McCain Talks 2016

John McCain on Hillary Clinton or Rand Paul? ‘Tough choice’ - Tal Kopan - POLITICO.com:

Sen. John McCain says if it in 2016 came down to Sen. Rand Paul or Hillary Clinton for president, he might have a hard time making up his mind.

Asked about the possibility in a new, lengthy interview with The New Republic, McCain (R-Ariz.) quipped: “It’s gonna be a tough choice [laughs]...”

Crazy In NC: Personal Lament Edition

The State of North Carolina | Traveler at the Edge: By: Kristina Drye

I have watched the downward spiral of the state of North Carolina for the past months. At first, disbelief. Then anger. I think now I’m at the point where the amount the legislature has done is admirable. In quantity, of course. I have no words for the repulsive nature of its quality...

GOPer v. GOPer: Rand - Christie Edition

Sen. Rand Paul: 'Sad and cheap' for N.J. Gov. Chris Christie to use 'cloak' of 9/11 victims - Washington Times:

Sen. Rand Paul is upping the ante in his ongoing spat over national security with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, calling it “sad and cheap” for Mr. Christie to invoke victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to make his point...

O Caving To Corporate GOPers--- Again

Obama to offer Republicans a new 'grand bargain':

President Obama hits the road again Tuesday for another in a series of middle-class speeches, and a new offer to congressional Republicans.

During a trip to Chattanooga, Tenn., Obama will propose a cut in corporate tax rates -- a priority for the Republicans -- in exchange for new jobs programs, a prime White House objective...

Suitcase Nukes Not Real

Experts close the lid on 'suitcase nukes' - USATODAY.com:

...Nuclear bombs cleverly concealed in suitcases don't exist in real life. Even so, they have long been a popular Hollywood plot point...

Noblesse Oblige Updated

Millionaires to Washington: More Taxes, Please! | Mother Jones:

A pack of millionaires descended on Washington, DC, Wednesday to tell Congress to take more of their money. The Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group formed in 2010 to push Obama to allow the Bush tax cuts on millionaires to expire, are back, and lobbying for the same thing as Congress faces the looming fiscal cliff...

Too Much NSA Access

Glenn Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have ‘Powerful and Invasive’ Search Tool - ABC News:

Today on “This Week,” Glenn Greenwald – the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs – claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans.

“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future...”

Both national security and privacy rights can be handled easily and properly if the issue is rationally addressed. Yeah, I know, keyword in that sentence.

Double Pox "Patriots"

Rep. Peter King: Rand Paul’s ‘madness’ destroying GOP brand on security - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Sunday that the libertarian wing of the Republican party is damaging the GOP's reputation on national security.

King criticized Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a potential 2016 presidential candidate, for supporting Edward Snowden, who leaked information about the National Security Agency's extensive domestic surveillance programs...

ACA Causing GOPer Pain

Republican Health Care Panic - NYTimes.com:

...Yet even as Republican politicians seem ready to go on the offensive, there’s a palpable sense of anxiety, even despair, among conservative pundits and analysts. Better-informed people on the right seem, finally, to be facing up to a horrible truth: Health care reform, President Obama’s signature policy achievement, is probably going to work...

Twidledee Calls The Pot Black

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor aims to end "government abuse" - CBS News:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., pledged to put a stop to "government abuse" in the weekly Republican address on Saturday, highlighting a number of bills the House will vote on in the coming days to prevent "reckless" spending and protect taxpayers from agencies like the IRS.

Among the proposals Cantor highlighted: "We will ensure senior government officials accused of serious offenses and unethical conduct won't be paid while under investigation. We will put an end to lavish conferences and employee retreats by requiring online disclosures and prior approval by senior officials; and we will stop the excessive granting of hefty bonuses to government employees."

"Squandering other people's money is one of the easiest ways to lose their trust," he added...

Boggs Dies

Lindy Boggs, congresswoman and Democratic leader, dies at 97 - The Washington Post:

Lindy Boggs, a Democratic Party doyenne from Louisiana whose magnolia charm and political acumen helped her husband rise to U.S. House majority leader, and who then launched her own congressional and diplomatic career after his disappearance in an airplane crash, died July 27 at her home in Chevy Chase. She was 97.

The death was confirmed by her daughter, broadcast journalist Cokie Roberts, who said the medical cause of death was not immediately known...

Bank Steals Furniture

Bank Breaks Into Ohio Woman’s Home, Repossesses Her Belongings – But That’s Not the Most Shocking Part of the Story | Video | TheBlaze.com:

Having your belongings repossessed by a bank hurts, but it’s worse when it’s done by accident.

That’s what one central Ohio woman claims happened to her...

Dial Back Police Craziness

The modern age of police over-response began way back in '85 with the MOVE bombing. Everyone saw this coming and now the chickens are roosting and we are all stuck in the guano. We are close to the brink, but before we go completely off the cliff, let's try dialing back the police's ability to swat (pun) flies with Hellfire rockets.

Rise of the Warrior Cop - WSJ.com:

,,,In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They include Katherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006; Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn't a suspect in the investigation.

What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures? The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement...

Boner Flogs King

John Boehner Calls Out Rep. Steve King On Immigration Comments | Fox News Latino:

Calling the comments "deeply offensive and wrong," House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday elevated his criticism of fellow Republican Rep. Steve King over the Congressman's suggestion that many immigrants in the country illegally are drug runners...

Dueling Economies

The day the right lost the economic argument - Salon.com:

...When even USA Today goes all Keynesian instead of going Galt, the Right is clearly losing the argument about the economy. Conservative Republicans have enough power in Congress to block most of the progressive agenda. But they do not have a plausible alternative to the progressive vision of the past, present and future of the U.S. economy that President Obama has set forth.

Feds Finally Make Voting Move

Justice Dept. to challenge states on voting rights | Elections & Politics | News from Fo...:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Justice Department is opening a new front in the battle for voter protections, a response to the Supreme Court ruling that dealt a major setback to the Voting Rights Act.

In a speech to the National Urban League in Philadelphia, Holder said that as its first move, the department is asking a federal court in San Antonio to require the state of Texas to obtain advance approval before putting future political redistricting changes in place...

We're Crazy, But Not That Crazy

America’s scariest police chief shoots “libtards” and forms militias - Salon.com:

“...If necessary, there will be people coming from all over America to Gilberton to back up the chief,” a masked blogger who goes by the name Arch Angel said while interviewing Kessler for Before It’s News. “So if you think you’re going to pull another Ruby Ridge, or another Wilco, or another 7/7, or another 9/11, you got another thing coming. Because there’s going to be hundreds of not thousands of us there to back up the chief...”

Targeting The Right People

... for a change.

5 takeaways from Obama’s economy speech - Ben White - POLITICO.com:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday said America had “fought its way back” from the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression and warned Republicans not to create another budget “fiasco” this fall that could knock the country off course yet again.

In sharper and more traditionally partisan terms than many expected, Obama took credit for helping to shepherd the economy back from the brink while attacking Republicans, particularly in the House of Representatives, for engaging in an “endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals...”

Things We Can't Talk About

Limbaugh: “White race” should not “have guilt about slavery” - Salon.com:

...On his Monday show, Rush Limbaugh ranted against “white guilt” and “Caucasians” getting “blamed for slavery when they’ve done more to end it than any other race, and within the bounds of the Constitution to boot.”

“White guilt is doing nothing for anybody, and white guilt is not solving anything,” Limbaugh said. “And besides that, a little history lesson for you. If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians. The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world...”

Why We Need A Do-Something Congress

OOPS! Boehner Accidentally Admits His Tea Party Congress is a FAILURE - Americans Against the Tea Party:
...Meanwhile, the reality of the situation is that we desperately need bills to be written and passed. We need jobs bills. We need student loan laws that keep college students from being indentured servants for the rest of their lives while they try to pay off their debts. Our infrastructure is falling apart — bridges are collapsing, levees are breaking and our highways are a jumbled mess all over the place. We don’t need a hands-off government right now; we need a government that leads us forward. It’s one thing to repeal laws that are amoral or are truly hurting the country, but in this case the one law that Republicans have their sights set on is Obamacare, and repealing it will actually create a deficit, not shrink it...