Last Call

But gosh, isn't President Obama supposed to be losing the Jewish vote because he's not loyal enough to Israel?  Could have fooled actual Jewish voters, it seems.

President Barack Obama is extending his lead with Jewish voters, leading among registered voters 70-25 percent according to unreleased Gallup daily tracking poll data .

The data, obtained through a Democratic source, shows Obama up from leading 64-29 in polling this spring — and on par with his 2008 performance at this point when he led 69-25 over John McCain in Gallup polling. The data is drawn from tracking polls taken between July 1 and September 10th.

Despite a heated debate on Israel, most Jewish voters are Democrats and align closely with the Democratic Party on domestic issues from abortion to taxes and spending, and Republicans have tried without success for years to pry the group away from the Democratic Party. The Israel debate, meanwhile, often aims at a broad national audience that sees Israel as an ally, rather than specifically at American Jews.

Every election cycle, Republicans say "This is the year when American Jews turn on the Democrats and vote Republican."  Just like they say women, African-Americans, and Latino voters are going to do.  It'll happen any time now, I'm sure.

Any time now...

Values-Added Stupidity

The annual Values Voter Summit continues this weekend in Washington DC, with the creme' de la creme' of the wingnut elite spouting epic levels of hate along with Mitt's veep choice.  Friday was everything you expected from the Obama Derangement Conference, headed by the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer.  But the conference quickly turned into a circular firing squad as Mitt Romney's crash and burn routine continued.

“If Barack Obama wins this election the Republican Party as we know it is finished, it is dead, it is toast — you can stick a fork in it,” he told TPM Friday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “And conservatives, grassroots conservatives, are either going to start a third party or they are going to launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”

Fischer said he believed Romney would be leading national polls by double digits at this point if he had followed Paul Ryan’s lead and offered more detailed conservative positions on the budget and social issues.

“The biggest mistake is they put a bag over Paul Ryan’s head,” he said. Fischer said he was “deeply disturbed” that Ryan didn’t mention the campaign’s opposition to gay marriage in his speech to the summit on Friday.

Ryan spent his speech time saying the most important issue in the election was making abortion illegal in all cases.

“‘We’re all in this together’ — it has a nice ring,” Ryan said. “For everyone who loves this country, it is not only true but obvious. Yet how hollow it sounds coming from a politician who has never once lifted a hand to defend the most helpless and innocent of all human beings, the child waiting to be born.”

Ryan, who believes that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest, cast Obama as an abortion extremist in the speech.

“President Obama has chosen to pander to the most extreme elements of his party,” Ryan said. “In the Clinton years, the stated goal was to make abortion ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But that was a different time, and a different president. Now, apparently, the Obama-Biden ticket stands for an absolute, unqualified right to abortion — at any time, under any circumstances, and even at taxpayer expense.”

PS, that includes outlawing contraception, too, folks.  Of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without entertainment, ranging from "former Islamist terrorist who found Jesus" Kamal Saleem...

“I started working for whoever paid the best to advance Islamism.” he said, pacing back and forth onstage. “Saddam Hussein pays better money than anybody else. He was very generous.”

If Saleem’s story sounds unbelievable it’s because there’s little sign any of it ever happened. News investigations into his past haven’t turned up any corroborating evidence of his terrorist resume, but they’ve found plenty of former colleagues and acquaintances who doubt the veracity of Saleem’s autobiographical details.

For one, Mother Jones reports Saleem, real name Khodor Shami, spent over a decade before his “ex-terrorist” act as a staffer at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. And despite Saleem’s claims that the FBI relies on him for insight into jihadist thinking, they claim they’ve never heard of him. A 2008 expose by CNN’s Anderson Cooper found similar holes in his story, which paralleled other equally dubious figures making their living off the “ex-terrorist” talk circuit. 

...to professional racist dog-whistler Gary Bauer.

Conservative pundit Gary Bauer, the former president of the Family Research Council, which puts on the Values Voter Summit each year, told the crowd at the 2012 conference Friday that it needs to turn out in great numbers to defeat President Obama’s army of welfare recipients and fraudulent votes.

After his speech, Bauer told TPM “voter fraud is rampant in urban areas” and he expected that to help Obama.

Bauer also told TPM that “there are a lot of people who will vote this November because they depend on government largesse,” meaning checks from Washington. He expects those voters to go Obama as well.

“They will vote for their own perceived interests, which is they don’t want anybody cutting back the size of the checks,” Bauer said.

Yep, because we black people are just stupid, stupid negroes stuck on Obama's plantation.  Bauer didn't have a lick of evidence, but racism, chicanery, fear and facism is all the GOP has left, folks.

They're done.

Jackass Part II

They apparently even make jackasses bigger in Texas:

A Texas police department is defending an officer who is seen on a dashcam video pulling a 77-year-old woman out of her car during a traffic stop.

Sgt. Gene Geheb, an officer from the Keene Police Department, pulled Lynn Bedford over Aug. 19 for driving 66 mph in a 50 mph zone. But their stop grew heated when Bedford refused to hand over her driver's license and insurance card, according to police reports and video from the officer's dashcam. The officer was also wearing a microphone and camera.

"The incident has been reviewed thoroughly by the Keene Police Department and the city of Keene administration," a statement from the Keene Police Department said. "All parties have concluded that Sgt. Geheb did not violate any state laws or department policies, and in fact was following department policy in regards to violators not providing information."

It's nice to know that pulling an old woman out of her vehicle is following department policy.  Even if he had decided to arrest her, he didn't have to be such a jackass.

This does not imply there was not a better way to handle this, because of course there was.  There is no mention of the officer trying to calm the situation, instead it looks like he overreacted and made it worse.

And this concludes today's jackassapalooza.

Jackass Part I

(AP) STOCKHOLM - A drunk, middle-aged man falls off a subway platform and is knocked unconscious as his head hits the tracks.

A bystander who witnessed the accident jumps down after him — but not for a daring rescue before the train arrives.

Instead, the witness steals the man's valuables, climbs back on the platform and leaves his victim to be hit by a train.

"To me it's incredible that one could steal or rob from somebody who is lying in such a place where you know that, if I don't do something, then this person will, in a worst-case scenario, get killed by the train that is coming. Because the train is going to come," police inspector Dan Ostman told TV4.

He calmly walked out of the subway station, waving to the ticket vendor, as a train ran over the victim on the tracks below. 

That man will never be the same.  He survived, but lost part of his foot.   I award this man Jackass of the Day, but be ready for the 2:30 post.  He has competition.

If your rage-o-meter hasn't buried itself in the red, I recommend checking out the full article.  This covers the highlights, such as they are.

The Mask Slips Again...

...and Republicans accidentally tell the truth.  This time it's House majority leader Eric Cantor on the GOP's orchestrated campaign to destroy the economy through obstruction of government remedies and blame President Obama:

It’s an article of faith amongst Republicans that government can’t create jobs, and that cutting government spending will lead to job growth. Republicans even pushed the nation to the brink of a debt default in order to secure cuts in federal spending in 2010.

But with the consequences of that debt ceiling deal due to hit in January — at which point the so-called “sequester” will cut into both military and non-defense discretionary spending — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is seemingly having a change of heart. On Thursday he tweeted that the sequester would hurt federal spending in key areas, and thus kill jobs:


 

Well gosh, Eric.  You mean government spending cuts destroy jobs?  But what happened to "government spending cuts free up capital for jobs to be created in the private sector?"

Not if those cuts are at the Pentagon, apparently.  So government spending cuts are bad for jobs?  Who knew?

Eric Cantor does, apparently.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

Two Marines were killed in a "sustained attack" on a joint US/UK base in Helmund Province, Afghanistan as the newly deployed Prince Harry was the possible target.
President Obama, Vice-President Biden and Secretary Clinton were on hand as the four Americans killed in Libya on Tuesday were flown home to Joint Base Andrews.
New attacks on US embassies in Tunisia and Sudan rattled already high tensions at American diplomatic compounds across the globe on Friday.
The Dow hit its highest level since before the 2008 recession began as markets rallied further on the Fed's newest qualitative easing program.
Intel is working on its latest series of processors, the Rosepoint chips will have two Atom processors and a WiFi radio built in.

Last Call

Well, that was fast.

Seems our racist Birther asshole friend from Kansas didn't even last 24 hours in the spotlight before he decided he was the victim and that black people are sooooooo mean and why can't you let him be a racist and kick President Obama off the ballot in Kansas in peace, you guys.   Sheesh.

A Kansas man dropped his complaint on Friday that could have led to President Barack Obama being removed from the November ballot there.

Joe Montgomery of Manhattan, Kan., wrote in an email to state officials that he no longer wanted them to investigate whether Obama was really a natural-born U.S. citizen or eligible to run for reelection. The email said that he, along with his friends and colleagues, faced a significant backlash after a state elections board took up his case and agreed to look into whether the president’s birth certificate was real.

“There has been a great deal of animosity and intimidation directed not only at me, but at people around me, who are both personal and professional associations,” Montgomery wrote in an email to the office of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, which released it to TPM. “I’m don’t wish to burden anyone with more of this negative reaction, so please immediatley [sic] withdraw any action on this objection.”

Yeah, I'm so very sorry for the guy who is now blaming all the people who called him out for being a racist douchebag, when he was being a racist douchebag.  Jamelle Bouie sums it up nicely:

The real question isn’t whether race affects our political disputes, it’s how. This isn’t an easy question. Yes, there are clear racial implications to things like Mitt Romney’s false charge that Obama is “ending the work requirement” in welfare and simply cutting checks to recipients. But, when it comes to the role race plays in voting—did Obama lose votes because he’s black—it’s a little complicated.

In any case, if you’re trying to answer the question of race and opposition to Obama, here’s something to remember: we’re only 47 years removed from the official end of Jim Crow. White supremacy was the governing idoelogy for the vast majority of this country’s history, and—in the broad scheme of things—we’re still in the first legs of our journey toward racial equality.

But hey, Mitt Romney gets asked about his birth certificate all the time and Democratic Secretaries of State of the various blue states threaten to remove him from the ballot constantly, right?

School Of Life

Gawker's John Cook analyzes the Chicago Teachers Union strike and Rahm Emanuel's ongoing disaster as Mayor and has an interesting solution to the public education problem in America:  get rid of private schools and level the playing field for all kids.

This would of course be a radical and highly disruptive step. It would involve forcibly transferring ownership of all existing private schools to the school district in which they reside, and readjusting local tax schemes to capture the tuition parents currently pay (the nationwide average is $8,549 per year, which means a total of $47 billion is spent each year on opting out of the public education system). Then access to the newly "nationalized" schools would have to be distributed on some fair basis to local students, with the wealthy kids who don't make the cut into their old schools being sent to the regular ones, without air conditioning or libraries. And resources would have to be redistributed within the school districts so that the resources formerly lavished on private schools could be spent shoring up the failing public ones.

This is not an original idea. Billionaire wise hobbit Warren Buffet once told school reformer Michelle Rhee that the easiest way to fix schools was to "make private schools illegal and assign every child to a public school by random lottery." In England, the notion of banning private education—while highly unlikely—has long been a part of the political debate entertained by major-party candidates.

And while it would have the practical effect of forcing school boards and municipalities to be accountable to their privileged elite as well as their poor families, there's also a moral argument for banning private education. Put simply: Equality of opportunity demands that children should not be penalized—or advantaged—by the accident of their birth. Educational benefits, which are the most crucial resource when it comes to determining the life-outcomes for children of all backgrounds, shouldn't be distributed based on how rich your parents are. They should be distributed equally. Even if we stipulate that radical inequality is OK for adults—once you are out in the world, you rise or fall by the work of your own hands—when it comes to children, it's perverse to dole out educations based on arbitrary circumstances completely beyond their control.

In other words, if Mitt Romney's sons and Barack Obama's daughters had to attend public schools, I'm betting public schools would be remarkably better than they are.  Instead, America seems increasingly going the opposite direction:  privatization (and profitization) of public education.  We're already seeing the disastrous results of that in Florida and Louisiana.  When the point of public school become making a profit and not teaching kids, everybody loses in the end.

But of course, Cook's solution will never happen.  The rich will continue to stay rich through domination of national resources, and that includes education.  He who has the gold, makes the rules.  We've been Darwining off the lower class in this country for decades.  now with globalization, we're Darwining off the middle-class too.

The Full Bernanke

Helicopter Ben just pushed the Big Candy-like Red Button, kids.

The Federal Reserve launched another aggressive stimulus program on Thursday, saying it will buy $40 billion of mortgage debt per month and continue to purchase assets until the outlook for jobs improves substantially. 

In a significant shift in the direction of U.S. monetary policy, the Fed has tied its unconventional bond buying directly to economic conditions, a move that is likely to be controversial among central bank critics.

“If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the committee will continue its purchase of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability,” the Fed said in a statement.

In an additional step that reflects just how concerned Fed officials have become about the health of the economy, policymakers said they would not likely raise rates from current rock-bottom lows until at least mid-2015. Previously, it had set such guidance at late 2014.

Not only is it QE3, but it’s got no set expiration date, apparently.  You know, exactly the kind of sustained growth program that everyone’s been screaming for now for a couple of years.  That sound you hear is Austrian-school economists exploding like microwaved giant jawbreakers, not to mention the sound of Mitt Romney’s campaign guys going “Umm…we argued that something had to be done, but we refused to provide specifics…now what?”

I gotta fiver says House Republicans will try to impeach somebody before the week’s out.

Congressional Republicans, wary of the Fed’s recent efforts to stimulate the recovery, said Wednesday that the its political independence could be jeopardized if officials embark on another round of stimulus so close to Election Day.

“It really is interesting that it is happening right now before an election,” said Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). “It is going to sow some growth in the economy, and the Obama administration is going to claim credit.”

“I am shocked, just shocked, that politics are going on in this city!” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said sarcastically.

Yeah, let's think about that.  For helping the economy and following its dual mandate of lowering  inflation and lowering unemployment,  the Fed must be punished.  The American people are being helped economically by the federal government, a crime that probably merits Bernanke's public flogging, right?

Expect to hear more of this utter nonsense from batshit crazy Republicans in the days ahead.

Show Me Screwed

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri senators have voted to override Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of a bill expanding religious exceptions for insurance coverage of birth control.

The vote Wednesday sends the bill to the House, where a two-thirds vote also is needed for an override.

The legislation lets individuals, employers and insurers cite religious or moral exemptions from mandatory insurance coverage for abortion, contraception and sterilization.  It's intended as a rebuff of an Obama administration policy that requires insurers to cover birth control at no additional cost to women, including those employed by religious nonprofits such as hospitals, colleges or charities.

Jay Nixon vetoes the bill, which is a miracle in and of itself.  Now we find ourselves facing the same battle again.  And again.  And again.

Birth control is a medical need, and our employers should have no say whatsoever in how we use our insurance coverage.  This is ridiculous!  Every business who uses this to deny fair coverage to women employees should be ashamed.  And if I get half a chance I'll lead the shaming.

Under The Dome

     I have been a lifelong Stephen King fan.  As it happened, I was a kid and a teen when he went through his cocaine-fueled nuttiness.  I was the right age for haunted cars and impossible events.  But as I grew up, so did King.  His stories became more sophisticated, and his storytelling ability fine-tuned itself into one of the best to ever type Chapter One.
     I've fallen behind on my reading, and some slipped off my radar entirely.  I have been on a crime kick, and there are a thousand reasons why I haven't read Under The Dome.  Until my husband saw it, realized I had not read it, and checked it out from the library.  Well, library books must be read in a timely manner, not allowed to catch dust and wait for my convenience.  I dug right in to the 1,000 page monster, and felt right at home in a world he created that I know so well.  By the way, thanks to my husband for making me read again, I hadn't realized how much I missed it.
     Then I started to see patterns.  I shook my head.  No way did Stephen King just make a political metaphor.  Except he did.  And he kept doing it.  And over 600 pages in, he's still doing it and so well that it is another story inside of the one he's telling.  I will announce a sort of spoiler alert, though I am still reading and can't ruin too much.
     For reasons nobody knows yet, a dome covers a rural town in Maine.  If there is one thing King knows, it's rural folk.  The man in charge, something like a Yankee flavored Boss Hogg, is the perfect Republican prick.  He knows what is better for the town, and he is not afraid to take steps to force people's hands so that he gets his way.  If a few people get squashed... well, it's the price to pay for what is right for the town.  Of course, in a world created by King, people fall like flies.  But this time there's no monster.  There's a Boss Hogg with an agenda, a man who won't use a swear word but is pumping out crystal meth by the truckload.  He and the good men of the town have been up to some shenanigans, but as long as they keep control, what does it matter?  A few men broke a town's back to fund their dreams, and they feel completely justified.
     The military is useless to help our heroes.  They are outside, taking care of business out there.  However, military skills and survival knowledge help our main character stay on top.  People are afraid, and instead of helping the power hogs start slamming down control while trying to sell it as security.  Their own citizens are being beaten to death by law enforcement and nobody can see the obvious.  The town went from a handful of cops to a house full, and they are just now wondering why.  King also rips off the face of the racist hate that blinds the simple minded, and while I have never heard him to be racist in real life he portrays it in characters with utter detail and authenticity.  You can tell he flinched but didn't hold back, because the man saying it wouldn't have.
     Do I think King wrote a thousand page novel that was pure political commentary?  No.  But it made me realize he surely had something to say.  It is striking me so profoundly because I realize I am scared of my government.  There, I said it.  I am goddamned scared that the government that rules instead of serves will take away my medical, legal and ethically obligated rights as a citizen.  I am afraid that we could wake up in a police state where language, behavior and speech are controlled.  I'm reading about it happening on a small scale, but it's like connecting CS Lewis with biblical references, once you see them it all snaps into place and is so clear.
     The scary thing is, the stuff that is bothering me has already come to pass.  He hasn't touched on what happens when those in charge start making life decisions for the people they control.  He hasn't said how they free themselves after losing control over their freedom.  I have yet to see how the little man brings balance back.

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a lying sack of shit who smiles and lies with great ability.

Or as it's known in our world, the RNC attendance sheet.

I'll save the rest of my rant for when I finish, because between starting this post and getting here, I have met the Homeland Safety guys.  This will be an awesome journey, I just wish it was more fiction so I could pretend this stuff isn't happening all around me.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

How much does FOX Nation hate President Obama?

 

This much.

"Obama Calls Libyan President to Thank Him After US Ambassador Is Murdered" is the headline.  

Drudge headline screaming that Rupert Murdoch's UK Independent has an "exclusive" that the US foreign service is fatally compromised by RANGHEAD SUNZABITCHES and that of course President Obama and Secretary Clinton did "nothing" and killed Chris Stewart themselves, all so very convincing they are.

And the winger blogs are screaming that President Obama and Eric Holder have revealed the true identity of "Sam Bacile" on purpose so that an unstoppable army of jihadi super criminals will teleport to California and kill everyone.

These guys are collapsing into sobbing piles of their own miserable stupidity.  It would be sad, except they fully plan to take the rest of us with them down to hell.

Re-Birther Of The Uncool, Part 8

The racist birther nonsense spreads to Kansas, where Romney surrogate and GOP Secretary of State Kris Kobach is considering removing President Obama from the ballot in November's election due to "questions about the President's birth certificate."  Raw Story reports:

The Kansas State Objections Board is considering removing President Barack Obama from the November ballot because of doubts over his place of birth, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

The panel of Republicans, which consists of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, received a complaint from a resident who claimed Obama was not a natural born citizen and therefore ineligible to be president.

Obama has been dogged by questions about his eligibility to serve as President of the United States since 2008. Some of the so-called “birthers” believe Obama is not a natural born citizen because his father was a British subject.

“As for Mr. Obama’s citizenship, there are many doubts,” said Joe Montgomery, who filed the ballot challenge. “Doing the right thing can be hard and unpopular.”

Doing the right thing would mean Kobach would take Montgomery's complaint, rip it up into tiny pieces on television, and tell clowns like Joe here to stop being such a fool.

There are no "legitimate questions" about the President's citizenship.  The birther attacks have been racist code-word garbage for five years now.  The birth certificate is real, and the only people trying to bring this up are lunatics suffering from such an advanced case of Obama Derangement Syndrome that I would feel sorry for them except for the obvious racist overtones.

If you believe the President is an illegal immigrant and not legally President, then stop being a coward.  Every court has laughed this stuff off, and yet these challenges still come not only from lunatics but now Republicans who are in positions of actual responsibility.  I say put your revolution where your mouth is, and go do something about it.

But instead, you'll hide behind your birth certificate polite racism like the fools you are.  Your refusal to call for Kobach's job over this tells me everything I need to know about Kansas Republicans.  You're racist assholes, cowards, and morons.

Don't like it?  Do something about it.  Demand Kobach's resignation.  Now.

StupidiNews!

• As US diplomatic compounds remain on high alert globally, Libyan officials have arrested four in connection with the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens.
• A new study in the British medical journal The Lancet finds jobs with stress are 23% more likely to produce a heart attack than a non-stressful job.
• Friends, family, and former astronauts gathered at the national memorial service for astronaut Neil Armstrong, who died last month at the age of 82.
• For the first time, Facebook has beaten Google in online ad revenue with its new Adroll browser ad system released in July.
• France has convicted the first violator under its controversial three-strikes anti-piracy law, being forced to pay a 150 euro fine for an unsecured Wi-Fi connection.

Last Call

As a Kentucky Democrat, I’d love nothing more than to see Mitch McConnell go down in flames in 2014 and booted out of the Senate.   But Old-Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle didn’t get to be the leader of the GOP Senate Filibuster All-Stars by being a political meathead.  He knows that with no challenger on the D side willing to even commit to a primary at this point, the only thing Mitch really has to worry about is a Tea Party retributive strike, especially if Romney crashes and burns (and this seems more and more likely).  Mitch can read the weather in Frankfort, and as such he’s loading up his campaign with Tea Party “revolutionaries”.

McConnell announced Thursday that he hired Jesse Benton — the tea party political operative who headed Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential primary race — to oversee a campaign that’s still two years away and still lacking an opponent.

“We’re committed to running a presidential-level campaign in Kentucky, and that starts with a presidential campaign manager,” McConnell said in a statement. “Jesse is literally the best in the business at building and organizing conservative grassroots movements, and I’m thrilled he’s chosen to return to Kentucky to lead my campaign.”

Benton also headed the 2010 race of Paul’s son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. The Bowling Green eye surgeon rose from relative obscurity to win Kentucky’s other Senate seat over major candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

McConnell had said he was looking for a campaign manager with experience running and winning races in Kentucky and who had a reputation for unifying people. His choice of Benton drew immediate accolades.

Mitch isn’t stupid.  He figures that the only folks that can beat him in 2014 are the Rand Paul Irregulars, and he’s decided the easiest way to get rid of them is to co-opt the hell out of them, starting with Benton.

Now look, I’d love for the Dems to win here, but Mitch muddled through 2008′s challenge from Bruce Lunsford and still won by six points, and that was about the closest race he’s ever had with the most motivated KY Dem turnout in the state in a long, long time.  Jack Conway doesn’t want to get spanked again like he did in 2010, and nobody else has bothered to step up yet.

It’s possible he may lose.  He’s certainly vulnerable.  But what worries me is that the tea party might blow Mitch out of the water anyway and install somebody even worse than Rand Paul, and frankly as much as that might play into the hands of the Dems anywhere else, we don’t exactly have a track record on non-insane Republican senators here.

We’ll see how it shakes out.  A serious TP challenge might weaken Mitch enough to beat him, but who will answer the challenge?