Last Call For Obama Derangement District

Wisconsin's 6th congressional district is home to Republican Tom Petri, who has served for 25 years.  He's retiring, and the Republicans who are vying to replace him all have one thing in common:  the impeachment of Barack Obama for the crime of being a Democrat.

Each of four Republican candidates for the 6th Congressional District told residents Thursday that if elected in November, he would be inclined to vote to impeach President Barack Obama for any number of transgressions.

At a GOP candidates forum Thursday in Ozaukee County, each candidate said he would approve naming a special prosecutor to investigate specific scandals as a first step toward impeachment.

They held up both the IRS targeting of tea party-connected groupsseeking nonprofit status and the NSA collecting of bulk telephone data and the magnitude of its everyday surveillance routine as examples of government overreach in the Obama administration.

"He should be impeached for so many things," state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-Campbellsport) told an audience of more than 100 residents at the forum inside the Hub at Cedar Creek in the Town of Cedarburg.

His specific list of impeachment-worthy scandals would include those involving the IRS and NSA, as well as the ATF, he said. Numerous problems within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives include the mistake-ridden sting in Milwaukee and the Fast and Furious episode in Arizona where agents lost a few thousand firearms to gun traffickers.

A proposed bill by U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) would dissolve the ATF due to its operational failures.

Scandals tied to all three federal agencies are "things the average citizen can understand," Grothman said.

State Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Town of Cedarburg) said the September 2012 deaths of four Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was at the top of his list.

Funny, I don't remember any Republicans wanting to impeach Bush over the Iraq War, the failures of intelligence over 9/11, or the number of embassy personnal killed overseas when he was President.

But Barack Obama is a black Democrat, so he has to be impeached.  And the Republican party is so morally and intellectually bankrupt that impeachment is now the default position for party candidates.  It's all they have.  "Vote for me, I'll get rid of the ni CLANG."

Somehow, it's the Democrats dividing the country, right?

Chump Change To The Man

GOP casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson wants to buy the Senate for the Republican Party, and he has enough money to do it by himself.

If you had a big, high-stakes project, think an extra $1 million a day might help?

Well, leading GOP sources focused on 2014 Senate races say such a boost is being contemplated by GOP megadonor Sheledon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino mogul.

Adelson has spent some time of late studying the map, and receiving briefings on state-by-state strategy and candidates. And he is promising to help Republicans target a dozen seats now held by Democrats, with the ultimate goal of picking up at least six - and the Senate majority. The GOP also is defending seats in Georgia and Kentucky.

So watch in the days and weeks ahead to see how much of a Senate play Adelson is prepared to make. One of the sources involved said it could be as much as $100 million. With 107 days to the election from Sunday, that would be an eye-popping bet.

Adelson is worth $35.9 billion.  Him giving $100 million to the GOP to win the Senate is equivalent of you having $3,590 in your bank account and you giving $10 to your favorite candidate.  And thanks to the Supreme Court, both are considered to be equal expressions of freedom of political speech.

Only in America is $100 million considered to be equivalent to ten bucks as far as impact on our political system.

Common sense would dictate a person spending $100 million to buy Senate races would expect that much in return in political favors, if not more.  But that's not corruption or bribery, it's "free speech".

This is our new political reality.

Keeping That Oath

Can we finally stop pretending that Team Dudebro Defector are somehow "liberals" and not right-wing, anti-Obama, anti-government cranks?

Activist Glenn Greenwald posted this today on Twitter, hyping a pro-Edward Snowden advertisement featured at reason.com:

A coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials place huge pro-Snowden ad in Metro http://t.co/zcqTb0IBJ3
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 11, 2013

Who is this “coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials” Greenwald is promoting?

Why, that group of "former police and military" folks is non other than Oath Keepers, one of the nastiest right-wing militia groups in the country.

Launched in March [2009] by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.

It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

Hey, Las Vegas?  Militia?  Sprung into existence 3 months after Obama took office?  You don't suppose...

An official with New York’s Oath Keepers organization denied the group held “far-right, anti-government views,” and then called on law enforcement officers to disobey orders and join them in their fight against socialist tyranny.  

John Wallace, vice president of the state’s Oath Keepers group, cited an alleged New York State Intelligence Center counterterrorism bulletin reportedly leaked to InfoWars that linked the organization and similar groups to the recent shootings of law 

enforcement officers by extremists. Wallace complains that the document, which has not been confirmed as legitimate, based its conclusions on news reports by “left-wing” and “communist” organizations such as the New York Times, Huffington Post, and CNN.

Oh, these guys backed awesome racist Cliven Bundy and his Ranch of Revolution.

And these are the guys Glenn Greenwald is promoting.

Now matter how much you think that Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald were right. you immediately lose all validity concerning your argument when you decide to make common cause with a dangerous right-wing militia group like Oath Keepers.   Don't ever expect me to take him seriously if he's welcoming the support of these assholes and going after actual liberals.

He just showed his true colors.