Last Call For Clowning Around: The Follow-Up

When this story broke, and the flow immediately turned to the clown I wondered why nobody seemed to pay any attention to the guy talking throughout the video.  The Laverne to his Shirley, as it were.  Turned out nobody said anything because they were trying to figure out how to handle the fact that it was local superintendent, Mark Ficken.

First, a story broke in which Ficken said he feared for his job.  Then an update was released saying he had been fired and an investigation had been launched regarding his behavior.  Ficken says he was unfairly blamed, and his lawyer says it was merely a matter of words of caution.

Of course, you can watch the video here.  As a whole, the incident is disgusting.  It's in poor taste, and it was completely unnecessary.  It was just plain dumb.  But another hidden lesson here is don't just play along, or you may pay the consequences.  Ficken didn't do much besides keep it going, so I don't see why he is crying about how unfair his experience has been.

Just another drop in the bucket, but a shame nonetheless.

[Zandar here.  Seems our Missouri rodeo act has a standing invitation to perform in Texas thanks to professional birther nutjob racist asshole Rep. Steve Stockman. Keep up the minority outreach, fellas!]

Doing O-Kay For Herself, Thanks

North Carolina's GOP led Visigoth sacking of state abortion and voting rights laws have produced some minor silver lining-type material in the fact that NC Dem Sen. Kay Hagan is looking significantly stronger heading into her 2014 reelection campaign.

The biggest winner coming out of the North Carolina legislative session might be Kay Hagan. She leads her two most likely Republican opponents, Thom Tillis and Phil Berger, by 8 points each at 47/39.

Beyond that though it's clear that the actions of the General Assembly this year make voters hesitant to give either of their legislative leaders a promotion. 49% of voters say they're less likely to support the Speaker of the House for the Senate because of what happened during this session to only 19% who are more likely to. And 41% are less likely to support the President Pro Tem of the State Senate for the US Senate, to 18% who are more likely to.

Tillis and Berger still have low name recognition- 44% and 38% respectively- but voters know they're unhappy with what the people in their offices did regardless of whether they know their names at this point, and that will give Hagan a lot to work with in her campaign. Overall the General Assembly has a 24% approval rating with 54% of voters disapproving of it.

Hagan has leads of 7-11 points against her other potential opponents as well. Jim Cain comes closest with a 7 point deficit at 46/39, followed by Greg Brannon (47/38), Virginia Foxx (48/39), and Mark Harris (46/37) with 9 point deficits, Heather Grant with a 10 point gap at 47/37, and Lynn Wheeler with an 11 point one at 47/36.

Virginia Foxx remains the top choice of North Carolina Republicans to be their candidate next year amidst renewed speculation that she might be interested in a bid. 

So Thom Tillis has an anvil around his neck as NC House Speaker, and Phil Berger has an equally heavy burden around his as leader of the State Senate.  And the Tea Party loonies want Virginia Foxx as a candidate?  Oh please let that happen: Hagan'll win by, well, close to double digits.  It'll be more the moment Foxx opens her mouth.  And there's this:

One thing that's quite clear is that GOP voters will be doing what they can to pull their candidates far to the right- 57% support shutting down the government unless Obamacare is defunded to only 25% who oppose that concept.

That's not going to help Foxx in the general, and it means Tillis and Berger are going to have to stake out an extremist opinion from the get-go.

Let's start this Carolina Clown Car up, shall we?

Orange (Julius) Is The New Black (Ops)

It seems House Speaker John Boehner doesn't have enough BENGHAZI!11! in his Benghazi, so he's getting a not-so-subtle reminder up in his district from some real nutjobs who he really works for.

The advocacy group Special Operations Speaks (SOS) recently announced that it is circulating a petition and would be placing billboards in Boehner’s congressional district calling out the Speaker for turning his back on the cause. “ONE MAN stands between the American people and the Watergate-style Select Committee needed to get to the truth and deliver justice. It’s not Barack Obama. It’s not Eric Holder. It’s not John Kerry either,” the email announces, “House Speaker John Boehner is the ONE MAN blocking a real investigation of Benghazi.”

“Boehner’s stonewalling is helping Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and the rest of Obama’s corrupt administration get away with the deadliest scandal in American history,” the email goes on to read, referencing the various debunked theories about the supposed cover-up. According to SOS, by not taking action on forming a special committee, Boehner “continues to help hide the truth by denying a vote to form a Select Committee.”

Orange Julius is about to get his smoothie drank, yo.  And there's more trouble in Washington waiting for him when he gets back from his summer tanning.

Boehner is also receiving push back from rank-and-file members on his unwillingness to treat Benghazi as a Watergate-level scandal. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), the leading advocate for the creation of a special committee, filed a bill to do just that, signing up 163 co-sponsors onto H.Res. 36. Boehner has refused to allow that bill to hit the floor, however, leaving it for now in the House Rules Committee. In response, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) in late July filed what’s known as a discharge petition to help get the bill out of committee and up for a vote, which SOS’s billboard urges Boehner’s constituents to call him in support of.
Stockton, Wolf, and Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) all took part in an unveiling of a 60-foot long petition — at a press conference sponsored by SOS — calling on Boehner to act swiftly on the discharge petition, an event that Fox News heavily promoted. Fox News contributor and former Congressman Allen West (R-FL) has also weighed in on the matter, accusing Boehner and other Republicans of complicity in the alleged “cover-up” for not supporting the special committee. The Speaker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discharge petition and the billboards going up in Ohio.

The most comically inept "House leader" in decades continues his tangerine-tinged tumble from the heights of power.  If his own party is openly coming after him at this point over not being rabid enough on Benghazi, things are going to get real interesting later on.

StupidiNews!

• Egyptian military forces have made good on their threat to move in and break up camps of pro-Morsi demonstrators using force, with protesters claiming hundreds dead.
• California state lawmakers have taken the next steps towards approving legislation that would revoke the tax-exempt status of the Boy Scouts of America over discrimination against gay scoutmasters.
• New analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds the average person buying individual health insurance on state exchanges will receive $2,700 in tax credit towards the purchase.
• Out of all the top-paid corporate executives at S&P 500 companies last year only 8% were women, and they earned 18% less than their average male counterparts.
• The answer to the age-old tech question of "It's the future, where's my jetpack" appears to be "In New Zealand."

Last Call For The I-Word

Republicans really need to stop assuming nobody's paying attention to their town hall meetings.  Take Rep. Brent Farenthold of Texas, for example.

Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold said that Republicans could secure the votes to impeach Barack Obama in the House of Representatives. Farenthold was speaking at an open house held at a Civic Center in Luling, Texas, Saturday according to a YouTube video description and the Congressman’s online schedule. His answer came from a constituent’s question about conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate.

“I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue,” Farenthold said. “The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into it and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.”

“You tie into a question I get a lot: ‘If everyone’s so unhappy with the president’s done, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold continued. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.” 

On what grounds, Congressman?  You actually have to have a legal, Constutional reason to impeach.  Nice to know then that Republicans in the House would be willing to apparently make a few reasons up to impeach the President, knowing full well they'd never get the 67 votes necessary in the Senate to convict and remove.

But sure, Republicans.  Keep talking about impeachment and government shutdowns like the clowns you are.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Donald Trump:  still a racist, birther moron.

Correspondent Jonathan Karl asked the former presidential candidate about his pursuit of Obama's birth certificate, suggesting it made him look not serious.

“Why does that make me not serious? I think that resonated with a lot of people,” Trump said.

Karl pressed if Trump still believes Obama was not born in the United States.

“I have no idea," Trump said. "I don’t know, was there a birth certificate? You tell me. You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows. And you don’t know either.”

“I'm pretty convinced he was born in the United States,” Karl replied, which prompted Trump to jump in and seize on "pretty convinced."

Karl then said he believed Obama was born in the U.S. "without question.".

“Jonathan, you said you’re pretty convinced, OK? So let’s just see what happens,” Trump said.

Also still inexplicably employed by the "liberal" NBC, still taken seriously as a political candidate for higher office, still the best example of who Republicans really are, and still has a dead weasel on his head.

Steve King Of The Melonheads

Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King refuses to let go of his hatred towards undocumented Latinos, and won't until he's forced to by voters.

In what became a heated argument, Rep. Steve King on Sunday once again defended his controversial remarks about drug smugglers among immigrants who could be legalized under the DREAM Act, setting off a tense exchange with Republican strategist Ana Navarro.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Iowa Republican was asked to a respond to a his remarks that “for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

King said his statements were accurate and have been misconstrued.

"My numbers have not been debunked. I said valedictorians compared to people who would be legalized under the act that are drug smugglers coming across the border. My characterization was exclusively to drug smugglers," King said.

Host David Gregory said the remark had been debunked in that it was impossible to know how many valedictorians or drug smugglers would be involved in the DREAM Act.

“Then, what's their number? How many valedictorians do they suggest? And I’ll tell you, I've seen the drug smugglers," King said. "For this to be characterized by Dick Durbin as valedictorians, I'm telling the American people that I recognize that. … But this proposes to legalize a lot of people that will include the people who are drug smugglers up to the age of 35.”

It was at this point on MTP that GOP strategist Ana Navarro tore King a new one.

“I think Congressman King should go get some therapy for his melon fixation. I think there might be medication for that. I think he's a mediocre congressman with no legislative record and the only time he makes national press is when he comes out and says something offensive about the undocumented or Hispanics,” Navarro said, saying he’s been “helpful” to the debate by getting other Republicans to denounce his remarks.

Gregory brought King back to allow him to respond.

“First of all, I spoke only of drug smugglers. And if Ana understands the language, she should know that. I didn't insult her or other Republicans,” King said.

“I’m not undocumented, congressman, I vote,” Navarro interjected.

This is a Republican politico saying this to King on a Sunday show, no less.  Not that he didn't deserve every ounce of Navarro's scorn, of course.  But the larger message is that any sort of Latino outreach by Republicans like Navarro is 100% worthless as long as the GOP remains the party of Steve King and the dozens of assholes like him.

Navarro knows this full well, and she's rightfully furious.  Steve King makes her job impossible.

I have no sympathy for Navarro, however.  You chose to align yourself with racists like King, now you're learning the hard way why King is irredeemable.  Good luck with your Sisyphean efforts, and don't let the boulder roll you down on the way to 2016.

StupidiNews!

• The jury in the trial of reputed Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger has returned a guilty verdict on 31 of 32 counts, including involvement in 11 murders.
• Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk unveiled a new "open source" transportation project named "Hyperloop" which could theoretically transport riders from LA to SF in 30 minutes.
• A McClatchy study shows that in nearly 40 years of existence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has never tried to declassify documents itself, even though it can try.
• Newark Mayor Cory Booker heads into today's New Jersey Senate special primary election with a massive lead and is expected to easily win the October 16th general election.
• BlackBerry says it's exploring putting itself up for sale as sales of the BlackBerry X10 phone have not met expectations.

Last Call For Stop And Frisk

This morning a federal judge in New York dropped a brutal ruling against the NYPD's awful "Stop and Frisk" program, stating it violates a number of civil rights, and ordered the program to be monitored by an outside party.

In a decision issued on Monday, the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, ruled that police officers have for years been systematically stopping innocent people in the street without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. Officers often frisked these people, usually young minority men, for weapons or searched their pockets for contraband, like drugs, before letting them go, according to the 195-page decision.

These stop-and-frisk episodes, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, according to the ruling. It also found violations with the 14th Amendment.

To fix the constitutional violations, Judge Scheindlin of Federal District Court in Manhattan said she intended to designate an outside lawyer, Peter L. Zimroth, to monitor the Police Department’s compliance with the Constitution.

The decision to install Mr. Zimroth, a partner in the New York office of Arnold & Porter, LLP, and a former corporation counsel and prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will leave the department under a degree of judicial control that is certain to shape the policing strategies under the next mayor.

The ruling, in Floyd v. City of New York, follows a two-month nonjury trial earlier this year over the department’s stop-and-frisk practices. 

This is pretty huge, frankly.  And it should, in a perfect world, bring an end to Stop and Frisk for good in NYC, because there's no way the program doesn't violate the 4th and 14th Amendments.  We'll see what the NYPD does in response, but anything other than "end the program" is just going to make it worse for everybody.

Let's put this one down, guys.

Speaking of Bull...

This facepalm comes to you courtesy of my home state.  In Sedalia, Missouri the state fair is going on.  Though I'm not sure how it works in civilized parts of the country, it's still a fairly big deal here, with crowds and family traditions planned around the event.  And now, I'll always have a dollop of shame when thinking of the midway and the families smiling and laughing.

During the rodeo show, a clown with an Obama mask (yeah, it's just as racist as you just thought) went out in the crowd while the announcer and others cheered for him to get hit by the bull.  It wasn't "just in fun" and it wasn't a single errant comment that caused the problem.

“They mentioned the president’s name, I don’t know, 100 times. It was sickening,” Beam said. “It was feeling like some kind of Klan rally you’d see on TV.”

On Sunday evening, Kari Mergen, Missouri State Fair spokeswoman, told the News-Leader that the Mark Ficken, president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, was an announcer at the rodeo. It was unclear whether Ficken’s voice was the one heard on the video.

In a statement sent by Mergen, the fair denounced the incident.

“The performance by one of the rodeo clowns at Saturday’s event was inappropriate and disrespectful, and does not reflect the opinions or standards of the Missouri State Fair. We strive to be a family friendly event and regret that Saturday’s rodeo badly missed that mark,” the statement reads.

Glad to hear that the guy who said it can't be bothered to apologze.  I don't know Kari Mergen personally, but she deserves a medal for even giving a modest attempt at burying this turd of an event.  Claire McCaskill expressed her displeasure, and Jay Nixon had nothing nice to say.

This was nothing more than a blackface routine with a recognizable black face.  Missouri has a long, racist history and at times like this I wonder if we will ever climb out of the pit we've dug for ourselves as a state. It is so difficult to raise free-thinking and intelligent kids in a region where you can't be safe from hate... even at a time-honored  event like the state fair.

Congressional Freshmen For Sale

Gotta get the new crop of freshmen in the House while they're young and impressionable.  Just ask Kentucky's Andy Barr of KY-6 in the central part of the state.

Mr. Barr, 40, a first-time elected official, has raised nearly as much money this year from political action committees run by major banks, credit unions and insurance companies as longtime lawmakers like Speaker John A. Boehner and other party leaders. 

The flood of financial industry cash — $150,000 in political action committee donations to Mr. Barr in just six months — is hardly an accident. 

One afternoon in April, Mr. Barr hosted credit union lobbyists and executives in his House office just before a committee hearing, promising that he would help protect a federal tax break worth $500 million a year, the executives said. Last month, he introduced legislation to eliminate a new federal rule intended to prevent banks from issuing mortgages to customers who could not afford to repay the debt — a measure pushed by bank lobbyists who had visited his office. 

“People support him because they agree with him,” Catherine Gatewood, Mr. Barr’s spokeswoman, said after he declined requests for an interview. 

Sure they do.  Andy Barr's district includes Powell and Estill Counties, places with nearly 25% poverty rates.  And he's wanting to make it easier for banks to commit predatory lending there and to remove protections for his constituents.  Why?  Because the banking industry paid him $150,000 to do so.  Chump change when you're buying an ally for a half a billion dollar tax cut.

But it's not just Republican freshmen cashing in, oh no.

The imbalance is apparent on the Democratic side as well. Each of the seven freshman Democrats on the committee has raised more industry PAC money so far this year than the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters of California, who has had a testy relationship with the industry. 

These freshman Democrats joined this year with Republicans on the committee — over the objection of Ms. Waters and the Obama administration — to support measures advocated by Wall Street banks that would roll back some of the strictest provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which were passed in 2010 in the aftermath of the global recession. 

A spokeswoman for Representative Patrick Murphy, a Florida Democrat who has taken in more industry PAC money than any other Democratic freshman, $53,500, said his votes had been cast based on what he believed was in the best interest of his constituents, not to please potential contributors. But she agreed that the pressure to raise money was intense. 

“The system is what the system is,” said Tiffany Muller, Mr. Murphy’s deputy chief of staff, adding that her boss supported changing campaign finance rules. 

People wonder how we have 90-95% of incumbents get re-elected to an institution with a 9% approval rating.  It's because your Representative gets bought within weeks and spends all their time fundraising from lobbyists to stay in the House. 

Maybe we want to do something about that, yes?

StupidiNews!

• American missionary Kenneth Bae, captured by North Korea and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, has been hospitalized, according to his sister.
• Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce a major new initiative to change federal prosecutions of non-violent drug offenders to eliminate mandatory prison sentences.
• The State Department has reopened embassies closed last week due to terror threats, but embassies in Pakistan and Yemen remained closed.
• Economists are cautiously expecting slight growth in the Eurozone economy for 2Q 2013, after six straight quarters of recession.
• Apple's next iPhone reveal is expected September 10th, according to sources, with a completely revamped iOS7.

Last Call For The Cruz Revolution

You really do have to wonder about the wisdom of a politician calling on his supporters to rise up against America over affordable health care, but Ted Cruz will play this con game for as long as he can.

Sen. Ted Cruz on Saturday continued his call for cutting off funding for President Barack Obama's health care law and told conservative Christians that congressional lawmakers can't be counted on to do it.

The Texas Republican, a tea-party favorite and a possible presidential candidate in 2016, drew a standing ovation at the Family Leadership Summit with his denouncement of the health care initiative labeled "Obamacare" by its critics.

"That reaction right there shows how we win this fight," Cruz said. "If I was sitting in the Senate cloakroom, the reaction would be fundamentally different. If we have to depend on Washington, it will never be done."

As he has in remarks to other conservatives, Cruz asserted that a grassroots effort would be needed. "The only way we win this fight is if the American people rise up and hold our elected officials accountable," he said.

So here's Cruz, saying "We need to shut down the government over Obamacare" and admitting that will never happen, but they are cheering him on anyway.  Of course, if you're wondering why the logical disconnect, remember these are "Christians" whose idea of "Christianity" is "making people suffer on purpose".

They just want those people to be hurt, that's all.  Cruz will be able to ride that train for the rest of his career, and he'll never have to deliver.

Another Honey Badger Moment

Winger blogs are screaming this morning that Sen. Harry Reid has "finally given us the truth about fascist Obamacare" or something.  The news?  Reid mentioned in a panel discussion Fiday on a Las Vegas PBS show that Obamacare is a step towards single payer health care.

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

The idea of introducing a single-payer national health care system to the United States, or even just a public option, sent lawmakers into a tizzy back in 2009, when Reid was negotiating the health care bill.

“We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system,” Reid said on the PBS program, recalling how then-Sen. Joe Lieberman’s opposition to the idea of a public option made them abandon the notion and start from scratch.

Eventually, Reid decided the public option was unworkable.

“We had to get a majority of votes,” Reid said. “In fact, we had to get a little extra in the Senate, we have to get 60.”

Reid cited the post-WWII auto industry labor negotiations that made employer-backed health insurance the norm, remarking that “we’ve never been able to work our way out of that” before predicting that Congress would someday end the insurance-based health care system.

Only if you haven't paid any attention whatsoever to the debate over Obamacare on the left is this actually news in the sense that it is a new development.  Again, the public option and single payer debate came up in 2009 and early 2010.  Oh, but look who we're talking about suffering from epistemic closure?

And yes, these idiots are calling it fascism.  How horrible to have health care coverage from your government.

Republican Muscleheads

Since conservatives have gotten rid of voter suppression for us and we no longer need the Voting Rights Act, and that everyone gets health care in America so we don't need to expand Medicaid, it's also comforting to know that they've gotten rid of poor people and hunger in America, so we don't need SNAP benefits and food programs.

At a town hall in Welch, OK on Thursday, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) called for the outright elimination of aid programs for low-income Americans, claiming that he has witnessed food stamp fraud firsthand. Mullin said he would like to “do away with a lot of these programs” because they allow people to slack off.

“The food programs are designed to take care of people who can’t work, not won’t work. And we all know those people that won’t work, right?” he asked the audience. “They’re abusing the program, and we’ve got to get them off of it.”

Of course, 618,000 Oklahomans are on SNAP which comes out to one in six, and due to the expiration of the SNAP boost from the 2009 Recovery Act, SNAP benefits are already due for a substantial cut across the board in November.  But of course, none of the people in that town hall meeting could possibly be one of those people.  (PS, Welch, OK is in Craig County, where about 20% of residents are on SNAP benefits as of 2011.  I'm sure those numbers are higher now.  But they're all frauds, right?)

"So I’m in Crystal City and I’m buying my groceries…and I noticed everybody was giving that card. They had these huge baskets, and I realized it was the first of the month. But then I’m looking over, and there’s a couple beside me. This guy was built like a brick house. I mean he had muscles all over him. He was in a little tank top and pair of shorts and really nice Nike shoes. And she was standing there, and she was all in shape and she looked like she had just come from a fitness program. She was in the spandex, and you know, they were both physically fit. And they go up in front of me and they pay with that card. Fraud. Absolute 100% all it is is fraud…it’s all over the place. And there you go, to the fact that we shouldn’t be supporting those who won’t work. They’re spending their money someplace."

So there you go, America.  Republicans have already established as "fact" that people who are fat can't possibly need food stamps, and now we know people who are fit can't possibly need food stamps, so really nobody needs them.

Here's the truth:

Meanwhile, many of those who receive SNAP benefits (from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps) work: More than 40 percent of recipients live in a household with earnings. Those who don’t work are likely to be under 18 or over 60. In fact, strict eligibility requirements for the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program have disqualified one in four food insecure households for being too high-income, and are allowing at least 50 million people to go hungry. Regardless, House Republicans are gunning for more cuts that would kick millions more families off the vital program.

And Republicans like Rep. Mullin here want to trash the program completely.  Because our real problem is we spend too much money on poor people. Starve them all, let God and religious charites decide who's worthy, right?

You know, not those people.

Last Call For Ezra Klein's Credibility

I like Ezra Klein.  He's intelligent, he brings facts and debate to his discussions, and he's good at picking out the wheat from the chaff, unlike most pundits.

But he has one massive blind spot in that regard, and just like his friend Chris Hayes (who Klein covered for this week on All In) that blind spot is anything to do with the Dudebro Defector.  Klein on President Obama's press conference Friday:

Obama began the news conference by announcing a series of reforms meant to increase the transparency of, and the constraints on, the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. They included reforms to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which enables the collection of telephone metadata; changes to the powerful surveillance courts to ensure ”that the government’s position is challenged by an adversary”; declassification of key NSA documents; and the formation of “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies.”

“What makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation,” Obama said. “It’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.”

OK, now, since this is what everyone has been asking the President to do, you would think that would be at least a point in his favor.  But what immediately follows is some very familiar goalpost-moving behavior we expect to see from the hard right:

If that’s so, then Edward Snowden should be hailed as a hero. There’s simply no doubt that his leaks led to more open debate and more democratic process than would’ve existed otherwise.

Obama reluctantly admitted as much. “There’s no doubt that Mr. Snowden’s leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board,” he said, though he also argued that absent Snowden, “we would have gotten to the same place, and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways that we are able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country.”

As Tim Lee writes, this is dubious at best. Prior to Snowden’s remarks, there was little public debate — in part because the federal government was preventing it.

So, zero credit for Obama, the guy who defected to Russia (a country that just passed laws making it illegal to have an opinion supporting LGBTQ people) with tons of juicy NSA info on methods and means is a hero, and Klein, who is a journalist and print and TV media figure, is complaining about the stifling of debate.  Awesome.

I always enjoy pundits talking about the stifling of debate, as if pundits talking about things wasn't debate, and that President Obama had a gun to their heads.  It's disingenuous enough when right-wing hacks do it, but Ezra Klein knows better, and he's gone right off the cliff.  I didn't think I'd be putting him in the Village Stupidity category anytime soon, but if he really was going to have a serious debate about the US, Russia, and the NSA, this is nowhere close.

The Death Of Immigration Reform Isn't So Simple

I've given Greg Sargent grief before on his premise that the GOP's relationship with immigration reform is somehow more complicated than demographics, racism, and Obama Derangement Syndrome, but Sargent attempted a defense of his case on Thursday morning.

The chances that comprehensive immigration reform will ever pass the House  are very slim. However, the easy conventional wisdom about what’s happening now — which holds that the conservative base controls the outcome completely, that the death of reform is preordained, and that House Republicans are only looking for a way to kill reform blamelessly — is overly simplistic and is increasingly looking like it’s just wrong.

To understand what’s really happening, the key question to ask is: Are House Republicans just playing for time, or are they actually grappling with the issue of immigration reform and what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants?

My answer to that question is the former.  Time and again, Republicans have shown that they aren't interested in governance, merely bomb-throwing rhetoric and obstruction.  If they can't completely control every aspect of legislation, they'll exact whatever price they can and burn the rest down.  It's been this way since 2006, and it will continue.  So what's Greg's theory that this time is different?

In a story that deserves a bit of play today, the Daily Pilot reports that California Rep. Kevin McCarthy — who as the GOP whip is a member of the House leadership team — addressed immigration reform in a meeting of constituents. In some ways, what he said wasn’t surprising: He repeated that the borders must be secure first, and stopped short of supporting citizenship.

But McCarthy came out for legal status, crucially putting it this way: “What you then have to address is the 11 million that are here considered illegal.” This comes after GOP Reps. Aaron Schock and Daniel Webster also embraced varying but significant levels of reform earlier this month.

OK, I can see why a California Republican would see immigration reform in particular as important.  But that means McCarthy is the exception to the rule.  Remember, we have multiple Republicans who have openly said that if the leadership brings the Senate bill up for a vote, Orange Julius will be replaced.

ABC News gets it right today: “Republicans may be changing minds on reform.” Is this all a big ruse designed to make Republicans look serious about the issue before killing reform outright? Maybe. But maybe not. As Simon Rosenberg suggests, we should treat all of this seriously, acknowledging Republicans have been entrenched in an anti-amnesty position for years and that it is at least possible that House Republicans (perhaps for purely political reasons, but that would be movement nonetheless) will grapple with how to move from there to support for reform.

Those who glibly say reform is definitely dead no matter what will read the above as optimism. It isn’t optimism at all: far and away the most likely outcome remains that reform will die. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t describe what’s happening now accurately. And the conventional wisdom has it wrong.

OK, so granted, there's a slim chance it'll pass instead of no chance.  That is significant from a journalism and political viewpoint, yes.  From a practical viewpoint, no.

But Sargent is correct on the technical issues.  Not that it's going to help.  For instance, if this claim by Dem Luis Gutierrez is true, then there's a direct danger to allowing the Senate bill to come up in the House:  it would pass easily.

Forty to 50 House Republicans will support immigration reform, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) predicted Thursday.

Gutierrez said many of the Republicans supportive of immigration reform don’t want to be identified, but he insisted they would support comprehensive immigration reform.

“If they ask me today, go find those 40 to 50 Republicans, I’ll tell them I found them. I know where they’re at,” Gutierrez said in an interview with Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post.

End game, right there.  So no, the Senate bill will never get a vote, and the House GOP will play out the clock.

Meanwhile, In The Echo Chamber Of Rand Paul's Mind...

Rand Paul's interview with Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green is something to behold, folks.  And by "something to behold" I mean "another in a long line of idiotic positions that immediately disqualify him from the White House."

What is your plan to refashion the GOP to draw more minority and younger voters?

All voters, but particularly young people, and often young people who are African American or Hispanic, I think they have a sense of justice, and they sometimes mistrust government with achieving justice. So one of the big issues that I’ve fought here is getting rid of the provision called indefinite detention. This is the idea that an American citizen could be accused of a crime, held indefinitely without charge, and actually sent from America to Guantánamo Bay and kept forever.

I think there is something in that message of justice and a right to a trial by jury and a right to a lawyer that resonate beyond the traditional Republican Party and will help us to grow the Republican Party with the youth. Defending the Internet’s privacy, these are all things that broaden the appeal of Republicans.

Sure, because when I think about how minorities are mistreated by the American justice system, I first think of indefinite detention in Gitmo.  That's going to resonate more than stop and frisk, Trayvon Martin, gun murders, the Voting Rights Act being destroyed, etc.  Awesome.

A recent article in the New Republic said your budget would eviscerate the departments of Energy, State, Commerce, EPA, FDA, Education, and many others. Would Americans support that?

My budget is similar to the Penny Plan, which cuts 1 percent a year for five or six years and balances the budget. Many Americans who have suffered during a recession have had to cut their spending 1 percent, and they didn’t like doing it, but they were able to do it to get their family’s finances back in order. I see no reason why government can’t cut 1 percent of its spending.

And when Americans figure out all those pennies are coming from only Energy, the EPA, the FDA, Education, and not the Pentagon, they might protest.

But the end takes the cake:

Who would your ideal Fed chairman be?
Hayek would be good, but he’s deceased.

Nondead Fed chairman.
Friedman would probably be pretty good, too, and he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.

Dead, too.
Yeah. Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.

Can we stop pretending that Rand Paul is anything other than a massive embarrassment my state is stuck with until 2017?

Last Call For The Odious Patrick McHenry

Ahh yes, the Congressman of the Zandarparents, good ol' The Odious Patrick McHenry.  Of course he was going to have a town hall meeting bashing Obamacare in blood-red NC-10.

Only, the best laid plans of mice and men...

In Washington, D.C., Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) issues countless press releases boasting about his votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, insisting that his constituents in North Carolina are clamoring for relief from the law. But during a town hall in Swannanoa on Wednesday, voters confronted the five-term Congressman with an entirely different sentiment: they demanded to know why Republicans would take away the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions without offering any credible other alternative for reforming the health care system. One grieving mother, who spoke to reporters before the event, said that her son was denied insurance because of a pre-existing health condition and eventually died of colon cancer. 

Oops.  You know Patrick, there are real people out there in towns like Mooresville, Lincolnton, Swannanoa and Hickory.  The area where I grew up got the crap kicked out of them in the 80's when textiles went under, in the 90's when NAFTA shipped industrial manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and in the Oughts when the dot-com bust took out the fiber optic cable plants, and it got crapped on again by the financial crisis here in the 2010's.  So yeah, you might want to remember that.

McHenry did offer a prescription for insuring individuals with pre-existing conditions, suggesting that sicker people who are cherry picked out of coverage on the individual market, should enroll in high-risk pools. The comment elicited boos from the crowd, as the plans, which are only open to sick people, are usually “unaffordable, unavailable or ineffective for many of those who most need health insurance.” The Affordable Care Act included a temporary program that failed to attract enough applicants and several states have experimented with similar initiatives. 

Sorry, Pat.  Here in the Unifour, people know what it's like to be out of work and to struggle with health care and insurance costs.  We happen to think the individual benefits of Obamacare are pretty damn necessary, even when we hate calling it Obamacare.

And if there's hope for health care reform even in fire-engine red NC-10, the rest of the country is asking what the Republicans plan to do after a repeal of Obamacare, too.

The Turtle Gets Shelled (By Friendly Fire)

The only thing better than Mitch McConnell getting panned by his opponents is Mitch McConnell getting panned by his own campaign director.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) campaign manager said he's begrudgingly working in his current capacity to help the presidential prospects of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), according to an explosive phone recording that surfaced Thursday.

In the recording, obtained by Economic Policy Journal, Jesse Benton — who ran Paul's successful 2010 campaign before joining McConnell's team — told conservative activist Dennis Fusaro that he has an ulterior motive in working the GOP leader's 2014 campaign.

"Between you an me, I'm sorta holding my nose for two years," Benton said in the recording, "'cause what we're doing here is gonna be a big benefit to Rand in '16."

Oh my.  Damage control teams to the bridge!

Benton pushed back forcefully, issuing a statement to denounce the recording and reiterate his commitment to McConnell's campaign.

"It is truly sick that someone would record a private phone conversation I had out of kindness and use it to try to hurt me," he said in the statement. "I believe in Senator McConnell and am 100 percent committed to his re-election. Being selected to lead his campaign is one of the great honors of my life and I look forward to victory in November of 2014."

Needless to say, Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin's crew wasted zero time in jumping all over this one.

Even Mitch McConnell's campaign manager thinks Sen. McConnell isn't conservative and is holding his nose for 2 years #kysen...
— Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) August 8, 2013

And of course, Kentucky is the national laughing stock of political shenanigans once again.

YES! RT @darth: ok evan http://t.co/ZZ2QhiNcO3
— E McMorris-Santoro (@EvanMcSan) August 8, 2013

But you know, it's worth it to be reminded there's 15 more months of high-larious EPIC FAIL ahead.