Shocked But Not Surprised In The Treasure State

A federal judge has struck down Montana's campaign finance limits, calling them unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

A federal judge on Wednesday struck down Montana’s limits on contributions to state political candidates, allowing politicians in the state to receive unlimited donations from individuals, party committees and PACs.

U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ruled that Montana’s contribution limit to candidates was unconstitutionally low.

“Having reviewed and considered the entire record and the parties’ arguments and evidence, the Court concludes that Montana’s contribution limits in Montana Code Annotated § 13-37-216 are unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” he wrote in his decision. 

Nobody should be surprised by that given Citizens United, but the logic here is just as shocking as that awful decision:

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court case Randall v. Sorrell, which struck down Vermont’s strict limit on contributions to candidates, Lovell wrote that, “[t]he contribution limits prevent candidates from ‘amassing the resources necessary for effective campaign advocacy.’”

Montana law limited individual and political action committee contributions to $630 for the gubernatorial candidates, $310 to candidates for statewide office and $160 for candidates to other office.

Political party committees could contribute $22,600 to gubernatorial candidates, $8,150 to statewide candidates, and $800 to candidates for other offices.

In other words, that's just not enough money to buy a state office in Montana, dammit.  And the legal advocacy group that killed Montana's fight against Citizens United claimed victory here for unlimited corporate money in politics once again.

Montana really is the Treasure State if you're a corporate candidate running for office.

Cop Punches Woman - Not A Repeat. Sigh.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police have launched an internal investigation after a video was posted online that shows an officer striking a woman twice in the face at a neighborhood party associated with Philadelphia's annual Puerto Rican Day parade. The 36-second video uploaded to YouTube and titled "Philadelphia Police Brutality" shows the woman crumpling to the ground after being struck Sunday in north Philadelphia. The woman appears to be bleeding from the mouth as she is led away in handcuffs.

Moments before the woman was hit, the video shows someone else throwing a liquid toward the officers. The woman was also seen spraying something from a can.

The woman, whose name was not released, was cited for disorderly conduct, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman.

The officer in the video, identified as highway patrol supervisor Lt. Jonathan Josey, is eager to tell his side of the story to internal investigators because there is more to what happened than the video shows, said John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"We're hoping that it's neither a whitewash nor a witch hunt," McNesby said at a news conference Monday. "At the end of the day, his actions will be questioned, but I believe they can be defended."

While I understand there may be things not captured on the video, and that perhaps the woman was guilty of some level of disorderly conduct, in what way is that grounds for punching a woman in the face?  Watch the video.  At the 40 second mark you can see him focus on her, step up behind her and swing around to hit her in the face while she walks away, watching him over her shoulder.

He wasn't defending himself.  From what I see, he engaged her.  She came in from an angle, he says something and she veers away, and he steps into her space and hits her.  I watched it over and over, noting my original response and what I saw as I studied what happened.  I am curious if our readers see it differently.

As people become more frustrated with government and conditions, there will be more marching and protesting than ever.  The Occupy movement will be one of many that will encourage people to speak out.  This must be tolerated, and police must learn how to manage crowds and do so within the boundaries of the law.  If she was guilty of a misdemeanor, it still doesn't give this cop the right to punch her while she is walking away from him.

This jackass had a choice.  He could have taken her arm, or even done a police tackle if one had been required.  Instead he hits her in the face in a sucker punch with way more force than necessary, and in a speech pretending to be neutral, we're told this sucker punch can be defended if we only knew the facts.  The facts I can watch with my own eyes says this is an act of avoidable aggression by a bully with power.

Machete Attack Unsuccessful (Thank Goodness)

A man arrested in a Friday machete attack in Springfield has been charged.

Darrall D. Tosh, 49, has been charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. The attack occurred in an apartment building at 504 E. Cherry. Paul E. Stacy suffered cuts to his wrist and neck area. His injuries were non-life threatening, police said.

According to a probable cause statement filed by police, Stacy said Tosh had been playing his stereo loudly and Stacy had asked his girlfriend’s daughter to go to Tosh’s apartment and ask him to turn down the volume. Stacy said Tosh screamed through his door that he was not going to turn down the volume. In a post-Miranda interview, Tosh said a woman had come to his door and he had turned down his music.

If you read the whole article, you learn his intent, and that he made connection with the man's neck, although he didn't think the force he used would do much harm.

With a machete.

I've seen too many horror movies.  If a dude comes at me with a machete, I am shooting until I'm out of bullets, and removing his head from his body for confirmation that there will be no sequel.

Both Sides Against The Middle

A new CNN poll on the role of government has some interesting findings, namely that the American people want the government to basically leave them the hell alone.

The survey, released Wednesday, indicates that there have been major changes on attitudes toward the government.

"The biggest: The number of Americans who say that the government should promote traditional values has fallen to an all-time low, a finding that might benefit many Democrats," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

According to the survey, just four in 10 registered voters believe the government should promote traditional values, down from 53% in 2010 and 57% in 2008.

"Between 1993, when CNN began asking that question, and last year, a majority of respondents have always said that the government should promote traditional values. Now, for the first time, more than half say the government should not favor any particular set of values," adds Holland.

But the poll also indicates the belief that the government is doing too much is also near historically high levels.

Six in 10 say the government is doing too much that should be left to individuals and businesses. That finding could favor Republicans.

So basically six in ten Americans want the government out economically, but about the same majority want the government to stop pushing moral judgements too.  Hey, that would be actual libertarian stuff, if the actual libertarians weren't closet Republicans.

Go figure.   Still, it explains why this race has been less than a blowout until now.

Debate Deblogging

Wednesday night's debate, the main event:  Mitt Romney the challenger, President Barack Obama the incumbent.  Romney has to go three for three in these debates to have any shot of catching up in the swing states, but he had to have last night's debate to win.  Jim Lehrer of PBS News Hour the moderator, and here's my breakdown of the six segments of the debate, the questions all on domestic issues after the jump.

StupidiNews!

• Turkish artillery conducted cross-border strikes for a second day as the NATO member retaliated for Syrian fire killing five people at a border outpost.
• Chicago police stumbled across and later destroyed nearly a thousand marijuana plants, some "as big as Christmas trees" near a major expressway.
• Mexican health officials are requiring all ten-year old girls to be vaccinated against HPV, thought to be linked to cervical cancer.
• The tiny EU island nation of Cyprus becomes the latest European country to ask for a bailout, needing some 11 billion euros to recapitalize banks and pay state employees.
• The FTC is cracking down on the latest low-tech PC software scam of crooks cold-calling people and pretending to be Microsoft tech support.

Last Call: PVTS Debate Special

Podcast vs. The Stupid, Episode 15:  Mitt Romney, Master Debater is up.   Check out our coverage of the first debate and our thoughts from tonight.  I thought President Obama did a fine job of playing defense here, but not everyone did, judging from my Twitter feed.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

As always, you can download the episode here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.  Check out our archived episodes here too.

Pre-Debate Whitey Tape Warm-Up

Game changing video before the debate.  Take that, Drudge!

Since one of this blog’s missions is to Read Those Idiots So You Don’t Have To, I figured it would be worth putting the the Drudge/Daily Caller OMG WHITEY TAPE here where you could all listen without having to get Carlson-cooties on your hard drives. Turns out it took almost two hours to download the 37-minute speech (I don’t know whether the problem was my desktop or Drudge’s website, but you have been warned) and by the time I finally scored the embed code, Cole had already done a long post about the whole less-than-a-nothingburger scenario. So, here you are, and what he said.

Frankly, the obvious reason so little note was taken back in 2007 is that there is absolutely nothing in the words to distinguish this particular speech from any other Barack Obama pre-November-2008 campaign speech. Any mainstream journalist reviewing it would probably have rated it A for Anodyne. The worst complaint I can imagine is that a dedicated Rationalist might be disappointed that Obama gives, at the very least, a convincing impression of being a proud member of the Black American Christian religious tradition. He might even be accused of considering himself a Person of Faith. As one of those PoFs myself (I’m a proud animist), I don’t consider this disqualifying. As someone who pays attention to modern American politics, I know that an out and proud atheist was not going to be running as a presidential candidate for one of the two major parties in the year 2008, or 2012, or probably 2016 either.

They got nothing left at this point.  The debate is their last chance and they know it.  Please let President Obama come out tonight to the Theme From Shaft.  Please.

Last Call will be a bit late tonight as Bon and I will be covering said debate on Podcast Vs. The Stupid, too.  Be there.

Celebrity Chopped Sure Has Gone To Hell

(Via Mitt's lunch trip on Tuesday at a Denver Chipotle)

...I got nothin'.  But the guy on the right?  My new hero.

Idiot Brings Knife To Knife Fight

SPOKANE -- Spokane Police said a man accidentally stabbed himself during a fight outside a motel.

Officers said the men were arguing at the Belair Seven Motel in the 1300 block of E. Sprague Sunday afternoon.

Police said one of the men pulled out a “Rambo”-style knife and suggested the two go outside. According to officers, he man raised the knife and the other man pushed his arm in defense, causing the man with the knife to cut himself in the chest.

The man with the cut was taken to the hospital. His condition was not available Sunday.

His condition is available.  He's stupid.

Blind Woman Removed From Plane

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- A West Plains woman says she was wrongly and rudely de-planed from a flight departing from Springfield.  Laurie Reeves Goss is still shocked she was removed by Allegiant.  She thought it was a misunderstanding about her disability, but an Allegiant report gives a completely different reason.

She was California bound for her daughter's birthday. "And see my grandchildren, which I hadn't got to see in two years it took me to save up for this trip," Laurie says. 

But Laurie can't actually "see" her grandchildren.   "They said, when people are talking to you, look toward their voice," Laurie says.  It's how she was trained after going blind. 

After asking her to stop using her cane, and after she nicely offered the window seat to a sighted person, she was deemed a threat to the other passengers.  They asked her if she had her cane, she said yes, and they walked her off the plane.

Staff says she had alcohol on her breath, and Goss says she had two drinks before boarding her flight.  A lot of people do that, especially people who don't like to fly.

I know I've mentioned on here before that my father was blind, but I try not to dwell on how some people treated him.  The assumptions people make, the rudeness that came from the cruel and the unthinking alike, it all became almost as much of a burden as the disability itself.  My father couldn't go anywhere without suffering fools by the dozens, and I'm sure this woman's experience is no different.

There may be more to this, but I'll remain sad and skeptical.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Irony is dead.  Dead, dead, completely dead.

A plurality of Americans and more than seven in 10 Republicans say pollsters are intentionally skewing results to benefit President Obama, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

Some 42 percent of voters surveyed by Daily Kos and SEIU believe pollsters are manipulating their sample sizes to benefit the incumbent president, while 40 percent do not. An additional 18 percent said they were not sure. That's evidence that Republican claims that Democrats and minority voters are being oversampled in national polls could be resonating — and potentially undermining the momentum of the president's early lead.

Poll shows Americans think polls are wildly inaccurate.  Jesus be a lock on the gun cabinet.

But Republicans are particularly likely to believe that the polls are unfair, reporting by a 71-13 percent margin that polls are biased against their candidate. Members of the Tea Party suspect intentional skewing by a remarkable 84-5 percent margin.

Members of the Tea Party also believe by overwhelming margins that President Obama is a Muslim, a Socialist, and that he was born in Kenya.  They also believe the Earth is about 6,000 years old and that evolution is massive scientific fakery, and that climatology is even more massive scientific fakery.  Now it's polls that are wrong.

Wanna bet 84% of Tea Party faithful will think President Obama stole the election on November 7th and that he has to be stopped by any means necessary?

What are the odds of that?

Hey, wingnut assholes aren't smart enough to understand basic biology, climatology, geography, law, politics, comparative religion or the Constitution.  Why would they understand statistics?

Scott, Liz, And Nino

The second debate between GOP Sen. Scott Brown and former Obama administration economist Elizabeth Warren took an interesting turn Monday night.  First of all, Fluffers from Press The Meat moderated, and gosh he loved him some Scott Brown.  But the love train derailed when Dancin' David Gregory asked Scotty about his favorite Supreme Court Justice was.

During a contentious second Massachusetts Senate debate, Brown went through a wild swing of opinions when moderator David Gregory asked him his "model" justice.

"Let me see, here. That's a great question," Brown said. "I think Justice Scalia is a very good judge."

The crowd at the debate immediately booed, and Warren began to cover up her face, perhaps realizing her challenger's mistake.

That Brown's first answer was Scalia was shocking, because Scalia is widely considered among the top two most conservative justices on the bench. Brown, meanwhile, has become popular in Democratic-heavy Massachusetts by becoming a largely Independent member of Congress.

Brown fumbled for words and quickly threw out almost every single justice currently on the bench.

"Justice Kennedy is obviously very good, and Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, they're all very qualified people there," Brown said.

Warren shook her head, noting that Brown had just endorsed Sotomayor, who some see as the most liberal member of the bench.

In a follow-up, Gregory pointed out that Scalia and Sotomayor have very different viewpoints on the bench.

"That's the beauty of being an independent, David," Brown said. 

"If you had to pick one?" Gregory said. 

"I don't need to pick one," Brown said. "We have plenty of justices up there, and I'm proud of the ones we have."

Just so you know, Scott, as a Senator, you get to confirm or deny the President's selections to the Supreme Court.  So yes, you need to "pick one" at some point.  It got ugly from there, as Elizabeth Warren happily replied "Elena Kagan" which of course got big cheers.

But Scott Brown announcing his favorite justice was Nino Scalia?  Yeah, he just lost 5 points in Massachusetts.  Knob.

StupidiNews!

• The first Presidential Debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gets underway tonight in Denver.
• A Tennessee Republican is scrambling to apologize after posting a photo of his gun to Facebook along with "Welcome to Tennessee, Mr. President." 
• A Pennsylvania judge has blocked full implementation of the state's GOP-sponsored voter ID law, saying it would disenfranchise poor, elderly, and minority voters.
• As the premier of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit nears, New Zealand's economy is far different from when the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was being shot there a decade ago.
• Samsung wants the recent verdict against it thrown out as one of the jurors may have lied about their past in order to get empaneled.

Also stick around tonight after the debate for a special Podcast Versus The Stupid!

Last Call

California Dem Gov. Jerry Brown has gotten a lot of props around here for the bills he's signed into law...but he also has earned a couple of rotten tomatoes tossed in his direction this week for a pair of pretty awful vetoes.

Sunday night, Brown vetoed both the TRUST Act, which would have changed how local law enforcement complied with Immigrations and Customs enforcement against undocumented immigrants, and AB889, called the “Domestic Bill of Rights,” which would have allowed more than 200,000 household employees formal access to overtime and meal breaks.

A member of an immigration advocacy group, the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC), told The Raw Story Monday that the two vetoes were a missed chance for Brown to show leadership on the part of the state.

“He lost an opportunity to demonstrate how states can advance legislation to value the important contributions of immigrants here in California,” said CIPC policy manager Gabriela Villareal. “With the TRUST Act, it was a constitutionally-sound bill that would have limited unfair detention and deportations of immigrants, and certainly with the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, it was an unfortunate disappointment that the governor didn’t recognize the people caring for California’s families as real workers.” 

Ahh, but California's wealthiest one percent, who no doubt employ many of those 200,000 domestics, had problems with the bill, so down it goes.   And the TRUST Act veto too was a major blow to immigration fairness in the state.  Both strikes are nasty reminders that even in blue California, workers' rights and immigration laws remain a major issue in the state, and Brown isn't nearly as liberal as everyone thinks he is.

One percenter issues in a state like California will continue to hold sway.