Last Call For Getting The Shaftan

Just in case anyone still thought Republican Steve Lonegan had any realistic shot at upsetting Democrat and Newark Mayor Cory Booker for New Jersey Senate next week, the answer to that question is "Lonegan just fired his senior staffer over a massive gaffe".

Republican New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan said Friday he planned to fire his senior staffer Rick Shaftan after Shaftan made several several profanity-filled remarks about Lonegan's opponent, Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker, earlier in the week.

"Mr. Shaftan's comments are not reflective of my views or that of my campaign," Lonegan said in a statement through his campaign spokesman. "His comments are distasteful and offensive, and his contract as a vendor for my campaign will be terminated immediately."

Shaftan gave an interview to TPM on Thursday in which he described Twitter messages Booker sent to an Oregon stripper as "weird" and "like what a gay guy would say." A spokeswoman for Booker's campaign described Shaftan's remarks as "disgraceful and demeaning."

Republicans can't run away from the Pretty Hate Machine they've constructed, and America is sick of it. The federal shutdown is going to hand Cory Booker a huge win (Terry McAuliffe too in VA for Gov) and the goal now is to remind everyone that this is the GOP and will be until the Tea Party is expunged.

The Punishers Continue

Meanwhile, the Indiana GOP's response to "Obamacare is raising health insurance premiums on working-class families!" is apparently "We're suing the feds to stop health insurance premium subsidies for working class families!"

This week, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) challenging its authority to fund Obamacare’s insurance subsidies for individuals and enacting penalties against public employers (such as state and local governments) that don’t meet the health law’s minimum worker coverage requirement. If successful, the challenge would prevent Americans from receiving the government assistance that makes Obamacare’s insurance marketplace plans affordable in the first place. 

Zoeller claims that the health law doesn’t permit people living in the 36 states that have refused to set up their own Obamacare marketplaces — including Indiana — to qualify for federal insurance subsidies. He also says that local government employers which don’t meet Obamacare’s requirements cannot be penalized under the law to help fund those subsidies.

Yes, let's ignore the Supreme Court and keep suing until they give us the outcome we want.  Never mind the practical upshot of the suit is to make health insurance unaffordable for people.

The argument is based on a technical ambiguity in the law that state-level GOP officials and congressional Republicans have previously seized on in an attempt to undermine the ACA’s consumer assistance. The IRS has issued regulations saying that the law permits and intends the agency to extend subsidies to Americans in all 50 states. 

“The fact that many citizens lack health insurance is an issue for policymakers, and my office takes no position regarding the congressional debate over funding the ACA. I never complain when private plaintiffs file lawsuits to challenge the state authority that my office defends; but now our role is reversed and Indiana has initiated this lawsuit asking the court whether the IRS has exceeded its federal taxing authority over state governments,” said Zoeller in a statement. “This respectful challenge is an appropriate role for the Office of the Attorney General to vigorously assert the ability of the State and its political subdivisions to manage their workforces in our American system of federalism.”

And yet Indiana takes federal money for all sorts of federal services.  This one is somehow illegal, despite the IRS and SCOTUS ruling on it, because, well nobody seems to have a good argument, but we're more than happy to waste taxpayer money suing over the bad ones.

But that's today's GOP for you.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender...OK We Surrender!

Given Thursday's abysmal NBC/WSJ poll for the Republicans, it now looks like surrender is in the cards for the Crazy Caucus.

President Barack Obama and House Republicans clashed in a meeting Thursday afternoon over how soon the government can be reopened, even as the GOP offered to lift the debt limit for six weeks, according to sources familiar with the session. 

House Republicans told Obama at the White House that they could reopen the federal government by early next week if the president and Senate Democrats agree to their debt-ceiling proposal. A GOP aide said they would seek some additional concessions if they advance a government funding bill next week.

As I said last night, now we dictate the terms of the GOP surrender, what it will include, what face-saving measures will be used, etc, but Obama's just won this fight.

Having said that, I dealt some cold reality on Twitter last night:

Reminder: GOP lost the 95/96 shutdown too. Then promptly kept the House for another decade and voters gave them back the keys in 2010.
— Zandar (@ZandarVTS) October 10, 2013

Something to keep in mind.

StupidiNews!

• This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the watchdog group overseeing the destruction of Syria's stockpile.
• Astronaut Scott Carpenter, one of the original Mercury seven and the second American to orbit the Earth after John Glenn, has passed at the age of 88.
• The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday involving Michigan's ballot measure to ban the use of race as a factor in college admissions.
• The possible breakup of Blackberry is closer to reality as the deal for a Canadian venture capital firm to buy the ailing smartphone maker may not come to pass.
• The multi-billion dollar Grand Theft Auto V is expected to get a PC release next spring as over half a million have signed a petition asking to bring the console game to computers.

Last Call To Get Poll-verized

If you're wondering why John Boehner is offering a six-week debt ceiling raise, no end to the government shutdown, and nothing for the Democrats, it's because he needs that long to try to figure a way out of the mess this game-ending NBC/WSJ poll represents.

With House Republicans set to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss raising the debt limit and ending the government shutdown, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 63 percent of Americans believe refusing to raise the debt ceiling would be a real and serious problem. 

That's up from the 55 percent who said this in July 2011, during the last political fight over raising the debt ceiling.

And yes, that 63% overall number is high enough that it means a majority of Boehner's own party believes this.

But there is a partisan divide here: 72 percent of Democrats believe not raising the debt ceiling would be a real and serious problem, versus 57 percent of Republicans and independents who think this. 

And there's also a significant split inside the Republican Party: Among Republicans not supporting the Tea Party, 71 percent say not raising the debt ceiling would be a serious problem.

But only 44 percent of Republicans who are Tea Party supporters agree.

The full poll is far worse for the GOP.  Among the findings:

• A record low for GOP favorability (24% positive, 53% negative, including 29% strongly negative)
• A record low for Tea Party favorability (21% positive, 47% negative)
• 47% favor a Democratic Party controlled Congress, only 39% now want the GOP in charge of Congress
• And the big one, a majority of Americans now blame the GOP for the shutdown, 53% to President Obama's 31% (13% blame both sides).

That's the ballgame, folks.  The rest now is posturing, face-saving, and whining on the part of the GOP. Obama should give Boehner nothing.  Senate needs to pass a clean debt ceiling bill and send it to the House and we can end this when the tropical fruit-colored bastard caves.  

Best Kasich Scenario

Will Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich go over the heads of the Tea Party and issue an executive order implementing Obamacare's Medicaid expansion?

The possibility was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch. “We continue to explore all our options and just want to get this done," Kasich spokesman Robert Nichols told TPM in an email Wednesday. 

Here's how it would work, according to the Dispatch: Kasich would expand Medicaid eligiblity to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, as Obamacare prescribes, via an executive order. He would then, on Oct. 21, ask a seven-member legislative-spending oversight panel for the authority to spend the money that the federal government would provide the state to pay for the expansion. 

“The governor, I think, has the authority to do that,” Ohio Senate President Keith Faber (R) told the Dispatch Wednesday. “It’s certainly within his prerogative. I’m a defender of legislative rights, and I would think the better solution would be a legislative option, but the governor does have that authority." 

Medicaid expansion would cover roughly 275,000 additional Ohioans.

The Ohio Tea Party will go completely insane, and I can't wait for that battle to play out.  Kasich may be a misogynist corporate lobbyist jackass, but he knows enlightened self-interest when he sees it.  I say let him do it...then replace him with a Democrat.

Things may get very interesting across the river soon.

"Goodwill To All" Doesn't Quite Mean What You Think

Sometimes I hold on to a story to see what comes of it.  In this case, I was sorely disappointed in how small government squashed people and still got away with it.  I fully expected this case to set a new viewpoint of how times were moving forward, because this was so ridiculous I cannot believe it has been allowed to stand.  As most of you know, Virginia Gurrola, mayor of Porterville, CA was ousted along with a fellow sympathizer over an attempt to create a LGBT pride month.  This small town lost its collective mind.  The local government has overstepped themselves to an unbelievable degree, and displayed an ignorance and bias that should not be tolerated in public servants.

For those of you who don't know, here is a snippet from a Huffington Post article:

One LGBT activist who attended the event noted:

That was one of the scariest and most horrific experiences of my life! I have never been in the same room with people (yes, multiple people) that actually called for my death and the systematic extermination of all LGBT people; I have never been surrounded by so many hateful people; and I have never been so proud of the LGBT community for maintaining respect and decorum and civility (and trust me it was difficult).

Following her signing of the proclamation, the mayor was reportedly subject to such an extreme onslaught of homophobic comments from attendees that she was reduced to tears. Attendees allegedly screamed that homosexuals were "worthy of death" while waving bibles in the air.

Just weeks later, Porterville's City Council voted to rescind Gurrola's proclamation, stating that the LGBT community should not receive "special consideration," and replaced the label of "LGBT Pride Month" with a resolution declaring June 2013 "a month of community charity and goodwill to all in Porterville." Gay rights activists protesting the meeting were arrested at the event and charged with disturbing the peace.

That the legal system has been so abused is a case of local government gone insane.  The shutdown has got our attention for now, but this is terrifying.  Government unchecked is a nightmare, especially at the level closest to the people.  And because it's just the gays, it's being allowed to stand.

My own city has gone through similar stupidity, as have many.  Springfield was trying to decide if they should include the LGBT population in non-discrimination verbiage.  The city blew up, with people saying gays don't deserve "special consideration"... though they couldn't answer what that special consideration was, since everyone else is protected from discrimination.  I have had to listen to speeches about how homosexuals are going to set the world on fire, destroy marriages, ruin lives, lead to incest and sex with barnyard animals (I only wish I was kidding).

Part of the problem is that homophobes aren't able to accept LGBT folks as normal people.  That's their problem to bear, they're the idiots who self-inflict that disease.  The second problem is that these people think that making gay and transgendered people live in the shadows is a kind of victory.  By not allowing them to be themselves, and live true to their beliefs (a right the homophobes demand for themselves while denying others) they are living in bigotry at the expense of others.

So forgive me if I'm not buying the "goodwill to all people" line of crap.  It clearly doesn't apply to everyone.  Or are we to believe that fighting against "special rights" and wishing someone would die or burn for eternity are one and the same? Could you imagine your hometown saying you were worthy of death and then claiming they don't hate you when the cameras are looking?  Or sites and comments that suggest you should be drug behind a car until dead?  Stripped and raped until you came around and saw how wonderful their idea of righteous sex should be?  I've heard all of this before, and I'm straight and a known activist.  I can only imagine what people who are forced to hide the fact that they are gay hear every day.

Our LGBT population deserves the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness just like anyone else.  If their life choices are legal, we should have no say in what they choose to do with their lives. In a recent discussion, we were talking about legalizing gay marriage, and what it would mean.  We talked about reciprocal values, where if a law works for one group it should work equally for another.  Until gay marriage came up, that was the perfect solution.  Then a woman who wouldn't even consider it was asked, "so you think gays should be able to tell you that you can only marry women?  That you should only date women?"  The woman was appalled, but when we pointed out she was doing that to others the door to common sense slammed shut yet again and she said it was okay in this one case because "she believes" it is wrong.  The  inability to separate personal values from a national scale of protected freedom will be the ruination of our society, not two women marrying or two men adopting a baby.  Oh wait, it already is.

Judging is wrong.  Treating people badly is always wrong.  Treating people badly in the name of a loving deity is worst above all.  There is something inherently wrong with knowing our country allows freedom, but using laws to force people to a standard that has nothing to do with the welfare of the people and everything to do with control.  These are real people we are talking about.  Because they are often forced to live in silence, we are unaware of many of our LGBT neighbors.  They are your friends, coworkers, that person who ran out of their way to open the door for you, the people who teach your kids and patch up playground injuries, the person who holds your life in their hands on an operating table.  They are people.  Just people.  Just like us.  They deserve the right to make their own personal choices.  Just like us.

It's such a simple concept only a real idiot could screw it up.

StupidiNews!

• House Republicans may introduce a short-term debt ceiling bill as soon as today to buy time to negotiate against a default but only if the government remains shut down.
• Abby Wambach, who recently broke Mia Hamm's record as top career scorer in US women's soccer history, has married teammate Sarah Huffman in a ceremony in Hawaii.
• GOP senators are signaling that President Obama's choice to head the Fed next year, current Fed vice-chair Janet Yellen, will face a tough fight on Capitol Hill with several Republicans already opposing her.
• Climate scientists warn that the date where major world cities face permanently higher than average temperatures could come as early as 2029 for parts of Asia and 2047 for New York.
• Microsoft's "Blue Hat" program paying bounties for finding Internet Explorer security holes has resulted in a $100,000 payday for one researcher.

Last Call For That Con(Men)voy

Looks like that whole Truckers Versus Libtards/Second American Revolution thing has ran smack into the brick wall of reality as trucker Earl Conlon is now telling anyone with a microphone that the whole thing was a hoax.

It can be hard to get attention for your agenda in a town like Washington, but Georgia trucker Earl Conlon figured out a way: take the Beltway hostage.

Conlon’s comments in a U.S. News & World Report story that he and thousands of truckers from across the country (and possibly Canada) planned to come to the nation’s capital Friday and bring traffic to a standstill on the inner loop of the Capital Beltway zinged across the Web and were picked up by outlets ranging from Fox News to the Huffington Post. The rally was dubbed “Truckers for the Constitution.”

But it is a hoax.

“The comments to U.S. News were designed to do one thing and one thing only: stir the feather of the mainstream media,” said Conlon, a father of three. “Nothing gets the attention of the mainstream media like some sort of disastrous threat. I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers.”

So while thousands of truckers may indeed come to Washington on Friday and many of them may travel along the inner loop of the Beltway, honking their horns, they won’t intentionally shut down traffic, he said.

“First of all, we know it would not be right to go to D.C. to lock down the city by the Belt loop,” said Conlon, 50, a veteran truck driver who has suffered through more than his share of traffic jams. “That wouldn’t be fair to the people there.”

And Conlon is not sure that he will even make it to town Friday.

Boy, the US Secret Service got to this asshole fast, didn't they?  Somebody made very clear to this schmuck that if anything does happen in DC this weekend, it's all on his head, and he's now backpedaling as fast as he can away from the mess he created.  When it comes to anti-government rhetoric, these clowns are base cowards through and through.  They talk tough and want to bully whoever they can, but they crumble when people stand up to them.

It's a lesson to keep in mind as the bullies in the House threaten all of us with economic disaster.

The New Jim Crow: Two-Tier Voting

The Supreme Court's recent decisions involving Arizona demanding proof of citizenship when voting and crippling the Voting Rights Act has now directly led to at least two states instituting second-class citizenship for those who can't prove they are US citizens.  Jim Crow is alive and well, and it's called two-tier voting.

Officials in Arizona and Kansas are making preparations for elections with two categories of voters. There will be those who provided proof of citizenship when they registered to vote, and will therefore be able to vote in all local, state, and federal elections. And then there will be those who did not provide proof of citizenship when they registered. Those people will only be able to vote in federal contests -- if at all. 

In both states, the preparations underway are reactions to the Supreme Court's June ruling in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, the legal battle over Arizona's 2004 voter identification law, known as Proposition 200. While the headlines in June painted the ruling as a blow to Proposition 200, officials in both Arizona and Kansas have chosen to focus on the leeway the Supreme Court left them. Kansas State Election Director Brad Bryant laid out the argument in an email he sent to county election officers at the end of July. 

"As the Supreme Court made clear, its decision applies only to 'federal registration forms' and covers only federal elections," Bryant wrote, according to a copy of the email provided to TPM. "States remain free to require proof of citizenship from voters who seek to also vote in state elections." 

Using that logic, both states have made moves toward two-tier systems.

In other words, the awful SCOTUS decision in Arizona v Inter Tribal Council means that Arizona and Kansas are now free to use Voter ID to exclude people from being able to vote at all in state or local elections.  That's horrifying, and it means other GOP-controlled states will surely follow suit.

And remember, it's the states that get to decide what "proof of citizenship" means, unless you have a federal ID...and if the state chooses to recognize it as such.  Kansas in particular is designing a confusing system that would have two different voter registration forms, one for state and one for federal elections, and two different ID requirements.

If you think that's a disaster in the making for 2014 elections, you're correct.  And that's the point.  More of this will be coming, so count on it.

Another Ignoble Prize Winner

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics went the man the Higgs boson is named after.  Peter Higgs and fellow scientist Francois Engler postulated that the particle existed some 50 years ago.

Now, the octogenarian pair share the Nobel Prize in physics in recognition of a theoretical brilliance that was vindicated by the particle's discovery last year. 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize to them. 

Higgs and Englert's theories behind the elusive Higgs boson explained what gives matter its mass. 

The universe is filled with Higgs bosons. As atoms and parts of atoms zoom around, they interact with and attract Higgs bosons, which cluster around them in varying numbers. 

Certain particles will attract larger clusters of Higgs bosons, and the more of them a particle attracts, the greater its mass will be. 

The explanation helped complete scientists' understanding of the nature of all matter.

Maybe physicists can someday explain why Republicans keep existing.  I can't.  After all, the last guy to win the Nobel in Physics?  He got furloughed this week.

In 2012, David Wineland, a physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, won the Nobel Prize for his "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems." 

But Wineland has been deemed nonessential and is furloughed due to the government shutdown. 

"On the organization charts I'm just another worker, another non-essential," Wineland told the Washington Post.

America.  We lay off freakin' Nobel Prize winners because Republicans will never recognize the Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama is expected to formally nominate current Federal Reserve vice-chair Janet Yellen today as the first woman to head the Fed.
• Actor Tom Hanks revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and is undergoing treatment.
• More than 200 people, including several Democratic members of Congress, were arrested at an immigration protest at the National Mall Tuesday afternoon.
• California health care officials say more than 28,000 have signed up for the state's health care exchanges in the first week, New York officials say they've received 40,000 applications last week.
• Russian law enforcement officials say they've busted the man behind the infamous "Blackhole" malware, the hacker known as "Paunch" is apparently now in police custody.

Last Call For The Big "L" On Your Forehead

The GOP is now distinctly losing the shutdown fight in the court of public opinion.

Disapproval of congressional Republicans’ budget wrangling after a weeklong shutdown has shot up to 70 percent, with 51 percent disapproving “strongly,” according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

At the same time, President Obama’s approval rating has ticked up due to improved marks among moderate Democrats and independents. No group, however, earns positive marks for their handling of budget negotiations overall.

President Obama is holding steady, if not doing slightly better.  But Congress is definitely doing worse, especially Republicans.  Disapproval of the GOP is now at a massive 70%.  Here's the interesting part:

The poll finds Democrats and Republicans have become convinced that the opposite party is in the wrong on budget negotiations, but are far less united in support of their own leaders. Just 52 percent of Republicans, for instance, approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling budget negotiations. Fully 89 percent of Republicans disapprove of Obama, with 74 percent disapproving strongly. An identical 89 percent of Democrats disapprove of Republicans. 

The wide unpopularity of Republicans in Congress in budget talks is in large part due to a schism within Republicans themselves. By 59 to 39 percent, conservative Republicans approve of the way their party’s members of congress have handled budget negotiations in combined interviews over two weeks. But Republicans who identify as moderate or liberal split narrowly: 44 percent approval to 49 percent disapproval. 

This ideological split within the Republican party comes into sharper focus when looking at the most conservative party members. Republicans who describe themselves as “very conservative” approve of Republicans in Congress by 68 to 32 percent. Those who are just “somewhat conservative” split 51 to 45 percent in two weeks of combined poll results. 

By contrast, Obama wins wider approval from his fellow partisans that spans Democrats’ ideological wings. Fully 77 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s handling of budget negotiations, including 84 percent of liberals within the party. Among moderate and conservative Democrats, three quarters approve of Obama, up 11 points from last week.

Democrats are rallying around the President's refusal to give in to GOP economic terrorism.  Republicans on the other hand are coming apart.  A majority of moderate Republicans (what few are left) are revolting against the GOP tactics because they realize they're being held hostage too by the Tea Party nutjobs.

So when will these Republicans demand an end to the insanity?  The time to speak up is now, guys...or you're going to go down with the rest of the Republican losers.

We've Got Ourselves A Great Big Con(Men)voy

The latest Tea Party anarchist fantasy?  Heroic right-wing truckers will surround Washington DC and cart off all the evil Democrats or else they'll blockade the city and starve out all those people.  Or something. Because FREEDOM and EAGLES.

Earl Conlon, a Georgia trucker who is handling logistics for the protest, told U.S. News tractor-trailer drivers will circle the beltway "three lanes deep" as he rides with other participants to Congress to seek the arrest of congressmen for allegedly disregarding the Constitution. 

The truckers circling I-495 will keep the left lane open for emergency vehicles, Conlon said, but "everybody that doesn't have a supporter sticker on their window, good luck: Nobody in, nobody out." The trucks will be going the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. 

D.C. commuters who wish to be allowed past the convoy must have "T2SDA" – an acronym for the event's original name, "Truckers to Shut Down America" – written on their vehicle, he said. 

"It's going to be real fun for anyone who is not a supporter," Conlon said, "[and] if cops decide to give us a hard time, we're going to lock the brakes up, we're going to stop right there, we're going to be a three lane roadblock."

OK Conlon, how many people are you willing to main, injure, or kill to blockade DC and its people? How many of your trucker buddies are willing to go up against the Secret Service, DC Police, Capitol Police, and even the US Army? Because I guarantee you the first time you and your redneck asshole buddies flip over a minivan with an Obama/Biden sticker on it, you're going to have hell descend upon you.

Zeeda Andrews, a former country music singer helping promote the protest, said last week participants would present demands to congressmen – including the impeachment of President Barack Obama – and give the congressmen an opportunity to agree to the demands in exchange for canceling the ride. 

But Conlon says that's not quite right. 

"We are not going to ask for impeachment," Conlon said. "We are coming whether they like it or not. We're not asking for impeachment, we're asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office."

OK, you do that.  And the people whose sworn duty it is to protect our elected men and women of office will do their sworn duty and end you.  You're coming whether thy like it or not?

They'll be ready.  Because if you think America's just going to roll over and let you clodhoppers say "Well, we didn't win the election so we're just going to destroy your country" you've got another thing coming to you.

And by "another thing" I mean most likely people with heavy ordnance.

I hope you keep on truckin', buddy.  Right to federal prison.

The Honey Badger Rises

With the House going nowhere, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats are going to try to pass a clean debt ceiling hike in order to call the GOP out, and they believe they have enough Republican votes to beat a filibuster.

Senate Democrats are planning to start the process this week for a Senate vote on a clean debt limit increase, sources tell me – a move that could call the bluff of Republicans in both chambers and force them to take a stand on whether they will allow default and economic destruction if Dems don’t accept their unilateral demands. 

The move has the backing of the White House, according to a source familiar with discussions. 

The idea is that Senate Dems will move their own clean debt limit bill, rather than wait for the House GOP to hold its own vote on either a clean CR funding the government (which Senate Dems have already passed with broad bipartisan support) or on a debt limit hike. Dems would be challenging Senate GOP moderates to vote for or against averting default and economic havoc outside of any set of conditions House Republicans insist must be attached to any measure raising the debt limit. 

Senator John Cornyn is claiming no clean debt limit hike can pass the Senate, but Dems believe there may be at least half a dozen GOP Senators who would be willing to support one. A vote would put that to the test.

So we'll soon see if indeed Harry Reid can pull this off.  He'll have to at some point for the Democrats to stop GOP extortion politics, but I'm getting more and more afraid that it's going to take a multi-trillion dollar economic catastrophe caused by a GOP default before this will all end.