Today’s tale of Second Amendment Heroism

Associated Press: Police say a man has died after being struck by a bullet that passed through the wall of a neighbor’s apartment in Columbus.

Officers responding to a reported shooting found Jonathan Gardner suffering from a single gunshot wound around 12:50 p.m. Sunday. He was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injury.

Police say a person in a nearby apartment accidentally fired a round from a handgun which went through a wall, striking 28-year-old Gardner.

A lot of Second Amendment Heroism comes from Ohio, for some reason. Maybe reading a little bit farther down will give us a clue as to why…

The person who fired the gun has been identified but has not been charged by police.

"Yeah, your clumsy mishandling of your weapon resulted in the death of one of your neighbors, but hey, accidents will happen, right?" one of Columbus’ finest apparently told our Second Amerndment Hero. "Welp, guess we’ll be on our way. You have fun with your handgun, OK?"

I think we can say that little mystery has been solved.

[photo by J. Stephen Conn]

Responsible Second Amendment Hero teaches student in gun safety class a valuable lesson — by shooting him

Columbus Dispatch: A firearms instructor accidentally shot a student while teaching a gun-safety class on Saturday in Fairfield County to people seeking permits to carry concealed weapons.

Terry J. Dunlap Sr., who runs a shooting range and training center at 6995 Coonpath Rd. near Lancaster, was demonstrating a handgun when he fired a .38-caliber bullet that ricocheted off a desk and into student Michael Piemonte’s right arm.

Dunlap, 73, also is a long-time Violet Township trustee who is running for re-election in November.

Yesterday, Piemonte said he feels lucky, and it could have been worse.

"My wife was sitting just inches away from me," Piemonte said. "It could have easily hit her."

According to the report, Piemonte told the Dispatch that the couple had decided to get concealed-carry permits “for their own general safety.” That sure worked out great, huh? Carrying a gun for safety is like carrying a magnet to ward off iron — it’s doing things exactly the wrong way.

Carrying a gun actually makes it more likely that you’ll be shot. There are a lot of reasons for that increased risk, one of which is demonstrated by this story — people are imperfect. Here we have a guy who runs a gun range and trains people to use firearms; he’s no stranger to these weapons. But even he isn’t immune to a careless moment when he’s not paying attention. Guns are extremely dangerous and the more often you’re exposed to firearms, the more likely it is that something like this will happen. The odds rise every time. As personal safety strategies go, carrying a loaded weapon is one of the worst. It’s like taking up smoking to avoid cancer.

Ohio Honors Student attempts suicide by handgun in high school classroom

“According to a 911 call, students were running through the halls screaming after the shooting,” Fox 19 reports.

How the student smuggled the gun into class remains unknown… But yay for guns, huh? Out there, keeping everybody safe. Yup. Yay for America’s piles and piles of fucking guns.

[photo by kcdsTM]

Not the most persuasive pitch ever

Talking Points Memo:

In the final days of the campaign in Ohio, the stops have been pulled out in the scramble to eke out a win. And that means one super PAC calling on African Americans to vote against President Obama because Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.

Cable viewers in several markets across the state are being treated to ads by an obscure self-described “alternative conservative” super PAC called the Empower Citizens Network. One of the group’s ads accuses Obama and Democrats of imploding the economy by forcing mortgage companies to lend to “unqualified borrowers” while the Soviet national anthem plays. Another promises welfare recipients that “Republicans can save your money source” by reducing regulations on business.

And then there’s the ad which one viewer told TPM is airing in the Columbus area on cable. Our source caught it a couple of times on MSNBC. That ad is the Empower Citizens Network spot that tells African Americans it’s a “lie” that Democrats support them and cites the Emancipation Proclamation as evidence.

OK, so a Republican president freed the slaves 149 years ago — and that’s the last time anyone can think of a Republican doing anything for African-Americans… So vote GOP!

Will that actually convince anyone?

In Ohio, early returns will reflect absentee vote.

Columbus Dispatch:

Workers have started the long process of opening the thousands of absentee ballots that have flowed in for this month’s election.

Franklin County Board of Elections employees, some of them seasonal, are allowed to start opening the absentee ballots 10 days before Election Day. The envelopes containing the ballots are opened facedown so that workers don’t know the name of the voter. The ballots then must be fed into optical scanners that read the darkened ovals next to candidates’ names and other ballot items.

“We’ll keep doing that until Election Day, and when the polls close at 7:30, we’ll then total,” said Ben Piscitelli, spokesman for the board of elections.

“We won’t have a total until then. They are the first votes you see reported on election night."

Looking at the early returns may not give an iron-clad picture of who the winner in that state will be, but it will give a very clear indication of who had the better ground game in getting early voters out. According to Reuters, "The Ohio Secretary of State's office said that as of Oct. 26, about 1.26 million voters had cast ballots by mail-in absentee ballots or through early in-person voting. That represents about 22 percent of the number of people who voted in the 2008 presidential election."

That's nearly one quarter of all ballots. If there's a decisive edge there, it could make all the difference later on in the night.

Mitt Romney’s Ohio ‘tie’ didn’t survive the day

Republicans are trying hard to force reality to bend to their will, but they aren’t having a lot of luck. Earlier today, a poll commissioned by Ohio news organizations found that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were locked in a dead heat in the crucial state of Ohio. Aha, Mittmentum at work!

I’m sure Team Romney fired off emails to every news organization with any audience at all, because this was big, big news earlier today. Meanwhile, Romney surrogates took to the air to repeat the word “momentum” as often as humanly possible.

The Hill:

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a key surrogate for Mitt Romney, noted that a new poll showed the race in his key swing state tied. 

Portman, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said that showed momentum was on the GOP candidate’s side. A few polls in the last week have shown a tie race between President Obama and Romney in the Buckeye State, though several others also gave Obama a lead.

“The energy and enthusiasm’s on our side this year,” Portman said. “It’s really interesting to watch. Look, we were down probably five to 10 points before the debates. After the debates, we’re about dead even, and it’s moving our way.”

Sadly, Team Romney’s talking point died a very public death later in the day, as the graphic above shows. “With two new polls out today (and possibly more coming) President Obama’s margin in Ohio ticks up to 3.3 percentage points,” reports Josh Marshall.

Of course, a tie in Ohio is really exciting, so the media grabs up that headline and runs with it. When later polling shows the tie to be the result of an outlier, the media’s pretty quiet about that. All in all, a great example of how you should avoid stories with headlines like “LONE POLL SHOWS SURPRISING RESULT; RACE TURNED ON ITS HEAD!”

Romney’s going to want to cherrypick polls, the press is going to want to cherrypick polls — which means that you’re going to want to watch polling averages.

New poll finds 6% of Ohioans extremely dumb

Public Policy Polling has a new swing state poll out for Ohio [pdf] and it finds that 6% of the people there believe that Mitt Romney is responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden. If you get into the crosstabs, 15% of self—described “very conservative voters” feel that way.

Ezra Klein explains what’s probably going on here:

[V]oters have trouble crediting politicians they don’t like for policy outcomes they do like. And killing bin Laden is a policy outcome they do like. And so partisan effects have led some Republicans to argue that Obama was not primarily responsible for killing bin Laden or, even more absurdly, that Romney was responsible.

Since there is no “Obama does not deserve credit” option, conservatives take the closest answer available — that Mitt Romney deserves credit. In other words, given the options, they prefer an obvious lie to the truth.

Then again, there are a lot of birthers out there, so there may be no limit to how delusional some conservatives can be.

Ohio Sec. of State raises white flag in battle against democracy

ThinkProgress:

After previously trying to restrict early voting, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) today reversed course on his decision to block county boards of elections from setting their own early voting hours in the days leading up to the November election.

Last month, Husted and Ohio Republicans led an effort to limit early voting hours in Democratic counties, including those with major cities like Columbus and Cleveland, while expanding early voting in Republican counties. After the ensuing uproar, Husted moved to restrict voting hours across the state, only to have his cuts to early voting restored by a federal court.

Husted responded to the ruling by refusing to comply with the court order. Expanding voting hours, he claimed in Directive 2012-40, will “only serve to confuse voters.” Therefore, the directive read, he was “prohibit[ing] county boards of elections from determining hours for the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday before the election.” The move led Judge Peter Economus to set a hearing for September 13: “The Court ORDERS that Defendant Secretary of State Jon Husted personally attend the hearing,” his release read.

Husted finally backed down and democracy wins out — at least, until Husted appeals the decision. That won’t happen in time for this election though. The GOP effort rig an election and steal Ohio has ended. In this battle of Republicans v. freedom, freedom wins.

[image source]

Judge restores early voting in Ohio

Associated Press:

A federal judge in Ohio on Friday granted a request from President Barack Obama’s campaign to give all voters in the swing state the option of casting their ballot in person during the three days before Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Peter Economus in Columbus issued a preliminary injunction in a case involving a state law that cuts off early voting for most residents on the Friday evening before a Tuesday election.

The judge’s ruling said that he expects Ohio’s elections chief to direct all county elections boards to maintain a specific, consistent schedule on those three days “in keeping with his earlier directive that only by doing so can he ensure that Ohio’s election process is `uniform, accessible for all, fair, and secure.’”

Obama’s campaign and Democrats sued the state’s elections chief and attorney general over the legality of the law. They argued that everyone should have the chance to vote on those three days. The law makes an exception for military personnel and Ohio voters living overseas.

This is a real blow for Team Romney and Republicans, who wanted to steal this swing state by changing the rules in the middle of the game. Like all Republican attempts to rejigger voting laws, this was meant to disenfranchise demographic groups most likely to vote Democrat.

Freedom and democracy win this round.

[image source]

News Roundup for 4/19/12

Mitt's latest criticism is a little wide of the target

-Headline of the Day-
"Lorain officials question use of gypsum plant as Romney backdrop."

President Obama is terrible. Just the worst ever. And Mitt Romney wanted to drive that point home.

So he plans to set up a photo-op in front of the National Gypsum drywall plant in Lorain, Ohio. The plant is shuttered. Weeds probably come up through cracks in the parking lot. Raccoons run wild in the breakroom. It's just terrible.

"What we're saying is, he has been given three years to turn the economy around and bring back jobs," says Romney spokesman Ryan Williams. "He has had time and hundreds of billions of dollars to turn around the economy and he has not done that." Actually, he has -- but let's not muddy the waters with facts here.

Another fact that muddies Romney's argument -- Barack Obama wasn't the president when the plant shut down. According to the report, "City officials in Lorain question whether the drywall factory – which closed during the George W. Bush administration because of a construction industry slump -- could appropriately be used to illustrate that message."

"When you have to clean up a mess that was created over eight years, you will not get it done in four," Lorain City Council President Joel Arredondo told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "After four years, we are better off than we were before."

Oh crap, there go the facts again. (Plain Dealer)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, it looks like Republicans finally have the budget they've been waiting for! It's...



Click for animation

Just between you and me, I don't think that's really Jesus. (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Wisconsin loses 4300 private sector jobs in March."

Huzzah for Gov. Walker, who "saved" Wisconsin! (CBS News)

Stories to Watch: 3/6/12

Over 50 degrees here today. Beautiful, but very, very wrong. Now here's the news...


Tonight could be the night that Mittens is finally crowned Prom Queen. With the gap in Ohio now nonexistent and even moving Romney's way, we've finally gotten to the point where the numbers do now actually matter.


I saw a Facebook post about this last night, but it seemed too sparse to report on at the time; Lakota threaten to confiscate Keystone XL Pipeline trucks and equipment that cross their Pine Ridge lands in South Dakota.


Limbaugh's mouth is a gift to Democrats.


A Dane County Circuit Judge grants a temporary injunction against Wisconsin's new voter identification law. There is a problem, however -- that same judge signed the petition to recall Gov. Walker. So we'll see how long that lasts on appeal. Still, a speedbump's a speedbump and I'll take it.


Polling shows that people in Texas -- Texas -- want the state to continue funding Planned Parenthood. The GOP's War on Women is just blowing up in their faces all over the place.


Newt takes a nap.


Things that would never happen, but would be awesome if they did: a Limbaugh/Maddow debate.


Finally -- and this is no surprise, but more of a reminder -- Rick Santorum's been crazy for a while now.

Related articles

• Lakota Indians Block 'Keystone XL Pipeline' Trucks in Six-Hour Standoff (alternet.org)
• Rush Limbaugh advertisers drop out even after apology (abclocal.go.com)
• Breaking News: Lakota arrests underway halting XL pipeline trucks (climate-connections.org)
• Herman Cain Addresses Sandra Fluke Controversy (huffingtonpost.com)

Stories to Watch: 3/4/12

All that wet snow from yesterday is now ice. What a mess. I threw salt on my sidewalk and I could hear it crackle. Now here's the news...

Missed in all the contraception/Limbaugh/Fluke hullabaloo during the past few days; Rick Santorum's really having to do damage control for saying that urging Americans to seek higher education makes Barack Obama a "snob."


Although, on that issue of contraception, Rick doesn't seem to have learned a damned thing from the events of this past week.


In a sign that Santorum has been overplaying social issues, Ohio -- where he held a clear lead -- is now polling as a tie. The wise thing to do would be to compete with Romney on economic issues, but that's not why Rick ran in the first place. He ran to lecture America on gays and abortion and all that other culture warrior stuff. He's completely unprepared to do anything else.


And it's not just Santorum, the entire GOP has been backing social losers since the Komen/Planned Parenthood fiasco.


A new poll shows Scott Brown leading Elizabeth Warren by a solid, but not insurmountable, eight points. It was hard to tell where the race stood, because earlier polling had glaring flaws. The problem with facing incumbents is more than name recognition and the fundraising advantage (although, in this race, Warren holds the cash edge); many people ask themselves, "Does this guy deserve to be fired?" not, "Who's the better candidate?" Maybe Warren needs to make things less personal and talk about what happens if the Republicans take the senate. Or more personal and talk about Brown as the cosponsor of the wildly unpopular Blunt amendment.


Finally, voter supression doesn't get much more blatant than this.

Related articles

• Romney, Santorum all tied up in Ohio (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Elizabeth Warren DESTROYS Scott Brown In 4th Quarter Fundraising (businessinsider.com)
• Schumer focuses on the Senate, Scott Brown and contraception (thehill.com)
• In Time for Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney Ties Rick Santorum in Ohio: Poll (ibtimes.com)

Stories to Watch: 11/8/11

More fun with RSS feeds. After putting together the Progressive News Must-Read Superfeed, I wanted to do something with it that was easy. So I fed it into the Progressive News Must-Read Twitterfeed. That's basically a bot account that tweets the first item at the moment in the Superfeed, once every half hour -- I'll crank that up later, but I have to do some research on it first. I'm not sure offhand how many hits I can send to Twitter's API in a day. It's nowhere near as comprehensive as the Superfeed, but it gets the job done when you're on Twitter. I'll put icons for all this stuff on my blogs later -- probably this weekend, if not sooner. Now here's the news...


A second Cain accuser steps forward.


Erick Erick joins the anti-Mittens jihad, which is going to be embarrassing when Romney wins the nomination and all the righties try to pretend he's the best thing ever.


President Obama threatens to veto an anti-net-neutrality bill if it reaches his desk.


The Affordable Care Act passes constitutional muster in a very conservative court.


OWS is on the right track; income inequality works really well for the Wall Street crowd.


Republican dirty tricks in the Ohio elections.


In Italy, Silvio Berllusconi says he's ready to resign.


Gallup finds that GOP voters are beginning to realize that Herman Cain probably isn't a wonderful guy.


Finally, watch to see how these races turn out tonight.

Related articles

• Fifth woman comes forward with story of unwanted advance from Herman Cain (dailykos.com)
• And Then There Were Five Herman Cain Accusers [Herman Cain] (gawker.com)
• Despite Ratings Drop, Herman Cain Remains Top For GOP Primary (huffingtonpost.com)
• Herman Cain: Accuser Is Lying (blogs.wsj.com)

News Roundup for 10/26/11

Mitt Romney, shown listing the many positions he's taken on the issues

-Headline of the day-
"Mitt Romney: Actually, I do support Ohio law."

Oh Mittens, you're so flippity-floppity.

Yesterday, Romney visited a GOP phonebank in Ohio, to boost the spirits of all the temps the state party had hired to pester people about the attempted repeal of a union-busting law by referendum. For the record, the Republican Party would be against the repeal, because then all the temps would probably unionize.

Anyway, while visiting this hive of feverish activity, Mittens was asked what he thought of the law. Romney instinctively sensed that someone was trying to pin him down on a position (a position, BTW, he's already been pinned down on) and pretty much refused to answer the question. Mittens wasn't at a phonebank that was doing get out the vote for the union-busting ballot measure to voice an opinion about it. He wasn't interested in "particular ballot issues," he said. And everyone wondered what the hell he was doing there then.

So this all became a big thing, with people on the right calling him a coward and people on the left calling him a scaredy-pants. Mitt was going to have to put a lid on this right pronto. While in Virginia today, he basically said, "Oh, you mean that ballot issue!"

"What I was referring to is I know there are other ballot questions there in Ohio and I wasn't taking a position on those," he said. "With regard to Question 2, which is the collective bargaining question, I am 110 percent behind Gov. Kasich in support of that."

Which, of course, brings us to this:

Columbus Dispatch:

Issue 2 is getting smashed by 25 points, 57 percent to 32 percent, in Quinnipiac’s latest poll. The survey by the Connecticut university, released two weeks before the election, is the final public poll planned on the controversial law, which is on hold until voters have their say.

Yeah, Romney just came out in favor of the least popular thing since the clap. Way to pick a winner, Mittens! (Politico)


-Competing visions-
Occupy Wall Street's counterpart isn't the Tea Party.


Click to embiggen

It's a much more dangerous bunch of crazies. (Truthdig)


-Bonus HotD-
"Washington Post Illustrates Oakland Police Brutality With Cop Petting Kitty."

No, really. (Wonkette)

Stories to Watch: 10/25/11

Meatloaf tonight. It's what I do when I can't think of anything else to make. But that's OK, I like meatloaf. Now here's the news...


Mitt Romney avoids offering an opinion of the repeal of Ohio's union-busting law -- while visiting a phone bank making calls on behalf of the law. Finger in the wind.


DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wassserman Schultz on Rick Perry's tax plan: "My reaction to Rick Perry's new/old plan is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." Robbing from the poor to give to the rich hasn't been working so far, but this time for sure!


Elizabeth Warren v. Scott Brown just became a proxy war for Occupy Wall Street v. Wall Street. Guess who's on whose side?


The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the rich have been making plenty of money.


Rick Santorum is busy confirming everyone's preconception of him as a ridiculous bigot and national embarrassment.


Americans' approval of congress is at a whopping 9%. I think Gaddafi enjoyed more support among Libyans.


Finally, it's a race to collect bribes donations in the Scott Walker recall in Wisconsin.

Related articles

• Great Moments in Rick Perry Campaign Ad History: The Sausage Factory [Video] (gawker.com)
• Rick Perry Debuts 20% Flat Tax Plan In Wall Street Journal (alan.com)
• Republicans attack Elizabeth Warren for Occupy Wall Street support (dailykos.com)
• What Rick Perry's Flat-Tax Announcement Didn't Say (swampland.time.com)

News Roundup for 7/28/11

John Boehner rounds up the votes for his debt limit plan

-Headline of the Day-
"Payback may be coming for congressman's 'disloyalty'."

Right now, Speaker Boehner is trying to round up enough votes to get his debt limit plan out of the House of Representatives. This is super-important, despite the fact that it will then go to the Senate to die. Yeah, Boehner's wasting everyone's time, but so what? It's super-important that this thing get passed. Why? STOP ASKING QUESTIONS!

Anyway, it really, really tight as of this writing. He's basically one vote short -- but he knows one place he might get it. And that place is Rep. Jim Jordan's Ohio district. See, the census has Ohio getting fewer congressional districts and Republicans in that state back Boehner. Jordan's a Tea Party nutjob, so he supports a more crash-and-burny approach to the debt limit, defying Boehner's calls for a just-burny solution. As a result, Ohio Republicans are threatening to draw him out of the new congressional district maps.

"He doesn't know it, but he solved a problem for Republican line-drawers by (figuratively) standing up and saying, 'I'm a jerk and I deserved to be punished,'" says an anonymous source. So it's get in line or be eaten.

Republican cannibalism; one of the more fearsome sights a cruel Mother Nature has to offer. (Columbus Dispatch)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, Dogboy and Mr. Dan are back and they're going to talk about the debt ceiling! Yay!


Click for animation

We have to destroy America to save it! (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Rep. Paul Broun Urges Debt-Addicted America To 'Give Up Its Country Club Membership'"

And while you're at it, knock it off with all the Lear Jets. (Wonkette)

Stories to Watch: 7/21/11

Thursday, which means Futurama. I generally catch the second airing after Stewart and Colbert, so my night's all mapped out. Now here's the news...


USA Today reports that openly lesbian, gay, and bisexual candidates are becoming less and less of a big deal with voters.


Boehner says the House GOP's doomed and insane "cut, cap and balance" plan is not their final offer, signalling an openness to compromise. Meanwhile, the labyrinthine McConnell-Reid plan is probably dead.


Grover Norquist further retreats from his statement on his anti-tax pledge. The guy seems to be flailing. I'm not sure you can logically reconcile the two positions.


GOP prez hopeful John Huntsman is already experiencing a staff shakeup.


"Barbarians" storm Marcus Bachmann's clinic.


Mitt Romney's pitch to big donors is actually fairly honest; it's either going to be Mittens or some Tea Party crazy who can't possibly win.


I never went to Home Depot anyway. Plenty of lumber yards and hardware stores and plumbing supply shops. Keep the money local whenever possible, I always say.


Finally, Ohio's anti-union law faces a repeal referendum.

Related articles

• Grover Norquist: Ending Bush Tax Cuts Not A Tax Hike (huffingtonpost.com)
• His lips are sealed - Boehner is mum on tax reform (politico.com)
• Boehner, White House deny budget deal (marketwatch.com)
• US-2012 Primary: 26% Romney, 18% Palin, 12% Bachmann, 9% Paul (ABC/Post 7/14-17) (huffingtonpost.com)

News Roundup for 3/2/11

Stranger things have happened

-Headline of the day-
"Breaking: Wisconsin Dems throw their weight behind drive to recall GOP Senators."

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's plan to bust public sector unions in his state has hit a little snag -- turns out no one other than Republicans are for it. In a state where pretty everyone is an independent, because of the open primary, this poses a bit of a problem.

Call it "the danger of living inside an echo chamber" -- everyone Republicans talked to hated unions, everyone they talked to thought it would be a great idea to get rid off them, so they thought everyone agreed with them. But it turns out that Republicans an an insular little bunch and they must not get out much. Polling shows people don't like the idea much and that Scott Walker would lose the election if it were held today.

Good news for Scooter -- the election won't be held today. Wisconsin law includes a provision that allows a new guv a year to settle in. See, no one gets the hang of this stuff right off the bat and it's probably a little unfair to recall someone simply because they fell on their face right out of the gate. This is Wisconsin. We're nice. You get right back on that horse, Scooter, and you try that again (God bless his little heart, but he's tryin' doncha know).

Bad news for a bunch of other Republicans -- they've been around long enough that they oughta know better. And they can be recalled. Which could conceivably switch control of the state senate (the assembly's probably a lost cause right now). And, even if they don't, it might get some of them to get on the same side as their voters.

See, a recall election is an honest-to-goodness election -- complete with expensive campaigning. Even if they survive the race, they'd be hamstrung going into the regular election cycle from having already spent cash in the recall. And this becomes more true the tighter the race gets. So of course a recall election is a great time to aim that campaign bus straight down the middle of the road and play Mr. Reasonable I'm-Not-An-Extremist-This-Whole-Recall-Thing-Is-Crazy Guy. Wisconsinites (that's what we call ourselves. (No, really! It sounds like a rock, I know)) can expect to see a lot of "I reached across the aisle and worked to put an end to the partisan bickering in Madison" ads in the coming months, because a lot of these recall petitions are so going to get enough signatures.

Which is why the Democrats hopped on board. When Senator Reasonable reaches across the aisle, he'll be reaching toward them. (Plum Line)


-And it was cold!-
Since the Governor won't let the people in the Capitol (in defiance of a court order), a Democratic Rep does the people's business outside:



Do not ever doubt that people in Wisconsin are hardcore. (Twitpic, via @bluecheddar1)


-Bonus HotD-
"There Are Now TWO Fetuses Testifying In Ohio, and They Have a Music Video."

Just when you thought things couldn't get any stupider... (Wonkette, with video)

News Roundup for 2/18/11

The scourge of free speech and free assembly is spreading!"

-Headline of the day-
"Ohio's turn to revolt: Thousands flood statehouse over anti-union bill."

Whatever it is we've got in Wisconsin, it's catching. As Ohio considers a bill that's basically identical to Wisconsin's union-buster, Ohioans turn out at the statehouse to give them the business.

It's off to a nice start. The Columbus Dispatch reports the initial number as 3,500, while a local Tea Part counter-protest gathered an anemic 200.

"This bill is a partisan assault on working families and does nothing but punish workers and hurt the middle class, plain and simple," says Tim Burga, president of Ohio's AFL-CIO. "This bill would destroy the middle class because the working families this bill affects not only provide vital services, but put money and resources back into their communities, which support local merchants and other small businesses."

Turns out a lot of people think screwing up the economy is a bad idea. Makes you wonder why Republicans did so well last year. (Raw Story, with video)


-A little protest porn-
Sign from the protests in Wisconsin.



.tghir tuoba s'tahT (The Stir)


-Bonus HotD-
"Firefighter refused call to Tucson shooting spree scene."

Meet Tucson firefighter Mark Ekstrum, America's biggest and most gaping asshole, who refused to answer the emergency call after the Giffords shooting -- because he didn't agree with her politics. According to the report, Ekstrum's refusal "may have slowed his Tucson Fire Department unit's response to the incident that left six dead and 13 wounded."

It's at times like this that I wish I believed in God, if only for the comfort of believing that jackoffs like this guy would burn in hell. (Arizona Daily Star)

Griper Blade: The Media Finds a Shiny New Bauble

It's a case study in missing the damned point. During the final presidential debate, Barack Obama and John McCain spent a fairly good amount of time talking about -- and to -- "Joe the Plumber." Yes, Joe Wurzelbacher's a real guy. He came up because he got a very detailed answer to a tax question at an Obama event. So John McCain brought him up. At this point, Joe the Plumber's importance to America probably should've ended. He was an example and could just as well have been hypothetical. But Joe's real, so the press needed to make a minor celebrity of him. I imagine some stereotypical newspaper editor with a cigar, waving his hands at reporters and talking about "big, big news."

"Go out and find out everything you can about this guy!" Editor Stereotype says, "I want to know how much he makes [about $40k last year], how he votes [Republican], what he pays in taxes [he owes $1,183], is he registered to vote [yes, but his registration is misspelled], how's he feel about the occupation of Iraq [he thinks it's the greatest thing ever]... Go, go, go! America wants to know!"

Like I say, totally missing the point. I got most of that info from the Toledo Blade, but it's all over the media. In fact, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher already has his own Wikipedia page.

None of which has a damned thing to do with the context. He was brought in the debate in relation to taxation. Almost none of the "Joe the Plumber" stories have anything to do with that. Wurzelbacher's a freakin' Jeopardy question waiting to happen -- a trivial little sidetrip the media took once. What's important is the context in which he was brought to our attention.

Like I say, he might as well be hypothetical. In fact, given what he told Obama and what the truth is, Wurzelbacher is hypothetical. His situation does not exist...

[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]