Category: Elections

James Woods, Democrat for Congress, Who Mails Condoms to Pro-Lifers

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The condom

His letter

Abortion criminalizers mail a questionnaire to a Democratic congressional candidate, and he mails them back condoms stamped “Prevent Abortion.” How can you not love that?

In response to a letter-writing campaign promoted by an anti-abortion organization, Democratic congressional candidate James Woods is mailing back condoms — campaign condoms.

 The form-letters sent to Woods, who’s running for the Congressional District 5 seat currently occupied by Republican Congressman Matt Salmon, asked him to sign a pledge to fully support the “sanctity of life” in a candidate survey from the National Pro-Life Alliance.

 “Woods did return the survey, but stood in opposition to the entire platform of the Alliance,” Woods’ spokeswoman Seráh Blain tells New Times.

 The people who mailed this letter to Woods will also be getting some protection in the mail from the Woods campaign headquarters. Woods’ campaign also included a letter explaining why he’s not going to support the platform of the National Pro-Life Alliance.

This is epic beyond my capacity for to express.

He’s a long shot candidate, and he’s unopposed in the primary, and he’s blind, and he’s an atheist, and I’m putting him on Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Give him money, or you make bunny cry.

While on the Subject of Right Wing Governors Facing Criminal Investigations………

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It turns out that Scott Walker was illegally coordinating with 3rd party groups:

Gov. Scott Walker prodded outside groups and individuals to funnel millions of dollars into Wisconsin Club for Growth — a pro-Walker group directed by his campaign adviser — during the recall elections in 2011 and 2012, according to court documents unsealed for a short time Friday afternoon.

The documents form much of the basis for prosecutors’ theory that Walker’s campaign and conservative groups illegally cooperated to help him and other Republicans. Walker and the groups deny they broke any laws, noting two judges have sided with them.

Among the funds that flowed into the Wisconsin Club for Growth was $700,000 from a company trying to build a massive open-pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin. Soon after the 2012 recall and general elections, Walker and Republicans eased environmental regulations, helping the firm.

“The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth,” said an April 28, 2011, email from Kate Doner, a Walker campaign consultant, to R.J. Johnson, an adviser to Walker’s campaign and the advocacy group. “Wisconsin Club for Growth can accept corporate and personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure.”

In the email, Doner wrote to Johnson that Walker wanted Wisconsin Club for Growth exclusively to coordinate campaign themes. “As the Governor discussed … he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging,” she wrote.

Walker’s campaign has paid Doner’s fundraising firm $1.26 million since 2011, including more than $70,000 in his latest spending report.

The hundreds of pages of documents that became available Friday afternoon also showed Walker’s team sought to solicit funds for the Wisconsin Club for Growth from an array of nationally known donors to fend off his 2012 recall. Real esate developer Donald Trump, industrialist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson were all targets.

………

Mining company Gogebic Taconite LLC’s $700,000 contribution to the Wisconsin Club for Growth was not publicly known until Friday.

………

Gogebic first announced its plans in November 2010. By mid 2011, the company said that it wouldn’t move forward until Wisconsin changed iron mine laws to give more certainty to the regulatory process.

The company had an early hand in writing a mining bill and continued to play a key role throughout the legislative process. The bill, one of GOP’s signature pieces of legislation since Walker’s election, was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Walker in early 2013.

Why hasn’t he been indicted yet?

H/t Charlie Pierce, for this update on, “Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest facility formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.”

New York Times Calls out Cuomo on Campaign Challenges

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The Editorial Board are unamused by the Cuomo campaign’s efforts to keep Zephyr Teachout off the ballot:

New York State voters rarely have enough real choice on their ballots, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems determined to keep it that way. Ever since another Democratic candidate for governor, Zephyr Teachout, arose on his left, Mr. Cuomo has tried to throw her off the primary ballot on the shaky grounds that she hasn’t met the state’s five-year residency requirement.

On Monday, a Brooklyn judge tossed that argument out of court, ruling that Ms. Teachout is perfectly qualified to be on the Democratic primary ballot on Sept. 9. But Mr. Cuomo, true to form, won’t back down. His aides immediately promised an appeal of the ruling. That is political bullying, and the governor should back off and engage with Ms. Teachout as a serious candidate. Doing otherwise suggests he is more nervous about winning a second term than he would like to appear.

………

Although Mr. Cuomo is leagues ahead in the polls and has a $32.5 million bankroll, he should not dismiss Ms. Teachout and her growing number of followers as irritants. Her criticisms are mostly legitimate, and he should defend his first term in a series of robust debates with her in the weeks before the primary, rather than through the timidity of litigation.

Before the ruling from Judge Edgar Walker of the State Supreme Court, the governor’s campaign lawyers tried briefly to challenge Ms. Teachout’s nominating petitions, which required 15,000 voters to support placing her name on the ballot. After she turned in 45,000 names, they turned to the state’s absurdly rigid residency requirements to challenge her. (State law requires that candidates for governor be a legal resident of New York for five years before the election. By comparison, candidates for the United States Senate only have to be residents on Election Day.)

I still don’t think that she has the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell, but the fact that that the Times editorial board is calling out Cuomo’s politico cowardice is amusing.

I Sure Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, Constitutional Right to Bribe Edition

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Yes, once again, the ‘Phants are looking at a 1st amendment challenge to anti-pay to play regulations:

Wall Street is one of the biggest sources of funding for presidential campaigns, and many of the Republican Party’s potential 2016 contenders are governors, from Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas to Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. And so, last week, the GOP filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning the pay-to-play law that bars those governors from raising campaign money from Wall Street executives who manage their states’ pension funds.

………

With the $3 trillion public pension system controlled by elected officials now generating billions of dollars worth of annual management fees for Wall Street, Securities and Exchange Commission regulators originally passed the rule to make sure retirees’ money wasn’t being handed out based on politicians’ desire to pay back their campaign donors.

………

In the complaint aiming to overturn that rule, the GOP plaintiffs argue that the SEC does not have the campaign finance expertise to properly enforce the rule. The complaint further argues that the rule itself creates an “impermissible choice” between “exercising a First Amendment right and retaining the ability to engage in professional activities.” The existing rule could limit governors’ ability to raise money from Wall Street in any presidential race.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, a spokesman for one of the Republican plaintiffs suggested that in order to compete for campaign resources, his party’s elected officials need to be able to raise money from the Wall Street managers who receive contracts from those officials.

“We see (the current SEC rule) as something that has been a great detriment to our ability to help out candidates,” said Jason Weingarten of the Republican Party of New York — the state whose pay-to-play pension scandal in 2010 originally prompted the SEC rule.

Because bribery is protected speech, I guess.

No, this is not The Onion, but I wish it were.

House GOPer: Obama Impeachment Talk Is A ‘Trap’

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Actually, he looks less like an alien than John Boehner’s “tan”

In the House, Representative Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) is warning his fellow party members that all the impeachment talk is a ploy from Obama and the Democrats:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) last week said that Democrats are “desperate” for House Republicans to impeach President Obama, but warned the GOP against falling into such a “trap.”

“Believe me, let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The only people who want impeachment more than the right wing of the Republican Party is the entire Democrat Party,” Mulvaney said in an interview with WQSC 1340, according to audio obtained by Buzzfeed.

The congressman said that Democrats are using calls for impeachment to distract from other issues and raise money.

“They’re desperate for impeachment. They would love to be able to talk about impeachment and immigration between now and the November elections, instead of talking about jobs, and the economy, and health care,” he said. “They are desperate to change the dialogue, which is exactly why you heard the president starting to talk about his amnesty cause he’s begging to be impeached.”

This is completely unfair.

There are no Democrats who would attempt to extract political benefit from ……… Attempt to use impeachment ……… Sorry, I just cannot keep a straight face.

Of course this is what they are doing!  

The Republicans are being played for fools, and the Democratic politicians and consultants who are “condemning” the Teabaggers for calling for impeachment are the players doing this.

It’s all they can do not to drool in public over the prospect.  (Well, Mark Penn is drooling a bit, but he always does)

I Know that Some People are Offended, but I Approve

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In a a primary in Arizona, one candidate has invoked Trayvon Martin in describing another candidate’s support for stand your ground:

An Arizona candidate for Congress has sent out a mailer displaying the image of Trayvon Martin to attack her opponent’s record as a state lawmaker.

 Mary Rose Wilcox used the mailer to slam her opponent, Ruben Gallego, in the Democratic primary for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in Phoenix, according to The Arizona Republic, which posted a copy of it.

 “America doesn’t need more Trayvon Martin tragedies,” the mailer reads, underneath a portrait of Martin in a hoodie. On the next page it lists Gallego’s support for “Stand Your Ground” legislation and what it describes as his B+ record from the National Rifle Association.

More of this, please.

If we ever want to push against against the NRA and other ammosexuals, we must extract a political price on people who find capitulating to 2nd amendment extremist, and the best place to do this is in the primaries.

It is is a good thing for supporting the NRA is turned into a liability at the primary level.

It’s the first step to standing up to the ammosexuals.

To quote former Reagan staffer James Baker,  “F%$# ’em, the won’t vote for us anyway.”

Another Reason to Vote Against Andrew Cuomo

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As I have noted before, Zephyr Teachout is challenging Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary for governor of New York.

What I did not know was that her running mate, Tim Wu, aka the father of net neutrality:

Tim Wu, an academic known for his work on net neutrality, is campaigning to become the Democratic nominee for the lieutenant governor of New York.

 He’s an unlikely politician. Cerebral, soft spoken, and willing to speak freely, conversation with Wu is a far cry from the stilted, shrill dialogue that makes up most of our modern political discourse.

 As next month’s primary election approaches, Wu faces a lawsuit aimed at unseating his candidacy, along with the candidacy of his running mate Zephyr Teachout.

 Robert Duffy, the current lieutenant governor of the state, is not seeking another term, pitting Wu against a fellow non-incumbent for the nomination. Teachout hopes to become the Democratic nominee for governor.

This is all kinds of awesome.

If Mario Cuomo were Dead, He’d Be Spinning in His Grave

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I am not a big fan of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. (See my post F%$# Andrew Cuomo)

Well, in addition to his fervent retreat from anything resembling economic liberalism, unless it is of the Neoliberal variety, we now know that he’s a corrupt hypocrite.

In the small change category, we have the fact that while he was a “crusading” Attorney General, his primary adviser for mortgage fraud by the banksters was a lobbyist for the mortgage banksters:

In early 2007, when he was New York State attorney general, Andrew Cuomo brought on a longtime confidant as a consultant on mortgage industry investigations, a move that has gone undisclosed until now.

The friend was Howard Glaser and he had another job at the same time: consultant and lobbyist for the very industry Cuomo was investigating.

 Glaser, who went on to become a top state official in Cuomo’s gubernatorial administration, was operating a lucrative consulting firm, the Glaser Group, with a host of mortgage industry clients.

 Later that year, Glaser provided insights on Cuomo’s investigations to industry players on a conference call hosted by an investment bank.

 Cuomo’s office ended up giving immunity to one of Glaser’s clients a year into his term as attorney general.

 In the end, experts say, the mortgage investigations Cuomo touted as “wide-ranging” came to little, even as he held one of the country’s most powerful prosecutorial positions through the financial crisis and its aftermath.

(emphasis mine)

Not surprising, though the story of how the denial of a Freedom of Information Act accidentally let the cat out of the bag to Pro Publica is prize.

The bigger story is how Cuomo set up an anti-corruption commission, and then shut it down when it began to point in his diriection:

With Albany rocked by a seemingly endless barrage of scandals and arrests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo set up a high-powered commission last summer to root out corruption in state politics. It was barely two months old when its investigators, hunting for violations of campaign-finance laws, issued a subpoena to a media-buying firm that had placed millions of dollars’ worth of advertisements for the New York State Democratic Party.

 The investigators did not realize that the firm, Buying Time, also counted Mr. Cuomo among its clients, having bought the airtime for his campaign when he ran for governor in 2010.

 Word that the subpoena had been served quickly reached Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aide, Lawrence S. Schwartz. He called one of the commission’s three co-chairs, William J. Fitzpatrick, the district attorney in Syracuse.

 “This is wrong,” Mr. Schwartz said, according to Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose account was corroborated by three other people told about the call at the time. He said the firm worked for the governor, and issued a simple directive:

 “Pull it back.”

 The subpoena was swiftly withdrawn. The panel’s chief investigator explained why in an email to the two other co-chairs later that afternoon.

 “They apparently produced ads for the governor,” she wrote.

 The pulled-back subpoena was the most flagrant example of how the commission, established with great ceremony by Mr. Cuomo in July 2013, was hobbled almost from the outset by demands from the governor’s office.

 ………

 While the governor now maintains he had every right to monitor and direct the work of a commission he had created, many commissioners and investigators saw the demands as politically motivated interference that hamstrung an undertaking that the governor had publicly vowed would be independent.

 ………

 But a three-month examination by The New York Times found that the governor’s office deeply compromised the panel’s work, objecting whenever the commission focused on groups with ties to Mr. Cuomo or on issues that might reflect poorly on him.

 Ultimately, Mr. Cuomo abruptly disbanded the commission halfway through what he had indicated would be an 18-month life. And now, as the Democratic governor seeks a second term in November, federal prosecutors are investigating the roles of Mr. Cuomo and his aides in the panel’s shutdown and are pursuing its unfinished business.

 ………

 Mr. Cuomo said early on that the commission would be “totally independent” and free to pursue wrongdoing anywhere in state government, including in his own office. “Anything they want to look at, they can look at — me, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, any senator, any assemblyman,” he said last August.

 In a 13-page statement responding to The Times’s questions, Mr. Cuomo’s office defended its handling of the commission. It said the commission was created by and reported to the governor, and therefore he could not be accused of interfering with it.

 While he allowed the commission the independence to investigate whatever it wanted, the governor’s office said, it would have been a conflict for a panel he created to investigate his own administration.

That last bit is, dare I say it, Nixonian in its phrasing.

Read the whole article, it’s pretty long, and you cannot help but come away with the impression that Cuomo quashed an investigation because it came too close to him and his.

Rather unsurprisingly, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York has expressed similar concerns:

Federal prosecutors investigating Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s shutdown of an anticorruption commission have subpoenaed the assistant to its former executive director to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan, suggesting that the criminal inquiry has moved to a new stage, people briefed on the matter said on Thursday.

Federal agents served the subpoena on the assistant, Heather Green, on Wednesday morning, appearing at her doorstep before 7 a.m., the people said. Ms. Green, who is not believed to be a target of the inquiry, worked as an executive assistant to the anticorruption panel’s former executive director, Regina Calcaterra, until Mr. Cuomo announced he was disbanding the panel, known as the Moreland Commission, on March 29.

The subpoena, according to two people who have seen it or been briefed on its contents, asked for documents and correspondence, including any communications with Mr. Cuomo and his senior aides. It also directed Ms. Green to appear July 28 to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan, the people said.

Separately, Mylan L. Denerstein, counsel to the governor, has agreed to be interviewed in early August by federal prosecutors about her involvement with the panel, one of the people said.

Mr. Cuomo created the Moreland Commission in July 2013, saying he wanted to root out corruption and reform state laws that for decades have enabled it. But he abruptly shuttered the panel in March after striking a deal with legislative leaders that netted only modest reforms.

The governor said at the time that in exchange for terminating the panel’s work, he had won tougher laws on bribery and corruption and improved enforcement of election law. But the action angered Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Bharara appeared on a radio show days later and, in an unusual move, sharply criticized Mr. Cuomo’s decision, saying his actions made it appear as though the governor had bargained away corruption cases as part of a political deal.

(emphasis mine)

Cuomo’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Zephyr Teachout (her birth name, her parents are very bad people) has gone from demanding answers to calling for his resignation.

Political realities being what they are, Ms. Teachout has no chance of winning, and Cuomo is likely to win the general by at least 20 points, we will almost certainly see 4 more years of his conservative f%$#ery, but I think that he is now officially out of the running for President 2016, and hopefully forever.

104 Prominent Republicans Endorse a Democrat for Governor of Kansas

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They have endorsed Paul Davis because it is Sam Brownback is detached from reality and driving the state into a ditch:

More than 100 Kansas Republican politicians and activists Tuesday threw their collective weight behind Democratic governor candidate Paul Davis, a move designed to inspire other rebellious Republicans to action and weaken the re-election bid of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback.

Public expression of support for Davis by Republicans from across the state at a Topeka news conference exposed anew civil war within the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives. The endorsements also reflected Davis’ effort to frame his campaign in bipartisan tones.

“All of us are proud Republicans,” said Wint Winter Jr., a former state senator. “We came together because of our common love of Kansas, our commitment to Kansas families and our belief in moderate, common-sense leadership. We are deeply concerned by the direction Sam Brownback is taking Kansas.”

………

The 104-person list of Davis backers included former Senate Presidents Bud Burke, Dick Bond and Steve Morris, one-time Kansas House Speakers Wendell Lady, Jim Braden and Robert Miller, former Lt. Govs. Gary Sherrer and Shelby Smith, former U.S. Rep. Jan Meyers, prior Kansas GOP chairman Bill Falstad, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger as well as national GOP delegates, local school board members, mayors, and city and county officials.

Rather unsurprisingly, Rick Santorum is campaigning for Brownback in apocalyptic terms, further reinforcing Brownback’s batsh%$ insane conservative street cred.

My guess is that Brownback will win, with the backing of lots of Koch brothers’ money, and we will see that the Kansas as a model for the Koch Brother’s America, which, interestingly looks increasingly like Somolia.

Well, It’s a Start

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A Florida judge has two Congressional districts to be illegally Gerrymandered:

In a sharply worded decision, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday that Republicans illegally redrew the state’s congressional districts, saying they “made a mockery” of an amendment meant to inject fairness into a process that has long been politically tainted.

Judge Terry P. Lewis of Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit ordered that two districts be redrawn — one, the 10th District, now held by Representative Daniel Webster, a Republican, and the other, the Fifth District, held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat. In redrawing them, neighboring districts are also likely to be affected.

………

Judge Lewis delivered a blistering, 41-page attack on Florida’s redistricting process, reserving his most scathing criticism for the Republican establishment, including political operatives. He said it was clear that Republican operatives had managed to “infiltrate and influence” the Florida Legislature.

“Republican political consultants or operatives did, in fact, conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process,” the judge wrote. At another point, he quoted George Washington, who warned of “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men.”

………

In 2010, Floridians voted to pass two constitutional amendments that required lawmakers to draw congressional and state legislative districts more cohesively and without favoring a political party.

The maps were redrawn in 2012, before the midterm elections. They were approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.

During a two-week trial in May and June, a parade of political operatives, lawmakers and legislative staff members took the stand to testify about what they did and did not do during the redistricting process. It turned out that legislative leaders destroyed many documents relevant to the process, a move that Judge Lewis sharply criticized on Thursday.

“You have to wonder,” he said.

Well the judge can wonder, but I don’t.

Of course the ‘Phants engaged in partisan Gerrymandering.

Well Played

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Have you heard the feud in the Senate between Senators Begich (D-AK) and McKiskill (D-MO)?

The language has gotten quite heated:

Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), one of the more vulnerable Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections, was unusually harsh last week when he criticized his fellow Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), for scrutinizing the federal contracts of Alaska Native Corporations despite his “repeated attempts to reason with her.”

It was an uncharacteristically abrasive tone for Begich to strike with another Democrat. But in the context of his re-election race, it makes more sense. His campaign’s message has focused on Alaskan issues — like energy and fishing policy — and battling another Democrat is never a bad look for a Democrat in a otherwise red state.

Now a follow-up letter sent by Begich on Tuesday and the accompanying statement from McCaskill suggests that McCaskill, while legitimately pursuing an issue that she’s studied for six years, is also content to let Begich score a few political points at home.

Both sides win: McCaskill assumes the oversight role that the former state auditor relishes, and Begich gets to publicly fight on behalf of a popular program back home.

………

McCaskill’s office had previously declined to respond to Begich’s public rebuke. But asked by TPM about the letter, McCaskill called her colleague a “problem” in a prepared statement. Though, to Alaska’s voters, he might not sound like much of a problem at all.

“I’ve fought for six years to change the law in regard to Alaska Native Corporations,” she said in the statement. “There has consistently been one problem—Mark Begich. He single-handedly protects Alaska and the ANCs.”

McKaskill and Begich both win.

Begich gets points at home for fighting his own party for a program that benefits Alaskans, and McKaskill gets to present a facade of fiscal probity.

I believe that this called “Political Kabuki”.

Yes, Please Put the Democratic Party on the Right Side in the Battle Against Cable Company F%$#ery

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House Democrats just submitted a bill to enforce net neutrality:

A group of Democrats in Congress have drafted a bill to bar the FCC from allowing “fast lane” prioritization deals.

Dubbed the “Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act,” the legislation would call on the FCC to ban carriers from making the paid prioritization deals in which content providers pay service providers to receive better connection speeds. Additionally, the bill would block service providers from prioritizing their own services.

“Americans are speaking loud and clear – they want an internet that is a platform for free expression and innovation, where the best ideas and services can reach consumers based on merit rather than based on a financial relationship with a broadband provider,” Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said when announcing the bill.

“The Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act would protect consumers and support a free and open internet,” Leahy said.

The bill is being presented in the Senate and House by Leahy and congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA), and is being cosponsored by senator Al Franken (D-MN), congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and congresswoman Anna Eshoo(D-CA).

I don’t think that it can survive a Republican filibuster in the Senate, and it would never even get to the floor in the house, but this is no longer an obscure technical issue.

Thanks to John Oliver, this issue has a name, “Cable Company F%$#ery,” and everyone knows what that means.

They won’t get the legislation in this Congress, but it is an election winner.

I’m just hoping that if this ever makes it to be a vote, the Dems won’t water this down.

Some Thoughts on Eric Cantor

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First, the very serious people inside the Beltway are freaking for a number of reasons:

  • The results sh%$ on their “tea party is dead, and the Republican adults are back” meme.
  • David Cantor was “people like them”, in that he was a soulless apparatchik climber.
  • Freaking out is what they do.

As to the significance, I think that this is all about, as TBogg so eloquently, “All things considered, Eric Cantor probably lost because he’s a dick.”

On a slightly more serious note, Cantor did not take his constituents seriously.

To paraphrase Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill story goes, Cantor never asked for their votes.

The Beltway consensus is that it was all about immigration, but as TBogg, and many others noted, immigration reform was supported by nearly 4 to 1 in the district, and that same night, Lindsay Graham not only won his primary, but did so in a large field with enough of a margin to avoid a runoff.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that Cantor being Jewish had much to do with his loss, with a margin over 11% in a district that he had dominated before, but I do think that some of the advertising did seem to invoke this (though note that in the article, Salon solipsistically posits that it was anti-Silicon Valley sentiment).

Looking at the ad, where he’s hanging with Mark Zuckerberg, I feel compelled to invoke Mr. Subliminal.

You have an ad with the picture Cantor a guy with a Jewish name who looks stereotypically Jewish, and accuses him of giving their jobs to foreigners, and I wonder if this is not a sly reference to his religion.

There is Justice in the World

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Asa Hutchinson, one of the ‘Phant ratf%$#s who have pushed voter ID laws to suppress the poor and minority vote, was turned away from the polls because he did not have a voter ID:

Asa Hutchinson, who won the Republican nomination in the race for Arkansas governor Tuesday, forgot his ID when he went to the polls, despite backing the state’s new voter ID law, according to the Associated Press.

Christian Olson, a spokesman for the Republican candidate, told the AP that Hutchinson believed the situation was a “little bit of an inconvenience” and that a staffer retrieved his ID so he could cast a ballot. Olson said the former congressman still believes voters should be required to show an ID.

Hutchinson’s campaign has not responded to msnbc’s requests for comment. This post will be updated when it does.

Tuesday was the first time the state’s voter ID law affected an election, and Arkansas voters were required to show identification at the polls, according to the AP. Last month, a judge struck down the voter ID law, finding it unconstitutional. But the judge said that the law would be enforced during the state’s primary.

I can imaging what was going through his head at that moment, “You cannot stop me from voting, I am white!”

I’m Not Sure What it Means, but It Sounds Promising

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Vladimir Putin has suggested that any referendum on autonomy/secession for the eastern Ukraine be delayed:

The Kremlin beat a tactical retreat over a regional referendum following days of soaring tension that have left dozens dead and fed fears of a civil war in Ukraine.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said the referendum being staged by pro-Russia separatists in parts of eastern Ukraine on Sunday should be postponed. If the referendum goes ahead, it will provide an argument for the region joining Russia as happened in Crimea in March.

Overt Russian support for the plebiscite could have triggered more substantive EU and US sanctions against Russia. Putin’s statement, following talks with the president of Switzerland in Moscow, looked likely to delay the imposition of a harsher round of economic penalties.

While Moscow has also opposed the holding of presidential elections in Ukraine on 25 May – a ballot strongly supported by the west – Putin sounded more conciliatory, saying that the poll could be a step in the right direction.

The Russian leader insisted, however, that a presidential election should be preceded by constitutional changes in Ukraine aimed at federalising the country and handing greater powers to the regions, steps that would favour greater Russian influence over eastern Ukraine after the Kremlin annexed Crimea.

I don’t know what it means, but it is rather telling the first time that I’ve seen a statement, from either side that seems to be the slightest bit directed toward a deescalation.

With Obama sounding intensely bellicose, and John Kerry channeling General Jack Ripper from the movie Dr. Strangelove, it appears that Putin is the adult in the room.

We live in Bizarro World.

Jon Stewart is Weeping for Joy

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Toronto’s world-renowned on crack-smoking mayor is standing for reelection:

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford officially launched his re-election campaign before a crowd of supporters Thursday night — sticking closely to the issues he has stressed over his last four years as mayor.

In a 30-minute speech before some 2,000 supporters, Ford pledged to fight special interests, to cut red tape and to keep taxes low if returned to office on Oct. 27.

“I’m running on my record and my record is second to none,” Ford told the crowd at the Toronto Congress Centre, the same venue where he celebrated his election victory back in 2010.

“Record second to none,” huh?

I would have to agree with that characterization, but I really do not see this as a positive.

The Onion to Shut Down and Lay off All Staff

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In a joint press conference today, editor Cole Bolton and CEO Steve Hannah have announced that The Onion will be ceasing publication immediately immediately, with all staff made redundant, and all assets put up for sale.

Bolton, shaking his head sadly, announced that following the in response to the declaration by the campaign for former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown for New Hampshire (this time) Senate that his opponent is, “A Senator from Massachusetts,” said that satire has been rendered obsolete by reality.

“I knew that it would be John Sununu who would destroy us,” said Bolton, the now former editor. “His continuous innovation in the area of unintentional self parody have always threatened us with obsolescence, and now he has finally made us completely irrelevant.”

John Sununu’s statement introducing Scott Brown at a campaign rally left the staff dumbstruck, with many in tears, even before the announced layoffs.

“We just gotta remind people that he’s coming back to his roots,” former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu told me after the Portsmouth rally. Sununu, in case you have forgotten, was one of Romney’s most ubiquitous and delightfully crotchety fsurrogates during the presidential campaign in 2012. In true Sununu fashion, he not only defended Brown’s alleged Live Free or Die bona fides; he’s gone on the attack. To him, it is Shaheen, not Brown, who’s the real outsider.

“She votes with Elizabeth Warren. She votes with [Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed] Markey. She is the third senator from Massachusetts,” Sununu told supporters at the Portsmouth rally before introducing Brown. “Scott’s happiest days as a young man were in New Hampshire. … So it’s going to be great to have a senator that was born virtually in the state of New Hampshire. Jean Shaheen, by the way, was born in Missouri!”

Did you catch how Sununu cleverly described Brown as “virtually” born in New Hampshire? He was actually born in Maine, which for Brown’s campaign is close enough for government work and has the great advantage of being closer than Missouri and not being Massachusetts. It is also rather audacious to paint Shaheen as a “senator from Massachusetts,” since Brown quite literally was, and very much wanted to remain, a senator from Massachusetts.

In related news, the General Manager and Editor-In-Chief of The Onion‘s AV Club, Josh Modell has announced, “I got nothing,” that they will shut down their studio, and cease producing satirical films, and simply re-broadcast cable news stories.

I am Not Sure If It’s That He’s Got Brains or Balls

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In the end, it does not matter.

Senator Mark Begich has decided to ignore the inside the beltway consensus, and campaign on expanding Social Security:

Senator Mark Begich of Alaska is embroiled in one of the toughest reelection fights in the country. His solution, in part: To campaign on a proposal that’s far outside the mainstream of what appears to constitute respectable Beltway discourse on entitlements.

That would be the idea of expanding Social Security benefits, rather than cutting them.

Senator Begich is one of a small but growing group of Democratic lawmakers who support the idea of lifting or changing the payroll tax cap, so higher earners pay more, while adopting a new measure for inflation that would increase benefits for all seniors. This is in contrast to the “Chained CPI” proposal that would use an index leading to a benefits cut, which Obama has championed. The idea behind expanding benefits is that large percentages of seniors’ income goes to costs that have risen faster than inflation, like medical care and housing.

Dems have been perhaps overly willing to get drawn on to GOP austerity turf by debating spending cuts. But Begich makes a startling suggestion: Talking about expanding Social Security benefits is good politics for Dems.

It’s also good policy.

Pete Peterson has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to sell the lie that real men cut grandma’s pension, and the bought and paid courtier class inside the Beltway function as his amplifier.

To quote Dwight David Eisenhower:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

The mania in DC for cutting Social Security is just plain nuts, and the more Democrats who get that, the better.