How About A Hefty Dose Of Misogyny With Your Violent Rhetoric?

How About A Hefty Dose Of Misogyny With Your Violent Rhetoric?

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Pete Santilli went on a disgusting rant and caught the attention of the Secret Service who paid him a visit saying...
“We are aware of Mr. Santilli’s comments and will take the appropriate follow up action,” Edwin M. Donovan, a Secret Service spokesperson, told TPM on Monday. “He certainly has a right to free speech, but the Secret Service has a right and an obligation to determine what a person’s intent is when making comments like this.”
And what were those comments?
‘Miss Hillary Clinton needs to be convicted, she needs to be tried, convicted and shot in the vagina,” he said. “I wanna pull the trigger. That ‘C U Next Tuesday’ has killed human beings that are in our ranks of our service. I want to remind you that in Benghazi, Miss Hillary ‘the fricken’ biggest vagina on the face of the planet’ told troops to stand down and to not go in and interfere with the operation that they set up because they’re moving arms; Barack Obama is moving drugs through the CIA out of Afghanistan and Barack Obama needs to be tried, convicted, and shot for crimes against the United States of America.”
24 Dead in Oklahoma Monster Tornado

24 Dead in Oklahoma Monster Tornado

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70 of them are children. The revised number is 24 dead, with 20 of them being children. That the monster tornado destroyed two elementary schools is what makes this tragedy so horrible. I wondered on Facebook yesterday why these elementary schools, or any structure really, had no basements or underground storm shelters while located in the heart of Tornado Alley. To me it seemed criminally negligent. But then I was told that the ground in the area, which is either clay with a high water table or bedrock, makes it cost prohibitive to build them. I am not satisfied with that explanation, but at least it is an explanation. Come inside for some stream of consciousness thoughts about this latest human tragedy.
Buycott, Shop Your Conscience

Buycott, Shop Your Conscience

Have you heard about this app? Buycott installed on your smartphone can scan products you intend to buy and give you a rundown of that product's corporate history. It can also give you data on what those corporations do with the money they earn from your purchases. Interesting, right? For people who are trying not to buy anything from Koch Industries, for example, data from the scans you take can help you leave their stuff on the shelf.

Monday Open Thread [5.20.13]

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This has all happened before and it will happen again. The president "has just weathered one of the worst weeks of his time in office," according to Chris Cillizza. I don't know Chris, I think death, destruction and obstruction (Boston Marathon Terror Attack, West,TX Explosion, Senate Background Check failure) trump three non-scandals that have been blown up by the media and the GOP as being worst than Watergate. The network news ratings were down, so they gladly accepted the lies of the GOP (see Jon Karl) as news and proceeded to hyperventilate. But once again, as in the 1990's, the American public are not fooled. The President's approval ratings have actually improved over the last month, according to the latest CNN poll and Gallup polls.
I’m Calling It For Santorum

I’m Calling It For Santorum

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Know why?  Because we've seen this scene before.  My guess is that Santorum will be the 2016 Republican nominee.  He was first runner-up in 2012, so... it's his turn.  Rand Paul will take over his father's role and act as spoiler.  His Libertarian supporters will be rabid, as usual, and the Evangelical community won't trust him.  Meanwhile, the "business and money" side of the GOP will once again run a Jon Huntsman and lose quickly. Which means... the nomination is Santorum's.  And I think it will be an easy win, mainly due to the make-up of the Republican primary voter.  These voters are incapable of seeing past a primary to the general, and when you consider how many moderate Republicans have left the party then you understand who will pick the nominee. The Republican's base motto of "He's not Conservative Enough" will finally be tested. 
Weakening Dodd-Frank — John Carney Edition

Weakening Dodd-Frank — John Carney Edition

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According to this Saturday's NJ, John Carney is lending some bi-partisan credibility to one of (there's a package of bills out there trying to weaken an already weak legislation) the bills meant to loosen restrictions on banks who are trading in derivatives from their foreign operations:
Heritage Foundation helps GOP hone “not governing” as political strategy

Heritage Foundation helps GOP hone “not governing” as political strategy

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In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.
Why does this un-American, unpatriotic course of action make sense to the Heritage Foundation? They note in the letter that even the most sensible legislation is liable to "fracture" the tenuous relationship that the extreme right-wing of the GOP has with the even more extreme right-wing of the GOP. I know. This is a yawn. Everyone knows that this was, is and will be the Republican "strategy" for the foreseeable future. The Heritage Foundation is adding its two cents to the echo chamber in an effort to appear relevant to GOP messaging. There is no real news here, but there is a silver lining. Today it is hard to find anyone claiming that the cure for all of this is more accommodation of the GOP. The argument that "both sides do it" has become laughable. I don't even hear laziest of lazy Democratic chickenshits extolling the benefits of bipartisanship anymore. Hell. The last time the word "bipartisanship" appeared in a John Carney press release was February 22nd. Progress!
Is it out of stupidity or malevolence?

Is it out of stupidity or malevolence?

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With today's GOP, it is typically both. This Benghazi BS couldn't make that more clear. Check out these poll results, and Attaturk's take below.
A whopping 41 percent of Republicans polled think the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi is the greatest scandal in U.S. history. “One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history,” PPP adds, “is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.”
Greatest.Scandal.Ever.  Say the living embodiments of Comic-Book Guy. Yeah, it's like 12 Benedict Arnolds; 9 XYZ Affairs; 88 Nullification Crises; 35 Mexican-American Wars; like 55,000 Civil Wars; 3,000 Credit Mobiliers; 875 Spanish Flus; 300 Teapot Domes; 84,000 Great Depressions; 9 Million Pearl Harbors; 3,400 Tonkin Gulf Resolutions; 4 billion Watergates; 9 Trillion Iran-Contras; a mere 1.05 Monica Lewinskis; an infinity of Iraq War Resolutions over WMD; and 456 Bankster Induced Economic Collapses -- ALL WRAPPED UP INTO ONE.
General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., May 16, 2013

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., May 16, 2013

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Your last legislative fix for almost three weeks, so savor it! In a Dog Bites Man story, Sen. Colin Bonini sided with the oil polluters, casting the only 'no' vote against legislation eliminating a monetary cap on company liability for damages caused by an oil spill. Bloviator Bonini has suffered a precipitous decline in ink this session, having ceded his senatorial Hot Air Hegemony to Monsignor Greg Lavelle. I, for one, feel sorry for the disheartened former champion, and intend to do everything within my power to rehabilitate his diminished stature (I'm speaking figuratively, of course). The Comedic Gods demand it. Probably the biggest news of the day is what didn't happen: 1. Bill adding 2 more casinos doesn't make it out of committee. Nobody has clean hands in this game. Just read today's News-Journal article about it. Which I can't link. Because even though we still buy the dead trees edition, the online access is screwed up, and I'm still limited to only 5 articles a month. Except the month doesn't begin and end at the beginning and ending of the month. Hate to say it, but this enterprise has earned obsolescence, alienating the few of us who still believe in newspapers. But, I digress. Williams claims to have the support of Governor Markell, but the Executive branch provides weasel words instead (I'm typing this word for word from today's print edition):
"The Governor always looks forward to discussing proposals with the sponsors and supporters to understand how proposals might add to the state's revenue and economy."
Which raises this question: Rep. Dennis E. Williams, overly-optimistic or delusional? For better or for worse, I don't think this bill is going anywhere.
The Real IRS Scandal

The Real IRS Scandal

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Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times has written what I think is the definitive piece on the IRS problems -- making the case that the real scandal in all of this is that the IRS isn't functional enough to have stopped the bastardizing of the C(4) organizations in the first place. As usual, you have to go read the whole thing:
Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity. Nor has it enforced rules requiring that donors to those groups pay gift tax on their donations.