November 29

 

 

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In case you missed this, 'Chasing Ice', Changing Lives

 

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Bruce Bartlett might hate Bush, but he's still an irredeemable dick 

 

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Rand Paul is doing his part to quash the Grand Bargain:

While some Republicans have indicated they may break their no-tax-hike pledge, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is not among them:

"I made a pledge to the people of Kentucky that I'm not raising taxes. I took a pledge. I signed a statement, an oath that I wouldn't raise taxes, and I'm going to adhere to it," Sen. Paul told Fox New's Greta Van Susteren Monday night.

In fact, if Paul had his way, he says he'd lower taxes:

"I think you should balance budgets, not spend more than comes in, and I think you should lower taxes, not raise taxes. In fact, if you want to stimulate the economy, I'm for cutting tax revenues. All these Republicans who want to give up their taxpayer pledge and raise taxes, I'm the opposite. I want to lower taxes because that's how we'd get actually more economic growth and maybe more revenue, if you cut tax rates.

One mark of a moron is not to know a good deal when they see one. So thank goodness for morons like Rand Paul, the kind of people who still think tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves and don't realize that this is their one big chance to cut Medicaid and Medicare in exchange for easily replaceable tip money for the rich, and blame it on the Democrats to boot.

The Grand Bargain would be much more likely without such useful idiots, and that would be awful. So bravo to you, Rand Paul. Keep that venal stupidity coming all the way through the end of the lame duck session, and best of luck with the 2016 GOP nomination.

 

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Stephanie Miller: "I apologize" re: Salvation Army being anti-gay

 

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In today's installment of 'Math Republicans Do to Feel Better About Themselves', ThinkProgress reports:

Virginia Attorney General Suggests Obama Stole The Election
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli ( R ) told a radio host he completely agreed with her assertion that investigations are needed to determine why President Obama lost "every one" of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election. Cuccinelli, who has lost most of the major legal cases he has brought since taking office in 2010, told the host she was "preaching to the choir."

On WMAL radio, hosts Brian Wilson and Cheri Jacobus pressed Cuccinelli about why he has not opened a major investigation into what they suggested was wide-spread voter fraud in Virginia — an assessment they made based on receiving unproven allegations by email from listeners. Studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. Cuccinelli endorsed the idea of such investigations, but noted that he lacks the statutory authority to do launch an investigation…

Surely this mathematical mystery has nothing to do with the fact that 'voter ID' laws are universally aimed at preventing 'the wrong kind of people' (i.e., Democrats) from voting at all. Only a vulgar member of the RBC (reality-based community) would suggest that voter-suppression laws might be most successful in states where the levers of power are entirely in Republican hands!

Of course, as DougJ pointed out earlier, Cuccinelli will be running for governor in 2013, so we all have another year of listening to "one of the most divisive conservatives in the nation". If only because so many of the Very Serious People, National Bloviators Division, own property in Virginia or go to dinner parties with the people who do…

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GOP Senator's Crazy Reasoning: Raising Taxes On The Rich Would Hit The Poor 'The Hardest'

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For His Next Trick, Glenn Beck Will Put Mapplethorpe's Bullwhip Right There In His Butt

Back in 1987, before many of you young Wonkettarians were born (but not yr Wonkette, because we are ageless, like the sea) there was a kerfluffle over the National Endowment for the Arts and how it funded things that gave Lynne Cheney and some other old-school wingnuts a sad. Your grandpa was probably most upset by Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, which is…well, exactly what it sounds like. A crucifix submurged in Mr. Serrano's urine. (We have always taken Mr. Serrano at his word that it was indeed his urine). Yr Wonkette, and most sane people, had entirely forgotten about this whole debacle, but Fox News is still SO MAD and wants the White House to yell at Serrano, or a museum for displaying the piece again, or all of New York, or something. Glenn Beck isn't just getting mad, however. Glenn Beck is using his sad internet teevee show to get even:

The media giant is reacting to controversy over a painting of President Obama resembling Jesus Christ on a crucifix by putting a bobblehead doll of President Obama into a container of what appeared to be urine.

"I like to call this 'Flobama,'" Beck said with a false French accent, as he played the role of a freedom-loving artist expressing himself on his television program Tuesday evening.

He titled his artwork, "Obama in Pee Pee" and put a price tag of $25,000 on it. Ebay has since pulled the item, despite the proceeds slated for charity.

"I have been working on a masterpiece. I have been working on something for quite a while," Beck clowned. "When I say quite a while, I mean all day, small little doses all day. I drank a lot of water when I did this."

Man, eBay is always trying to keep Glenn Beck down!

Damn, but that Glenn Beck is CLEVER. He sure showed us! In fact, we are in a rage! All of us! Every librul on the planet is mad mad mad. And, by "every librul" we mean "a few random anonymous people on twitter." Listen, we don't get it either. There's no good reason that Fox or Beck or anyone should still be yelling at clouds over some nominally shocking art from 25 years ago. And Beck didn't even have the decency to be for-real shocking and go all GG Allin and use his own urine or Mr. Serrano's urine or anyone else's urine. Beck appears to have used Dos Equis Beer. Yr Wonkette would seriously consider drinking a mason jar of bobblehead-filled urine or going on a date with GG Allin before downing 32 ounces of Dos Equis.

This fixation is just weird. To be fair, it isn't, say, Andrew Shirvell stalker level of weird. Not even "I Will Always Love You" or "Every Breath You Take" level of creepy. Just more like that sad guy you went out with once in college and you heard a Gin Blossoms song on the radio and then he made you like ten mixtapes with "Hey Jealousy" on it until you graduated. Expect to have to care about this issue again in 2027 or so, kids. [WND/The Blaze]

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The Worst Show on MSNBC

The other day when I wrote about MSNBC, I mentioned two shows that suck — not because they're partisan, but because they just suck.

Well, yeah, the Martin Bashir show is unwatchable. For the first year of the show, it was somnambulant nothingness. Since then, it's become somnambulant and totally hackish. There's no insight, no scathingly salient points to be made, no news broken.

And this Charles Pierce post is exactly right on.

If MSNBC wants to do progressive chat shows, they need to find more hosts in the Maddow/Harris-Perry/O'Donnell/Klein style. Not hacks who recite prompter material that's written at roughly the level of high school newspaper op/ed pages — with apologies to high school newspapers. Simply put: there are lots of people who can talk, but very few of them have extensive broadcast and writing experience. Too many pundits are too damn lazy to dig — to do the hard reporting and research that ought to be a prerequisite for political shows.

By the way, if you listen to the podcast at all, you probably know what the other sucky MSNBC show is.

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Another bit of alarming climate news that most Americans will totally ignore.

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FYI: Gun sales reached an all-time record high on Black Friday.

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"Last week, The Onion said I was going to become a male stripper. The Onion is probably more accurate than Tom Friedman." -Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Here's Friedman's baffling column wherein he asserts that Arne Duncan should be Secretary of State.

The crux of Friedman's rationale is that Arne Duncan could masterfully preside over a redesigned foreign aide program that forces other nations to "race to the top" in a competition for our foreign aide dollars.

Because that's not condescending at all.

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Congratulations! Mitt Romney narrowly defeated you for the top slot on GQ's list of the 25 'Least Influential People of 2012'.

November 28

Want To See Fox News Lose All Its Credibility In 93 Seconds?

 

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Balloon Juice:

I've been trying to ignore Kevin Drum's recent posts on Social Security, because I find a lot of his blog useful and informative, and as readers here know, it's my nature to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, but come on, Kevin, no we don't fucking need to have a Democratic compromise deal on Social Security. And when Dick Durbin says that we should have a bi-partisan commission, he's not agreeing with you, he's trying to kill any hope for a deal.

I'm trying to think of the right metaphor for the Republican Party during their current time of crisis. One of them is a situation where dad (or mom) has been hitting the Jack pretty hard, has the kids locked in the back bedroom and is walking around waving a shotgun. Talking about Social Security is like a hostage negotiator walking into that house and starting a discussion about what color to re-paint the kitchen. It's just a distraction, one that the insane/drunk person would love to spend hours on, but will lead to no fruitful outcome.

Another good comparison is a kid having a tantrum on the grocery store floor. Stupid parents try to bribe the kid with candy, cookies or toys. Smart parents just ignore the little fucker until he or she calms down. Let's be smart parents here, and realize that the real embarrassment is that a grown-ass kid would still have a tantrum, not that we aren't rushing to placate the little shit.

Putting Social Security, or any other popular social program, on the table for some almost certainly stupid and short-sighted "adjustments" (i.e., benefit cuts) is bad policy, dumb politics and ineffective salve for the Republican wound. What's really going on here is that those poor bastards are going to have to give up their most cherished fantasy, which is that low tax rates lead to cutting the deficit and growing the economy. They've been pulling that one out of the shoebox under the bed and wanking to it since Saint Ronnie was in office, so throwing it in the dumpster is really going to hurt. Because they're feeling tremendous psychic pain at the prospect of throwing out their cum-stained relic, they want Democrats to endure a similar sacrifice. Even if we did, and we shouldn't, Atrios is right: Republicans would be back for more the next day. The problem is tax rates for the wealthy are too low, the solution is to raise them, and any other discussion is a distraction.

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Proposals to reduce spending on the military, cut some agriculture subsidies, and eliminate subsidies to oil companies would all win public backing by large margins, according to the poll conducted for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, obtained by POLITICO.

More specifically, the poll found that 53 percent of voters would support defense cuts, 79 percent would back cutting subsidies to agriculture corporations and 80 percent would favor getting rid of the oil subsidies. It surveyed voters in New Hampshire, a key swing state…

The PCCC, which played a key role in getting liberal candidates such as Warren and Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin elected to Congress, will roll out more polling data this week designed to pressure its congressional allies away from compromising on key liberal principles. Earlier this week, the PCCC released figures that showed 66 percent of registered voters in the swing state of New Hampshire would support hiking taxes on people who make more than an annual income of $250,000.

"In 2012, voters delivered a clear mandate: Tax the rich, invest in jobs, don't cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, and end corporate welfare," said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "This new polling shows that voters favor Elizabeth Warren's version of a 'balanced approach' that protects the little guy and ensures that the wealthy and big corporations finally pay their fair share."

Yes, those flinty Souterites in New Hampshire have no oil fields, few gigantic factory farms, and mostly aren't dependent on multinational military contractors. Why should the megacorporations and their serfs apologists be the only sources allowed to have opinions worth polling?

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Michael Dunn, of Satellite Beach, Florida, was in Jacksonville this past weekend for his son's wedding.

Jordan Davis, 17, and some other teens were sitting in a SUV in a parking lot when Dunn parked next to them and asked the youths to turn down their music.

Jordan Davis and Dunn argued over the music, then Dunn, who is a gun collector, pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, hitting Jordan twice, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

Jordan Davis' father Ron Davis said his unarmed son died in the arms of a friend in the SUV.

Dunn and his girlfriend took off, but witnesses wrote down their license plate number, according to the police.

The couple was staying in a Jacksonville hotel when they heard a news report Saturday morning about the shooting, so they drove home to Satellite Beach, Florida.

Dunn was arrested at his home on Saturday and charged with murder and attempted murder. He is being held without bail.

Because this occurred in Florida, we can expect another round of likely unfruitful discussions about the "stand your ground" laws that were at issue in the Trayvon Martin case. There will be handwringing and a public outcry, but nothing will be done, ultimately, because the ALEC-sponsored gun laws in this country are just fine, and if black kids don't want to get shot for wearing a hoodie, or playing loud music, then that's just too damn bad. They should stay home.

How many will be accused of "playing the race card" by pointing out that young black men are gunned down at an alarming rate in a country that likes to pretend it is post-racial because we have a black president?

Who will accuse President Obama of stoking racial hatred if, as he did in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin's murder, Obama notes that if he had a son, that son would look like Jordan Davis?

Who will point out that black kids need to act a certain way (and their parents should give them a good talking-to about it) in order to avoid being gunned down by trigger-happy lunatics?

This is a tragedy like so many before it, and so many yet to come.

This country has a serious problem. When are we going to address it?

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From the WaPo:

"Bottom line, I'm more disturbed now than I was before," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the critics, said after the meeting.

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The Republican senators have repeatedly said they are concerned with how Rice explained what caused the Benghazi attack during a series of Sept. 16 appearances on Sunday political talk shows. At the time, Rice said that a spontaneous demonstration led to the violence, a claim later debunked by intelligence officials and reports from the ground.

Huh?

I could understand them having questions about security arrangements on the ground. And I could understand them expressing disagreement with the U.S. response. But making this all about what Rice said on the talk shows or what the President said in the Rose Garden is just bizarre.

It really speaks to the magical thinking that drives Republican foreign policy views. For them it is all about saying the proper incantation in the right order. As if some saying some combination of the words "terrorism, Islamist, freedom, resolve, and missile defense" somehow fixes everything.

Remember this is nothing new. All through the Bush years, the dominant perspective on the right wasn't that Bush was screwing things up all over the place. The dominant perspective was that people just didn't understand what we were up to, and that you know, if we could just explain ourselves, everything would work out great. So, Iraq wasn't a problem of an idiotic strategy and incoherent goals, but rather of public communication.

The rest of us noted this was a "lipstick on a pig" problem. Well, that's the GOP response to Benghazi in a nutshell. The situation was a disaster. An ambassador died. There are legitimate issues that serious people might want to address, but instead, the GOP is arguing that the lipstick was the wrong shade of pink.

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Meet The Radical Republicans Chairing Important House Committees

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CEOs Looking To 'Fix The Debt' By Cutting Social Security Sit On Huge Retirement Accounts

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Word Choice - Obvious anagram Reince Priebus says that he will perform an autopsy on the GOP following their historic fail in the 2012 Goat Rodeo:

"I don't think you can draw any quick conclusions other than the fact that we lost and we know that," Reince Priebus said Tuesday on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," the chairman's first television interview since the election. "But in order to get back in the game, you've got to look at and do a full autopsy of what happened."

The knee-bone is connected to the thigh-bone, Reince. The problem is that the GOP has created a monster and has lost control of it, Einstein. It's not your messaging, it is Republicanism itself that was rejected. (Political Ticker)

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A wackaloon state senator from Idaho doesn't understand how the electoral college process works, and so she's come up with a crazystupid idea for a Romney victory: states where Romney won the electoral vote should refuse to participate in the electoral vote count.

Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, sent an article out on Twitter headed, "A 'last chance' to have Mitt Romney as President in January (it's still not too late)."

Constitutional scholar David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, said the plan is not "totally constitutional," as touted in the article, but is instead "a radical, revolutionary proposal that has no basis in federal law or the architecture of the Constitution."

Adler called it "really a strange and bizarre fantasy."

Nuxoll said, "Well, I guess that's one lawyer."

She doesn't understand the 12th Amendment. She thinks there needs to be a two-thirds quorum in the electoral college for the vote to be counted. By refusing to participate, the Romney states would ostensibly send the election to the House of Representatives to decide. Clever! Except the Constitution doesn't call for a quorum in the electoral college at all — just 270 electoral votes for victory. The quorum is called for in the House of Representatives — not the electoral votes. So, uh-doy.

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Well news, this is why Sheldon Adelson can afford to dump tens of millions of dollars down the drain supporting Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), the casino company led by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, voted a special dividend that will pay its controlling shareholder about $1.2 billion before an expected increase in federal taxes. [...]

With about 437 million shares of Las Vegas Sands, or around 52 percent of the stock, according to an April regulatory filing, Adelson, 79, and his wife, Miriam, will collect $1.2 billion from the special dividend and another $611 million annually. The special dividend takes effect before an expected increase in dividend taxes from the current 15 percent.

If he's going to have his company vote to pay him $1.2 billion now before he can be taxed at a higher rate, I suppose there's no need to renew tax cuts for the rich at the end of the year.

Thanks for letting us off the hook.

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Good news – not only has consumer confidence reached a four year high, a record number of Americans are also planning to buy house.

The highest number of Americans in nearly 50 years are planning to buy a house.

But, you know, everyone panic and stuff your money in a mattress.

According to Bloomberg, the report would have been even better if not for Hurricane Sandy. Sandy took a significant toll on confidence in the Mid-Atlantic region.

 

November 27

Religious schools fighting Obamacare because they say it "violates their religious freedom" by covering contraception.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in my always humble opinion; offering contraception is not a violation of ones religious freedom. FORCING one to take contraception, in my world, would be classified as violating ones religious freedom. But not allowing you to restrict someone else's freedom to choose is not a violation of your religious freedom.

Fact of the matter is; denying the contraception option is ANTI-religious. The Bible is all about choice, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The tree with the forbidden fruit wasn't locked behind a gate where they couldn't get to it. Wasn't even set atop a mountain to make it hard to get to. I was set in the "midst of the garden", right in the middle of everything – easy access. It's like that all through out the Bible; the very thing that makes sin a sin is the "freedom" to do it if y...

ou want. And if you decide to do it it's between you and God.

So these schools that don't even want their students to have an option of contraception in their health coverage need to start using another scapegoat other than God because the God of the Bible that I've read is extremely pro-choice in every sense of the word. 

 

Obama healthcare law to be challenged by Christian school in federal court - Supreme court orders federal appeals court to consider university's claim that Obamacare violates religious freedoms

 

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Over the fiscal cliff for "those people"

Kris E. Benson at Wonkette links to an excellent Atlantic article on the Republican's proposed Austerity Bomb ("We only have a budget crisis if [the very richest households] refuse to pay higher taxes"), and points out an added little poison sac in the details:

Your Wonkette agrees with the Atlantic's James Kwack that Olds should be able to retire with dignity, and with health care. HOWEVER, we would just like to point out a few things. Kwack says that "decades ago, Congress decided that anyone who worked for ten years, and his or her spouse, deserved a basic level of health insurance." But that's not quite true! Kwack forgets that Social Security, when introduced, excluded women and nonwhites from eligibility, so it's more realistic to say that "decades ago, Congress decided that any white man who worked for ten years deserved a basic level of insurance, along with his spouse."

Of course, later race and gender barriers to entitlements were far less explicit. Between 1960 and 1980 when the full retirement age was 65, black men could theoretically qualify for benefits, but the average life expectancy of an African American male was roughly 62 years old. So Blacks would pay into the program their entire lives and die before they could take any substantive advantage.

Then in the 1980s, when Black male life expectancy had finally increased to 65, it was decided that entitlements needed an overhaul and the age of full retirement was raised to 67.

Currently, Black male life expectancy is finally at 70, and what a SHOCK that Romney/Ryan would have raised the age of Medicare eligibility to 70...

Shorter GOP: Well, SOME people deserve a secure retirement, but THOSE PEOPLE just want to steal undeserved handouts!

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I'm shocked, shocked to learn that "voter fraud" was a cover for voter suppression by the GOP

Big surprise, eh?

"The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates," [Former FL GOP Chairman Jim] Greer told The Post. "It's done for one reason and one reason only. … 'We've got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,' " Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants. "They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue," Greer said. "It's all a marketing ploy."

 

It was all a cover for the largest voter suppression campaign since the poll tax. But they screamed "ACORN Fraud" repeatedly on Fox News, Hate Radio and all of the fellow-traveling blogs and what not.

The smart ones knew what they were doing, but all of the Teabaggers and other Wingnuts, the useful idiots of the corporatists and the plutocrats, swallowed their bullshit hook, line, sinker and fishing pole. And for most of those clowns, they'll go to their graves believing that in-person voter fraud was a grave threat.

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Via commentor Rob in Buffalo, sore loser Dick Morris on what he is pleased to call "an Obama squeaker":

... By the time you finish with the various demographic groups the Democrats win, you almost have a majority in their corner. Count them: Blacks cast 13% of the vote and Obama won them 12-1. Latinos cast 10% and Obama carried them by 7-3. Under 30 voters cast 19% of the vote and Obama swept them by 12-7. Single white women cast 18% of the total vote and Obama won them by 12-6. There is some overlap among these groups, of course, but without allowing for any, Obama won 43-17 before the first married white woman or man over 30 cast their vote. (Lets guess that if we eliminate duplication, the Obama margin would be 35-13) Having conceded these votes, Romney would have had to win over two-thirds of the rest of the vote to win. He almost did. But not quite…

Shorter Morris Math: Sure, Obama got 332 electoral votes. But if each Democrat only got three-fifths of a vote, like the Founding Fathers intended, that would be only 198 to Romney's 206!

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Fox News Abruptly Ends Interview After Guest Calls Out The Network For Hyping Benghazi Scandal

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Libyan militia plans to execute 12 gay men

An extremist militia in Libya has captured twelve men and promised to mutilate and execute them for being gay. The group posted pictures of them on Facebook, describing them as the "third sex," a regional derogatory term comparable to "queers."

Human Rights Watch Libya identified the group as Al-Nawasi militia, know for championing Salafist jihad. Al-Nawasi has claimed to have become a legal part of the Libyan Ministry of Interior, pledging to remove "corruption" and "vice," such as alcohol and homosexuality:

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Media buys into GOP spin: Labels romney-like proposal on revenue increases a 'big concession'

Since voters rejected Mitt Romney's $5 trillion tax plan and President Obama won re-election earlier this month, Republicans have expressed interest in raising revenue to avert the coming fiscal cliff. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) immediately signaled that they are open to raising revenue and prominent Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Bob Corker (R-TN) publicly broke with a conservative no-tax pledge, arguing that they would be willing to close loopholes and deductions so long as Democrats embrace spending cuts in Medicare and Social Security and support "structural reforms" in entitlement programs.

And while the GOP's rhetorical shift represents a break from their dogged opposition to revenue increases during previous budget negotiations, their public "concessions" closely mirror the kind of policies voters overwhelmingly rejected: tax reform that does not increase marginal tax rates on the richest Americans, but includes eliminating tax loopholes and steep entitlement cuts that closely mirror the policies included in Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget.

As Steve Benen put it, "on the one hand, Republicans would get the tax rates they want. On the other hand, Republicans would also get the entitlement changes they want." Yet the party and the media are suddenly presenting the position as "big concession" and are urging Democrats to back entitlement reform:

– SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): "I'm willing to generate revenue. It's fair to ask my party to put revenue on the table…. I will not raise tax rates to do it. I will cap deductions….But to do this, I just don't want to promise the spending cuts. I want entitlement reforms." [This Week, 11/25/2012]

– CNBC's JOHN HARWOOD: "But you saw yesterday on some of the Sunday shows people like Lindsey Graham making the argument that, 'yes I'm willing to put tax revenue on the table, not rates but revenue.' But that's a big concession by Republicans because they have not been willing to do that before except revenue as it comes from growth." [Squawk Box, 11/26/2012]

– SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN): "This is a very easy thing to do technically. What it takes is political courage … I think I've shown a willingness to compromise and solve this problem." [CBS This Morning, 11/26/2012]

– MSNBC's MIKA BRZEZINSKI: "But there are new signs that lawmakers may be willing to compromise. A growing number of Republicans are slowly backing away from Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge saying they are open to letting revenues rise if Democrats do their part in the budget talks." [Morning Joe, 11/26/2012]

– CNN's SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: "Politicians on both sides of the aisle are now signaling that they're willing to compromise. That includes Republicans who've been softening their stance on raising taxes." [Starting Point, 11/26/2012]

In reality, the post-election deal resembles the package Boehner agreed to in 2011, though it was quashed by more conservative House Republicans. Now, the party is once again suggesting that new revenue should be part of a plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, but only if that revenue coincides with a lowering of tax rates. The pitch is very similar to the plan presented by Romney, which was supposed to boost growth while lowering taxes and making up the revenue from closing loopholes:

Fortunately, President Obama has rejected this kind of approach, saying during a press conference in November that, "What I will not do is to have a process that is vague, that says we're going to sorta-kinda raise revenue through dynamic scoring or closing loopholes that have not been identified."

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Wonkette: Obama Can't Stop Revealing How He Stole Election

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The homophobic National Organization for Marriage warns against actually knowing any gay people. If you know gay people, you might think they deserve rights and then all hell breaks loose.

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In response to a nightmarish Bangladeshi replay of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Fox News hits an unforgivable new low. These people are garbage.

Also in Fox's alternative reality: the "War on Men".

 

 

 

November 26

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George P. Bush, the next phase in GOP's "War on Women"?

 

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Peeking under the Senate hood and into the engine, there appears to be a large red obstruction blocking the thing from going anywhere, and it's going to be a real pain to dislodge.

Here's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering: banning filibusters used to prevent debate from even starting and House-Senate conference committees from ever meeting. He also may make filibusters become actual filibusters — to force senators to carry out the nonstop, talkathon sessions.

Republicans are threatening even greater retaliation if Reid uses a move rarely used by Senate majorities: changing the chamber's precedent by 51 votes, rather than the usual 67 votes it takes to overhaul the rules.

"I think the backlash will be severe," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the conservative firebrand, said sternly. "If you take away minority rights, which is what you're doing because you're an ineffective leader, you'll destroy the place. And if you destroy the place, we'll do what we have to do to fight back."

"It will shut down the Senate," the incoming Senate GOP whip, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, told POLITICO. "It's such an abuse of power."

To recap, if Harry Reid tries to stop the GOP from shutting down the Senate, the GOP will shut down the Senate.

Insert your own "well then clearly the opposite of progress" joke here.

 

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NYT to Obama: "Now that you've been re-elected, please commit political suicide"

Sometimes you have to wonder if they purposefully put political idiots onto the editorial board of the Times. For only those kind of fools could come up with this:

[I]n his first term, Mr. Obama did nothing to cross the gun lobby, and he actually signed legislation allowing loaded firearms to be carried in national parks. Let's hope Mr. Obama shows more courage on guns in his second term.

Even those oxygen-deprived morons on West 43rd know that nothing would be done without Congress and that the House is in Republican hands. Not to mention that there are Democratic senators from states where passing new gun control legislation would be a sure-fire guarantee of defeat the next time they ran.

But hey, those knuckleheads on the editorial board probably live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's a good bet that unless they were in the service, none of them has ever seen a gun that wasn't either in a cop's holster or in a thug's hand. They likely suffer heart palpitations at the notion of anyone having a concealed carry permit.

 

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Heads will explode over this: Major Pediatric Group Supports Easing Teens' Access To Emergency Contraception

 

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: The end of the world as we know it ... or not

 

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The New York Times reports on Kathryn Lehman, a recently out Republican lawyer who in 1996 played a role in the creation of DOMA.

Today, Ms. Lehman, 53, no longer has a husband, and no longer identifies as straight. And she is a lobbyist for Freedom to Marry, which is devoted to overturning the very law she helped write, the Defense of Marriage Act. But Ms. Lehman is still a fervent Republican. "I'm trying to break the stereotype that all gays and lesbians, especially lesbians, are Democrats," she said. [snip] Ms. Lehman said she felt no guilt over her role in the law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Her motivation, she said, is her gratitude for those who fought for gay rights decades before she knew the cause was her own. If it were not for them, "I would not be living the wonderful life that I am right now with Julie," Ms. Lehman said, referring to her partner, Julie Conway, a Republican fund-raiser, with whom she lives in Alexandria, Va.

The most-liked comment on the above-linked story reads:

 

If Ms. Lehman professes to feel no guilt in her participation of the creation of DOMA then it would appear she is unable to take responsibility for the fact that she has at the very least, aided in the impediment of, if not prevented entirely, the pursuit of happiness in the lives of many, many American citizens. Her personal circumstances, her late blooming awareness of her sexual orientation or her religious beliefs offer no excuse and should at no time, in the 1990s or the present day, have any impact on the personal freedoms to which all American citizens are equally entitled. Everyone is free to express his or her opinion, and that opinion may change over time, but no one has the right to suppress the freedoms of others and her actions in the 1990s did exactly that.

 

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Bryan Fischer Cheers Uganda

 

Homosexuality is just as illegal in Uganda today as it ever was, but don't let pesky little facts interfere with the American Family Association's crusade to see every LGBT American thrown in prison.

 

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Breaking news! Rampant voter fraud in Iowa!

And by "rampant" I mean "practically nonexistent."

There were over 1.5 million votes cast in Iowa on election day. And Iowa's Secretary of State, Matt Schultz, has discovered exactly… eight cases. Eight out of 1.5 million.

That's .00053% of the vote. None of them appear to be malicious. But if you calculate voter fraud cases based on convictions, the fraud percentage of the vote is 0%. Zero. None.

So, naturally, Schultz is using these seven cases to push for the passage of a Voter ID law in Iowa, which would, like every other state that's passed one, disenfranchise Democratic voters.

Shocker: Schultz is a Republican. Again, your Republican Party seems to be tenaciously pursuing a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

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The average effective tax rate for the wealthiest Americans dropped from 22.4 percent in 2009 to 20.7 percent in 2010 according to the IRS.

Because socialism.

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Dawn of a New Day for Marriage Equality

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When election returns began pouring in on Tuesday, progressives were quick to declare the election a resounding victory for President Obama, Democratic candidates, and progressive ideals such as marriage equality and the DREAM Act. A deeper look at Tuesday's results reveals that the 2012 election season was also a resounding defeat for the political engine that has long catapulted the GOP to power: The Religious Right.

Here five ways the Religious Right imploded during the 2012 election:

1) Evangelicals failed to produce a viable candidate. While Rick Perry looked to be the evangelical darling in the early days of the Republican primary, his various "oops" moments forced evangelical Protestants to flock to Rick Santorum, a conservative Catholic. But while Santorum won the support of many evangelicals, his passionate embrace of evangelical positions on abortion and contraception made him unappealing to many women voters. In the end, the machinery of the Religious Right failed to produce a candidate that fired up conservative Protestants, forcing the Romney campaign to work twice as hard to excite the GOP's evangelical base.

2) Conservative efforts to shift the Catholic vote flopped. After the Obama administration announced the HHS contraceptive coverage requirement earlier this year, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops launched a "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign criticizing the Obama administration and urging Catholics to cast their votes in support of "religious freedom." The effort failed miserably: Not only did Obama win the Catholic vote overall in 2012 (50% of Catholics voted for Obama while 48% supported Romney), but Pew Research found that the vast majority of American Catholics (78%) knew little to nothing about the bishop's expensive campaign. Instead, Catholic voters appeared more supportive of the efforts of Sister Simone Campbell and the Nuns on the Bus who spoke out against Paul Ryan's budget.

3) Evangelical voter turnout efforts fell short. Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition targeted Ohio this year in an effort to increase evangelical turnout, promising to go "all in" by sending voter guides to churches and launching a "major push" to get evangelicals to the polls through a robust get-out-the-vote effort. But when the results came in on Tuesday, Obama had actually performed better among white evangelicals in Ohio than he did in 2008: White evangelicals in Ohio favored John McCain by a 71%-27% margin in 2008, but favored Romney by a smaller margin – 69%-30% – in 2012. Despite all the energy expended by the Religious Right, their turnout efforts failed to have any marked impact on the most crucial state of the general election.

4) Traditionally evangelical candidates lost en masse because of radical views and bad theology. Conservative Christian and then-Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin caused a stir within the Republican Party when he spoke about "legitimate rape," but evangelical leaders were quick to come to his aid. But when Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who attends an evangelical church, referred to women impregnated through rape as having been given "a gift from God," voters across the country – including many evangelicals – began asking questions about this new breed of politician. Ultimately, voters decided that Akin and Mourdock's radical theology was simply too extreme: They and several like-minded candidates suffered a series of staggering defeats all across the country on Tuesday.

5) The efforts of anti-gay religious leaders didn't stop voters from supporting marriage equality. When marriage equality amendments were put on the ballot in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington this year, conservative Christian groups moved quickly to try and dissuade people from supporting the freedom to marry. Famed evangelist Billy Graham even launched a massive "Vote Biblical Values" ad campaign, which, among other things, urged voters to oppose candidates who supported marriage equality. Undaunted, pro-marriage equality activists capitalized on groundswells of support among religious groups and ran ads featuring pastors and other religious leaders passionately endorsing same-sex marriage. In the end, Americans voted in favor of marriage equality in three (and probably four) states, dealing a resounding defeat to the anti-gay bastions of the Religious Right.

The 2012 election season appears to have been an ominous one for the Religious Right, and – if the trend continues – may very well signal the end of their traditional dominance of Republican politics. Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, has already voiced the opinion that the Religious Right is hemorrhaging support across the country, and should put less focus on abortion and gay marriage and give more attention to issues such as immigration reform, poverty, and increasing adoptions and foster care opportunities. Whether or not religious conservatives can make that shift remains to be seen, but, in the meantime, the Religious Right looks to have already lost persuasive power with many American voters.

 

November 25

 

 

 

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Boeing Company — one of the largest global aircraft manufacturers in the world — has told its union that it will likely deny "pension survivor benefits to same-sex married couples" in Washington State, even after voters approved marriage equality in November, The Stranger reports.

Union representative Ray Goforth told The Stranger that Boeing during contract negotiations, the company maintained that pension benefits are governed by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and that it does not plan to voluntarily offer benefits to the partners of their gay and lesbian employees. The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples, even if states allow for such unions:

Goforth explains that his union has long sought equal pension benefits for same-sex domestic partners, to no avail. But since voters approved same sex marriage—establishing parity with married straight couples—Goforth re-framed the proposal to apply to his union's gay Boeing employees who wed. "Their answer was that they had no intention of granting pension survivor benefits to legally married same-sex couples because they didn't have to," Goforth explains. Boeing representatives told him that pensions are governed by federal law, which doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, thereby trumping the state law on the matter.

"We were profoundly disappointed to see that they would use a loophole to engage in institutionalized discrimination," Goforth says.

Since Slog published its report, Boeing issued a statement promising to reassess the impact of Washington State's marriage equality referendum on company policy. "Boeing is taking a closer look at how R-74 might impact company policies once it takes effect in December," the statement said. "Nothing is ever final in negotiations until they're over," a company spokesperson told the Slog. "What we said today is that [these pension benefits] are not currently addressed in the contract."

A growing number of companies are offering equal benefits for equal work, regardless of sexual orientation and recognizing that "treating all workers equally makes good business sense." "Research consistently shows that unfair and discriminatory work environments cripple an employer's ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. These negative environments also stifle job performance and productivity."

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John McCain is not very bright

attribution: REUTERS

Neither is Lindsey Graham. The rest of the Republicans who persist with smear campaigns against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and other women, especially women of color, aren't too smart either. To the 97 members of the House, who wrote a letter to President Obama attacking Rice, I say, you are even stupider.

The Monday letter was written by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), chairman of a House subcommittee on terrorism. Those that signed the letter are among the most conservative House Republicans, and at least 10 of them lost reelection bids this month.

Buh bye.

They should have figured out by now that women go to the polls more than men, and more black and Latina women voted for Barack Obama than did their male counterparts.

But men like McCain who are ruled by an overweening sense of personal privilege are not very bright. Though they sit on committees with the word "intelligence" in the name of the group, it doesn't seem to have rubbed off. In fact, all this macho posturing and bluster in front of the cameras may put the nation at risk. Loose lips sink ships.

My assessment has nothing to do with his courage, or past service to the country in war.

Men who feel threatened by women of strength and superior intelligence, who resort to bullying, bluster and lying when challenged by said women, are simply lacking smarts.

Their bigotry tends to crowd out brain cells.

I have a rule of thumb when judging the males of our species. I choose to look at their behavior towards women to understand their character. Men who exhibit bonhomie towards other men, yet choose trophy wives (who they demean while pimpin' off of them), who can't or won't deal on a level of equality with women (especially women of color), or accept that there are women who are smarter than they are, have a part of the brain that has never fully developed. It has been culturally limited, constrained, constricted and shaped by our cultural gender norms and as such many would never even recognize it as a failing.

In fact, there are those who see it as admirable. They see them as "manly men."

I'm not one of them.

I'm happily married to a man who is pleased as punch to tell his male friends that his wife is smarter than he is. He isn't the least bit uncomfortable about it. In fact, he thinks he's pretty smart for marrying me. I agree. I'm pleased that he is more talented than I am. We respect each other. That's what makes a good partnership.

Politics is about partnerships. Political leadership requires selecting and building a smart team. If your team doesn't have smart women in it, you won't get my vote.

Let's take this latest Benghazi bullcrap being used to taunt and demean U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. It has nothing to do with Benghazi really, which I wrote about in Black Kos last Tuesday. The racism, blended with their sexism is blatant.

By now those who didn't know her credentials are aware of them. Those of us who have her back, from the president on down to a coalition of congresswomen, to bloggers and commentators like Soledad O'Brian and Rachel Maddow, have made it clear that she is not only a brilliant Rhodes scholar, but is an astute diplomat, with an important background in not only international affairs in general, but Middle East terrorism specifically.

President Obama is not afraid of strong smart women. He's surrounded by them.

Republicans have attacked his wife, his mother-in-law, his daughters, appointees like Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Melody Barnes and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Republicans have gone after Tammy Duckworth on her military record. Teh stoopid ruled. Scott Brown went after Elizabeth Warren on her pride in having Native American ancestry.

So McCain lost an election partly because of his choice of a female running mate. Her selection—based on her having a uterus rather than brain cells—was stupid.

The War on Women launched by the Teapublicans was stupid.

Escalating that war to target Susan Rice is the height of stupidity.

Targeting women of color is political suicide.

Keep it up.

See how well stupid works out for you in 2014 and 2016.

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Conservatism thanks you, Marco Rubio, for your recent anti-science comments. America really had not heard from as many ridiculous people as we might have, in these post-Romney days, but you managed to shake a few more of them out of their election funk and back into service as productive members of wingnuttia.

I do realize that the American Family Association is made up entirely of loopy people who exist primarily to promote the views of other loopy people, but really. I mean, really.

"The only way we can know the age of the earth is if we have eyewitness testimony of somebody who was there, and that's what we have in the Bible"

That is a good point, says American Family Association guy, while rattling off a few things that do not sound at all like good points. He at least notes that young Adam, the plucky little human made out of clay, was not an eyewitness to his own creation, but that God was, so there. Pics or it didn't happen, scientists! (But only on this one thing, mind you, not on all of the rest of science, for example, the stuff that makes that microphone in front of Fischer work. Fundamentalism tends to be famously inconsistent on these things, depending on convenience; if Fischer ever happens to be accused of murder, I expect fingerprint evidence, DNA, and even videotapes will be cast into the bin of science that is no longer valid because hey, you weren't there. It's a nice metaphysical answer for everything, especially if you are high on the pot, as these kids say today.)

We're in the year dickety-twelve, mind you, but here in America we're still fighting battles—in government, mind you—on whether "science" can be trusted if any part of "science" conflicts with some salt-of-the-earth fellow's literary opinions. Sigh. You know that if someone finds an old scroll in the desert condemning magnetism as the work of the devil, all of American society is going to crumble, right?

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Climate Change Is Simple - David Robe

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The UN is convening a huge climate summit in Qatar, but contrary to the hopes of some participants I'm ashamed to say that America will continue to be a lone holdout when it comes to serious participation. I have very little hope that we'll muster the energy to make the serious changes necessary to mitigate the disasters that are destroying our coastal areas and igniting the western mountains every year.

And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will be more than a disinterested bystander when the U.N. climate talks resume Monday with a two-week conference in Qatar.

"I think there will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the United States," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.

The climate officials and environment ministers meeting in the Qatari capital of Doha will not come up with an answer to the global temperature rise that is already melting Arctic sea ice and permafrost, raising and acidifying the seas, and shifting rainfall patterns, which has an impact on floods and droughts.

They will focus on side issues, like extending the Kyoto protocol – an expiring emissions pact with a dwindling number of members – and ramping up climate financing for poor nations.

They will also try to structure the talks for a new global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted in 2015, a process in which American leadership is considered crucial.

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Jackass QOTD

"I should try it because, do you know how fabulous I'd look. I'd be so skinny. I mean, the camera adds ten pounds." -Fox News' Andrea Tantaros on the SNAP challenge

Could you live off $133 per month ($4 per day) for food? Personally I know I couldn't, but according to Fox News serious person Andrea Tantaros, doing so sounds like a great idea because she would look "fabulous" afterward.

Tantaros' remarks were made in response to Fox News host Stuart Varney following a short but pointless discussion about Newark Mayor Cory Booker taking the SNAP challenge in a faceoff with his critics. And Tantaros may think she would look "fabulous" after living off food stamps for an extended period of time, but the truth is she would not look fabulous, feel fabulous, or perform fabulously in her day-to-day life.

People who survive on food stamps are tired, they have trouble focusing on their duties, and they're constantly hungry. There's nothing glamorous about it. And to imply that people on food stamps actually have it pretty good because their budget does not allow them to eat more is gloriously asshole-ish.

I'm sure most of those who have no choice other than to go hungry, and thus lose weight, would rather not be in that position.