Stories to Watch: 6/5/14

The latest example of Republicans being for freeing Bowe Bergdahl before they were against it: Rep. Duncan D. Hunter.


MSNBC's token asshole Joe Scarborough attacks Bowe Bergdahl's father for being a bad parent. This too much for Chuck Todd, who objected. Of course, this caused Scarborough to dig in and insist it's the rightest right thing any right person has ever gotten right. He then took to Twitter after the show to explain the subtle nuances of his rightness -- assumedly because he was hit by an avalanche of hate mail pretty much immediately. Morning Joe would be the stupidest morning "news" program on TV, if it weren't for Fox & Friends. But clearly the bar set by the morning foxbot circus really isn't much of an accomplishment. You'd get better political insight from The Weather Channel.


Hey look! There's finally a mass shooting outside the US. Expect the gun freaks to talk about it endlessly, as if one incident proves that everyone under the sun needs to put a gun to everyone else's head -- AKA, the cowardly "more guns, less gun violence" hypothesis favored by the NRA and other gun humpers. Because, you know, that's obviously the only way anyone will ever be safe.


Texas Republicans unveils a new party platform that endorses the thoroughly discredited "ex-gay therapy" snake oil. The problem with this stuff is that it's meant to turn gay people straight, but it seems to succeed only in turning gay people suicidal. I suppose for the bigots that make up the Lone Star GOP, a dead gay is just one less gay -- which is close enough.


Vice magazine cofounder Gavin McInnes tells Fox News that the only reason that liberals listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson is because he's black. "I hate this guy," McInnes said. "I remember hearing Chris Hardwick on a podcast talk about Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was just salivating. White liberal nerds love this guy so much, he could defecate on them like Martin Bashir’s fantasies and they would dance in the streets." Conservatives keep complaining that people call them racists, but the truth is that everything is about race to these kooks. According to them, if a black person has any success at all, it's because of Affirmative Action and white liberal guilt -- unless said black person is conservative. Doubt me? Two words: Maya Angelou.


In "hell freezes over" news: we got a brand new spanking Health and Human Services Secretary today. Sylvia Burwell sailed through confirmation to replace outgoing Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Want proof that all the REPEAL OBAMACARE!! talk is just election year hot air? There it is.


Finally, a Nevada homeowner shoots a man in the chest for knocking on his door in the middle of the night, looking for a birthday party at the wrong address. Amazingly, there have been no arrests because this is 'murica, where you can shoot anyone you damned well please for any stupid-assed reason that pops into your empty fucking skull. Why call 911 when someone's banging on your door at 2 a.m.? Just start blasting like an idiot and a coward, because liberty.

[cartoon via Truthdig]

Stories to Watch: 6/3/14

A former Bush official takes on the GOP freak out over the prisoner exchange that freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban custody. Former adviser John Bellinger says GWB would've done the same thing. Of course, the problem here is that there's no shortage of Republicans who deny backing Bush, despite his having pretty much universal GOP support during his two terms. "I didn't support Bush" is the Republican equivalent of "I didn't live in Germany at the time." So they can pretty much write Bellinger off like they've written off Dubya.


Fred Kaplan has a good explainer on the Bergdahl story over at Slate. Definitely worth the time.


This whole thing Bergdahl has really gone full BENGHAZI!! quickly. Already, Republicans' wingnut base is blathering on about impeachment. I actually don't think the hysteria on the right is actually about Bergdahl or the prisoners exchanged for him. It's about all of their "scandals" constantly falling apart and being sick of not having good reason to hope for impeachment. They're demanding reality provide them with a reason to overturn the last two presidential elections. I doubt reality will comply.


And of course, conservatives were for liberating Bergdahl before they were against it.


Anyone have any evidence at all that voter ID has stopped an illegal voter? Anyone? Just one case. Just one arrest. Meanwhile, it's doing a good job of stopping legal voters. Anyone who thinks this is about fighting voter fraud is either dumber than a sack of hammers or so partisan that they've come to actually despise democracy. The enemies of democracy are the enemies of freedom; I don't care how many flags they use to wrap themselves up the pretense of "liberty."


Fox News accuses Hillary Clinton of politicizing BENGHAZI!! Just let that one sink in a bit.


The NRA gets dragged into its own version of the GOP Civil War, with (rhetorical) shots being fired between the crazy-assed gun organization and those who are even crazy-asseder. The whole thing is really kind of inevitable, given the amazingly irresponsible messaging from head gunhappy moron Wayne LaPierre. This has driven some Texan gun nuts so far around the bend that they feel they have to show up at family restaurants with assault rifles or FREEDOM IS DEAD! Needless to say, this is doing more to convince people that "gun rights advocates" are actually dangerous lunatics than anything else. The politics here are obviously terrible. So now the NRA is trying to get the gullible yokels to settle the fuck down after driving them into a panic with talk about tyranny and dictatorships and Hitler. They've lost control of their own messaging and I couldn't be happier. In the words of Nelson Muntz, "Ha ha!" Also, "Why you hittin' yourself? Why you hittin' yourself?"


Finally, Kevin Drum takes the VA scandal and turns it into a VA "scandal." The fact is that this has been going on for a very long time -- calling it an "Obama scandal" is a joke -- and on average, VA wait times are much, much better than the private sector. Again, Congress could fix this by opening more clinics where most of the veterans are, but they'd rather sit on their cushy behinds and point at Obama.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 5/29/14

The Washington Redskins launched a Twitter campaign to defend their team name from  charges of racism. How did that go? What do you think? These things often go off the rails immediately. When you ask the internet to do something, the internet -- with all it's chaos, snark, and creativity -- is going to show up.


Speaking of things that are obviously possible PR disasters: The Republican Leadership Conference has invited noted homophobe, racist, and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson to speak at their confab. What could possibly go wrong?


There's a very good case to be made that firing Gen. Eric Shinseki won't do anything to fix problems at the VA and might even make things worse.


Earlier, John Boehner said he wasn't qualified to talk about climate change, as a way to duck questions about climate change. Scientists are calling him out on it.


The reaction of the right to the death of Maya Angelou has been pure, undisguised hatred. It'd be a lot easier to believe conservatives weren't racist if they'd just stop themselves for a moment from being so damned racist.


Ever the brainless reactionary, Glenn Beck reacts to the sudden surge in awareness of the culture of abuse toward women by promising to launch a campaign of rape denial. What a worthless, useless man this guy is.


Finally, it looks like Pres. Obama is going to use his executive authority to cut carbon emissions from the nation's coal-fired power plants by 20%. Conservatives will go apeshit, but screw 'em.


[meme via Jacqueline Keeler]

Stories to Watch: 5/28/14

Conservatives continue to be absolutely clueless about the nature and purpose of the #YesAllWomen hashtag that's become a Twitter phenomenon. The thing is, it's not anything close to a mystery. If you go and actually read the tweets, it's completely obvious what's happening. But, conservatives being the pigheaded, closed minded zombies that they are, have decided it's all about hating men and that means they'll ignore even the plain truth that's staring them straight in the face. It's what they do with everything.


News that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker -- whose recall campaign is currently the target of a stalled corruption probe -- may be cutting a deal with prosecutors has his rightwing admirers in a panic. If he doesn't cut a deal, it seems likely that we'll see criminal charges -- during a reelection campaign. If he does, the wingnut base will drop him like a RiNO for throwing his co-conspirators under the bus. Unless the report that started this all turns out to be false, Scott Walker may be done.


Mitch McConnell's attempt to straddling the Obamacare fence and be for Kentucky's Obamacare exchange and against Obamcare itself has really gotten clownish. His attempt to spin his position has been so transparently dishonest and so disastrously clownish that it's actually turned into something of a scandal for him.


Politico performs a rare (for them) public service by setting the historical record straight and showing that the religious right's founding was rooted in racism, not some vague notion of "family values."


In case you needed reminding, Glenn Beck is scum.


A new poll shows that Karl Rove totally blew it by suggested that Hillary Clinton has brain damage. He can't even get a majority of Republicans to back him in the smear.


Finally, neocon moron Charles Krauthammer isn't happy with the president's plan to finally end the war in Afghanistan -- the longest war in American history. I would remind you that Krauthammer, along with other chickenhawk geniuses like William Kristol, was instrumental in starting the Iraq War. So there are foreign policy experts, there are foreign policy bonehead, their are slime molds, and then -- all the way at the bottom -- there is Charles Krauthammer. If he thinks it's a bad idea, that's all the proof you need that it's the smartest idea any one's ever had in the entire history of people having ideas about things.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Stories to Watch: 5/21/14

I have two observations regarding Nancy Pelosi's announcement of Democratic reps to sit on the BENGHAZI!!! committee. The first is the most obvious: that the Democratic boycott of the committee isn't going to happen. Second is that Alan Grayson isn't on the roster, which is sure to disappoint more than a few rank and file dems who were pushing for him to be included. The feeling I'm getting is that dems are going to take this thing seriously and with dignity, while feeding the Republican clown show all the rope they want.


Pope Francis says that Christians in particular have responsibility to combat climate change: "Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude."


This could turn out to be a bad idea: the US is sending 80 troops to Chad to help in the search and recovery of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Everyone involved needs to keep two words very much in the forefront of their minds: "mission creep."


The nuts aren't taking the fact that they got guns kicked out of Chipotle very well. It's their own damned fault, but these are conservatives we're talking about here -- personal responsibility is something everyone but them are expected to practice.


In "busting the myth that gun ownership prevents crime" news, North Carolina recently made it legal to bring guns to schools, provided those guns are locked in your car. Likewise, business owners can bar people from carrying firearms in their establishments, meaning that guns are locked in cars in these cases as well. So an enterprising group of thieves in Charlotte have taken to breaking into cars with pro-gun bumperstickers, on the rationale that they're much more likely to contain a free gun. "They're really advertising to criminals they may have a gun in their car so it may not be the best place to make those statements on the bumper of your car," says one gun shop owner. Oops.


Finally, Scott Walker has lost his slim lead over Mary Burke in the race for Wisconsin governor. A new poll from Marquette University finds that the race has gone from 48%-41% in Walker's favor to 46%-46%. Respondents told researchers that they prefer someone with business experience over someone with political experience -- Walker's a career politician, while Burke is a former exec with bicycle manufacturer Trek. But worse news for the incumbent is that the more voters know Burke, the less they like Walker. Finally, it may turn out that Wisconsin will buck the national trend and turn back toward blue this cycle. "Burke’s jump in the poll may also reflect a general shift in public opinion in favor of Democrats," The Capital Times reports. "Contrary to expectations that Democrats will suffer losses in November, as the president’s party typically does in midterm elections, 47 percent of respondents said they hope to see Congress controlled by Democrats compared to only 40 percent who want to see Republicans in control." 44% of respondents said they identify with Democrats, while only 35% said the same about Republicans.

[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 5/20/14

Score one for poetic justice. After gun nuts swarm a Chipotle to rub people's faces in their guns demonstrate their Second Amendment right to arm themselves against the threat of guacamole, the restaurant chain decides they've had enough of that and bans firearms from their stores. The firearms fetishists did the same thing at Starbucks -- showed up armed to troll people who dare to not get woodies when they think about guns -- and wound up making guns unwelcome there, too. Clearly nothing at all was learned from that experience. If they keep being such assholes about everything, they'll wind up getting guns banned everywhere themselves.


Sean Hannity brings some clown on to decry the "myth" of racism. You know, because Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling and Robert Copeland are all figments of our imaginations. It's amazing what these people think they can get away with.


Related: a National Review writer denies there's a problem with rape on college campuses and that drunk college students are just making stuff up. Why would anyone write something so stupid and awful? Because Barack Obama said rape on college campuses is a problem and, for conservatives who think largely with their jerking knees, Pres. Obama is always wrong. If Obama said the sun comes up in the morning, there'd be a sunrise truther movement in a heartbeat.


Louie Gohmert said something stupid again.


The US Forest is preparing for "what is shaping up to be a catastrophic fire season." Because global warming is a massive conspiracy and all...


Dick Cheney seems to believe he lives in a separate reality from the rest of us.


Finally, Greg Sargent reports that Sherrod Brown has a plan to poach voters from the GOP over the summer. Republicans have requested hearings into Social Security Disability Insurance, which wingnut media has painted as wasteful and riddled with fraud -- which is, of course, total bullshit. The thing is, the GOP relies on older voters and those older voters wouldn't be happy to see disability cut. "So what if Dems campaigned on expanding Social Security, rather than allowing themselves to get drawn into another debate over how much to cut the program?" Sargent asks. Expanding the program would not only be the right thing to do, but it would appeal to a lot of seniors' inner big gummint commie.


[cartoon via Cagle Post]

Stories to watch: 5/15/14

Latest wingnut conspiracy theory: the Boko Haram Nigerian kidnapping story is only propaganda the Obama administration is using to distract us all from BENGHAZI!! But you saw that coming from a mile away, didn't you? When they aren't arguing that Obama's a weak and ineffectual leader, they're often arguing that he's an all-powerful wizard who can manipulate the very fabric of reality, like Sauron. The rest of the time, he's Hitler.


Harry Reid backs a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United ruling that trashed the very concept of campaign finance law and allowed limitless campaign funding from shadowy, secret donors. "It was as if I had jumped into the sewer," he said of running for reelection after the ruling came down. Are dems finally realizing that combating SCOTUS' string of pro-corruption rulings is a political winner? You sure hope so.


Marco Rubio pushes back against charges that he's a scientific illiterate by arguing that he knows stuff about the science of abortion -- then proceeds to prove the opposite.


Looks like there could be another Scott Walker document dump on the way. This Judge Randa guys seems pretty goofy and inconsistent. First he orders that all evidence in the case be destroyed and, when that bit of anti-justice is struck down by a higher court, says that nearly all of this evidence should be made public.


Steve Benen on today's most hilariously biased poll: "I hold a special place in my heart for Fox News polling, because unlike independent polls commission by major journalistic institutions, Fox News’ surveys tend to be... special."


Former Bush speech writer and occasional Unlikely Voice of Reason David Frum points out that the GOP advantage with older voters can't last forever. The problem is that people are living longer, which means Medicare and Social Security benefits are being stretched thinner, which means a whole bunch of older people will find themselves suddenly big gummint commies. Riding out with Paul Ryan under the "SLASH ENTITLEMENTS" plan isn't exactly helping the4m position themselves to make anything but enemies of these voters.


Finally, gun freaks -- i.e., the Second Amendment Heroes who worship the NRA and are so cowardly that the thought of being unarmed for a moment makes them crap themselves -- have a real bad habit of threatening, stalking, and generally abusing women. I guess the guy who feels the need to be protected by deadly force 24/7 feels that way because he's a complete asshole. He could stop being an asshole, so people would stop hating him, or he can carry a gun to protect himself from the victims of his assholery. And almost all choose the same option. Because they're worthless punks.

[cartoon via Truthdig]

GOP will TOTALLY pass immigration reform if they win the Senate -- cross their hearrts

The Hill: Senate Republicans say they'll try to pass immigration reform legislation in the next two years if they take back the Senate in November.  

The Republicans say winning back the Senate will allow them to pass a series of bills on their own terms that have a better chance of winning approval in the House.  

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a central member of the coalition that passed a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate last year, said he would craft a better legislative approach if Republicans control the upper chamber in 2015. 

That would give his party a chance to pass immigration legislation before the presidential election, when Hispanic voters will be crucial to winning the White House.

There's an obvious aspect of good cop/bad cop in this, with Senate Republicans using House Republicans as bad cops. But there's actually something much more familiar going on here; Republicans are returning to tried and true strategy. The problem is, they're trying to apply it to an entirely different group of voters and it's probably not going to work.

For years, Republicans have used bait and switch politics to trick voters into electing them. They promise they'll amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage and get a Balanced Budget Amendment. They promise they'll chase all those lazy "inner city" people off welfare. They're going to get you prayer in schools and make it a crime to burn the flag. They're going to turn the United States into Reagantopia.

But then they get elected and suddenly they're all about something else entirely. My favorite example is Bush getting reelected on the issue of gay marriage and then immediately getting to work on privatizing Medicare -- something he'd barely mentioned during the campaign. Republicans promise everything talk radio gets the chumps riled up about, then they pass laws that only really help the rich. Sure, they'll throw an abortion bone to the dopes occasionally, but for the most part its promise to fight the Homosexual Menace, then deliver a million dollar tax credit on private jet wax.

It works for the base because they're endlessly gullible and never remember how they got screwed over the last time. But it's also why Republicans can't expand their voter block -- people that credulous and dumb are thankfully a commodity in limited supply. This stuff works on pretty much all of the of people it's ever going to work on. It's not going to gain them immigration reform supporters now.

Stories to Watch: 5/13/14

Turns out that it's actually possible for Chris Christie's bridge scandal to get even worse.


I certainly hope this is the stupidest, most ignorant statement I'll read this week; Marco Rubio admits that climate change is happening, but says that it's silly to assume it's human-caused because of a mere "handful of decades of research." Consider the amazing dumbfuckery of that phrase -- "handful of decades of research." I'd nominate Rubio for stupidest member of the Senate... if it weren't for the existence of Sen. Ron Johnson, who would lose a battle of wits to a boat anchor. Still, Marco's runner up.


Related: a new study finds that the tipping point is now and that the thaw of Antarctic glaciers may now be irreversible. Keep in mind that people like Rubio admit that climate change is happening, but that we shouldn't do anything about it. Instead, we should all fuck off and literally die, because only a "handful of decades of research" says we can do anything about it. Climate deniers are far, far more evil than the people who denied until it was undeniable that smoking causes cancer. They know better. They know their lies will come with a massive death toll. But they just don't care, because they think they can make a few extra bucks by putting off avoiding all those deaths. Like I said, evil. Beneath contempt.


Of course, this sort of stupidity really is a party-wide phenomenon. Case in point: a Georgia Republican Senate candidate says the gender pay gap doesn't exist because it's never happened to her. This is the level of genius that has them believing that if it's cold where they are, it proves global warming doesn't exist. Needless to say, this is the same sort of reasoning babies use when they cover their face with their hands and think they're hiding -- i.e., they can't see you, therefore you can't see them. It's like they're from a different planet where logic was never developed. Or (and this is far more likely) they hope we are.


I love it when conservatives call Democrats "elitists." Check out the swanky legal bribes Republicans get from the American Enterprise Institute. They're so afraid of what this would look like that they've kept it a secret. It was only through the investigative efforts of the Center for Public Integrity. We're the elitists, yet they're living like French royalty in the last days before The Terror.


In case you missed, Karl Rove is the lowest of the low. Not exactly news, I know.


A filing snafu means that longtime Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers is probably going to have to run as a write-in candidate in the primary.


Michael Sam rookies jerseys are selling like hotcakes.


Finally, a nutjob group called "Operation American Spring" says that between 10-30 million 'baggers are going to converge on Washington Friday to drive Pres. Obama and Democrats out of Washington, so if you see a news story about ten or twelve crackpots with misspelled signs, that'll be them.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to watch: 5/12/14

Pretend neocon intellectual Charles Krauthammer warns House Republicans not to turn the BENGHAZI!! hearings into a "political circus." Of course, this is like warning Disney not to turn Dumbo into a movie about an elephant. There has never been a time that BENGHAZI!! wasn't a circus.


It's one of those good news/bad news things. FCC chair Tom Wheeler makes changes to his plan to gut the principle of net neutrality. The bad news is that, as Kevin Drum points out, he's only pretending to tweak his plan. The good news however, is that pressure from the public and internet companies has made the pretense seem necessary at all. The momentum is clearly ours here, let's not let up now.


Moyers & Company reports that Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" effort created a system rife with racial bias and all-around failure. The failure of welfare reform is not a new story, but it pays to revisit it from time to time, if only to take away two lessons -- if you meet Republican BS halfway and take it seriously, you're headed for disaster. Meeting someone crazy halfway is halfway crazy. Second, if you try to appease Republicans by throwing them a bone, they're not going to suddenly love you. You can fight them or you can ignore them, but you can never work with the GOP and be their friend. They plain aren't interested. In their minds, Democrats shouldn't just be opposed, they should be punished for daring not to be Republicans.


In Virginia, Republicans lose ground in there War on Women, as the restoration of reproductive freedom begins.


The climate consensus  vs. deniers, portrayed hilariously accurately.


Finally, Senate Republicans' obstructionism is so out of control that they've managed to block a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline -- which, as you'll recall, they're supposed to be for. These people are toddlers.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Stories to Watch: 5/9/14

It's all but official: the House BENGHAZI!! circus will be an all Republican affair.


The concrete industry alone is responsible for 5% of global CO2 emissions, making it a greenhouse polluter on a massive scale. One possible solution: say hello to hempcrete.


Perpetual clown Louie Gohmert takes to the floor of the House to compare gay rights advocates to Nazis. Everything's freakin ' Nazis to these guys and they trivialize the Holocaust on pretty much a daily basis. Republicans really need a history book with more than one page, just for variety. Obamacare's like Pol Pot, government regulations are like Vlad the Impaler -- stuff like that. Mix it up a little, guys. Absurd hyperbolic stupidity is no fun if it's also monotonous.


Republicans really need to stop believing their own horsecrap. In this episode, Iowa Attorney General Matt Schultz releases a report after a two-year investigation into voter fraud and winds up proving that it almost never happens, that it couldn't possibly make the difference in an election when it does, and that voter ID would do little to stop it when it does happen. If he'd just demogogued the issue instead of trying to prove it exists, he wouldn't be looking like such an anti-American, vote suppressing, democracy-hating, would-be tyrant right now.


The FBI is investigating racist anti-government welfare queen Cliven Bundy's supporters. Turns out that when you threaten federal agents with guns, shove them around, and kick their dog, that's kind of illegal. Send them to Gitmo.


Pope Francis calls for the "legitimate redistribution" of wealth. This sends conservatives into a fullblown, red-baiting tantrum. Didn't have to be Nostradamus to see that coming.


Finally, a judge strikes down Arkansas' ban on marriage equality. I wish Wisconsin would get on the ball here and legalize the 21st century. This is getting embarrassing. Instead, we're just legalizing corruption.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 5/8/14

Stupid Republican meme of the day: the kidnapping of schoolgirls, general violence, and bloodshed by the Nigerian religious fanatic group Boko Haram is all Hillary Clinton's fault, because of reasons. It' s all very, very stupid, but it could be worse -- they could be saying she engineered it to distract from BENGHAZI!! Although, I'm pretty sure it's just because that little conspiracy theory hasn't occurred to them yet.


And about the BENGHAZI!! hysteria theater super-serious and sober House Select Committee investigation: it's looking more and more like the GOP is going to try to impeach their second Democratic President in a row. It's like they get so worked up over their own bullshit that they just can't help but overplay their hand.


So why the big BENGHAZI!! fit at this articular moment in time? Because Republicans have quietly accepted that they've lost the Obamacare fight forever and they need some other manufactured mass panic to distract their marks from their failure.


Fox News' Geraldo Rivera stages a "man on the street"-style interview -- hilariously incompetently. This has been another episode of Fox Interviews Fox and Discovers Fox Agrees with Fox.


A bipartisan pair of FCC commissioners are making sure that the fight to save net neutrality isn't over.


Meanwhile, voter ID is dead as dead can be in Pennsylvania.


Finally, what seems to be a good day for Scott Walker is really just a breather. While an appeals court allowed an injuction against his corruption probe to be reissued, it's likely not the final word. Which is a good thing, because if it's allowed to stand, this ruling would be Citizens United times a million. "If sustained, this ruling is the death of campaign finance law as we know it in the state of Wisconsin and across the nation," one of the lawyers involved in the case said. "It will now be possible for a political candidate to personally conduct a campaign — soup to nuts — without disclosing a single campaign contribution." If it weren't for naked corruption and dirty tricks, Republicans wouldn't stand a chance in elections.

[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to watch: 5/6/14

A new front in the GOP Civil War: Republican senators don't want Republican senators to run for president in 2016. The argument against a run from the Senate is that Washington is so toxic to voters that a senator doesn't stand a chance. The problem with that argument is that Hillary Clinton, who's far and away the current favorite, is just as much a creature of Washington as any of them. When you look at the GOP senate frontrunners -- Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio -- it becomes obvious that the argument is less about DC and more about the Republican Klown Kar. GOP Governors like Jeb Bush or Scott Walker aren't guaranteed losers (they're just extreme longshots), so their boosters trot out the "toxic Washington" argument as a smokescreen.


Republican congress critters are busy elbowing each other out of the way to get on Boehner's select committee on BENGHAZI!! That's truly bizarre if you this about it; GOP opportunists fighting over the scraps of an imaginary scandal. Harry Reid says there won't be a Senate panel, surprising no one.


Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox browser, offers the FCC  a credible third way to maintain net neutrality.


The Stanford University endowment divests all investment in coal. "Moving away from coal in the investment context is a small but constructive step while work continues at Stanford and elsewhere to develop broadly viable sustainable energy solutions for the future," Stanford president John Hennessy says. While they don't give away specifics of their investments, the endowment's total worth $18.7 billion -- with a B -- so the divestment could be very substantial. According to Wonkblog, Stanford is the "twelfth and most prestigious university to divest under pressure from foes of fossil fuels. There's a surprisingly successful divestment campaign going on out there and it's flying under the radar. Here's hoping it's not too late.


Sen. Jay Rockefeller calls out Republican racism.


Finally, the Koch brothers attack the Columbus Zoo of all places.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Stories to Watch: 5/2/14

Boehner decides to waste everyone's time with a House select committee probe into BENGHAZI!! The most pathetic part of all of this is that the story that triggered the latest outbreak of BENGHAZI!! fever has already fallen apart. This is going to be a three ring circus, with bullshit in every ring.


We got some good jobs numbers this month -- although not so good as they might seem.


Wisconsin Republicans make themselves a national joke with a convention vote insisting the state has the right to secede from the union. A lot of Wisconsin soldiers died for a cause that held the exact opposite -- that no state has the right to secede -- and these Tea Party fuckwits are pissing all over their graves. Because "patriots" renounce America when things don't go their way, I guess. I am so tired of these whiny intellectual lightweights who pretend to be patriots but are willing to kill Americans (i.e., "tyrants") and abandon the country if it suits them. They're just children having a tantrum because a black Democrat is in the White House.


The Republican plan to wipe out the Tea Party.


So, are white Republicans really more racist than white Democrats? Prepare to be whatever the opposite of surprised is.


Finally, a Satanic monument will go up in the Oklahoma capitol and it looks like something off a Black Sabbath album cover. While I appreciate the First Amendment argument behind the move, the way to turn Oklahoma into a more enlightened state is probably not to convince conservatives that they're literally battling Satan. You want conservative voters to stay home, not to run to the polls in a blind panic. Still, cool statue -- so metal.


[cartoon via TruthDig]

Stories to Watch: 5/1/14

Wisconsin Rebublicans say they won't try to patch their voter ID law before the election, because there isn't enough time. The law was struck down because of its blatantly racist nature and fixing it to pass constitutionmal muster would mean rewriting it so that it didn't disenfranchise minority voters -- i.e., eliminating the whole purpose of the law. If this ruling survives an appeal, expect the voter ID effort in the Badger State to quietly die. If it's not keeping minorities away from the polls, what would be the point?


Antonin Scalia goes the extra mile to prove he's a terribly incompetent Supreme Court Justice.


House Republicans release a survey showing that the number of people with health insurance is much lower than the 8 million Obamacare signups would suggest. One tiny little problem: it's bullshit. "The survey was so incredibly rigged to produce this result, it was a joke," said a source in the company that produced the report. "Everyone who saw it knew exactly what the goal was." Jonathon Cohn compares the GOP's approach to Obamacare to their approach to BENGHAZI!! -- i.e., the narrative isn't being adjusted to agree with the facts, the facts are being adjusted to support their obsession with a predetermined narrative.


Netflix is not giving up on net neutrality. Neither should you.


A South Dakota Republican freaks out about gay buttsex.


Finally, Seattle will have a $15 per hour minimum wage -- the highest in the nation. Expect conservatives to ignore how the city fails to collapse into economic chaos.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to watch: 4/29/14

The United Church of Christ is suing North Carolina, arguing that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the church's First Amendment rights. That's right, a christian congregation is suing because banning marriage equality violates the church's religious freedom to perform such ceremonies. Just a reminder that the shrieking bigots who say they speak for all Christians do not and that religious liberty is restricted when religious ceremonies are criminalized, not when they're allowed. The haters have the argument 100%, completely bass-ackward. UCC is the denomination that the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock founded, by the way. You don't get any more American than that.


The Tea Party simply will not give up on the "death panels" lie. The truth is that it's fostering entrepreneurs -- which is kind of surprising from something that's supposed to be runaway naked Marxism.


Now that Don Sterling is functionally kicked out of the NBA, Fox News is in total panic mode. And it's not hard to understand why -- Cliven Bundy goes down in flames, Sterling goes down in flames. Hell, that's their business model and suddenly everyone's realizing it's hate. What do they do now, stick to reporting facts?


And it's not just Fox, other rightwingers are rushing to defend Sterling. Because if a billionaire can be brought down through his intolerance, what hope is there for the less influential bigot? And of course, there's the obligatory conspiracy theory.


But despite the fact that conservative racism has been big news lately, WingNutDaily founder Joseph Farah goes on the radio to insist that "you just don’t find racism" in the Republican Party. Meanwhile, the head of the Repudblican Party of Illinois apologizes for comparing Pres. Obama to "the offspring of a donkey and a zebra, black and white legs, rest all donkey."


Finally, Cliven Bundy's supporters are reportedly setting up armed checkpoints -- because some fucking nutjob sore-loser sticking an assault weapon in your face is liberty. And the right calls teachers "thugs." I'm against drone strikes, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't starting to see the attraction. Someone needs to shut these goons down.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 4/28/14

Remember when Harry Reid called Cliven Bundy supporters "domestic terrorists"? Yeah, they decided to respond to that percieved insult by proving him right, because 'baggers are smart like that.


If you're wondering what the next rightwing victim card freakout will be, this seems like a good candidate: Google has announced it will no longer feature ads for "crisis pregnancy centers." These centers are basically one big lie meant to misinform women about abortion. They can't lie to frightened, worried women anymore -- how terrible.


People believed that Obamacare meant that everyone would literally have a microchip embedded in their bodies. And not just a few nutjobs -- the lies have kept people who would benefit most from even considering signing up. I don't know whether to be angry at Republicans for being such shameless liars or disappointed with the people who believe them for being so limitlessly gullible, so I guess I'll do both.


Speaking of shockingly gullible Republican dupes: a look at life at the Bundy Ranch.


High school graduation rates reached a record 80% in 2010-11 -- I guess because Obama's Department of Education and those crazy moonbat ideas from teachers union thugs are all so terrible.


Not even the rightwing National Review can stomach Sarah Palin's self-promoting nonsense anymore.


More than 4% of death row inmates are likely to be innocent. Supporters like to say that the death penalty protects people. But when the state is literally killing innocent people , the idea that this is protecting those same people is ridiculous horseshit. The death penalty is human sacrifice, plain and simple. It didn't have a place in the 20th century, let alone the 21st.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 4/22/14

Today's Earth Day headline, courtesy of National Journal: "Not a Single Republican Has Mentioned Earth Day in Congress Since 2010."


Global warming will hit Florida especially hard. Might be a good time to stop voting for Republicans there.


Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in today's Affirmative Action ruling pulls no punches. She is not happy -- and she's completely correct.


Republican Senator John Boozman of Arkansas undergoes emergency heart surgery. He's expected to make a full recovery.


Is Republican opposition to marriage equality crumbling?


The conception mandate in Obamacare is actually very popular.


Finally, Canada's middle class surpasses America's for wealth, while a new study shows that one in three US deaths is the direct result of income inequality. Pointing this out is, of course, "class warfare" -- except the last time inequality was this bad, angry French mobs dragged guillotines through the streets looking for the "job creators." I'll take the "let's do something rational to fix this" approach over actual class warfare any day.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]

Stories to Watch: 4/17/14

A new study out of Princeton University finds that the United States is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy. Try to act surprised. Class warfare? We already had that war. the rich won. What the right calls "class warfare" is actually more in line with what the Chinese used to call "counter-revolutionary" -- i.e., trying to undo the new order and restore the previous system.


 Related" Dick Morris says the popular vote is just a way for Democrats to steal elections. You know, by being all counter-revolutionary and everything.


Obamacare signups are now at 8 million -- way over the target of 7 million. And that problem where the young "indestructibles" decide not to sign up? Yeah, that didn't actually happen. "This is good news—very, very good news," reports Jonathon Cohn. Well, it's good news unless you're a Republican and politically invested in America's failure -- then it's not good news at all.


A rightwing PAC shuts down after an uproar of it's offensive name -- "Boats 'N Hoes PAC." At this point, if Republicans want to convince people that they aren't waging a War on Women, it would probably be wisest to avoid any mention of anything remotely female ever again. They clearly have no idea how to talk about women respectfully.


You might want to go through your Facebook and see if you ever liked anything from General Mills. The food giant argues that liking a brand online means you can't sue them if you get a bad batch. This seems like marketing suicide to me -- why on Earth would you ever like one of their products now?


American ex-pat whistleblower Edward Snowden embarrasses Putin by putting him on the spot on live TV.


Finally, New York City is considering raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour.


[cartoon via Truthdig]

Racism, inequality is literally in the very air we breathe

Raw Story: A study released by the University of Minnesota this week indicated that people of color are exposed to air that is 38 percent more polluted than the air breathed by white people.

In an interview with The Minnesota Post, the study’s lead researcher, Julian Marshall, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, said that “the main [factors in how polluted the air breathed in was] are race and income, and they both matter. In our findings, however, race matters more than income.”

When Marshall compared the exposure gap between high-income Hispanics and low-income whites, for example, the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations were still higher among high-income Hispanics.

“We were quite surprised to find such a large disparity between whites and nonwhites related to air pollution,” Marshall told The Minnesota Post. “Especially the fact that this difference is throughout the U.S., even in cities and states in the Midwest.”

That income inequality is a factor in the purity of the air you breathe is nothing new. When it comes to polluting industries, people are protected by their wealth and power — you’re never going to see an incinerator or a fracking site move in next door to a multi-million dollar mansion. This is one of the ways in which income inequality is a very real problem that creates very real dangers. It’s not about people being “jealous” of rich people — despite what Republicans and blowhards on Fox News tell you — it’s about very real dangers that people at the bottom of the ladder face every day. If we really were a society dedicated to equality, the poor person’s health would be as much a concern as the rich person’s. They voices would be equal. But they aren’t — and people are literally and inarguably suffering because of it.

The disparities in race paint an even darker picture. There, it’s not as much about income, but about status. People of color breathe dirtier air because they’re automatically lower on the societal ladder, regardless of income. These are both very real problems and the people who bring them up aren’t just bellyaching. Conservatives who talk about free market solutions should take a closer look at what this market does and ask themselves if the people at the bottom rung — measured by income, race, or both — are by any stretch of the imagination free.

Or are they just worthless peasants in a nation that’s increasingly governed by a new aristocracy based on income and a racist class system? When working people have to literally consume the waste of the rich, calling those working people “free” is a ridiculous joke.

Here’s your “trickle down economics.” That’s not money that’s trickling down.