Last Call For 2015 Comes In With A Bang

What domestic terrorism problem?  I don't see any domestic terrorism problem.

An explosion outside an NAACP office building in Colorado on Tuesday morning that rattled neighbors was caused deliberately, officials say.

An improvised explosive device was detonated against the exterior wall of the NAACP building on South El Paso Street in Colorado Springs around 10:45 a.m. Mountain time. No one was injured, said Amy Sanders, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Denver.

A gasoline can had been placed near the device but did not ignite during the explosion, Sanders said.

FBI Denver and the Colorado Springs Police Department are on the scene. A 40-year-old man is a person of interest in the investigation. He may be driving a 2000 or older-model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, an open tailgate and a missing or covered license plate.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also investigating the case, according to Christopher Amon, acting spokesman for the agency's Denver office.

Nope, no domestic terrorism problem here.

So, which gun-loving conservative is going to call for the NAACP to start making efforts to arm African-Americans in order to protect themselves from attacks like this?

I'll just wait a bit for that to happen.

The Game's On In New York From Day One

House Republicans from New York are already having major issues in the 114th Congress, and today's only the first day it's in session.  First, convicted tax felon Michael Grimm is immediately resigning today, leaving an open seat.  As I've said, Staten Island Republican prosecutor Daniel Donovan, the man who failed to indict the cop that killed Eric Garner, is running on the GOP side. The Democrats are going to try to make this seat competitive with the man Grimm originally beat.

The DCCC had high hopes for this race in 2014, though the party’s top recruits bowed out, reluctant to take on Grimm, even after his 20-count felony indictment. The party eventually backed Domenic Recchia, who struggled as a candidate and lost badly.

Democratic recruiting efforts are likely to be a little easier in an open-seat special election, and former Rep. Michael McMahon (D), who held the seat between Fossella and Grimm, has said publicly that he’s “definitely taking a look” at the race.

Meanwhile, up in the Hudson Valley, Republican Chris Gibson is expected to immediately announce his retirement.

The Republican, who was re-elected to a third term in November, will open a competitive seat in 2016 with his departure following this Congress. President Barack Obama carried the district with 52 percent, making it a must-win for House Democrats if they want to put a dent in the GOP’s historic majority this cycle.

Last year, Gibson annihilated venture capitalist Sean Eldridge, the Democratic nominee with deep pockets, by nearly 30 points. 

Initially, Democrats were optimistic about defeating Gibson in the lush and rolling Hudson Valley-based district north of New York City. But Eldridge’s candidacy quickly flamed out, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee never reserved airtime in the 19th District to support his campaign. 

Without Gibson on the ticket, Democrats will target the district as a pick-up opportunity.

And yes, Sean Eldridge ran arguably the worst House campaign for the Dems in 2014 in what was a miserable year for them anyhow.  He made no effort to hide the fact he was buying the seat as a techbro trophy, and managed to piss off everyone in the district doing it.  The good news is the Dems can basically run anyone and they'd do better than Eldridge.

But that leaves two open seats that the Dems pretty much have to win back in order to try to make any attempt at shifting the House.

Something Something Obama's Fault

Remember this greatest wingnut hit from the 2012 campaign?

In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, David Siegel, billionaire chief of Florida timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all employees. “Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for,” Siegel wrote, but offered “a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.” These included that re-electing Obama would “threaten your job” and result in “less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”

Obama carved a backwards letter B on my economic growth picture and if you minimum wage slaves vote for him well it would be a shame if something were to happen to your job and HOLY CRAP IS THAT OBAMA’S ENTRANCE MUSIC I HEAR JIM?

Just over two years after penning that company-wide email, Siegel informed Westgate employees that instead of layoffs, he would boost their minimum wage to $10 per hour beginning in 2015. 

In fact, according to Siegel, 2014 was a banner year. “We’re experiencing the best year in our history and I wanted to do something to show my gratitude for the employees who make that possible,” Siegel said in announcing the wage hike. He also recently told the Orlando Business Journal that “things have never been better.” 

Westgate currently employees about 12,000 people. Though the minimum wage increase won’t impact all workers, including those who receive tips, commissions, or work under a collective bargaining agreement, a company spokesman told Vegas Inc. that thousands of employees will receive a raise because of the move.

Oh. Well then. Must be President Eric Cantor’s doing.

StupidiNews!

• Two US Ski Team prospects were killed in Austria on Monday by an avalanche while training for a spot for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
• Commercial rocket company Space X will test the landing of their Falcon 9 rocket system on a large floating drone ship in the Atlantic.
• The CIA says the agency's chief internal affairs officer, Inspector General David Buckley, is resigning his position effective at the end of January.
• Mobile carrier Verizon Wireless is looking to either form a joint venture with or outright buy AOL in order to expand the company's mobile wireless offerings.
• Sony says it has sold 18.5 million PlayStation4 consoles worldwide after a strong holiday season, continuing a strong six-month sales period.

Last Call For Dusting Off The Shutdown Clock

Guess what the new GOP Congress plans to do later this month, America?

On immigration, House Republican officials say they expect to approve a Department of Homeland Security spending measure before the end of January that would deny money to carry out Mr. Obama’s action to ease the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants. 

Because the House has been in Republican hands since 2011, the real test comes in the Senate, where the new majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is armed with a 54-46 majority. He will still have to find a way to make legislation passed by the House attractive to enough Democrats to assemble the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural obstacles and send them to the president’s desk. 

“The Senate will be ground zero,” said one House Republican leadership aide, who was not authorized to talk publicly about party strategy.

So yes, the Republicans are planning to shut down the Department of Homeland Security in order to deport millions.  They believe this will be a winning strategy.  And among Republicans, it will be. For everyone else, well if the GOP wanted to signal to the country that they have no desire to govern, but only to destroy, there you go.

Hey, you voted for them, America.

Billions Of Reasons To Be Worried

Time to check in with the latest scorecard of the elite rich in 2014, and even with tumbling oil prices the world gained several new billionaires last year and the 400 richest people on earth made serious bank.

The world's 400 richest people added some $92 billion to their collective wealth in 2014, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. As of Dec. 29, they were all worth a combined $4.1 trillion.

According to Bloomberg, 2014's biggest earner was Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company, who added $25.1 billion to his fortune after Alibaba's initial public offering in September. Microsoft's Bill Gates remains the world's richest man, adding some $9 billion to his net worth, which is valued at $87.6 billion.

In a year of geopolitical instability, not all the mega-rich were so lucky. A clutch of influential Russian billionaires suffered as a result of sliding oil prices and Western sanctions on Moscow. Alisher Usmanov, who entered 2014 as Russia’s richest man, lost a third of his wealth.

In any event, these eye-popping figures should not be a surprise. Global inequality is deepening, with millions of poorer people around the world affected by rising rates of joblessness and decreasing incomes.

Just how bad is global inequality in 2015?  It's pretty amazing.



Some 85% of the world's entire wealth, is held by less than 9% of earth's population.  If you account for just the 35 million millionaires and up, that's 44% of the world's wealth: $116 trillion bucks.  So yes, if you own a home worth more than $100k or so, you're worth something.  But the world's millionaires and especially the world's 2400 or so billionaires run the show.

This kind of inequality can't sustain itself much longer.

Or can it?

Here's a bit of perspective on the ever-rising cost of elections, and the big-money donors who finance them: Three of the country's wealthiest political contributors each saw their net worth grow in 2014 by more than $3.7 billion, the entire cost of the midterm elections. 

And as the 2016 presidential election approaches, almost all of those donors have even more cash to burn.

At least here it can, and it will.

Gohmert For Broke

It wouldn't be a year in American politics without Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert doing something amazingly stupid, and this year it's gunning for Orange Juliuis's job as Speaker of the House.

According to Gohmert, the voters made it clear in 2014 that they want leadership changes.

"There have been numerous examples of problematic Republican leadership, but we were hopeful our leaders got the voters’ message," he said. "However, after our speaker forced through the CRomnibus by passing it with Democratic votes and without time to read it, it seemed clear that we needed new leadership. There had been much discussion."

Later on Sunday, Gohmert issued a statement announcing his intention to run for speaker and explaining that he was inspired to run when his colleague Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) decided to run for speaker.

Gohmert assured that a crowded GOP field for speaker would not hurt the Republican party.

"There is false information being floated that any Republican candidates in addition to the current Speaker will split the vote and give the Speaker's gavel to Congresswoman Pelosi. This is nothing but a scare tactic to keep the current regime in power," he said in the statement. "As long as Republicans vote for an adult American citizen for Speaker, no Democrat can win."

"At this point, the Speaker’s election is not about a particular candidate. It is about whether we keep the status quo or make the change the country demands. I am putting forward my name for consideration as Speaker and hope that with a new Speaker, be that me or someone else, we can fight for the ideals and principles that the voters wanted when they elected us in November," Gohmert concluded.

Anybody But Boehner, it seems.  But can Ted Yoho or Louie Gohmert or anyone else get enough votes to beat Boehner?  I seriously doubt it.

But it'll be fun to watch. Even my own member of Congress, Rand Paul Jr. Tom Massie, is in the Anybody But Boehner camp.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced on Saturday that he would not be voting for John Boehner (R-Ohio) to return as House speaker once the new Congress convenes.

“For years I watched Washington from afar and suspected that something was broken,” he said in a press release. ”During my first two years as a congressman I discovered a significant source of the dysfunction. I watched the House Leadership.”

He's right about that, actually.  Should be a fun January.

StupidiNews!

• Several hundred Boko Haram militants have overrun and captured a multinational African Union base in Nigeria over the weekend.
• Scientists have discovered more information on how the brain's internal compass works when navigating, even in virtual space.
• Jury selection will begin today in the trial of accused 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who could face the death penalty if convicted on federal terrorism charges.
• The Obama administration has issued a new round of sanctions against North Korea for its suspected involvement in the hack of Sony Pictures.
• New statistics found that 50 law enforcement officers were killed by firearms in 2014, up from 32 in 2013.

Last Call For Return Of The Greek Fire

Long time readers know of my Greek Fire series of posts running through 2012 involving Athens and how much trouble the Eurozone would be if it defaulted.  Germany managed to get a handle on Greece in late 2012 and stabilized the country for a couple years.

In 2015, with the Greek government now falling apart and snap elections scheduled for three weeks, the prospect of a Greek collapse and exit for the Eurozone is again on the radar.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel came under fire Sunday over a magazine report suggesting she would be prepared to let Greece exit the euro should a far-left party win a snap Greek election.

Der Spiegel news weekly quoted government sources as saying Berlin sees a Greek exit from the eurozone as "almost inevitable" should the radical leftist Syriza party win the vote and abandon Athens' current austerity course.

Both Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had come to consider that Greece's departure from the single-currency bloc would be "manageable", the magazine said.

The recovery underway in other formerly problem economies such as Ireland and Portugal, the establishment of a permanent eurozone bailout fund and the creation of a banking union had all bolstered Berlin's belief that the contagion from a fresh Greek crisis would be limited, it added.

Greece's parliament was dissolved Wednesday after the assembly failed to agree on a successor to outgoing President Karolos Papoulias in three successive votes.

A snap election has now been called for January 25. Syriza is currently ahead in opinion polls.

German media saw the Spiegel article as an attempt by Merkel and Schaeuble to put pressure on Greeks and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, who has vowed to end austerity policies.

Neither Merkel's office nor Schaeuble's finance ministry would confirm or deny the Spiegel report, which drew condemnation from members of both Merkel's conservative CDU party and the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partners in her coalition government.

Nobody believes Germany is going to let Greece out of the Euro.  Pretending otherwise isn't even fooling the German press, let alone the Greek players.  Should the Syriza party come to power in Greece however, we'll see what happens.  Austerity has not solved the Eurozone problem for anyone, not Spain (25% unemployment, 54% unemployment for people under 25), not Ireland (still stuck with bad banks), and definitely not Britain.

We're right back into 2012 on that side of the pond, and it's going to get nasty soon.

The Huckster Is In

And I get to use The Huckster tag for another two years at least.  Former GOP Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has quit his FOX News show to mull over a run for the Clown Car 2016 ticket.

"I won't make a decision about running until late in the spring of 2015, but the continued chatter has put Fox News into a position that is not fair to them," Huckabee wrote in a letter to supporters Saturday evening released before his show started airing.

"The honorable thing to do at this point is to end my tenure here at Fox so I can openly talk with potential donors and supporters and gauge support," he added....

As Steve M puts it, that places The Huckster in the Jesus Bracket.

I think the GOP would benefit from brackets or division play for 2016. Jesus Division: Huckabee, Carson, Santorum. Establishment Division: Bush, Christie, maybe Romney. Midwest/South Governor Division: Walker, Jindal, maybe Kasich and Pence. Ambitious Fortysomethings Going Through the Motions of Being First-Term Senators So They Can Run for President Division: Cruz, Paul, Rubio. Pick the division champions and then start the playoffs.

That's not going to happen, so the likely survivor of the scrum is going to be whichever top-tier candidate has the fewest similar candidates running in his implicit bracket. It might be Rand Paul -- the Republican financiers seem terrified of his foreign policy ideas, but their response has been to offer money to anyone and everyone who's conventionally neoconservative. (That includes Huckabee, who's a Christian Zionist and has won Sheldon Adelson's Defender of Israel award.) But that means the pro-neocon vote will be split so many different ways that Paul might actually benefit from being out of step.

On the other hand, Jeb Bush might be the guy without competition -- maybe he'll get just enough votes by being out of step on immigration and education (there are still some moderate Republicans, after all) that he'll take the nomination.

Until now, it was looking as if Ben Carson might clear the Jesus field -- the religious right loves him, and he's a fresher face than Santorum -- which could have made him the last guy standing in addition to the front-runner. But Huckabee is so well liked that he and Carson will compete for votes.

Personally, I think this is going to be the nastiest bracket to watch too...or at least the most entertaining.

[UPDATE] On the other hand, Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice reminds us that the second Huckabee does actually run, his campaign instantly runs into a massive problem from 2009:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on Tuesday defended his decision to commute the prison sentence years ago of the man who allegedly killed four police officers Sunday near Tacoma, Wash., saying the defendant had received an unfairly harsh sentence because he was young and black.

That "cop killer pardon" is what kept him out of 2012, but in 2016 that represents the end of his political career among the GOP primary ghouls. 

Hood Rats

When it comes to 1) firearms and 2) sweatshirts with hoods on them, guess which one Oklahoma Republicans want to regulate to the point of making illegal?

Oklahoma lawmakers are planning to introduce a bill this February that would make it illegal to wear hooded sweatshirts, or “hoodies,” in public, according to a report from Oklahoma’s Channel 6 News.

Republican Senator Don Barrington will introduce the bill, which would make it a misdemeanor to “wear a mask, hood, or covering” either while committing a crime or in order to intentionally conceal one’s identity. If the bill is passed, offenders would be subject to a fine of $50 to $500, and up to one year in jail. The ban would not affect mask-wearers on Halloween or at masquerade parties, nor would it apply to people who wear head coverings for religious purposes.

The bill’s purpose is seemingly to deter crime. As Channel 6’s report notes, robberies caught on surveillance camera often show the perpetrator wearing a mask or hoodie to cover his or her face. With the bill’s language only prohibiting wearing hoodies while committing a crime or to intentionally hide, supporters say the ban wouldn’t negatively affect people just trying to wear a sweatshirt in day-to-day life.

Others, however, have argued that bans on hoodies — no matter the intention — only serve to exacerbate problems with racial profiling. CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin took on the issue when an Indiana mall banned the garment in March:

“This is about the pretext of being able to stop young African-American males,” she said. “Hoodie is code for ‘thug’ in many places and I think businesses shouldn’t be in the business of telling people what to wear. The Fourteenth Amendment protects us from this.”

We're for small government.  Unless it's for black people, in which case criminalize every aspect of their lives.

Bonus points: under this legislation, who decides if a person is wearing a hoodie to "intentionally conceal" their identity?  Why, the cops, of course.

Last Call For Tone Police

If there's any hard and fast truism in dealing with the Politics of The Perpetually Aggrieved in the Age Of Obama, it's that any conversation with the Perpetually Aggrieved involving race invariably ends with "Your implication that I may be racist is far worse than any actually racist things I may have done or said."  Once the game reaches that point, it then immediately ends with "You're the REAL racist!" and then endless outrage until the process is repeated.

Exhibit A in this game is Pittsburgh Police Chief  Cameron McLay.




Most likely this picture of McLay here saying that he will challenge racism at work and end white silence could cost him his job.

The picture of the chief holding the sign set off the Pittsburgh Police union.

FOP President Howard McQuillan told KDKA’s Marty Griffin: “The chief is calling us racists. He believes the Pittsburgh Police Department is racist. This has angered a lot of officers.”

Police Chief Cameron McLay released the following statement about the allegations:

“I was hired to restore the legitimacy of the police department. I did not seek these young activists out. I was stopping for coffee at First Night. Their message is not anti-anybody. It is simply a call for awareness. The photo was a great, spontaneous moment in time. Please join dialogue for community healing.”
Sources tell Griffin that McLay has been called to a meeting at City Hall regarding the photograph.

Police officers were so outraged by the photo, they thought it was photoshopped, but the police chief confirmed it was real.

A source of Marty Griffin’s inside the Mayor Bill Peduto administration has called the photograph potentially very destructive, with no upside.

However Kevin Acklin, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, tells Ralph Iannotti, the mayor continues to support Chief McLay unequivocally in his efforts to improve dialogue between police and the community at large.

For now Chief McLay has the backing of the Mayor, but something tells me that's not going to last very long and the Chief will have to resign.  Which is a shame.  America should be backing Cameron McLay 100% because he's right.

But the Perpetually Aggrieved will most likely collect another scalp.

Back In Re-Session, Con't

Not only do Republicans control Congress, they control an overwhelming majority of state legislatures as well, include 100% control (legislative and executive) of 24 states.  In a very meaningful way, the gridlock in DC is no longer the battlefield, the states are.

That battle is all but over in 2015, and the red states have won.

The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power of labor unions and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Before Election Day, the GOP controlled 59 partisan legislative chambers across the country. The increase to 68 gives Republicans six more chambers than their previous record in the modern era, set after special elections in 2011 and 2012.

Republicans also reduced the number of states where Democrats control both the governor’s office and the legislatures from 13 to seven.

Democrats have all but ceded the states to the GOP.  Democratic voters certainly don't care anymore.  So look for the Kansas model to become the new normal.

A new round of the culture wars is also inevitable in 2015. Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List, said she expects that measures to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy will advance in Wisconsin, South Carolina and West Virginia. Missouri, too, is likely to take up some abortion-related bills.

In Tennessee, voters gave the legislature new powers to regulate abortion, and state House Speaker Beth Harwell (R) has said her chamber will take up three measures requiring mandatory counseling, a waiting period and stricter inspections of clinics.

Conservative activists also are targeting Common Core, the national education standards adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia over the past few years. Opposition from parent and community groups has become a hot political issue on the right over the past year, leading three states — Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — to drop out of the program.

Some states will attempt to join those three in leaving the program altogether. Others will try to change testing requirements or prevent the sharing of education data with federal officials. In recent interviews, several Republican governors who support Common Core say they expect debate in their forthcoming legislative sessions.

“The biggest concern and opposition you hear from conservative legislators is, ‘We don’t want Washington dictating curricula,’ ” said Utah state Sen. Curtis Bramble, a Republican.

Obama is the only person standing between the barbarians and the gate.  And we only have two years of him left.  After that, if we lose in 2016, it's going to be a long, brutal slog.

Maybe we should do something about that.

Back In Re-Session

Tuesday marks the beginning of the All-New Even Worse GOP Congress, and the first order of business is repealing the last six years of President Obama's agenda.

The new Republican-run Congress convenes Tuesday eager to pursue a dream the party’s been chasing for six years: Dilute, dismantle or defang key Obama administration policies on immigration, environment, health care and more.

First up this month will be approving the Keystone XL pipeline that Obama’s been reluctant to back. Next on the agenda: Trying to overturn his November action easing deportation policies for millions of undocumented immigrants.

There’s lots more. Many Republicans plan to grill and possibly stall Obama’s defense secretary and attorney general nominees, try to block the president’s new Cuba policy and chip away at the 2010 health care law.

Republicans start the year with a lot of muscle. The party will control 247 of the 435 House of Representatives seats, the biggest Republican bloc in 84 years. The party will have 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

That means they'll control every aspect of congressional activity: topics for committee hearings, the Senate and House floor schedules and who can amend bills.

Democrats have three avenues of influence. Senate legislation usually needs 60 votes to stay afloat, meaning Republicans would need some Democratic votes. An Obama veto still would need two-thirds majorities in each chamber to be overturned. And Republicans are still prone to intraparty warfare between conservatives and more pragmatic lawmakers.

So the best case scenario for America over the next two years is that Republicans block themselves in Congress.  But this is what you voted for America.

Or didn't vote for.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2015/01/02/5997090/gop-congress-returns-tuesday-ready.html#storylink=cpy

The Heat On Scalise

The first Democrat to call for Rep. Steve Scalise's resignation as GOP House majority whip is in the books, and it's Sean Patrick Maloney of New York.

The freshman New York lawmaker is the first Democratic representative to call for Scalise’s resignation from leadership outright.“It is beyond offensive that a member of House leadership would knowingly court such a hate group, and it is doubly insulting that Congressman Scalise asserts that he didn't know who David Duke was or the hate promoted by that group,” Maloney said in an emailed statement.

“Speaker Boehner should demand Congressman Scalise resign his leadership post immediately.”

Scalise said Tuesday that he regretted speaking to the group, founded by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, but emphasized that he was unaware of the group’s message. On top of racism and anti-Semitism, Duke has expressed opposition to a bill that would make discrimination against gays illegal and bashed the decision to allow gays into the military.

“Families like mine, children like mine, have no place in David Duke's racist vision for America,” Maloney added in his statement.

Indeed, after Scalise's own people admitted he spoke at David Duke's conference, they're now trying to retract the statement and are now saying Scalise was at a different event in the same hotel.

Kenny Knight is a longtime associate of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. He’s been a key player in news that broke on Sunday that indicated Scalise addressed the white supremacist convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization when he was a Louisiana state representative in May 2002.

Knight said on Tuesday that it’s “totally incorrect” to say Scalise spoke at that convention.

“He spoke early in the day to a contingent of people, prior to the conference kicking off,” Knight said. “He was not there as a guest speaker at the conference.”

The right is now pretending the Scalise story is now over, and that it was faked or something.  The problem of course is that Kenny Knight is lying. 

The David Duke associate who disavowed membership in a white nationalist group linked to U.S. House Majority WhipSteve Scalise was at one time an officer in that group, according to public records. Kenny Knight told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Wednesday that he was not a member of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, but documents filed with the Louisiana secretary of state's office list him as treasurer of its predecessor, the National Organization for European American Rights, in 2000.

Further, a May 16, 2002, news release on an an archived version of EURO's former website, www.whitecivilrights.com, lists Knight as "EURO Louisiana State Representative Kenny Knight." The release says Knight was expected to address the group's May 17-18, 2002, conference.

Duke, the Louisiana neo-Nazi and former politician, created the organization to espouse "white civil rights." Knight is a longtime Duke political adviser and friend.

Knight has said he rented a meeting room for EURO in 2002 at the Landmark Hotel in Metairie as a favor for Duke, but he said he was not a member and did not line up speakers for its meeting. He said he arranged for Scalise, a Jefferson Republican then serving in the Legislature, to address their neighborhood group, the Jefferson Heights Civic Association, at the same location 2 and 1/2 hours before the EURO conference.

So not only was Knight lying about not being at David Duke's conference, he lied about not being involved in setting it up.

Meanwhile, look forward to more Benghazi, Grubergate, and IRS hearings in 2015, I'm sure.