storer, "who called you nuts in the Washington Post,” to complain. Gorka responded that Storer’s remark wasn’t “in a Twitter feed that is being sent to people on Capitol Hill.”

Gorka’s scholarship has also come under scrutiny by Mia Bloom, an expert on “transcultural violence” at Georgia State University. “He doesn’t understand a fraction of what he pretends to know about Islam,” Bloom was quoted as saying by the Journal. Bloom has participated in TV appearances with Gorka and at a panel last year at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Nor has Gorka—who does not speak Arabic and has never lived in a Muslim-majority nation, according to news accounts—submitted any of his articles for review in scholarly journals, says Lawrence P. Rubin, associate editor of  Terrorism and Political Violence, the leading journal in that field.

“Gorka has not submitted anything to the journal in the last five or so years, according to my records and we have never used him as a reviewer,” Rubin tells Newsweek. “We would not have used him as a reviewer because he is not considered a terrorism expert by the academic or policy community.”

A government expert on Middle East radical movements, who asked not to be named for fear of being fired, tells Newsweek  she was disturbed to hear Gorka suggest at a talk  he gave in Israel a few years ago that he knew of a “specific person in the [Obama White House] who was deliberately misleading the government” on terrorism issues. “He said he wouldn’t name the person on stage but would provide the particulars” privately to anyone there who wanted to know, she said. Noting the audience was full of potential adversaries, she called Gorka’s remark “‘beyond the pale.”

Several times during his call with Smith, Gorka invited him to the White House to hash out their differences “face to face, man to man,” as he put it in one exchange. They set a tentative date for March 8.

But Smith warned Gorka that “in absolute fairness to you, what you will hear is that I have very serious concerns about our national security,” and in particular Gorka’s role “as an adviser to the president of the United States.”

“If you make a devastating case, then so be it,” Gorka said.

“So be it?” Smith answered. “Then what, you’ll acknowledge you're out of your league?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Gorka said. “Bring it on."

Late Wednesday, Gorka withdrew his invitation.

“Given your statements for the latest attack piece and continued disparaging Tweets against not only myself but the administration and the President,” Gorka wrote Smith, “consider your invitation to meet withdrawn.”
 
Alienate the military [emoji]10004[/emoji]

Cant wait to see what he's got up his sleeve next.
 
As much as I hate to say it, I'm glad this is happening. Allow this crap to affect as many people who usually aren't affected by ******** policies in hopes that they finally get it.
 
Josh Grubbs@JoshuaGrubbsPhD 1h1 hour ago

Seems an appropriate time to remind folks that when Republican lawmakers use the word "responsibility," they generally mean: "screw you."

Josh Grubbs@JoshuaGrubbsPhD 1h1 hour ago
There's this inherent notion of meritocracy, belief in work ethic, & belief in a just world that conservatives in this country seem to hold

Josh Grubbs@JoshuaGrubbsPhD 1h1 hour ago
The self delusion of: "responsible people will always find a way to earn what they need" is inherently pervasive in Republican thinking

Josh Grubbs@JoshuaGrubbsPhD 1h1 hour ago
This is egregious in any context, but especially so when it comes to healthcare. Allow me to explain what this looks like in the real world

Josh Grubbs@JoshuaGrubbsPhD 1h1 hour ago
This is my son. He has cystic fibrosis. His medical costs are already more than $30,000 a year, and will only increase as he lives longerpic.twitter.com/4lxFq1FAjd

C5XZbvCWEAE5uu4.jpg
 
Alienate the military [emoji]10004[/emoji]

Cant wait to see what he's got up his sleeve next.

Murica yeah!!

Take away their childcare benefits

Take away their family benefits

Take away their ability to be trusted in conflict zones

Won't be surprised if their rifles and armor get replaced with spears and shields while more money gets poured in military contractors' pockets to develop a trojan pig that shoots bacon.

That'll show them moslems!!!!!!
 
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/...tment-to-Security-Council-Here-s-contact-info

The NSC is the most important security body in the White House, and no political operative - especially not this one - should have so much sway over the most important decisions impacting our domestic security and military policy.

Main Number: 202-224-4751

Call and express your opposition to Bannon's appointment to the NSC. If you're not sure what to say, here are some reasons to oppose the decision.
If the mailbox is full, try again in a few hours. They empty the mailbox every day at noon EST (9:00 am PST) and every night. There's no limit to how often you can call.
Main Email: email the committee using this form

Committee Members: here are all 15 members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and how to contact them directly. Just one call makes a difference and it takes less than 5 minutes.

Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) - Chairman

Direct: 414-276-7282
DC: 202-224-5323
Email
Claire McCaskil (D-Mo.) - Ranking Member

Direct: 816-421-1639
DC: 202-224-6154
Email
John McCain (R-Az.)

Direct: 602-952-2410
DC: 202-224-2235
Email
Rob Portman (R-Oh.)

Direct: 513-684-3265
DC: 202-224-3353
Email
Thomas R. Carper (D-De.)

Direct: 302-573-6291
DC: 202-224-2441
Email
Jon Tester (D-Mt.)

Direct: 406-252-0550
DC: 202-224-2644
Email
Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Direct: 270-782-8303
DC: 202-224-4343
Email
James Lankford (R-Ok.)

Direct: 405-231-4941
DC: 202-224-5754
Email
Heidi Heitkamp (D-Nd.)

Direct: 701-258-4648
DC: 202-224-2043
Email
Gary C. Peters (D-Mi.)

Direct: 313-226-6020
DC: 202-224-6221
Email
Michael B. Enzi (R-Wy.)

Direct: 307-739-9507
DC: 202-224-3424
Email
John Hoeven (R-Nd.)

Direct: 701-250-4618
DC: 202-224-2551
Email
Margaret Hassan (D-Nh.)

Direct: 603-622-2204
DC: 202-224-3324
Email
Kamala Harris (D-Ca.)

Direct: 916-448 - 2787
DC: 202-224-3553
Email
Steve Daines (R-Mt.)

Direct: 406-245-6822
DC: 202-224-2651
Email

URGENT ACTION:

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security is inviting comment and COUNTING CALLS before it decides whether to approve Steve Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council. Call 202-224-4751. (You don’t have to talk to anyone, it goes right to voicemail)

Just say: "Hi my name is ___. I am from __ [give your state] and am an American citizen. I oppose Steve Bannon being confirmed to sit on our National Security Council."
 
Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando health care conference that the idea that a repeal-and-replace plan would blitz through Congress is just “happy talk.”

Instead, he said changes to former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.

“[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare – I shouldn’t call it repeal-and-replace, because it’s not going to happen,” he said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/john-boehner-obamacare-republicans-235303

:rollin

The GOP circus rolls on.
 
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/...tment-to-Security-Council-Here-s-contact-info
The NSC is the most important security body in the White House, and no political operative - especially not this one - should have so much sway over the most important decisions impacting our domestic security and military policy.

Main Number: 202-224-4751

Call and express your opposition to Bannon's appointment to the NSC. If you're not sure what to say, here are some reasons to oppose the decision.
If the mailbox is full, try again in a few hours. They empty the mailbox every day at noon EST (9:00 am PST) and every night. There's no limit to how often you can call.
Main Email: email the committee using this form

Committee Members: here are all 15 members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and how to contact them directly. Just one call makes a difference and it takes less than 5 minutes.

Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) - Chairman

Direct: 414-276-7282
DC: 202-224-5323
Email
Claire McCaskil (D-Mo.) - Ranking Member

Direct: 816-421-1639
DC: 202-224-6154
Email
John McCain (R-Az.)

Direct: 602-952-2410
DC: 202-224-2235
Email
Rob Portman (R-Oh.)

Direct: 513-684-3265
DC: 202-224-3353
Email
Thomas R. Carper (D-De.)

Direct: 302-573-6291
DC: 202-224-2441
Email
Jon Tester (D-Mt.)

Direct: 406-252-0550
DC: 202-224-2644
Email
Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Direct: 270-782-8303
DC: 202-224-4343
Email
James Lankford (R-Ok.)

Direct: 405-231-4941
DC: 202-224-5754
Email
Heidi Heitkamp (D-Nd.)

Direct: 701-258-4648
DC: 202-224-2043
Email
Gary C. Peters (D-Mi.)

Direct: 313-226-6020
DC: 202-224-6221
Email
Michael B. Enzi (R-Wy.)

Direct: 307-739-9507
DC: 202-224-3424
Email
John Hoeven (R-Nd.)

Direct: 701-250-4618
DC: 202-224-2551
Email
Margaret Hassan (D-Nh.)

Direct: 603-622-2204
DC: 202-224-3324
Email
Kamala Harris (D-Ca.)

Direct: 916-448 - 2787
DC: 202-224-3553
Email
Steve Daines (R-Mt.)

Direct: 406-245-6822
DC: 202-224-2651
Email
URGENT ACTION:

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security is inviting comment and COUNTING CALLS before it decides whether to approve Steve Bannon’s appointment to the National Security Council. Call 202-224-4751. (You don’t have to talk to anyone, it goes right to voicemail)

Just say: "Hi my name is ___. I am from __ [give your state] and am an American citizen. I oppose Steve Bannon being confirmed to sit on our National Security Council."
Repped.
 
Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando health care conference that the idea that a repeal-and-replace plan would blitz through Congress is just “happy talk.”

Instead, he said changes to former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.

“[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare – I shouldn’t call it repeal-and-replace, because it’s not going to happen,” he said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/john-boehner-obamacare-republicans-235303

:rollin

The GOP circus rolls on.
Conservatives are already on twitter like "Boehner is friends with Obummer, that's why he said this" :lol smh
 
"He'll tone it down once in office"

"But he doesn't actually mean everything he says"


@CNN: Steve Bannon at CPAC: "The mainstream media better understand something: all of those [Trump] promises are going to be implemented”
 
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