How’s That Good Guy With a Gun Thing Working Out For You?

Seriously -- have you been following the story of the ex-LAPD officer who went on a shooting rampage? It is a horrific story -- a fired police officer who decides that he is working out his perceived injustices on other officers or their families. This is a story of a previous good guy -- one trained to use guns by the government -- who is now just a guy with a bunch of guns seemingly seeking revenge.

Sunday Open Thread [2.10.13]

It is too nice of a day to unpack this many layers of stupidity....
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Sunday that the sequester must be avoided and conceded that he might be willing to raise some revenues in order to strike a deal and avert sequestration. "We've got to avoid it, we've got to stop it," McCain said on "Fox News Sunday." "Would I look at some revenue closers? Maybe so. But we've already just raised taxes. Why do we have to raise taxes again?" Democrats want a budget that raises revenues by closing tax loopholes like oil subsidies, while Republicans have argued that the tax increases in the fiscal cliff deal in January mean no additional revenues are necessary.
We are ruled by idiots.

The crazy, fractured & rudderless DE GOP has a meeting

John Sigler's useless clownishness is on full display in this Doug Dennison blurb about the Lunatic Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. They had Sigler himself unveiling this year's vapid bumper sticker.... drum roll please... “Renew, grow and win!" You can just imagine the assembled faithful leaping to their feet to lustily ratify that stirring bit of PR hackery by acclamation, can't you? No...? Don't worry, it gets worse. Much worse.

Saturday Open Thread [2.9.13]

So we in Delaware missed out on Blizzard Nemo. Oh well. I didn't feel like shoveling today anyway. Lt. Gov. Matt Denn on WHYY talking about preventing teen suicides. We also have Governor Markell's weekly message, President Obama's weekly address, and the West Wing Week inside...

The Weekend Polling Report

Hillary Clinton wins Kentucky in 2016. Kentucky. Delaware is the 5th most liberal state in the nation. The hunting state of Pennsylvania overwhelmingly wants gun control, and they hate, and I mean HATE, their Republican Governor. Americans like President Obama's immigration plan. PBS is the nation's most trusted network. And Iowa would really like a Democrat as their next Senator.

Dictatorship of the Beige Cyborgs

Consider, for a second, the possibility that our sober, "bi-partisan" politicians and various media boosters of "centrist" politics aren't interested in finding solutions to our problems. Imagine that the people seeking "the middle" are motivated to do just enough to keep getting re-elected and keep the money spigot open - with no thought for the long and short term outcomes. If you've entertained these dark thoughts, here is a longer think piece for your Saturday morning ruminations. The premise is that democracy is broken. There's "a hidden failure mode, we've landed in it, and we probably won't be able to vote ourselves out of it."

Republican economic nonsense uber alles

I'm so glad that our upright centrist Democrats hopped on the GOP's economic bullshit train.
The federal deficit will drop to less than $1 trillion for the first time in five years, but massive spending cuts that have improved the budget outlook are also slowing the economy, according to a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget office.

If a Democrat proposed this, there would be a civil war.

Idaho state Sen. John Goedde (R), chairman of the the state Senate Education Committee, introduced legislation to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and pass a test on it to graduate from high school, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. The reason for this is reading the book made Goedde's son a Republican, so he wants all of Idaho's school children to be Republicans. If a Democrat did this (although I cannot think of a comparable book or author that singularly informs the liberal mind if only because we liberals tend to be more intelligent and we read many books, not just one), can you imagine the outrage? Fox News would self immolate.