Bachmanniac's Audition For A FOX News Job

Michele Bachmann may be leaving the House GOP at the end of the year, but she's stumping hard for a job over in Rupert Murdoch's team starting in 2015, it seems.

In an interview published Wednesday, Bachmann said that Barack Obama won the presidency because white people felt too guilty about past racial injustices. "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt," she said in an interview with Cal Thomas, a syndicated conservative columnist.

Yes, because President Jesse Jackson won so overwhelmingly in 1992.  Why, America has a long line of African-American presidents preceding Mr. Obama.  They just all happen to live in Bachmann's empty, empty head.

Seriously, the "Obama only won because of white guilt" is the perfect meme for these idiots. It allows them to simultaneously pretend that evolution-rejecting, climate change-denying douchebags who think women's bodies naturally produce a substance that prevents pregnancy during rape are somehow not the "low-information voters" screwing up America, while also pretending that the party of "Hey there's nothing wrong with pictures of Obama with a bone through his nose and his wife Moochelle" aren't the racists, but the guilty white liberals, the "race-hustling" black Democrats, and the "illegal Mexicans" are.

Oh, but let's not forget the War on Women, which doesn't exist because Republican love women.

Bachmann didn't stop there. She thinks Hillary Clinton has poor odds of winning the presidency in 2016. "People don't hold guilt for a woman," she said, explaining that much of the country isn't prepared to elect a women as president. "I don’t think there is a pent-up desire."

Why if I didn't know better, I'd think Shelly here was trying to pit white Obama voters versus black ones.  Those eeeeevil black people and those race traitor liberals will be "responsible" for Obama's wins until the day she dies.

More Voter Suppression In Ohio

As expected, Ohio Republicans rammed through two late-night bills Wednesday to cut early voting and same-day registration, and to end mailing absentee ballots to all Ohioans.

Ohio lawmakers passed two restrictive Republican voting bills Wednesday night, raising the prospect that casting a ballot this fall could be much more difficult, especially for minority voters.

With Ohio remaining the key presidential swing state, the changes could also affect the 2016 election.

The state Democratic Party said immediately that it would sue in federal court to block the laws.

“In 2014, I never imagined that I would be in a statehouse trying to fight for the rights to vote,” said state Rep. Alicia Reece, a Democrat, on the floor.

On party lines, the House voted 59-37 to approve a GOP bill that would cut six days from the state’s early voting period. More importantly, it would end the so-called “Golden Week,” when Ohioans can register and vote on the same day. Same-day registration is among the most effective ways for bringing new voters into the process, election experts say.

The House also voted by 60-38 to approve a bill that would effectively end the state’s successful program of mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. Under the bill, the secretary of state would need approval from lawmakers to mail absentee ballots, and individual counties could not do so at all. Nearly 1.3 million Ohioans voted absentee in 2012. The bill also would make it easier to reject absentee ballots for missing information.

When they say there's "no difference" between the two major political parties, remember that one party is trying to make voting as difficult as possible, and trying to limit who is allowed to vote.   That's because the Republicans don't want you to vote.  They know that the more difficult it is for the poor and working-class, college students, the elderly and urban minorities to vote, they more the GOP wins.

The only way the Republican party can win in 2014 is to disenfranchise or discourage as many Democrats as possible.

That's what they have to do.

StupidiNews!

• Several tornadoes touched down in Illinois and Tennessee and 24,000 lost power as a line of strong storms tackled the Midwest last night.
• Arizona Republicans have passed legislation that would allow people to refuse services to customers based on religious beliefs, but similar bills have failed in several other red states.
• As the death toll from brutal government clashes in Ukraine's capital of Kiev has reached 75, EU ministers are desperately trying to broker a cease fire.
• This year's strain of flu has taken a severe toll on young and middle-aged adults as US hospitalizations and deaths from influenza are on the rise.
• Islamic clerics in the UAE have issued a fatwa against proposed one-way trips to Mars, saying that without the possibility of return to Earth, the trip amounts to suicide, prohibited in the Qur'an.

Last Call For The War Of Southern Microaggressions

Why, I can't possibly imagine why putting the flag of a defeated, traitor group dedicated to the preservation of slavery as a basis of economic and social power on a Georgia license plate would piss anyone off.

The state of Georgia has released a new specialty license tag that features the Confederate battle flag, inflaming civil rights advocates and renewing a debate on what images should appear on state-issued materials.

The new specialty tag has stirred a clash between those who believe the battle flag honors Confederate heritage and those, particularly African-Americans, who view it as a racially charged symbol of oppression.

Because it is, thanks.

A spokesman for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said Tuesday that the state should not have sanctioned the battle emblem to appear on a Georgia tag.

“To display this is reprehensible,” said Maynard Eaton. “We don’t have license plates saying ‘Black Power.’”

Like that would ever be allowed on a license plate anywhere.

For their part, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said it meant no offense. People have a right to commemorate their heritage, and the state would be discriminating if it rejected the group’s application, said spokesman Ray McBerry.

“By sanctioning the plate, they are not saying they agree with our organization. They’re just saying it’s a level playing field,” he said.

Sure.  Because slavery was a level playing field.

Here's my question, "Heritage Not Hate" people.  You're celebrating a bunch of literal and actual traitors to the United States of America, a group that declared open warfare on the country and did so by engaging in a war that killed three-quarters of a million Americans, or about 2% of the entire population of the country, all over the fact that slavery was the economic powerhouse of the rural South.  Not that the rest of the Union was super awesome to Native Americans, Mexicans, Irish, Chinese and anyone else who wasn't Anglo-Saxon in general derivation, but you don't see people raising "Sons of the Veterans of the Mexican-American War" or "The Trail Of Tears Was Awesome And Stuff" license plates, right?

Why would you want to raise that battle flag?  At the very best, you're saying "I don't want to be part of the United Stated of America" while you're free to tool around in your big ass truck or whatever and can drive to any state in the lower 48, and look like an asshole doing it.  Can't stop you from being an asshole, but you can maybe not get a state-sanctioned license plate declaring it to all of Earth, maybe?

Jesus.

Meanwhile, In Wisconsin

Virginia, New Jersey, now in Wisconsin yet another Republican governor faces an investigation for wrongdoing in his office.  Scott Walker, come on down! 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has been eyeing a 2016 presidential run since his battles with labor unions made him a Republican star, is in the midst of dealing with the fallout of two criminal investigations at home that could complicate his move to the national stage.

One is ongoing, and while the other is now closed with no allegations of wrongdoing by Walker, it has the lingering potential to embarrass him.

That could begin as early as Wednesday with the release of more than 25,000 pages of e-mails from an ex-staffer that were gathered as part of the now-concluded investigation. The probe focused on Walker’s time as Milwaukee County executive before his 2010 election as governor and led to convictions of six former aides and allies.

Even if Walker escapes the e-mail release unscathed, he faces an additional inquiry from state prosecutors, who are believed to be looking into whether his successful 2012 recall campaign illegally coordinated with independent conservative groups.

 But ever the fair and balanced, the Washington Post ends thusly:

If conservative groups succeed in undermining the investigation’s legitimacy, the result could ironically convert the probe from a possible Walker weakness into an unexpected strength, rallying conservatives around a governor perceived to be holding firm against liberal bullies.

Course, they would need help from outlets like the Washington Post for that, right?

Dave Weigel has more on those 27k plus emails released yesterday:

Among the pile of emails, it was found that Walker also used his campaign email to conduct county executive business. In June 2010, Walker emailed the conservative radio host Charlie Sykes and encouraged him to get information on Democratic groups from his office. "Ask [my official office] and we would be happy to send over the info," Walker wrote.

Not illegal, just immoral.  Oh, and at least one of those emails appears to be pretty damning in the "illegal and immoral" department.

"Consider youself now in the 'inner circle,'" Walker's administration director, Cynthia Archer, wrote to Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch just after the two exchanged a test message.

"I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day," she wrote, referring to Walker by his initials and to Walker's chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.

Using state resources to coordinate his recall campaign is going to be a big problem for Scott Walker, no matter how the Wingers try to spin it.

Too Close To Home - Hailey Owens

By now, most of you have heard about what happened to Hailey Owens of Springfield, Missouri.  For those who have not, this timeline of events is helpful to fill in details.  They have stayed true with what all sources agree on without the extra speculation.

SPRINGFIELD, MO (KCTV/AP) -A body believed to be that of Hailey Owens was found Wednesday at a Springfield home owned by the suspect, Police Chief Paul Williams said at a news conference. Official confirmation won't occur until after an autopsy, but the chief said police "have a high degree of confidence" in the preliminary identification. 

Police say Craig Michael Wood, 45, is jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder but formal charges have not been filed. The Greene County prosecutor is reviewing the case. 

A grade school coach has been jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder in the abduction and death of a 10-year-old Springfield girl. 

The details of what happened after the abduction aren't clear and won't be for a long time.  It all happened so fast.  Violent crime always does. The people left behind can take a long time to put the pieces together.  A few press releases have been slowly letting pieces emerge, but this will take days, if not weeks, to unravel. What we know is that a little girl has died, and someone evil made the choice for it to happen.  The local response has been immediate and overwhelming.  It has been a rare and eye-opening thing to read about something major from both the local and national perspectives.  

So what do I have to add?  I can say with authority that Springfield citizens pulled together as fast as they could.  When the abduction occurred, one person tried to follow in their car, and another called and reported the license plate.  According to this timeline, I had something on my Facebook within thirty minutes (I didn't see anything until it was too late, but it was on there).  Pictures and information flowed and ad hoc pipelines did a fair job of stifling rumors.  The response was huge and incredibly personal.  Within an hour, my Facebook feed was a barrage of photos as people tried to help.  The Springfield Police Department was not able to save Hailey, but they were there within a few short hours.  Their effort was commendable, and they have been professional and solid so far.  From the moment of abduction until the suspect was in custody, not quite four hours elapsed. In that short time, a terrible crime was committed and a little girl was lost.

StupidiNews!

• Two security contractors, both former Navy SEALs, were found dead aboard the Maersk Alabama, the cargo ship made famous in the movie "Captain Philips".
• Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting suspect James Holmes has been ordered to undergo a new sanity examination as the judge has found the first test incomplete.
• Facebook's major purchases continue with the acquisition of global messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion in combined cash and stock.
• TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline route through Nebraska has been ruled illegal by a federal judge, which could delay the project, possibly permanently.
• Television "retransmission" service Aereo has been stopped with an injunction for all 10th Circuit states as the company's battle with network and cable giants heads to the Supreme Court.

Last Call For Houseplant Slash Muscle

Need to lighten things up around here, so we leave you tonight with the new Guardians of the Galaxy trailer that premiered last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live.



Ahh, Peter Quill, forever stuck in the 80's.  John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz in the Nova Corps, evil blue Karen Gilliam as Nebula, mostly evil green Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Djimon Hounsou as Korath The Pursuer (Marvel so does love to name their cosmic level badasses "X The Archetype") makes any movie better, and I get Rocket Raccoon and Groot shooting rooms full of things?  Definitely looking forward to this one in August, and looks totally faithful to the comic's bonkers style mix of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Chronicles of Riddick on the set of a Billy Idol video.  You know, Farscape with less introspection and more 10 foot tall tree guys.

It's looking to be glorious fun.  Can't wait.

Kansas's Discrimination Bill Gets The Business

A week ago, state legislation that Kansas Republicans sponsored that would allow businesses and state employees to refuse goods and services to same-sex couples under the guise of "religious freedom" looked like a sure bet as it sailed through the Kansas House.

Denying services to same-sex couples may soon become legal in Kansas.

House Bill 2453 explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.

It passed the state's Republican-dominated House on Wednesday with a vote of 72-49, and has gone to the Senate for a vote.

This week, it crashed and burned in the Kansas Senate.

A controversial religious freedom bill passed by the Kansas House will never make it to the Senate floor or even be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Tuesday, Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, officially closed the door on House Bill 2453, which gained international attention and inspired a Twitter hash tag.

“We’re not going to work the bill,” he said. “House Bill 2453 is kaput.”

Why the change in heart?  Oh, Kansas Republicans are still gay-hating bigots, but Kansas businesses stepped in and told the GOP to knock it off because the legislation (and the impending boycotts and lawsuits it would produce) would affect their bottom lines.

One of Kansas' largest employers is joining a myriad of other companies in opposing a bill some say would discriminate against gay couples.

Sprint Corp., which employs 7,600 people locally and ranks third on the Kansas City Business Journal's Top Area Private-Sector Employers list, said Monday that it disagrees with the "protecting religious freedom" measure. If passed, House Bill 2453 would allow businesses and government entities to deny same-sex couples goods and services on the basis of religious freedom.

"At Sprint, we have a commitment to inclusion and having a workplace that is supportive of all employees," Sprint spokesman John Taylor wrote in an email. "Inclusion and diversity serve as guiding principles for our company. They help us create an atmosphere fostering creativity and effectiveness, providing employees, suppliers, customers and members of the community an opportunity to feel included and valued."

The Overland Park-based telecom company joins AT&T Inc. and other Kansas businesses in protesting the bill. Among the organizations are Kansas City Power & Light Co. and theWichita Independent Business Association.

Bottom line:  any big national or international corporation doing business in Kansas under this legislation would have a host of legal, public relations, and ethical nightmares to deal with, all thanks to the idiots in the Kansas GOP,  so they stepped in and reminded the Republicans exactly who they work for. When bigotry affects the quarterly earnings reports, the people who really run the GOP get that culture war nonsense sorted out in record time.

Discrimination against customers is bad for business?  Who knew?  The only color on the rainbow flag that matters to the corporate wing of the GOP is green.  Interfere with that, and suddenly the Tea Party gets miraculously handled.

Funny how that works.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/02/18/3297322/kansas-senate-kills-controversial.html#storylink=cpy

Rush (Holt): A Farewell To Kings (Of Science)

New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt, the party's point man on science and technology legislation and former research physicist, is leaving the House after twelve years.

Mr. Holt is perhaps most popularly known as the five-time “Jeopardy!” champion who later won a celebrity round against Watson, the IBM supercomputer. In and around Princeton, where he had been assistant director of the Plasma Physics Laboratory, bumper stickers on Priuses proudly proclaim “My Congressman IS a Rocket Scientist.”

He has consistently pushed for more money for scientific research, and better science education, securing $22 billion for research in the stimulus bill, and grants of $16,000 for students who prepare to teach math, science or foreign languages.

“I’m not sure we have anyone in the Congress with his level of deep understanding of what it is going to take for the American scientific enterprise to thrive in the future,” said Shirley M. Tilghman, a molecular biologist and former president of Princeton.

Among his other accomplishments, Mr. Holt said he was proudest of getting “tens of millions” of dollars for suicide prevention among members of the military, and for securing state matching programs for land and water conservation. He also helped arrange citizenship for the family of a Pakistani man killed in a hate crime in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Particularly as Tea Party Republicans challenged the science of climate change in recent years, Mr. Holt argued vociferously for the importance of what he called “evidence based” debates.

Democrats will keep the seat pretty easily, I would expect, and I didn't always agree with him.  But the country will miss his intelligence, and he was one of the few NY/NJ politicians to admit that Palestinians actually qualify as human beings.  Go figure.

StupidiNews!

• Bloody clashes between Ukrainian military and opposition protesters in Kiev turned deadly Tuesday as at least 21 people were killed and dozens injured.
• A new Congressional Budget Office report estimates that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 would cost around 500,000 jobs, but lift nearly a million out of poverty.
• Venezuelan security forces have arrested opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in connection with this week's protests in the capital of Caracas.
• In Bangkok, Thai police and opposition protestors met, ending with 5 dead and 65 injured as post-election violence continues in protest of the government of PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
• Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered proteins that form what could be a new class of mathematical solids known as "Goldberg cages."

Last Call For The Most Unskewed Poll Ever

The DC Examiner is touting this YouGov poll, which apparently finds that well over half of Democrats now regret voting for President Obama in 2012.

Over seven in 10 Obama voters, and 55 percent of Democrats, regret voting for President Obama's reelection in 2012, according to a new Economist/YouGov.com poll.

Conducted to test the media hype about a comeback by 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the new poll found voters still uninspired by Romney, but also deeply dissatisfied with Obama who has so far failed to capitalize on his victory over 15 months ago.

The poll asked those who voted for Obama's reelection a simple question: “Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?”

— Overall, 71 percent said yes, 26 percent no.

— 80 percent of whites said yes, 61 percent of blacks said no and 100 percent of Hispanics said yes.

— 84 percent of women said yes, and just 61 percent of men agreed.

— 55 percent of Democrats said yes, as did 71 percent of independents.

Still, given the choice of Obama versus Romney, Obama supporters said they would stick with their guy, 79 percent to 10 percent for Romney.

Do you really believe that 71% overall, 84% of women, and 100% of Latino voters of the 65 million total Americans who cast their vote for President Obama now "regret" that vote?  If that's true, he should have approval ratings lower than Bush 43 did at the bottom of his abyss.

In other words, he should be down in the single digits with the GOP in Congress.  Strangely, that's not the case.

It's almost like this poll is ridiculously suspect.

Battle Of The Billionaires

The GOP is so beholden now to ultra-wealthy billionaire donors in a post Citizens United America that the future of the party will apparently be determined by which faction of networks of super-rich donors can buy out the most Republican politicians:  the Koch Brothers Tea Party machine, Karl Rove's disgraced but still powerful Crossroads donor network, or the new dark money on the block, Wall Street mogul Paul Singer's pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigration group, the American Opportunity Alliance.

On its face, it in some ways resembles a much smaller-scale version of Charles and David Koch’s fabled network, which brings together hand-picked operatives and politicians twice a year at tony resorts to make presentations to dozens of rich conservatives. At the conclusion of the Koch seminars, as they’re called, donors commit massive sums into a pool of cash disseminated to various Koch-backed groups for seven- and eight-figure advertising and organizing campaigns that have made them a force in Republican politics rivaling the official party.

That doesn’t appear to be the goal of Singer and his donors. While many of them — including Singer himself — have attended the Koch seminars and also maintain their own independent spending groups, their approach with the American Opportunity Alliance is more donor-centric, focusing on comparing notes about one another’s political projects and funneling limited hard-money contributions effectively.

In other words, the AOA guys are all about coordinating donations for pet projects for the corporate wing of the GOP.  It's nothing personal, just business.  At our expense, of course.

Still, the list of big-name pols expected at the American Opportunity Alliance’s upcoming Colorado gathering highlights the influence that only a few big donors can command in the post-Citizens United era, when a small group of wealthy individuals can reorder elections with just a few huge checks. That new reality has shifted some of the power and control once maintained by the parties and their candidates to factions of major donors, like the libertarian-infused Koch network on the right or the Democracy Alliance club of major liberal donors on the left.

Of course, the Democracy Alliance has only a fraction of the money that the Kochs, the AOA, or Karl Rove's boys do.  So now there's three huge groups of GOP donors, throwing hundreds of millions at Republicans to buy out state and federal elections, and virtually no hope of stopping them, or even coming close to matching them in order to fight fire with fire.

2014 is not looking good for our side, folks.

Gotta Break A Few Eggs

Another tragic death of a black teenager, this time for the crime of being a passenger in the wrong car when a man decides he's going to stop people from egging his son's car by drawing and using his firearm.

An Arkansas man faces a murder charge for allegedly gunning down a car filled with teenagers who had wanted to play a prank on his son. One of the passengers, 15-year-old Adrian Broadway, died from a gunshot wound to the head on Saturday.

The teens said they were pranking Willie Noble’s son by covering his car with eggs and leaves, which is when Noble reportedly arrived with a shotgun. “Apparently Mr. Noble’s teenage son had done a prank on some of the kids that were inside the vehicle on Halloween Night,” Lieutenant Sidney Allen said. “As a result they were doing a retaliation prank and it ultimately had deadly results.” In addition to first degree murder, Noble has been charged with committing a terrorist act and five counts of aggravated assault.

“It was supposed to be a prank,” Kortazha Williams, who was in the car with Broadway, told KTHV. “We were supposed to get up right now, and we were supposed to laugh.”

Yes, because the correct response to "Dad, these kids are going to egg my car in payback for a prank I pulled on them last Halloween" is "OK son, lemme open fire on them."  Superior parenting skills there.

But firearms didn't contribute to this death, right to responsibly own a firearm is in the Bill of Rights, yadda yadda whatever you tell yourself when stuff like this happens, right gun advocates?

StupidiNews!

• Severe turbulence is being blamed for injuries to several passengers on a United flight from Denver to Billing, Montana on Monday evening.
• Tops on the agenda at this year's summit of North American leaders in Mexico: Canadian PM Steven Harper asking President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
• Multiple car bomb attacks are responsible for 24 deaths in Baghdad as violence against Shi'ites in the country is on the rise.
• A roof collapse at a South Korean resort has killed ten and injured dozens at a college party held in the complex's gym.
• The first casualty in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable proposed merger may be Nexflix's deal with TWC over providing the streaming service on settop boxes.