Bemoaning The New Status Quo

African-American Woman Tells Reince Priebus, Newt Gingrich GOP Ignores Black Minority (Video):

During the Q&A session at the Republican National Committee Summer Meeting on Wednesday, an African-American woman stood to confront Newt Gingrich and Reince Priebus for not addressing her community.

“Everybody’s talking about Hispanics, but African-Americans built this country, and continue to be ignored by everybody,” she said. “I don’t hear [African-American] voices resonating.”

Noonan Waxes Stupid

Noonan: Obama should defend blackface rodeo clown - Salon.com:

The vibrations have spoken once agains through their instrument at the Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan, who today advises President Obama to defend the Missouri State Fair rodeo clown who this weekend wore an Obama mask before getting run down by a bull for cheering fans. The state’s Republican lieutenant governor condemned it, state fair officials called it “inappropriate,” and the head of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association resigned over the controversy, but Noonan totally understands why the crowd would cheer the trouncing of a president in effigy, because: Obamacare.

“This is the reason many people don’t like ObamaCare. It’s also part of why people wind up making fun of the president at state fairs,” she writes today, linking to a story about disability rights advocates raising concerns about the health care law. On the blackface rodeo clown thing, “everyone should breathe deep” and calm down, she adds...

O'Impeachable

GOP pol: House could impeach president - Ginger Gibson - POLITICO.com:

Rep. Blake Farenthold thinks the House of Representatives has the votes to impeach President Barack Obama in response to an inquiry about the authenticity of the president’s birth certificate, but said at a town hall meeting he doesn’t think it would be the best approach.

“A question I get a lot, ‘If everybody is so unhappy with the president, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold, a Texas Republican, said at a town hall meeting Saturday according to a video posted on YouTube. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that, if we were to impeach the president tomorrow, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it...”

Bananas Growing In The Appalachians

How's that climate change going at your house? Weaverville Woman Goes Bananas - WLOS News13 - Top Stories

The Noose Is Too Good For The Bankers

Your mortgage documents are fake! - Salon.com:

If you know about foreclosure fraud, the mass fabrication of mortgage documents in state courts by banks attempting to foreclose on homeowners, you may have one nagging question: Why did banks have to resort to this illegal scheme? Was it just cheaper to mock up the documents than to provide the real ones? Did banks figure they simply had enough power over regulators, politicians and the courts to get away with it? (They were probably right about that one.)

A newly unsealed lawsuit, which banks settled in 2012 for $95 million, actually offers a different reason, providing a key answer to one of the persistent riddles of the financial crisis and its aftermath. The lawsuit states that banks resorted to fake documents because they could not legally establish true ownership of the loans when trying to foreclose...

The Theocracy Strikes Again

This Judge Forces Parent To Change Child’s First Name - Next? (VIDEO):

This story seems unreal in the United States of America. In short, Lu Ann Ballew, the Child Support Magistrate who serves the 4th Judicial District of Tennessee that includes Cocke, Grainger, Jefferson, and Sevier counties, renamed a Tennessee’s mother’s child’s name. She did this based on her own religious beliefs and the preponderance of the Christian religion in the child’s surroundings.

This is more serious than it seems on the surface. Many in the Right Wing get upset when they are compared to the Taliban, yet the type of control they attempt to take on the civil liberties and freedoms of citizens is immediately visible. The attempt in Tennessee and in various states governed by Right Wing politicians to pass laws against non-existent Sharia Laws as cover for their attempt at their own theocracy and ideological dominance is dangerous...

Scammer Not A 99%er

Detroit doctor charged in $35M Medicare scam gave fake diagnoses, feds say | Fox News:

 A Detroit-area doctor has been charged with bilking the government of tens of millions of dollars by deliberately misdiagnosing patients with cancer and illegally billing Medicare for the treatment...

From The About Time Department

Judge rules New York police's 'stop and frisk' tactics unconstitutional | Reuters:

The New York City Police Department's controversial "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said the city police adopted a policy of "indirect racial profiling" by targeting racially defined groups for stops...

Clinton Tougher Than O Sez Furhead

Trump: Hillary Tougher for GOP to Beat Than Obama:

Donald Trump warned Iowa Republicans in a speech Saturday night that Hillary Clinton would be a tough candidate to beat in the 2016 presidential election.

"Hillary is going to be tougher to beat" than Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, Trump said, and he urged Republicans to choose "the right person, the perfect person" at their next convention, ABC News reported...

Tea Party Mystics

Yes, this quote has something to do with politics. Go forth unto the link to figure.

The Tea Party’s paranoid aesthetic - Salon.com:

...For my money, the supreme expression of paranoid narcissism in recent popular culture is “The X-Files,” the science-fiction series that ran on FOX television from 1993 until 2002. For those of you who spent the ‘90s in suspended animation, the series follows two FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), as they slowly unravel a multilayered conspiracy in which elements of the intelligence community work with rapacious industrialists to turn over the planet to even more rapacious aliens. (At least, I think that’s the conspiracy; it had grown so incredibly baroque by the series’ end that I can’t be entirely sure.)In the final episode of the first season (“The Erlenmeyer Flask”), there is a scene that perfectly embodies the combination of nearly infantile self-obsession with barely suppressed panic that constitutes paranoid narcissism. Agent Mulder has devoted himself to exposing the conspiracy, largely because he blames it for certain tragedies in his personal life (the disappearance of his sister, the collapse of his parents’ marriage). He receives information that leads him to a decrepit warehouse on a bleak industrial boulevard. (Wonderfully, the warehouse is “Zeus Storage,” the boulevard is “Pandora.”) He makes his way inside, wanders down a dark corridor, then enters what appears to be an equally dark chamber. But as he moves forward, the gloom and silence give way to the green glow of instrument panels and the soft gurgling of water. He stops and stares at the scene before him: neatly organized rows of glass tanks, each of which contains a fully submerged, apparently human body, sound asleep and breathing effortlessly in its liquid bed...

What Congress Has Earned

Nothing. They deserve no time off, no pay raises, and no exemptions from ACA or sequestration.

Fox News Poll: Congress Doesn't Deserve a Recess:

More than eight in 10 voters say Congress hasn't worked hard enough to take five weeks off, according to a new Fox News poll.

Clinton And The Deep End

Oh, Shut Up - Esquire:

...But, more important is the fact that NBC News has an awful lot of bad stuff to "own" just by itself without worrying about whether or not Chuck's stand-ups from Iowa will undermined by the work of Miss Diane Lane. The continued employment of the self-refuting Joe Scarborough comes immediately to mind. (Hint For Joe: your very presence on MSNBC every damn morning proves that MSNBC and Fox are not "exactly" the same, not even "at night." Where's the outright disinformation coming from Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow? What precisely has Chris Hayes said that reminds you of something Sean Hannity said? C'mon, Squint. I'd like an offer of proof here. Man up.) Why not "own" the fact that the departed, saintly Tim Russert took a dive on the fakery surrounding the run-up to the Iraq War?

It is nice to know that some things in American politics never change. The Clintons continue to have an amazing capacity to drive otherwise reasonable people insane.

Turncoat Dem GOPer Quits

I quit! GOP Congressman fed up with partisan posturing — MSNBC: )

Rep. Rodney Alexander, a six-term Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday that he will step down at the end of his term due to congressional gridlock.

“Partisan posturing has created a legislative standstill,” Alexander said in a statement. “I have decided not to seek reelection, so that another may put forth ideas on how to break through the gridlock and bring about positive change for our country...”

Why Mitch Has No Chin

Mitch McConnell gets barbecued: Politics at its weirdest, Kentucky-style - Salon.com:

... As a native Kentuckian, I always had Fancy Farm on my radar as potentially interesting to attend, on a lark. My interest perked in ‘08, when it was rumored Barack Obama might schedule an appearance during his campaign; it’s clear to me now that it wouldn’t have been wise strategy for a presidential candidate, assuming it was ever under serious consideration. The level of decorum required of speakers at Fancy Farm is so low that it’s considered only marginally tacky for Ed Marksberry, an Owensboro contractor running in the Democratic primary and the least of McConnell’s threats from the left, to state the cruel but undeniable truth about the 71-year-old minority leader’s appearance (“People say he looks like a turtle!”) and make a political joke at the expense of his wattle (“After years of kissing the butts of corporate elites, he rubbed his chin right off!”). People cheer and jeer, journalists scribble in their notebooks. This year, I was curious to hear Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old secretary of state who, having painted only the broadest of policy brushstrokes in the primary, has the full backing of the Democratic National Committee and endorsements from the likes of Bill Clinton and actress/activist Ashley Judd...

The Post-Racial Kool-Aid

Cooper presents an intelligent and thoughtful critique of recent events. She will probably have her house burned down.

Jay Z needs better race politics - Salon.com:

...Though I, too, found the president’s remarks on Trayvon Martin to be moving, powerful and important, we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Hope is not enough. A compelling narrative of African-American exceptionalism is not enough. The fact that the presence of a black president and a black attorney general could make no material difference to the reality of a young black male teen walking down his street in Florida demonstrate the limits of the symbolic.

This is why no one gets a gold star simply for showing up. To act as though you should suggests that not showing up is a legitimate option. But in political times like these, truancy is child’s play.

The Toad Thinks Anew

Newt Gingrich sees major Mideast mistakes, rethinks his neocon views on intervention - Washington Times:

...Mr. Gingrich said it is time for Republicans to heed some of the anti-interventionist ideas offered by the libertarian-minded Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, tea party favorite and foreign policy skeptic.

“I think it would be healthy to go back and war-game what alternative strategies would have been better, and I like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul because they are talking about this,” Mr. Gingrich said.

Mr. Paul, a longtime critic of neoconservatives on foreign policy, argues that war must be a last resort and never should be used for nation-building...

Orange Alert Because Of Snowden?

Cannonfire: "Has Uncle Sam partnered up with Al Qaeda?"

...As I suspected would happen, we're seeing stories designed to emphasize the wonderful, heroic efforts of our noble NSA eavesdroppers, thereby justifying the great anti-Snowden campaign.

Remember the heightened terrorist "threat level" alerts throughout the 2004 campaign? Remember how those orange alerts completely disappeared after the election? ...

Useful Leakers

In Defense of Leakers: Snowden and Manning : The New Yorker:

On the day that Edward Snowden finally left Moscow’s airport in a taxi to take up Russia’s offer of temporary asylum and the sentencing portion of Bradley Manning’s trial continued, it is worth restating what should be obvious. Leaking classified information is a crime, and it can be damaging to the national interest; but, in some circumstances, it can also be a patriotic and useful act that helps bring about necessary reforms...

More GOPer Corruption

Is there no area of American life that is safe from the cancerous corruption of GOP politics?

No matter how angry I get over liberal bigorty about the South, I keep coming back to the fact that the GOP is worse-- about everything.

Florida education chief resigns over role in Indiana grade scandal | Nation & World | The Seattle Times:

Florida’s education commissioner, a rising star in a national movement pushing for test-based accountability in public schools, resigned Thursday amid accusations that he changed the grade of a charter-school run by a major Republican donor during his previous job as Indiana’s schools chief...

McConnell Faces Election Challenges

A New Poll Suggests Trouble for Mitch McConnell - David A. Graham - The Atlantic:

With Congress gearing up for the August recess, Mitch McConnell can focus on his reelection campaign in Bluegrass State. It looks like the Senate minority leader will have his work cut out for him.

McConnell faces fights on two fronts in his quest for reelection. First, businessman Matt Bevin announced a primary challenge from the right last week. Bevin's an underdog, but he's got the backing of influential conservatives including Erick Erickson, and as we learned in 2010, longstanding GOP senators can't take reelection for granted these days. Rand Paul also upset establishment pick Trey Grayson in the 2010 primary for the other U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky...