Last Call For Obama Derangement District

Wisconsin's 6th congressional district is home to Republican Tom Petri, who has served for 25 years.  He's retiring, and the Republicans who are vying to replace him all have one thing in common:  the impeachment of Barack Obama for the crime of being a Democrat.

Each of four Republican candidates for the 6th Congressional District told residents Thursday that if elected in November, he would be inclined to vote to impeach President Barack Obama for any number of transgressions.

At a GOP candidates forum Thursday in Ozaukee County, each candidate said he would approve naming a special prosecutor to investigate specific scandals as a first step toward impeachment.

They held up both the IRS targeting of tea party-connected groupsseeking nonprofit status and the NSA collecting of bulk telephone data and the magnitude of its everyday surveillance routine as examples of government overreach in the Obama administration.

"He should be impeached for so many things," state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-Campbellsport) told an audience of more than 100 residents at the forum inside the Hub at Cedar Creek in the Town of Cedarburg.

His specific list of impeachment-worthy scandals would include those involving the IRS and NSA, as well as the ATF, he said. Numerous problems within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives include the mistake-ridden sting in Milwaukee and the Fast and Furious episode in Arizona where agents lost a few thousand firearms to gun traffickers.

A proposed bill by U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) would dissolve the ATF due to its operational failures.

Scandals tied to all three federal agencies are "things the average citizen can understand," Grothman said.

State Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Town of Cedarburg) said the September 2012 deaths of four Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was at the top of his list.

Funny, I don't remember any Republicans wanting to impeach Bush over the Iraq War, the failures of intelligence over 9/11, or the number of embassy personnal killed overseas when he was President.

But Barack Obama is a black Democrat, so he has to be impeached.  And the Republican party is so morally and intellectually bankrupt that impeachment is now the default position for party candidates.  It's all they have.  "Vote for me, I'll get rid of the ni CLANG."

Somehow, it's the Democrats dividing the country, right?

Chump Change To The Man

GOP casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson wants to buy the Senate for the Republican Party, and he has enough money to do it by himself.

If you had a big, high-stakes project, think an extra $1 million a day might help?

Well, leading GOP sources focused on 2014 Senate races say such a boost is being contemplated by GOP megadonor Sheledon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino mogul.

Adelson has spent some time of late studying the map, and receiving briefings on state-by-state strategy and candidates. And he is promising to help Republicans target a dozen seats now held by Democrats, with the ultimate goal of picking up at least six - and the Senate majority. The GOP also is defending seats in Georgia and Kentucky.

So watch in the days and weeks ahead to see how much of a Senate play Adelson is prepared to make. One of the sources involved said it could be as much as $100 million. With 107 days to the election from Sunday, that would be an eye-popping bet.

Adelson is worth $35.9 billion.  Him giving $100 million to the GOP to win the Senate is equivalent of you having $3,590 in your bank account and you giving $10 to your favorite candidate.  And thanks to the Supreme Court, both are considered to be equal expressions of freedom of political speech.

Only in America is $100 million considered to be equivalent to ten bucks as far as impact on our political system.

Common sense would dictate a person spending $100 million to buy Senate races would expect that much in return in political favors, if not more.  But that's not corruption or bribery, it's "free speech".

This is our new political reality.

Keeping That Oath

Can we finally stop pretending that Team Dudebro Defector are somehow "liberals" and not right-wing, anti-Obama, anti-government cranks?

Activist Glenn Greenwald posted this today on Twitter, hyping a pro-Edward Snowden advertisement featured at reason.com:

A coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials place huge pro-Snowden ad in Metro http://t.co/zcqTb0IBJ3
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 11, 2013

Who is this “coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials” Greenwald is promoting?

Why, that group of "former police and military" folks is non other than Oath Keepers, one of the nastiest right-wing militia groups in the country.

Launched in March [2009] by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.

It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

Hey, Las Vegas?  Militia?  Sprung into existence 3 months after Obama took office?  You don't suppose...

An official with New York’s Oath Keepers organization denied the group held “far-right, anti-government views,” and then called on law enforcement officers to disobey orders and join them in their fight against socialist tyranny.  

John Wallace, vice president of the state’s Oath Keepers group, cited an alleged New York State Intelligence Center counterterrorism bulletin reportedly leaked to InfoWars that linked the organization and similar groups to the recent shootings of law 

enforcement officers by extremists. Wallace complains that the document, which has not been confirmed as legitimate, based its conclusions on news reports by “left-wing” and “communist” organizations such as the New York Times, Huffington Post, and CNN.

Oh, these guys backed awesome racist Cliven Bundy and his Ranch of Revolution.

And these are the guys Glenn Greenwald is promoting.

Now matter how much you think that Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald were right. you immediately lose all validity concerning your argument when you decide to make common cause with a dangerous right-wing militia group like Oath Keepers.   Don't ever expect me to take him seriously if he's welcoming the support of these assholes and going after actual liberals.

He just showed his true colors.

Vlad The Self-Impaler

Josh Marshall on Putin, Malaysia Flight 17, and realpolitik:

Europe and even America never cared that much about Crimea. It is difficult to dislodge an annexation when a majority of the population likely really did support it. And the Europeans, as long as the big red lines weren't being crossed, are too tied to Russian fuels and their myriad other concerns to care that much about mischief on Ukraine's eastern border. But having a passenger plane, filled with EU citizens, shot out of the sky above what is presumed to be the bubble of first world safety that is "Europe" is a game changing event not only in the Ukraine crisis but much more broadly about Putin's role in Europe generally.

In a paradoxical way, I think the future ramifications of this are almost greater because it is about Russia's recklessness and bumbling than it would be if it were more clearly a matter of intent. This is a f'-up on Putin's part of almost mind-boggling proportions. Yes, a tragedy. Yes, perhaps an atrocity. But almost more threatening, a screw up. Malign intent is one thing. So is aggression. But goofs of this magnitude by someone who controls a massive military arsenal and nuclear weapons are in a way more threatening.

Which of course was the argument later made about Bush and 9/11.   Like Bush in 2001, Putin assumed this wasn't going to happen and it did, spectacularly and tragically, despite the numerous warnings to the contrary.  "Well, Putin doesn't have any control over all of the pro-Russian separatists" isn't an excuse that absolves Putin in the least, in fact it should frighten the hell out of basically everyone.

The Ukrainian situation is no longer an exercise in "what if".  We now know what the consequences are, and they are bloody and dire.  And the hand behind all of this controls Russia's military and nuclear arsenal pretty much exclusively.

This is not a good situation to be in.  Putin is a real problem and will now have to be dealt with.

I Can't Imagine How The Guy Got Voted Out Of Office

Former Republican Congressman Allen West apparently doesn't know much about anything, but he knows everything is Obama's fault, including downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine.

"The blood on Vladimir Putin’s hands was poured by Barack Obama, who is indirectly responsible, accountable and no different than Neville Chamberlain’s weakness in the face of the 20th Century maniacal dictator Adolf Hitler," West, who maintains a relatively large following among conservative activists, wrote in a new post on his blog Friday.

"So much for no drama Obama," West added. "He is purposefully creating drama globally."

To substantiate his claim, West cited Obama's 2012 hot mic moment when he told Russian President Dmitri Medvedev he would have more "flexibility" to negotiate with Russia on missile defense after the U.S. election.


"Sadly, hundreds of Ukrainians and 298 souls on MH17 have paid the price for the weakness and abject cowardice of Obama’s 'flexibility,'" West wrote. "And here in America we quibble over a lawsuit against this charlatan."

.
Yeah Allen, let's talk about charlatans, who con people into believing them when they have materially misrepresented themselves.  Sort of like what you did proclaiming yourself an American military hero when you actually resigned in disgrace from military service when the soldiers under your command beat an Iraqi man senseless because you thought, without any evidence mind you, that the man was involved in an attempt on your life.

That's the definition of charlatan to me.  No wonder Obama was re-elected, and you sir, were not.

Crawl under your rock and trouble this country no more.  You're as unqualified a foreign policy expert as you are a soldier.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Investigators of downed Malaysia Flight 17 in Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels are interfering with the investigation of the plane and recovery of the bodies.
• The first step in offshore oil drilling off America's East Coast has been authorized as permits to survey the ocean floor will be issued for the first time since the Reagan administration.
• Iranian diplomats will continue nuclear talks even after missing a deadline ahead of this week's July 20th timetable for a finished deal.
• The death of a man in NYPD custody has prompted Mayor Bill DeBlasio to delay a scheduled trip to Italy in order to meet with community leaders in Staten Island.
• An investigation by the Chicago Tribune has found thousands of Chicago residents received undeserved tickets from faulty red-light cameras at intersections.

Another Governor Carter From Georgia Coming?

It looks like Georgia's burgeoning Democratic voters might be ready to put another Carter in the governor's chair, Jimmy's grandson Jason has a significant lead in the latest local polling there.

An exclusive Channel 2 Action News poll indicates if the election were held today, Georgia could have a new governor. 

The poll conducted by Landmark Communications on July 15 found Democratic challenger Jason Carter with a seven-point lead over Republican incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal. 

Carter received 48.7 percent in the poll and Deal received 41.3 percent. Libertarian Andew Hunt received 4 percent of the vote in the poll. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.

Andrew Hunt is definitely hurting Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, and that could very well mean Carter can pull this off.   And where Carter is winning?  African-American voters, and women.

The poll comes just after new developments in the ethics investigation into Deal, and it could have cost him support according to Channel 2 political analyst Bill Crane. 

“This is definite cause for pause and concern for a governor who probably a year ago didn’t have any serious Democrats who were running and now obviously are in a position to knock him out of his seat,” Crane told Channel 2’s Lori Geary. 

Deal has a nine-point lead in men but women support Carter by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

Oh yes, did I mention yet another corrupt Republican governor is under investigation?

The Georgia governor's race was roiled this week by new revelations in a long-standing ethics investigation of the incumbent, Republican Nathan Deal. 

His opponent, State Sen. Jason Carter, a Democrat, says that a newly-revealed memo, in which the head of the state ethics commission claimed an attorney for Deal threatened her agency while it was investigating complaints against the governor, shows a "pattern of intimidation and interference on the part of the governor's office."

If that's true, and Deal's legal team is threatening investigators, Gov. Deal is a Done Deal.

Stay tuned.  Corrupt Republican governors are going to get tossed like trash in November.

What Domestic Terrorism Problem? Con't

We certainly don't have a right-wing, anti-government domestic terrorism problem with nutjobs who are willing to bomb and kill people or anything, because as we all know, all terrorists are brown dudes with funny religions, and certainly not middle-aged white guys in Utah.

A joint investigation between local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has led to the arrest of a man they say threatened to bomb several targets, including the Tremonton Police Department in order to instigate an uprising against the government. 

John Huggins, 47, was under surveillance by the FBI after an anonymous tip came into local police that he was planning to blow up his Bible study group. Police say they learned that he was allegedly planning to blow up the police department along with several bridges and infrastructure points to prevent assistance from showing up, according to court documents.

Huggins had allegedly targeted two police officers to kill before initiating his plan. 

Police say Huggins goal was to get the community to rise up in defiance of the government.

Wait a minute, FBI surveillance?  Bible study group?  Killing cops?  Revolution? Why, that would make this guy a Christian, planning to kill Christians, and an American citizen, planning to kill other American citizens. But that can't be the case because right-wing domestic terrorists are a myth created by the Obama administration's use of flouride and chemtrails.

By the way, this happened last weekend, but you didn't hear about it because John Huggins can't possibly be a newsworthy terrorist because his name isn't Mohammed.  A Muslim plotting to kill two cops and a Bible study group would have made national headlines for the last five days and endless hours of talking head chatter on the cable news shows.

Instead, this guy just doesn't exist unless you happened to read the Ogden Standard-Examiner, because he's a right-wing, white, Christian terrorist, and we can't allow Americans to know those exist.

StupidiNews!

• All 298 aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 are dead as White House officials confirm the plane was shot down over the Ukraine by a surface to air missile, 23 Americans were aboard.
• House Republicans say they will scrap the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact with 11 other countries unless Congress gets a straight up or down vote with no amendments on the deal.
• Israel's eleven-day assault on Gaza has now entered the ground invasion phase as tanks, artillery, gunboats and troops have entered Gaza.
• Microsoft will cut 18,000 jobs, mostly eliminating positions from its Nokia cell phone operations that the company acquired earlier this year.
• Tesla Motors officials are investigating claims that its Model S electric car is vulnerable to remote hacking that could interfere with the car's steering while in motion.

Last Call For Well Here's Your Problem

Everything wrong with the Villagers covering President Obama in one tweet:

Obama goes ahead with infrastructure speech that no one who isn’t present will ever see or read about.
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) July 17, 2014

Please keep in mind Peter Baker here is the NYT's White House correspondent.  It's apparently not his job as White House correspondent to cover the fact the President is giving a speech on our mutli-billion dollar infrastructure shortfall, and that 700,000 jobs are at stake should the Federal Highway Fund go dry due to Republicans not being too concerned about keeping it alive.

It's not newsworthy because hey, plane crash in Ukraine.  700,000 jobs?  That's not newsworthy at all.  So we have the NYT's point person at the White House bemoaning that the President's speech won't get covered.

If only some sort of news organization could do something about that.

Six Californias For The Price Of One

As I mentioned earlier this week, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tim Draper says he has the 800,000+ signatures needed to get his effort to split California into six separate states on the 2016 ballot.  It's a ridiculous long shot that would require approval by California's solidly blue state assembly, and approval by Congress.  The political implications are intriguing to say the least.  Nate Cohn:

If California were to split into six states, it would create huge opportunities — and risks — for both parties in presidential elections. It would also empower Democrats in the Senate. Most of all, it would significantly increase the electoral clout of Hispanic voters, who are currently marginalized by America’s electoral system. 

Three of the six proposed states — North California, Silicon Valley and West California — would be solidly Democratic. The other three states — Jefferson, Central California and South California — would all be fairly competitive in presidential elections. Each of these three states would have been closer than battlegrounds like Virginia or Colorado were in the last presidential election.

If there had been six mini-Californias in 2012, President Obama would have carried South California, which includes San Diego, the Inland Empire and Orange County. Mitt Romney would have narrowly carried Central California, which includes the southern half of the Central Valley, and Jefferson, which includes the liberal Northern California coast and the conservative interior.

The payoff for Democrats:  Silicon Valley would be dark, dark blue. Central California would become the first majority Latino state in the US, with South California not far behind.  The demographics would heavily favor the Democrats in getting the bulk of the ten new Senators created, and they would almost break even on the electoral college votes, getting 53 by carrying Silicon Valley, and North, West, and South California, instead of the 55 now.  Central California and Jefferson would be in play as well, worth another 11 electoral votes.  Finally, all this means as many as 8 or maybe even 10 new Democratic senators.

Republicans on the other hand would very much like to win South California's 17 electoral votes, which would put a damper on the Democrats hopes for the White House.  If Republicans could split the 12 senators evenly with the Dems, that would go a long way towards helping them in Congress.

The big problem is Central California and Jefferson would end up being two of the poorest states in the country, particularly Central California.  That's a real issue, and that's the catch.  Silicon Valley would become the wealthiest state, and there you have the main problem with the proposal, an instant increase in America's inequality.

Democrats need to do everything possible to stop this.  It's Tim Draper's plan to fund a state For the One Percent, By the One percent, literally at the expense of millions of Californians.  It's a glibertarian scheme to create the ultimate gated community, a gated state, of America's tech wealthy and leave the rest of California out in the cold when it comes to tax revenue.  It's a terrible proposal.

Six Californias needs to go, big time.

More Exciting GOP Minority Outreach

I understand that it's difficult to judge Republicans in Mississippi as there are so many stereotypes that come to mind when you say "Mississippi Republicans" and all that, but it doesn't help when it turns out they are acting exactly like you'd expect them to act.

A new Public Policy Polling survey found that 37 percent of Republicans who voted in the Mississippi primary runoff election between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) said they would back the Confederate side if there was another Civil War.

The poll, obtained by TPM, is full of goodies for poll geeks. Of those polled, including Democrats and Republicans, 50 percent said they would support the United States while 29 percent said they would support the Confederate States of America. 

Broken down by party affiliation, 82 percent of Democrats said they would support the United States while just 9 percent said they would support the Confederate States of America. Among Republicans, 37 percent said they would support the Confederate States of America while 41 percent said they would support the United States. Another 21 percent of Republicans said they weren't sure while 9 percent of Democrats said they weren't sure.

To recap, less than half of Mississippi Republicans would back the US if there were another civil war.  That's kind of a problem, considering the other side was fighting for what they considered the right to use human slavery as an economic stimulus.

Best part is the one in five Republicans who aren't sure which side they'd be on if it came down to a fight between America and Slave-Owning Treason Dudes.

Maybe they should just hand out candy while they're at it.

Minority outreach, whee!

StupidiNews!

• A Taliban attack on Kabul's main airport has ended with all six militants killed, and no casualties among Afghan forces or civilians.
• Scientists say the nearly 270 foot hole found in Siberia by gas survey teams was most likely formed by global warming.
• President Obama has authorized a new round of sanctions on Russian businesses, directly affecting several large corporations and banks associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Neuroscientists say they need more brains, donated brain tissue used to study concussions, brain injuries and Alzheimer's is on the decline.
• House Republicans have passed a bill that would strip the FCC of funding to implement public, municipal broadband services.

Last Call For The Heat Is On

Meanwhile, outside in all that nature crap...

You may recall that the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reported last month that March-May was the hottest in more than 120 years of record-keeping. Well, the JMA reported Monday that last month was the hottest June in more than 120 years of record-keeping.

But locally, it was 54 this morning due to a unseasonable dip in the jet stream this week over the Midwest, so like failed Senate Candidate and Veruca Salt Cosplayer Liz Cheney says, the plan on dealing with climate change is "Nothing".

Liz Cheney did not hesitate when asked Monday what the Republican Party should do to address climate change. 

"Nothing," she immediately replied.

Republicans.  The party of big ideas!

Coal-Hearted Bastards

Looks like the House GOP is making good on their threat to kill all funding for President Obama's new EPA pollution rules for coal plants.

House appropriators on Tuesday approved a $30 billion spending bill designed to block a host of looming Environmental Protection Agency regulations viewed by the GOP as exceeding the agency’s authority.

Republicans on the Appropriations Committee pushed through the Interior and environment funding bill, sending it to the House floor over the objections of Democrats who described it as full of “veto bait” and handouts to big business.

The panel advanced the measure — the seventh, and potentially last for the year, of the 12 annual appropriations bills Congress is supposed to pass — by a 29–19 vote. Even if approved by the House, the bill is unlikely to become law. The Senate has yet to act on a single appropriations bill, and President Obama would likely refuse to sign it.

Still, the bill has become another battleground for the GOP’s escalating assault on Obama’s regulatory agenda. It contains myriad provisions designed to dial back or altogether block a wide range of EPA regulations.

House Republicans are betting that the Senate will pass and the President will sign the bill rather than shutting down the entire Department of the Interior, including national parks, monuments, and memorials.  Of course, the last time the House GOP shut down national parks, it didn't go so well for them.  It looks like they're willing to do it again in order to gum up the EPA's coal plant rules however.

We'll see how far this gets, but yes, I would fully expect another shutdown battle this fall.

Health Insurance Companies Are Still Pretty Scummy

Jonathan Cohn reminds us that one of the major reasons the ACA was passed was because health insurance companies are basically awful, awful people who do awful, awful things in order to keep from paying out on insurance.

Perhaps the most alarming I’ve seen comes from Florida, where the AIDS Institute and National Health Law Program accuse four insurers of discriminating against customers and potential customers who are HIV-positive. According to an official complaint, filed with the Department of Health and Human Services, the insurers have structured their drug formularies in ways that make key HIV drugs much more expensive. 

It could be coincidence, naturally, but the groups think it’s a deliberate effort to scare away customers that would run up high medical bills. It’s precisely the sort of trick that insurers have played for generations. And while the Affordable Care Act’s regulations are supposed to stop such practices, some insurers have undoubtedly found ways to circumvent and undermine the new rules. 

Does this mean Obamacare is a bad deal for people with HIV? Of course not. Before the law, people with pre-existing conditions frequently had even worse coverage—or no insurance at all. But given the anecdotes and history of private insurance in America, it’s clear that state and federal officials need to be regulating the plans aggressively. In some places, I’m not sure they are.

So we're pretty much all in agreement on three things: 1) The ACA still has problems and loopholes that are being exploited.  2) They need to be fixed.  3) It will never happen as long as Republicans are in charge of either or both halves of Congress.

The root cause of the issue is of course, part 3 there.  That's what we have to do something about in November.  Remember, Republicans want to take us back to an era where insurance companies can discriminate against HIV-positive people and MS sufferers and breast cancer survivors and say "we won't cover you."  And they have zero solutions to that problem, literally, nothing.

So why would we send them back to Congress?

StupidiNews!

• Egypt's brokered cease fire between Israel and Hamas has crumbled, with Hamas rejecting the offer and Israel resuming airstrikes on Gaza.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas has been released by Border Patrol officials after reporting on the border refugee crisis in Texas.
• IBM will team up with Apple to offer phones and tablets pre-loaded with IBM software designed for the corporate enterprise client.
• Boeing says its new design for the 737 will include slimmer seats, redesigned galleys and lavatories, and less padding to get 11 more passengers on board per flight.
• Google is teaming up with pharmaceutical giant Novartis to create "smart contact lenses" that could monitor glucose levels in tears for diabetic patients.

Last Call For The Nameless Bunch

Team Cheney's Rehabilitation Breakfast and War Criminal Fete, courtesy of Politico, was simply too much for Chuck Pierce to take as he righteously savages everyone involved in this festering mountain of stupid.

Its puerilty has finally crossed over into indecency. Its triviality has finally crossed over into obscenity. The comical political starfcking that is its primary raison d'erp has finally crossed over into $10 meth-whoring on the Singapore docks. Once a mere surface irritation, Tiger Beat On The Potomac has finally crossed over into being a thickly pustulating chancre on the craft of journalism. It has demonstrated its essential worthlessness. It has demonstrated that it has the moral character of a sea-slug and the professional conscience of the Treponema pallidum spirochete. Trust me. Stephen Glass never sunk this low. Mike (Payola) Allen has accomplished the impossible. He's made Jayson Blair look like Ernie Pyle. 

It's not just that TBOTP invited the Manson Family of American geopolitics to come together for an exercise in ensemble prevarication. It's not just that the account of said exercise is written in the kind of cacophonous cutesy-poo necessary to drown out the screams of the innocent dead, and to distract the assembled crowd from the blood that has dripped from the wallet of the celebrity war-criminal leading the public display. And it's not as though this was a mere interview—a "get" that could help you "win the morning (!)." In that, it might have been marginally excusable. No, this was one of Mike Allen's little grift-o-rama special events—a "Playbook lunch," sponsored by that noted mortgage fraud concern Bank Of America. There's an upcoming TBOTP "event" in L.A. that is sponsored by J.P. Morgan. I know what Mike Allen is, but I am so goddamn tired of haggling about the price.

And it gloriously goes on from there.  As Pierce reminds us, Dick Cheney happily botched 9/11, then used it to personally enrich himself and his friends at the cost of thousands of US troops, millions of Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and trillions of bucks.  The guy should be in a hole.  Instead, he gets meet and greets.

Dick Cheney is everything wrong with American politics, and Politico is everything wrong with political journalism.  Of course they deserve each other.

Kansas's Tax Cut Failure Is Complete

The New York Times editorial board takes Kansas Republicans and Gov. Sam Brownback to task for destroying the state's economy by literally creating a recession through draconian cuts to government services.

There was a windstorm of hasty excuses in recent weeks after Kansas reported that it took in $338 million less than expected in the 2014 fiscal year and would have to dip heavily into a reserve fund. Spending wasn’t cut enough, said conservatives. Too many rich people sold off stock in the previous year, state officials said. It’s the price of creating jobs, said Gov. Sam Brownback. 

None of those reasons were correct. There was only one reason for the state’s plummeting revenues, and that was the spectacularly ill-advised income tax cuts that Mr. Brownback and his fellow Republicans engineered in 2012 and 2013. The cuts, which largely benefited the wealthy, cost the state 8 percent of the revenue it needs for schools and other government services. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted, that’s about the same as the effect of a midsize recession. Moody’s cut the state’s debt rating in April for the first time in at least 13 years, citing the cuts and a lack of confidence in the state’s fiscal management. 

The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns. (No other state has ever eliminated all taxes on these pass-through businesses.) The cuts were arrogantly promoted by Mr. Brownback with the same disproven theory that Republicans have employed for decades: There will be no loss of revenue because of all the economic growth!

And of course, because the voodoo economics of Laffer Curve nonsense never work, the Kansas tax cuts failed spectacularly.

But the growth didn’t show up. Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses.

And of course the big reason why is that when you cut thousands of state government employees and put them on unemployment, they don't exactly contribute to the economy as much as they would if they were working.  America's super rich aren't exactly flocking to Kansas to enjoy lower taxes, nor are businesses flocking to the state when they know they're going to have a rough time convincing people to move there to take jobs when schools and teachers are being slashed to ribbons.

By the way, Brownback is having troubles in the polls due to this mess and he's sinking fast.  No surprise there as he's up for reelection in November, and Democrat Paul Davis looks like he's going to make Brownback pay.

A Turtle Selling Beachfront Property In Kentucky

Sen. Mitch McConnell tries to con Kentuckians and the rest of the country into thinking Republicans care about working-class families in a USA Today op-ed piece.

One bill I recently introduced with Sen. Ayotte, the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act, would help Americans better balance the demands of work and family by allowing workers to take time off as a form of overtime compensation. It's an idea that's tailored to the needs of the modern workforce, it's something a lot of working men and women say they want, and there's no reason not to provide a little more flexibility to working families. Another bill I introduced, the Working Parents Home Office Act, would reduce the hassle and cost of child care for working parents already stretched thin enough. My legislation would do that by changing the law to allow parents to write off a home office even if they happen to have a crib in the room. Currently, the law treats working moms and dads unfairly by disqualifying them from this deduction if they care for their child while working in a home office. So making that change is just common sense.

I've talked about this particular piece of nonsense before: the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act really needs to be called Your Employer Doesn't Have To Pay You A Dime For Overtime Anymore Act.  Here's how the scam works:  your employer can choose to give you comp time instead of overtime pay.  Your employer then decides when you're allowed to take that comp time, and then decides when that comp time expires.

So you work 44 hours one week, you get 4 hours of comp time.  Only your employer never has to actually let you take it, that's up to your employer. You could cash out the comp time, but only at standard hourly rate, and not overtime.  In other words, it suddenly becomes very, very easy for employers to pressure all workers into taking comp time instead of overtime, and then pressuring them into not taking that comp time ever.  Boom, unlimited overtime without pay.

How many employers do you think would love to have that option?  "Work overtime and take this comp time that you'll never be able to use or else" seems like a pretty great deal for the bosses and not so much for employees.

Of course the GOP House passed this bill last year.

Oh, and that other part, the Working Parents Home Office Act?  How many working-class parents do you know have a home office?  Because the tax burden of a home office is really the issue with being able to pay for childcare, right?

And finally, let's remember that Mitch the Turtle here voted against the Family Medical Leave Act, guaranteed sick pay legislation, and the Paycheck Fairness Act, things that actually would help families struggling here in Kentucky (and did when Clinton signed the FMLA into law).

This con game is what Mitch McConnell is selling, and the only thing between you and your boss getting you to work like indentured servants is the Democratic party.

Might want to keep that in mind.