Last Call For Speaker Boehner

John Boehner just lost, hugely...and so did the GOP.

In a blow to House GOP leaders, the House on Thursday rejected a five-year farm bill.

Members voted down the $940 billion bill in a 195-234 vote that only won 24 Democratic votes. Most Democrats voted against the bill because it cut food stamp programs by more than $20 billion.

Many Republicans also voted no, but for a different reason. They said it was too expensive a bill to pass when the country has $17 trillion in debt.

In the final vote, 62 Republicans opposed the bill, and with the Democratic defections, that was enough to send it to defeat.

Oops.   To recap, Republicans killed their own farm bill.  They added amendments to force SNAP recipients to have work requirements and cut $20 billion from the program.  Democrats walked away.  At that point, the plan should have been for Republicans to pass the bill anyway and tell the Senate to suck it.  Then the only question would have been how strict the work requirements would have been and how deep the cuts would have been, and it would have been a crap sandwich for the Dems.

But the GOP apparently doesn't know how this "governance" thing works because they revolted...over the fact the bill didn't punish poor brown people enough.

Even though the majority of SNAP recipients are white.  Oops.

But no, Republicans got scorched by members like Louie Gohmert, who was pissed his amendment to eliminate all food stamps failed.

Now the Republicans are up the creek, and as I keep telling people, if Boehner can't control his caucus on a farm bill, how is immigration going to pass?

Starting to believe me now, maybe?

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Just going to let this one stand without comment:

In July of 2011, James Vernon McVay slit an elderly South Dakota woman's throat before stealing her car as part of an alleged plot to kill President Barack Obama. But on Wednesday, McVay complained that he was being misrepresented as "some kind of monster."

The 43-year-old McVay is facing a possible death sentence for murdering 75-year-old Maybelle Schein before stealing her vehicle from her Sioux Falls, S.D. home. After he was subsequently arrested in Madison, Wis., McVay told both detectives and a television reporter that he stole the car as part of a plan to kill Obama on a golf course.

McVay has told a psychiatrist that, the night before he murdered Schein, he drank cough syrup and alcohol that he had stolen from Wal Mart. He claims that he was still intoxicated when he was caught in Wisconsin.

Appearing in a Sioux Falls courtroom on Wednesday, McVay — who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2012, but claimed mental illness — said that he's being unfairly portrayed by the media.

“I’m tired of it being conveyed to the public as if I’m some kind of a monster,” McVay said, as quoted by the Arugs Leader. “It feels like a joke.” 

I got nothin'.   Enjoy your afternoon.

GOP Minority Outreach Alert

Republicans:  still failing miserably at minority outreach, even to black Republican women.

A county Republican Party chairman in central Illinois called a black female congressional candidate the “love child” of the Democratic party; a “street walker” whose “pimps” are party leaders; and suggested that after the election, she will be “working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.”

And it's a Republican candidate he's talking about.

Montgomery County GOP Chairman Jim Allen wrote the comments in an email to a Republican website, regarding Erika Harold. She is the former Miss America and Harvard Law grad who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 13th Congressional District, which stretches from Champaign to the Metro East.

The episode is an illustration of the unusual state of the GOP in Illinois, where the party tends to fight with itself more than it does with the ruling Democrats.

Allen is a supporter of incumbent U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, whom Harold is challenging for the GOP nomination next year. Allen's letter appears today on RepublicanNewsWatch, an independent website by conservative Republicans who have challenged the more moderate GOP party leaders in the state.

You get a two-fer here folks, not only are we racist but misogynist as well.

On paper, Erika Harold is exactly the kind of candidate the Republican Party needs if it is going to stay relevant.  Harvard Law graduate?  Miss America winner?  That's a devastatingly awesome combination of intellect and charisma that any politician would die for and any party should be glad to feature.

And yes, I keep saying that we need an alternative to the Dems to keep them honest.  Eventually, anyway.  If Harold wants to run as a Republican that's her choice, but I would have to think that she'd at least be considering a run with Team Blue on some level.  I hope.

Just another reminder that there's a cost, folks.  A real one.

StupidiNews!

• Emmy-award winning actor James Gandolfini, best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBO series The Sopranos, has died of a stroke at age 51.
• A new report from the World Bank finds the world's poorest citizens in places like sub-Saharan Africa and northeast Asia will soon feel the brunt of climate change.
• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's move yesterday indicating the end of Fed bond purchases sometime next year has knocked world markets for a loop.
• France has given Google three months to improve user privacy policies or face steep fines as other EU countries prepare to follow suit.
• Due to outrage from consumers, Microsoft has reversed its XBox One policy limiting used games and forcing daily internet checks.