The Mask Slips Again

..and Republicans accidentally tell the truth.  This time it's Franklin County, Ohio GOP chairman Doug Priesse, on the recent decision by Ohio's GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted to equalize early voting hours for all Ohio counties, but to eliminate early weekend voting completely:

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

Black people won't vote for Republicans for any number of valid reasons.  Why should Republicans make it easier for black people to vote, right?

Still, one argument to restore early voting hours in Ohio keeps reoccurring: They worked in 2008, so what’s the rationale for removing them?

“As a result of historical discrimination against African-American voters, in addition to the recent wave of suppressive voter laws being enacted in statehouses across the country, African-American voters are skeptical of any laws aimed at limiting the opportunity to vote,” said NAACP Ohio Conference President Sybil Edwards McNabb. She and other black leaders have asked to meet with Husted.

A study by Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates says that even after Husted’s directive last week, the hours when more than 200,000 Ohioans voted in 2008 have been wiped out. The group and others such as the League of Women Voters are calling on Husted to restore voting on at least two weekends in late October.

President Obama won Ohio by 263,000 votes in 2008.  The election is expected to be somewhat closer this year.  Eliminate 200,000 voters from the turnout, well...you do the math.

Dig Him Up And Shake His Hand, Appreciate The Man

Paul Ryan, meet Paul Ryan.

Long before he became one of the right’s most vocal critics of the idea that government spending could help boost the flagging economy, Rep. Paul Ryan offered a forceful, full-throated defense of stimulus spending — when then-President George W. Bush wanted it in 2002.

Ryan has denounced the 2009 Recovery Act signed by President Obama as “a wasteful spending spree” and “failed neo-Keynesian experiment,” and – as The Huffington Post pointed out this morning — dismissed as “sugar-high economics” the idea that government spending, through measures like payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits, can help shore up a faltering economy.

But in 2002, when then-President Bush was seeking a roughly $120 billion package of tax cuts, tax incentives for business and unemployment benefits to jump-start the economy, Ryan offered a vigorous defense of the plan. “What we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan said in video that aired today on Up w/ Chris Hayes. The remarks came during a House debate on the measure on Feb. 14, 2002.

Perhaps the two of you need to have a discussion. I'm sure Salt Lake City Olympics Chairman Mitt, Governor Mitt, Senate Candidate Mitt, GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt, and current Mitt will all be of help in finding your way, Paul.

Oh, and I would have seriously considered voting for Ryan on this speech alone in 2002.  I was next door in Minnesota at the time, but still.

Remember when Republicans weren't insane?

StupidiNews!

• A Chinese court has suspended the death sentence of Gu Kailai, wife of disgraced Party official Bo Xialai, for the poisoning death of a British businessman.
• The FBI is looking into the wild behavior of GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas during a recent trip to Israel, where Yoder apparently got naked and jumped into the Sea of Galilee.
• In a 100-6 vote, Democratic Illinois State Rep. Derrick Smith was expelled from the Illinois House for bribery, where he immediately vowed to take the issue to court to be reinstated.
• LA County law enforcement officials are treating the death of "Top Gun" director Tony Scott, brother of "Aliens" director Ridley Scott, as a suicide after he jumped from a bridge Sunday afternoon.
• A jury has awarded an openly gay University of Michigan student $4.5 million for being stalked and harassed by a former Michigan assistant attorney general.

Last Call

GOP Rep. Todd Akin, running for Senate in Missouri?  Just...I can't. 

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

“Let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work, or something,” Akin said. “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

So...women have....what down there, Todd?  Spike traps?  Nannites?  Really, really small ninjas?  They can vomit up their uteri inside out like sea cucumbers to eject rapey sperm?   I'd like to know how this works, man.

Akin is perhaps the boldest among a crop of conservative 2012 nominees who could hamper GOP efforts to take back the Senate in the fall. Akin has called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill.

His claim about “legitimate” types of rape is not completely foreign to the current Republican Congress, however. In 2011, the House GOP was forced to drop language from a bill that would have limited federal help to pay for an abortion to only victims of “forcible rape.” Akin was a co-sponsor on the bill.

Nor is this Akin’s first time suggesting some types of rape are more worthy of protections than others. As a state legislator, Akin voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The PollTracker Average shows Akin leading McCaskill by a margin of 49.7 percent to 41.3 percent. 

I'm betting those poll numbers change now, but will they change enough?  Still a very good chance this moron is going to be a Senator.

Where The Real Terrorists Are

If I told you there was a terrorist group killing cops in Louisiana last week, you'd either look at me funny or call me liar.  After all, odds are you didn't hear about it.  Indeed, a group of seven people have been arrested for making threats against law enforcement and ambushing Sheriff's deputies near New Orleans in two separate incidents, killing two of them and wounding two more.

The reason you didn't hear about this story is that the shooters are white, and the group is right-wing militia.  Nick Martin is covering the story at TPM:

A year ago, he was wanted by Nebraska authorities for allegedly making “terroristic threats” to law enforcement.

By Friday, investigators said Kyle Joekel, 28, was one of seven people involved in what was being described as a pair of ambushes on sheriff’s deputies outside of New Orleans. Two deputies were killed and two others wounded before it all came to an end early Thursday morning.

According to a report by the Shreveport Times, investigators in Louisiana had Joekel on their radar for months before the shooting and believed he was part of some sort of “anti-government group.”

A spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police, which is the lead agency in the ambush investigation, declined on Friday to say whether his agency’s investigators believe anti-government views were a motive for the killings. However, Sgt. Len Marie told TPM those questions could lead to something bigger.

Just days after a white supremacist killed six in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.  You still remember that story, right?  Our media sure doesn't.  So what group did Joekel belong to?

The details of the incident were not immediately clear on Friday afternoon, but the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the sheriff of Gage County believed Joekel was part of a group known as Posse Comitatus. The group, which was largely active in the 1970s and 80s, was seen as the precursor to the sovereign citizens movement.

“It just didn’t look right,” Sheriff Millard “Gus” Gustafson told the newspaper. “These guys would be driving around at night, and they’d have weapons on the front seat. If you’re doing that, something’s wrong — you’re either hunting illegally or doing something else.”

Ahh yes, Posse Comitatus, the mother of the modern militia movement in the US.  Two dead cops, but this story got swept under the rug as fast as it happened.  Our liberal media spent more time on a security guard getting shot in the arm than this story where cops were ambushed and killed by a terrorist group.

I guarantee you however if Kyle here had been black, Latino, or of middle eastern descent, it would be front page news for the third day in a row.  We'd have FOX asking if this was proof of the coming race war and if President Obama was behind it, of this being the reconquista in effect or if Mexican cartel killers had invaded New Orleans, or if deadly Taliban or AQ killers had indeed infiltrated the United States and if more shootings were imminent.

But no.  White guy.  Far-right militia group domestic terrorists.  That's not news at all in America. 

Aww, (Honey) Nuts

This is why I love The Smoking Gun.  Really, you can't make this stuff up.

The gay marriage opponent whose recent fiery, videotaped protest outside General Mills gained national attention--and triggered a criminal investigation--died over the weekend, according to police.

Michael Leisner, 65, died Saturday while running an errand near his Andover, Minnesota home. His funeral service is scheduled for Friday morning at the Emmanuel Christian Center.

Dwight Denyes, the church’s senior pastor, told TSG that Leisner (pictured at right) apparently died of a heart attack Saturday while waiting in his car for two of his children to finish playing tennis.

So, when we're told that plagues are the result of our sins, are we not to believe that this irony carries an equal but opposite message?  Don't get me wrong, I don't think God cares about torching some Honey Nut Cheerios on a corporate lawn, but perhaps... just perhaps... it makes sense that there is something wrong with the heart of a man who goes to such crazy lengths to oppose how people live in a free world.

Perhaps.

AT&T: Out To Lunch

Workers for AT&T in Indiana claim in a lawsuit that they are forced to endure odd and punitive lunch break restrictions such as a ban on napping after eating a ham sandwich.

According to a class action suit filed by 11 employees against AT&T Midwest, the telecommunications company has forced technicians to endure “heavy restrictions” on their unpaid lunch break or risk discipline.

According to the suit, employees allege the telecom company allows them to eat packed lunches in vehicles during unpaid lunch hours but not spend the remainder of the lunch break reading newspapers,  napping, or using personal computers or music players in vehicles. Workers also are barred from idling vehicles for air conditioning or heat during lunch.  Manhole workers must stay and guard the area during lunch break; they cannot go more than one-half mile from one assigned job to another for lunch or face discipline.

Of course, AT&T denies this, but they have shown quirks in the past, and the tendency to go way out of line on how their employees behave outside of work.

On an unpaid break, workers should be to do what they wish, within reason.  I do understand the manhole issue, but I would think it would be up to the company to provide the alternative, not a burden to be placed on the worker.

To tell someone they can't run their air-conditioning or heat in their car is ridiculous.  Trying to enforce such policies would be an utter waste of resources.

Ma Bell, you're killing me here.

European Bank Shots

Apparently the United States and the Obama administration have failed to make it clear to our European allies that we were rather serious about the whole "economic sanctions against Iran" thing as the cost of doing business on Wall Street, as Germany's Deustche Bank and a few other folks are finding out.

The hard way.

Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) is among four European banks being investigated by U.S. authorities for alleged violations involving oil trading and Iran, according to an attorney with knowledge of the matter.

Regulators including the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Federal Reserve, the Justice Department and the Manhattan district attorney’s office are all involved in the probe of Deutsche Bank and three other European banks, said the attorney, who asked not to be identified because the investigations are confidential.

“Deutsche Bank had decided by 2007 to reject any new business with Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea and to end existing relationships to the extent it was legally possible,” Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Friederika Borgmann said, declining to comment on the U.S. investigation.

The regulators were in advanced stages of an investigation into banking violations at Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) when the superintendent of New York’s banks, Benjamin Lawsky, moved first in that matter with an Aug. 6 order accusing the London-based lender of multiple violations of state banking laws.

Once the federal authorities resolve their probe of Standard Chartered, they will proceed against the four European banks they have been investigating, including Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, according to the attorney. 

It would be impossible to keep a money laundering investigation against Germany's largest bank under wraps, but the message is quite clear.  The US means business here, and Zee Germans now know it.

Last Call

Science.  It works, bitches.

I Didn't Need Representation Anyway

So as of now, thanks to Gov. Dinosaur Steve Beshear and Geoff Davis, I am without representation in the House.  Yellow Dog flags down the details:

From the AP:

Gov. Steve Beshear has scheduled a special election to replace former Republican U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis for Nov. 6 - the same day as the general election. 

That means big savings for taxpayers in the 4th District.

Lynn Zellen, spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office, said holding the special congressional election on a separate day could have cost as much as $500,000.

This also means that the winner of this election will not have to wait until January to be seated in the 113th Congress along with the other new Members, but will begin representing the Fourth District immediately on Nov. 7.  Bill Adkins or Thomas Massie will join the 112th Congress in the lame-duck session that may prove one of the most contentious in history.

Considering Thomas Massie is a Randian Tea Party jagoff, and this is NOBAMA Country, I'm thinking I need to redouble my efforts to get Bill Adkins elected.  Help him out if you can.

Ryan Rhymes With Lyin', Part 2

I don't know how many times I will have to say this between now and November 7, but when Paul Ryan says that current seniors won't be hurt by the Ryan budget plan, he is flat out lying to you.

Medicare is not the only entitlement Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has big plans to reform.

Its sister program, Medicaid, would lose about three-quarters of its federal funding by 2050 under proposals from the Republican vice presidential candidate, according to federal budget auditors.

Medicaid provides healthcare for the poor and the disabled. Over 10 years, Ryan's budget plan would cut the program's budget by about $810 billion.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been playing up the cuts that President Obama’s healthcare reform law made to Medicare, but hasn’t devoted much attention to Medicaid. One expert said there’s a good reason for that.

"It's a program that's very hard to simplify," said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

"It pays for 40 percent of the country's births and the majority of the nation's long-term care [for the elderly]. It's one of the most complex programs in the U.S. government — on the level of tax policy."

The Ryan budget made the same waste and fraud future spending reductions that the Obama administration proposed to Medicare Advantage, not Medicare itself.  Paul Ryan is a liar when he said today in Florida that the Obama administration "raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare."

This.  Is.  A Boldfaced.  Lie.

Cuts to Medicaid will affect a majority of current seniors, folks.  It really is that simple.  I'll say it again:  cuts to Medicaid will hurt current seniors.  Now.  Immediately.  If the Ryan budget becomes law, this is what will happen.  Seniors will see immediate cuts in Medicaid that they will have to make up out of pocket.

On top of that, future Seniors will have to pay even more because of the voucher system.  These vouchers will leave seniors well short of the money they'll need in order to pay for private insurance, because THERE WILL BE NO MEDICARE.  There will only be vouchers for private insurance.  Got it?  And on top of that, the Medicare age will be pushed back to 67.  And on top of that, since there's no Obamacare (because Obama, he does care!), you will be a private citizen trying to buy insurance at age 65.

Good luck with that.

Romney/Ryan will cut Medicaid for current Seniors, and destroy Medicare and Medicaid for future seniors.  And why?

To pay for tax breaks for the richest Americans.  $5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich.  Either the middle class has to pay for it in these massive government program cuts (and that means Romney/Ryan is lying to you) or the cuts will go unpaid and the national debt will skyrocket just on the tax cuts alone (also meaning Romney/Ryan are lying to you.)

And Paul Ryan took his mother down to Florida and used her as a prop to lie to America with.

These are the guys running against Obama, folks.  Liars.

Don't fall for it.  Get up off your ass.  Go register to vote.  Help people register to vote where you live.  Then VOTE.

Arresting Updates

Randy Travis just kicked off a trend. Celebrity arrests spiked this week for no real reason, but the fact that at least one other was completely naked at the time of arrest, we're calling coincidence or shenanigans.

I present a TMZ double feature:

Recently-axed UFC fighter Jason "Mayhem" Miller was arrested today in Orange County, TMZ has learned -- after allegedly breaking into a church, spraying a fire extinguisher all over the place, and getting buck naked.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ, the O.C. Sheriff's Office received a call early this morning from the Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo about a possible burglary in progress.

When the deputies arrived, we're told they found the first and second floors covered in white fire extinguisher spray. Cops say the place was also trashed -- scattered CDs, books, and broken pictures.

He was lucid and completely naked when officers arrived.  He is undergoing a thorough evaluation, and there is no report on whether he was intoxicated.  Regardless of what happened that night, he was definitely going through a despair spiral, after being fired from the UFC on nasty terms.

Chad Johnson was recently arrested for allegedly headbutting his wife, but as details come in there are a lot of unanswered questions.  While TMZ confirmed he has a history of domestic violence, his wife has said things in the past that may cast doubt on the weight of her claims.  At this point, anything could have happened.  I certainly hope that if he did not do this, that he is completely cleared.  Nobody deserves an abusive husband, and nobody deserves false accusations that can ruin a career.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether he was let go too soon, because the minute the story broke he was unemployed.  Many people (yours truly included) looked at his troubled past and assumed he had admitted guilt or there was something to it we didn't know.   However, it would be good to know that if he was somehow proven innocent that he would have a job.

Children Of A Lesser Corn

Courtney Gains -- who starred as psychotic teenage killer Malachai in "Children of the Corn" -- is allegedly wreaking havoc in his real life too ... his ex-girlfriend obtained a restraining order against the guy claiming he's threatening her life. 

Kelley Marie Pospisil -- who says she dated Gains for 2 years --filed court documents begging the judge to keep the 46-year-old actor at least 100 yards away from her at all times. 

In the docs ... Kelley says Gains has been sending her threatening text messages since they broke up ... writing things like "Don't think I won't go find your ass. Just keep it up b**ch."

He may be nuts, she may be a drama queen.  All I know is, he could scare the life right out of me. For everyone's sake, I hope it's just melodrama.

(eerie music fades out)

Re-Birther Of The Uncool, Part 6

Signed, SEALed, delivered, two swift-boat style attacks on President Obama from two different groups of retired Special Operations military types, who are going after the President for the decision to get Osama bin Laden saying the President should be ashamed of himself for "damaging leaks" at the expense of the Pentagon to "benefit his campaign". 

Surprise!  One group has significant ties to the GOP and the leader of the other is a confirmed Birther assclown.

"I have to admit that I'm a Birther," said SOS founder Larry Bailey, a retired 27-year veteran of the Navy SEALs, in an interview. "If there were a jury of 12 good men and women and the evidence were placed before them, there would be absolutely no question Barack Obama was not born where he said he was and is not who he says he is."

Bailey, who is part of the leadership of SOS's effort to mobilize thousands to take to the streets to denounce Obama's treatment of the military through an SOS project called Operation Street Corner, doesn't only believe that the president is a foreigner. He also believes that he is not actually the son of Barack Obama, Sr. Bailey trumpeted the conspiracy theory that the president is actually the love child of Ann Dunham and writer Frank Marshall Davis.

"In his books, Obama said his mentor was a fellow named Frank Marshall Davis. Frank Marshall Davis was a member of Communist Party USA, he wrote for the communist party's Hawaii newsletter, he was a close friend of Obama's mother, and there's a strong case that Frank Marshall Davis rather than Barack Obama, Sr. was Barack Obama, Jr.'s father and that Barack Obama, Sr. was just an administrative father of convenience," Bailey said.

Bailey isn't shy about his dislike of Obama personally and admits freely that his extensive efforts to mobilize special operations veterans and their supporters around the country is rooted in his personal dislike of the president and his desire to see him replaced.

"Barack Obama's a born red-diaper baby. He's a socialist. His beliefs are the very antithesis of my beliefs. As far as I am concerned he is one of the most unlikeable and unprepared politicians we've ever had," Bailey said. "I don't like him because he believes that America is responsible for most of the problems in the world and he wants to cut her down to size." 

No, you don't like him because you're a racist asshole and a lunatic, Mr. Bailey.  And you greatly dishonor the men and women who have served and continue to serve this country with your prejudicial garbage.  America is better than you, sir.  It deserves better than people like you.  Period.

Have you no decency?  I guess not.  Meanwhile the other group mentioned in that story, OPSEC?  Reuters reporter Mark Hosenblatt "took a look".

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives was preparing to launch a media campaign, including TV ads, that scolds Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and accuses his administration of leaking U.S. secrets for political advantage.

The group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, unveiled a documentary-style video featuring interviews with former spies and U.S. military commandos on Wednesday.

 Surprise!  Turnes out they're all former Swift Boat veterans and current Tea Party nutjobs as the Agonist notes:

The president of OPSEC is identified by Hosenball as "Scott Taylor, is a former Navy SEAL who in 2010 ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat in Virginia." What Hosenball neglects to mention, however, is that every other person he names as a member of this OPSEC group is a Republican activist and apparatchik.

Ben Smith, the ex-SEAL named above, is nowadays better known for his activist work with the Tea Party Express and Move America Forward , the pressure group set up by California Republican public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers. Fred Rustmann, "a former undercover case officer for the CIA who is a spokesman for the group" is the same Fred Rustman who appeared in a co-ordinated campaign on Fox News and in the conservative press claiming to be Valerie Plame's case officer and saying that she openly acknowledged her status as a CIA agent, blowing her own cover. Larry Johnson dealt with Rustman's claims in his testimony to Congress. Finally, Hosenball mentions "Chad Kolton, a former spokesman for the office of Director of National Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration who now represents OPSEC". A moment's work with Google reveals that Kolton "led the public affairs department" at DNI during the Bush administration and now is a founding partner in the D.C.-based firm of HDMK, a PR firm founded by four Republican "communications veterans".

In other words, both groups are made up of deep GOP dirty tricks operatives, and literally some of the same jagoffs who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA Iran case officer in 2003 in retaliation against anti-war crusader Joe Wilson, and then Swift Boated John Kerry in 2004 to keep Dubya in the White House.

Now they're going after Obama.  This is the level of GOP desperation we're reached right now:  Birthers and Swift Boaters.

Honorless bastards.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Syrian rebels are claiming that Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa has defected from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but the al-Assad regime isn't confirming any details.
• Online fundraising for a museum dedicated to science legend Nikola Tesla has garnered half a million dollars in just two days.
• Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made nearly half a billion dollars in unused earmarks available to states for road and bridge projects this year.
• Apple shares are approaching $650 as the company's rumored "iPad mini" has boosted stock prices to a new intraday record and a staggering market cap value of $600 billion.
• Twitter's new guidelines could mean the beginning of the end for third party apps like Echofon and Tweetbot.