Last Call For Jian Gone-meshi

Over the weekend, CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi of the culture and interview show Q was suspended on Friday over allegations of sexual assault, then outright fired yesterday when those allegations grew to encompass reports of assault by four different women. Ghomeshi is suing the CBC over this, and the story just keeps getting worse.  Kevin Donovan and Jesse Brown in the Toronto Star:

CBC star Jian Ghomeshi has been fired over “information” the public broadcaster recently received that it says “precludes” it from continuing to employ the 47-year-old host of the popular Q radio show.

Shortly after CBC announced Ghomeshi was out the door on Sunday, Ghomeshi released news that he was launching a $50-million lawsuit claiming “breach of confidence and bad faith” by his employer of almost 14 years. He later followed that up with a Facebook posting saying he has been the target of “harassment, vengeance and demonization.”

Over the past few months the Star has approached Ghomeshi with allegations from three young women, all about 20 years his junior, who say he was physically violent to them without their consent during sexual encounters or in the lead-up to sexual encounters. Ghomeshi, through his lawyer, has said he “does not engage in non-consensual role play or sex and any suggestion of the contrary is defamatory.”

In his Facebook posting Sunday evening, Ghomeshi wrote in an emotional statement that he has “done nothing wrong.” He said it is not unusual for him to engage in “adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission.” However, he said it has always been consensual.

Ghomeshi’s statement said that he has been open with the CBC about the allegations. He said the CBC’s decision to fire him came after he voluntarily showed evidence late last week that everything he has done was consensual. Ghomeshi blames a woman he describes as an ex-girlfriend for spreading lies about him and orchestrating a campaign with other women to “smear” him.

The three women interviewed by the Star allege that Ghomeshi physically attacked them on dates without consent. They allege he struck them with a closed fist or open hand; bit them; choked them until they almost passed out; covered their nose and mouth so that they had difficulty breathing; and that they were verbally abused during and after sex.

A fourth woman, who worked at CBC, said Ghomeshi told her at work: “I want to hate f--- you.”

“I have always been interested in a variety of activities in the bedroom but I only participate in sexual practices that are mutually agreed upon, consensual, and exciting for both partners,” Ghomeshi said in his posting.

Q was big enough to get on a number of public radio stations here in the US, including the ones here in the Cincy area.  I've listened to the show on a number of occasions and liked Ghomeshi's interview style, and he's talked to everyone from Barbara Streisand to Robert Plant to John Malkovich to, yes, even Julian Assange.  Ghomeshi himself is former frontman for Moxy Fruvious and he's come a long way from there to being the Canadian equivalent of Oprah.

The allegations open up a lot of questions for Ghomeshi that he says he is trying to answer, but attacking the women making these allegations against him is pretty despicable.  It's one thing if the guy is James Spader's character in Secretary, but if he assaulted or abused his partners, then yeah, he's going to have bigger problems than losing his radio show real fast.

More at Gawker, who intimates that the other shoe is going to drop on Ghomeshi story very soon.

Blue Texas Will Depend On White Urban Voters

That's the conclusion of John Judis at TNR, who figures that any Democrat running for state office or for President will have to get at least 30% of the white, non-Hispanic vote to win in the Lone Star State.  The question is how to do that, and the answer is Texas's cities.

In Texas, white voters have blended the anti-government ethos of the West and the deep South. Many Texas white voters began changing their party allegiance from Democrat to Republican after 1980 without changing their ideology. But Texans’ bedrock conservatism among whites has been mitigated by in-migration from less Republican states and by the development of what Ruy Teixeira and I called “ideopolises”—large metro areas dominated by professionals who produce ideas. By garnering support in the Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and El Paso metro areas, the Democrats might be able to get the 30 percent or more of the vote they need in presidential elections, and eventually the 35 percent they need in state elections. 

In these metro areas, Texas Democrats can attract the same white voters who boosted Democrat hopes in states like Virginia and North Carolina: younger voters, who came of age after the Reagan-Bush era, professionals, and women. Davis’s candidacy has probably helped among these voters. In a late September poll that showed Davis behind Abbott by fourteen points, she still had an edge among women and voters 18 to 44, while getting trounced among male and older voters. (In the same poll, Davis only get 50 percent of Hispanic vote.) Mustafa Tameez, a Houston Democratic consultant, says that the Texas state legislature’s lurch to the right, which spawned Davis’s candidacy, will win over many of these voters. “The urban vote and women are the key to Democrats winning Texas,” Tameez says. 

Texas Democrats’ ability to win over white voters will also depend on what happens to the national party. Obama remains deeply unpopular in Texas—identified with whatever failures white Texans ascribe to the federal government. There were no exit polls in the 2012 election, but Nate Cohn has estimated that Obama only got 20 percent of the white vote. Whites need to feel comfortable voting for a candidate identified with the national party. Tameez and other Democrats believe that Hillary Clinton, who defeated Obama in the 2008 Texas primary, will fare far better among the state’s Anglos than Obama did. But even if they nominate a candidate more palatable to urban whites, the Democrats may have to wait until 2020 to have a good shot at winning Texas in a presidential vote.

So yes, Hillary may have a chance in Texas if she can get 30% of the white vote and 70% of the Latino vote, if Latino turnout is 50%.  If those numbers go up, it becomes a lot easier.  It is possible for Democrats to turn Texas blue, but in the short term that means getting the white vote in the state, something Obama could never do.

So yes, Democrats are going to go after more white voters than Latino ones, simply because white voters actually vote.

There's a lesson here.

The GOP's Great White Dope

Well, you knew at some point the Republican Party was going to try to inflict another Bush upon us, and it looks like the attempt will be made in 2016 with Jebby.

Will another member of the Bush family dynasty make a run for the White House? In an interview in College Station, Texas, this week, George P. Bush told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl he thinks his father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, will “more than likely” run for president in 2016.

“I think it’s actually, I think it’s more than likely that he’s giving this a serious thought in moving forward,” George P. Bush told Karl aboard his campaign bus in College Station, Texas.

“More than likely that he'll run?” Karl asked.

“That he'll run,” Bush said. “If you had asked me a few years back, I would've said it was less likely.”

Bush said his family will support his father “a hundred percent” should he decide to launch a bid for the White House.

Jeb's other son, Jeb Jr., also agrees.

“No question,” Jeb Jr. said in an interview, “people are getting fired up about it — donors and people who have been around the political process for a while, people he’s known in Tallahassee when he was governor. The family, we’re geared up either way.” Most important, he added, his mother, Columba, the prospective candidate’s politics-averse wife, has given her assent.

Everything old is new again.  The prospect of Jeb vs. Hillary, Clinton vs. Bush, has our Village Elders practically peeing themselves with excitement, surely.

America on the other hand is going to be doing a lot of eye-rolling and nose-holding over the next two years.

Looks like I'm going to get some more use out of that Unfinished Bush Business tag.

StupidiNews!

• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman in last week's attack in Ottawa, recorded a video of himself that the Mounties are analyzing.
• Under pressure from the White House and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has relaxed a blanket quarantine of anyone returning from contact with an Ebola patient.
• Brazilians have narrowly re-elected President Dilma Rousseff with 52% of the vote, giving her Workers' Party four more years to fix Brazil's stagnant economy.
• The European Central Bank's year-long review of bank health has found that only 8 banks out of the 25 found with an asset shortfall have yet to take steps to fix the problem.
• Two big pharmacy chains in the US, Rite Aid and CVS Health, have dumped Apple Pay after just two weeks in favor of competing platform CurrentC.

Last Call For Big Endorsements

As they did in 2010 with Jack Conway, both the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader have endorsed the Democrat for US Senate. Alison Grimes has earned the praise of both papers, and in a race this tight, it may make a difference.

The Courier-Journal:

Grimes, to her credit, was willing to appear before this newspaper’s editorial board, fielding an hour’s worth of questions in an interview that was streamed live online and remains archived on the C-J website. She did this fully aware that Mr. McConnell’s campaign could-- and did-- seize on snippets to use in political attacks. 

Mr. McConnell, in turn, never accepted a similar invitation dating back to early September to appear before the C-J editorial board, thus shielding himself from scrutiny as well as any potential for attack ads based on his responses. Kentuckians should take measure of that: Thirty years in the Senate, and no comment.

More discouraging-- and most important to voters-- is that he appears lacking a vision for Kentucky or the country as a whole. Rather, his decades-long drive to increase his power and political standing has resulted in this campaign based on his boast that if he is re-elected and Republicans win a Senate majority, he would become Senate majority leader. Some voters believe Kentucky will benefit from keeping Mr. McConnell in such a national leadership position, but we believe that alone is not a reason for giving him another term. 

Both candidates have failed the voters through limited access, rote talking points, slickly packaged appearances and a barrage of attack ads that at best are misleading and at worst, outright false. 

But Ms. Grimes has laid out positions on a number of issues that matter to voters, ones that separate her from her opponent.

The Herald-Leader:

McConnell has sabotaged jobs and transportation bills, even as Kentucky's unemployment exceeds the nation's and an Interstate 75 bridge crumbles over the Ohio River. He blocked tax credits for companies that move jobs back to this country while preserving breaks for those that move jobs overseas. He opposed extending unemployment benefits, while bemoaning the "jobless" recovery. He brags about resolving crises that he helped create. 

The Senate may never recover from the bitter paralysis McConnell has inflicted through record filibusters that allow his minority to rule by obstruction. 

Even before Barack Obama was sworn in, McConnell told his fellow Republicans that their strategy was to deny the new president any big wins. The country was in two wars and at deep risk of sliding into a depression, but making an adversary look bad was McConnell's main mission. 

His signature cause-- flooding elections with ever more money-- corrupts. He poses as a champion of the right to criticize the government, but it's really his rich buddies' right to buy the government that he champions. 

If McConnell had a better record, he would not have to argue for six more years by obsessively linking Grimes to Obama, who will be gone in two years no matter what.

It's good to see these papers tell the truth about McConnell.  His time is passed and he's just embarrassing now.

Christie, Cuomo, And Ebola

It's not often you see Democrats and Republicans work together on things, but when it comes to stabbing President Obama in the back, that's something that everyone can get behind.

The Obama administration has been pushing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their decision ordering all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contact with Ebola patients to be quarantined, an administration official said. 

But on Sunday both governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, stood by their decision, saying that the federal guidelines did not go far enough.

At the same time, the first person to be forced into isolation under the new protocols, Kaci Hickox, a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, planned to mount a legal challenge to the quarantine order. Despite having no symptoms, she has been kept under quarantine at a hospital in New Jersey, where she has been confined to a tent equipped with a portable toilet and no shower. On Sunday, she spoke to CNN about the way she has been treated, describing it as “inhumane.”

The rapidly escalating events played out both privately, in intense negotiations and phone calls between federal and state officials, as well as publicly in the nurse’s pointed criticism of the New Jersey governor. 

Ever since Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, and Mr. Christie, a Republican, announced the plan at a hastily called news conference on Friday evening, top administration officials have been speaking with Mr. Cuomo daily and have also been in touch with Mr. Christie, trying to get them to rescind the order. 

But in that time, two more states – Illinois and Florida – announced that they were instituting similar policies.

Nobody wants to be the next Rick Perry with election day around the corner.  Certainly not Pat Quinn or Andrew Cuomo, bother up for re-election, or Rick Scott, also facing voters.  Christie at least has passed his re-election trial, but of course he has 2016 to worry about.

So everyone has a reason to score points on Obama, it seems, Democrat and Republican alike.

Will voters care or even remember?

Things Also Bigger In Texas: Pollution

One of Texas's top environmental officials (and really, can you think of a more depressing job?) is making the argument that ozone and smog in Texas doesn't matter, because we're all going to be inside anyway.

Texas’ chief toxicologist is arguing that the EPA shouldn’t tighten ground-level ozone, or smog, rules because there will be little to no public health benefit. Dr. Michael Honeycutt heads the toxicology division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state agency tasked with protecting Texans from pollution.

“Ozone is an outdoor air pollutant because systems such as air conditioning remove it from indoor air,” he argues on a blog post on the TCEQ website. “Since most people spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors, we are rarely exposed to significant levels of ozone.” He adds that those who are “near death” and thus more vulnerable to ozone spend even more time inside.

Dude actually has earned the title of doctor and he's saying "pollution levels are irrelevant outside, because if it's bad, you'll be inside with A/C".

That's a bit like saying "Well we don't need more traffic regulations because cars are outside and people are inside.  Cars are an outside problem."

Scientist by the way say we really do need to tighten up smog rules.  Texas refuses, because, well, energy industry.

Dr. Honeycutt has taken it upon his shoulders to dispute this determination. He joins Texas Republicans and others nationwide who staunchly oppose efforts to reduce harmful ozone pollution. In September, a group of Texas Republicans proposed legislation that would require Congress to pass a federal statute every time the EPA wants to implement a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) such as the one proposed for ozone pollution. They argue that this is a matter of accountability, but it is within the EPA’s mandate to determine air quality standards. In a statement, Congressman Randy Weber (R-TX), cites a study from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) that the regulation would increase energy costs for Texas families and reduce family incomes in an amount equal to 182,000 lost jobs.

NAM is a trade group which lobbies for the likes of ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute. NYU’s Michael Livermore, a senior advisor at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity told Media Matters that the report “calculated costs in an insane way.” Frank Ackerman, a lecturer in climate and energy policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Media Matters that the job-loss estimates are “fraudulent.”

Of course it's fraudulent.  We can't possibly make the energy industry pay to clean up after itself, despite literally being the most profitable companies on Earth.

Just don't go outside, Texas.

Will To Glower

When George F. Will is parroting right-wing blog inanities about Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin being the "victim of liberal fascism and judicial activism", you know an election is just around the corner.

From the progressivism of Robert La Follette to the conservatism of Gov. Scott Walker (R) today, Wisconsin has been fertile soil for conviction politics. Today, the state’s senators are the very conservativeRon Johnson (R) and the very liberal Tammy Baldwin (D). Now, however, Wisconsin, which to its chagrin produced Sen. Joe McCarthy (R), has been embarrassed by Milwaukee County’s Democratic district attorney, John Chisholm. He has used Wisconsin’s uniquely odious “John Doe” process to launch sweeping and virtually unsupervised investigations while imposing gag orders to prevent investigated people from defending themselves or rebutting politically motivated leaks.

According to several published reports, Chisholm told subordinates that his wife, a teachers union shop steward at her school, is anguished by her detestation of Walker’s restrictions on government employee unions, so Chisholm considers it his duty to help defeat Walker.

Please note that all this is coming from a right wing blog in Wisconsin that's leaking the John Doe proceedings, where the real problem is Scott Walker has abused the power of his office in order to pressure political foes, attack unions, and take cash outside of the law.

Besides, can Walker possibly be a victim if he has the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers financing his campaign?  He's the best governor you can buy, after all.  He's run Wisconsin's economy into the ground, completely failing on his promise to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the state continues to languish at the bottom of the pile in growth.  Profits for Koch related industries in the state, well, those are up big.

Who knew.

Don't cry for Walker, Wisconsin.  You can rid yourself of him for good in less than two weeks.

Last Call For Cincy's Last Abortion Clinic

It looks like the Planned Parenthood surgical center in Cincinnati has finally been cited for lack of a hospital transfer agreement, and has until next week to come up with a solution or risk being shut down for good.

The Elizabeth Campbell Surgical Center was last inspected in June, but the health department waited until last week to notify the clinic that it was out of compliance with acontroversial state law passed last year. That could be the first step in moving to revoke the clinic's surgical license, which would make Cincinnati the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. without an abortion clinic, according to an Enquirer analysis.

Abortion clinics in Ohio now must have agreements with private hospitals willing to take abortion patients in an emergency. Many private hospitals are religious and have declined to form agreements with abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood found itself in such a situation and asked the health department to grant an exception to the rule -- a so-called "variance," which is allowed by law. 

The clinic placed the request more than a year ago and has yet to receive a response, Planned Parenthood spokesman Rick Pender told The Enquirer. 

"We have received the letter, and it is accurate in its statement that we do not have a transfer agreement," he said. "But what we have pending, for more than a year, is our variance request, which the health department has not acted on."

The other two clinics in southwest Ohio are in the same boat.  Mercy Health, formerly Catholic Health Partners (I bet you're seeing where this is going) is the largest hospital chain around.  They've basically bullied everyone in the area to revoke their transfer agreements or face their wrath, and everyone folded, most notably the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Now it's looking like the Campbell Center has until next week to come up with a plan or risk being shut down.  In fact, it's looking really, really grim for all three clinics.

But Ohio keeps electing Republicans, and the horrific anti-choice bill "moderate" Gov. John Kasich signed into law may get rid of all Ohio clinics.

Which of course was the point.

Getting Away From It All

Greg Sargent argues that Ebola allows Senate Dems to attack President Obama on something that's not going to hurt them with their base, and with a new case of the disease in NYC, the last week and change before the midterms may be defined by that response.

As I’ve reported before, Democrats are using Ebola to achieve distance from the President, who continues to be deeply disliked by constituencies who still are populated by voters who remain undecided, and could be tipped towards Republicans by a feather-push from something like Ebola remaining in the news. At the same time, this sort of criticism is unlikely to alienate the core Democratic voters whose turnout will be crucial, and who might feel less motivated if candidates break with Obama on core Democratic issues. Either way, the politics of Ebola may now be back.

The fact that America's fate may be decided by such self-pissing fear is insane, but there you have it. The reality remains that if Dems turn out, they'll win.  If they don't, Republicans will win big.  And out media has neutered, trivialized, and drenched our political process in such banalities that the voters don't give a damn any more which party destroys the country at this point.

This seems to be especially the case with my generation, older Millennials who've been around the block enough to recognize the problems with our country, but have been kidney punched relentlessly by politics to the point of apathy. "Why vote, they're all going to screw us over anyway" is something I hear a lot these days.

I respond "If you don't vote, that becomes a certainty, now doesn't it?"

Ebola shouldn't be deciding this election. Voters should.

Privilege 101 In Iowa's Senate Race

It's not that Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst said the following a couple years ago in Iowa at an NRA event:

"I have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere," Ernst said at the NRA and Iowa Firearms Coalition Second Amendment Rally in Searsboro, Iowa. "But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether it's from an intruder, or whether it's from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important."

It's the fact that, as Steve M. points out, it's a perfect example of privilege.

Ernst feels free to make this reckless statement, to a crowd that didn't find it the least bit objectionable, because she feels pretty safe in the assumption that she'll never be called to back those words up with actions. That's because she lives in a country where, regardless of all the hotheaded rhetoric, the government never really tyrannizes people like her and her audience, i.e., heartland white people of some means. 

If Ernst and the crowd she was addressing were African-American, and had to get used to staggeringly high incarceration rates, as well as routine stop-and-frisk episodes and traffic stops for themselves and their children, they'd have to ask themselves if they were really so damn brave that they'd take up arms against the government. But they don't have to worry about that. So Ernst can just let loose this way with a barrage of irresponsible talk about insurrection.

So yes, it's a perfect example.  As a veteran, Ernst should know better than to so blithely treat firearms as a propaganda piece instead of something that can, if necessary, kill.  But that's not what the NRA crowds want to hear.  They want red meat.

Oh, sure, there was that crazy David Koresh a generation ago, and there was Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge shortly before that. But in this century there's been one situation of this kind involving conservative white people: the standoff at Cliven Bundy's ranch. And in that situation, Bundy and his pals didn't actually have reason to put a bullet in anyone because the Bundyites were conservative heartland whites, and a government run by a widely despised black guy, and with an even more loathed black guy as attorney general, was never really going to risk messing with them.

Whether they'll admit it or not, white right-wing heartlanders know that the jackbooted government thuggery they have Walter Mitty fantasies about resisting happens to them only after they engage in the most extreme provocation. So they talk the talk, knowing they won't ever to have to walk the walk.

They pick a fight knowing it won't come, because it fulfills the lizard-brain need to lash out.  It's precisely because Joni Ernst can say things like this and still be in the running for a Senate seat that proves everything she says is idiotically wrong.  If Barack Obama really were the tyrant they said he was, and Eric Holder was his bag man, Joni Ernst would have been dealt with in a rather permanent fashion, yes?

Of course the barbaric yawp response to this is "And it's because we're ready to use these weapons that keeps the government from going after us" like somehow, the US armed forces that Ernst belonged to wouldn't wipe the floor with a bunch of average guys with guns if that what Barack Obama wanted to happen.

Now imagine that black protesters in Ferguson, Missouri told the cops "I do believe in the right to carry...I believe in the right to defend myself and my family...from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important" and see how long before that same government executes them on the streets like dogs for daring to exercise that right.

Black people get killed for picking up a BB gun in Wal-mart, remember?  I don't hear Joni Ernst saying anything about the right to resist government when it comes to government brutality suffered for centuries by black people.

Funny how that works.

No wonder Ernst is spending the last days of the race dodging the press.  Somebody might ask her questions, and we can't have that.  But she seems to think this might hurt in a close race, because ten days before the election she's already taking steps towards getting a recount motion started.

You think she'll lose gracefully?

Not this person.

StupidiNews!

• NYC officials say Dr. Craig Spencer, a US physician working for Doctors Without Borders, has returned from Guinea with the Ebola virus.
• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says the state will fight to block a divorce by a lesbian couple who entered into a civil union in Vermont.
• Canadian police are investigating possible terrorism links to the man who shot and killed a Canadian soldier at Ottawa's War Memorial and attacked Parliament before being killed himself.
• European Union officials have endorsed a binding agreement to cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, an ambitious move to put pressure on both the US and China to follow suit.
• German scientists are attempting to recover a human genome from a 45,000 year old bone found in Siberia, to get enough data to compare DNA fragments with modern humans.

Last Call For The Gas Face, 2014 Edition

TNR's Danny Vinik argues that since you can't really blame Obama for when gas prices were $4 a gallon two years ago, that you can't really credit Obama for when gas prices are below $3 a gallon now.

Remember in early 2012, when gas prices were approaching $4 per gallon? Republicans were eager to blame President Obama for consumers having to pay more at the pump. “[Obama] gets full credit or blame for what’s happened in this economy, and what’s happened to gasoline prices under his watch,” then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney said. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed. “This president will go to any length to drive up gas prices and pave the way for his ideological agenda,” he said in February 2012. House Speaker John Boehner made similar comments. 

Those comments never made any sense, because Obama has very little control over gas prices, which are determined by global supply and demand. In 2012, as the economy recovered, demand for gas rose as consumers decided to drive to work and take more weekend vacations. That pushed gas prices higher. The president isn’t entirely powerless to affect prices, since he can approve drilling permits and pipelines to increase the supply of oil. But his influence is still limited. Even after the recent explosion in U.S. oil production, the country still produces just 10 percent of global crude.

Except that's an easy way to let Republicans off the hook for their mendacity in the first place.  It's easy to say that the GOP's comments weren't deserved, but it won't stop them from saying patently false garbage like this anyway.

Governor Kitzhaber Of Ore-Gone

Don't look now, but something unexpected happened on the way to Oregon Dem governor Jon Kitzhaber fourth term:  his fiancee Cylvia Hayes (yes, Cylvia with a goddamn "C") is about to wreck Kitzhaber's career and hand over the state to raging Tea Party asshole Dennis Richardson.

First there were conflict of interest allegations. Then came the admission of a sham marriage with an immigrant. And now it appears a farm was purchased in order to grow a great deal of marijuana. 

But the scandals don’t center on Kitzhaber himself. Instead, the main character in Oregon’s October Surprises is Kitzhaber’s fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, who the governor elevated by bringing her on as an adviser and calling her the state’s “First Lady.” 

The latest revelation about Hayes is that she planned to farm marijuana on 60 acres of land in rural Washington back in 1997. Hayes told reporters Monday that while she “planned” to use the expansive property to grow pot, the operation “never materialized” and the land went into foreclosure. 

Also in 1997, Hayes entered a sham marriage with a Nigerian immigrant, for which she was paid $5,000. The fraudulent marriage was revealed [in early October]. 

The story was sparked by retired real estate broker Patrick Siemion, who found marijuana trimmings on the property after it was foreclosed. Siemion told The Oregonian that it was clear to him Hayes was the leader of the operation. 

“She did all the talking, all the negotiating,” he said. Siemion did not return a call from The Daily Beast. 

Hayes told reporters that she was “not proud of that brief period” in which she and a “dangerous man” who abused her lived on the property near the Canadian border. She also insists she was not “financially involved” with the down payment or mortgage payments on the property.

That's the bad news for Kitzhanber.  This is the horrific, possibly career-ending news for him.

A dramatic shift in poll numbers has taken place since Governor John Kitzhaber’s campaign became riddled with scandal. A poll commissioned by KATU has Dennis Richardson with a surprising double-digit lead. 

Even Dennis Richardson himself is surprised by the new numbers “It was just amazing to see that kind of a flip,” Richardson told KXL. “People finally have figured it out, that with cover-ups, waste, investigations, sweetheart deals, and pay-for-play they finally decided that’s not going to work for Oregon’s future.” 

Kitzhaber, who was up 13-points before a steady dose of negative press is now down 17-points. With 18% of those polled saying they have shifted allegiances, and were once voting for the governor but are now voting for Richardson. 

Richardson says he has met some of those 18% who have switched sides “I met some in the grocery store who said ‘I have been a Democrat all my life and I never thought I would vote for a Republican, but this isn’t about party, this is about integrity, honestly and honor.” Richardson said. “They all have different reasons, but they said ‘we’re voting for Richardson, we want to give him a chance.”

A 30-point swing in the space of a month?  Here's hoping Oregon survives Richardson, whose record in the state legislature paints him pretty squarely as an anti-choice, anti-gay Tea Party bigot who thinks sexual orientation is a "behavior" that doesn't warrant any "special protections" and that he would have personally stopped the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre if he was an armed teacher.

His number one goal?  The end of Medicaid expansion in Oregon, which will leave 200,000 plus without health insurance coverage.  Richardson called Medicaid expansion "delusional" last year.

So think carefully before kicking Kitzhaber to the curb, Beaver State.  You're about to give yourself a much worse problem.

It Was Always About Voter Suppression

Bloomberg News doesn't pull any punches in the headline of this piece: "Republicans Set to Gain From Laws Requiring Voter IDs".

Republicans are poised to gain next month from new election laws in almost half the 50 U.S. states, where the additional requirements defy a half-century trend of easing access to the polls.

In North Carolina, where Democratic U.S. Senator Kay Hagan’s re-election fight may determine the nation’s balance of power, the state ended same-day registration used more heavily by blacks. A Texas law will affect more than 500,000 voters who lack identification and are disproportionately black and Hispanic, according to a federal judge. In Ohio, lawmakers discontinued a week during which residents could register and vote on the same day, which another judge said burdens lower income and homeless voters.

While Republicans say the laws were meant to stop fraud or ease administrative burdens, Democrats and civil-rights groups maintain they’re aimed at damping turnout by blacks, Hispanics and the young, who are their mainstays in an increasingly diverse America. Texas found two instances of in-person voter fraud among more than 62 million votes cast in elections during the preceding 14 years, according to testimony in the federal case.

“You’re seeing the use of the election process as a means of clinging to power,” said Justin Levitt, who follows election regulation at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “You have more states passing laws that create hurdles and inconveniences to voting than we have seen go into effect in the last 50 years.”

The bottom line is that over the last several years, Republicans at the state level are making it harder for people to vote in order to keep Democrats from voting.  Texas's law was found to be a modern "poll tax" by a federal judge, but was reversed within days by the conservative-dominated 5th Circuit, stacked with Republican appointees.

The Republican Party wants fewer people voting.  That will help them in races across the country, and they know it.  Laws forcing people to buy IDs are illegal unless the state provides those who can't pay IDs free of charge, but of course the process for signing up for that requires the Board of Elections to approve such waivers in a bureaucratic nightmare that takes months, if not longer.  Voter ID laws in all these states specifically eliminate state college IDs as valid, so students can't vote.  Instruction for getting these IDs in Spanish are curiously difficult to locate.  Early voting is being eliminated in states like Ohio for no good reason other than arbitrary decisions by Republican Secretaries of State, especially Sunday voting, to stop black churches from bringing people to the polls after service.  The list goes on and on.

You have to admit, the GOP really thought this one through.  They know that if they can keep adding requirements they can lower turnout across the country.  It'll help them cling to power just long enough to do some real damage.

Remember, none of this "rampant voter fraud" was a problem with a Republican president.