The ones marked in blue.
The split between urban and rural has existed since time immemorial.
Just something to think about.
H/t Digby.
Category: Politics
Charlie Pierce on a Rant is a Thing of Beauty
In a post entitled, “Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Mainline Antifreeze, Part The Infinity,” he takes on Politico‘s hosting a fete of, and then writing a fawning article about Papa Dick and Baby Dick Cheney:
Its puerilty has finally crossed over into indecency. Its triviality has finally crossed over into obscenity. The comical political starfcking that is its primary raison d’erp has finally crossed over into $10 meth-whoring on the Singapore docks. Once a mere surface irritation, Tiger Beat On The Potomac has finally crossed over into being a thickly pustulating chancre on the craft of journalism. It has demonstrated its essential worthlessness. It has demonstrated that it has the moral character of a sea-slug and the professional conscience of the Treponema pallidum spirochete. Trust me. Stephen Glass never sunk this low. Mike (Payola) Allen has accomplished the impossible. He’s made Jayson Blair look like Ernie Pyle.
It goes on, and most of it near the perfection of, “He’s made Jayson Blair look like Ernie Pyle.“
Read the rest of it, and then someone please nominate Mr. Pierce for a Pulitzer.
104 Prominent Republicans Endorse a Democrat for Governor of Kansas
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
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.
Why Not to Trust the Good Inteition of the US State Security Apparatus, Part Gajillion
It turns out tha the FBI monitored Nelson Mandela as a potential communist threat in the 1990s:
The FBI monitored the interactions between Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress and leftwing groups in the US through the 1980s and 1990s as part of its ongoing investigations into what the bureau deemed to be the communist threat to US national security, new documents reveal.
The batch of 36 pages of previously classified documents, extracted from the FBI under freedom of information laws, show that federal agents continued to monitor Mandela’s and the ANC’s connections within the US even after the legendary South African leader was released from prison in February 1990. The bureau monitored meetings between Mandela and other world leaders, tracked the movements of senior ANC officials as they travelled across the US, and kept a close eye on the anti-apartheid activities of the Communist Party USA (CP-USA).
The declassified documents are marked “secret” under recognised codes for domestic and foreign counter-intelligence investigations. They include a record kept by federal agents of a meeting in Namibia just a month after Mandela’s release from jail between him and the then president of Yugoslavia, Janez Drnovsek. The record notes that a transcript of the proceedings was sent in Serbo-Croat to the FBI’s Cleveland office.
Another document records the FBI’s decision in June 1990, four months after Mandela was set free, to send an informant from Philadelphia to New York to snoop on a meeting that the bureau thought was about to take place between Mandela and Puerto Rican independence activists. “Information contained in this communication is extremely singular in nature and must not be disseminated outside the FBI or existing terrorism task forces,” it stated.
Note that this is after Mandela was released, but pretty much, by force of habit, the FBI continued to stalk him, because ……… Communism!1!1!
We cannot trust any of these guys to control themselves. That’s why we need aggressive civilian authority and oversight.
Well Played
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”.
Quote of the Day
Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.”
Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could.—Joseph Heller
H/t Atrios.
Richard Mellon Scaife has Died
He was the chief pursuer of Bill Clinton’s penis, and an early big money supporter of what Hillary Clinton called the, “Vast right wing conspiracy.”
These days, he seems benign compared to the Brothers Koch, but then again, a rabid Pit Bull seems benign compared to the Brothers Koch.
And the Hobby Lobby Decision Has Already Started to Bear Bitter Fruit
We now have the usual group of rat-f%$#s, including Rick “Invited by Obama to giva a benediction at his first inaugeration” Warren, are demanding the right to discriminate against LGBT employees:
This week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of contraception. That decision is beginning to reverberate: A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action.
Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion.
“We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need,” the letter states.
I am so ready for Antonin Scalia to choke to death on his own bile and be replaced by a justice who is not an unethical hack.
Letter follows:
If You were Wrong About Iraq, You are a Wanker, and You Will Always be a Wanker
Case in point Peter Beinart, who was a full throated supporter of the Iraq war.
He has since admitted that he wrong, but he just cannot stop wanking about Iraq in ways so egregious that it has Digby apologizing:
Oh good lord. When I look like a fool, I really look like a fool. Just the other day I wrote a nice piece about Peter Beinert being someone worth listening to on Iraq because unlike others, he had repented for being wrong and learned some valuable lessons.
Uhm, I spoke too soon:Yes, the Iraq War was a disaster of historic proportions. Yes, seeing its architects return to prime time to smugly slam President Obama while taking no responsibility for their own, far greater, failures is infuriating.
But sooner or later, honest liberals will have to admit that Obama’s Iraq policy has been a disaster. Since the president took office, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has grown ever more tyrannical and ever more sectarian, driving his country’s Sunnis toward revolt. Since Obama took office, Iraq watchers—including those within his own administration—have warned that unless the United States pushed hard for inclusive government, the country would slide back into civil war. Yet the White House has been so eager to put Iraq in America’s rearview mirror that, publicly at least, it has given Maliki an almost-free pass. Until now, when it may be too late.
Read on to find out how the Obama administration was supposed to perform magic tricks on the head of a pin to prevent this from happening. They didn’t “push hard” against the government to allow troops to stay beyond the Bush administration’s residual forces agreement expiration. He quotes his fellow memebers of the wrong about everything caucus Kenneth “Gathering Storm” Pollack saying that the administration “sent the wrong message” saying “the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road…. [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war.”
Jeebus.
If every pundit who supported the Iraq debacle were made to do something useful for a living, maybe washing dishes of changing bed pans in nursing homes, the world would be a much better place.
Yes, Please Put the Democratic Party on the Right Side in the Battle Against Cable Company F%$#ery
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%$#ery,” and everyone knows what that means.
They won’t get the legislation in this Congress, but it is an election winner.
I’m just hoping that if this ever makes it to be a vote, the Dems won’t water this down.
Does Anyone Out there Have an Urge to See Rick Perry’s Circumcision?
Yeah, not me either, but it appears that Rick Perry is about to make it available for public review:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) recently broke bread with The New York Times Magazine’s Mark Liebovitch at a Jewish deli in Beverly Hills.
“I’m more Jewish than you think I am,” he told Leibovitch over a corned-beef Reuben. “I read the part of the Bible that said the Jews are God’s chosen people.”
You’re more Jewish than we think you are?
A am NOT willing to check out this claim.
Doubling Down on the Crazy
Former Virginia Attorney General has been hired as president of the Senate Conservatives Fund.
That whole “Adults in the Republican Party” thing?
Not happening.
Canada is a Couple of Hundred Pounds Smarter Today
The great Charlie Pierce made the above comment in response to the news that Senator Ted Cruz has formally renounced his Canadian citizenship, and he follows up with this:
Now, if they don’t build our old friend the Keystone XL pipeline, America will be completely free of noxious imports from Alberta.
Rofl!
Some Thoughts on Eric Cantor
First, the very serious people inside the Beltway are freaking for a number of reasons:
- The results sh%$ 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.
Ummmm……… Isn’t This Straight Out Bribery?
The Republicans in the Virginia State Senate bought off state Senator Phillip Puckett with the offer of a 6-figure job and a permanent judgeship for his wife, which threw control of the chamber back to the Republicans:
Republicans appear to have outmaneuvered Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a state budget standoff by persuading a Democratic senator to resign his seat, at least temporarily giving the GOP control of the chamber and possibly dooming the governor’s push to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission, three people familiar with the plan said Sunday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The news prompted outrage among Democrats — and accusations that Republicans were trying to buy the Senate with job offers in order to thwart McAuliffe’s proposal to expand health coverage to 400,000 low-income Virginians.
Del. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said Republicans were unable to win the policy argument about Medicaid expansion, so they have resorted to other means.
“It’s astounding to me. The House Republican caucus will do anything and everything to prevent low-income Virginians from getting health care. . . . They figure the only way they could win was to give a job to a state senator,” Surovell said. “At least they can’t offer Terry McAuliffe a job. I hope Terry continues to stand up to these bullies.”
Puckett, a senator since 1998, did not respond to calls seeking comment. Other Republicans denied that Puckett was offered the jobs in exchange for his resignation.
Yeah, sure.
Here is a note to governor McAuliffe: Now is a time to enforce party discipline: If you can block Puckett’s getting a do-nothing job on the tobacco commission, do it. If you can block the appointment of his daughter to a judgeship, do it.
Use the veto pen. It is all fruit of a poisoned tree.
And Then There is George Will………
No link, because I do not want to give him page views, but George Will, the man who coached Ronald Reagan in his debates with Jimmy Carter, using Jimmy Carter’s own briefing books, which had been stolen, while commenting on Reagan’s debate performance on Nightline, has returned to classic form, arguing that women want to make rape allegations, because it is a “coveted status that confers privileges.”
No I won’t link to George Will, but I will link to The Onion article, “College Rape Victim Pretty Thrilled She Gets To Recount Assault To Faculty Committee:
Visibly excited for the thrilling hour ahead, college sophomore Megan Anderson enthusiastically made her way to a meeting with members of her university’s Office of Student Conflict Resolution to offer a detailed account of her recent sexual assault, the eager undergraduate told reporters Tuesday. “I get to go into a room filled with a committee of middle-aged men whose primary concern is upholding the college’s reputation and recount in explicit detail the circumstances of my rape at the hands of another student—I can’t wait,” said the pleased 19-year-old, who noted that she’s particularly looking forward to describing her choice of clothing the night of the assault, explaining the nature of her relationship with her rapist, and entertaining a variety of questions aimed at determining whether she herself invited the attack with her words and actions, all while offering a step-by-step account of the most horrific night of her life. “Don’t get me wrong, it was great being interrogated by the local and campus police, but this way I get to tell university officials who have a vested interest in minimizing campus rape statistics and ensuring the steady inflow of alumni donations what exactly I was drinking and why I could have misremembered events. And to think, once I finally give my entire story, I then get the pleasure of listening as they try to push the whole incident under the rug. Lucky me!”
Seriously, if I had a time machine, I’d go back in time to 1940, and give his mom a shot of Depo-Provera.
What a pathetic sorry excuse for a human being.
You Cannot Make this Sh%$ Up
Oliver “Arms for Hostages” North is criticizing the Obama administration for paying a ransom:
As the right’s outrage over Bowe Bergdahl’s release grew, Chris Hayes joked, “We should definitely get Oliver North to weigh on this one, for maximum absurdity.”
Chris, of course, was kidding. But we were reminded a day later that in this farcical political environment, it’s awfully difficult to joke about things that are likely to be real.Newsmax host and former Republican congressman J.D. Hayworth added his voice today to the growing right-wing outrage over the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban, and what better person to discuss the situation with than Oliver North!
North demanded that the media ask the Obama administration if there was “a ransom, a fiscal, financial, money transaction,” with the Taliban as part of the deal. “Was there a ransom paid? Did the government of the United States, either directly or indirectly, finance a terrorist organization?”Oliver North, helping push the political world closer to “maximum absurdity,” also took his concerns to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last night.
………
But even putting that aside, in what universe does Oliver North enter this debate with a straight face?
I realize that it’s become impolite in some circles to point out scandals that rocked Ronaldus Magnus’ White House, but the Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iranians in order to secure the release of American prisoners, then used the money to illegally finance a war in Central America. Reagan himself assured the American public that the allegations weren’t true, and those assurances turned out to be the opposite of the truth.
Un dirty-word believable.
The Onion has become completely redundant.
Well, at Least Someone Has Put the Fear of God into the NRA
Following the National Rifle Association’s declaring the Texas open carry maniacs weird, said maniacs organized a mass destruction of their NRA cards, and the NRA responded by folding like a bunch of overcooked cauliflower:
The National Rifle Association is walking back its statement criticizing gun activists who carry loaded assault weapons in public as a form of protest, with the NRA’s top lobbyist apologizing and calling the statement “a mistake.”
In recent months Open Carry Texas and several other gun activist groups have made headlines for openly carrying loaded assault weapons in public and into restaurants in the Dallas area. This tactic of attempting to “normalize” open carry of rifles has spectacularly backfired, as gun violence group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has persuaded several restaurant chains where open carry rallies were staged to ask customers not to bring firearms into their businesses.
On June 2, Mother Jones reported on a statement on the NRA’s website that criticized the open carry protests as “downright weird” and suggested that the practice was “downright scary” to onlookers and “counterproductive for the gun owning community.” The Mother Jones report was widely circulated in media as it was an aberration from the NRA’s typical absolutist position on firearm issues. Open Carry Texas called the NRA’s statement “disgusting and disrespectful” and some gun activists cut up their NRA membership cards.
The NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox, appeared on the NRA’s radio show Cam & Company on June 3 to repudiate the NRA’s article criticizing the open carry movement. Cox said that the statement was “a mistake” and that “it shouldn’t have happened,” adding “our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.” Cox also blamed the statement on a “staffer” who Cox said “expressed his personal opinion.” Referencing media interest in the statement, Cox termed it a “distraction.”
I’m beginning to think that we should start having people of color showing up at NRA meetings and maybe NRA headquarters, doing open carry.
See what that does to the state of their underwear.
This is an Interesting Theory of Why the Obama Administration F%$#ed Homeowners
I was thinking that Obama (About Geithner, I know) was captured by the banksters.
Well, Bob Kuttner thinks that is an artifact of Obama trying to distance himself from his skin color:
I’ve been very critical of Obama and I think his administration’s handling of mortgage relief was a disgrace, but I will offer a more charitable interpretation of why the administration turned its back on the victims of the mortgage bust. Race is still such a divisive issue that America’s first black president did not dare to look as if he was extending special help to blacks.
I disagree with the thesis.
I think that Obama is not so much Black as he is Crimson (Harvard) as are the banksters, and nothing binds like those old school ties.