From the AP:
A defense attorney for indicted casino owner Milton McGregor presented a transcript in court Wednesday from a recorded conversation that Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale had with two other GOP legislators. The three were joking about economic development in predominantly black Greene County and the customers at one of the county's largest employers, the Greenetrack casino in Eutaw.
"That's y'all's Indians," one Republican said.
"They're aborigines, but they're not Indians," Beason replied.
When quizzed by defense lawyer Bobby Segall, Beason said he didn't recall recording the conversation, but he didn't dispute its accuracy.
Indians, black people, Kenyans, they are the same at being exploited, which is very good at it. Exactly zero people are shocked that Alabama Republicans are a bunch of racist scum, so oh YAWN FRIDAY NEWS CYCLE it's time to go to bed, or die, or drink. Good luck, Alabama. [AP]
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Good news — The Senate voted to end ethanol subsidies today in a vote that was actually quite bi-partisan.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate voted 73 to 27 on Thursday to wipeout billions of dollars in support for the U.S. ethanol industry.
The Senate approved an amendment to end the 45-cent-a-gallon subsidy the government gives refiners and the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil and other countries. [...]
The ethanol subsidy amendment on Thursday from Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and Coburn will be tacked on to an underlying economic development bill, which faces a difficult time passing the Senate.
This is a major victory for two reasons.
The subsidy of ethanol is one of the leading causes, along with commodity speculation and violent weather patterns, of the dramatic rise in food prices domestically and food-shortages abroad. Paying farmers to grow crops for fuel instead of food never made sense, and the economic impacts of doing so reach far beyond the $6 billion dollar per year price-tag and literally right into your shopping-cart.
The ability of the senate to, in a bi-partisan fashion, end unnecessary and truly wasteful spending by eliminating a subsidy displays that at least some conservatives are, on occasion, willing to do something reasonable. It remains to be seen if anyone on the House side of the equation is willing to join them though. What say you, John Boehner?
I am not a fan of Senator Tom Coburn, but at the very least he deserves credit for today's vote. It's important to show appreciation for doing the right thing when the right thing is done.
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As it was previously noted, House Republicans are considering a bill, which has already been approved by committee, that would oversee deep spending cuts to programs that provide food and nutritional assistance to low-income pregnant women, children, and elderly citizens.
The Center for American Progress brings us the following chart comparing the cost of one year of nutritional assistance to one day of the Bush Tax Cuts.
The cost of the these programs is minuscule in the grand scheme of the entire federal budget, but when you're attempting to compensate for the high cost of your tax-cut-fetish, anything is fair game.
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Not inaccurate
-Headline of the day-
"Palin Decision Expected Next Week."
It's totally definite; Sarah Palin is going to announce whether or not she's going to run for president. Our long national nightmare of uncertainty is over!
According to "one Republican source," "Vendors of campaign services who hope to work for Team Palin have been told that Palin, the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate, will decide soon one way or another on mounting a 2012 campaign." Which, of course, means that someone from Team Palin called them to tell them exactly that.
But wait! Later in the day, ABC News reported that Palin, via twitter, said no way. "Really? Hmm, guess they forgot to inform me what I'm 'expected to do' next wk," she tweetlepated.
Sounds like a certain attention whore thought America was in danger of going 15 minutes without a headline about her someplace. (American Spectator)
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The ACORN and Weiner scandals, different as they are (although the common thread is the sexy, obviously) have a similar lesson in them for all Democrats inside and outside the beltway: it doesn't matter if you committed a crime or broke any rules or even were the victim of a hoax --- once you've embarrassed the Democratic political class, you will be cut loose.
I'm sure Breitbart's got his next set of victims all lined up. And remember, it won't do you any good to just be "smarter" or "more moral" than anyone else because it doesn't even have to be true.
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Great scoop from Gawker, who confirms that Roger Ailes, the alleged news executive, is one of NJ Gov. Chris Christie's confidential advisers:
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So yeah, David Vitter is a scumbag. Not because he slapped on a diaper to play Baby Huey with a bunch of hookers, but because he voted yes on the GOP plan to kill Medicare.
In the wake of the Weiner fiasco, wounded outraged liberals have stormed the Internet to demand their own eight inches of flesh: What about Vitter!? #VitterMustGo!
But there is a reason some wise person named Mahatma once said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Blind serves the GOP as they goose step about demolishing Planned Parenthood and unions, plundering jobs and any hopes for the survivability of an American middle class. The more they can saturate the airwaves with noise about penises and diapers, the easier it is for them to murder everything liberals hold dear.
Why do you think Fox News deliberately slings nonsense after nonsense—Ground Zero Mosque, Don't Touch My Junk, terror babies, socialists, Mau Mau, birth certificates, NPR, some guy named Common, Death Panels, Weiner, Weiner, neener-neener Weiner?
Because every time the media takes a breath to spotlight what the GOP is actually doing—i.e. killing Medicare—the public wises up and smacks them with a huge defeat like last month in NY-26.
Yelling Vitter Vitter Vitter instead of Boehner Where Are The Jobs, instead of End Big Oil Tax Giveaways, instead of Quit Your War On Uteri, instead of The GOP Killed Medicare, actually abets Fox and the corporate Koch machine.
Sure demanding a scalp in return for Weiner's feels good. Maybe it is even just. But so what? Weiner was pushed out by his own reckless lies, an irresponsible tabloid media and the political calculations of his own party. You're angry about that. Fine. But don't retaliate by aiding the side Weiner vehemently railed against. Don't help the GOP generate more obfuscations for their devious schemes. Weiner is gone. And maybe a better response would be for us to take up his work ourselves: the brash and relentless calling out of each and every policy cruelty of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the GOP.
Vitter's constituents voted him back into office last year. And no matter how much you spit his hypocritical name on Twitter, a jobless America is not going to vote on hookers & diapers in 2012 unless it is their own hookers but more likely diapers that they can no longer afford. They will vote, however, against a party that killed Medicare. IMHO.
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ABOVE: "Tracy Morgan listens to Jayden Love, an Ali Forney Center client rejected by her religious family." I can't imagine a more effective remedy for Morgan than meeting the kids of the AFC.| Year | US | UK | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| 2002 | 49 | 3 | 18 | 70 |
| 2003 | 48 | 0 | 10 | 58 |
| 2004 | 52 | 1 | 7 | 60 |
| 2005 | 99 | 1 | 31 | 131 |
| 2006 | 98 | 39 | 54 | 191 |
| 2007 | 117 | 42 | 73 | 232 |
| 2008 | 155 | 51 | 89 | 295 |
| 2009 | 317 | 108 | 96 | 521 |
| 2010 | 499 | 103 | 109 | 711 |
| 2011 | 177 | 25 | 46 | 248 |
| Total | 1623 | 373 | 533 | 2529 |
Here's Teabaggy Chris Christie telling a constituent to STFU and GTFO for asking a question worth asking of someone who underfunded schools by as much as $1.7 billion: Why is it fair for him to cut public school funding when he sends his kids to private schools?
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AARP tells member it won't fight Social Security benefit cuts.
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Jill: Richard Milhouse Obama. Or George Walker Obama, if you prefer.
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Obama's Supreme Court appointees join right wing in gutting the 4th Amendment
Yeah, I told you Sotomayor and Kagan were pro-corporate shills. Now it turns out they're anti-civil-rights wingnuts, too.
Thank you, President Obama, for delivering the most right-wing, anti-constitutional Supreme Court since Roger Taney's Dred Scott majority.
Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money:
Since 1961, the Supreme Court has held that evidence illegally obtained by states is not admissible in court. Beginning with the Rehnquist Court, however, the Court has been carving out various exceptions to the rule. The most important and problematic of these exceptions is the "good faith" exception, which holds that evidence should be admissible if police officers obtained it in good faith, but the search was illegal because of errors by other actors. The problem is that there's no clear reason why the incentives of the exclusionary rule should apply only to police officers, as opposed to all agents of the state.Today, the Court has found yet another exception. The police conducted a search that was ruled to be a violation of the 4th Amendment, but was legal at the time under an 11th Circuit precedent. In an opinion by Alito, the Court held that the good faith exception prevents the rule in this case from being applied retroactively. The problem, as Breyer's dissent notes, is that (in an increasing Roberts Court tradition) this leaves someone whose rights have been violated without a remedy. Ominously, this was a 7-2 decision, with neither of Obama's appointments joining Breyer and Ginsburg in dissent.
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Maryland Closes Nightmare Unpermitted Kids' Lemonade Stand
Haha, here is the best argument ever made for shutting down the entire U.S. government bureaucracy: a Maryland county inspector fined a group of children $500 for selling lemonade to raise money for a children's cancer charity, because these small freeloaders did not have a permit. No permit, no cure for cancer, children! READ MORE »
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40 Percent Of The Benefits Of Pawlenty's Tax Plan Go To The Richest One Percent Of Americans
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This is technically an abortion. A tragic and terrible event in anyone's life. And in the case of the Santorums, thank goodness it was legal — especially for a late term pregnancy. Now Rick Santorum wants to tell you, your wife, your daughter, or your friend that she should die to save the life of the fetus. You know, because they're "pro-life."
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