Last Call For Uncle Jesse

Talk about your Labor Day weekend news dumps.

Mitch the Turtle's campaign manager, Jesse Benton, is resigning under a huge cloud of scandal.

Benton said he offered his resignation, effective Saturday, with a "heavy heart."

He maintained his innocence, faulting "inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors."

"This decision breaks my heart, but I know it is the right thing for Mitch, for Kentucky and for the country," Benton said.

Benton's name has surfaced in connection to a bribery scandal dating to his time as former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's political director during the 2012 presidential election.

On Wednesday, former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson pleaded guilty to accepting $73,000 from Paul's campaign in exchange for his endorsement and to obstruction of justice for lying about his involvement.

Sorenson's guilty plea included two sealed documents, which could threaten to involve Benton.

In a statement provided first to the Herald-Leader, Benton said there "is no more important cause for both Kentucky, my new home I have come to love, and our country than electing Mitch McConnell Majority Leader of the United States Senate."

"I believe this deep in my bones, and I would never allow anything or anyone to get in the way," Benton wrote. "That includes myself."

Ron Paul's campaign was crooked as hell, and Benton ran that show in 2012.  Now it's caught up to him and everyone is wondering just how corrupt and rotten Benton's campaign for McConnell is.  And frankly, for all the "McConnell is too shrewd a political operator to lose to a neophyte like Grimes" conventional wisdom, hiring Benton turned out to be his biggest mistake so far of a campaign filled with missteps.

Oh, and let's not forget Benton started out running Rand Paul's campaign in 2010.  You have to wonder about just how many bodies Benton knows are buried.  Odds are he put them there.

Now McConnell has to spend the rest of the campaign explaining why his campaign manager was a crook, and why he hired him in the first place.  Hell, it might be enough to sink his campaign.

We'll see.  But I feel a lot better about Alison Grimes's chances now.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/29/3402571_mitch-mcconnells-campaign-manager.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

A Keystone Of Obamacare

We've finally reached the point where a GOP governor facing re-election is in such dire straits that he's doing what was once thought impossible just six months ago:  striking a deal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.  Greg Sargent:

In another sign that the politics of Obamacare continue to shift, the Medicaid expansion is now all but certain to come to another big state whose Republican governor had previously resisted it: Pennsylvania. 

The federal government has approved Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s application for the state’s own version of the Medicaid expansion, without a handful of the conditions Corbett had hoped to impose, Dem sources tell me. 

Corbett just announced that he will accept the expansion that has been offered, perhaps with some last-minute changes — expanding coverage and subsidies to as many as half a million people. 

This comes after months of jockeying between Corbett and the federal government. Corbett had pushed for a version of the expansion that would have imposed various conditions designed to make it more palatable to conservatives and to achieve political distance from Obamacare — while simultaneously taking all that federal money. Among them: Using the cash to pay for private coverage for the poor.

According to a Dem familiar with the deal, the version the feds signed off on does not give Corbett some of the things he wanted. In various ways, it is not a true “Private Option,” like the one in Arkansas. Corbett previously dropped the work requirement he’d sought, and did not get a weakening of consumer protections in Medicaid or a “lockout” provision that would have nixed coverage to those who miss a premium payment, the Dem confirms.

And Corbett is dying in the polls.  He's down by one measure by as much as 25 points right now.

The latest indignity: A new Franklin & Marshall College poll shows Corbett winning the support of just 24 percent of Pennsylvania voters. That's right, an incumbent … at 24 percent. That's just not something you see — like ever. 

Now, that actually sounds a little worse than it is. F&M polling routinely has many more undecided voters than most polls (about one-quarter in this poll), which means Corbett is at just 24 percent but only trails by 25 points (only!), 49-24. That's not quite the same as being down 70-24 or something like that. 

But that's still 25 points. And as we have written, it's pretty uncommon for a sitting governor to lose reelection, much less get swamped.

Republican governors in states that went for Obama in 2012 are in real trouble across the board (the exceptions being John Kasich in Ohio and Pat McCrory in NC).  Corbett in Pennsylvania, Rick Scott in Florida, Paul LePage in Maine, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin are all in the fights of their political lives.  Republican governors in red states are hurting too.  Nikki Haley is facing a tough race in South Carolina, and so is Nathan Deal in neighboring Georgia.  Even Sam Brownback in Kansas is in trouble.

And all of these governors, with the exceptions of Corbett (and Kasich, who's still trying to split the middle), have come out against Medicaid expansion, costing millions of voters affordable healthcare.

Now even Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee wants to expand Medicaid.

In 2014 Republicans are going to talk about repeal, but it'll never happen.  And you'll see more and more red states throw in the towel and take the money.

Where Are The Women, Karl Rove Asked

Republicans are still trying to figure out why women hate the GOP, so Karl Rove and some of his buddies paid for a pretty detailed study as to why there's a massive gender gap that favors women voting for Democrats.  The results are pretty hysterical, frankly.

A detailed report commissioned by two major Republican groups — including one backed by Karl Rove — paints a dismal picture for Republicans, concluding female voters view the party as “intolerant,” “lacking in compassion” and “stuck in the past.”
Women are “barely receptive” to Republicans’ policies, and the party does “especially poorly” with women in the Northeast and Midwest, according to an internal Crossroads GPS and American Action Network report obtained by POLITICO. It was presented to a small number of senior aides this month on Capitol Hill, according to multiple sources involved.

I can't imagine why that would be, with Republicans vowing to eliminate affordable health care under the ACA, trying to shut down abortion clinics in dozens of states, refusing to raise the minimum wage and basically pretending that only married women with kids, living in the exurbs matter.

The report is blunt about the party’s problems. It says 49 percent of women view Republicans unfavorably, while just 39 percent view Democrats unfavorably.

It also found that Republicans “fail to speak to women in the different circumstances in which they live” — as breadwinners, for example. “This lack of understanding and acknowledgment closes many minds to Republican policy solutions,” the report says. The groups urge Republicans to embrace policies that “are not easily framed as driven by a desire to aid employers or ‘the rich.’”

Two policies former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promoted as a way to make inroads with middle-class women and families — charter schools and flexible work schedules — were actually the least popular policies among female voters.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that every male Republican senator voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act every time it was brought up in the last six years, and that Republicans consider single women, especially working single women, to be immoral and dirty.  Maybe it has to do with Republicans happily embracing the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling that your boss gets to decide if they cover birth control because of religion, when the law says it gets covered.

I'm just spitballing here.

When female voters are asked who “wants to make health care more affordable,” Democrats have a 39 percent advantage, and a 40 percent advantage on who “looks out for the interests of women.” Democrats have a 39 percent advantage when it comes to who “is tolerant of other people’s lifestyles.”

Female voters who care about the top four issues — the economy, health care, education and jobs — vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Most striking, Democrats hold a 35-point advantage with female voters who care about jobs and a 26 percent advantage when asked which party is willing to compromise. House Republicans say jobs and the economy are their top priorities.

You don't say.  35, 40 point advantages for Democrats among women.  And what's the GOP response?

The groups suggest a three-pronged approach to turning around their relationship with women. First, they suggest the GOP “neutralize the Democrats’” attack that Republicans don’t support fairness for women. They suggest Republican lawmakers criticize Democrats for “growing government programs that encourage dependency rather than opportunities to get ahead.” That message tested better than explaining that the GOP supports a number of policies that could help fairness for women.

Second, the groups suggest Republicans “deal honestly with any disagreement on abortion, then move to other issues.” And third, “pursue policy innovations that inspire women voters to give the GOP a ‘fresh look.’” The report suggests lawmakers and candidates inject “unexpected” GOP policy proposals into the debate as a way to sway female voters. Suggestions include ways to improve job-training programs, “strengthening enforcement against gender bias in the workplace” and “expanding home health care services by allowing more health care professionals to be paid by Medicare for home health services.”

Yes, because "fairness for women" apparently means "You don't want to be seen as a lazy whore on government programs, do you?"  The GOP plan is literally slut-shaming women into rejecting programs designed to help women and families.  This is their message.

And they wonder why they are overwhelmingly losing women to Democrats.

On the other hand, if Democrats don't vote in midterms and Republicans do, it doesn't matter how awful Republicans treat women, now does it?  They'll win anyway, and will never change.

StupidiNews!

• As NATO continues to insist Russian army forces are fighting alongside rebels against the Ukrainian military, Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukrainian forces will be allowed to retreat.
• California has passed legislation requiring all colleges and universities in the state to define sexual consent as part of school sexual assault policies.
• UN peacekeeper forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria are trapped by Syrian rebels as the UN works to secure their passage out.
• Malaysian Airlines, which has lost two jets to air disasters in the last year, announced it will cut 6,000 jobs amid a major restructuring plan.
• Google has been working on a drone-powered delivery service for the last two years, called Project Wing, recent revealed in The Atlantic magazine.

Last Call For Domestic Disagreements

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, under blistering pressure for suspending Baltimore Ravens RB Ray Rice only two games for a domestic abuse charge against his wife (while Browns wideout Josh Gordon got a one year suspension for weed), has admitted that Rice got off way too easy, and that the league now has a real policy against domestic abuse.  Deadspin's Barry Petchesky:

In a memo sent to the owners today, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced massive new punishments for all NFL personnel—not just players—who commit domestic violence offenses. Offenders will be suspended six games for a first offense, and receive an indefinite ban for a second, with the ability to apply for reinstatement after one year. 

In the letter, Goodell specifically cited the league's actions regarding Ray Rice as the motivation behind these new rules.

"At times, however, and despite our best efforts, we fall short of our goals. We clearly did so in response to a recent incident of domestic violence. We allowed our standards to fall below where they should be and lost an important opportunity to emphasize our strong stance on a critical issue and the effective programs we have in place. My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn't get it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will."

Pretty bold words and bold action from the notoriously conflict-averse and image-conscious Goodell. Apparently this is going in under the league's player conduct policy, meaning the NFL Players' Association can't really challenge it. Considering the league's long and ugly history involving players and domestic abuse towards NFL spouses and significant others (and the NFL is far from the only major league sport with a huge domestic violence issue) this is a long overdue move on Goodell's part.

Now he just has to fix the Josh Gordon problem.  A year for weed in a league where players are wracked by chronic pain and devastating brain and spine injuries?  Let's try addressing that first, Rog.

Not Even Common Core-tesy

Louisiana GOP governor and perennial punchline Bobby Jindal has decided that the state's failing educational standards have to be Obama's fault, so he's suing the federal government.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing the U.S. Department of Education of illegally coercing states to adopt the Common Core academic standards by requiring states that want to compete for federal grants to embrace the national standards. 

Jindal, a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was once a strong supporter of the Common Core standards, but he has become increasingly critical as opposition to the standards has grown, particularly among conservative Republicans and tea party groups. 

Jindal has tried unsuccessfully to remove the Common Core from Louisiana but has been stymied by the state legislature, the state board of education and Jindal’s own state superintendent of education — all supporters of the Common Core. 

“The federal government has hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative,” Jindal said in a statement. “Common Core is the latest effort by big government disciples to strip away state rights and put Washington, D.C. in control of everything.” 

Before filing the lawsuit Wednesday, Jindal also tried unsuccessfully to sue his state board of education over the Common Core standards.

What makes this all laughable is that for the last two decades, Republicans have been screaming about how schools were not being held accountable, how there weren't national standards of performance, and how teachers and educators weren't graded on performance like their students were.  Common Core actually does all that and offers incentives to states for participating, and suddenly it's "we have to sue the government for this coercive federal overreach!"

What makes this all pathetically depressing is that Jindal is trying to dodge responsibility for Louisiana's educational disaster by blaming the President.  After all, Jindal's the one who wanted to make massive cuts to public schools by privatizing them through religious organizations and slashed spending so harshly that libraries closed across the state and the resulting plummet in the polls can't be his own fault, you know.

Jindal has been the worst governor in the state's history, and yet he's still making plays like he has some sort of chance in 2016.

Coming at the expense of state taxpayer, no less.  Typical.

At The Water's Edge

Sen. Rand Paul reminds us once again that Republicans don't consider Barack Obama to be human, let alone President of the United States.  The amount of disrespect they regularly display is astonishing, especially when it comes to foreign policy disagreements.  Rand Paul went to Guatemala to tell everyone that yes, everything is Obama's fault.

According to the report in The Hill, the Kentucky Republican sat down with Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina for 45 minutes, and the senator discussed politics with the foreign head of state. 

“I think what’s happened at the border is all squarely at the president’s lap,” Paul said. “The problem and the solution aren’t in Guatemala. The problem and solution reside inside the White House.” 

As a substantive matter, the senator’s position is tough to defend or even understand. President Obama didn’t sign the 2008 human-trafficking measure into law; he didn’t create awful conditions in Central American countries; and he didn’t encourage anyone to lie to desperate families about what would happen to their children. If there’s a coherent explanation for why the White House to blame, it’s hiding well. 

But even putting that aside, since when is it kosher for U.S. officials to travel abroad to condemn U.S. leaders like this?

Good question.  Remember when the Dixie Chicks were blackballed for suggesting as Americans that George W. Bush's foreign policy on Iraq was wrong?  Eleven years later, it's now 100% acceptable for a sitting US senator to go abroad and openly attack the President, with the head of state of a foreign nation in attendance.

Isn't that illegal?

Just to flesh this out further, in 2010, then-House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) traveled to Israel in the hopes of undermining U.S. foreign policy towards Israel. At the time, this caused quite a stir in foreign-policy circles – it seemed extraordinary for an elected American official to travel abroad in order to work against his own country’s position. 

Perhaps now, with the Rand Paul example in mind, the practice is becoming more common. 

For even more context, note that in 2007, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Syrian officials in Syria. Republicans, including Cantor, suggested Pelosi may have violated the Logan Act, “which makes it a felony for any American ‘without authority of the United States’ to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States.”

One wonders who, if anyone, will raise similar allegations against Rand Paul.

So did Paul violate the Logan Act?

Nobody seems to care that he did, openly.  And that he admits it.

StupidiNews!

• Ukrainian officials are accusing Russia of a "full-scale invasion" of eastern Ukraine as Russian forces appear to have taken territory near the city of Donetsk.
• The sister of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev has been arrested on charges of making bomb threats over the phone.
• The death toll from the West African Ebola outbreak in four countries has reached 1,552 as WHO officials continue to battle the disease.
• Russian hackers have hit at least four major US banks in what the FBI considers possible retaliation for US financial sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.
• Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill wants all cops to wear body cameras to record their activities in order to qualify for hundreds of millions in federal funding each year.

Last Call For Turtled Up

When I said last week that Sen. Mitch McConnell was serious about shutting down the government if the GOP takes over the Senate in January, I really meant Mitch McConnell is going to shut down the government if the GOP takes over the Senate in January.  Lauren Windsor at The Nation:

Last week, in an interview with Politico, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) outlined his plan to shut down President Obama’s legislative agenda by placing riders on appropriations bills. Should Republicans take control of the Senate in the 2014 elections, McConnell intends to pass spending bills that “have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy.” 

What McConnell didn’t tell Politico was that two months ago, he made the same promise to a secret strategy conference of conservative millionaire and billionaire donors hosted by the Koch brothers. The Nation and The Undercurrent obtained an audio recording of McConnell’s remarks to the gathering, called “American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society.” In the question-and-answer period following his June 15 session entitled “Free Speech: Defending First Amendment Rights,” McConnell says: 

So in the House and Senate, we own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what's called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We're going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board (inaudible). All across the federal government, we're going to go after it…

So yes, that's the plan.  If the GOP gains control of the Senate, they will shut the government down by defunding Obamacare, the EPA, financial regulation reform, and who knows what else.  All of that will come to a screeching halt.

If you vote for the Republican party, you will get a government of nothing.  Mitch McConnell will see to that. You know what's coming.  Let's see if we can prevent it.

A Trip Through The Elephant Graveyard

New Republic's Alec MacGillis eulogizes the career of Wisconsin GOP Rep. Tom Petri in WI-6, who is retiring and whose seat will almost certainly go to right-wing nutjob Glenn Grothman.

As an undergraduate at Harvard in the early 1960s and later in the decade, he had been a leading member of the Ripon Society, the organization founded in 1962 to advance the cause of moderate Republicanism against the rising tide of Sun Belt conservatism (it was named after the town in Wisconsin where the GOP was founded in 1854—a town that, as it happens, is in the Sixth Congressional District.) Petri belonged to the NAACP, joined the Peace Corps and engaged in a sit-in at a Woolworth’s to protest segregation at its southern stores. Petri even went on William F. Buckley’s television program, “The Firing Line,” in 1969 to spar with the pugnacious conservative. Challenged by Buckley to distinguish the Ripon Society’s program from New Deal liberalism, Petri countered, “We’ve felt that the role of government should be to enlighten self-interest in the society, to be a systems manager for the people rather than trying to do everything itself.” Petri went on assume a lower profile than Steiger had, perhaps partly because the party’s rightward shift in the 1980s and since left him increasingly isolated. He fought hard for federal funding for Wisconsin highways, water-infrastructure projects, and farmers; he got notice when he voted against President Bush’s Iraq surge; and he got less than 64 percent of the vote in his district only once in the past 16 elections, in 1992. 

But soon after Grothman announced his primary challenge earlier this year, saying Petri hadn’t done enough to fight a growing “culture of dependency” (an especially brazen move given that Grothman did not even reside in the district at the time), Petri decided it was time to retire. Finishing a very close second to Grothman in this month's primary was another state senator, Joe Leibham, while state assemblyman Duey Stroebel (great name!) came in third. Liebham and Stroebel are both well to Petri’s right, but Grothman far outflanks them all.

It's utterly impossible to imagine in 2014 any Republican in Congress being a member of the NAACP.  Petri is the last of his breed, now driven out of the party by the anti-science, anti-minority, anti-woman core of the modern GOP.  Between Petri and his predecessor, Rob Steiger, WI-6 was the home of moderate Republicanism for almost 50 years.  Now it's just another red meat red district.

How to explain that a district went from being represented for nearly five decades by Steiger and Petri to now being on the verge of Glenn Grothman? There is the nationwide shift in the party that has seen liberal Northern Republicans dwindle to an all-but extinct breed (one of the last members of the species, Jim Jeffords, left the party a decade before he died, last week.) But exacerbating that shift in Wisconsin has been a local dynamic that I described in aJune cover story about the rise of the state’s governor, Scott Walker, and that theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel's Craig Gilbert laid out a few weeks earlier in a striking series of articles. Over the past few decades, the suburbs of Milwaukee have developed into a conservative bastion that is far more monolithically white and Republican than the suburbs of other northern cities, a singularity that, I argued, has something to do with the unusual lag in the migration of African-Americans to Milwaukee. 

This deep-red territory is also defined by its remarkably strong local conservative-talk radio culture, with two hosts who have commanded loyal audiences for several decades now. And just as Scott Walker was adept at using those shows to build his base, Grothman was adept at using them to rise in the ranks. Back in 2005, he won a promotion from the state assembly to the state Senate by going on the shows at every chance he could to attack the incumbent Republican senator, Mary Panzer, as insufficiently conservative. Even Leibham, the second-place finisher this month, told me that he “grew up listening” to both hosts, Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes, and still catches them both every day.

It would be easy to say things along the lines of "somewhere along the way the Republican party stopped being the party of hope and became the party of abject fear and resentment" but Republicans have never been the part of anything but, at least not in my lifetime.  The last strands of human decency have been purged from the party, seemingly permanently.  Tom Petri was that last strand.

Now nothing is left but the wasteland.  And if they remain in charge, that wasteland will swallow all.

Glibertarians, Not Libertarians

A new Pew Research study shows that the term "libertarian" definitely needs to be in near-permanent quotation marks here in America, because many are anything but.

About one-in-ten Americans (11%) describe themselves as libertarian and know what the term means. Respondents were asked whether the term “libertarian” describes them well and — in a separate multiple-choice question — asked for the definition of “someone whose political views emphasize individual freedom by limiting the role of government”; 57% correctly answered the multiple-choice question, choosing “libertarian” from a list that included “progressive,” “authoritarian,” “Unitarian” and “communist.” On the self-description question 14% said they were libertarian. For the purpose of this analysis we focus on the 11% who both say they are libertarian and know the definition of the term. 

These findings come from the Pew Research Center’s political typology and polarization survey conducted earlier this year, as well as a recent survey of a subset of those respondents via the Pew Research Center’s new American Trends Panel, conducted April 29-May 27 among 3,243 adults. 

Self-described libertarians tend to be modestly more supportive of some libertarian positions, but few of them hold consistent libertarian opinions on the role of government, foreign policy and social issues. 

Men were about twice as likely as women to say the term libertarian describes them well and to know the meaning of the term (15% vs. 7%). More college graduates (15%) than those with no more than a high school education (7%) identified as libertarians. There also were partisan differences; 14% of independents and 12% of Republicans said they are libertarian, compared with 6% of Democrats. 

The easiest way to view this is substitute "libertarian" with "Ron Paul voter" and you have a really, really good idea of where and what these voters stand for.  They are for the most part boilerplate Republicans who happen to like weed and are okay with same-sex marriage.

When it comes to attitudes about the size and scope of government, people who say the term libertarian describes them well (and who are able to correctly define the term) are somewhat more likely than the public overall to say government regulation of business does more harm than good (56% vs. 47%). However, about four-in-ten libertarians say that government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest (41%). 

The attitudes of libertarians similarly differ from the public on government aid to the poor; they are more likely than the public to say “government aid to the poor does more harm than good by making people too dependent on government assistance” (57% vs. 48%), yet about four-in-ten (38%) say it “does more good than harm because people can’t get out of poverty until their basic needs are met.” 

Libertarianism is associated with limited government involvement in the social sphere. In this regard, self-described libertarians are somewhat more supportive of legalizing marijuana than the public overall (65% vs. 54%). 

But there are only slight differences between libertarians and the public in views of the acceptability of homosexuality. And they are about as likely as others to favor allowing the police “to stop and search anyone who fits the general description of a crime suspect” (42% of libertarians, 41% of the public). 

Similarly, self-described libertarians do not differ a great deal from the public in opinions about foreign policy. Libertarianism is generally associated with a less activist foreign policy, yet a greater share of self-described libertarians (43%) than the public (35%) think “it is best for the future of our country to be active in world affairs.” 

And in views of the tradeoff between defending against terrorism and protecting civil liberties, large majorities of both the public (74%) and self-described libertarians (82%) say “Americans shouldn’t have to give up privacy and freedom in order to be safe from terrorism.”

Hate government programs, interventionist foreign policy, don't mind cops profiling people.  That's not libertarian, that's Republican.  The poster child of this group remains Rand Paul, and he's right there with them.

None of the seven groups identified by the 2014 political typology closely resembled libertarians, and, in fact, self-described libertarians can be found in all seven. Their largest representation is among the group we call Business Conservatives; 27% of this group says the term libertarian describes them well. Business Conservatives generally support limited government, have positive views of business and the U.S. economic system, and are more moderate than other conservative groups on the issue of homosexuality. However, they are also supportive of an activist foreign policy and do not have a libertarian profile on issues of civil liberties.

Surprise!  If "Tea Party" is the new Religious Republican, then "libertarian" is the new Corporate Republican.

Don't be fooled by them.

StupidiNews!

• Both Israel and Hamas have agreed to an open-ended ceasefire, stopping seven weeks of attacks and allowing the easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
• Mexican officials are baffled at a half-mile long crack in the ground near the city of Hermosillo.
• Arizona state treasurer Doug Ducey beat a crowded field in the Grand Canyon State's GOP primary for governor to replace term limited Jan Brewer.
• IMF Director Christine Lagarde is under investigation for possible negligence during her time as France's Finance Minister.
• Hewlett-Packard is recalling millions of computer power cords and power adapters sold since 2010 for possible fire hazard issues.

Last Call For Marco Rubio, Immigration Moderate

Remember folks, Sen. Marco Rubio is the savior of the GOP, with his moderate stance on immigration and willingness to compromise.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) contends that unilateral action by President Barack Obama on immigration, which is expected this fall, will doom future chances for reform by poisoning the well in Congress. The one-time championfor comprehensive immigration reform wants Senate Republicans to combat the likely executive action through the budget process when Congress returns in September.

"There will have to be some sort of a budget vote or a continuing resolution vote, so I assume there will be some sort of a vote on this," Rubio told Breitbart in an interview published Tuesday. "I'm interested to see what kinds of ideas my colleagues have about using funding mechanisms to address this issue."

You know, like shutting down the government.  Go for it, Marco!

After Congress returns on Sept. 8, lawmakers will have just 10 working days to come to consensus on a continuing resolution to fund the government or risk a shutdown. Two particularly contentious issues -- the renewal of the Export-Import Bank and newly proposed rules on coal-fired power plants -- already threaten to derail that agreement. Adding immigration to the debate would complicate matters further and potentially trigger a domestic crisis on the eve of the Nov. 4 midterm elections.

Aside from the politics of another potential shutdown fight, it's unclear what "funding mechanisms" Senate Republicans would attach to a continuing resolution that could limit an executive action on immigration. A spokesman for Rubio declined to provide any specifics when reached for comment on Tuesday.

Of course not.  But I guarantee you the GOP will threaten to shut down the government over this.  And right before the elections?

Please proceed, GOP.

This Begich The Question

As TPM's Dylan Scott notes, Alaska Sen. Scott Begich plans to keep his Senate seat by running against President Obama harder than his Republican competition, and that seems to be okay with Democrats.

“I’ll be a thorn in his ass," Begich told the Washington Post last month. “There’s times when I’m a total thorn, you know, and he doesn’t appreciate it.”

It might sound a little bewildering to those in the lower 48, but it also might be exactly what Alaska voters want to hear.

In conversations with Begich's campaign staff and outside political observers, the message seemed clear: Alaska, perhaps more than any other state, is driven by Alaska issues and personalities, a result of its history and geography. And Begich has a long history with the state: His father was a congressman and Begich formerly served as Anchorage mayor. He is spending his recess criss-crossing the state, even if it takes three planes to haul campaign stickers and window signs from one town that might be home to only 500 voters to the next.

That is his biggest asset, his campaign says. His staff exhaustively lists every government project won (like rural broadband Internet access) and his travels across the state. They talk about his "parking-lot town halls" that pop up spontaneously. A few weeks ago in Kodiak, he was leaving King's Diner when a group of eight men struck up a conversation that turned into an extended Q&A session, according to Begich's campaign manager Susanne Fleek, who also worked on his 2008 campaign. The same thing happened in Anchorage in recent days, she said, and that's the accessibility that Alaskans expect.

Here in Kentucky, Alison Grimes is doing much the same thing.  I don't hold it against them (too much).  Like it or not, in order to keep the Senate, we're going to have to elect anti-Obama Democrats who will most certainly cause the President serious problems in the last two years of his term.  The alternative?

Republicans.

Keep that in mind.  You may be angry with them  Lord knows I am.  But I'll take a Democrat any day of the week over any Republican right now.

The Latest Republican Mind-Wipe

This is what you have to do to run as a Republican in 2014: you now have to say that despite the massive, overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, that global warming doesn't exist.  The latest Republican to have his mind wiped in order to present a dangerous lie: our old friend Scott Brown, running for Senate in New Hampshire this time around.

Former Sen. Scott Brown (R), now running for Senate in New Hampshire, over the weekend was pretty clear: science has not proven that climate change is real. But back in 2012, when Brown was running for re-election in Massachusetts, he said that he "absolutely" believed climate change is real and that it is a result of both man-made and natural causes.

Brown and the other candidates in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire were asked on Saturday "do you believe that the theory of man-made climate change has been scientifically proven?"

Former Sen. Bob Smith, another former senator running to replace Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), was first asked if he believed "that the theory of man-made climate change has been scientifically proven?" Smith responded "no." Then the same question was posed to Brown. Brown said "no" too. The question and answer were flagged by the opposition research organization American Bridge 21st Century.

Brown's comments strongly conflict with an answer he gave on climate change when he was running against now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in 2012. Brown was asked if he believed climate change is real, and if so what would should the federal government be doing about it?

"Yes, yes I do," Brown said. "I absolutely believe that climate change is real and I believe there's a combination between man-made and natural. That being said one of the biggest things we could do is get an energy policy and we don't have one."

So what happened to Scott Brown?  Simple.  You can run on climate change being real in Massachusetts as a Republican.  Not so much in New Hampshire, where apparently science no longer exists.  In the end, Scott Brown is just another conservative wingnut who will happily let corporations destroy the planet for profit.  Just like every. Other.  Single.  Republican.

But hey, Republicans.  Let the planet burn, right?  It's all in your head.