Immigration Nation, Con't

Deanna Paul at the Washington Post buries the lede all the way until the last paragraph, but Trump Regime Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it clear Monday that the regime will continue to take migrant and asylum-seeking families crossing the Mexico border and put their kids in cages until Trump gets what he wants from Congress.

As protesters gathered outside the convention hall where Sessions was addressing the National Sheriffs' Association in New Orleans, Sessions gave the game away:

According to Sessions, policies of the past eight years led law enforcement to begin arresting people who crossed the border illegally, yet gave effective immunity from prosecution to anyone who also brought a child. “Word got out about this loophole and the results were predictable: The number of aliens illegally crossing with children went from 14,000 to 75,000 in just four years. A fivefold increase,” Sessions said. 

Sessions said that this could not continue, in part, because of the “enormous cost” incurred by the government and the “enormous burden” on law enforcement, schools and hospitals. 

As Sessions defended his “zero-tolerance” policy, the chanting group outside the NOLA convention center grew. Demonstrators filled the sidewalks and blocked the streets. One woman was struck by a vehicle, and five people were arrested, according to WWL-TV, a local CBS affiliate. Protesters demanded that families be kept together and held signs: “Immigration detention centers are concentration camps for kids” and “Cage Jeff Sessions.” Some demonstrators, who came close to fighting local law enforcement, as seen in a video published by WWL, pushed against police and deputies guarding the building, bearing a banner that read, “Criminalizing our community,” according to one video. Other people displayed posters that read: “Imagine your children in a cage” and “Love has no border.” 

Although the federal government, according to Sessions, does not want to separate parents from their children, it does not want adults to bring children into the country unlawfully or place those children at risk, either. Thousands of unaccompanied minors have also crossed the borders, which, according to Sessions, has led to the resurgence of the MS-13 gang. 

President Trump wants to bring down crime and make this country safer, said Sessions, who says that’s what he’s doing. 

“If we build a wall, if we pass a legislation, if we close a loophole, we won’t face these terrible choices,” he said, adding that Trump will not allow this lawlessness to continue.

And there we have it.

You have to admit, this cartoonish level of inchoate evil is pretty effective.  The Trump regime is willing to use kids in cages to attack Democrats, but even Republicans aren't buying it when all parties know full well Trump's executive orders are solely responsible for the forcible separation of children from their families and putting them in internment camps.

Republicans know damn well that this is bad for them too, and that this is direct retaliation for House Republicans working with Democrats to force a vote on several immigration bills that don't meet Trump's standards.  He's not going to allow those bills to move forward, and he's willing to go this far in order to ensure that doesn't happen.

It's possible that Trump's plan if things get too hot for him is to use Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as a disposable lightning rod in order to take the damage, but at this point all the living former first ladies from both parties are scorching Trump over this, including Laura Bush.  I don't see how this doesn't become the issue the Democrats need to win and win big in November, especially since the Trump regime is promising to make things even worse.

Top aides to President Donald Trump are planning additional crackdowns on immigration before the November midterms, despite a growing backlash over the administration’s move to separate migrant children from parents at the border. 

Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and a team of officials from the departments of Justice, Labor, Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget have been quietly meeting for months to find ways to use executive authority and under-the-radar rule changes to strengthen hard-line U.S. immigration policies, according to interviews with half a dozen current and former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House.

The goal for Miller and his team is to arm Trump with enough data and statistics by early September to show voters that he fulfilled his immigration promises — even without a border wall or any other congressional measure, said one Republican close to the White House. 

Among the fresh ideas being circulated: tightening rules on student visas and exchange programs; limiting visas for temporary agricultural workers; making it harder for legal immigrants who have applied for welfare programs to obtain residency; and collecting biometric data from visitors from certain countries. 

Details of the ideas are still being worked out, one White House official said. 

In one of the most closely watched plans under discussion, DHS has proposed a new rule that former Obama administration officials and immigration advocates worry could be used as an end run around a 1997 court settlement that limits the time migrant children can be kept in government custody. Putting a formal government rule in place, lawyers and advocates say, could in effect supersede the settlement, allowing the administration to get rid of it altogether by dropping the rule a year or two later. 

“Once you rescind that regulation, then you go back to being able to do whatever you want and the detention becomes the complete discretion of ICE,” said Leon Fresco, former deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Department of Justice. “That is where people think this is headed.”

To recap, Stephen Miller and his merry band of white supremacist dudebros are happily planning indefinite detention camps for kids crossing the border as a deterrent to both people inside and outside the US.  This is of course on top of Jeff Sessions and the Trump regime's plans to effectively end legal immigration as well as plans to target naturalized citizens for deportation.  This has been planned out from the beginning, guys.

The partnership between Mr. Sessions and Mr. Miller began in 2009, when Mr. Miller, a conservative rabble rouser and contrarian who emerged from the left-leaning Santa Monica, became a spokesman for the senator. He sported sideburns and skinny ties as he often delivered long and passionate lectures to reporters, and anyone else who would listen, about the dangers of granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. 

Mr. Sessions, 71, had strong views shaped by his experience as a young politician in rural Alabama, where he saw immigrants take jobs at a poultry plant away from poor, unskilled Americans. 

During more than a decade as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general, and 20 years in the Senate, Mr. Sessions came to believe that immigrants, whether here legally or illegally, posed a direct threat to the country by depressing wages, committing crimes and competing for welfare benefits. He was deeply influenced by the work of George Borjas, a Harvard economist who has said that immigrants have an adverse impact on the economy. 

Mr. Miller, 32, had gone from California to Duke University. While a student, he met David Horowitz, a right-wing provocateur and the founder of Students for Academic Freedom, which opposed progressive thought on college campuses. After Mr. Miller graduated, Mr. Horowitz helped him get a job with Michele Bachmann, then a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, and recommended him highly to Mr. Sessions. 

Together Mr. Miller and Mr. Sessions often drew on the work of anti-immigration groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies — some of which are derided as hate groups by immigration activists and civil rights organizations. 

The Southern Policy Law Center, which tracks white nationalists and other hate groups, describes FAIR as having “a veneer of legitimacy” that “hides much ugliness.” 

By 2013, Stephen K. Bannon, then the head of Breitbart News, invited Mr. Miller and Mr. Sessions to a dinner at the Capitol Hill townhouse that served as the headquarters for the conservative news outlet. The three bonded over an article titled “The Case of the Missing White Voters,” foreshadowing the case they would help Mr. Trump build during his presidential campaign.

These guys are absolute evil, and frankly I'm tired of them running this country.  I would think you guys are too.

Last Call For You Never Go The Full Goebbels

Meanwhile, the Trump regime position of White House Communications Director Minister Of Propaganda Mouth of Sauron is still open, and it looks like Tang the Conqueror has found just the guy jackass neo-Nazi fascist for the job.

Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser to President Trump, is reportedly under consideration to succeed Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director.

Miller isn't the frontrunner for the job, Axios reported Saturday. But White House chief strategist Steve Bannon reportedly likes the idea.

Miller, a former staffer to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), received praise from his colleagues after sparring with CNN reporter Jim Acosta during a press briefing Wednesday.

In that exchange, Miller fiercely defended a White House-backed bill that would establish a merit-based immigration system and accused Acosta of having a "cosmopolitan bias."

Trump applauded Miller's performance at the press briefing, according to Axios. The president was also pleased with Miller's combative performance during a series of appearances on the Sunday news show circuit earlier this year.

We go back to the end of May and Bill Cohan's Vanity Fair profile on Miller for a reason, here's a guy whose claim to fame was the unwavering defense of Duke's lacrosse team a decade ago.

Into this conflagration of economic, racial, and sexual politics came Stephen Miller, a 20-year-old Duke junior from Santa Monica, California, who wouldn’t have known a lacrosse stick if he were hit over the head with one. A columnist for The Chronicle, the Duke student newspaper, Miller defended the lacrosse players in print, despite nearly universal condemnation of them by others on campus and in the media. His outspoken support for the players—even before the indictments were handed up—got him plenty of national media attention, which he enthusiastically embraced. As he expounded nightly on CNN and on The O’Reilly Factor, among other television shows, it became apparent that the sordid allegations surrounding the case gave Miller the perfect opportunity to hone the right-wing political views he had espoused since adolescence. His passion for American exceptionalism and racial superiority eventually led him to jobs in Washington, D.C., first as a spokesperson for two right-wing members of Congress, Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg, and then as a policy adviser and communications director for conservative Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general. Sessions, with Miller at his side, almost single-handedly killed the 2013 bipartisan immigration-reform bill that would have created a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Now, at 31, the still-single Miller is President Trump’s youngest senior policy adviser, with his own office in the West Wing and a seat at the table during crucial decisions. His most visible act in that job so far was helping his friend Steve Bannon, for the moment Trump’s chief strategist, to craft and roll out the Trump administration’s first try at instituting a travel ban on the citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. In the wake of a federal judge’s decision to strike down the ban, Miller was ubiquitous on television news shows. In one astonishing interview, dressed in his trademark dark suit and skinny tie, Miller told CBS’s John Dickerson, without irony, “Our opponents, the media and the whole world, will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

It was a jaw-dropping statement, even by Trumpian standards. “Horrendous” and “embarrassing” was how Joe Scarborough, the co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, described Miller’s claims, adding for good measure, “[The president’s decisions] will be questioned, my young, little Miller. They will be questioned by the court. It’s called judicial review. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote about it in the Federalist Papers. It was enshrined in Madison’s Constitution.”

Since then, despite winning Trump’s approval for his bravura performance—“Great job!” the president tweeted—Miller has been kept under wraps, more seen than heard, although he was in the Mar-a-Lago photo of Trump and his advisers authorizing the April missile strike on an air base in Syria.

And now this card-carrying white supremacist asshole will almost certainly be running the White House's propaganda mill.  The fact that he's even employed by the federal government is insulting, let alone the White House, but in 2017 the executive branch has decided that only white, male landowning Americans count (just like our founding fathers, heyo!) and there's no better face for this than Miller.

Look at the people Trump has surrounded himself with.  That's all you need to know.

Oh, and Trump TV is beefing up its anchor staff as CNN's Kayleigh McEnany has now joined the weekly state-run social media broadcast praising Dear Leader.

More of this is coming, folks.  A lot more. And it will be coming sooner and closer than you think.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is expanding its conservative-leaning television empire into nearly three-quarters of American households — but its aggressive takeover of the airwaves wouldn’t have been possible without help from President Donald Trump's chief at the Federal Communications Commission.

Sinclair, already the nation’s largest TV broadcaster, plans to buy 42 stations from Tribune Media in cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns. It got a critical assist this spring from Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who revived a decades-old regulatory loophole that will keep Sinclair from vastly exceeding federal limits on media ownership.

The change will allow Sinclair — a company known for injecting "must run" conservative segments into its local programming — to reach 72 percent of U.S. households after buying Tribune’s stations. That’s nearly double the congressionally imposed nationwide audience cap of 39 percent.

The FCC and the company both say the agency wasn’t giving Sinclair any special favors by reviving the loophole, known as the “UHF discount,” which has long been considered technologically obsolete. But the Tribune deal would not have been viable if not for Pai’s intervention: Sinclair already reaches an estimated 38 percent of U.S. households without the discount, leaving it almost no room for growth.

The loophole is a throwback to the days when the ultra-high-frequency TV spectrum —the part higher than Channel 13 — was filled with low-budget stations with often-scratchy reception over analog rabbit ears. That quality gap no longer exists in today's world of digital television, but under the policy that Pai revived, the commission does not fully count those stations’ market size when tallying a broadcaster's national reach.

The stage is being set for state-run, pro-Trump media. Sinclair will now be able to reach every home east of the Oklahoma panhandle with their mandated "local news" segments on how great Trump is.  The White House can reach everyone else with social media and Trump TV.  All this is happening within just six months of him taking office, and it will only get worse.

Stay tuned, as they say.

You may not have a choice much longer on that, by the way.

Last Call For Heartbeat (Bill) Of America, Con't

Folks, you knew this was coming, and I've been warning you about it for months. Republicans are making their move early to eliminate legal abortion in America, and of course the man behind it is Steve King.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Thursday introduced the first federal “heartbeat bill” modeled on a failed Ohio attempt to end legal abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy—before many people know they’re pregnant.

“Heartbeat bills” amount to total abortion bans. They have been declared unconstitutional in federal court.

King’s office confirmed that HR 490 marked the first introduction of a so-called heartbeat bill in the U.S. Congress. Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) introduced a forced ultrasound bill in 2011, but her measure did not ban abortion—King’s stated goal.

A King press release called Roe v. Wade unconstitutional, adding that under HR 490, “if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected.”

His spokesperson provided Rewire with legislative text specifying that an abortion provider “who knowingly performs an abortion and thereby kills a human fetus” without determining a heartbeat, informing the patient of a heartbeat, or proceeding regardless of a heartbeat would face fines and up to five years in prison. The bill includes limited exceptions for the physical health of the pregnant person but not for “psychological or emotional conditions.”

King worked on the bill with anti-choice activist Janet Porter, the Faith2Action leader deemed too extreme for Christian talk radio, the congressman’s spokesperson said. Porter was behind Ohio Republicans’ recent failed attempt to push through a total abortion ban. Anti-choice Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) vetoed the measure the same day he signed a 20-week ban into law, reasoning that the 20-week ban would be more constitutionally prudent. It’s not.

Porter persuaded King to act while both attended the funeral of Phyllis Schlafly, the notorious Equal Rights Amendment opponent, as People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch first reported in October.

“I gave him a packet and he has agreed to introduce a federal Heartbeat Bill, which would protect every baby whose heartbeat can be detected,” Porter said on a conference call at the time. “That will actually end abortion in nearly every case. Ninety to 95 percent of the abortions will be ended with that bill.”

It's bad enough that this will probably pass the House (and hopefully dies screaming in the Senate) but King outright calling Roe unconstitutional is nonsense.  It's pretty clear what King expects, that this will be the vehicle to destroy Roe and end legal, safe abortion in America and move it to back alleys and illegal clinics.

How far it will go, we'll see.  But expect many more attempts to end Roe over the next two years, minimum.

Last Call For Conversion Formula

American Jewish voters side with Democrats for the most part, while there are definitely some hard-liners who side with the GOP and claim they have both common cause with evangelical Christians and the mandate of Israeli Jews.  Kinda weird then when Republicans come to Israel and announce that they want to convert as many Jews to Christianity as possible.

Former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called for an intensified effort to convert Jews to Christianity.

Bachmann, a former congresswoman from Minnesota who ran for the Republican presidential nod in 2012, was in Israel last week on a tour organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.

Toward the end of the week, she spoke on FRC President Tony Perkins’ radio program, Washington Watch, and discussed the meaning of the recent intensification of violence in Israel and the West Bank. She cast the violence as a signal of the return of Jesus, which would necessitate mass conversions.

“We recognize the shortness of the hour,” Bachmann said, “and that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, He’s coming soon.”

I mean I knew Bachmann was a zealot, but I didn't think she was "Go to Israel to bring Christ to Israeli Jews" bonkers.

But there you are.  Your Republican allies certainly seem to respect you, Likud Israel.

The Turtle's White Flag

Looks like my state's senior Senator is killing talk of "shutting down the government" early, but what happens when Mitch McConnell loses control of his caucus again?

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said he would begin negotiations with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown in September. 

The majority leader vowed there would not be another shutdown on his watch — but it could be difficult to avoid, given the long list of thorny issues he will have to tackle this fall.

Funding for the government is set to run out at the end of September, and Democrats and the White House want to increase defense and nondefense spending. 

Some Republicans are also demanding new defense spending, and many GOP lawmakers and Republicans running for president want to defund Planned Parenthood. The debt ceiling is also going to have to be lifted later this year. 

As usual, McConnell has been playing his cards close to the vest. But his main goal is to minimize drama and maintain the Senate Republican majority in 2016. Messy fiscal fights could increase the chances Democrats win back the upper chamber. 

The Kentucky Republican hasn’t told colleagues of his endgame plans, but they suspect he is angling for a yearlong spending measure that would allow him to sidestep a fight over busting the caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. 

“Whatever minimizes the drama, because Mitch is not a big fan of drama,” said a Republican senator who requested anonymity.

Mitch wants this battle out of his hair.  I'm betting the four GOP senators running for the White House aren't going to be much help in the new Trump Party.  BooMan calls it what it is: capitulation.

He’ll need the Democrats to go along with his plan, in both the Senate and the House. And he’ll have to let his own caucus vote on a bunch of riders to do things like ban spending on Planned Parenthood, kill Obamacare (again), declare Iran the second coming of the Third Reich, and obliterate the Environmental Protection Agency. But, since the only way the Republicans could conceivably prevail on any of those issues is to shut down the government and pray for a miracle, McConnell doesn’t really give a shit about them. He’s not interested in another government shutdown that yields nothing but aggravated voters and higher disapproval numbers for his party. 

However, he’s going to have to contend with 17 presidential contenders braying at him to fight, fight, fight, as well as constant bellowing about what a sellout he is and how Washington Republicans never keep their promises. The only thing he has going for him, besides reality, is that he’s not Speaker Boehner. He can hide behind Democratic filibusters, for example, and he doesn’t have 150 members who make Michele Bachmann look statesmanlike. Boehner will deliver a conservative heat-fever wish list of a budget and then have to turn around and sell McConnell’s nothing burger to his caucus.
And, of course, the House Republicans won’t go for it. At all. So, Boehner will have to go hat in hand (again) to Nancy Pelosi and beg her to deliver her caucus. 

Pelosi, of course, wants nothing more than another government shutdown, provided that she can avoid taking much blame for it. So, her inclination to give Boehner some kind of fig leaf to disguise his humiliation will be limited. And, yet, with all these presidential candidates claiming that if we just elect them things will magically get done the way that conservatives want them done, Boehner will have a tough sell to explain why a Republican-led House and a Republican-led Senate cannot accomplish even one item on their insane wish list. 

What McConnell’s trying to do is preemptively accept a harsh reality, but he’s going to have very few supporters and they’ll be quieter than church mice.

We all know where the game ends: the budget passes that President Obama and Nancy Pelosi want. The question is how much damage is done to the place on the way through bat country.

Orange You Glad You're Not This Guy

Seems House Speaker John Boehner is taking a page from the Nancy Pelosi playbook as he's studiously avoiding any talk of impeaching President Obama for being president in the ol' "off the table" move.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday said he doesn't support calls from members of his party to impeach President Obama. 

Asked about former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's comments that Obama should be impeached over the influx of child migrants illegally crossing the border, Boehner said, “I disagree.”

Then asked about members of the House GOP who have also urged for impeachment, Boehner repeated, “I disagree.”

But for how long is he going to be able to "disagree" and hold out?  The guy isn't exactly known for his ability to keep his caucus from doing stupid, self-destructy things like "shutting down governments" and stuff, unlike Pelosi and her exercised control over the Democrats.

A number of House Republicans have also called for Obama's impeachment, including Reps. Lou Barletta (Pa.), Kerry Bentivolio (Mich.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Michael Burgess (Texas), Blake Farenthold (Texas), Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Louie Gohmert (Texas). 

But many Republicans are wary of the calls, worried they could hand Democrats a compelling issue that might help the party retain its majority in the Senate during a tough election year. 

The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton backfired badly on the GOP in 1998, when Democrats against odds picked up seats in the House. 

The House is expected to vote later this month on a lawsuit against Obama for his use of executive actions. Boehner said at the weekly House GOP press conference that he was considering including Obama's action on immigration in the House GOP lawsuit.

Then again, Orange Julius here seems to like doing stupid, self-destructy things himself.

The Re-Education Of Chris Hayes

After getting rolled by Koch Industries operative Jennifer Stefano on his show last month, I'm glad to see Chris Hayes finally do a segment on the Perpetual Right Wing Outrage Machine as he connected the dots from the Bundy Ranch standoff to the GOP party's incessant need for greater and greater quantities of red meat in order to be fed.  Thursday's open:




It's a good segment, and it means that Hayes is at least aware that conservatives are not his friends, and they are not looking for meaningful debate.  They are looking for outrage to stoke the resentment of the base, always.  That goes for Hayes, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, and the other young guns on the left:  you will never be more than the "Juice Box Mafia" to the right, so stop treating them like they're your pals.

Sadly, Chris's learning curve is a flatline as when Friday came around and he decided to interview Nevada State Assemblywoman (and complete Tea Party nutjob) Michele Fiore, he was bullied, badgered, and steamrolled again.



Fiore was rude, awful, and disrespectful.  Chris flopped around like the punching bag he is.  Fiore referred to undocumented immigrants as "terrorists", called the attempt by BLM to get Cliven Bundy to obey the law "suspicious" and cut Hayes off several times, eventually justifying the militia threats of violence by saying "Don’t come here with guns and expect the American people not to fire back."

 His response later Friday evening?

My exchange w/ @VoteFiore over cows and their ultimate fate might be one of my favorite ever on @allinwithchris http://t.co/sIXfKnjr74
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) April 19, 2014

The woman makes Michele Bachmann look like Steven Hawking, and Chris Hayes thought the interview was "one of his favorite ever".  It was embarrassing and stupid and Chris Hayes walked into the jet intake again.

Jesus wept.

Bachmanniac's Audition For A FOX News Job

Michele Bachmann may be leaving the House GOP at the end of the year, but she's stumping hard for a job over in Rupert Murdoch's team starting in 2015, it seems.

In an interview published Wednesday, Bachmann said that Barack Obama won the presidency because white people felt too guilty about past racial injustices. "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt," she said in an interview with Cal Thomas, a syndicated conservative columnist.

Yes, because President Jesse Jackson won so overwhelmingly in 1992.  Why, America has a long line of African-American presidents preceding Mr. Obama.  They just all happen to live in Bachmann's empty, empty head.

Seriously, the "Obama only won because of white guilt" is the perfect meme for these idiots. It allows them to simultaneously pretend that evolution-rejecting, climate change-denying douchebags who think women's bodies naturally produce a substance that prevents pregnancy during rape are somehow not the "low-information voters" screwing up America, while also pretending that the party of "Hey there's nothing wrong with pictures of Obama with a bone through his nose and his wife Moochelle" aren't the racists, but the guilty white liberals, the "race-hustling" black Democrats, and the "illegal Mexicans" are.

Oh, but let's not forget the War on Women, which doesn't exist because Republican love women.

Bachmann didn't stop there. She thinks Hillary Clinton has poor odds of winning the presidency in 2016. "People don't hold guilt for a woman," she said, explaining that much of the country isn't prepared to elect a women as president. "I don’t think there is a pent-up desire."

Why if I didn't know better, I'd think Shelly here was trying to pit white Obama voters versus black ones.  Those eeeeevil black people and those race traitor liberals will be "responsible" for Obama's wins until the day she dies.

Last Call For Shutdown Winners & Losers

Michele Bachmann thinks the GOP are all winners in the shutdown.

“We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”

Her colleagues think they won too.

“It’s wonderful,” said Rep. John Abney Culberson (R-Tex.), clapping his hands to emphasize the point. “We’re 100 percent united!”

So who are the losers?  Why, the rest of us, of course.

At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said.

Remember, this is exactly what the GOP wanted.

Keep that in mind.

So Three Schmucks Head To Egypt...

...and I wish I had a really great joke to go along with that opening, but sadly that's the headline to this story of GOP dipsticks Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, and Steve King actually going to Egypt.  To have a press conference.  Where they announced their plans to undermine US foreign policy for all the entire world to see last weekend.

Tea party-backed Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) on Saturday held a press conference in Egypt to thank the country’s military for overthrowing the elected government, and at one point even seemed to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

“Together, we’ve gone through suffering. Together, the United States and Egypt, have dealt with the same enemy,” Bachmann explained. “It’s a common enemy, and it’s an enemy called terrorism.”

“We want to make sure that you have the Apache helicopters, the F-16s, the equipment that you have so bravely used to capture terrorists and to take care of this menace that’s on your border,” she continued. “Many of you have asked, do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak for ourselves. We do.”

“We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed here for the people in Egypt. We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this great evil. We are not for them. We remember who caused 9/11 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans. We have not forgotten.”

So yes, if you're keeping score, these three clowns 1) went to a foreign capital in order to criticize the President, 2) promised the Egyptian military an increase in military aid after staging a coup, the exact opposite of stated US policy,  and 3) blamed Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood for 9/11.

This is actually breathtakingly awful, it should be illegal, and it should get all three of these jackasses tossed from the House.  But hey, they're Republicans attacking the President, so nobody will care.

StupidiNews!

• NAACP President Ben Jealous will resign at the end of the year to spend more time with his family and to start a new commercial venture.
• Iowa lawmakers have passed legislation allowing the visually impaired to earn concealed carry firearms licenses for protection.
• The Justice Department has subpoenaed emails from Rep. Michele Bachmann's husband as the investigation into possible illegal coordination between a PAC and her 2012 campaign continues.
• President Obama will address the nation Tuesday night from the White House as he makes the case for intervention in Syria over chemical weapons.
• Final arguments in the case of US wireless carriers versus net neutrality laws will be heard today as Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and more are suing the FCC over internet rules of the road.

Immigration Versus Obliteration

The Republican Party is about to be split on immigration for good.  The Lindsey Graham/Marco Rubio/Chris Christie corporate wing of the party believes that without immigration reform, the combination of Latinos, African-Americans, and LGBTQ voters will put victory for the GOP permanently out of reach.  The problem is, the Louie Gohmert/Steve King/Michele Bachmann God-botherers believe that passing immigration will amount to the same thing.

Both of them can't be right.  Both of them believe the other will destroy the party forever.

Long knives are out, people.

“If we don’t pass immigration reform , if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016,” Graham warned during on appearance Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press. “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party, and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who will run, in my view.”

"Demographic death spiral" is right.  The party of old, rich, white privilege is dying.  Unfortunately, it looks like they are going to go down burning instead of trying to fix the error of their ways, and if the last six weeks are any indication, they're going to try to take out the rest of America along with them.  If they can't run the country, then we won't have a country left to run.

Our Crazy Goes To Eleven

Congratulations, Minnesota.  You don't have Michele Bachmann to kick around for much longer, so the Crazy Patrol has deemed fit to give you somebody even more insane to make you a national embarrassment: virulently homophobic jackass Tom Emmert, the guy who tried to get Minnesota to secede from the country.

Former Minnesota state Rep. Tom Emmer is making good on his promise. During the lengthy recount that followed his failed 2010 gubernatorial campaign, he vowed not to go away “regardless what happens.”

Emmer eventually conceded that race after weeks of legal wrangling, but he returned to politics Wednesday and announced his intention to run for the House seat Rep. Michele Bachmann is leaving behind. Loyal TPM readers will no doubt remember Emmer from his 2010 race, which even before it devolved into court cases and recounts, was a rather wild ride complete with talking dolls, coin-throwing attacks, and drinking drama.

Emmer is currently host of a talk radio show that features, among other things, musical parodies of pop hits like a version of Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” that mocked Occupy Wall Street and a hilarious Carly Rae Jepsen spoof entitled “Call Me Bath Salts.” When he announced his bid for Bachmann’s seat, Emmer said he will be leaving his radio gig to focus on the race. According to MinnPost, though Emmer is expected to face opposition, he is “the front-runner” to win the Republican nomination.

So good luck with that.  Emmert is such a clown that Target had to take their money back from his 2010 campaign for Governor due to the massive boycott they were facing.  And remember this greatest hit?

Perhaps the greatest moment of Emmer’s gubernatorial crusade came when he declared war on waiters and waitresses by calling for Minnesota to lower their minimum wage. Emmer’s rationale for this proposal was that many waiters and waitresses earn six figures annually and, thus, should be more reliant on tips.

“With the tips that they get to take home, they are some people earning over $100,000 a year,” Emmer said.

Emmer’s plan sparked a massive backlash culminating in a protestor dumping a bag of pennies on Emmer during a town hall event.

“I have a tip for you too, Emmer!” they shouted. 

That's right, this moron is the "Waitresses make $100,000 a year, let's eliminate minimum wage!" guy.   Let that sink in.

StupidiNews!

• With a growing campaign ethics investigation swirling around her, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota announced she will not seek re-election in 2014.
• Wal-Mart has been fined a record $110 million for pleading guilty to dumping toxic chemicals and pesticides in California.
• As the EU has lifted its ban on arming Syria's rebels, Russia has countered by pledging to provide missiles and arms to the Assad regime.
• Sergei Guriev, head of a Russian economics think tank and associate of PM Dmitry Medvedev, has fled the country ahead of criminal prosecution over money laundering.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't have a high opinion of Google Glass, but still finds wearable computers "profoundly interesting."

StupidiNews!

• An Arizona jury has found Jodi Arias guilty of first degree murder in the death of her ex-boyfriend, whose body was found stabbed, shot, and nearly decapitated.
• Rep. Michele Bachmann could be facing a lawsuit from a blogger over her characterization of a post in one of her speeches.
• While skeptics seriously doubt inventor Ronald Ace's claims that his "solar trap" panels could revolutionize energy the world over, the Department of Energy is still taking a look.
• US foreclosures are down to their pre-financial crisis levels as the number of new filings dropped to the lowest level in over six years.
• The FBI is claiming it has the right to search your e-mail without a warrant as possible Supreme Court rulings on the matter inch closer.

What's The Penalty Here?

As Steven D over at BooMan's place points out, Michele Bachmann is an inveterate liar, a hack, and a lunatic.  Yet she still serves in Congress and will continue to serve, even when she tells ridiculous lies like "70% of all food stamp money goes to government bureaucrats."  It's more like 0.3%, but who cares?  What real penalty does she face?

Of the $82 Billion budgeted for federal food and nutrition assistance relief under the USDA for 2013, less than 6% (5.8%) is allocated to all administrative costs, which includes, by the way, state administrative costs that represent 81% of all administrative costs for the Food Stamp Program.

If, in fact, "Washington bureaucrats" received 70% of that $82 Billion pie each year, they would all be multi-millionaires. Hey, if that were true I'd sign up to work for the USDA in a heartbeat. However, the truth is that working for the USDA will not make you wealthy. As of 2011:

As of September 30, 2011, there were 1,325 full-time permanent employees in the agencies. There were 529 employees in the Washington headquarters office; and 796 elsewhere, including in seven regional offices; 55 field offices; four SNAP compliance offices in Illinois, California, New Jersey, and Tennessee; and a computer support center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

That number includes the 166 government employees who work for SNAP. The average salary for USDA Food and Nutrition Service employes is around $61,000. The highest paid position is at the level of a GS 13, with salaries ranging from a little over $72,000 per year to a high of a little under $94,000 per year depending on various factors including geographic location. Nothing to sneeze at, but hardly a job that will move you into the top 10 percent of income.

Sadly, far too many people will believe Bachmann's absurd claim that food stamp recipients receive only 30% of the money budgeted for SNAP. The truth, that SNAP is on of the most efficient government programs in terms of the ratio of benefits provided to administrative costs (942:6) incurred will be ignored by most of the media, and the conservative talking point zombie lie that SNAP is a wasteful program that should be cut severely will be the default position of all "serious people" inside the Beltway, despite the reality.

Best part is Bachman's lie will be repeated in campaign ads, on Sunday shows, and on FOX News time and again.  It will rarely be challenged on air, in real time, if at all.  So it will become "conventional wisdom" and eventually will be the reason why SNAP will be discontinued by Republicans.

She knows exactly what she's doing and she knows there's zero penalty for her doing it.

A Canadian Ford Recall

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who can generously be called "controversial" given the country's own growing Tea Party style backlash against social programs and health care (yet another instance where I feel the need to apologize to our northern neighbors) has run into a bit of a problem:  Canada actually gives a damn about things like conflict of interest, and it's cost Ford his job.

A court ordered the mayor of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, to be removed from office for violating conflict of interest rules when soliciting donations for his football charity.

Mayor Rob Ford got into legal trouble when he spoke out at a city council vote in February against a $3,150 fine he was ordered to pay over the ethics breach.

A Toronto resident took him to court for violating the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, which at trial Ford said he had not read.

Ford said he will appeal the ruling, and if he fails to have the decision overturned will run again for mayor in a by-election.

“I will fight tooth and nail to hold onto my job,” he told reporters, blaming “leftwing politics” for the court action that led to the ruling.

Compare Ford to say, Mike Bloomberg in New York City.  If Bloomberg was held to the same legal standard as Ford, he'd have been out on his ass within a year instead of on his third term as Mayor (itself in violation of the city's laws until he changed them.)  Ford vows to be back however, and he's counting on winning his appeal and running again for Mayor on the "Evil liberals stole my job" ticket.

How Ford ended up mayor of Toronto in the first place?  Well, I've got no room to complain considering Michele Bachmann still has a job in Congress that doesn't involve emptying trash cans.

Medi-Raid And Medi-Careless

JM Ashby pulls up the House Democrats' report on what the Ryan budget plan means you'll be losing should these assclowns end up in the White House.  Here's the breakdown for the Cincy Metro area:

The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the Cincinnati metro area age 54 and younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Deny 3.5 million individuals age 54 and younger in the region access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.

• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 772,000 individuals in the region who are between the ages of 44 and 54.

• Require the 772,000 individuals in the metro area between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $180 billion for their retirement – an average of $180,000 to $287,000 per individual – to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the metro area will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.

• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 428,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 2.7 million individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger.

Be sure to check out the map to see what benefits you will be losing under GOP control where you live.  Do you think that President Romney will veto the Ryan budget plan in 2013 when the Tea Party puts it on his desk?  If you're under 50, do you think Romney/Ryan gives a good goddamn about you?  They can win on just the Boomers and the seniors, and they plan on it.

By the way, do you know who has the closest voting record to Paul Ryan in the House?  I'll give you a guess.  Nate Silver runs the numbers.

Politics 101 suggests that you play toward the center of the electorate. Although this rule has more frequently been violated when it comes to vice-presidential picks, there is evidence that presidential candidates who have more “extreme” ideologies (closer to the left wing or the right wing than the electoral center) underperform relative to the economic fundamentals.

Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

In fact, Nate finds that Paul Ryan is the most partisan veep candidate in modern American history.

He's more of an ideologue than Dick Cheney.  Let that sink in when you say "But Romney will govern as a moderate."  Bullshit.

It's your funeral.  You won't be able to afford the healthcare to prevent it, and you won't be able to afford the funeral, either.  New tag:  Robot/Zombie '12.

Drum Doubles Down

Responding to his critics, Kevin Drum breaks out the shovel while standing in his hole and tunnels through a few more strata thick with false equivalence nonsense, looking for the exit.

If we're at the point where both sides publicly hold that it's defensible to simply make stuff up because the stakes are so high, we've abandoned all pretense of caring about the truth. Nor is the idea that it's defensible to make up any charge as long as it's somehow rebuttable much better.

Please note that Drum assumes Harry Reid must be lying, he must be making stuff up.  There's no way Harry Reid can possibly be telling the truth here, right?  How does Drum know this?  The one guy we know who has seen  Romney's tax returns, John McCain, isn't saying a damn thing.  Not only could Mitt Romney end this farce, John McCain could end this by saying "I've seen Mr. Romney's tax returns when my team vetted him in 2008, and Harry Reid is a liar."  Instead, nothing.  It looks like to me Kevin doesn't care about the truth, but he sure does care about being "right" here.

I'm not even sure how to react to my critics anymore. When a bare minimal standard of decency (no flatly invented stories) is widely mocked as pearl clutching and fainting couch-y, there aren't really any standards left aside from "whatever works." All I know is that I want no part of that.

"Whatever works" is what Romney is doing, lying about the President weakening welfare-to-work rules.  "Whatever works" and "making stuff up" is Michele Bachmann's anti-Muslim witch hunt.  "Whatever works" is the racism birther nonsense that continues years after the President put out his birth certificate, and then Republicans screaming IT'S FAKE.  Comparing any of these to Harry Reid saying "Mitt Romney paid no federal income taxes for ten years" which is  an eminently provable or disprovable thing is not only disingenuous, it's obnoxiously lazy for a reporter of Drum's bona fides.

By the way, it's really not true that every candidate for the past 40 years has released all their relevant tax information. John McCain released only a couple of years of returns, and released none of his wife's returns even though that's where the vast majority of his family's wealth lies. Likewise, John Kerry never released his wife's returns, which accounted for the vast majority of his family's wealth. I agree that Romney should release more of his tax returns, and I think it's fine for Democrats to beat him up about it. But let's keep our facts straight.

What facts?  We have no facts because the people who have the fact refuse to release them.  Kerry and McCain played these games.  They didn't end up winning for a number of reasons, but there you are.  Meanwhile, we're treating Harry Reid like he's 100% the worst liar on Earth when A) we don't have all the facts and B) Republicans actually do lie all the goddamn time.

I refuse to go after Reid over this, especially to satisfy Kevin Drum's sense of centrist honor.  If Romney proves him wrong then I will say "Harry Reid was full of crap and a liar."  But the "fact" that he's a liar has yet to be established because Romney won't release his returns.

Do we get this?

Bachmann Makes A Graves Error

Has Michelle Bachmann finally gone so far off the deep end with her one-woman Muslim Brotherhood McCarthyism that she might actually lose in November?  That's up to the folks in Minnesota's 6th, but her Democratic party opponent Jim Graves isn't wasting any time in using Bachmann's apparent meltdown to pitch himself as the Not Completely Insane Candidate.  Evan McMorris-Santoro talks to the Graves camp:

Bachmann’s baffling quest to root out Muslim infiltrators in the federal government could be the final piece in a puzzle Democrats have been trying to solve for years. This time, says hotel executive Jim Graves — the Democratic Party choice to take on Bachmann — momentum is on his side.

“It definitely has, I think, cemented people that may be in the middle that say, ‘Well you know, she’s really out there, but we need somebody to keep Congress in line,’” Graves told TPM Friday. “I think this has gone well over the edge for people.”

Graves said he’s seen an “uptick in financial support” on the ground in the 6th District as Bachmann’s quest to rid the federal government of “Islamist” infiltrators has dominated headlines. Many of Bachmann’s fellow Republicans, including her former presidential campaign manager Ed Rollins, have condemned her recent charges, especially the ones aimed at State Department staffer Huma Abedin.

Graves said he’s seen the same kind of disgust from some Republicans in Bachmann’s district. The state Republican Party did not respond to multiple requests to discuss Bachmann on Friday.

“A lot of Republicans [in the district] say, ‘This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. We just cant afford to have this uncertainty and fear-mongering and McCarthyism,’” Graves said.

Bachmann’s latest foray into the headlines has cast a new spotlight on her reelection campaign. Graves expects the controversy to drive more national money and attention to his campaign. The Democratic candidate has a net worth between $22 million and $111 million and told TPM he’s prepared to put his own money behind his bid against Bachmann, a prolific fundraiser with a national base.

Graves has the money, surely.  But anyone worth that much running on the blue side in Minnesota has got to be either the most moderate of Blue Dogs, or a die hard hippie.  Not sure which, so let's look at his stance on the issues:

Government has a role to play in society, but it should be limited to what citizens cannot do for themselves.   I believe that the free market makes better decisions than politicians. I also believe government must balance its budget and my solution is to end the blame game and start working together. As you can see, I am in the unique position of being both pro-business and pro-government. We need to get jobs back in 6th District by allowing us to compete on a level playing field with China and Mexico.  We need to close the tax loopholes that allow companies like Apple to earn billions of dollars by selling their product to us in America, while avoiding paying taxes in America.  As a successful business owner, I understand accounting. I respect bottom lines, and I am qualified to bring the necessary fiscal accountability to Washington.

I’m a CEO and I want my employees to make a good living wage. I compromise with my union. Why? The driving principle for many of my core values is the Golden Rule. If I want to earn enough to raise a family, have good health care and pay for my children’s education, the same must be true for my employees.  The other fundamental value in my decisions is pragmatic business logic. As much as two-thirds of our economy is driven by consumer spending; therefore, the more money in the pockets of the middle class, the stronger our economy will be. What our struggling economy needs more than anything is increased aggregate demand for our local goods and services.

I could think of a number of other Democrats I'd rather see in Congress other than a one percenter with nine figures, but I'm pretty sure most of you would agree that this guy is infinitely preferable to Michele Freakin' Bachmann.

We'll see.