Last Call For Executive Actions

The paranoid winger right is fully mobilized against the notion that President Barack Obama has any right to issue executive orders, and are doing everything they can to suggest that him doing so is not only immoral, but criminal and even necessitating armed rebellion to stop him.

A retired Army general and Fox News analyst told a Tea Party group that he would lead a military coup against the U.S. government, if only reluctantly.

Paul Vallely, a retired major general and senior military analyst for the conservative news channel, told the Surprise, Arizona, Tea Party Patriots during a Dec. 3 speech that other retired military personnel and veterans groups had contacted him about the possibility.

“I had a call this afternoon from Idaho, the gentleman said, ‘If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?’” Vallely said as the group laughed and gasped. “I said, ‘Yes, I will, I’ll surround the White House and I’ll surround the Capitol building, but it’s going to take physical presence to do things.”

Vallely, who has suggested a variety of extra-constitutional remedies to remove President Barack Obama from office, said extraordinary means were necessary to achieve the legislative results he wanted.

“Writing letters to these senators and congressmen, I am so frustrated because nothing happens,” Vallely said. “I’m not inciting a revolution, but we’ve got to get more physical and stand up and protest.

He said such a protest would be a continuation of Tea Party activism.

Sure, you're not inciting a revolution.  But you wouldn't have any problem with one, or leading one if given the opportunity.  That seems like a sane, responsible thing to do, right?

But what of Obama's hundreds upon hundreds of executive orders that must spark a second American revolution to bring him down?  Surely these patriots of justice wouldn't be lying about his 923 executive orders, would they, Snopes?

The item reproduced above purports that President Obama has so far issued a whopping 923 executive orders (compared to about thirty each for previous presidents) and offers supposedly alarming provisions of some of those orders. However, the entirety of this item is erroneous.

First of all, the number of executive orders issued by President Obama is grossly exaggerated here. Through the first five years of his presidency (i.e., as of 20 January 2014) the count of all executive orders issued by President Obama was 168, not 923. Moreover, compared to President Obama's predecessors in the White House, this is not an unusually large number of orders for a modern president: President George W. Bush issued 291 executive orders during his eight years in office, while President Bill Clinton issued 364 such orders over the same span of time. 

So then, far fewer executive orders than Bush 43 or Clinton (and it turns out far fewer than Eisenhower's 484, Nixon's 346, or Reagan's 381.)  Poppy Bush issued 166 order in 4 years, Ford 169 in 4.  In other words, Obama has issued the fewest number of executive orders per year of any modern President, not the most.

Turns out if you really do want to see a President who issued a metric crapton of EOs, take a look at either Roosevelt.  Teddy issued over a thousand, and FDR over thirty five hundred.

But Obama is, you know, Kenyan and stuff.  So WOLVEREEEEEEEEEEENES!

The Greatest Glibertarian Meltdown Ever

Oh Truth, you are not only stranger than Fiction, you are also far, far more entertaining at times.

U.S. government agents have arrested Charlie Shrem, the CEO of Bitcoin exchange BitInstant, charging him with laundering money for customers of online drug bazaar Silk Road.

Just the first sentence is pure Dudebro rage fuel:  A Bitcoin exchange CEO, getting busted by Evil Government Types, for using the cryptocurrency to by drugs online. And Shrem is no small fish, either.

The U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York said Shrem helped someone he hadn't met in person, Robert Faiella, sell more than $1 million worth of bitcoins to Silk Road customers. Faiella, a 52-year-old Florida man, allegedly ran an underground Bitcoin exchange using the alias BTCKing.

Shrem was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sunday, and Faiella was arrested at his home in Cape Coral, Fla., on Monday, prosecutors said. Both are charged with conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Additionally, Shrem faces a charge for not tipping off the feds to what was allegedly going on.

Here's the best part:

Shrem, 24, is a major player in the Bitcoin world. The BitInstant exchange, based in New York City, lets people buy bitcoins locally at more than 700,000 locations in the United States, as well as Brazil, Russia and elsewhere. It received a $1.5 million investment last year from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Shrem is also vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, one of the currency's biggest advocates.

On the board of the Bitcoin foundation AND took angel money from the Winkelvii.   The story is literally GOLD! WEED! END THE FED!

Bonus question:  What did you guys think glibertarian tech dudebros were using an all-digital, non-country based currency for, anyway?  To cure cancer?

SNAP Off The Heater, Will Ya?

There's a deal on Capitol Hill to finally cut expensive red state direct farm subsidies pork in the farm bill, but Republicans get to extract their pound of flesh from blue states where there's an additional state bonus to SNAP checks to help pay for heating.

The bill changes the current agricultural subsidy system. It ends direct payments to farmers for planting crops and replaces it with a revamped, beefed-up crop insurance program.

"Today's bipartisan agreement puts us on the verge of enacting a five-year Farm Bill that saves taxpayers billions, eliminates unnecessary subsidies, creates a more effective farm safety-net and helps farmers and businesses create jobs," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate agriculture panel.

The changes to food stamps would trim $8 billion from the program over the next 10 years, according to congressional aides. That's less than the $39 billion that Republicans had wanted to cut from the program, but double what Democrats had suggested.

Lawmakers say the deal will prevent 17 states from doling out more generous food stamps to people who get federal help to heat or cool their homes, even if the help is as little as $1. They stress the move won't cut families from food stamps, it will just shrink the amount some families get. 

So, not only do the SNAP cuts at the end of this year become permanent, there's $8 billion more being cut from the program.  Granted, it will only affect a small number of total SNAP beneficiaries (850,000 or so out of 47 million) but the cuts will be significant:  as much as $90 a week.  That's real money to real people who are going to have real problems this winter.

I don't like this deal, but given the fact that Republicans wanted to cut nearly $40 billion from SNAP, it's something of a Pyrrhic victory.

StupidiNews!

• Two Toledo, Ohio firefighters are dead after responding to a fire at an apartment building, both men suffered fatal burns and smoke exposure.
• Florida's state Supreme Court has signed off on a medical marijuana ballot initiative to be put before voters in November.
• The Obama administration has reached a deal with tech companies to inform the public and customers about surveillance court orders.
• Hong Kong health officials will destroy 20,000 chickens at a wholesale market after bird flu was found among the poultry population there.
• Smartphone-based car service Uber faces a wrongful death lawsuit in San Francisco after a New Year's Eve traffic accident resulted in the death of a six-year old girl.

Last Call For His Inevitable Be-Trey-al

Turns out GOP Rep. Trey "The Red-Nosed Coke Fiend" Radel's insistence that he won't be quitting Congress after his cocaine bust in October was a much of a snow job as the rest of his time as a Tea Party nimrod.

Embattled Rep. Trey Radel of Florida plans to resign Monday evening, a little more than two months after pleading guilty to misdemeanor cocaine possession. 

Radel, 37, a Republican from Fort Myers, submitted a resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner saying he will step down effective at 6:30 p.m. 

"Unfortunately, some of my struggles had serious consequences," Radel said in his letter to Boehner. "While I have dealt with those issues on a personal level, it is my belief that professionally I cannot fully and effectively serve as a United States representative to the place I love and call home, Southwest Florida." 

Radel sent shorter resignation letters to Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who will have to coordinate the special primary and general election to choose the next person to represent Florida's 19th District.

Same guy who said Obama should be impeached for "the decisions he's making", same guy who voted for legislation that would require all SNAP recipients nationally to be drug tested.  This freakin' guy, eh?

I said a while ago that as soon as the GOP found someone to run for Radel's seat, he'd be forced out.  At the time it looked that person was former GOP Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of former Florida Senator Connie Mack III.  Mack wanted back in Congress after losing to Bill Nelson in 2012 for his dad's old Senate seat.

Mack said he would only seek the seat (which used to be his old House seat) only if Radel didn't seek re-election.  Seems to me that this is now the case, and I'm betting that Mack decided to run with the blessing of (and serious money from) the RNC.  As such, I'm sure Radel was told in no uncertain terms that he would be getting no support from the party, and that if he continued to remain in Congress, life would become very, very uncomfortable for him.

The special election will allow Connie Mack IV to waltz right back into Congress.  I said it was a no-brainer then, and I'm honestly surprised it took this long to execute the obvious plan.

Anarchy For Thee But Not For Me

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds has another ridiculously boneheaded anti-Obamacare column in USA Today again, which reads in part:

If the program fails, it won't be because Republicans stopped it, despite all the House votes and defunding efforts. It will be because millions of Americans' passive resistance brought it to its knees.

Now, putting aside Reynolds inability to objectively analyze anything more complex than a paper bag, let's break down the core of this "reasoning" here.  He's basically saying that in a representative democracy like the United States of America, when your side loses a free and fair election, the answer is to break the system.

Indeed, at the top of his article, he does this:

In his excellent book, Two Cheers For Anarchism, Professor James Scott writes:

"One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called 'Irish Democracy,' the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs."

Now here's the funny part:  Reynolds is basically advocating bringing down Obamacare through mass refusal, refusal to participate, refusal to work within the system to fix the problems, refusal to acknowledge that the program may be helping people (and refusal to do anything other than shrug and say "gotta break a few eggs" when it comes to folks like this) but most of all, refusal to legitimize the fact that all three branches of the federal government signed off on this.

The second half of Reynolds' column deals with Colorado's pot laws, something he considers again to be a de facto defeat of federal law.  He then lays out this passive resistance as a way to destroy Obama (and get high.)

The irony about all this is that this really is an example of classic "Saul Alinsky playbook" tactics to destabilize a government, something the "intelligentsia" of the right have been accusing Barack Obama of doing pretty much all his adult life.

Just goes to show you that the louder the right is accusing the left of doing something, the more they themselves are the ones doing it.  We've gotten to the point now where Instagoofball is confusing bureaucratic inertia with mass refusal, and imagining a massive silent condemnation of Obamacare, Obama, Democrats and liberalism some tens of millions strong.

Why, I bet he thinks since only 65 million people voted for Barack Obama in 2012, the other 250 million people or so in the United States are silently standing strong against him, too.

Meanwhile, somebody should tell Glenn here that Republicans are running in 2014 on how great Obamacare is.

In an interview with National Journal last week, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, expected to be effectively unopposed for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, had some of the kindest words yet for one of Obamacare's key provisions from a GOP candidate.

"Coverage is great and having more people covered is excellent," Capito said of the expansion. She included a number of caveats -- she's concerned about long-term costs -- but she simultaneously acknowledged that repealing Obamacare is likely an unachievable goal and that aiming to improve the health care reform law while keeping people insured is a preferable pursuit.

"Hopefully, when I get to the Senate and we begin to make changes in the Affordable Care Act, that we will be able to find a way through tax credits and subsidies to keep folks in that insured area," she said. "And then, as they move up and we grow the economy -- because of better policies we're putting forward -- once they move up they're able to move out of that category, maybe in a more gradual fashion than one day you're on, one day you're off."

Capito's borderline heresy likely has a very pragmatic source: Medicaid expansion is a pretty good deal for her state. With the federal government covering all of the expansion costs for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter, the Kaiser Family Foundation projects that 116,000 West Virginians would be covered by the expansion by 2022.

Yeah, people are going to line up around the corner to remain without health insurance.  And this is West Virginia, arguably the most anti-Obama state in the nation.

Shutting Down Reality

Sen Ted Cruz has a memory problem.  Or a reality problem.  Or both.  Crooks and Liars has the video of Cruz tal;king with CBS Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer:

"Well, Bob, with all due respect, I don't agree with the premise of your question," Cruz replied. "Throughout the government shutdown, I opposed a government shutdown. I said we shouldn't shut the government down. I think it was a mistake that President Obama and the Democrats shut the government down this fall." 

"The question I asked you was, would you ever conceive of trying to shut down the government again?" Schieffer pressed, clearly not buying in to the alternate reality. 

"As I said, I didn't threaten to shut down the government the last time," Cruz insisted. "I don't think we should ever shut down the government. And I repeatedly voted..." 

"Well," Schieffer interrupted, laughing out of frustration. "If you didn't threaten to shut down the government, who was it that did?" 

"President Obama," Cruz said. 

Schieffer dropped his head as the Republican senator's rant continued: "I understand the White House said over and over again that the shutdown is the Republicans' fault. And I understand that's what you're repeating. But the reality is, I voted over and over again to fund the federal government."

"Remember when President Obama and the Democrats shut down the government?" will be all over 2014 and 2016 political ads, and Cruz, Rand Paul, and the rest of them will simply say it's Obama's fault.  And none of our "liberal media" folks will dare correct them.

StupidiNews!

• The only road to the distant town of Valdez, Alaska has been cut off by a series of avalanches, leaving the Richardson Highway from Anchorage closed for at least a week.
• New statistics on SNAP recipients finds that with recent cuts to the program, the working poor have now surpassed children as the program's largest recipient group.
• Thailand's Election Commission is urging a delay in next week's planned national voting as weekend clashes in Bangkok have left a protest leader dead.
• Canada's First Nations continue to protest use of natural resources on their land that PM Steven Harper wants to use to turn the country into an "energy superpower".
• Spainish-based Telefonica is looking into ways to use your neighbor's wi-fi bandwidth to bolster your own connection when they aren't putting it to use.

Last Call For The American Dream

Income mobility in the United States depends very, very much on where you live.  If you're poor in a state like Utah, you've got opportunities.  If you're poor in a state like South Carolina, you basically have no chance.  The results from a landmark study looking at where the best and worst metro areas to be poor in America shouldn't shock anyone.



It's no surprise then that the worst states to be poor in are the Carolinas and Georgia.  Your odds of moving up in the world when you're poor in those areas are 1 in 4, maybe 1 in 3 at best.  It's twice that in other parts of the country.  Salt Lake City is number one, and Charlotte is dead last (yes, even worse than Detroit.  So is Raleigh, Indy, and Atlanta.)

What do these areas with the least mobility have in common?  The Altlantic's Matthew O'Brien:

1. Race. The researchers found that the larger the black population, the lower the upward mobility. But this isn't actually a black-white issue. It's a rich-poor one. Low-income whites who live in areas with more black people also have a harder time moving up the income ladder. In other words, it's something about the places that black people live that hurts mobility. 

2. Segregation. Something like the poor being isolated—isolated from good jobs and good schools. See, the more black people a place has, the more divided it tends to be along racial and economic lines. The more divided it is, the more sprawl there is. And the more sprawl there is, the less higher-income people are willing to invest in things like public transit.  

That leaves the poor in the ghetto, with no way out for their American Dreams. They're stuck with bad schools, bad jobs, and bad commutes if they do manage to find better work. So it should be no surprise that the researchers found that racial segregation, income segregation, and sprawl are all strongly negatively correlated with upward mobility. But what might surprise is that it doesn't matter whether the rich cut themselves off from everybody else. What matters is whether the middle class cut themselves off from the poor. 

3. Social Capital. Living around the middle class doesn't just bring better jobs and schools (which help, but probably aren't enough). It brings better institutions too. Things like religious groups, civic groups, and any other kind of group that keeps people from bowling alone. All of these are strongly correlated with more mobility—which is why Utah, with its vast Mormon safety net and services, is one of the best places to be born poor. 

4. Inequality. The 1 percent are different from you and me—they have so much more money that they live in a different world. It's a world of $40,000 a year preschool, "nanny consultants," and an endless supply of private tutors. It keeps the children of the super-rich from falling too far, but it doesn't keep the poor from rising (at least into the top quintile). There just wasn't any correlation between the rise and rise of the 1 percent and upward mobility. In other words, it doesn't hurt your chances of making it into the top 80 to 99 percent if the super-rich get even richer. 

But inequality does matter within the bottom 99 percent. The bigger the gap between the poor and the merely rich (as opposed to the super-rich), the less mobility there is. It makes intuitive sense: it's easier to jump from the bottom near the top if you don't have to jump as far. The top 1 percent are just so high now that it doesn't matter how much higher they go; almost nobody can reach them. 

5. Family Structure. Forget race, forget jobs, forget schools, forget churches, forget neighborhoods, and forget the top 1—or maybe 10—percent. Nothing matters more for moving up than who raises you. Or, in econospeak, nothing correlates with upward mobility more than the number of single parents, divorcees, and married couples. The cliché is true: Kids do best in stable, two-parent homes.

It's a stark reminder that Oh, and locally, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis are all in the bottom 10 cities for mobility.  Ohio is nearly as bad as the Carolinas and Georgia.  If you're poor here, you're going to stay poor.   Why?  We refuse to invest in our cities, our infrastructure, and our people.  The Republican plan to fix all this?  Cut taxes on the rich and corporations, so there's even less revenue to invest, cut investment in schools, transportation and public safety, and inequality gets worse.  Meanwhile, the rich take their social capital and move to the exurbs, or as with Cincy, gentrified downtown areas and price out the poor.

There are developing nations with better income mobility than Charlotte.  Because America, right?

Hostage Crisis For All The Boys And Girls

Just a reminder that both Kentucky senators are dangerous idiots.  Mitch The Turtle on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: So are you saying right here, “We are going to attach something to the debt ceiling”? And if so, what? 

MCCONNELL: What I’m saying is we ought to attach something significant for the country to [President Obama's] request to increase the debt ceiling. That’s been the pattern for 50 years, going back to the Eisenhower administration. I think it’s the responsible thing to do for the country. [...] 

We’re never going to default — the Speaker and I have made that clear. We’ve never done that. But, it’s irresponsible not to use the discussion — the request of the President to raise the debt ceiling — to try to accomplish something for the country.

It's irresponsible to not hold the country's economy hostage to get what you want.  So please proceed, congressional Republicans, and remind America why you have a 19% approval rating.

The Kids Are Not Alright With Rand Paul

To recap the Rand Paul stance on government, kids, and poverty: government has no role in birth control or safe abortion services because they're both immoral and children must be brought into the world, but government should be used to punish women for having too many children.

During a Lexington luncheon Thursday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul discussed the possibility of cutting government benefits for unwed mothers who have multiple children, though the potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 didn't directly endorse such a policy. 

During a question-and-answer period following his remarks at a Commerce Lexington luncheon, Paul responded to a question about workforce development by including a warning about unwed young mothers doomed to poverty.

Although he said the job of preventing unplanned or unwanted pregnancies should be left to communities and families, Paul left open the possibility of a role for government. 

"Maybe we have to say 'enough's enough, you shouldn't be having kids after a certain amount,'" Paul told the business group at one point. 

An aide to Paul declined to comment Thursday night when asked to clarify the senator's statements about unwed mothers. 

Paul told the audience that being "married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not."

So what glibertairans really can't stand is single motherhood.  It all comes down to punishing the sluts and whores who dare to have sex without being married.  Why?  They tend to vote Democrat, of course.

Besides, how does cutting off assistance for single mothers help get mothers and kids out of poverty, especially when Republicans refuse to acknowledge that government helping to provide birth control is cheaper than providing SNAP and other safety net programs, or the state taking the children and putting them in foster care?

Paul then "clarified" his answers earlier today:

"I mused about how you'd have a government policy, but I actually came down saying it would be very difficult to have a government policy," the potential 2016 presidential candidate said. 

"I mostly concluded by saying it's a community, it's a religious, it's a personal problem, but it is a problem," Paul said.

Government is hard.  Let God sort it out.

[UPDATE]  Steve M nails it:

The GOP has been telling us for years now that there's no racism in America anymore (except anti-white racism) and anyone who thinks otherwise is a dupe living on the "liberal plantation." You can see the success of that in the massive black vote Republicans are able to run up in every election. 

Since that talking point is working so well for Republicans, Rand Paul figures it'll work even better with The Ladiez.

There's no racism except for anti-white hatred, and there's no sexism except for misandry from feminazis.

You know, I don't see so much that women are downtrodden. I see women rising up and doing great things. In fact, I worry about our young men sometimes because I think the women really are out-competing the men in our world.

If you believe that the only victims in America are white men, Rand Paul's your candidate.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/24/3050274/rand-paul-discusses-cutting-government.html#storylink=cpy

Last Call For Love And No Marriage

It seems that Oklahoma lawmakers would rather burn down the chapel than let same-sex marriage happen in the state since a judge threw out the state's ban on same-sex marriage earlier this month, even if it means ending marriage in the state for everyone in an effort to get the state riled up enough to maybe, I dunno, lynch some LGBTQ folks or something.

State lawmakers are considering throwing out marriage in Oklahoma. 

The idea stems from a bill filed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Edmond). Turner says it's an attempt to keep same-sex marriage illegal in Oklahoma while satisfying the U.S. Constitution. Critics are calling it a political stunt while supporters say it's what Oklahomans want. 

"[My constituents are] willing to have that discussion about whether marriage needs to be regulated by the state at all," Turner said. 

Other conservative lawmakers feel the same way, according to Turner. 

"Would it be realistic for the State of Oklahoma to say, ‘We're not going to do marriage period,'" asked News 9's Michael Konopasek. 

"That would definitely be a realistic opportunity, and it's something that would be part of the discussion," Turner answered. 

Such a discussion will be made possible by a current shell bill -- something that can be changed at almost any time to react to upcoming rulings on Oklahoma's same-sex marriage ban.

So if Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage is found to be unconstitutional, the state will simply refuse to recognize any and all marriages.  Because that's how much these Republican assholes hate anyone different from them.  If they can't have their way, then they have no problem using the power of government to make everyone suffer.

The Republican party cannot be excised from American history quickly enough.

The Paranoid Style Will Never End

We've gotten to the point now where the right-wing victimization complex has gotten so insane that the super-rich view themselves as actual Holocaust victims when they write letters to the WSJ, like venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who gives us this derangement:

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades. 

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

"Will no one rid America of these troublesome ninety percent?"

Perkins isn't some crazy fringe nut, Kleiner Perkins, Caulfield & Byers is one of the country's largest Silicon Valley venture capital firms, the big money behind Spotify, Soundcloud, and yes, Facebook and Twitter.

And the fact that there's even a discussion of income inequality has the super-rich making comparisons to 1938 Germany.  We're all Nazis just for questioning our betters, and you'd better believe the right will take time out from their busy schedule of screaming about how Obama is destroying free speech to crush any mention of income inequality in America.

The victimization complex will never, ever end with these guys.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• An arrest has been made in the death of a South Carolina State University student killed Friday after an argument resulted in a deadly shooting.
• The US Olympic Committee is advising Team USA not to wear their Olympic team gear outside venues at the Sochi games next month, as it may make them targets for possible attacks.
• The Supreme Court has granted a stay of Obamacare contraception coverage mandates for a group of Catholic nuns while their case is awaiting a decision.
• A five-week cease fire in South Sudan is scheduled to begin today as several African nations are involved in ongoing peace talk efforts.
• At least 11 arrests have been made in connection with a website that solicited paid services to hack more than 6000 passwords for Google, Yahoo, and other sites.

Last Call For A Tragic End

Authorities in Maryland have found the body of 35-year-old Ryan Loskarn, the former social media aide to Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was charged with child pornography possession and distribution last month.

”At approximately 12pm yesterday, Carroll County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a private residence in the 6900 block of Kenmar Lane for a report of an unconscious male, believed to be deceased,” said a statement from Colonel Phil Kasten of the Carroll County Sheriff’s office. “Family members reported finding 35 year old Jesse Ryan Loskarn unresponsive in his basement where he’d been residing with family since this past December. The preliminary investigation indicates that Loskarn may have taken his own life, and his body has since been transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for Autopsy. The investigation continues….” 

Loskarn, who was awaiting the outcome of grand jury proceedings in his case, had been staying with his parents since being released on his own recognizance. He was scheduled to next appear in federal court on Feb. 10. Loskarn had been ordered not to use the Internet and was required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet. 

In a brief statement, Alexander said: “For everyone involved, this is a sad and tragic story from beginning to end.”

A pretty awful story here all around.  Loskarn was most likely in real trouble, using congressional resources in possible connection with the pornography, and the victimization of the children is of course the top priority.

Loskarn apparently decided this was the way he should face the music.

The Completely Paranoid And More Than A Bit Insane Style

The perpetual victimization machine of right wing politics is throwing a gasket this month, with Chris Christie's problems in New Jersey growing weekly, former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife now facing felony corruption charges, and conservative hack Dinesh D'Souza facing campaign finance violations.

The wingers are completely losing their minds.  Glenn Reynolds gets to write stuff like this in USA Today:

Spend a little while on Twitter or in Internet comment sections and you'll see a significant number of people who think that the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives, or that Chief Justice John Roberts' sudden about-face in the Obamacare case might have been driven by some sort of NSA-facilitated blackmail. 

A year ago, these kinds of comments would have been dismissable as paranoid conspiracy theory. But now, while I still don't think they're true, they're no longer obviously crazy. And that's Obama's legacy: a government that makes paranoid conspiracy theories seem possibly sane.

Of course, Glenn isn't saying Obama is coming for conservative white America with his army of Funktastic Blackity Black Thug Life Thugs, but you could be excused for believing it.  I mean, it's not like the FBI is going after Democrats or anything.  OH WAIT.

The federal criminal investigation into New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez is broader than previously known, NBC 4 New York has learned. 

The Department of Justice is investigating Menendez's efforts on behalf of two fugitive bankers from Ecuador, multiple current and former U.S, officials tell NBC 4 New York. The probe into Menendez’s dealing with the bankers comes as federal authorities are also investigating his relationship to a big campaign donor from Florida. 

The criminal investigation is focusing in part on the senator’s ties to William and Roberto Isaias and whether the senator crossed a line in trying to help the two brothers stay in the United States.

The Isaias brothers have been fugitives from their native Ecuador for more than a decade -- sentenced in absentia for embezzling millions as the bank they ran there was collapsing.

Can't wait for Reynolds to defend Sen. Menendez as another one of Obama's victims.  Of course, wingers, the "party of personal responsibility", see themselves as being victimized on a daily basis by mean old liberal fascists.  The end result?  Republicans, in a stunning and completely hypocritical reversal, are now against the NSA gathering information.

In a jarring break from the George W. Bush era, the Republican National Committee voted Friday to adopt a resolution demanding an investigation into the National Security Agency’s spy programs. 

According to the resolution, the NSA metadata program revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is deemed “an invasion into the personal lives of American citizens that violates the right of free speech and association afforded by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.” In addition, “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” 

Titled a “Resolution To Renounce The National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program,” it was passed by a voice vote as part of a package of RNC proposals. Not a single member rose to object or call for further debate, as occurred for other resolutions. 

Nevada Committeewoman Diana Orrock told msnbc over the phone that she introduced the resolution at the RNC’s summer meeting, but she wasn’t able to attract the necessary co-sponsors to advance it until now. The only major change she says she made to secure support was to drop the word “unconstitutional” from the title. 

“I have to thank Edward Snowden for bringing forth the blatant trampling of our First and Fourth Amendment rights in the guise of security,” she said. “Something had to be said. Something had to be done.”

So these programs were perfectly fine and 100% necessary when they were created by Republicans, but until Obama got re-elected and Chris Christie is now facing investigation and Benghazi and the IRS and Fast and Furious all fizzled out, Republicans need to change the subject again so they can have more hearings on how evil Obama is.  The victim complex never ends with these guys.

Obama Derangement Syndrome is now part of the GOP platform.  Oh, and they removed the word "unconstitutional" from the attack on Bush's programs because they would then have to seriously entertain impeachment, which they would lose on.

The best part is not only is Obama a master manipulator and super-intelligent arch villain, he's also apparently a totally boring, stupid, irrelevant non-entity at the same time.

Why, pretty soon these nutjobs will be trying to convince you Obama was born in Kenya or something.

Dinesh D'Indictment

I've talked about professional right-wing hack and "movie auteur" Dinesh D'Souza before (he's the clown behind the failed 2012 winger anti-Obama "documentary 2016: Obama's America) but it seems his political activities in 2012 got him in more than a bit of trouble as the Department of Justice rang him up on campaign finance violations today.

Dinesh D'Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate. 

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D'Souza around August 2012 reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to the candidate's campaign. The candidate was not named in the indictment. 

Attempts to reach D'Souza and a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful. 

D'Souza was charged in the indictment with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, and one count of causing false statements to be made. 

Federal law in 2012 limited primary and general election campaign contributions to $2,500 each, for a total of $5,000, from any individual to any one candidate.

Supposedly, the candidate in question was New York Republican Wendy Long, who D'Souza donated to in 2012, only to have her get stomped by Kirsten Gillibrand's wildly successful re-election campaign.

FEC campaign finance records show Mr. D’Souza made two $2,500 contributions to long-shot Republican New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long in March 2012—the maximum allowed. Mr. D’Souza’s wife at the time, Dixie D’Souza, also gave $5,000 that March, records show. The indictment says the candidate in question was unaware of Mr. D’Souza’s allegedly illicit activities. Ms. Long was handily defeated in the general election by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

So not only did he apparently get caught, but it looks like he basically risked breaking the law backing a candidate that lost by 44 points.

But totally worth it, right?

StupidiNews!

• The FBI arrested five in connection with the infamous $8 million "GoodFellas" Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport in 1978, charging the men with racketeering and conspiracy counts.
• More than 30 elderly residents of a Quebec retirement home are unaccounted for and feared dead after a fire broke out and burned the entire building to the ground.
• Thailand's Constitutional Court could rule as early as today whether or not a planned February 2 election can be held as protesters promise to block polling places to stop it.
• CNN is the latest news organization to report its social media accounts were hacked and false news stories were propagated, involving China, US treasuries, and the Syrian Electronic Army.
• Google has taken out a patent to provide free taxi service to customers to retail stores in exchange for advertisements during the ride.

Last Call For The Paranoia Bubble

Just a reminder that in the FOX News/AM Talk Radio alternate reality, the real (and only) racism in America is against white people, the poor dears.  Raw Story:

A Christian radio host insisted last week that white people were no longer racist, and even if they were, it’s the fault of racist black people. 

Sandy Rios, of American Family Radio, was offended when a listener suggested she was racist toward black people, who she blamed for inciting white racism. 

“I think the racist garbage coming from the — uh, a lot of blacks right now who are just filled with bitterness and rage is just amazing to me,” Rios said. “It is racism, I am seeing it constantly here in D.C., you know, I think — and it’s causing white citizens to become more racist than they ever were.” 

She continued, referring to white people using the term for Germanic tribes that once dominated England and is now generally associated with British-American Protestants and white supremacists. 

“I think for the most part, the American Anglo-Saxon crew really has moved past racism, they did it quite a long time ago,” she said.

And Sandy's living proof of that, right?

To recap her worldview:

1. Black people are all angry bitter racists.
2. White people aren't racist at all.
3. ...Except for the white people who are.
4. But that's okay because it's caused by the fact that...
5. Black people are all angry bitter racists.

The fact I'm pointing this out is proof of this, right?

Jim DeMented's Job Review

Former senator Jim DeMint left Congress to run the Heritage Foundation in 2013 to give the organization the, ahem, credibility it needed to count as an outside Tea Party group rather than the DC insider think tank that it is, and a year later, it looks like the Powers That Be aren't super happy with the arrangement.

In its first year under former senator and tea party godfather Jim DeMint, there was a growing consensus -- and concern -- that the foundation once renowned for its intellectual rigor might now be more of a political advocacy outlet than a home for scholarly research, albeit of the conservative variety. 

Heritage saw a study on the supposed cost of immigration reform blasted by those within its own ideological sphere as methodologically shoddy. One of its authors was forced to resign after revelations of anti-immigrant views in his earlier work surfaced. Its Obamacare research has come under scrutiny for its inherent bias, as TPM has reported. 

Those unforced slip-ups, and its advocacy arm's growing reputation as a bully toward any kind of moderation, have started to call the foundation's reputation into question on Capitol Hill. Conservatives lamented to the New Republic that Heritage had become a political action group "with a research division," burning bridges with the House GOP, something totally foreign to "the gold standard of conservative, forward-looking thought" that it used to be. The foundation's $82 million budget was reportedly being scaled back, with more money flowing to the advocacy efforts that have so chafed Hill Republicans.

In other words, what passes for the "intellectually rigorous conservative community" is shocked -- shocked I tell you! -- to discover that one of the most virulent anti-science Senators in Republican history hasn't provided them with the gravitas they were looking for.  They're apparently even more shocked that DeMint is using academic research and the studies they produce in a fashion that would make cigarette companies blush with embarrassment, fitting data to ideological means and damn the results!

Further proof that "conservative think tank" may be the biggest oxymoron in Washington DC.