Different Day, Same Shit.

I gotta admit, I haven't been all that enthused about following the 2016 presidential electoral campaigns. As I've said before, I'm not getting paid to engage in full-time punditry. But it doesn't take a pundit to realize that Ted Cruz's presidential aspirations are a classic case of showboating and attention whoring.

Let's face it - a presidential campaign is perhaps one of the best ways of grabbing some well-needed spotlight time if you want to be somebody on the Beltway scene. Just ask Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and a bunch of others who clawed their way towards the brass ring back in 2012. There's plenty to gain from being "that guy who ran for president back in 2016" just so long as you don't slice your own campaign into the weeds.

As to why Cruz's presidential aspirations will wind up unfulfilled, it's not the citizenship issue that'll trip him up (unless he's revealed to be Stephen Harper's Manchurian Candidate). Like our esteemed current president, Rafael Edward meets all of the important qualifications: he's over 35, he's lived in the U.S. for over 14 years and his dear mum was a U.S. citizen when he was born, in spite of his dad being a commie canuck.

A long while ago, I said Ralphy was a shoe-in for the 2016 presidential candidacy. That doesn't mean he'll be a shoe-in for the actual Oval Office job.

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Poor Ralphy might be the darling of the birther/Tea Party set, but the rest of the GOP world just isn't feeling him:

First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. To win the Republican or Democratic nomination, you need the backing of at least some of the party apparatus. At a minimum, your fellow party members shouldn’t hate you. Otherwise, you end up getting the Newt Gingrich 2012 treatment. That is, you get pounced on the moment you’re seen as a threat to win the nomination.

If we’re ever in a world where it looks like Cruz could win the nomination, you’ll very likely see such pouncing. You can read article after article about how Cruz has isolated himself in the Senate. It got so bad that he recently had to apologize to his Republican colleagues.

And the Cruz hatred doesn’t stop at the edges of the Senate cloakroom. Influential party actors dislike him, too. I can’t remember another Republican who united Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, Jennifer Rubin and Thomas Sowell in opposition.

Ralphy's previous showboating has put him at odds with many of the establishment players within the GOP. Being the political equivalent of a firebrand evangelical preacher packs the pews full of far-right conservatives looking for that old time religion, but at the end of the day, the GOP establishment picks moderates who won't scare the mainstreamers with their talk of fire, brimstone and damnation, but have just enough fire to avoid being called a weak RINO by their peers. It's all a balancing act, you see.

Which is why your chances of seeing Ted Cruz being sworn into office on January 20, 2017 are about as remote as Jon Huntsman's.

But pissing off the GOP establishment isn't the only reason why he might walk away from his 2016 campaign empty-handed. The fervent pursuit of ideological purity for appearance's sake tends to create a lot of moral and ethical casualties along the way. To wit, Ralphy's begrudging move towards Obamacare:

The newly announced Republican presidential candidate told CNN's Dana Bash on Tuesday that he will sign up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act -- a law he has been on a crusade to kill.

"We'll be getting new health insurance and we'll presumably do it through my job with the Senate, and so we'll be on the federal exchange with millions of others on the federal exchange," Cruz said.

Asked whether he would accept the government contribution available to lawmakers and congressional staffers for their health care coverage through the ACA, Cruz said he will "follow the text of the law."

"I strongly oppose the exemption that President Obama illegally put in place for members of Congress because (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats didn't want to be under the same rules as the American people," Cruz said, before repeating: "I believe we should follow the text of the law."

That's right, the same man who was captured on video calling Obamacare a "trainwreck" had no other choice but to buy a ticket and climb aboard, hoping that his supporters and the general public would have the common decency to forgive him (or at least forget).

To sum things up, you can expect Rafael Edward Cruz to run in the 2016 primary, but don't expect him to become the preferred choice of the GOP establishment and consequently, their favored front-runner for the election. Personally, my money's on Jeb Bush - established pol, plenty of name recognition and deep down, America loves its dynasties.

Take it from someone who does this punditry stuff for a living:

If Cruz were in the position of someone like Rubio or even Rick Perry, I'd be more bullish. But he's not nominee material at all.
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) March 25, 2015

More and more haters are climbing out of the woodpile for our esteemed president. Just ask Rudy Giuliani, would-be/could-be/shouldn't-be contender for the 2016 presidential elections, who recently expressed doubts over POTUS's love of country and all it stands for, for better or worse. Meanwhile...

- The Great State of Alabama officially apologizes for mistaking an elderly Indian man for a really skinny black guy. You know how these things are and, well...they all look alike sometimes. Fortunately for Sureshbhai Patel and family, the Indian government has brought to bear tremendous pressure upon the state on their behalf, resulting in the offending officer's swift dismissal and arrest. Meanwhile, the black community looks on in envy.

- Police shootings are kinda getting out of hand. You shouldn't be shot 16 times in your own bed for grabbing your wallet. At least the victim got a $3 million settlement out of it.

- As it turns out, the conservative PACs that benefited most from Citizens United have been lining their own pockets by fleecing their donors:

Let’s say Ronald Reagan is still alive and someone starts the Re-Elect Ronald Reagan To A Third Term PAC. Because people love Reagan, let’s suppose that conservative donors pony up $500,000 to help the organization. However, the donors don’t know that Ronald Reagan has nothing to do with the PAC. Furthermore, the real goal of the PAC is to line the pockets of its owner, not to help Ronald Reagan. So, the PAC sets up two vendors, both controlled by the PAC owner: Scam Vendor #1 and Scam Vendor #2. Let’s assume it costs $50,000 to raise the half million the PAC takes in. Then, the PAC sends $100,000 to the first company and $100,000 to the second company to “promote Ronald Reagan for President.” Each of the companies then goes out and spends $1,000 on fliers. The “independent expenditures” that show up on the FEC report? They’re at 40%. That’s because the FEC doesn’t require vendors to disclose how much of the money they receive is eaten up as overhead. The dubious net benefit that Ronald Reagan receives from an organization that raised $500,000 on his name? It’s $2,000. On the other hand, the net profit for the PAC owner is $448,000. Is that legal? The short answer is, “It’s a bit of a grey area, but, yes, it is legal.”

I'm not surprised. This is what happens when you open the floodgates to every grifter and con artist on the block.

- Dinesh D'Souza continues to fight for America's freedoms using the power of Twitter. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

And remember folks, a little rioting is healthy for the soul. Unless you happen to be black, then it's a mug's game for thugs or, as buyers of commemorative "I Am Darren Wilson" sweatshirts would say, "a good day for a good shoot."

President Obama’s latest cabinet-level nominees are running into deep resistance in the Senate, pitching Democrats and Republicans into another tense standoff over White House appointments.

Just days after Republicans used Senate rules to block two nominees from moving to the next step in the confirmation process despite the fact that both have the support of a majority of senators, Democrats are planning to force committee votes without Republican consent.

If Democrats do push the nominees through to the full Senate, they would almost certainly set off a Republican filibuster, which would jeopardize the confirmations and, for now, leave vacancies at the top of two federal agencies.

Republicans have objected to the nomination of Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, citing what they said were her insufficient responses to their questions. They have also sought to block the labor secretary nominee, Thomas E. Perez, a lawyer in the Justice Department, on the grounds that he is too political.

A third nominee, Penny Pritzker, a wealthy hotel heiress and a top Obama fund-raiser who has more than two decades of corporate experience, has run into resistance since Mr. Obama put her name forward this month to be the next commerce secretary. Republicans are promising to scrutinize her family’s financial dealings, including their use of offshore accounts to reduce their taxes.

Nominees at all levels of Washington’s bureaucracy — 117 of them in all, including cabinet secretaries, judges and members of obscure oversight boards — are facing delays. Just last week, the Senate confirmed David Medine, the president’s choice to lead the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The time between his nomination and confirmation was 510 days. Every Republican voted no.

The true scandal isn't at the abandoned consulate compound in Benghazi or at the various IRS offices where selective investigations of 501(c)(4) organizations originated. The true scandal lies deep within the hallowed halls of Congress, where GOP legislators are intent on blocking just about every cabinet and agency appointment possible. It's not just to spite the president and roadblock as much of his agenda as possible, but also in an attempt to fulfill their insistence that "big government doesn't work" by making it stop work:

In doing so, Republicans are not breaking the rules of the Senate. They are, however, breaking the Senate itself, and harming the government. As with all legislative chambers, and in fact all democratic institutions, the Senate runs on a combination of formal rules and informal norms. But Republicans, by refusing to accept those norms, make it impossible for the normal machinery of government to function.

And remember that this is entirely unprecedented. Until very recently, simple majority confirmation was the norm on executive branch nominations with only a handful of exceptions. Not only that, but both Democrats and Republicans agreed that in almost all cases presidents were entitled to their choices when it came to these posts.

Unprecedented, but the GOP's made an exception for President Obama since his first day in office. No surprise here.

The surprise is how this story is getting buried underneath the Benghazi and IRS narrative. Well, maybe that's not a surprise, either. At any rate, you can bet your bottom dollar that those two stories will continue to be pushed hard and often by conservative news mavens. This one, on the other hand, won't rate any greater than typical Capitol Hill background banter.

Smartypants has the GOP pegged:

I suspect that any African American who has had success in this country will be able to relate to what is happening to the President right now. Every single move he makes is scrutinized and if he ever shows his humanity by making a mistake, he is likely to face impeachment.

We should all think about that and let it sink in. I'm sure the President is very aware of that fact. He is cautious by nature and that is probably one of the reasons he was able to become our first African American president.

But in this context, caution is called for. He's carrying a lot on his shoulders...more than is possible for me to even imagine. What he needs from us now is to keeps our heads together, focus on the long game, and remember that "no drama Obama" has always been the winning ticket.

Let the Republicans be the party of hysteria. That's what a beast in its death throes does. And to paraphrase what the President said to Mitt Romney..."Please proceed, Republicans."

So far, President Obama has done a marvelous job of letting the Republicans expose themselves as an obstinate, capricious and hysterical bunch. As long as the president continues on this track, he'll remain untouchable and the GOP will hopefully see itself as the Whigs saw themselves in their twilight years.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

James 3:5, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Right about now, Alabama State Rep. Joe Mitchell of Mobile probably wishes he had exercised a bit of decorum, now that a comment of his has turned into kindling for opportunistic GOPers and the idiot masses. So what happened? I'll leave that to Redeye:

Let's recap. Retired coal miner and Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to all Alabama Legislators "warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law." Oh really?

Instead of ignoring Maxwell's email, or, sending out the standard thank your for contacting my office blah, blah, blab, blab auto reply, Rep. Mitchell chose to respond in the following manner;

"Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

He's speaking truth to power, no matter how many people would admit otherwise. Lots of people would dismiss the above as a wild, crazy outburst from a race card-waving black guy who needs to sit hisself down somewheres. But Rep. Mitchell's entitled to be as pissed as he wants - as far as I'm concerned, given the history of the Great State of Alabama and elsewhere in the Deep South and its collective track record for racial discrimination and wanton violence, he's earned that right and then some.

However, in an age where saying the wrong things could have a team of Breitbart's best ratfuckers gnaw through your image and reputation like field mice through Australian farmland, something like the above could cost you dearly. I imagine Rep. Mitchell's from the old school, where he's never had to deal with that kind of crap. Until now. He's already being cast as "eccentric," which is about a step and a half away from "crazy" and two from "insane."

Already is his outburst being equated with that of State Senator Scott Beason's "aborigine" remarks. Just part and parcel of the ongoing drive to prove that blacks can be just as racist as white folk. For a brief moment, whites can take refuge from the burning spotlight and show those blacks how it feels to be under scrutiny for racism, for once.

Saying the wrong things at the wrong time has its consequences, as an unnamed commissioner and then-manager Thomas Andrews of the Fulton County Department of Human Services shortly realized during a discrimination lawsuit launched by a former employee. Having fellow colleagues say that there were "too many white boys" on the staff was one of the things that cinched a settlement for the white ex-employee.

I doubt Rep. Mitchell will step down from his position, although state GOPers wouldn't mind one bit if he does. Just another slot for the Grand Old Party to slide a conservative candidate into. I also doubt his constituents would throw him under the bus like his own party is doing. It seems the Alabama Democratic Party is doing more than its fair share to ensure that Alabama remains a defacto one-party state under GOP dominance for decades to come.

H/T to Redeye for his continuing reports on the shenanigans going down back in my home state.

Back when the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld trifecta got it in their heads to invade Iraq, I wasn't paying all that much attention to what was going on in the background or any of the nuances involved in the decision-making process. Despite being in college at the time, I wasn't the slightest politically active or even politically interested. But even I knew that whatever thought process that made the invasion of Iraq appealing was one that would have also made swallowing pieces of crystal meth a perfectly sensible activity.

I suspect that just as many Americans, especially those who didn't have any loved ones fighting in Iraq and elsewhere at that time, were just as disengaged and ephemeral as I was during that time. After all, I did have other things much closer to home to worry about. Secondly, I was still somewhat enamored with hardassed conservative philosophy - one that made excuses for hard line positions that, with a bit of critical and constructive analysis, made absolutely no sense for anyone but the most diehard to hold. That took a bit of time to recover from.

At any rate, in spite of solid opposition against the invasion from many corners of the U.S. and the world, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld trifecta were intent on using 9/11 and the opening salvos of the War on Terror as a segue for delivering the shock-inducing and awe-inspiring might of the U.S. Army to Saddam Hussein's front door.

"Shock and Awe." That was the Hitachi Magic Wand of buzzwords that made reporters and journalists shiver with orgasmic delight back then. 10 years later, it still has the same effect. I haven't heard those buzzwords since U.S. troops decamped from Iraq years ago. The supposed point of "Shock and Awe" was to shock the Ba'athist forces and awe them with our impressive military might. Instead, we shocked the Iraqis by dismantling their nation and awed them with our relative ineptitude and general insouciance about what we'd leave behind when the dust settled.

So many reporters were using the words "Shock and Awe" in their retrospects on the Iraq War that I thought about putting my foot into the next nearest TV that dared transmit those words.

To me, there seemed to be no rhyme and little reason for our nation's grand adventure into Iraq. For one, the WMD angle was proven to be dubious at best and a complete fabrication at worst. Again, I bought into the conservative spin over the "missing" WMD by convincing myself that Saddam must have had them relocated to Syria or someplace prior to the invasion. To this day, I still can't understand how I managed to come to that conclusion, although Time and Newsweek weren't of any help on that front.

Come to think of it, maybe it was all of the misinformation circulating about the Iraq War that led people to be a bit insouciant about the whole thing, especially when it was made clear that all the protesting in the world wasn't going to do much, if anything, to stop it.

Ok, so we got Saddam. Junior managed to get the bad guy his old man either couldn't catch or just didn't feel like catching. Not to armchair quarterback, but if the main purpose of the war was to snuff out Saddam and his sons, we could have done that with a good old fashioned CIA-sponsored assassination. Maybe that wasn't the real aim.

Perhaps it was the oil. Antonia Juhasz seems to think so and experts claim Iraq holds what possibly could be the largest reserves of crude oil in the world. After all, we were told that the invasion would literally pay for itself once those petrodollars started rolling in.

Or maybe it was to make Iran a bit uncomfortable by parking a now-U.S. friendly pawn right on their front doorstep. In light of our continuing difficulties with intimidating Iran out of continuing its quest for a nuclear deterrent against U.S. hegemony, it doesn't seem to be working all that well. I'm pretty sure it wasn't to "win hearts and minds" as so many claimed. If we wanted to do that, we wouldn't have sent our troops in the first place.

At any rate, as the war dragged on, more people came to the foregone conclusion that being in Iraq was a bad idea overall. Generally speaking, it became less and less fashionable to cheer on the Iraq War. Even the pundits who made their career riding the "Shock and Awe" orgasm changed their tune when they learned the batteries were just about out of juice.

And what of Iraq itself, aside from the inevitable ethnic/sectarian conflicts that have now popped up without Saddam or any other strongman-type as a definite check? Well, there's this:

Ten years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and smashed Iraq’s military, the country has become a major buyer of military equipment, spending billions to rebuild its armed forces.

In doing so, Iraq has become a customer of some of the same companies that supplied the weapons used to attack Baghdad’s troops in 2003.(...)

(...)With a security and defence budget of about $16.4 billion for 2013 and a commitment to rebuilding its forces, Iraq offers significant opportunities for defence and security firms.

“From a vendor’s perspective, between the US and Iraqi funding, there’s been a lot of money spent on defence goods and equipment in this country,” said Chris King of Britain-based BAE Systems, one of the companies at the expo.

“They’re buying F-16s, they’re buying M1A1 tanks, they’ve bought equipment from other countries. So, there’s a market here,” King said.

“The Iraqi market is increasing, or at least it seems to be a market that’s gonna continue to spend on procurement at some steady level, if not a larger level over time,” he said.

The Iraqis aim “to rebuild their military, air force and everything, so there are many (areas) to cooperate with them as far as defence companies’ point of view,” noted Sang Choi of Korea Aerospace Industries.

Musab Alkateeb of US-based Honeywell International added that Iraq is “purchasing a great deal of equipment,” and its “procurement activity is sufficient to warrant interest from international firms.”

Representatives of aerospace companies were especially interested in advertising their jet training aircraft, given Iraq’s need for advanced trainers to complement the 36 F-16 warplanes it has ordered from the United States.

Though US troops departed Iraq in December 2011, the United States is still the main arms supplier for the country, which has taken delivery of US military equipment ranging from M113 armoured personnel carriers and M1 Abrams tanks to M-16 assault rifles.

The United States has also assisted Iraq in fielding equipment and training.

So, after 8 years, 4,487 deaths and over $1.7 trillion spent, we've managed to turn Iraq into a client state that's a viable customer for U.S.-made military hardware. Well, not just military hardware, but practically anything that's in need of rebuilding.

Maybe that's what Junior meant when he declared, "mission accomplished."

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

The above quote comes courtesy of former FEMA Director Michael Brown. If you all remember, our friend "Brownie" was in charge of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. The slow response of the agency fell squarely on his shoulders according to a 2006 report from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, leading to his resignation from FEMA two weeks after the hurricane struck.

And apparently, the man sees fit to chastise the president for "jumping too quickly" on Hurricane Sandy, just to get in an oblique jab on President Obama's response to Benghazi. Yeah, the GOP's still trying to make hay of his response to that tragic event:

Conservatives have been hitting Obama for weeks on his attendance at a fundraiser in Nevada following the assault in Benghazi, claiming at alternate times that the President either cared more about politics than lives lost or that he was trying to downplay the attack’s significance. Now the critique has mutated into a belief that Obama is currently “playing President” to score points during disaster relief in the run-up to the election, in contrast to his actions in September.

Actually, from the moment President Obama took the oath of office, it was decided by the unreconstructed throughout the GOP that he was, in fact, "playing president." Because no ni*CLANG* could ever be president of the United States of America, no matter how hard he faked it.

The bottom line of all this shit talk is an undercurrent of disrespect that now lays open like an open sewer or a beached whale carcass. I'm genuinely surprised that no actual politician has gathered the required minerals to cross the dreaded "Ni-CLANG! Event Horizon" openly and unapologetically call the current President of the United States a "ni*CLANG*." In that regard, there's not much the president can do to that would earn their respect or approval, as demonstrated handily over the course of an entire presidential term.

Michael Brown had his time in the sunshine and with a dubious track record such as his, he should be the last individual to have anything to say about Obama's handling of this and other natural disasters. I wonder what Kanye West would have to say about all this...

A flustered adviser describing the mood said that the campaign was turning into a "colostomy backwash frappucino." #vulgarunprintablephrase”
— Marx Hussein Dudek (@marxdudek) September 19, 2012

If there was one way to describe Willard Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, this would be it. Ever since he wound up being the last man standing in a battle royale between between some of the most extreme and maligned candidates the GOP had to offer, the GOP establishment and Tea Party faithful ended up with this guy. I don't think they had a sociopath Mormon scion with a notable lack of empathy and warmth in mind.

So far, things haven't gone well for the guy. He's been revealed as a repulsive bully during his youth and a predatory businessman during his time at Bain Capital. He's steadfastly refused to come clean about his finances, leaving many to wonder exactly what he has to hide. He's shown himself to be utterly incapable of interacting with ordinary Americans. Every time he tries his hand at international diplomacy, he fucks it up. His wife, the presumptive first lady, has shown herself to be more or less the spiritual kin of Marie Antoinette.

To add insult to injury, polls have shown he's utterly incapable of drawing even a tenth of 1% of the black vote. When you can't even convince ordinary black Republicans to pull for you at the voting booth, you know you're in big trouble. Current polls show President Obama way ahead in electoral votes. At this point, this election is Obama's to lose and that worries the GOP establishment. Despite Romney having a 10-to-1 financial advantage over President Obama,* he can't seem to translate that huge war chest into huge votes.

The 2012 electoral gameplan is more of the same for the GOP: use divisive, controversial issues with a noticeable, yet imperceptible racial tinge to rile up the captive low information voters within the GOP, while employing a variety of tactics to prevent the competition from getting out their vote in the first place. After all, there's nothing the GOP loves more than a low voter turnout. With a candidate like Willard around, that's pretty much all you have without exposing his more dire flaws, which explains the following ad:


There's nothing wrong with personal responsibility. It's only when those words are used as code lingo for "let's get rid of the free lunch for these niggers and spics" does it become a big problem. Note the use of the already-ineffective technique of lauding former president Bill Clinton for his efforts at welfare reform, in order to drive a wedge between Obama voters and those who think fondly of the "first black president." Also note the systematic cover-up of comments showcasing Romney's failures during his time as both the CEO of Bain Capital and his term as governor of Massachusetts:

Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.
Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:
Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
Taxes and fees: Increased by $750 million per year
Long-term debt: Increased more? than $2.6 billion
Now he wants to rape our country, pollute it and bleed it dry with his Keystone pipeline for the 1%. Romney wants us to go to war with Iran.? How much will that cost?

1992 - Bain & Co. - Romney is CEO - Bain & Co. owes $30 Million to the FDIC, among other creditors, but the FDIC finally had to settle for $14 Million. At the same time, Bain & Co's large amount of cash on hand was used for bonuses to Bain executives who made over $200k/yr. Then, with a low cash balance, the rest of the creditors Bain & Co owed money to could not get back their money. This was only discovered AFTER a Freedom of Information Act request.
Bain/Romney profits = creditor's losses.

Mitt Romney's approval rating when he started Governing was 66%, after his Governorship it was 34%.
That's lower than GW after the economy collapsed....
Those who trusted Mitt and know Mitt's government work do not like Mitt.

The fact that Republican viewers quickly spam-reported these comments into oblivion is telling.

Juxtapose the above video with the following footage from a recent campaign fundraiser, which most likely wouldn't have been made public if it weren't for the efforts of one James Carter IV:


This is what happens when Mitt Romney speaks freely in front of a crowd whose individual net worth is more than what the average American will make in their lifetime. Romney just called 47% of Americans "lazy welfare queens." Sadly, scores of Americans with their priorities mixed up will still vote for the guy, all for the prospect of seeing the imaginary black welfare queen run out of imaginary steaks and her imaginary Cadillac repossessed.

To offset the above, Anne Romney had to run blocker to her husband's comments by explaining how he doesn't disparage the poor people:


The Romney campaign showcased this video on their YouTube account, thought better of it and had it pulled.

At this point, Mitt Romney would do better and actually win votes by taking a mallet to his scrotes on national television; it would be far less painful than continuing along this current trajectory towards political oblivion. No amount of campaign funding, overblown bombast from Republican Internet trolls or saccharine puff pieces about him being nice around the folks he sold his house to will balance out the rolling cavalcade of failure his campaign represents.

* Romney may have been ahead out of the gate in terms of Super PAC money (over $300 million to Obama's $9 million), but Obama's not just catching up with Romney's fundraising tally - he's cruising past it. Meanwhile, Wall Street's having second thoughts about backing Mitt. Can't say I blame them; Wall Street always goes where the winners are.

For the longest time, I wondered why conservatives, more specifically the hardcore "pro-lifers" that comprise a significant portion of the current GOP, were so hell-bent on eliminating abortion and along with it the right for a woman to have agency over her own body. I actually had a longer, more drawn out post for this one, but then I thought, "the issue might not be as complicated as I thought." As much as I hated to trash that post, I'm glad I did.

It started out with paying attention to who exactly was calling for "the right to life" and the end of abortions. The more I listened to and read about the klaxon calls, the more I saw something that was rather disturbing, but something I shouldn't have been surprised about.

I noticed the calls for respecting the sanctity of life started no sooner than the act of copulation was done but abruptly ended as soon as the baby was finally born. Then the child goes from being a blessing to being a burden and a drain or just plain forgotten about. If conservatives had this much respect for a child when it was in the womb, you'd think they'd have that same level of respect for a child out of it, or for all life, for that matter. As you can see by current GOP goals to crumble up the social safety net like so many used Dixie cups, that's not the case.

I caught the vibe the pro-life movement seemed to be specifically aimed at white Americans. There were furtive efforts to bring black Americans and Hispanics into the pro-life tent, but the movement took on a sort of urgency I couldn't put my finger on.

Then I read the demographics.

Look at the latest U.S. Census figures and U.S. population projections for 2050 and beyond. The numbers don't lie. The U.S. is getting browner and browner by the minute, and that disturbs a lot of people. That would have been the end of it if it wasn't for a black man becoming a U.S. president, signaling the crumbling of another barrier and a slow end to Anglo-Saxon hegemony when it came to positions of power. You'd be surprised at how many people were comforted over the fact that a "colored" would never become president.

The GOP's worried about demographics being the party's downfall. With few Hispanics and nearly zero black Americans backing the GOP, the party has only a certain, dwindling pool of people to rely on. It's not just the crazy 27-percent - it's the relatively uninformed swing voters who'd vote for the most convincing personality if convinced hard enough into a certain direction. 2012 is the GOP's last chance. If they don't win this now, chances are they won't be able to win for the foreseeable future.

The alarm over abortion transforms into a silent worry that too many white women are choosing not to be fruitful and fulfill their destined duty while the wrong types of people are allowed to reproduce like crazy. The underlying story is "too many blacks and browns being born and not enough whites." Racial hegemony and political posturing swaddled in a blanket of faux concern for womens' prenatal health.

I also read about the Stolen Generation, about how the Australian government took scores of aboriginal children and attempted to reshape them into something more "respectable" to Anglo-Saxon standards. The ultimate aim was to simply breed the "abo" out of them, eventually leaving people with little to no trace of their original heritage and a culture that would be inevitably distilled to monuments, trinkets and rituals performed by people who haven't a clue about the actual people who were behind it all or their culture.

The native Americans were largely slaughtered into irrelevance and attempts to breed the Negro out of Negros only succeeded in adding a dollop of "Negro blood" into the white American gene pool. Eugenics was tried but that went out of fashion, eventually. I see much of the pro-life movement as a last gasp for retaining "demographic balance" while enforcing socio-religious mores at the same time.

Finally, I read this. This is powerful. This is something that everyone should read, comments and all.

One thing the author addresses is how the "bad" women who do decide to go ahead with having their child are expected to give their children up without a second thought - no guilt, no pain, no mourning. It's assumed that these women were callous enough to not want to keep their baby in the first place - henceforth, letting go wouldn't be any problem. It would be like leaving a Dixie cup on a counter and walking away:

And why the fuck are actual babies so disposable that you're expected to get over it after a suitable period of mourning (i.e., till you get a good Christian husband) in the case of adoption? It's odd how this does not apply in the case of aborting a blastocyst, when you're expected to wall yourself into a tomb away from decent society and gnaw on the bitter bones of your own despicable evil. Bad woman. BAD.

A certain morally vindictive set of folks see pregnancy as just desserts for promiscuity. Dealing with nine months of pregnancy and childbirth is supposed to be the punishment.

Babies as punishment, at least until they're given up to a proper, respectable "Christian" family who will raise them up in the proper "Christian" way until they grow up to be mirror images of what proper society deems to be a proper, respectable person. I always thought babies were a blessing...

A few days ago, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was re-sentenced on bribery charges and sent back to prison. Siegelman has to serve 78 months in addition to the time he's already served, plus spend the preceding 36 months on probation and pay restitution of approximately $50,000.

Siegelman's re-sentencing caps off the systemic destruction of the Alabama Democrat party, namely by removing many of the most powerful progressive politicians from the picture. The epic Electronic Bingo Boogaloo saga brushed away many of these figures, with the side benefit of securing the interests of Mississippi gambling concerns and those of the casinos located on Native American lands throughout the state. Today, the state of Alabama is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party state led solely by the Republicans.

This is also a hard-hitting lesson on why it's important for new administrations to clean house. Without Bush-era holdovers like Leura Canary and hubby Bill Canary, this entire investigation would have fallen apart before it grew legs. Mentioning Karl Rove's name in this mess will surely draw cries of conspiratorial thinking from conservatives, but his involvement in positioning former GOP governor Bob Riley's ascension is recorded, noted and undeniable:

According to the Alabama RNC source, Rove met regularly with operatives for the Riley campaign. The source’s allegations are confirmed in part by campaign disclosure forms, which show that Windom paid Canary as a consultant between 1999 and early 2001 and later received large contributions from Canary’s business partner, a pattern that is duplicated with Riley and Canary.

According to public records, Windom paid Canary’s firm $38,022 for consulting and polling between 1999 and 2001. At the same time, PACs associated with Canary’s business partner, Patrick McWhorter, donated heavily to Windom’s campaign, contributing $149,000 in 2001 and another $75,000 in 2002.

After Windom lost the primary, PACs associated with McWhorter and Canary switched their donations to Bob Riley, giving him $85,000 in the days immediately preceding the November election. After the election victory, Windom emerged immediately as a close confidant of Riley’s, advising him on the appointment of a new Insurance Commissioner, Walter A. Bell, and other matters. Canary also emerged as a key Riley advisor.

Public records also show that at the same time Canary was consulting for Bob Riley’s campaign, his lobbying group, the Business Council for Alabama, donated $678,000 to the campaign of his client. This was the third largest donation the campaign received, exceeded only by those from the Republican National State Elections Committee, for $2,475,000, and from Bob Riley himself, who contributed $1,070,000 to his own campaign.

Fellow blogger Legal Schnauzer has been on this case for quite a while, with a volume of detailed and in-depth blog posts to boot. You can follow the "Don Siegelman" tag and read to your heart's content, but here are a few posts that stand out IMHO:

Judge In Siegelman Case Displays Monumental Arrogance and a Seriously Faulty Memory

Siegelman Resentencing Serves as a Grim Reminder That His Prosecution Was Bogus from the Outset

Justice Department Lawyer Has Conflict of Interest In SCOTUS Review of Siegelman Convictions

"I don't believe in calling him the first black president," she said, "I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey."

The above comment left the mouth of conservative radio show host Barbara Espinosa, who somehow thinks that her Hispanic heritage excuses the above outburst. More telling was how her guest, Arizona Republican Party Chairman Tom Morrissey, remained silent during the above tirade and the subsequent argument between her and another caller over her remarks.



Espinosa's outburst, along with Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro's disrespectful interruption of the president and, if you want to go back even further, Joe Wilson's ignorant outburst during the 2009 presidential address, are just one of the countless symptoms of a big problem that many Americans still can't own up to. The blatant disrespect of the president stems not from his party affiliation, but from an old problem that has yet to be laid bare for all to see and discuss.

That problem is defined as a complete and total lack of respect for and outright hatred of non-white Americans, most notably black Americans and especially if they happen to occupy any position of power, hold any considerable amount of wealth or both.

It's hard to explain the irrational hatred that comes over a vast swath of white Americans when it comes to the president, from the prototypical Tea Partier to even the most enlightened of liberals, without learning a fair bit of background information regarding the relations between black and white Americans, from the time Africans were involuntarily imported into the U.S. as slave labor to today. As a way to preserve the status of those slaves as such and to blunt the possibility of poor whites and black slaves from joining in a combined effort to demand and extract economic and social equality, the idea of blacks being somehow inferior became embedded within the collective psyche of the nation and it's been nearly impossible to root out ever since. This idea of the "other" as a "naturally inferior being" also affected Italian, Scottish, Polish and Irish immigrants, at least until they were finally able to literally melt into the great WASP collective, a feat that remains a non-option for scores of black Americans for obvious reasons.

Seeing one of these "naturally inferior beings" ascend to the highest office in the land was a literal mind-fuck for many Americans, as it took the world view they were used to and challenged the living daylights out of it. Seeing an "inferior being" suddenly rise to the top should cause you to ask yourself if they were really inferior in the first place. Instead, many Americans doubled down on these beliefs, provoking the formation of oddities like the Tea Party, the racially-charged GOP presidential candidate race and, of course, the copious amounts of disrespect towards a man of color in spite of holding the highest title in the entire country.

For a while, I wondered how would racism look like when visualized in terms of tribes. It's becoming easier for me to explain this as a case of one tribe's fear and subsequent hatred of the other. No matter how you cut it, one tribe just won't stand for being led by someone from the "other" tribe.

Barack Obama is an "other." He was born from an African father and white American mother in a state unconnected to the U.S. mainland and, in many ways, very much foreign. His childhood wasn't like that of the average American child and his experiences were vastly different than others. His appearance, demeanor, speech and style don't match the expectations and assumptions of many Americans, nor do these attributes match the generally accepted expectations and assumptions made Americans have of those who happen to share his complexion and visual identity.

The fact that he is an "other" who is constantly conflated with being aligned with those who share his visual identity is enough to send the psyche of many Americans into a tailspin. Which explains why many are willing to overlook their dislike of Mormons and their suspicions against an effete moderate conservative who is only concerned with monetary/corporate matters to support Mitt Romney, someone whom the Teabaggers treat as a "second-best" choice. A fiery firebrand of a fire starter like Newt Gingrich probably would have been their first if he didn't come with a matching set of bad luggage.

It's less about President Obama's actual policies (which have so far worked towards benefiting the country as a whole) or his behavior in the White House (which has been nothing short of exemplary), but more about how his mere presence as the highest authority throughout the land constantly threatens to destroy the preconceived notions many Americans have about how those who happen to look like him should behave and are expected to behave, in their minds.

If you want a detailed take on this problem, check out Steven Thrasher's piece and then check out the comments in response.

Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in both civil and criminal contempt by the House of Representatives.

Washington (CNN) -- The House of Representatives voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to turn over documents tied to the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting -- a discredited operation that has become a sharp point of contention between Democrats and Republicans in Washington.
The House approved a pair of criminal and civil measures against the attorney general, marking the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress.

House members approved the criminal contempt measure in a 255-67 vote. Almost every House Republican backed the measure, along with 17 Democrats. Shortly thereafter, the civil measure passed in a sharply polarized 258-95 vote.

A large number of Democrats -- including members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- walked off the House floor in protest and refused to participate in the criminal contempt vote. A slightly smaller number of Democrats appeared to boycott the vote on the civil measure as well.

17 Democrats voted along with Republicans on the criminal contempt measure. 21 Democrats did likewise on the civil contempt measure. NBC News' Frank Thorpe thoughtfully provided a list of names:





And there you have it. Concerned Democrats who chafe at this display of Blue Dog dumbassery can organize a movement to replace these people with actual Democrats. Speaking of which, dozens of Democrats walked off the House floor in protest of the civil and criminal contempt votes.

So, what happens next?

Unlike a contempt charge at the county courthouse, AG Holder isn't gonna spend 30 or 60 days cooling his heels in the pokey. But Darrell Issa and crew can push him to resign under the assumption Holder's been tarred and feathered good over this "disgrace." The GOP can also use this to further de-legitimize the Obama administration's authority and run it out on a rail come this Election Day:

...the next step would be to send the contempt citation against Holder to the local U.S. attorney for enforcement. Traditionally the Justice Department doesn't pursue criminal contempt of Congress cases against its own administration.

If, as history suggests, the Justice Department won't prosecute a criminal case against Holder, the House could hire its own lawyer and file a civil lawsuit in federal court. Such a case could lead to an order for Holder to turn over the documents. But the federal District Court in Washington has been reluctant to rush into such cases.

The hopes of the House winning a legal resolution before the November elections are dim. And the authority behind House subpoenas or contempt citations traditionally are considered to expire when that Congress ends, according to the Congressional Research Service. That happens in January 2013.

In any event, if Obama loses his re-election bid the case becomes moot. If Obama wins and Republicans retain control of the House, they could vote to restart the fight. But Holder might no longer be in office.

A contempt of Congress vote against Holder probably would amplify calls from some Republicans for his resignation. Although the administration's shown no signs of that so far, it's widely believed, even among Holder's close associates, that he doesn't intend to return should Obama win a second term. When asked about it, Holder has been noncommittal.

However, in issuing these contempt measures, the GOP once again verified that it would go to great lengths just to see the president and attorney general bum-rushed out of office by any means necessary. It also has plenty of racial overtones. A lot of people want to see Holder, a black guy, fail in order to validate their beliefs of black American men being incapable of managing leadership positions unless they happen to be both conservative as all get out and under the total and complete tutelage of the GOP (Cain, Thomas, Steele, West, etc). If they can't get Obama to go down in flames, Holder will do just nicely. Even better if they both go down.

Holder happens to be the first black U.S. Attorney General. He also happens to be the first AG to be held in contempt by Congress. Funny how that works out. Even funnier is this excruciatingly detailed account on how the GOP's narrative of the "Fast and Furious" operation isn't what it appears to be at a close glance.

"All we have to do is replace Obama . . . . We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan Budget. . . . We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate."

"Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared."

In short, all Grover Norquist and his fellow conservatives want is a rubber stamp president -- a president who'll sign anything and everything that comes out of a GOP-controlled Congress, no questions asked, no hesitation shown. By any indication, it seems Mitt Romney is the perfect rubber stamp, a guy who'll do as he's told when he's told.

If anyone's still wondering why it's a supremely bad idea to allow Romney to win, look at the above quote. Because that's what you'll be getting with a Romney administration.

From 2006 to 2010, the BATF ran a program that essentially walked millions of firearms into the tender loving hands of Mexican cartel members, with the purpose of nabbing straw purchasers and gun runners on the U.S. side. It was a good idea at the time (to them), at least until a Border Patrol agent was killed. After that, the wheels pretty much fell off that wagon.

Today, Darrell Issa intends to use a program crafted during the Bush administration to collect the scalps of one U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and a certain U.S. president. If you want a great indication of how eager Issa is to bend the Obama administration over his knee, note that he's asking for a partial investigation that covers the program from 2009 and onward. Remember, the program started back in 2006.

President Obama is also under fire for exercising executive privilege on behalf of Holder, obstinately to prevent sensitive documents and transcripts from being released under subpoena. Now some are accusing the Obama administration of "covering up the truth."

Somewhere on the House floor is the corpse of Brian Terry, propped up and placed behind glass to elicit heartstring tugs and politically motivated sympathy.

Allow yours truly to direct you to more detailed commentary on Fast and Furious and the ongoing attempts to legally lynch the president and U.S. attorney general with high-tech rope:

- Redeye's Front Page: "The "Fast and Furious" legal lynching of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder"
- "The Rant" by Tom Degan: "The Importance of Being Eric"
- Digby's Hullabaloo: "Issa goes down the rabbit hole"
- Field Negro: "The Sequel"

“I’m against very wealthy ­people attempting to or influencing elections, but as long as it’s doable I’m going to do it.”

The above quote belongs to Sheldon Adelson, a big-time casino mogul who is currently the eight-richest man in the world. He's read the writing on the wall and now he's betting a cool $10 million on the RMoney Team after spending a fortune on Newt Gingrich. For a man with a net wealth of $20 billion, handing the pro-Romney super-PAC "Restore Our Future" and the Congressional Leadership Fund a total of $10 million is like giving those nice Girls Scouts $10 for a box of shortbreads. His wife also kicked in a cool $12.5 million to Restore Our Future, along with another $2.5 million to the CLF, for a total of $15 million. The amount of money being thrown around by well-heeled conservative interests is nothing to laugh off.

If Citizens United gave the moneyed 0.1% the green light to influence American elections with pallets of cash, then the recent, hard-bought victory of Scott Walker in Wisconsin was akin to the first car pulling away from the intersection. If progressives are still wondering why Cory Booker kept close to his well-heeled Manhattan friends or why President Obama seems reluctant to piss off the Wall Street crowd, now you know why. Politics was always an arena where you had to pay to play, but Citizens United raised the cost of admission. Those who can afford to pay do while those who can't are stuck on the outside looking in.

So what is this Adelson feller all about?

A college dropout raised in Boston by poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Adelson pursued various business ventures before striking gold in the computer trade show industry. He used that money to revive the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. He helped turn the Strip into a major convention destination and now owns resorts in Macao and Singapore.

Adelson started out life as a Democrat. But in the 80s and 90s, as his wealth grew and he clashed with unionized hotel workers, he became a loyal Republican. He also supports conservative politicians and causes in Israel, where he owns the newspaper Israel Hayom. He also donates millions to charity, in particular medical research.

 This seems like an interesting turning point that's worth studying. You have to wonder what about the unions stuck in Adelson's craw so badly that he flipped from donkey to elephant:

Adelson clearly loves both Romney and Gingrich’s fealty to the policies of Israel’s hard right government. But it’s also important to note that Adelson hates unions about as much as Ahab hated that white whale (except Adelson is sort of the white whale, too…never mind). Over 90% of the rooms on the Las Vegas Strip are unionized. The union, Culinary 226, is, arguably, the most powerful local union in the country, beloved by its membership, primarily, of housekeepers, and tolerated by the large game companies that dominate the strip.

And like many billionaires, when it came to what seemed like a bunch of leeches siphoning off his hard-earned wealth, Adelson sought to get rid of this "problem" once and for all. Culinary 226 members earn 30-percent more than the national average and even non-union workers enjoy roughly the same wages thanks to their clout. You can imagine how much he'd save on this bottom line by making union membership a thing of the past.

Adelson's penchant for playing sugar daddy to well-known politicians doesn't stop at the U.S. border. He's also well-known for being sweet on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As mentioned before, he also owns Israel Hayom, a Hebrew-language paper that's ardently pro-Netanyahu. The paper hasn't made a profit in years, unless you consider being a shameless promotional rag for Bibi while helping to turn Israeli political thought thoroughly conservative to be profit enough. And for a bit of schadenfreude (or Stockholm Syndrome), it's liberal paper Haaretz that's largely responsible for printing hard copies of Israel Hayom. Approximately 20 percent of Haaretz's revenue comes from Israel Hayom payments. What's more, 20 percent of the company's shares were purchased by former Yukos vice-president and right-winger Leonid Nevzlin.

Well-heeled billionaires with world-wide ties influencing national elections and policies for their own advantage. It's something that puts the average citizen who wants to make a difference at a distinct disadvantage on the state and federal front. The recent wave of voter disenfranchisement is working its magic across numerous states, insuring that even local elections wind up skewed in favor of candidates most willing to carry multinational corporate water. Sheldon Adelson is just one among many well-heeled figures who are slowly but surely tilting the playing field in their favor and to the everlasting detriment of the rest of us.

Meanwhile, a comment from the Las Vegas Sun article exemplifies what's wrong with America's mindset when it comes to the actual functions of unions:

Station employees DON'T WANT a union! They got the same wages and better benefits of unionized joints. Why would they want to pay dues to these crooks? I go to Station because they are NOT union and avoid places that play footsies with these thugs.

Because once the unions go away, so will the wages and benefits. Then you'll be dealing with places that hire real thugs instead of merely playing footsie with them, as the quality of employees will take a nosedive, along with service.

I believe many people readily conflate unions with Jimmy Hoffa, mobsters and surly Teamsters hailing from Long Island and New Jersey. Others see unions as a group that's gotten fat and greedy on $75.00/hr wages while "the rest of us" get by with non-union jobs paying $10/hr or less. Some believe that if unions simply went away, employers would be magnanimous enough to raise their pay a little bit in response. These fallacies, combined with the constant anti-union drumbeat of conservative politicians, corporations and media outlets, help keep nationwide union support at an all-time low. People are convinced that they don't need unions to represent them and that the company will take care of them.

Well, you can look to Wal-Mart as an example of how companies take care of their workers. Or you could look at how Amazon treats their workers. Here's a closer-to-home example of how companies take care of their workers, sans union representation.

People don't realize what they have until it's gone. It'll happen with education, genuine electoral representation, voting rights and of course, unions. People will have to go back to selling their souls to the company store before they realize how good they had it and how stupid they were to give it all up.

The ultimate task for the people is to remain vigilant and aware ~ that the government, their government is out of control, and this moment, this opportunity, must not be forsaken, must not escape us, for we shall not have any coarse but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November ~ This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue.

The above comes from the "Whitehouse Watchdog" section of the Greene County, VA Republican Party's "Constitutional Conservatives" newsletter. Outside of the Free Republic, Fox News and other notably right-leaning locales, GOP newsletters are perhaps the best source for hyperbole, veiled hatred and outright hysteria. Ponch McPhee (heh) is the man assumed to be responsible for the above outburst in political insanity.

I'm not here to blame a single person who could easily walk back his words with a boilerplate apology. Instead, blame falls on an entire political spectrum that's collectively tweaked something fierce at the sight of a man of color occupying the highest office in the nation and presiding over what is arguably the most powerful nation on Earth. And it's tweaked to the point where armchair patriots issue oblique death threats through newsletters and e-mails passed on from supporter to supporter until they're inevitably intercepted by people with a modicum of common sense and shared with the general public, most of whom are understandably repulsed by the entire thing.

These people can't come out and say what they really want, as it would very well destroy their social lives and their power within the American Mediasphere. So they rely on twisted double-meanings, racially motivated dog whistles and coded rhetoric. Most people will instinctively parse the true meanings of their words. Others will just nod approvingly without realizing the subliminals underneath.

We all know most conservatives have a penchant of selling woof tickets to canceled events. And their words would mean absolutely nothing if it wasn't for that one person who takes those woof tickets at face value and attempts to cash them in. I believe some of the conservative folk are actually counting on some lone individual to swallow the hype and attempt something irretrievably stupid and dangerous.

Let it be known that if anyone was to take a run at the president, First Lady or God help us, the kids, the rioting that will ensue will make the L.A. and Detroit Riots seem like quaint and annoying Tea Party protests. If that someone actually succeeded, the United States of America will effectively collapse as a nation, as the generations of unmet grievances and unhealed wounds will burst open and consume this nation in a manner that even the so-called "patriots" never counted on.

Conservatives claim they want to "save" the nation from many perceived evils, yet they prove to be the exact evil the country is plagued by. Because the country couldn't be the exact way they want it, the armchair patriots, Teabaggers and the like are now engaged in a nationwide temper tantrum. You hope they decide to hold their breath and turn blue, but it never gets to that point. They're locked in the "knock things down and scream" stage. Someone should go fetch a belt.

Oddly enough, conservatives project their very failings onto their enemies...and it sticks. Instead of the conservatives being know as petulant children, it's the liberal "hippies" and "socialists" who are prescribed this behavioral trait. Instead of conservatives being spectacularly lazy and greedy, it's minorities who are accused of being this. If the GOP could get away with tagging Obama as an adulterer, they would, and they would proceed to ignore the likes of Newt Gingrich, David Vitter and Richard Melon Scaife.

These conservatives don't know what the fuck they're doing and they should stop before someone, somewhere gets hurt.

The challenge before us is very clear. Creating a blueprint for winning back the Senate and retaining the House, along with defeating the President is our party’s mission. We must return the Republic back to the people.

Conservative codespeak is an amazing thing. It's always implied that this country can't be shared with all 313.5 million of its current inhabitants. No, it has to be "taken back" by a small cadre of "freedom loving" individuals, who invariably and without fail are Anglo-Saxon descendants of either advanced or middle age. The people whom the country has to be "taken back" from are, without fail, minorities, the politically liberal, those with lifestyles or beliefs that deviate from the Protestant template, etc. In essence, people who don't look, act or think like them. And these folks use the words of the nation's founders and the constitution they created as justification for their beliefs and actions.

If the Founding Fathers were alive, you think they'd want to have a quiet chat with these people?

ERIC BOLLING: What would you call a guy who not only used cocaine, but dealt cocaine in high school and/or college? What would you call that kind of guy?
GREG GUTFELD: The president.

[laughter]

ERIC BOLLING: Besides "president."

No, they're not speaking about George W. Bush's run-ins with the white stuff. Once again, conservative talking heads over at Fox News are doing their best to tag President Obama with what conservatives usually think of blacks (outside of "the good ones" like our old friend, Jesse Lee Peterson). After the media blow-up over Mitt Romney's prep school escapades, they had to use something to redirect attention back onto the president.

Not only did our dynamic duo attempt to suggest our current president had triple beam dreams, but Bolling tried to cement the idea even further into the heads of low-information conservatives everywhere with the following:

SEAN HANNITY: It's -- the biggest campaign donor in 2008 was the media, Eric. What about this issue? Now, he said I was in a daze for years in high school playing basketball. I drank heavily. Used drugs -- plural. He's admitted to cocaine use. And I don't remember many questions about the specifics of his drug use. Where did he get the drugs? Who did he do drugs with? How did he get off drugs? How deep did this go? What drugs did he use? Is that fair?

BOLLING: That's more than fair, and I think he's actually even admitted to buying or selling drugs, as well, which makes it a little bit different.

Bolling apologized, but the underlying message is still out there. You gotta admire (or better still, abhor) conservatives' ability to let loose with lies and coded rhetoric, only to walk it back with quiet, half-hearted apologies, knowing that in the end, the underlying message still hit its mark.

Come to think of it, conservatives are going positively batshit over Obama these days. First, the subliminals from Senator Rand Paul*. Having a gun pointed at the head of a sitting president is generally A Bad Idea™, especially with your smug mug glowing with conceited approval. The Virginia-based National Association for Gun Rights dismissed the ensuing uproar as "silly" and responded with the same gun pointed at Rand Paul's dome.

What's funny about all this is that the president hasn't proposed any type of anti-gun legislation. In fact, he's thrown conservative gun owners a bone or two. Rand Paul and Co. know exactly what they're doing and what kind of message they're sending.

Meanwhile, Obama-induced social psychosis led one West Virginia county to throw its Democratic primary votes in the general direction of a Texas convict:

Keith Judd, the winner over Obama, is also known as Inmate No. 11593-051 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, where he is serving a 17.5 year sentence after being convicted in 1999 for allegedly making threats at the University of New Mexico and also for extortion.

Somehow, someway, Judd was able to get on the ballot and pull out a victory over Obama in Logan County.

Call it the anti-Obama vote or the ultimate protest vote.

Maybe it was the anybody-but-Obama vote.

Whatever it was it wasn’t even close as Judd was able to win by 11 points in an embarrassment to the Obama camp and the national Democratic Party establishment.

With 37 out of 38 Logan County precincts reporting, Judd had grabbed 2,786 votes to Obama’s 2,231, winning 55.5 percent to 44.4.

With nearly 100 percent of the precincts reporting statewide in the wee hours of the morning, Judd was pulling 41 percent to Obama’s 59 and had garnered close to 72,544 votes.

There's a message in here, too. Apparently, Logan County, WV would rather have a convicted felon in office than suffer the indignities of being led by a nigg...ahem. But it wasn't just Logan County that came down sick with a case of the vapors:

The results were even worse next door in Mingo County where Obama was humiliated by 20 points or 1,005 votes by the Texas prisoner. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Judd had 2,972 votes (60.1 percent) to Obama’s 1,967 votes (39.9 percent).

Judd also won in eight other counties, taking Lincoln, Boone, Clay, Gilmer, Hardy, Tucker, Webster and Wyoming counties.

Obama only beat Judd by 31 votes in Mercer County by a 2,486-2,455 tally.

Judd took Boone County 2,343 to 2,199 in a 52-48 percent margin and also grabbed Lincoln County 1,533 to 1,382. In Wyoming County, Judd won by a 1,428 to 1,085 vote tally over Obama.

The whole state didn't come down sick -- Obama walked away with Huntington and Charleston, the most populous cities in the state.

And since you're wondering how someone cooling his heels in an federal prison in Texas ended up on a West Virginia ballot? Here's how:

Judd, 53, has been a Democratic presidential candidate before, appearing on Idaho’s 2008 ballot, finishing a distant third behind Obama and Clinton with only 1.7 percent of the vote.

Judd, who lists his hometown as Texarkana, Texas, took advantage of West Virginia’s rather liberal ballot access laws to gain a spot in this year’s Democratic Primary – a head-to-head match-up with Obama.

The law requires prospective candidates meet residency, age and other requirements, including a $2,500 filing fee, to get on the ballot.

Judd met those requirements and landed a spot on West Virginia’s ballot – the only state he was able to do so – despite being held behind bars.

Judd was the only candidate on the WV ballot other than the president. As it turns out, it was more about voting against Obama than it was a genuine preference for a jailbird. In the words of Ronnie Brown, "I voted against Obama." Considering how Hillary Clinton trounced Obama back during the 2008 primaries, you could safely say they just don't like the man.

But I wonder if certain people would have stayed home if the only other alternative on the ballot was yet another person of color. I think I already know the answer to that question.

*Rand Paul serves as proof positive of why voting for Ron Paul is A Bad Idea™

Most people know the story of how Jesus, the Son of God, came into being. One of the more interesting aspects of the story (and one that's also a big part of the Catholic faith) is the immaculate conception of Mary, precipitated by the appearance of the angel Gabriel, his message of Jesus' impending birth through Mary and the intervention of the Holy Spirit afterwards. Considering Joseph was a husband-to-be and the lovely couple didn't subscribe to the whole concept of sex before marriage, this event of immaculate conception remains one of the most intriguing episodes throughout Jesus' life, death and resurrection:*

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Since then, the laws of physics and biology have put the kibosh on any future acts of immaculate conception. But the Arizona state legislature stumbled up on a way to rekindle that long-lost act through the power of bill-making:

Arizona’s HB 2036 takes Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban one step further by starting the clock on pregnancies at the woman’s last last menstrual period, which could be two weeks before fertilization.

Specifically, the bill would “[p]rohibit abortions at or after twenty weeks of gestation, except in cases of a medical emergency, based on the documented risks to women’s health and the strong medical evidence that unborn children feel pain during an abortion at that gestational age,” where gestational age is defined as “age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.”

Take note of the underlined. The entire menstrual cycle lasts for about 28 days. The luteal phase, where the corpus luteum develops and subsequently atrophies sans fertilization of the egg, lasts up to 16 days.

In effect, this means that if a woman has sex with someone, she could technically be pregnant weeks before the pregnancy test, morning sickness or tell-tale lack of a period gives her the official heads-up. Not exactly immaculate conception, but they're getting there. It's more like "pre-pregnancy," where the state knows you're pregnant long before you decide to become pregnant. Or something.

More importantly, this means that if she decides, on the 19th or 20th week of gestation to abort, she'll technically be in violation of the abortion ban, because the window of opportunity slammed shut on the 18th week:

Guttmacher Institute’s State Issues Manager Elizabeth Nash told Raw Story that obstetricians start the clock on pregnancies after the “last menstrual period” to “be on the safe side.”

“Certainly, they are trying move the gestational cutoff from what had been over the last two years a 20-week gestational cutoff to an 18-week gestational cutoff,” Nash explained. “At the same time, they are trying to say, ‘Oh, this is a 20-week abortion ban.’ And they get away with that with the definition of gestational age that’s in the bill.”

Determining the gestation date this way is a rather creative and supremely sneaky goalpost move. Which means it serves conservative pro-lifers and their GOP counterparts well. Selling a 20-week abortion ban that actually kicks in two weeks earlier than anyone expects constitutes fraud and deception on part of bill's supporters, not that it matters much.

At some point, someone's gonna have the bright idea of suggesting that the pro-life anti-abortion contingent should just assume that all woman are presumed pregnant until actually pregnant, to eliminate all possibility of legal or illegal abortive acts. Of course, that'd also include hormonal contraceptives, since they prevent ovulation and fertilization. In short, basically anything that interferes with ovulation and fertilization. At that point, you'd have to wonder if that would include the entirely natural act of corpus luteum discharge.

Is a tampon or a sanitary napkin admissible as evidence of an abortion? Would birth control pills signify intent? How about someone experiencing a miscarriage?

Meanwhile, semen discharge from masturbation or wet dreams is largely overlooked. What? You seriously think the menfolk would willingly legislate their own reproductive faculties?**

*If you believe otherwise, fine. Don't try to take a chunk out of my ass over it, thanks.


**Nevermind the cases of surgical and chemical castration for sex offenders and black males with "virulent" perceived sexual appetites.

The Great State of Alabama has had more of its fair share of embarrassing moments. A few days ago, one of those moments came to an abrupt end:

Jurors have found VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor and five other defendants not guilty of all charges in the retrial of a government corruption case.
Jurors announced that they had reached a decision early this morning on their seventh day of deliberations.

McGregor; lobbyist Tom Coker; former Country Crossing casino spokesman Jay Walker; Sen. Harri Anne Smith, I-Slocomb; and former state Sens. Larry Means, D-Attalla, and Jim Preuitt, R-Talladega, are on trial accused of offering or accepting bribes in connection with a 2010 gambling bill.

The legislation was aimed at sheltering bingo casinos from state efforts to shut them down by authorizing a statewide vote on gambling.

Throughout the trial prosecutors attempted to paint the six defendants as greedy criminals that resorted to bribery because of their lust for money and power. But defense lawyer Joe Espy and others countered there was a total failure of proof in the case and that the prosecution was built on the testimony of "crooks" with plea deals and people with political motivations.

The case first went to trial last summer. Jurors deliberated for seven days before returning multiple not guilty verdicts but saying they were hopelessly deadlocked on other charges.
Prosecutors presented a pared down case this time. Prosecutors put on just two weeks of evidence compared to seven weeks in the first trial.

McGregor's charges he was found not guilty of this morning included three counts of federal programs bribery and one county of conspiracy.

The case was the latest in a series of government corruption investigations in Alabama, including the conviction of former Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy on bribery charges in 2006 and a probe of Alabama's two-year college system that brought down three legislators and the system's former chancellor in 2008.

The main pattern to look for is the accused and convicted bearing either the "D" at the end of their names or being known for having liberal stances. Yep, folks, these convictions were, for the most part, politically motivated. Not only did bottling up the forces most positive towards the legalization of electronic bingo secure the financial futures of both the Mississippi casino gambling interests and Alabama's own Poarch Creek Indian gambling interests, but it also secured the political futures of countless Republicans, as well as paving the way for current governor Robert Bentley.

In the end, Alabamians fell for the long con: the big guys get all of the money and the people they want in office and the average Alabamian is too busy declaring a moral victory over gambling or lamenting McGregor's acquittal to notice. Alabama is always thankful for receiving the long end of the stick in the wrong places.

Legal Schnauzer is a bit displeased that the Obama administration didn't nip this in the bud from the get-go, allowing Bush-era appointees within the Justice Department to run wild with political corruption cases designed to tar and feather Democrats and just about anyone not affiliated with the Grand Old Party or Alabama's special circle of good ol' boys and cronies:

If any of this shines unflattering light on the Obama administration, so be it. The president has either adopted many of George W. Bush's wrong-headed notions on justice--or turned a blind eye on his predecessor's corrupt activities--so now it's time for Eric Holder and company to "enjoy" some scrutiny under a white hot light. If it costs Obama the 2012 election . . . well, tough beans. The president has repeatedly proven that he is not deserving of progressives' support anyway.

The Alabama bingo investigation/trial was a disgrace from the outset, and the public deserves answers on why millions of its dollars were wasted on a sideshow designed to help Alabama Republicans. Obama has had almost four years to do the right thing on the justice front--to return us to a nation governed by the rule of law--and he has failed at every turn. He and his "justice department" deserve to be exposed.

Apologies to Legal Schnauzer, but I have to call a time-out. I'm not about to dump a truckload of blame on the president or Holder for this entire fiasco, but I will place blame where it's due.

If anything, President Obama can be blamed for not taking time out to clean house of the Shrub's old appointees littering the Justice Dept. and federal court system. Holder may have stood by and did nothing, but it was hangers-on like Leura Canary who made it possible for a clear-cut case of political prosecution to go on largely unchecked.

However, the last thing the president should do is attempt to knock heads over this issue before November. Turning over stones this early could easily give the GOP permission to paint themselves as "victims" of a "vendetta-driven housecleaning to insure Obama's reelection," something that'll give them renewed vigor and a way to scuttle the president's reelection chances.

BTW, as of yesterday, Alabama Republicans released their collective load of Santorum all over the state, leaving Mormon robot Mitt Romney a bit miffed as his attempts to assimilate his program into the standard Southeastern U.S. lifestyle and reconcile their belief subroutines with his own resulted in a suitable lack of response from the "Southern" flesh forms.