Nugent Accuses O'Voters Of Racism

NRA's Ted Nugent: Americans Spat On MLK's Grave By Electing Obama | Blog | Media Matters for America:

 National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent wrote that some people who supported President Obama "defiled the sacrifices and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and spat on his grave" because they voted for Obama "based on the color of his skin instead of the content of his character..."

Darth The Fire Bug

Dick Cheney Is Yelling Fire and Wonders Why No One Is Listening�|�David Paul:

...In his broadside against President Obama, Dick Cheney fails to grasp the central irony of his situation. Cheney wants us to respond to his cries of "fire," but does not understand that all we see when he speaks is the arsonist. Speaking to Charlie Rose, Cheney admonished those fixated on how we got into Iraq and, despite repeated prodding, he refuses to amend or apologize for a single word of an historical record on his watch that has been so deeply contradicted. Even as he scorns the president in a manner never seen before by one administration toward a successor, Cheney is a man with no sense of accountability for his own actions and his impact on the world around him...

NOLA Ex Goes Down

Ray Nagin, Former New Orleans Mayor, Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison - NYTimes.com:

C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday on federal corruption charges.

The sentence was less than the recommended 15 years, but Judge Ginger Berrigan of United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana told the court that the evidence failed to show that Mr. Nagin had organized or had been a leader of a corruption scheme...

Con Duped By A Commie

The Strange Trials Of Bob Menendez - Esquire:

...The latest—and perhaps greatest—example features not only Menendez, but Castro and Tucker Carlson, as well, and its historical resonance echoes through everything from the George Washington Bridge affair to ABSCAM. Let us explain...

Not Pot Is Not Not On Crime

Here's the Lawless Hellscape Colorado Has Become Six Months After Legalizing Weed - Mic:

...Marijuana-related arrests, which make up 50% of all drug-related crimes, have plummeted in Colorado, freeing up law enforcement to focus on other criminal activity. By removing marijuana penalties, the state is estimated to save somewhere between $12 million and $40 million, according to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate has dropped 42.1% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January. This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing Jan. 1 through May 31. Violent crime in general is down almost 2%, and major property crimes are down 11.5% compared to the same period in 2013.

As the Huffington Post notes, this is a far cry from wild-eyed claims by legalization opponents that legal weed was the devil's work and Colorado would see a surge in crime and drug use...

Crazy In NC: Hands Of Time Edition

How North Carolina Turned So Red So Fast:

On a wall in Larry Hall’s North Carolina House office is a poster that welcomes visitors to the state. It’s in the style of an interstate highway sign and advises those who look at it to set their clocks back 50 years. That touch isn’t a demonstration of nostalgia -- it’s a reminder from the House Democratic leader of his belief that the Republican majority currently running North Carolina has undone 50 years of moderate-to-progressive state government.

Hall sees the last half-century as one of steady achievement that pulled the state ahead of most of its Southern neighbors in everything from voter participation to higher education. Democrats, who ran the state during most of those years, now find themselves on the sidelines, watching a Republican legislature turn back decades of Democratic priorities and enact a starkly conservative agenda in a state that helped elevate Barack Obama to the White House. “Right now the environment is so antagonistic, so confrontational, you don’t get to do those gradual changes,” he says...

Your Police State At Work

Four librarians gagged and threatened with prison time under the Patriot Act | Police State USA:

Using the broad powers granted under the USA PATRIOT Act, the FBI demanded that 4 librarians produce private information about library patrons’ reading habits, then used an endless gag order to force them to remain silent about the request for the rest of their lives under penalty of prison time...

TX Insanity

Crazy Land - Esquire:

...It seems almost pointless to mention this but there is simply no state Democratic party in any of the 50 states that is so clearly, obviously demented. This is the Republican Party. Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru are not. In fact, I think all those bold conservative thinkers of whom the New York Times thinks so much should bring their Big Ideas down to the next Texas state Republican convention and see how far they get. John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell, and especially obvious anagram Reince Priebus, who nominally presides over Bedlam, need to be asked every day which parts of the Texas Republican platform they support and which parts they don't. They don't get to use the crazies to get elected and then hide behind fake Washington politesse when the howls from the hinterlands get too loud. We allow ourselves only two major political parties. One of them is completely out of its fcking mind. This is a national problem.

Nasty Parade

Float targeting Obama, library draws criticism:

A float comparing President Barack Obama's future presidential library to an outhouse has drawn criticism from some after it appeared in the Fourth of July parade in Norfolk.

It featured a wooden outhouse labeled "Obama Presidential Library" and a figure in overalls standing outside the structure...

Once again, Not In The South.

A Good Idea On Science Cranks

BBC staff told to stop inviting cranks on to science programmes - Telegraph:

BBC journalists are being sent on courses to stop them inviting so many cranks onto programmes to air ‘marginal views’

The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation’s science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues...

Americans Could Learn Here

Comment: Facing the ugly truth | JPost | Israel News:

...It raises questions about who we are and who we are becoming. Granted, Israeli and Palestinian societies reacted so differently to the murders of their countrymen. Israelis grieved, held rallies, called for unity and struggled with how to make things better. A few thugs amid the vast majority decided to take revenge. Arab communities, on the other hand, have reacted by widespread rock throwing, dragging Jews out of their cars and setting the vehicles on fire, and violent civil disobedience. The fact that Arab society still doesn't know how to express itself without violence is an issue that only they can deal with, if they so choose...

What You Didn't Hear About The Clinton Speaking Fees

Hillary Clinton defends $200G speaking fee for colleges: it goes to charity - NY Daily News:

Hillary Clinton defended her $200,000 fee for university speeches since its all for charity.

The former Secretary of State, in London promoting her book, said on Friday that she doesn’t hang on to the money she has earned from college events.

“All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation for it to continue its life-changing and life-saving work. So it goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation,” she told ABC News about past gigs, including a February speech at the University of Miami, a March appearance at UCLA and an April stop at UCONN...

Many universities are sitting on multibillion dollar endowments. They can afford it.

Here's Hoping...

My bold.

Unease in G.O.P. Over Mississippi Tea Party Anger - NYTimes.com:

The stormy aftermath of Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff has sent Tea Party conservatives around the country to the ramparts, raising the prospect of a prolonged battle that holds the potential to depress conservative turnout in November in Mississippi — and possibly beyond...

Good Labor News

Unions representing government workers gain ground in labor movement | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour:

Unions representing government workers are expanding while organized labor has been shedding private sector members over the past half-century.

A majority of union members today now have ties to a government entity, at the federal, state or local levels...

Wingnut Welfare Donor Dies

Richard Mellon Scaife, billionaire famous for attacks against Bill Clinton, has died - The Washington Post:

Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire publisher whose philanthropy helped redefine the American right-wing in the 1980s and 1990s and who helped underwrite a range of anti-liberal causes, most famously his political attacks against President Bill Clinton, died July 4 a day after his 82nd birthday...

Unfinished Banking Business

Obama says he has unfinished business with the banking industry | The State Column:

In a radio interview on Wednesday, President Barack Obama said that he has unfinished business with the banking industry, despite the reforms passed in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act...

 Don't we all.

NC Had One Of These

Elizabeth Dole...


Incumbent Roberts Struggles With Residency Questions - NBC News.com:

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts is struggling to combat criticism from opponents who say he shouldn't represent a state where he no longer lives permanently.

Roberts, who owns a property in Dodge City that he currently rents out, didn’t help that perception with a verbal slip-up during an interview with KCMO radio. “Every time I get an opponent – I mean, every time I get a chance, I’m home,” Roberts said in the interview. “I don’t measure my record with regards as a senator as how many times I sleep wherever it is...”

Dems Compared

Why Democrats insist on lying about how ‘poor’ they are | New York Post:

...Drug dealers create more middle-class jobs than these people do...

Wonder Who Got Polled?

Poll: Obama 'worst president' since World War II:

President Obama has topped predecessor George W. Bush in another poll, but not one he would like.

In a new Quinnipiac University Poll, 33% named Obama the worst president since World War II, and 28% put Bush at the bottom of post-war presidents...

Raygun was the best... bwwhahahahahah.

My '08 Vote Exactly

The Confluence | A weblog for Democrats in Exile:

...The reason I didn’t vote for him in the primary in NJ on SuperTuesday in 2008 was because I didn’t think he was ready to be president and wasn’t familiar enough with the mechanisms of government to be effective. It was pre-ordained that the Republicans were going to be a defiant, ruthless opposition party. I felt that Hillary Clinton would have a better grasp of how to get around the Republicans to get things done. Plus, I didn’t feel that Obama had been in Washington long enough to develop a working coalition of allies and congressional members. His coalition was going to be “gifted” to him from his campaign funders. It couldn’t be any other way given his lack of experience and time in Washington. Annnnnnd, it looks like I was right...