Last Call For Rand On Third Baseless

The GOP plan to win in 2016, specifically Rand Paul's plan to win in 2016, is to somehow split the black vote by running issues that "appeal" to us.

Personally, I think Rand's been in the Maui Wowie again.

Sen. Rand Paul tells POLITICO that the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 could capture one-third or more of the African-American vote by pushing criminal-justice reform, school choice and economic empowerment. 

“If Republicans have a clue and do this and go out and ask every African-American for their vote, I think we can transform an election in one cycle,” the Kentucky Republican said in a phone interview Thursday as he was driven through New Hampshire in a rental car.

He's high.  Rand Paul, you are high as a kite in a Kansas tornado.

First of all, "school choice" is a terrible idea, because it's really "take money from public schools and give them to for-profit charter schools that fail."  The good schools don't have enough room for all the students who want to get into them, and those students still have to go to school somewhere. Where they end up going are the same crumbling, failing schools that they're trying to escape from, and that suburban and exurban taxpayers want to abandon totally since their kids aren't stuck there. See Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia schools, and to a lesser extent, John Kasich's charter school scheme here in Ohio, and Rick Scott's charter school scheme in Florida and Bobby Jindal's mess in Louisiana.

Second, Republicans aren't interested in criminal justice reform.  At all.  Rand Paul might be, but fixes to our overloaded criminal justice system are worthless without the major kind of infrastructure and job improvements that predominately black neighborhoods need, and again, that Republican taxpayers don't give a damn about.  It's one thing to reduce or get rid of mandatory sentencing, but entirely another to provide quality public defenders, clean and safe courtrooms that aren't backlogged for years, and not to use fines and court fees from people as a revenue stream for county and city funding.

Third, if anything the phrase "economic empowerment" means Republicans like Rand Paul want to cut food stamps, social services, Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, schools, and infrastructure spending in urban neighborhoods, not improve them.  Let's not forget this means "you're on your own to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps."

Finally, Rand Paul is stupid enough to think that decades of mistrust black voters have towards Republicans will be eliminated in the next two years, while the party is still actively engaging in "Southern Strategy" attacks involving President Obama and openly moving to disenfranchise black voters through voter ID laws in multiple red states?  And hey, let's not forget Rand Paul's own personal record on civil rights and voting right that both are unnecessary in today's age, and the fact that the GOP is sworn to get rid of legislation protecting them.  Republicans don't want a third of the black vote. They want to eliminate the black vote.

It's not just fantasy, but idiotic foolishness to take Rand Paul at his word on this.  Most of all, he seems to think black voters are stupid, and that's the most insulting part of all this.

Republicans will be lucky to get 3.3% of the black vote in 2016, not 33%.

Doctor, Doctor, Can't You See You're Lying, Lying

And once again GOP Sen. Rand Paul proves to be a massive embarrassment for Kentucky, the US Senate, and America with his flat out lies about Ebola to CNN.

Sen. Rand Paul said Ebola is "not like AIDS," offering what he says is a stark contrast from the White House's message on the disease. 

"[The Obama administration] has downplayed how transmissible it is," Paul said in an interview with CNN on Thursday morning. "They say it's the exchange of bodily of fluids. Which makes people think, 'Oh, it's like AIDS. It's very difficult to catch.'" 

"If someone has Ebola at a cocktail party they're contagious and you can catch it from them," Paul continued. "[The administration] should be honest about that."

Except being exposed to bodily fluids is exactly how Ebola spreads.  Just standing near a person at a cocktail party doesn't spread Ebola and Rand Paul knows this, but his obnoxious hair-splitting is actually dangerous and stupid fearmongering.

"They say all it takes is direct contact to get this," he said. "If you listen carefully, they say being three feet from someone is direct contact. That's not what most Americans think is direct contact. 

"You start to wonder about a basic level of competence," he said.

Yes, it makes me question your competence, Senator.  You represent me, ostensibly.  And you should know better.

How Ebola spreads:



Are we clear?  Unless that person at the cocktail party is ill and bleeding and vomiting on you, or you're sharing a used needle with them, you're not getting Ebola.

Now stop lying to the American people, you ass, because that's what you're doing here.

The Distinct Sound Of A Panic Button Being Smashed

Remember, there's no concerted effort to panic people using cheap and stupid Ebola scare tactics in the media, thus causing low turnout for the November elections in order to favor Republicans.  Why would anyone believe that's the case?

There could be as many as two dozen people in the U.S. infected with Ebola by the end of the month, according to researchers tracking the virus with a computer model. 

The actual number probably will be far smaller and limited to a couple of airline passengers who enter the country already infected without showing symptoms, and the health workers who care for them, said Alessandro Vespignani, a Northeastern University professor who runs computer simulations of infectious disease outbreaks. The two newly infected nurses in Dallas don’t change the numbers because they were identified quickly and it’s unlikely they infected other people, he said. 

The projections only run through October because it’s too difficult to model what will occur if the pace of the outbreak changes in West Africa, where more than 8,900 people have been infected and 4,500 have died, he said. If the outbreak isn’t contained, the numbers may rise significantly. 

Yeah, nothing like a using a sensational headline like

U.S. Ebola Cases May Exceed Two Dozen by November, Researchers Say

And then spending the rest of the article to walk it back.  Good job, Bloomberg News!

“We have a worst-case scenario, and you don’t even want to know,” Vespignani said. “We could have widespread epidemics in other countries, maybe the Far East. That would be like a bad science fiction movie.” 

The worst case would occur if Ebola acquires pandemic status and is no longer contained in West Africa, he said. It would be a catastrophic event, one Vespignani said he is confident won’t happen. 

“Let’s be rational for the next couple of months,” he said. “We aren’t going to have an invasion of cases. After November, we need to reassess the situation and see what is the progress of containment in West Africa.”

There's a worst-case, but it's not here in the US.  Africa needs help, which is coming in the form of US personnel and supplies.  But who cares?  EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA STAY HOME DON'T GO OUTSIDE.  Hell, we're pissing ourselves over 3 cases.

"And especially don't go vote" is the underlying implication.  Scary crowds of people there.  Maybe somebody's infected, you don't know.  If you wanted to wreck November turnout and then holiday shopping, this is the way to do it.

Right?

StupidiNews!

• US airstrikes in Kobani have dislodged ISIS fighters in the Syrian border town near Turkey, allowing Kurdish fighters to take territory.
• Vice-President Joe Biden's youngest son, Hunter Biden, has been discharged from the Naval Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use.
• President Obama says he is open to the idea of an "Ebola czar" to help coordinate the response of multiple US agencies to the disease, but does not support a travel ban from West Africa.
• London police say they are conducting a number of domestic counter-terror operations against militants inspired by ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq.
• Apple has announced its next generation of iPad and iPad Mini tablets, supporting many of the same features introduced earlier this summer with the iPhone 6.

Last Call For Redefining Down A Crisis

Please tell me once again how our liberal media is in the tank for President Obama, and that there's no evidence that he's being treated unfairly.

The Ebola crisis in the United States has become an anchor threatening to sink the Obama presidency. 

Already under fire from critics who saw the federal response to the outbreak as disorganized and timid, things went from bad to worse on Wednesday, when it was revealed a second nurse had contracted the disease while treating a Liberian man at a Dallas-area hospital.

More alarmingly, the diagnosis was made just hours after the nurse, 29-year-old Amber Vinson, had flown from Cleveland to Dallas on a commercial airliner, despite reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she had a fever.

That Vinson was allowed to travel at all — along with continued questions about why federal procedures for Ebola treatment appear not to have been implemented in Dallas — have prompted serious questions about the administration’s handling of the disease less than three weeks before the midterm elections.

Democrats are expected to lose significant ground in those contests, in no small part due to public dissatisfaction with Obama and resilient questions about the president’s competency.

FOX News?  World Net Daily?  NewsMax?  Nope, this is from The Hill's White House correspondent, Justin Sink.  He has the White House on the verge of collapse, assuring readers that it will cost Democrats in the midterms, and that it will be Obama's fault when it does.

The actions of a for-profit hospital in Dallas that admitted it wasn't prepared to safely handle an Ebola patient is now Barack Obama's personal fault.  We've gotten to the point where the news media is now reporting on its own fearmongering for ratings and that Americans are panicking over international travel now and apparenly unable to destroy his presidency so far, the media has found the method to do so.

Republicans are demanding that the White House take steps to make the issue worse by imposing a travel ban on Ebola-stricken West African countries that will do nothing to resolve the issue and calling for the resignation of CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, which will definitely not do anything to resolve the issue.

The ridiculous panic escalation is completely political, and the GOP and news media are riding it all the way to a GOP Congress in November.  But nobody seems willing to admit all this idiocy is taking place because of an election around the corner.

I can't wait to see the news stories on "Ebola: is your polling place safe?"

Head Like A Hole

Republican Tom Cotton is running for Senate in Arkansas against incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor, and the race is very close.  But in their second and final debate this week, Pryor pretty much ended Cotton's run:

Tom Cotton, the Republican candidate for Arkansas’ U.S. Senate seat, has repeatedly denounced the Affordable Care Act as a failure and vowed to help repeal it if elected. But in his second and final debate Tuesday night against Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor, he went further, claiming the high-risk insurance pools that many states ran before Obamacare’s passage were better for people with pre-existing conditions than the current exchanges.

“Many people were happy with their coverage under the high-risk pool, before it was eliminated,” Cotton said. “They should have been allowed to keep that choice.”

Pryor shot back, saying his personal experience proved otherwise. “I am a cancer survivor,” he said. “I have been in the high-risk pool. I have lived there. It is no place for any Arkansan to be. If we go back to the high-risk pool, it’s like throwing sick people to the wolves.”

Many of the high risk pools Cotton praised were known for their sky-high costs, exclusion of many applicants, and strict limits on what care is covered. In Arkansas, out of pocket costs for patients in such pools could be as high as $20,000 and those with pre-existing conditions had an average 6 month waiting period for care.

Dear anyone who has gotten health insurance from Medicaid expansion or from an Obamacare exchange plan:  Republicans will take that plan away from you, and they think you're stupid enough to vote for them to do that.

I know if you have an Obamacare plan or Medicaid plan, you're thinking that the Republicans will find a way to take insurance away from other people, but not you.

Go on thinking that. you're going to get what you deserve.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Please, tell me again how voter ID laws aren't designed specifically to disenfranchise black and Latino voters, and I'll tell you you're full of crap.

Support among white Americans for voter ID laws increases when that question is asked alongside of a photo of African Americans voting, according to a new study.

The new University of Delaware study found that 67 percent of white Americans supported voter ID laws after the question was posed to them with text only or accompanied by a photo of white people voting. But that number increased to 73 percent when the same question is asked with an accompanying photo of African-Americans voting. 

"Our findings suggest that public opinion about voter ID laws can be racialized by simply showing images of African American people," David C. Wilson, who helped supervise the study, said. "The resulting increase in support for the laws happens independently of —even after controlling for— political ideology and negative attitudes about African Americans." 

The spike, from 67 percent to 73 percent, may not be huge but it's still statistically significant, The Washington Post noted. While there was an increase among white Americans who were asked about their support for voter ID laws, an accompanying picture of black people voting did not cause African Americans or Hispanic voters to show stronger support for voter ID laws.

You even show some white folks pictures of non-white people voting and they're more likely to support these laws.  Hell, you just have to introduce the idea of black or Latino voters existing and voting and they react to us with punitive measures.

But there's no racism in America because Chief Justice Roberts said so, so we don't need anything silly like a Voting Rights Act anymore.

StupidiNews!

• The Dallas hospital at the center of three Ebola infections is apologizing to employees and to the country for failing to take proper precautions to protect health care workers.
• An Oklahoma man has confessed to killing his parents and sister in order to inherit money, prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty.
• Engineers at Lockheed Martin say they have made a major breakthrough in providing viable fusion power in testing which could become a commercial reality by 2025.
• Analysts as Citigroup say that recent lower oil prices could provide a $1.1 trillion boost to the world economy through lower fuel and heating costs this winter.
• HBO says it will offer online-only subscriptions to viewers who have cut the cable cord sometime next year.

Last Call For More GOP Coup-Coup Birds

She looked up furtively and said "I'm not saying that I want anything bad to happen, but why doesn't our military just, you know, do something about That One(tm)?" she asked with a nervous chuckle.

A Missouri Republican official asked why the American military hasn’t launched a coup against President Obama, whom she called a “domestic enemy.” 

Debbie Dunnegan, the Republican recorder of deeds for Jefferson County, 

Missouri,posed the question in a Facebook post last week. The liberal blog Progress Missouri flagged Dunnegan’s post, in which she argued that “the constitution gives [the military] the authority” to take out Obama. 

“I have a question for all my friends who have served or are currently serving in our military … having not put on a uniform nor taken any type military oath, there has to be something that I am just not aware of,” Dunnegan wrote. “But I cannot and do not understand why no action is being taken against our domestic enemy. I know he is supposedly the commander in chief, but the constitution gives you the authority. What am I missing? Thank you for your bravery and may God keep you safe.” 

Dunnegan denied having any “ill intent” in an interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

What are you missing, Debbie?  Working knowledge of basic civics, a conscience that tells you to keep such idiocy to yourself, and any semblance of  morality.

But I'm sure Republicans will want to work with someone they consider to be a "domestic enemy" after the midterms should they retake the Senate. Republicans are perfectly reasonable, you know.

Jesus wept.

Paul Ryan The Anti-Science Goon

Reminder: America will keep voting for climate deniers in the GOP until something happens that personally affects them to the extent that it makes them stop doing that.  Behold, failed vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, a "serious policy wonk" who also happens to be a clueless lump on climate change.

The planet has faced climate change forever and humans' pollution might not be to blame, Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan said Monday during a debate against his Democratic challenger. 

Ryan, favored to win re-election to his seat representing GOP-leaning southern Wisconsin, faced off against businessman Rob Zerban for an hourlong forum that touched on world events, domestic politics and the economy. One of the sharpest differences came when the moderator asked each candidate if he thought human activity is to blame for changes to the planet's climate. 

"I don't know the answer to that question," Ryan said. "I don't think science does, either." 

Ryan also said efforts to combat climate change are costly and unproven, a popular position among the Republican base he will need should he seek the GOP's presidential nomination in 2016.

Actually, an overwhelming majority of scientists do know that man is contributing to global warming and that most of the pollution is coming from sources related to the energy industry.  You know, the same industry which has bought the GOP and clowns like Paul Ryan, and is busy sowing discord and misinformation like their business model depends on it.

Because it does.  But the people of Wisconsin will keep electing Paul Ryan to office until something stops them.

A Must-Win Situation For The GOP

Professional political polling prognosticator and pundit Stu Rothenberg posits that if the GOP somehow manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2014 and doesn't retake the Senate, the big money donors are going to walk away from the party.

As one Republican strategist admitted to me recently, if his party fails to take back the Senate next month it will only lead observers to conclude Democratic campaign operatives are far superior to the GOP’s, and Republicans don’t have a chance of winning the White House in 2016. 

It isn’t hard to imagine what that would do to the party leading up to the 2016 presidential contest. 

Current conditions are so favorable for the GOP — including the president’s poor poll numbers, the states with Senate races, the lower turnout of Democratic groups in midterm elections, the quality of this cycle’s Republican Senate recruits and the daily dose of negative news that should help the party not holding the White House — that Republican Senate gains of fewer than six seats would be a punch to the party’s solar plexus. 

If Republicans don’t net those six Senate seats this cycle, they are going to find themselves trying to explain to disgruntled, disappointed donors and voters why and how they will do better in a more difficult political environment. 

And they are not likely to have a very good answer.

Rothenberg has a point.  The Sheldon Adelsons and the Koch Brothers and other billionaire donors paid for their GOP politicians fair and square according to SCOTUS's Citizens United decision, and they paid good money to be on the winning team.  Failing to grab the Senate in 2014 would mark the fourth election in the last five that the GOP has found a way to botch things, after getting crushed in Dubya's second midterms in 2006 and losing to Obama in 2008 and 2012.

When you're throwing that kind of money around, you don't play to lose.  They're not going to get involved unless the GOP can show it can win and turn those wins into permanent control of the government.  Taking the Senate will remove one more barrier, all they would need then is the White House in 2016, and the game ends for America.

But a roadblock in 2014 would trip them up for at least another four years.

Three weeks to go to election day.  Are you ready?

StupidiNews!

• A second health care worker has tested positive for the Ebola virus in Texas, the person is also one of the workers who treated Thomas Eric Duncan.
• Feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian has canceled a speech at Utah State University after campus officials say they couldn't protect her from death threats due to Utah's open carry laws.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is suggesting that the end of November deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran may need to be extended into December or January.
• Oil prices have dropped to four-year lows amid evidence of a general slowdown in the world economy and lowered 2015 demand predictions.
• An already tense soccer match between Albania and Serbia was suspended after a drone flying a Greater Albanian flag buzzed the stadium.

Last Call For A Bunch Of GOP Ash Holes

Republicans are pretty dumb, but Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is such a purveyor of The Stupid that it's actually giving me a migraine.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is trying to get a restraining order to block the ashes of an Ebola victim's possessions from being buried in Louisiana. 

Caldwell began the process after news broke that the ashes of the possessions of Thomas Eric Duncan, the only man to die of Ebola in the United States were to be buried at a Louisiana landfill. “We certainly share sadness and compassion for those who have lost their lives and loved ones to this terrible virus,” Caldwell says, “but the health and safety of our Louisiana citizens is our top priority.” 

Reportedly, six truckloads of potentially contaminated possessions were incinerated in Port Arthur, Texas. Those ashes were supposed to be making their way to a landfill in Carlyss, Louisiana. 

The Attorney General's office expects the application to be filed on Monday, and they are also sending a letter to Texas state and federal officials, along with various private contractors, demanding additional information about the handling of the Ebola infected ashes.

Dear moron: the incinerated ashes of inanimate objects are not a viable source of Ebola infection. You cannot get Ebola from a truckload of burnt, cremated, incinerated non-human remains.  That's "You can get AIDS from a toilet seat!" level of stupidity, only if the toilet seat was also on fire and buried in a landfill.

Do you know what diseases you can get from a truckload of incinerated personal objects? Nothing, because it has been incinerated, you gigantic bloviating bowl of Kellogg's Idiot  Flakes. What exactly do you think is going to happen, that the ashes are going to rise up out of the goddamn bayou as an Ash Golem and then give everyone Ebola in their shrimp etouffee while infecting an army of undead Ebolagators that bite people in half and then give them Ebola because being bitten in half by an undead alligator is not bad enough so ha ha ha screw you now you have Ebola too?  Does this qualify me as the next Attorney General down there now?

Please stop being Louisiana's Attorney General immediately.  They deserve to be represented by someone who isn't a mouth-breathing pinecone-brained paint-chip eating lummox named "Buddy".

GOP Minority Outreach, Con't

If you're losing as a North Carolina Senate candidate going into the final stretch, just be like Thom Tillis and bring up slavery and how Democrats want to take more money from awesome white people and give it to them.

House Speaker Thom Tillis, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, once released a statement that said federal and state governments had "redistributed" "trillions of dollars over the years" — amounting to "de facto reparations."

That argument by Tillis, who is running to replace Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), came during anexplanation he offered on his website for why he supported a joint resolution expressing the North Carolina general assembly's regret for slavery. In his explanation for voting for it he tried to rebuff the idea that supporting that resolution would be a "slippery slope to reparations." 

"This resolution acknowledges past mistakes and frees us to move on," Tillis wrote. "The following summarizes my perspective on concerns raised by some citizens who criticized the decision to support the resolution." 

Tillis then went on to accuse a "subset of the democrat majority" that's kept pushing reparations. He warned that that subset would continue to do so as long as they are in the majority. Republicans took control of the General Assembly, for the first time in a century, in 2010. 

"This measure does not obligate legislative members to provide reparations. A subset of the democrat [sic] majority has never ceased to propose legislation that is de facto reparations and they will continue to do so as long as they are in the majority," Tillis said. "Federal and State [sic] governments have redistributed trillions of dollars of wealth over the years by funding programs that are at least in part driven by their belief that we should provide additional reparations."

Which is why Tillis is so eager to end those programs.  Trillions, you know.  Democrats have "redistributed trillions" as "reparations" so we paid for your troubles and it's high time we stopped doing so, dagburnit.

But please tell me again how Democrats are running the "nastiest campaign ever" and how only Democrats need to be "disqualified" for not answering real questions.

More People Voting Is "Voting Fraud" To Republicans

Never forget that the Republican party is fully committed to make sure as few people are allowed to vote as possible, because low turnout from mostly older, wealthier voters keeps Republicans in office.  Whenever anything comes along that makes things easier for the Great Unwashed Masses to vote, it's of course inviting "voter fraud", as National Review's John Fund whinges about.

Perhaps the most hard-fought Senate race this year will be Colorado’s showdown between Democratic senator Mark Udall and Republican congressman Cory Gardner. The RealClearPolitics average of polls in the race shows Gardner holding a lead of 1.3 percentage points. The outcome may determine control of the U.S. Senate, and the margin of victory could be less than the 11,000-vote margin by which Democratic senator Michael Bennet was reelected in Colorado in 2010.

But there is a significant difference in this year’s Senate race. In 2013, a new Democratic state legislature rammed through a sweeping and highly controversial election law and convinced Democratic governor John Hickenlooper to sign it. The law, known as House Bill 1303, makes Colorado the only state in the country to combine two radical changes in election law: 1) abolishing the traditional polling place and having every voter mailed a ballot and 2) establishing same-day registration, which allows someone to appear at a government office and register and vote on the same day without showing photo ID or any other verifiable evidence that establishes identity. If they register online a few days before, no human being ever has to show up to register or vote. A few keystrokes can create a voter and a “valid” ballot. ​Once a ballot cast under same-day registration is mixed in with others, there is no way to separate it out if the person who voted is later found ineligible. Other jurisdictions that have same-day registration, such as Washington, D.C., treat the vote as a provisional ballot pending verification. Colorado immediately counts the vote.

There's only one problem with Fund's tirade:  he's factually incorrect on many of the details as The Moderate Voice's Kathy Gill points out.

First, polling places have not been abolished! 

Voters can choose to mail their ballots back to the county clerks, drop ballots off at early voting centers, or complete them at the polls on Election Day. 

Like Washington state, Colorado runs a limited number of polling locations. So I was wrong, initially: this system should save counties money and the election day headaches related to running many polling centers. That doesn’t stop some people from grumbling about how they preferred the old days … but preferring an old system doesn’t mean that the new one is less secure.

Second, in order to register online in Colorado, you must have a Colorado driver’s license. 

So what that “no human being ever has to show up”? One hopes that signatures are checked against the one on the driver’s license for confirmation of identity. They are in Washington. If not, then shame on Colorado for administrative incompetence. Since Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler (failed candidate for governor) opposed the new law, if he didn’t push for regulatory implementation that allowed for identity confirmation, then he’s incompetent. 

Besides, in the 2012 presidential general election, 74 percent of Coloradans voted by mail ballot. Safeguards in place then should work just fine two years later.

Third, same-day voter registration must be done in person, so please, where is the risk of their being found ineligible?

Gill goes on to point out a number of fallacies in Fund's dumpster fire full of outright lies.  The information on Colorado's vote by mail is readily available, but Fund actively chooses to tell bald-faced lies about it, to delegitimize Mark Udall's re-election.  This is how Republicans work: there's no possible way a Democrat could ever win an election fairly, so the problem is always "massive voter fraud" that never seems to materialize.  But of course, "everyone knows" Democrats must have to cheat, bribe, and steal in order to win because "real Americans" vote GOP.  So voter ID laws that are really all about disenfranchising those people are common practice in keeping red states red.

Fund doesn't even try to hide his lies here.  And this passes for intellectual honesty among conservatives.

If you have to keep people from voting in order to win, your policies may not be so hot, yes?