MOST OF US KNOW THIS FEELING

From the New Yorker's Cartoons at Random:

HAVE WE TURNED THE TIDE IN THE CULTURE WARS?

- The SC decision on gay marriage has unleashed a cascade of events that surprised me and puts several of  the GOP presidential candidates on the wrong side of history.  Even Arizona is reconsidering the use of Confederate names!

- Almost half of Americans would now consider voting for a socialist, something that was inconceivable 20 years ago.

- Well over 75% of Americans support raising the minimum wage.  Even among Republicans, 58% support raising the wage.

- About half of Americans now support legalizing marijuana.

A NICE TOUCH FROM PRES. OBAMA

SOURCE

PUT UP OR SHUT UP TIME

I will make an effort to follow this story:

Fire And Brimstone Pastor Promises To Set Himself On Fire If Supreme Court Rules For Gay Marriage

Rick Scarborough, a religious fundamentalist and former Southern Baptist pastor, says he intends to set himself on fire in protest of marriage equality.

by Brint Crockett
June 23, 2015 8:23 AM

UPDATE: Rick Scarborough is another blowhard who's been forced by circumstances to take back his words:

Well, as it turns out, Scarborough, the founder and president of the anti-gay, anti-women group Vision America, is now getting cold feet. Literally a few hours after the Supreme Court's historic marriage ruling was handed down Friday, Scarborough was forced to walk back his hyperbolic decree.
"I made that comment to paraphrase a spiritual song, 'Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,' in which the three were given a choice -- to bow to the image of Nebucahdnezzar or burn in a furnace," the Huffington Post reports Scarborough saying in a statement. "'We will burn' means that we will accept any sanction from the government for resisting today’s Supreme Court decision. We do not support any violence or physical harm," he continued, neglecting to add, "to myself."

THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED JUST A FEW YEARS AGO

Rush Limbaugh is so aware of his decreased relevance that he will mention it on the air -

They said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's marginalized! Rush Limbaugh, he's an extremist. He's been marginalizing all of this stuff."

and this too:

And I said, given all of this, because it's not really about the flag. The flag provides the opportunity for the attack, the next thing that's gonna happen is the American flag will come under assault.

Well, Fox News the next morning on Fox & Friends, and we played for you the montage sound bite, all but Steve Doocy thought that I'd lost my marbles, or some variation of that. They thought I was crazy, it was senseless, because they had been swept up into this.

Even FOX News is no longer afraid to call out Fats Limbaugh:

Fox’s Gutfeld: ‘Fear Tactic’ for Limbaugh to Say They’re Coming for American Flag Next
by Josh Feldman | 5:41 pm, June 24th, 2015

Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that liberals won’t be satisfied with just taking down the Confederate flag and that they will come for the American flag next. Why? Because to Limbaugh, liberals hate America and all its traditions and want to see everything symbolizing that taken down.

Eric Bolling brought Limbaugh’s comment up today on The Five and Kimberly Guilfoyle agreed, asking, “When it is gonna be enough?”

Greg Gutfeld, however, said, “This is absurd… ‘They’re gonna take our flags’ is like a leftist saying ‘They’re gonna take my birth control pills.’ It’s a fear tactic.”

Limbaugh's local paper, the Sun Sentinel, also seems unafraid to state that the Emperor Has No Clothes:

Is Rush Limbaugh irrelevant?
By Gary Stein
June 25m 2015

There was a time when Rush Limbaugh was funny.

He was actually relevant, even. Perhaps the biggest name in talk radio. ANd he seemed to almost laugh at what he was saying.

His rantings would be quoted around the country. He became the face of many in the Republican Party. That may explain why the GOP can’t get back into the White House, but that’s another story.

The last few years, people have started to realize that a lot of what he says is dreck.

He is no longer funny.

And he is no longer relevant, except to the very low information folks who want to believe Rush is God.

GOOD FOR CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS!

(h/t TPM)
Fats Limbaugh and Sean Hannity read on-air parts of Scalia's dissent but they failed to notice Roberts crushing retort in his opinion:

To defend making the subsidies available to consumers everywhere, Roberts cited a line the dissent to the 2012 decision in favor of Obamacare, in which Scalia said, "Without the federal subsidies . . . the exchanges would not operate as Congress intended and may not operate at all."

THE FINAL BLOW AGAINST THE CONFEDERATE FLAG

The racists can't even catch a break from NASCAR:

NASCAR statement: 'Disallow the use of the Confederate Flag'

June 23, 2015, Official NASCAR release, NASCAR.com

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 23, 2015) – "As we continue to mourn the tragic loss of life last week in Charleston, we join our nation's embrace of those impacted. NASCAR supports the position that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley took on the Confederate Flag on Monday. As our industry works collectively to ensure that all fans are welcome at our races, NASCAR will continue our long-standing policy to disallow the use of the Confederate Flag symbol in any official NASCAR capacity. While NASCAR recognizes that freedom of expression is an inherent right of all citizens, we will continue to strive for an inclusive environment at our events."

THE POLL NUMBERS ABOUT THE CONFEDERATE FLAG MUST BE HORRENDOUS

That's probably the reason so many Republicans now support removing the flag, including Deep South states like Alabama:

Alabama Gov. Bentley removes Confederate flags from Capitol grounds
By Charles J. Dean | cdean@al.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on June 24, 2015 at 9:08 AM, updated June 24, 2015 at 4:30 PM

MORE CONFEDERATE FLAG FALLOUT

I'm surprised this has spread:

Mitch McConnell: Remove Jefferson Davis Statue from Kentucky Capitol

Gov. Nathan Deal backtracks on Georgia's Confederate license plates, now wants a redesign 

TN leaders: Remove Nathan Bedford Forrest bust from Capitol

Mississippi House Leader Calls for Removal of Confederate Symbol ...

ABC News-Jun 22, 2015

A top Mississippi lawmaker said Monday that the Confederate battle emblem is offensive and needs to be removed from the state flag.

BETTER THAN WALMART'S DECISION NOT TO SELL

Three major American flag makers will cease production of Confederate flags:

Major U.S. flag makers to stop making Confederate flags
CHARLESTON, S.C. | By Edward McAllister
US | Tue Jun 23, 2015 10:02pm EDT

Prominent U.S. flag makers said on Tuesday they will stop manufacturing and selling Confederate battle flags after last week's attack on worshippers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Reggie VandenBosch, vice president of sales at privately owned Valley Forge Flag, said the Pennsylvania-based company came to the decision as pressure grew on South Carolina to remove the banner from outside the State House in Columbia.

Annin Flagmakers, based in Roseland, New Jersey, announced that it too would stop making the flag used by the pro-slavery Confederate states during the 1861-65 American Civil War.
ADVERTISING

Eder Flag Manufacturing, based in Wisconsin, also said it would no longer sell or manufacture Confederate flags because of the Charleston shooting.

COULTER/BENNETT UPDATE

I noted below that Ann Coulter was on Bill Bennett's radio show to promote her new racist book.  I didn't mention that a Nigerian-American caller challenged a few of her statistics and just now I heard Bennett admit that the Nigerian fellow was correct!

GOP CLOWNS, RADIO GASBAGS & FOX NEWS VERSUS REALITY

All have tried to ignore the racism of the attack on the Charleston church but too many others just aren't buying that crap:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley calls for removal of Confederate flag

Walmart: No more items with Confederate flags

Republicans return donations from white supremacist

RICK PERRY WAS CORRECT

He's getting a lot of flak about his answer to Chris Wallace but he's merely stating the mainstream GOP position:

WALLACE: I understand that, sir, but don't you, as the governor for 14 years, don't you feel some responsibility when 21 percent of the people in your state didn't have health insurance?

PERRY: That's not how we keep score. I think it's a fallacy to say access to healthcare is all about insurance.

Expansion did pass in Arizona, just barely, and the conservatives went to court to have it overturned. They failed.

WHY THE U.S. IS ALMOST AS EXCEPTIONAL AS ESTONIA

Based on data from 2010 or the latest available, the U.S. has the 5th highest homicide rate in the OECD:
The rate (y axis) is number of homicides per 100,000 people.

THE RACIST ANN COULTER HAS A TEA PARTY FAN...

I got a link to this article because I subscribed to Tea Party Nation:

Adios America: Turning America into a Third World Hellhole

Posted by Frosty Wooldridge on June 21, 2015 at 10:03am
View Blog

By Frosty Wooldridge

Book Review: Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn America into a Third World Hellhole by Ann Coulter

Adios America by Ann Coulter brilliantly demonstrates how America commenced its own suicide in 1965 with the Immigration Reform Act. From the usual 175,000 legal immigrants annually since 1924, Congress began injecting 1.2 million legal third world immigrants into the United States annually.

Coulter spells it out. Americans who care about their kids and the future need to take action. We need to rescind the 1965 Immigration Reform Act and turn legal immigration down to zero or less than 20,000 annually.