Rep. Mike Grimm In "Breaking Bad"

New York City cable news station NY1 caught up with Staten Island GOP Rep. Michael Grimm at the Capitol Rotunda after the State of the Union address to ask him a few questions.  Reporter Michael Scotto apparently touched a nerve when he asked Grimm about the federal investigation into his 2010 campaign spending.  After happily bashing President Obama, Grimm gave a terse "This is only about the President" in response to Scotto, and the interview was over.

Until, with the camera rolling, Grimm stomped back over to Scotto and basically threatened to hurt him.

So Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances," Scotto said before tossing back to the station. But as the camera continued to roll, Grimm walked back up to Scotto and began speaking to him in a low voice. 

"What?" Scotto responded. "I just wanted to ask you..." 

Grimm: "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this f-----g balcony." 

Scotto: "Why? I just wanted to ask you..." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "If you ever do that to me again..." 

Scotto: "Why? Why? It’s a valid question." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

The best part:  Grimm's office released arguably the worst possible statement ever explaining the incident.

"I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other requests. The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a favor. I doubt that I am the first Member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won’t be the last."

Keep in mind this all happened after Grimm went on NY1 to call President Obama divisive.  This is the same guy who screamed about the IMPERIAL OBAMA PRESIDENCY when Richard Cordray was appointed to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling the President arrogant and a sham.

But don't you dare ask the great and powerful Michael Grimm a question, because he really is the most important guy ever.

The State Of The Union

President Obama commenced with his 5th SOTU address, and the theme was both very powerful and very obvious:  He's going around Congress.

Obama said he will order the U.S. Treasury to create a new federal retirement savings account called MyRA, a savings bond that he added would guarantee "a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." It will be available to those whose jobs don't offer traditional retirement savings programs, he said. 

Additionally, Obama called for: 

-- Eliminating $4 billion in tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industries "that don't need it" and instead "invest more in fuels of the future that do. 

-- Women who make 77 cents for each dollar a man earns to get equal pay for equal work, adding "that is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment." 

-- Setting new fuel standards for American trucks to help reduce U.S. oil imports "and what we pay at the pump." 

-- Reworking the corporate tax code. He urged Congress to work with him to close "wasteful, complicated loopholes that punish businesses investing here" and instead "lower tax rates for businesses that create jobs right here at home." 

-- Congress to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2014. 

Obama also reiterated that he will veto any new sanctions bill from Congress that would derail talks on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, adding that "for the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed."

 Republicans aren't happy about it.  Of course, they haven't been happy since November 2008, so frankly, who gives a damn about them anymore?

StupidiNews

• University of North Carolina Chancellor Carol Folt has admitted that the Chapel Hill school had failed students "for years" with false classes designed to boost grades of student athletes. 
• Scientists studying the brain have discovered a region that could be responsible for determining when a decision made is a bad one and when a different course of action is needed.
• Yemen's UN envoy is calling on the UN Security Council to draft a resolution backing Yemen's transitional government plan.
• Brazilian Olympic officials say the 2016 Rio Summer Games will directly cost $2.3 billion, but that they expect costs to rise in the years ahead.
• Google has released plans for prescription frames to use with its Glass product, but the titanium frames will run you $225 extra.

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.