Last Call For More Help Less Republicans

Like myself, Steve M is somewhat uneasy about the blase' attitude of liberal pundits towards the Halbig decision earlier this week.  Somehow it's going to end up at the Supreme Court, and there's no guarantee that the government would prevail.

But Republican governors, especially from the tea party class of 2010, have been harming large numbers of people quite openly -- depriving unionized workers of collective bargaining rights, curtailing voting rights, dismantling democratically elected local governments in Michigan, curbing reproductive rights ... and, apart from Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett, they all have a shot at reelection. Voters who aren't specifically targeted by these governors sure don't seem to be displaying much empathy for those who are.

The prevailing sentiment is that somehow, there's a bridge too far that the GOP will cross, and when that happens, voters will punish them resoundingly.

Empirical evidence so far doesn't show that we've reached that point.

A lot of the people harmed by a Supreme Court evisceration of Obamacare will be Democratic voters who wouldn't have voted GOP anyway. Others will be the same people who were subjects of the early Obamacare scare stories -- people who had pre-Obamacare insurance and didn't have their policies renewed. If they replaced those old policies with subsidized Obamacare policies and now can't afford those policies, who are they going to blame, over and over and over again in the right-wing media? They're going to blame Obama, accusing him of tyrannically taking away their old policies in the first place and thus being the guy who left them uninsured.

You can count on this happening, followed by "both sides are responsible" and then "It's President Obama's job to fix this" when it would be Congress's job to fix it, and they won't.  Voters have completely forgotten the fact that the GOP shut down the government, remember?  Of course it'll be Obama's fault.  It always is.

Maybe the Court's Republicans are going to game this out and conclude that a ruling against the law will be too much for the GOP and conservative movement to handle. But I wouldn't bet the rent money on that.

But a lot of Americans are betting the rent money on that, about six million of them, in fact.  There will not be "tremendous pressure for Congress to fix it" any more than there was Congress to fix anything in the last six years.  The result is the GOP now controls the House for the foreseeable future and has a clear shot at getting the Senate in November.

At some point voters may punish the GOP.  Will that number exceed the voters who want to punish Obama in November?

We'll see shortly.  If you haven't noticed, the voters haven't exactly been punishing the GOP so far.

Somebody Else's Problem Field In Action

People going without health care because red states rejected funding for Medicaid expansion is a perfect example of the "Somebody Else's Problem" effect.  But the ugly truth underneath the GOP's efforts to make sure Obamacare doesn't work in their states is that without that funding, hospitals are closing, putting the population of those states at risk.

Reports out in the last week indicate the gap between those with health care coverage is widening between states that agreed to go along with the health law’s Medicaid expansion and those generally led by Republican legislatures and GOP governors that are balking at the expansion. 

The moves against expansion are “beginning to hurt hospitals in states that opted out,” a report last week from Fitch Ratings said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human services has said Medicaid enrollment in the 26 states and the District of Columbia that agreed to go along with and implemented the expansion by the end of May “rose by 17 percent, while states that have not expanded reported only a 3 percent increase,” HHS said in an enrollment update for the Medicaid program. 

“We expect providers in states that have chosen not to participate in expanded Medicaid eligibility to face increasing financial challenges in 2014 and beyond,”Fitch said in its July 16 report. “Nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems in states that have expanded their Medicaid coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have begun to realize the benefit from increased insurance coverage.” 

Already, the financial ratings agency said it has downgraded 10 health care entities so far this year and five of those were in states that have not gone along with the Medicaid expansion. Fitch didn’t specify the entities that have been hurt financially. 

“Several of those downgrades were driven by operating performance declines related to funding and reimbursement pressures, which may have been lessened by Medicaid expansion,” the Fitch report said. “Conversely, of the nine upgrades since Jan. 1, eight were hospitals in states that have expanded Medicaid.”

So yes, this is starting to affect the bottom lines of many hospital systems. That in turn affects availability of health care, and of course the economic well being of hospital employees.  If it seems like Republican governors are doing billions of dollars in damage to their own economies in order to get red state voters to blame Obama for the resulting mess, that's because this is exactly what's going on.

A report last week from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute described the coverage difference as a “gulf in percentage of people without health insurance” that is growing larger between states that expanded Medicaid and those that did not. 

As of June, the report said 60 percent of the nation’s uninsured residents live in states that did not expand Medicaid. That figure was up from 49.7 percent in September of last year. 

Analysts expect that gap to only worsen. Unlike private coverage under the health law that is generally purchased during a specified open enrollment period, Americans can sign up for Medicaid at anytime.

“In states that expanded Medicaid, an estimated 71 percent of the uninsured likely qualify for some type of financial assistance for health insurance, compared with 44 percent of the uninsured in the states that did not expand Medicaid,” the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute report said.

So these are the states that are going to have higher taxpayer costs dealing with uninsured Americans, and Republicans, instead of taking responsibility for their direct actions to keep people uninsured,  are just going to blame Obama.

And in most cases, that'll work just fine.

Hope you don't live in a red state.

Republicans Help Less Over Obamacare

Greg Sargent makes this catch on CNN's latest Obamacare poll:

With the political world still pondering what yesterday’s court rulings mean for the future of Obamacare, CNN has published a fascinating new poll that asks a question I haven’t seen before. It asks whether the law has personally helped respondents, but then follows up and asks whether respondents think the law has helped others. 

And guess what: A huge majority of Republicans and conservatives don’t think the law has helped anybody in this country. 

Among all Americans, the poll finds that 18 percent say the law has made them and their families better off. But another 35 percent say the law has made other families better off, for a total of 54 percent who say they or others are being helped. Meanwhile, 44 percent say the law hasn’t helped anybody — a lot, but still a minority. 

Crucially, an astonishing 72 percent of Republicans, and 64 percent of conservatives, say the law hasn’t helped anyone. (Only one percent of Republicans say the law has helped them!) By contrast, 57 percent of moderates say the law has helped them or others. Independents are evenly divided.

This makes complete sense in terms of the pathology of the Republican mind:  if Obamacare has helped Americans in any way, then repealing it would hurt Americans.  Since roughly 3 out of 4 Republicans believe that nobody has been helped by Obamacare, repealing it will only help everyone.  What Republicans really mean when they say that "nobody" has been helped by Obamacare is that no Republicans have been helped by Obamacare.

It's screaming denial that ignores millions, if not tens of millions of Americans seeing a change for the better in affordable health care, but all of those people are probably Democrats anyway, so why not hurt them?  As far as they're concerned, Obamacare is taking fro hard-working, patriotic Republicans to give to awful, parasitic Democrats.  Of course nobody that counts is being helped by it.

So yes, only one percent of Republicans say Obamacare has personally helped them.  That's ludicrous, but then again, we're talking about completely ridiculous Republican voters.  It helps Democrats, and especially those people, so the law has to go.

StupidiNews!

• Former Dollar General and Reebok CEO David Perdue has edged out GOP Rep. Jack Kingston in last night's Georgia Republican Senate primary runoff, 51% to 49%.
• The San Diego suburb of Escondido has rejected a plan to open a temporary shelter to house children caught crossing the US-Mexico border.
• US Secretary of State John Kerry continues his Middle East visit in an attempt to broker a cease fire between Israel and Hamas.
• Fighting continues over the Ukrainian city of Donetsk as clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukranian forces have forced 40% of the city's residents to flee.
• Last month's Supreme Court decision that all but killed re-broadcast service Aereo only affected 80,000 subscribers, according to new documents filed by the company.

Last Call For Derp Of The Planet Of The Derps

Professional climate change crap thrower Steven Moore takes to the National Review to compare environmentalists to apes, and figures we'll be in the Stone Age after a couple more Democratic presidents.

This weekend I went to the see the blockbuster movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and an Investor’s Business Daily editorial this week got me thinking about a bleak scenario. Our future won’t have ape rulers, but, IBD points out, a world without energy might well look similar.

So, second graph in, we're straight to "a world without energy" because CLOWARD-PIVEN GREEN FASCISM.  We're approaching zero Kelvin!

In the movie, bands of humans are resisting a global government of super-intelligent monkeys, gorillas and the like. The humans lack access to electricity, making their struggle — let along the normal life we know today — nearly impossible.

Yeah, let the message of that sink in for a bit.  Government of "gorillas and the like".

They are rendered powerless — literally. The simian despots understand that depriving the humans of access to electricity will keep them underfoot. (The climax of the movie, as IBD explains, has humans in San Francisco — of all places — heroically reopening a power plant and bringing electricity back to the whole city.)

You starting to get the picture that maybe Caesar and his monkeys are being equated to President Obama just a bit here?

I wonder how many Americans got the subtle message here: Energy is the master resource. Without it, we return to a Stone Age existence. Life in its absence is nasty, brutish and short.

Your message is about as subtle as the wet splatter of tossed feces on a white silk dress, Steve.  Also, about as relevant.  Look, this guy is openly comparing climate change scientists and the governments that believe those scientists to science fiction monkeys.  This is his argument.  Forget the actual science here, talking monkeys with guns!

Obama will take your guns, your freedom, your electricity, any day now.

Is that where the radical Greens, one of the most influential political forces in America today, would take us? If we continue to follow their advice, electric power and fuel will become more expensive (as President Obama has admitted). TheInvestor’s Business Daily editorial noted, “as the Sierra Club, billionaire Tom Steyer and the Obama administration rage war against coal and other fossil fuel,” we could end up seeing “rolling brownouts and even blackouts in the years ahead.”

Yes, because the massive, massive preponderance of scientific evidence predicting that we're going to screw the ecosystem over with greenhouse gases is actually just the fevered product of "radical greens".  Wanting to not have your grandkids roasting while the world is fighting over potable water is "radical".

If these clowns are right, then power outages.  If the scientists are right, then underwater coastal cities.  The latter just may be worse than power outages.

The greens say, no problem, we will shift to renewable energy. But it’s not so simple, as IBD points out: States with onerous renewable-energy standards such as Colorado and California are still relying heavily on coal to fill in the gaps during bad weather or periods of high demand.

Sure.  We're not at 100% renewable energy sources yet.  But that would be a nuance for people that don't go straight to "a world without energy" in the second paragraph.

Sorry, for the foreseeable future, we aren’t going to get our power for our $18 trillion economy from wind turbines and solar panels. And if we begin to try, prices are going to skyrocket.

Except for the part where solar technology has advanced to the point where new solar plants can turn out energy for less money per kilowatt than coal.

Last summer our suburban home in northern Virginia lost power for two days during a storm. No lights, no computers, no air conditioning, no TV, no iPods or iPhones. To my three sons, this was like hell on earth. How did people live without electricity? They wondered. Very poorly, I told them.

I wonder how many young people will be so excited about “green energy” when such outages are commonplace and they come to the realization that life without those “dirty” sources of power won’t be so wonderful.

You know, Moore seems pretty concerned about the state of our electrical power infrastructure.  Perhaps we should take steps now to make sure America's power transmission lines stay in good shape rather than cutting funding.  Better still, investing in home solar seems like a good idea.

We don’t need apes to destroy our planet. The green humans seems to be doing a fine job of it all on their own.

This coming from the folks that will happily bring you the destruction of the planet's ecosystem in order to "roll coal".  That's an hysterical bit of monkey business.

Exchange Of Fire

Today a pair of Republican-appointed judges on a three judge panel have voted to effectively destroy Obamacare by removing subsidies for federally-run exchanges.  Ian Millhiser:

The two Republicans’ decision rests on a glorified typo in the Affordable Care Act itself. Obamacare gives states a choice. They can either run their own health insurance exchange where their residents may buy health insurance, and receive subsidies to help them pay for that insurance if they qualify, or they can allow the federal government to run that exchange for them. Yet the plaintiffs’ in this case uncovered a drafting error in the statute where it appears to limit the subsidies to individuals who obtain insurance through “an Exchange established by the State.” Randolph and Griffith’s opinion concludes that this drafting error is the only thing that matters. In their words, “a federal Exchange is not an ‘Exchange established by the State,’” and that’s it. The upshot of this opinion is that 6.5 million Americans will lose their ability to afford health insurance, according to one estimate.

It's effectively a miswording, and for that, millions of Americans stand to lose affordable health care.   Republicans are of course really happy this, which is all you really need to know.

The unsuccessful legal argument claiming that the individual mandate was unconstitutional was a major prong of the Republican attack on the law as early as 2009. Yet, even after the GOP decided that defeating Obamacare in court was their number one policy priority, after Republican officials in numerous states brought a high-profile lawsuit seeking to kill this law, and after they hired one of the best lawyers in the country to drive this litigation, no one noticed the alleged flaw in the statute that Randolph and Griffith rely upon today. The reason why is obvious. Not even the many Republican officials who filed briefs seeking to kill this law the first time around actually believed that the law was intended to deny subsidies to people who buy insurance in federal exchanges. 

To get around this fact, Randolph and Griffith spin an alternative history of the Affordable Care Act’s passage. A major prong of this alternative history claims that Congress wanted to deny subsidies to people in states with federally-run exchanges because that that would provide states with an incentive to start their own exchange — in Randolph and Griffith’s words, Congress “us[ed] subsidies as an incentive to gain states’ cooperation.” Thus, in this narrative, Congress viewed getting states to run exchanges as an all-encompassing goal, trumping even the law’s stated goals of providing “Affordable Coverage Choices for All Americans” and achieving “near-universal coverage.” Needless to say, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Congress actually viewed the administrative question of which set of government bureaucrats would run a particular state’s exchange as a question of such superseding importance that they were willing to deny health coverage to millions of people in order to ensure that the right set of bureaucrats run the exchanges in each state.

Selective mindreading, 101.  That's what this ludicrous case boils down to, but for now, Republicans have managed to hurt millions of American families over what's effectively a typo.

But that's what Republicans do, after all.  So please, Republican pundits, go on TV and tell everyone how awesome it is for 6 or 7 million people to lose affordable health insurance because of the Chewbacca Defense.

Let me know how that works out for you in November, with the whole "rooting for America to fail" thing.

Meanwhile, considering the full DC Circuit Court would be 7-4 Democrats, I'm thinking this will get overturned on a full en banc hearing rather quickly.  Oh, and to top it all off, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals also issued its ruling on the law, and it upheld the subsidies.  Stay tuned.

Turnout For What?

If primary voting turnout in 2014 is any indication of election turnout, then Democrats are going to get absolutely stomped because we're going to stay home and pout rather than vote.

A new study shows that Americans are on-track to set a new low for turnout in a midterm election, and a record number of states could set their own new records for lowest percentage of eligible citizens casting ballots. 

The study, from the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, shows turnout in the 25 states that have held statewide primaries for both parties is down by nearly one-fifth from the last midterm, in 2010. While 18.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots back then, it has been just 14.8 percent so far this year. Similarly, 15 of the 25 states that have held statewide primaries so far have recorded record-low turnout. 

Ouch. 

This is all the more depressing when you realize that, less than 50 years ago, primary turnout was twice as high.

And we're going to let the Republicans win, because we don't give enough of a damn to go vote them out.

What's perhaps most notable, though, is the partisan difference. Republican primary turnout overtook Democratic turnout for the first time in 2010, and that difference is even bigger this primary season. 

 

Courtesy: Center for the Study of the American Electorate

In fact, GOP primary turnout has been pretty steady over the past four decades, but Democratic turnout has dropped consistently -- including by about 30 percent this year, from 8.7 percent to 6.1 percent. That's the biggest decline on-record. 

This is hardly the first warning sign when it comes to Democrats' turnout problem (see here, here, here and here). But if it portends anything close to what's coming in the 2014 election, that's really, really troubling for Democrats.

 So, it's up to us.   If we stay home, then we're going to get smashed.  Not voting only helps the GOP, folks.  You'd though we'd have learned that by now.

StupidiNews!

• A train carrying the bodies of the victims of downed Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 has reached the Ukranian city of Kharkiv as families await word of their lost loved ones.
• Last month was the hottest June on record, since global record-keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA climate scientists.
• President Obama and Vice President Biden will make a push for job training and economic growth as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is signed into law.
• A new study finds that 54 percent of jobs in the European Union are in danger of being automated or eliminated over the next 20 years.
• Warner Bros. has apparently optioned the movie rights to Space Invaders, with actual Hollywood directors and producers tied to the project.

Last Call For The Rainbow Kynect-tion

Nowhere is Obamacare working better than here in Kentucky, and it's making news overseas as the BBC reports on Kentucky's healthcare exchange, Kynect.

Liberty Sizemore leans back in her chair and beams. The 26-year-old filling station cashier has just been told her enrolment in Obamacare is complete. 

Now she can have her first routine doctor's appointment for seven years. 

"I am so happy," says Sizemore as she waits at the Grace Community Health Centre in Clay County, Kentucky, "I've not had insurance since I turned 19." 

But Sizemore is also nervous. She is seriously overweight and was warned in her teens that she was likely to develop diabetes. Without health insurance she has not been able to afford tests or check-ups to see if she has indeed got the disease. 

"I'll go to the hospital only in an emergency," says Sizemore, who is still paying off the $10,000 bill for removing her appendix two years ago. 

"That's what's on my credit card right now," she sighs, "hospital bills."

It's helping people who grudgingly take the assistance.

Hairdresser Sadie Smith has enrolled but, she hopes, only as a temporary measure. Her family's insurance disappeared when her husband lost his job. (Most Americans with health insurance get it through their job, with the employer and the worker sharing the cost.)

As she puts the finishing touches to a customer's hair at her small salon in Manchester, Kentucky, Smith says she is grateful for Obamacare. But she is uneasy. "It scares me. The government wants to control everybody - their finances, their insurance, it all comes back to control."

But she'll stay in the program because it's helping her family.  And Obamacare will help people who flat out dislike President Obama, too.

Benita Adams may be one of the people the Governor has in mind. The 62-year-old grandmother lives on the edge of the rolling Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky. She owns her home but works two jobs as a dental assistant to make ends meet. She did not vote for President Obama. 

Adams has had no health insurance since her divorce 30 years ago. A recent heart operation left her with a $67,000 bill. Although the hospital waived around half of that, she still pays $50 a month to clear the rest. 

"I used to say, if I get hurt just let me be killed because I can't afford to pay any more hospital bills," she says.

But Adams no longer has to worry. Under Obamacare, she qualifies for a private insurance plan with a hefty government subsidy that covers the monthly payments in full. 

"Everyone was mad over Obamacare but it's just wonderful, it's really helping people," Adams says as she lists the medical appointments she has been to since getting insured. 

Of course, Mr Obama cannot run for the presidency again. But if he could, would Adams vote for him? "I'd sure think about it" she says, "It's the best thing he's done."

People here in Kentucky will remember Obama did this.  And they will remember that Mitch McConnell has vowed to take all this away, to repeal Obamacare "root and branch" if Republicans get control of the Senate.

And maybe some of them will vote Democratic.  But no matter who they voted for, Obamacare can help them get affordable health insurance.

And that's a win for everyone in Kentucky.  Heck, it's a win for 20 million Americans nationwide.  It would be even more if Republicans would stop blocking it in red states.

Weak Knights On The Military Channel

The perpetual war party is upset that we haven't bombed us some pro-Russian Ukranian separatists yet, and they are making their displeasure known.  And yes, this includes both Republicans and Democrats, like Tennessee's Bob Corker, and New Jersey's Bob Menendez.

“Clearly President Putin has created the set of circumstances and has supplied the resources … to the rebels so that this tragedy could take place,” said Menendez, the chairman of the panel, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. 

“For me, I think the West, including the [United States], has to have a far more significant response than we’ve seen to date,” he said. 

Corker, the committee's top Republican, told Fox's Chris Wallace that the United States is only emboldening Putin by not helping Ukraine. 

“This incident is incredibly tragic, to watch what's happening with these bodies,” he said. “What is also tragic is the response that the West has given up until this point. And in many ways, because of that cautious response, Russia has continued to foment all the problems that they've created in Eastern Ukraine.” 

In addition to being disappointed with the U.S. response, he said that he hoped European governments would also be acting more forcefully.

Only one problem, boys:  the American people don't want anything to do with another war.

Amid deepening violence across Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Americans are recoiling from direct engagement overseas and oppose U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine by large margins, according to a POLITICO poll of 2014 battleground voters. 

The survey provides a unique look at the foreign policy attitudes of voters who will decide the most competitive Senate and House races this fall. It shows an intensely skeptical view of American military intervention:

Asked whether the U.S should do more to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine, just 17 percent answered in the affirmative. Thirty-one percent said the current policy is correct and 34 percent said the U.S. should be less involved. The poll was completed before the downing last week of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, the civilian airliner that was apparently attacked over eastern Ukraine.

And I can't imagine the downing of MH17 to move the needle more than a few points.  Our last adventure cost us thousands of troops and trillions of dollars and helped to ruin our economy.  Getting tougher with Putin is not our problem.  Hell, we've got enough of our own to worry about.

A Glass Of California Dry

Meanwhile, the nation's largest state continues to suffer from crippling drought, and there's no relief in sight, meaning that things will get far worse before they get better.

If they get better.

California is probably headed into a deeper drought this summer, making it harder to escape in the future, an expert says.

With more than 80% of the state in an extreme drought, dry conditions will probably continue and won't improve much in the next few months, said climatologist Brian Fuchs of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska.

The prolonged statewide drought means it will be “harder to break the cycle,” much like some thirsty regions in Oklahoma and the entire state of Texas, which have been struggling with drought since 2010, he said.

A U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday showed 81% of California in the category of extreme drought or worse, up from 78%. Three months ago, it was 68%.

Drought conditions in parts of Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties also have worsened.

The maps created by Fuchs and 10 other climatologists are based on 50 indicators, including weather patterns, soil conditions and water activity.

“The impacts really tell the story,” he said.

 How bad could things get?

With a great portion of California already in extreme drought, Fuchs said some have asked if it is possible to break through the highest level, an event that occurs once in 50 years.

A drought beyond that would have to be an event that happens once every 200 to 300 years, he said.

“It would be a significant event,” Fuchs said.

The worst California drought in the history of the US?  Not out of the question.   But climate change is a vicious myth perpetrated by evil egghead scientists and environmental freaks, right?

I know, let's shelve this and revisit it in 200 to 300 years and see if things improve.  Works for Alabama, after all.

StupidiNews!

• With the death toll in Gaza now above 500, the UN is calling for an immediate cease fire between Israel and Hamas.
• The fight over a major crude oil rail terminal in Washington State may affect gas prices across the West Coast and especially in California.
• Pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian military forces clashed near Donetsk as hostilities resumed after last week's downing of a Malaysian Airlines jet.
• The biggest winner in the proposed Fox/Time Warner merger? Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who would earn $79 million if the company was bought out by Rupert Murdoch.
• MIT researchers have come up with a robotic glove with seven fingers, allowing two-handed tasks to be performed with just one hand.

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.