Last Call

In GOP America, if you're hit by a flood, tornado, or say a hurricane like Isaac, you're on your own.

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) told ThinkProgress at a Hispanic Leadership Network luncheon that Republicans should take a similar approach with disaster funding for Hurricane Isaac as they did after natural disasters last year. In 2011, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) led the Republican charge to deny disaster funding following major hurricanes and tornadoes unless the federal budget was cut in other areas.

Labrador said that Congress must “readjust everything we do” in order to find cuts to pay for Hurricane Isaac disaster relief. “If there’s emergencies, we don’t always need to keep borrowing money,” said the freshman Republican.

Here's the thing. We don't need to borrow money. Disaster relief funds are already in the budget and Republicans know it.  That's why they're trying to get rid of funding disasters ahead of time.

As Hurricane Isaac bears down on the Gulf Coast, there should be plenty of money — some $1.5 billion — in federal disaster aid coffers, thanks, in part, to a new system that budgets help for victims of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods before they occur.

It's a system that Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee-to-be for vice president, had hoped to scrap as a way to make his House GOP budget look smaller by about $10 billion a year. Politely, party elders told him no way, at least for now.

Do you think that if Romney/Ryan win and the GOP gets control of the Senate that disaster relief will still exist?  What do you think?

The answer of course is that it will exist for those who vote Republican.  They're eager to give rural red state farmers hundreds of millions to make up for lost crops in this year's drought.  But urban hellholes like New Orleans?

How long can you tread water?

The Pain In Spain Continues, Part 4

Spain's recession continues, and despite all the attention on the Obama/Romney fight, it remains that Spain could strain the European plains and cause a hell of a lot of problems should things fall apart over there between now and November.

Spain’s recession worsened in the second quarter as the government’s austerity push to reduce the euro area’s third-biggest budget deficit and a slump in consumer spending offset growth in exports.

Gross domestic product fell 0.4 percent from the previous quarter, when it declined 0.3 percent, the Madrid-based National Statistics Institute said today. That’s in line with an estimate published July 30. Separately, Spain’s borrowing costs fell to the lowest in three months at an auction today after the nation’s bonds rallied this month on optimism the European Central Bank will agree on a plan to help peripheral nations.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy last month gave up on his forecast for a return to growth in 2013 as he unveiled budget cuts that will expand austerity measures to a total of 15 percent of annual GDP by 2014. He is due to host European Union President Herman Van Rompuy today for the first in a series of meetings aimed at solving the nation’s funding issues.

“We fear that things are likely to get worse before they get better,” said Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING Bank in Amsterdam, who expects Spain will seek additional financial aid as early as next month. “With much more fiscal austerity in the pipeline and unemployment at astronomic highs, the risks are clearly tilted toward a more protracted recession.”

Yeah, gosh, protracted austerity is going to cause recession and massive unemployment for the next 18 months or so, awesome.  And that's if Spain's economy doesn't crash.  This is the good scenario.

And once again, keep in mind this is exactly what the GOP says they want to do to our economy:  balance the budget through steep cuts to social programs, government services, infrastructure programs, schools, public safety, highways and bridges, and civil service.  The equivalent of what Spain is doing here, cutting the budget by 15% of GDP by 2014, would equal eliminating about $2.4 trillion dollars from the budget here in America.  There would basically be no discretionary spending, period.  It would all go away.

Basically, Rajoy is doing what the GOP say they would do if they were in charge.  But here's the thing, they would actually make a lot of these cuts, and then make trillions in tax cuts for the rich in addition.  The tax cuts would far outweigh the spending cuts, and the deficit would skyrocket upwards.

Austerity is a proven failure.  The only thing worse is the GOP's fake austerity.

My Creation, Is It Real?

It’s my creation, I do not know.

If the dream of a New Jersey group comes to fruition there could be another creationist attraction located in Northern Kentucky. 

Founders of the Creation Science Hall of Fame, which now exists only as a website, would like to develop a brick-and mortar structure along Interstate 75.

“When we have the funds, we would like to locate on the highway, about halfway between the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter,” said Terry Hurlbut, secretary/treasurer of the group. “What better place to locate than between these two attractions? We envision that as people fly or drive in to see them, we will be a stop along the way.”

Oh good, just what I needed within shouting distance of my apartment, first the Scientology Church Of Greater Cincinnati, now the Hall Of Wildly Misappropriated Science Heroes.

The Creation Science Hall of Fame was developed as a website in 2009 and is devoted to sharing the beliefs of creationism. 

It includes a directory of living and deceased inductees and a brief profile of each.

The section dedicated to deceased inductees begins with the Renaissance period.

The list includes Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Samuel F.B. Morse, Louis Pasteur and George Washington Carver.

Living inductees include Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum.

Isaac Newton’s ghost is going to knife him some Kentuckians, dammit.

On the other hand, if the place has an animatronic Nikola Tesla on a velociraptor, I’m stealing it before the place accidentally gets napalmed and covered in bees.  Evolved bees.

Lindsay Lohan, Jewel Thief

Grumbles about this have been around for a while.  I dismissed them at first, thinking it was a long step towards connecting her to a crime.  It appears it's a bit more serious than we thought at first.

Lindsay Lohan is now formally a suspect in the theft of $100,000 worth of watches and sunglasses ... law enforcement sources tell TMZ.

As TMZ first reported, Lindsay was at the Hollywood Hills home of Sam Magid a week ago when Sam called the LAPD and reported a jewelry theft.   We're told Lindsay has been at the house frequently, including at an all-night house party a week ago Sunday.

Law enforcement sources tell us ... Lindsay and her assistant Gavin Doyle are both suspects in the theft.

Now here's the twist ... We're told Sam has recanted his story and now says nothing was stolen.  But our sources say cops are not closing out the investigation because they believe they have independent witnesses who can finger Lindsay and Gavin as the thieves
.

Carrie Me Home

Some early released stills are out from the new Carrie remake.  And they look good.

I hold that Carrie is one of King's best book-to-movie translations despite the amount of storytelling that takes place in a teenage girl's private thoughts.  For the time, the effects in the classic were well done enough to be convincing, and the story was original enough to be terrifying.

The photos show a dedication to the original that is a necessity.  You can't change too much, something this iconic should be retold, not rebooted.  The prom dress and the nightgown are spot on.  While a retelling allows for some creative freedom, I pray they do justice to the ending.  There are enough improvements in special effects to allow a sharp rise in their ability.

I had no idea Julianne Moore had been cast as Carrie's psychotic mother.  I immediately was able to see how well she could portray her.  Practicing the spaced out look of Sarah Palin was surely a help.

Sorry, folks. A girl's gotta get in her digs where she can.

The Line Of The Convention So Far

Chuck Pierce reviews "You Didn't Build This!" night at the Tampa GOP Convention.

Ann Romney was sweet and lovely — and very defensive about people "attacking" hubby's success, but only as a "mom," of course — and Chris Christie brought down the house. But the Republican Party did something remarkable at its convention on Tuesday. It set out on an experiment to see exactly how much unmitigated hogwash the American political system can contain on a single evening. The Republican Party has set out at its 2012 convention in search of the Event Horizon of utter bullshit. It has sought to see precisely how many lies, evasions, elisions, and undigestible chunks of utter gobbledegook the political media can swallow before it finally gags twice and falls over dead, leaving the rest of America suckers all the same. What you didn't see in primetime, from Artur Davis to Ted Cruz, and from one 2016 contender to another, was the GOP embarking upon the task of seeing exactly how much nonsense it could produce at top volume before democracy screams and gives up, like Noriega in Panama when they played the metal music at him.

It was something to see, I'll tell you. An entire evening based on a demonstrable lie.

Ahh, and while Chuck has the GOP pegged as usual, the real line of the night, if not the convention and in fact the entire campaign was delivered by someone not on the stage at all.

An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said “This is how we feed animals” before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

Staggering racism aside, "This is how we feed the animals" pretty much sums up the entire GOP mindset for the the last 32 years, doesn't it?

Feed red meat to the base.  Feed lies to the press and the middle.  Feed contempt and hatred to the rest.  And look at the animals, the 99%, eat it up.  Durr hurr, stupid man animals will eat anything we throw at them.  Let's keep the dangerous ones locked up so we can gawk at them, and be sure to slaughter a few fatted calves so we eat well and they can rot in their pens and cages.  We're on display for their enjoyment, but never forget they'll put us down if we bite the hand that feeds us.

And a growing percentage of us think we can be the pigs in this Animal Farm before the two-legs come with the butcher's knife.  They won't cut me up, they say.  They'll cut up those other poor saps for meat.  They refuse to see we're all on the menu, but they figure the guys at the top will somehow be sated in their relentlessly greedy appetites before their turn comes.  They may be right, but the point is the Stockholm Syndrome crowd will knife us and leave us for the slaughterhouse all the same just to preserve their perceived power.

And that's the end of us.  We're all being fattened up for the table.  Only the fools can't see it.

The Only Ryan Speech You Need To See

Here's Paul Ryan discussing abortion, courtesy LGF:

Interviewer: Abortion now… something we’re talking about and I think our viewers want to know exactly where you stand, specifically, you’re pro-life, Catholic…

Ryan: Oh yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: But specifically where you stand when it comes to rape, and when it comes to the issue of, should it be legal for a woman to be able to get an abortion if she’s…

Ryan: Yeah, well, so, I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life. But let’s remember, I’m doing the Romney-Ryan ticket, and the President makes policy. The President, in this case, the future President Mitt Romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is a vast improvement of where we are right now.

To Paul Ryan,  rape is simply another method of conception.  But he's good with Mitt ending abortion and making exceptions, which the GOP will make so narrow as to be impossible to meet, thus assuring forced pregnancy for all women.  Please enjoy your little bundles of rapey joy under the Robot/Zombie '12 ticket, ladies.

You won't have much of a choice, after all.  When life hands you lemons, shut up bitch.

StupidiNews!

• Hurricane Isaac is bringing heavy flooding to low-lying areas of Louisiana as rural levees have been breached by what could be as much as 20 inches of rain.
• Ann Romney took the stage at the GOP Convention in Tampa last night to assure America's women that her husband Mitt is the kind of person who "makes her laugh".
• A three-judge federal court panel has tossed Texas's redistricting plan as clearly in violation of the Voting Rights Act, saying it disenfranchises Latino voters.
• Astronomers have discovered a distant binary star system with two planets where the entire system revolves in a complex pattern.
• Three Star Trek fans are overwhelmed by the internet support they're getting to restore the bridge set of ST:TNG from a junkyard.

Last Call

As Bon and I discussed on the podcast on Saturday, Mitt's conversion to full birther last week was no accident.  Now we get confirmation from the Romney camp that indeed the plan is damn the middle and animate as much of the asshole turnout as possible on the far right who might think that Romney isn't racist/misogynist/hateful enough to vote for him.

The battleground map has remained remarkably stable in recent months, which leaves Mr. Obama with more paths to winning 270 electoral votes and places a burden on Mr. Romney to break through in states where he so far has not. But Republicans suddenly see encouraging signs in Wisconsin after the selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan as his running mate.  Mr. Romney’s chances hinge to a large degree on running up his advantage among white voters in swing states who show deep strains of opposition to Mr. Obama but do not yet trust Mr. Romney to look out for their interests, Republican strategists say. 

Many of those voters are economically disaffected, and the Romney campaign has been trying to reach them with appeals built around an assertion that Mr. Obama is making it easier for welfare recipients to avoid work. The Romney campaign is airing an advertisement falsely charging that Mr. Obama has “quietly announced” plans to eliminate work and job training requirements for welfare beneficiaries, a message Mr. Romney’s aides said resonates with working-class voters who see government as doing nothing for them. 

The moves reflect a campaign infused with a sharper edge and overtones of class and race. On Friday, Mr. Romney said at a rally that no one had ever had to ask him about his birth certificate, and Mr. Ryan invoked his Catholicism and love of hunting. Democrats angrily said Mr. Romney’s remark associated him with the fringe “birther” camp seeking falsely to portray Mr. Obama as not American. 

In other words, the Romney camp sees that the only way forward is to play the white resentment race card as much as possible.  They literally don't have any other card to play, frankly.  Mitt Romney is that awful of a candidate, and the GOP is boldly offering the same trickled-on economics since Reagan, only repackaged and far worse for the middle and especially the lower class.  No hope, only hate.

But after all, he's just an inflatable dummy, a placeholder so that the real party bosses can have someone rubber stamp the work of crushing the last vestiges of net worth in the 95% for the bitter wine of class warfare for the wealthy.

Robot/Zombie '12.  Because You Really Hate The Black Guy(tm).

Hung Up On The Subject

David Frum gives a course in Deflection 101 when it comes to race and GOP politics as he "imagines" how white Republicans must feel (not too much of a stretch for the Canadian Frum.)  If liberals stopped pointing out how the GOP was playing the race card all the time, it wouldn't be a problem, right?

Frum's imaginary white Republican says things like:

The polls tell me that something like 100% of black Americans will vote for Barack Obama. Are they bigots because they rally to their guy? So why are we supposed to be bigots because maybe 60% of us rally to our guy?

And of course this classic:

This whole thing about us not being "diverse" enough - can we cut the crap on that? You suddenly load up the country with millions of newcomers, put them on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid and what all, put them on the voting rolls without any ID - invite them to help themselves to everything that was earned before they showed up - and what do you expect the original Americans to do?

You think we're not diverse? This is what diversity looks like: the newcomers bunching up in one party, the old stock inhabitations bunching up in the other. It's the same in Britain and in France and in Germany, and just about everywhere. You don't like it? Maybe you should have thought of that before you invited half of Mexico to move here.

Leading to this finisher:

What you want is a country where everybody looks different, and everybody thinks the same. That's what you call diversity. No thanks. You work hard, you pay your way, you quit asking for handouts, and you're American enough for me - and you'll be up there on the podium with Bobby Jindal, Allen West, Herman Cain, and Nikki Haley as a leader of the one party in this country that isn't hung up on race.

Now Frum knows folks who think this, we all do.  And if anything, Frum gives us yet another example of the Mind Of The Privileged White Person, somebody who has the luxury of never having to worry about race.  They're pissed because in 2012, race DOES matter politically, more than it ever has since the days of the civil rights movement.  When you point out that this privilege exists, people immediately get defensive and angry.  It's not a happy, pleasant thing to be forced to think about.

The real problem in the GOP isn't the racism (and it's certainly there) but the complete failure to deal with the assumption of privilege.   People don't want to discuss it.  They don't want to go there, because it's something by and large that white Americans have the privilege to turn off if they don't want to think about it, unlike basically every person of color.  It's a party of a few, awful racist assholes and a whole bunch of enablers.

Having said that, the Democrats aren't angels either.  There's all kids of assumption of privilege by white liberals too.  But one side at least has leaders, activists, and rank and file members who want to work through to ugly bits.  The other?  The other side doesn't like to even acknowledge it exists.

I personally think Frum's being too cute by half up there, and the major issue is you have a difficult time telling if Frum is being snide or serious, whether his screed is parody or real (and the difference between the two is microscopic, frankly.)  That however doesn't change the point that this really is how an awful lot of white Republicans think...and more than a few white Democrats.

In Which Tweety Remembers Which Side He's On

MSNBC's Chris Matthews, on Morning Joe, talking to RNC chair Reince Priebus.  99 times out of 100 this would be Priebus getting serviced by the court eunuch, but apparently Tweety rolled 00 on the dice Monday morning and decided he had a small shred of journalistic decency left.

“That cheap shot about ‘I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate’ was awful,” Matthews said of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney’s Friday embrace of the birther notion that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. “It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card.”

“This stuff about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest, everyone has pointed out that it’s dishonest,” he continued. “And you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle about it, but the fact is, you’re side is playing that card. You start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing, everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s a race card.”

“And this thing about birthers — yeah, if you’re name’s Romney, you were well born, you went to prep school, you can brag about it. And this [Barack Obama] guy, he’s got an African name, he’s got to live with it. … This is absurdity! Making fun of this guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue, except on the right wing.”

Priebus goes on to take shots at Matthews, but to his credit, Matthews just melts his face off.   It took long enough, but if Priebus has lost Tweety, maybe there's hope after all for the Village.

Maybe.  Also, it doesn't stop Matthews from being 100% right in his rant, too.

Go figure.

Chris Bag Of Backstabbed

Looks like the NY Post has decided that New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie has to pay for his remarks about Mitt Romney.  Et, tu, Chris?

Gov. Chris Christie wasn’t willing to give up the New Jersey statehouse to be Mitt Romney’s running mate because he doubted they’d win, The Post has learned.

Romney’s top aides had demanded Christie step down as the state’s chief executive because if he didn’t, strict pay-to-play laws would have restricted the nation’s largest banks from donating to the campaign — since those banks do business with New Jersey.

But Christie adamantly refused to sacrifice his post, believing that being Romney’s running mate wasn’t worth the gamble.

“[Christie] felt, at one point, that [President] Obama could lose this. And, look, there still is that chance. But he knows, right now, you have to say it’s unlikely,” one source said.

Yeah, I can see Chris here not wanting to give up the Governor's Mansion, but here's the wacky part.  The Romney camp is scrambling to say this isn't true.

The Romney campaign on Monday denied a new report that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't want to leave his current post to run on Mitt Romney's ticket because he was concerned they'd lose.

The New York Post reported Monday that Romney aides, in courting Christie to be Romney's running mate, told him he'd have to step down to avoid ethics problems -- namely, so that banks that do business with New Jersey could donate to the campaign. The Post said Christie did not want to step down, doubting the Romney team could win.

But Romney campaign strategist Russ Schriefer told Fox News that he personally spoke with Christie, who called the story "totally untrue." 

Two battling Rupert Murdoch media outlets with conflicting stories?  Something's amiss here on the Jersey Shore, and it's not just Snooki being a new mom.

My money's on driving interest in Christie's keynote speech for the convention this week.  No publicity like free publicity.  Must not be expecting good ratings.

We'll see.

A Blimp, A Verb, And 9/11

Ron Paul took time out of his busy schedule digging gold and burning pictures of Ben Bernanke on Sunday to remind us why he has no chance of ever being President of anything other than the Crazy Asshole Club Of America.

“Somebody — rather nationally —- said the other day on the Internet 'if those Paul people had been in charge Osama Bin Laden would still be alive.' But you know what I think the answer is? So would the 3000 people killed on 9/11 still be alive!” 

Gosh Ron, I'm sure all the 9/11 families are glad to hear that.  If it's not the Pareto 80/20 rule, Ron Paul Corollary getting in his way (20% of what Ron Paul says is sane, 80% is nucking futs) it's his preening smug ego that still wouldn't earn my vote.

I'm glad this jackass will finally be out of Congress in January.

Happy Trails To You!

Former South Carolina GOP Gov. Mark "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" Sanford has popped the question to his Argentinian mistress (and soulmate) Maria Belen Chapur at a restaurant in Palermo.

According to the Argentinian newspaper Clarín, Sanford arrived early to the Bella Italia Grill in Palermo for a lunch date last week with Maria Belen Chapur, handed a waiter a bag containing the engagement ring and told him to “make up a good story” for her while he hid in the stall.

When Chapur arrived, she was told she had won a prize for being the restaurant’s 100th customer of the day. Though she reportedly didn’t know what to make of the story, Sanford soon emerged to spring his proposal, which she accepted.

CNN published photos of Sanford with Chapur Sunday, citing a source “close to” the former governor, along with a statement confirming the engagement.

“I’m both happy and excited for what that means,” he said. “I have long expressed my feelings for her, she’s a wonderful person. My closest friends have met and love her, and I look forward to introducing her to still many more that have yet to do so.”

Oh, you remember Mark, right?

Republicans began placing Sanford in high-profile positions three years ago to groom him for a leadership role, before he seemingly vanished that June; while reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, it turned out he had been visiting Chapur in Argentina without telling his staff, or his wife.

Sanford resigned from both his governorship and as leader of the Republican Governors Association and became a national punchline. He was succeeded by Nikki Haley, his former protege.

Eh, Sanford will be back eventually.  Don't count him out for 2014 when Sen. Lindsey Graham is up for re-election.  I'm betting South Carolina Republicans would much rather have Sanford than Graham in DC.

Romney Is The Undercard, Folks

Move over, Robot/Zombie ‘12.  The real players at the RNC are the ones not running for office at all.

Nevada billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, are getting ready to create more political buzz. They have decided to attend this week’s Republican convention, CNN has learned. 

They are expected to arrive in Tampa on Monday, one source with knowledge of their plans told CNN, and will undoubtedly draw a lot of attention.

The couple will take in much of the convention activity and are expected to listen to many of the speeches, especially ones by Mitt and Ann Romney.

Least they could do is look in on the candidate they paid tens of millions for.  And if you don’t know much about Sheldon Adelson’s wife Miriam, well you should meet her.

Another possible stop for them is the “Woman Up!” Pavilion here in Tampa named in honor of Miriam Adelson. The pavilion will be the scene for a series of events and policy discussions this week and is sponsored by the YG Network, a non-profit organization aimed at supporting conservative political positions and those politicians who support them. The Woman Up! effort was launched to emphasize issues key to women. 

“Dr. Adelson is a passionate and successful woman who has balanced work and family life remarkably, and we are honored to welcome her to this effort,” Mary Anne Carter, executive director of the YG Network’s ‘Woman Up!” effort, said in a statement last week. “A renowned medical doctor, Miriam Adelson’s experiences in the Israeli Army, as a working mom, and a philanthropist equip her with a unique understanding of the challenges that women from all walks of life face.”

Uh-huh.  And it turns out the YG Network is exactly what you would expect, full of press releases about “liberal schemes” and imploring that the best thing for women in America is to cut taxes on people like the Adelsons, because this will free up money to go to deserving conservative women or something rather than those awful liberal ones, otherwise, well, everyone will have to suffer instead, you see.

Women from all walks of life have their own pavilions at the conventions, right?

StupidiNews!

• Isaac is expected to strengthen to a Category 1 or 2 storm before making landfall Tuesday and early Wednesday on the Louisiana coast, seven years to the day after Katrina.
• Minnesota's State Supreme Court has rejected the notion that the ballot measure on same-sex marriage in the state is misleading, clearing the way for a November vote.
• The daughter of Cuban vice-president Marino Murillo, Glenda Diaz, has defected to the US through Mexico and is now reportedly living in Tampa, Florida.
• As a result of last week's patent case victory over Samsung, Apple is now seeking to have a number of Samsung phones in the US banned for patent violations.
• Arctic sea ice melt has now reached record proportions with weeks to go in the warm season, with the percentage of sea ice coverage now below 2007's recorded minimum.

Last Call

So America, what happens when the talk of President Obama's re-election leading to "civil war" and "armed resistance" and "the blood of tyrants" leads to something very real and frightening?

Prosecutors say a murder case against four soldiers in Georgia has revealed they formed an anarchist militia within the U.S. military with plans to overthrow the federal government.

One of the accused troops, Pfc. Michael Burnett, pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter and gang charges in the December slayings of former soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York.

Burnett told a Long County judge that Roark, who had just left the Army, knew of the militia group’s plans and was killed because he was “a loose end.”

Prosecutor Isabel Pauley says the group bought $87,000 worth of guns and bomb-making materials and plotted to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in nearby Savannah and Washington state, as well as assassinate the president.

Gosh, you mean the people with all the guns and the training to use them to kill saying "We must resist Obama by whatever means necessary" is just meaningless talk, and our brave men and women in uniform would never act upon any dark impulses to turn on a Commander-in-Chief that was constantly referred to by an angry right-wing media as an illegitimate, America-hating tyrant who is just waiting to institute martial law, right?

Oh wait.  These people apparently did.  And they bought nearly $100k in firearms, weapons and explosives with the express intent it seems of attacking the federal government and trying to assassinate the President.

But remember, it's just talk.  That is until someone gets hurt, in which case it won't be appropriate to assign blame or even discuss the role of right-wing hate speech in America because that's "exploiting a tragedy for political gain."

So glad the right never did that say, eleven years ago next month.

Oh, and before the BOTH SIDES DO IT nonsense,  the answer to that is "no, they don't."

Isaac Aguigui, the Army private and alleged ringleader of a plot to assassinate Barack Obama and "take over" Ft. Stewart in Georgia, apparently served as a page at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minn. That's his mug shot after he was arrested for the alleged murder of Pvt. Michael Roark on the left. At right is a 2008 Reuters photo with the caption: "Republican National Convention page Isaac Aguigui watches from the edge of the floor at the start of the first session of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota September 1, 2008." 

To recap:  Guy supposedly running this plot to assassinate the President, was a page at the GOP Convention in 2008.  If the shoe had somehow been on the other foot, this would be the top news story in America for the next week.

Of course, nobody seems to care that this guy is exactly the douchebag right-wing asshole type that the Justice Department tried to warn people about in 2009.  For their trouble, the right savaged the report and the Obama administration as anti-white racists who hated America's troops.

Screw you.  These guys had tens of thousands of dollars in weapons and were going to kill Americans and go after the President because they believed what they were told, that the government is the enemy and must be stopped with lethal force.

End of line.

Collateral Damage

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – More than half the babies in University Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit one day this month were suffering from drug withdrawal — one sucking licorice-flavored morphine to ease his tremors and near-constant crying, another so sensitive to light and sound that he slept in a dark isolation room.

Kentucky has seen its hospitalizations for addicted newborns climb from 29 in 2000 to 730 last year. The state's 2,400% increase dwarfs by comparison a disturbing national rise of 330% found in a study that examined hospitalizations from 2000 to 2009. 

This is the war on drugs, folks.

So tell me again why we have the federal government chasing down marijuana stores while this runs rampant across the United States.  Tell me we shouldn't allocate our resources differently.  Tell me babies suffering is the price we should pay for this stupidity.

Joplin Mosque: A New Hope

(Reuters) - A rally for Muslims in Joplin, Missouri, drew hundreds of people on Saturday night, nearly three weeks after a local mosque was destroyed by a fire which members of the Islamic community suspect was a hate crime, the organizer of the event said.

The gathering at a city park was promoted on a Facebook page as a way to show "that love is stronger than fear or hatred."

Organizers saw the rally in part as a giving-back to the local Muslim community because their mosque was a relief center for victims of the May 2011 tornado in Joplin, which took 161 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 8,000 buildings.

This is a good sign, because my neck of the woods isn't known for its religious tolerance.  That locals are showing support is an amazing step towards redemption.  It's also a reminder to those who still secretly cheer the arsonists... we're not all like you.  Some of us are better than that.

Child. Hot Car. Again.

LOWELL, Mass. — Police are investigating the death of a 9-month-old boy found in a parked car on a hot Saturday afternoon.

The death seems to be an accident, according to the Middlesex district attorney's office, which is investigating the case. Still, police blocked off the back entrance to the home on Huntington Street.

A police source says the baby lived on the first floor of the two-story home. A group of people gathered out front while investigators worked in the back. 

Accident or not, this child is dead.  When are we going to assume people should know better and start prosecuting blatant ignorance?  It's August, for God's sake.