Did Benghazi just become a Republican scandal?

That email release from the White House is proving to be a real problem for Republicans. Earlier reports showed that versions of emails leaked by the GOP had been selectively edited, smearing the State Department and the administration with incomplete information that left an inaccurate impression of the email conversations.

Now it turns out that it’s much worse than lies of omission. The Republican version contain outright lies.

CBS News: …On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: “We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.”

But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.

It read: “We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.”

Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an email written by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland.

The Republican version quotes Nuland discussing, “The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities of al-Qaeda.”

The actual email from Nuland says: “The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.”

As I pointed out earlier, Benghazi is rapidly spinning out of Republican control. The ever escalating hype has finally inflated their Benghazi conspiracy theory to the point that the facts can’t possibly support it, so the facts must be abandoned that now the whole thing is propped up almost entirely by fiction.

The question is what are they going to do now? You don’t make shit like this up if you have anything concrete. By leaking these phony emails (and there is no doubt the GOP leaked them) , they practically admit that the whole thing is frosting — there’s no cake here. If anyone has an “editing the talking points” scandal brewing here, it’s the elephant party.

And Darrell Issa’s going to stretch this thing out until 2014? That ought to go well. The whole thing’s in a tailspin now. Keeping it up in the air that long would be a good trick in itself. Keeping from crashing directly into Republican Party HQ and leveling the place would be an even better one.

Benghazi spinning out of control for GOP

Politico: Republicans are worried one thing could screw up the political gift of three Obama administration controversies at once: fellow Republicans.

Top GOP leaders are privately warning members to put a sock in it when it comes to silly calls for impeachment or over-the-top comparisons to Watergate. They want members to focus on months of fact-finding investigations — not rhetorical fury.

[…]

“We have to be persistent but patient,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told us. “I think where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If we present ourselves to the American people as intelligent, we’re going to be in a great place as far as showing that this administration is not transparent, is obsessed with power and hates dissent. But you don’t call for impeachment until you have evidence.”

A GOP aide explains the problem. “When one committee is leading something and some members feel left out, they’ll step out there and make an accusation to get attention,” the aide said. And rightwing media is most definitely not helping. The base is convinced that Benghazi is literally the worst thing ever! because rightwing media hacks keep telling them what they want to hear to boost their ratings. Fox host Mike Huckabee, for example, told his audience, “I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term.”

Of course the base is the base because they’re chumps who believe whatever BS people like Huckabee throws at them, so elected Republicans must keep getting letters asking when they’re going to stop dicking around and get to the impeachment already. It’s like a hyperbolic feedback loop; some Republican says something over the top, someone like Huckabee picks up on it and amps it up further, forcing Republicans to match the hysterical fervor of the hacks audiences. Lather, rinse, repeat. They’re spinning closer and closer to overreach and it’s beginning to look pretty inevitable — their Benghazi hype has taken on a life of its own.
And Darrell Issa isn’t helping either. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to produce something other than teasers and that means calling Hillary Clinton\back to testify. According to Politico:

A Democratic strategist, knowledgeable about administration thinking, maintains that calling Clinton back would be seen as an “extreme and unprecedented stunt” and “quite a risky proposition” for House Republicans. “Congress had her an entire day in January, and she kicked their ass,” the strategist said. “If she performed that well a second time, they could lose the issue permanently. They are better off waiting until her numbers soften with time and as she comes back down to earth — in the meantime, beating the drum as a midterm issue that she is ducking and hiding.”

“One aide said there are plans to stretch this probe into 2014,” the report tells us. That would seem to give Americans plenty of time to tire of watching them beat this particular dead horse.
[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Poll: attention given to current ‘scandals’ historically low

Politico: A majority of Americans are following both the controversy over the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi and the brewing IRS scandal - but at levels below historic averages, according to a new poll.

Fifty-four percent said they are closely following the story of how the IRS unfairly targeted conservative groups, according to the Gallup survey on Thursday, and 53 percent are closely following Benghazi. For both stories, 22 percent were following “not too closely” and 24 weren’t following at all.

“The level of attention being paid to each is below the average 60 percent of Americans who have closely followed more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured over the past several decades,” Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport wrote in an analysis of the poll.

Yes, majorities are following these two stories, but if they were TV shows, they’d be flirting with cancellation. I’d like to see a survey done where respondents are asked to explain what they big scandal was with Benghazi. I’d be willing to bet that the average person’s answer would be, “I don’t know. They covered stuff up or something.” After all, Republicans have been failing to answer that question for months.

Ed Kilgore looks at the numbers and concludes that these are especially bad numbers for backers of a Benghazi scandal.

“Interestingly enough, the IRS story was drawing just as much interest as Benghazi!, even though it’s spanking new while Benghazi! has been huffing and puffing along for many months,” he writes. “This reinforces the impression that Benghazi! was pretty much a spent bullet until the other ‘scandals’ were linked to it to produce a ‘crisis,’ at least within the Beltway. With the latest deflating evidence that Republican ‘news sources’ deliberately mischaracterized the internal emails leading up to the famous ‘talking points’ on Benghazi!, you have to wonder that if the torches being carried for this particular witch-hunt will again start to flicker and even expire when summer arrives and public interest in noise from Washington inevitably flag.”

[photo by cervus]

Stories to Watch: 5/16/13

Anthony Weiner has been spotted filming what seems to be a campaign ad.


Ezra Klein says these current crop of "scandals" are already starting to come apart at the seams. The main ingredient in a White House scandal -- i.e., White House involvement in actual wrongdoing -- is missing in all of them and isn't likely to make an appearance. In any case, the three "scandals" are now two, since -- as Steve Benen points out -- hope for a Benghazi scandal died yesterday.


The National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect House Republicans, lists "31 Democrats Who Are Huge Fans of the IRS Investigating Conservative Groups" on their blog today. It was such astonishing bullshit that they finally took it down.


Oh for chrissakes... An Army officer charged with preventing sexual assault has been arrested and charged with stalking his ex-wife. Seriously, what do we have to do before the epidemic of misogyny and sexual abuse in the military becomes a scandal? Hell, Benghazi's a nothing-burger and that's getting headlines. The sexual assault problem is actually real.


Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note in that boat he hid out in. Written on the boat itself, the note is "part manifesto, part suicide note and part justification for the killing and maiming of innocent civilians," according to CBS News. In it, he cites the Iraq War as a driving motivator and compares the people killed and injured by his bombs to "collateral damage" deaths of civilians in Iraq. Remember the battle cry of the neocons? "Fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." Yeah, that sure was 100% perfectly wrong, wasn't it?


Finally, another short one today. But that's what you get when non-news sucks up all the media attention. Still newsworthy things have happened. For instance, the GOP digging themselves into a hole with their obstructionism.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Republicans hope to make Pres. Obama into Nixon; they may wind up with Bill Clinton

The Fix, Washington Post: You could forgive Republicans for thinking they had happened upon an electoral golden goose over the past five days.

The twin investigations into the IRS’s flagging of tax-exempt status applications for conservative groups and the secret seizure of reporters’ phone records by the Justice Department, as well as the ongoing GOP drumbeat regarding the terrorist attack last fall in Benghazi, Libya, have thrust the Obama administration (and the Democratic party) into a defensive crouch. It’s a rare moment since President Obama’s reelection last fall when the GOP can play offense.

And yet, there are real concerns within the Republican establishment that members of their party won’t look before they leap when it comes to the right strategic path forward, taking a major political opportunity and blowing it, à la the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

“Republicans need only remember 1998 when they overplayed Monica Lewinsky and turned a promising midterm into almost losing the House,” said former Virginia congressman Tom Davis (R). “The Republicans have a political buffet in front of them. No need to gorge themselves…. [They] need to pace themselves.”

There is already some evidence that Republicans in Congress aren’t heeding Davis’s advice. “Of all the great cover-ups in history — the Pentagon papers, the Iran-Contra, Watergate and all the rest of them — this … is going to go down as the most serious, the most egregious cover-up in American history,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said during an appearance on a radio show regarding Benghazi. “People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe added.  Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) also has raised the possibility of impeachment on Benghazi but has insisted that’s not his goal.

The problem is that Republicans have invested so much hope and hype in Benghazi that it’s really hard to drop it like the dead thing that it is. Even if Washington Republicans accepted reality and tried to let their Benghazi conspiracy theory die quietly, the wingnut media would take up the cause and continue to make it an issue. Republicans will have to keep beating this dead horse for a while, in order to stave off accusations from the base of “caving” on the Greatest Scandal in American History(tm).

But the rest of the public doesn’t feel the same way that Republican voters do — which isn’t really much of a surprise, they never do. And while the base is howling for blood, the average voter just wishes this circus would end. The result: political grandstanding that’s painfully obvious to everyone other than the very people who would keep it going. Having started this bandwagon in order to help Mitt Romney get elected, they’re finding that — in their rush to get it on the road — they forgot to include brakes. Benghazi hysteria is like a runaway train, hurtling toward disaster, with the Obama administration waving farewell from the station.

Every nutjob who wants to win a GOP primary will be wall-to-wall Benghazi, 24/7. Meanwhile, general election voters see it as a blatantly political timewaster. Benghazi will win them primaries, but voters in the general will be a lot less enthused with candidates who promise to make Benghazi the central focus of their time in Washington.

[photo by D.B. Blas]

Griper Blade: Republicans Need to Dig Up Some Better 'Scandals'

Want a scandal? Here's a scandal:

Salon: Try, if you can, to ignore all the lurid coke-and-sex bombshells contained in the three Department of Interior Inspector General reports about the shenanigans at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS). The program director who snorted speed off a subordinate’s toaster oven, and made her give him a blow job while driving around the neighborhood. The two “MMS Chicks” who were notorious for getting plastered at conventions and having one-night stands with oil industry employees.

Try — and yes, I know it’s hard — try even to ignore the allegation that one program director told a subordinate that if she could score him some coke during the MMS performance appraisal period, he would increase her performance award. What’s the big deal? Who wouldn’t be motivated by such an incentive? And what’s a little drunken sex and coke binging on government time among friends? It happens to the best of us.

The significance of the three reports delivered by the inspector general to Congress on Wednesday lies not in the prurience of some of the indiscretions, but in the symbolism. The Royalty-in-Kind Program of the U.S. Minerals Management Service is where offshore drilling meets the U.S. government. And gosh, is it ever one heck of a mess. You want a toxic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Just read the reports.

You'll happy to know that this isn't happening now, but in the misty, far-flung past of bustling 2008. This was the Bush administration's scandal and it was bad. The MMS was responsible for leasing federal land for oil and natural gas drilling. And it was corrupt nearly beyond belief. An Inspector General found not only ethical breaches, but criminal misconduct in an agency who's mission had changed under the Bush administration from serving the interests of the American people to making as much money as possible for the oil and gas industry. The agency was basically run by lobbyists, practically guaranteeing malfeasance. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the agency was finally eliminated under Interior Department restructuring.

I don't bring this up to try to distract from the current controversies plaguing the White House, but to make a simple point; as salacious and shocking as it was at the time, no one talks about the MMS scandal anymore. Of course, the Bush administration had four colossal scandals that leap immediately to mind: the failure to take terrorism seriously, resulting in 9/11; the lies and hype about WMD that led to the invasion of Iraq; the awful response to Hurricane Katrina; and the use of torture. There were also warrantless wiretaps, blowing the cover of Valerie Plame, Dick Cheney getting hammered and shooting some poor guy in the face, and some I'm either forgetting or skipping over for the sake of brevity. In the scandal-production department, the Bushies were overachievers...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Stories to Watch: 5/15/13

An Arizona law meant to stop gun buyback programs by cities is turning out to be a failure. Thankfully.


Alfred Hitchcock on gun control.


Dallas, Texas really dodged a bullet when City Council candidate Richard P. Sheridan lost his election. What a freakin' psychopath this guy is.


Pres. Obama accepts the resignation of acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller -- a Bush appointee -- in the IRS controversy. In the meantime, this "scandal" is quickly falling apart.


Louie Gohmert practically challenges Eric Holder to a duel in a congressional hearing after Holder points out that the things Louie had said couldn't possibly be true. "I cannot have a witness challenge my character," Gohmert said. As always, the best way to avoid being called a liar is not to lie in the first place. Louie needs to calm down and stop blaming other people for his bullshitting.


Yes, there is a scientific consensus on climate change and, yes, it is that humans are responsible. That cranks and crackpots don't like that fact is irrelevant.


Republicans demand big cuts to food stamps, because having malnourished children is what America is all about.


In a letter to Ben Bernanke, Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorses a "get tough" approach to Wall Street crime.


The White House releases nearly one hundred pages of emails related to Benghazi. Related: Amb. Stevens turned down offers of extra security for his mission.


[cartoon via USA Today]

Rooting for the bad old days

Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader.

Republicans love free enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit — right up until they hate it

Slate: From the state that brought you the nation’s first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state.

The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It’s aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships.

The bill is being pushed by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, a trade group representing the state’s franchised dealerships. Its sponsor is state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Henderson, who has said the goal is to prevent unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers. What makes it “unfair competition” as opposed to plain-old “competition”—something Republicans are typically inclined to favor—is not entirely clear. After all, North Carolina doesn’t seem to have a problem with Apple selling its computers online or via its own Apple Stores.

Still, it’s easy to understand why some car dealers might feel a little threatened: Tesla’s Model S outsold the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8 last quarter without any help from them. If its business model were to catch on, consumers might find that they don’t need the middle-men as much as they thought.

According to the report, “Apodaca received $8,000 in campaign contributions from the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association last year, the maximum amount allowed by state law.” He has not responded to a request for comment.

Ironically, this sort of thing is almost exactly what Ayn Rand complained about in her novel Atlas Shrugged — a business group and the government were forcing an industrialist to share his process for producing a new alloy, using “unfair competition” as their reasoning. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to her that they could ban it for the same reason.

The GOP has taken to praising Rand in recent years — especially post-Tea Party. Like so much else Republicans say, that praise is obviously horseshit.

Man won’t be charged for accidentally shooting himself in a bowling alley

Raw Story: Police say that a Florida man who shot himself at a bowling alley in Jupiter will not be charged with a crime.

Jupiter Police told WPBF that the man was bowling with a gun in the pocket of his shorts at Jupiter Lanes at around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday when the incident occurred.

“The guy just stepped up to bowl,” Jim Miller recalled. “I think he hit his leg on his back swing.”

“The ball hit him in the leg, which triggered the revolver,” Mike Martin, who also witnessed the shooting, added.

According to local station WPTV, “Several witnesses said that the gun was in the bowler’s pocket when it went off, terrifying other players.” You’d think they’d be used to this sort of thing, since the bowling alley in Jupiter, FL is obviously such a hotbed of hellish violence that our Second Amendment Hero here considered it madness to enter without packing heat.

And look at how effective his firearm was in keeping Mr. Responsible Gun Owner safe — i.e., total failure.

But hey, at least the man won’t be charged for accidentally discharging his firearm in a place where people gather together for quality family time. These things will happen. And if we start charging people for accidentally shooting themselves at bowling alleys, what’s next? Miniature golf courses? The circus? Chuck E. Cheese’s?

People might get the idea that it’s a little irresponsible to carry loaded guns in places where there are a lot children present. And then who would recklessly endanger those children keep all those kids safe?

[photo by FaceMePLS]

Stories to Watch: 5/14/13

Ryan Lizza on the AP phone records controvery: "Recap: GOP calls on Holder to investigate leaks. Holder appoints US Attorney. US Att. subpoenas AP records. GOP calls on Holder to resign." That's a pretty damned accurate timeline.


Apparently frustrated that no one's getting all that worked up about Benghazi, despite their hyping it to the point of hysteria, Republicans leak an email edited to make it seem more damning than it actually was -- which is to say, not actually damning at all. In other words, the GOP tried to frame the White House. In trying to smear the president, the GOP got horserap all over themselves.


Related: House Republican leadership is currently fighting a revolt over Benghazi. The rank-and-file believe it needs a 9/11 Report-style blue ribbon panel, leadership believes that'd be way overplaying their hand. Leadership is currently losing. This whole Benghazi thing is like a slow-motion explosion going off in the GOP's face.


A seven-year-old Milwaukee boy writes to VP Biden saying that if guns shot chocolate bullets, no one would get hurt and everyone would be happy, since everyone loves chocolate. Cute, right? So Biden writes back and tells the kid that's a great idea, because that's the sort of thing you do when a kid writes you a note like that. Needless to say, the rightwing blogosphere thinks this is the worst thing ever.


Meanwhile, an Amarillo, Texas six-year-old shoots himself in the stomach, because we totally don't have a gun problem in this country.


Tennessee state Rep. Jon Lundberg has co-sponsored a bill to take down a traffic camera that caught him speeding last year. Lundberg last made the news for sponsoring a resolution to honor himself last month. Maybe someday he'll get around to governing in a way that's not all about himself.


No, the country is most definitely not going bankrupt. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.


The GOP's effort to reach out to Latino voters is going really, really badly.


Dick Cheney says that Benghazi is the worst thing ever, It's "worst incidences, frankly, that I can recall in my career." Nothing a little more nine-eleveny leaps to mind, Dick?


Angelina Jolie undergoes a double mastectomy. The surgery was preventative, since genetic testing showed she had an 87% chance of eventually contracting breast cancer. The medical community praises her openness about the subject, saying her public announcement raises awareness.


Finally, this AP piece on the Arab world version of "American Idol" is a lot more fascinating than you might suspect.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

IRS ‘scandal’ another example of ‘It’s only OK when Republicans do it’

Alex Seitz-Wald: While few are defending the Internal Revenue Service for targeting some 300 conservative groups, there are two critical pieces of context missing from the conventional wisdom on the “scandal.” First, at least from what we know so far, the groups were not targeted in a political vendetta — but rather were executing a makeshift enforcement test (an ugly one, mind you) for IRS employees tasked with separating political groups not allowed to claim tax-exempt status, from bona fide social welfare organizations. Employees are given almost zero official guidance on how to do that, so they went after Tea Party groups because those seemed like they might be political. Keep in mind, the commissioner of the IRS at the time was a Bush appointee.

The second is that while this is the first time this kind of thing has become a national scandal, it’s not the first time such activity has occurred.

“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way,” California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. “I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I’m glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.”

The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. “Jesus [would say], ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,’” rector George Regas said from the dais.

The IRS under the Bush administration also targeted Greenpeace and the NAACP for extra IRS attention. And the Republican use of the IRS as a political tool didn’t end with the Bush administration; in 2011, Republicans pushed for an audit of the AARP, after the group that lobbies on behalf of seniors announced its support for Obamacare.

There’s no evidence that the IRS focused on Tea Party groups to punish them, rather it seems it was a case of bad management from an agency whose commissioner was on the way out. Under the Bush administration, however, the story seems to be very different. A lot of the Republicans clawing their eyes out over this IRS “scandal” were awfully quiet when it happened on Bush. And those who actually called for the AARP to be punished… Well, let’s say they can enjoy a nice cuppa STFU.

In the end, it’s more a story about the squeaky Republican wheel getting the media grease. But keep in mind they’re complaining about something their party has actively encouraged.

NRA loves Christie’s ridiculous non-plan to deal with gun violence

Talking Points Memo: Campaign finance reports filed this week by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) show he has collected $3,000 in donations since March from a lobbyist with the National Rifle Association.

The latest of those reports became public Monday, just as Christie’s Democratic opponent in the Garden State governor’s race, state Sen. Barbara Buono, has been hitting him for having a weak stance on gun control.

“We’ve seen really exceptional leadership across the river with Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg, but unfortunately, in New Jersey, Gov. Christie has not shown leadership,” Buono told TPM by phone on Monday evening.

“Her criticism has centered on a task force Christie launched in January to address violence following the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.,” the report goes on. “Buono has repeatedly described the recommendations issued by that commission as ‘shallow’ and accused Christie of using it to avoid the issue of gun control immediately after the shooting.”

“Shallow” works, but “a joke” would be good too. “He set up this commission right after Newtown. I’m not sure why he set up the commission considering Vice President Biden had already set up a commission,” said Buono. “It really appeared as though it was a delay tactic to delay and put it off hoping that people would calm down after the latest tragedy.”

The commission’s recommendations: criminalize the video games like “Call of Duty,” as well as mental illness. There’s even a call to ban the Barrett .50 caliber rifle — not because it’s been a problem in New Jersey, but because it’s featured in “Call of Duty.” The NRA is apparently cool with this ban, I suppose because it helps lay the blame for gun violence in America on video games and not the deep saturation of guns in our population.

Meanwhile, the state legislature is expected to pass legislation ignoring the panel’s recommendations and instead expanding background checks. That legislation may not have a bright future and this might explain why the NRA is shoring up Christie early — a veto of background checks legislation is pretty much the same as voting against it. Ask Kelly Ayotte how that sort of thing plays in the northeast these days.

Stories to Watch: 5/13/13

Got a really late start on these headlines, so this is going to be brief.


Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne holds up Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as the kind of mayor who talks sense about gun control. That's the kind that makes the gun lobby nervous.


Harry Reid says that gun safety advocates will "settle" for legislation leaving gaping holes in the background check system. Harry Reid is very wrong.


Marco Rubio wants the president to "demand the IRS Commissioner’s resignation, effectively immediately" over news that the agency gave special attention to Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status. The problem: there is no IRS Commissioner. The previous commissioner's term ended during the last election year, meaning nominating a replacement  was completely impossible. "The Republicans would block anybody that Obama sent up." Jeff Trinca, a former chief of staff for the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service, said at the time. So Rubio's demanding a resignation from a position that's empty because of Republican obstructionism.


Democrats are fighting over what to do with California's $4.5 billion budget surplus. A problem you want to have. Liberal economic policies work. Here's living proof.


Finally, John McCain becomes the latest Republican to thank Fox News for all their help in hyping Benghazi.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Gun lobby, Ayotte clearly feeling the heat

Greg Sargent: A bit of a dispute has broken out over just how much pressure Kelly Ayotte is feeling over her vote against the Manchin-Toomey compromise to expand background checks. The gun control forces have organized to pressure her at town hall meetings and on the air, but conservative media have argued that the pressure on her from the left has been exaggerated.

It’s interesting, then, that the major efforts to defend Ayotte by gun rights groups and fellow Republicans tend to emphasize her supposed support for background checks. That seems like a pretty good sign of which way the political winds are blowing on the issue.

Here, for instance, is a new ad that Marco Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC is running in New Hampshire. It says this: “Safety. Security. Family. No one understands these things like a mom. Ayotte voted to fix background checks, strengthen mental health screenings and more resources to prosecute criminals using guns.”…

That message echoes a recent NRA ad that thanks Ayotte for her vote, but also says: “Kelly Ayotte voted for a bipartisan plan to make background checks more effective.” Ayotte herself recently defended her vote on the same grounds that she supports.

It’s hard not to notice that the thrust of these defenses center on Ayotte’s support for background checks, and not her opposition to expanding them.

In other words, the message here is “Kelly Ayotte? Voted against background checks? Why, you must be thinking of someone else!” They aren’t even trying to defend her vote. Instead, they’re trying to cloud the issue with bullshit. According to Sargent, what they’re pointing to is not the background check bill that was nearly universally popular, but instead “an alternative proposal, sponsored by Chuck Grassley, that would have beefed up state sharing of mental health data with the feds, without extending the background check to private sales via commercial portals on the internet and at gun shows.” So, not really a vote about background checks at all.

Sargent reports that “gun control groups believe the Grassley approach would actually undermine the overall background check system” and that voting for Grassley’s idea wouldn’t have prevented her from voting for voting for the background check expansion. They were separate issues, not competing proposals. In the end, Ayotte voted against expanding background checks and any other story isn’t even spin — it’s a lie.

But Rubio and the NRA know they’ve got the losing argument here, so they aren’t bothering to defend it. Rather, they’re just plain lying about Ayotte’s record to make it seem like she voted for gun control. This is so not going the way they’d hoped.

[photo by M Bergman]

Poll: voters trust Hillary over GOP on Benghazi

Republicans’ fixation on Benghazi isn’t doing them any good — and may actually be backfiring.

Public Policy Polling: PPP’s newest national poll finds that Republicans aren’t getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton’s +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. Meanwhile Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular with a 36/57 favorability rating.

Voters think Congress should be more focused on other major issues right now rather than Benghazi. By a 56/38 margin they say passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill is more important than continuing to focus on Benghazi, and by a 52/43 spread they think passing a bill requiring background checks for all gun sales should be a higher priority.

So Republicans think they’ve moved on from gun violence and can now dick around trying to gin up outrage over Benghazi, only to have the public ask, “Why are you screwing around with this Benghazi stuff? Where are our background checks?”

Bonus hilarity; behold Republican voters’ complete lack of any sense of proportion:

While voters overall may think Congress’ focus should be elsewhere there’s no doubt about how mad Republicans are about Benghazi. 41% say they consider this to be the biggest political scandal in American history to only 43% who disagree with that sentiment. Only 10% of Democrats and 20% of independents share that feeling. Republicans think by a 74/19 margin than Benghazi is a worse political scandal than Watergate, by a 74/12 margin that it’s worse than Teapot Dome, and by a 70/20 margin that it’s worse than Iran Contra.

I often use the hyperbolic statement to poke fun at conservative overreaction and make a point, but a significant percentage of Republicans literally believe that Benghazi is the worst thing ever!

How out of touch are these people? For Republicans, this is the worst scandal in American history. For everyone else it’s a typical Washington timewaster.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Griper Blade: Using the Threat of Violence to Shut Down Debate

You didn't have to be Nostradamus to see it coming, but I'll take credit for it anyway. When Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced they'd be holding rallies in eight states Mother's Day weekend, I wrote, "Expect armed goons to show up to at least one of these, because if there’s anything the gun nuts really lack, it’s class and a nose for good PR." Lo and behold, at a rally in Pennsylvania, said goons showed up.

PhillyBurbs.com: As victims of gun violence spoke about how universal background checks might have saved a loved one’s life, pro-gun supporters jeered and yelled remarks Saturday in Morrisville’s Williamson Park.

Steve Kesselman of Holland raised his voice above the crowd to briefly talk about the loss of his 20-year-old son from a deadly shotgun blast after an argument last year. 

“My son is dead! His mother cannot enjoy him anymore because of gun violence! Universal background checks is all we’re looking for. I have nothing against guns!” Kesselman yelled into the microphone.

“Do you believe in unicorns?!” a pro-gun supporter yelled from the crowd.

"Gun owners from groups such as Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County, the National Rifle Association and a New Jersey group called the NJ2As gathered at Williamson Park before the marchers arrived," according to the report. "Many wore guns and rifles"...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Stupidest. Publicity stunt. Ever.

KMIZ: Management at the Goodrich Capital 8 Theaters is defending what it calls a publicity stunt at the movie theaters this past weekend.

During the opening weekend of the latest ‘Iron Man’ movie, a man walked into the theater in full tactical gear and carrying a fake gun.

Jefferson City police and witnesses, however, are not pleased with the stunt and are questioning the theater’s logic after recent shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn.

John Molock is a retired Army war veteran and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He told ABC 17 News this most recent trip to the movies triggered memories he never wanted to relive.

“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3,” said Morlock. “We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M-4 and 9 mm on his side.”

Morlock did not call police, but several other moviegoers did.

Police reacted by opening “an active shooter investigation.”

“Everything was in place, it’s the opening night of a superhero movie, it’s somebody walking in all-dark clothes, everything pointed to bad things about to happen,” said Jefferson City Police Capt. Doug Shoemaker. “There’s really no good that can come of this.”

Needless to say, theater management put the actor they hired at tremendous risk. He could easily have been shot by police.

Asked if he had any regrets, Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins said, “No, my job is to entertain people.”

The company has since apologized for the incident.

[image via marvelousRoland]

Suicidal: Ice thaw leads to Arctic drilling rush

Brian Merchant: Today, federal scientists confirmed that for the first time in millions of years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 400 parts per million. The pre-industrial level was 280 ppm, and the amount that top climatologists say is advisable for maintaining a stable environment is 350 ppm. The new carbon concentration signals that planetary warming will continue to accelerate—and that the rapidly melting Arctic will continue to thaw.

“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” Pieter P. Tans, who runs the chief carbon-monitoring program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The New York Times, in a front-page story headlined “Carbon Dioxide Level Is at Highest in Human History.”

At about the same time that NOAA released its numbers, the White House—which has thus far not commented on the carbon milestone—published a press release called “Protecting Our Interests in the Arctic.” The release heralds the administration’s newly forged National Strategy for the Arctic Region, a document that contains the recommendations of military advisers, scientists, and policy analysts on how to cope with and exploit a slushier Arctic.

[…]

The strategy document notes that “dense, multi-year ice is giving way to thin layers of seasonal ice, making more of the region navigable year-round. Scientific estimates of technically recoverable conventional oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle total approximately 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas deposits, as well as vast quantities of mineral resources, including rare earth elements, iron ore, and nickel. These estimates have inspired fresh ideas for commercial initiatives and infrastructure development in the region.”

Sometimes I worry we’re too stupid not to go extinct.

Stories to Watch: 5/10/13

Here's the final headlines post for the week. As always, hover your cursor over the links to get the headlines. Have a nice Mothers Day weekend, everyone.


Another day, another story about one kid accidentally shooting another kid in the face. Childhood in America, where we just don't give a fuck if kids live or die. This sort of thing literally happens every day. In fact, several times a day. A kid is shot once every 3 three hours and 15 minutes -- 2,694 a year. And no one does anything about it, because it would be too inconvenient for a few whiny, loudmouthed gun owners.


Eugene Robinson wonders if the Benghazi-mongers will ever settle on one conspiracy theory or if they'll keep pushing a bunch of weak ones until they find one that wounds Hillary Clinton. We have yet to see any evidence of anything even remotely criminal so far. Some "scandal," huh?


Related: you'll be surprised to learn that the attack in Benghazi -- which killed four people -- was "much worse" than 9/11 -- which killed three thousand. I'm going to go ahead and say that's like a billion times more hyperbolic than anything anyone's ever said in the history of people saying stuff. A billion times. Easily.


A worthwhile side-project: saving monarch butterflies.


I still can't decide whether Alex Jones' conspiracy theorizing and rage pimping is just an act to scam chumps or if he's genuinely psychotic.


And Jones is only slightly more goofy than the rest of the rightwing media.


The IRS apologizies for targeting rightwing groups for extra scrutiny, saying it wasn't politically motivated. Here's how it happened. Dem Sen. Carl Levin promises an investigation.


Of course, that's not to say a lot of the groups didn't deserve the extra attention.


Jonathon Chait says that the Heritage Foundation's racist pseudo-science scandal actually makes immigration reform more likely to pass. If it fails, "Republicans will never be able to convince Latinos they killed the bill for any reason other than racial animus," he writes, "The need to put this behind them is growing desperate." Nice to see this blow up in Jim DeMint's face.


Finally, was the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas a deliberate criminal act? More here.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Boehner’s not the leader of House Republicans, he’s the spokesperson

Talking Points Memo: If you feel like the inmates have taken over the asylum in the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) wants you to know that your suspicions are totally correct.

At his weekly Capitol briefing Thursday, Boehner faced questions about two aging and increasingly questionable elements of the GOP’s legislative strategy: repeated votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continued efforts to extract partisan concessions from Democrats in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling.

In both cases, Boehner acknowledged that the conservative wing of the House is driving the agenda.

“We’ve got 17 new members that have not had the opportunity to vote on the President’s health care law,” Boehner said, referring to next week’s ACA repeal vote. “Frankly they’ve been asking for an opportunity to vote on it, and we’re going to give it to them.”

And the debt ceiling? Same basic story.

“Our conversations have begun,” he said. “We’re going to have a big conversation with our members next week to talk about a way forward — what do our members believe is necessary to allow them to vote yes on increasing the debt limit?”

It’s yet more evidence that the party’s national and legislative strategies are driven by rank and file conservatives, not party leadership.

Just yesterday I brought up a trend in punditry that held that Pres. Obama was supposedly the problem in Washington, because he isn’t “leading” Republicans. The idea is that Obama needs to grab up the secret White House Magic Wand and make extremist Republicans into reasonable moderates.

Something like that anyway. It’s not really clear on what he’s supposed to do specifically, because they never actually explain it. They just say “leadership” because they’re lazy and dumb and saying Republicans are the problem would just be “media bias” (which has come to be a synonym for “reality” these days).

Anyway, none of these deep thinkers ever accuses John Boehner of not practicing leadership, even though the case is much better in his case. Like Obama, Boehner can’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly get people to do everything he says. But unlike Obama, Boehner rarely even tries to get people to follow him.  Where the President actually proposes legislation, the Speaker mostly reacts. When he holds a press conference, it’s like he gathers the other House Republicans around and asks, “So what do you want me to tell these guys?”

If there’s any lack of leadership in Washington, it’s coming from the Speaker’s office, not the White House.

Gun lobby has hard time finding Ayotte defenders for TV ad

A follow-up to the previous item.

ThinkProgress: As Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) battles public outcry over her vote to kill a bipartisan amendment expanding background checks for gun purchases, a national conservative group based in Iowa is running television ads featuring seemingly ordinary New Hampshire moms and law enforcement officials defending the one-term senator from out-of-state “partisan” attacks.

But the American Future Fund appeared unable to find voters who agree with Ayotte’s position, as a cursory search of individuals in the advertisement reveals that the supposedly typical New Hampshirites are actually long-time Republican party activists and officials. Polls show that

91 percent of New Hampshire adults support expanded screenings…

Jayne Millerick is billed in the ad as a “New Hampshire mom” and says “Those attack commercials are partisan and deliberately misleading.” But Millerick is actually a Republican strategist who served as Chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, a New Hampshire Republican Delegate in 2008, and was a member of New Hampshire Women for Mitt coalition in 2012. She is now a professional political consultant.

Judy Brown, another “New Hampshire mom” from the ad, served alongside Millerick in the Romney campaign and volunteered for Ayotte’s campaign in 2010. In 2013, she was named as the Nashua City Republican of the Year.

Barbara Dutile, a “Law Enforcement official,” is the wife of a Republican Sheriff in Grafton County who was Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) New Hampshire delegate in 2008, campaigned for Romney, and served as an alternate delegate. In 2012 she received an award from the Republican Party of New Hampshire.

Granted, all these people are New Hampshire moms, but the fact that they don’t disclose what they are beside that tells a lot about how popular Ayotte’s vote is in the state. “I’m a Republican and I back Kelly Ayotte” doesn’t get you far, In fact, it would seem that AFF made the decision that this revelation would actually be a negative.

What friends Sen. Ayotte still has in New Hampshire seem to be rendered useless by their association with her and her party. That’s not a good omen for the future or their fight in New Hampshire.

Ayotte background check vote sparks NH ad war

Ironically, the gun lobby is being outgunned.

Washington Post: …Ads in the state are focused on Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R), the only senator from the Northeast to vote against expanded background checks. Gun-control groups hope to turn her vote into a political liability; gun-rights advocates aim to prove that it isn’t one.

American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, is up Friday with a $250,000 ad buy supporting Ayotte. That dwarfs the $25,000 buy from the National Rifle Association. But it pales in comparison to the ad buy from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is estimated to be larger than $600,000. (The group says only that the two-week buy is in the six figures but has not disputed that estimate.) The ads are running during Red Sox games, an expensive time. Americans for Responsible Solutions, the pro-gun control group founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, also has a $350,000 radio buy up in New Hampshire and four other states. The group has raised $11 million in the past four months and is likely to spend more in New Hampshire.

Ayotte isn’t up for reelection until 2016, so the ads aren’t focused on electoral politics directly. Instead, they’re seeking to influence her vote when the issue comes up again. Ayotte’s favorables have been in a tailspin after the vote and gun safety advocates see her as a likely defector in the next round. The ads from them are downward pressure meant to keep her numbers low by keeping voters’ disappointment with her fresh in their minds.

Which may explain the lower figures for gun lobby ads. They want to shore up support, but Ayotte is taking such a beating that they don’t want to make her seem like a no-guns-laws-ever fanatic. It’s kind of a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation — you can’t defend her without reminding everyone why they got so mad at her in the first place. The best they can do is offer cautious support and hope this whole thing blows over.

Unless Ayotte is politically suicidal, that may not be enough.

[photo by schmilblick]

Another day, another toddler killed by firearms

Houston Chronicle: Police say a 2-year-old boy has died after accidentally shooting himself in the head at a North Texas home while his father was nearby.

Corsicana police on Thursday identified the victim as Kinsler Davis.

Police Chief Randy Bratton says the father called 911 on Wednesday night to report the shooting. The wounded boy was transported to a Corsicana hospital and then on to a Dallas hospital where he died later Wednesday.

Bratton says the boy apparently found a handgun in a bedroom. The child’s 35-year-old father was in the walk-in closet of the bedroom at the time of the shooting.

These things will happen, right? I mean, the occasional dead kid is just the price you pay to keep kids safe, right? Sure, that makes sense. After all, this is just an isolated incident. It’s not like this happens all the time.

I have it on good authority that the gun nuts are tired of seeing stories like this. Hey, join the club. The difference here is I’d rather do something to prevent these incidents and they’d rather everyone just ignored them.