Reloading

Dana Loesch Speaks, Remarkably Does Not Shatter All Glass In Thousand-Mile Radius

...Loesch really hit on this point on CNN as well, as if it proves any fucking thing. Yes, Lanza had to reload. Had he only had ten rounds in each clip and had to pause to reload more often, might he have messed up? Might he have been in such a hurry that he jammed his AR-15 and had to clear it, giving some kids a few seconds to run for their lives, or some adult a chance to tackle him? Because despite Loesch’s certainty that anyone can change clips with the alacrity of Kate Beckinsale in an Underworld movie, it seems pretty clear that the more reloading one has to do, the better the chances of a kink developing in one’s plan. But don’t take our word for it, you shrill Gorgon. Ask Jared Loughner, whose rampage in Tucson only ended when he dropped a full clip while reloading. A bystander grabbed it, giving other bystanders a chance to jump on the gunman and subdue him...

Simpson Blasts GOP

Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson Says Male Lawmakers Shouldn’t Vote On Abortion Laws At All | Addicting Info

...Simpson referred to his party’s immovable stance on sequester cuts as “stupid” and “madness,” blaming the way the cuts were done on “emotion, fear, guilt or racism.” Republicans absolutely refused to work with Democrats and President Obama to avoid the across the board budget slashes that affect Medicare, programs that help children, women, and the poor, jobs, the environment, and multiple other government functions. This led Simpson to blast Republicans, especially those associated with the Tea Party, for their choice to obstruct rather than compromise, calling them “seethers” who “are as rigid as a fireplace poker, but without the occasional warmth.” In other words, angry and hateful people who lack compassion and empathy. Simpson used the example of the Founding Fathers and the writing of the Constitution as an example of how compromise is part of the fabric of American government and then suggested that those who refuse to do so shouldn’t be in government...

Silly Pot Raid

Kansas couple: Indoor gardening prompted pot raid - Yahoo! News

Two former CIA employees whose Kansas home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables...

Definition Of A Gun Nut

Daily PUMA

...A gun nut is someone who is so self absorbed in losing what they have to the government that all they care about is protecting their own property and to hell with their own neighbors and what they may be going through...

The Daily Uh-Oh: Korea Edition

The Korean Crisis: Kim's Dangerous Game : The New Yorker

Because we do not generally associate the Russian political class with understatement, it was easy to miss Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov’s observation, this week, that things in North Korea could potentially “descend into the spiral of a vicious cycle.” If the Russians—who have vastly more knowledge of the new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, than we do—are concerned that things are about to get worse, we should brace for a long spring...

Carrey Flogs Fox

Jim Carrey says Fox News slandered him in its coverage of his comedy web video | Fox News

...Calling Fox News "Fux News" in the press release sent out by his publicist, the "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" star also labeled the number one cable news channel "a media Colostomy bag."

GOP Continues Minority Outreach

Alaska lawmaker criticized for referring to migrant workers as 'wetbacks'

The second-most senior Republican in the House of Representatives said he "meant no disrespect" in referring to Hispanic migrant workers as "wetbacks..."

High Capacity Mag Indictment

Newtown school gunman fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes - chicagotribune.com

...To carry out the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the 20-year-old Lanza used 30-round magazines at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, said Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy after the previously sealed searches of Lanza's car and home were made public.

"We now know that he left the lower capacity magazines at home," Malloy said in a statement. "This is exactly why we need to ban high capacity magazines and why we need to tighten our assault weapons ban..."

Comment Of The Day: Diapers Edition

WaPo Rehabbing Diapers Vitter re:

Vitter’s efforts in the Senate outlast the shadow of his scandal - The Washington Post

MET9

3/26/2013 2:00 PM ED

He might as well enjoy it while he can. None of the people in congress are going to very popular among voters in red states when the real affects of the sequester take root. All of that evil government spending is finally coming to a stop, so all of those wonderful republican voters will soon get their smaller government wishes. I'm sure that they won't complain about the fact that they have fewer law enforcement officials, firefighters, teachers and such. That was just too much government.

Democrats Have An Attack Of Intelligence

The next big target for liberals: State legislatures

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has announced a new initiative from his group Democracy for America — over the next two years, it will invest in flipping state legislatures and building (or rebuilding) a Democratic advantage in state races around the country. “A little money goes a long way in these state legislative races,” said Dean in a conference call. To that end, DFA will spend $750,000 on behalf of five candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates this year.

It’s hard to overstate how smart a way this is for liberal groups to invest their time and money. Virginia, in fact, is a great case study for why it’s key for Democrats to make gains on the state level. Democrats control both Senate seats in the state, and it was key to Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012. Despite this, Republicans control all three statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general), the House of Delegates, and have the tie breaking vote in the state senate. The result? Republicans have been able to push a strong conservative agenda in the state...

No Reward For Dorner

Well, you could certainly see this coming the minute the reward was offered.

Groups Balk at Paying $1.3 Million Cop Killer Reward - ABC News

When ex-cop Christopher Dorner was hunting down Los Angeles police and their families, more than $1 million in reward money was raised for help in his capture and conviction.

Now that there are two sets of claims to the reward money, the groups that pledged the money are balking at paying because Dorner wasn’t captured or convicted. He died Feb. 12 when he shot himself in the head after being cornered by police and the subsequent gunbattle set fire to the house where he was barricaded...

Crazier Under Microscope

Michele Bachmann under congressional ethics investigation | StarTribune.com

Congressional ethics investigators are pursuing allegations of financial impropriety in U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential campaign, according to several attorneys and former staffers involved in the case...

No Rifle For Kelly

Gun store rescinds Mark Kelly's rifle purchase, questions his 'intent' | Fox News

...Store owner Doug MacKinlay said Monday in a Facebook post of his own that he "determined that was in my company's best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store."

"While I support and respect Mark Kelly's 2nd Amendment rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner, his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons other then for his personal use," MacKinlay said in the statement...

I don't get the justification.

NRA Still Digging In The Pit

Once you reach rock bottom, you ought to stop digging-- a lesson yet to be learned by the NRA.

Many Newtown residents upset about receiving NRA robocalls 3 months after school shooting - The Washington Post

Some residents of the Connecticut community devastated by December’s school shooting said they’re outraged over robocalls they’ve received from the National Rifle Association only three months after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Newtown residents said the automated calls from the NRA began last week and urge people to tell their state legislators to oppose gun control proposals. Some also said they received postcards from the NRA supporting gun owners’ rights...

Not Too Big To Attack

Community bankers call for big banks to be split up - St. Louis Business Journal

The Independent Community Bankers of America stepped up its public campaign against big banks this week.

It said so-called too-big-to-fail financial institutions get a taxpayer-funded advantage over smaller banks, receive favorable treatment from regulators, and should be downsized and split up...

The Return Of Analog Computing?

Lockheed Martin Harnesses Quantum Technology - NYTimes.com

Our digital age is all about bits, those precise ones and zeros that are the stuff of modern computer code.

But a powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time...

GOPer Budget Lies

The GOP’s Three Fiscal Lies - The Daily Beast

...So let’s review. The GOP is advancing three crucial lies: that we have to balance the budget; that public investment at this point is irresponsible; and that if we do slash spending and balance the budget, jobs will come. It’s all nonsense. In fact every assertion is the exact opposite of the truth. So why do they say it?...

How To Slam Obama

- Chasing Glenn Beck - DOES FOX NEWS HAVE PROGRAMMING CHECKLISTS? Unnamed source explains daily anti-Obama routine!

Some unnamed sources who might have said something like this at one time or another (depending on the integrity and thoroughness of the journalist possibly involved) today revealed the super-secret, ultra-special anti-Obama checklists used to plan everything on Fox News Channel every single day, over and over again...

They Do Not Love You

Nothing new under the sun | The Confluence

...But let’s not kid ourselves. This is the way of the powerful. They do not want to worry about the lives of others. That’s what makes power so appealing. So, knowing that, our problem is not how we convince the powerful to think beneficently and empathetically towards other people. Power makes them immune from such supplications. Our problem is to convince ordinary people that there is power in sheer numbers. The media has been very good at promoting learned helplessness. That’s where they excel. What we need is a movement that counteracts that message.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt

When Nuts Mix

Sandy Hook truthers are not giving up - Salon.com

Social scientists have used the term “fusion paranoia” to describe the merging of the radical left and right into a common concern about the government and centralized power to a point where they are almost indistinguishable on many issues. A British study released last year found that many conspiracy theories are pushed by core groups of people who are prone to believe in conspiracies of all kind — even contradictory ones.

And this isn’t Hunt’s first conspiracy rodeo. He has an e-book positing that Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide, but was in fact murdered, and a movie about the Illuminati...

NH Does Its Duty

Feminist Wire Daily Newsbriefs: U.S. and Global News Coverage

This morning, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to bar the state executive branch from privatizing the prison system. This decision contrasts with the state's position on the issue last year, when it considered a bill that would send all male prisoners to private prisons. The House said that states are constitutionally required to rehabilitate inmates, so shifting this duty to private entities violates the Constitution. The bill now will move on to the state Senate...

Crazier Lying Again

Obamacare 'kills': Has Michele Bachmann finally gone too far? - CSMonitor.com

Obamacare “kills.” That’s what Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota said Thursday on the floor of the House. In a fire-breathing speech, the tea party favorite and former GOP presidential hopeful urged her fellow lawmakers to “repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens..."

IDing The Vampires

Private sector parasites - Salon.com

You don’t have to be a Tea Party conservative to believe that the economy is threatened when there are too many “takers” and not enough “makers.” The “takers” who threaten the dynamism and fairness of industrial capitalism the most in the 21st century are not the welfare-dependent poor — the villains of Tea Party propaganda — but the rent-extracting, unproductive rich...

Crazier Making Crazy Accusations

Michele Bachmann runs away from CNN | Death and Taxes

CNN correspondent Dana Bash hauled serious tail in the hallways at CPAC to question the validity of Michele Bachmanns’s accusatory speech on Tuesday. The Minnesota congresswoman erroneously cited President Obama for “frivolous spending” at the executive mansion that includes having “five chefs on Air Force One” and “two projectionists” 24/7 in case the Obama family wants to catch a midnight screening of, say, “Humanoids from the Deep” (even though it’s totally on YouTube)...

No AW Ban

Assault weapons ban dropped from Senate gun bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he hopes have a bill to address gun violence on the Senate floor soon after the Easter break, but confirmed that measure will not include the assault weapons ban...

The Daily Flashback: Nixon Edition

Richard Nixon Tapes - History's Yard Waste Explored, Continued - Esquire

...There were 22,000 more Americans who died in Vietnam after Nixon sabotaged the peace talks in order to win an election. That's 44,000 more American parents. That's thousands and thousands more American children. That's god alone knows how many more men, women, and children in Southeast Asia, all of whom died, very likely unnecessarily, because of Richard Nixon's treasonous ambitions. Millions of people visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington every year. Everyone of them who comes to commemorate a loved one lost in the war after 1968 should say a silent prayer at the wall and then turn slowly, and, with great dignity and quiet grace, spit in the direction of the White House, just because Richard Nixon once lived there.

Stop & Frisk Challenged

Targets of NYPD stop and frisk testify - seattlepi.com

Devin Almonor, the teenage son of a former police officer, said he was thrown against an unmarked car and temporarily handcuffed walking home from a bus stop. Medical student David Floyd was frisked by officers outside of his apartment as he helped a neighbor locked out of his home.

For both, the experience was humiliating and frightening. They also say it was illegal, because they believe they were stopped because of their race. Both are black...

Inching To Resolution

Bill to avert government shutdown inches to Senate passage | Reuters

The Senate on Monday inched closer to passage of a bill to fund federal agencies through September 30 and avoid a government shutdown at the end of this month when existing money runs out.

Racing against a March 27 deadline, senators voted 63-35 to limit debate on the legislation so that it can be approved and sent to the House of Representatives for final approval this week...

Both Sides Selling Out Bases

Republicans differ on flexibility on taxes with Obama | Reuters

Leading congressional Republicans said on Sunday a broad deal with President Barack Obama on deficit reduction and entitlement reform remains possible but differed over potential flexibility on taxes, with the House speaker and budget leader not bending...

Newt Talks Sense!

Newt Gingrich: GOP establishment "mired in stupidity" - CBS News

...Again and again, Gingrich lit into both Republicans and Democrats for what he characterized as their myopic policy mindset. "We stand today on the edge of a great future, but Washington is blind to it in both parties," he said. "I've been trying for two-and-a-half years to get the House Republicans to understand. They control every committee and every subcommittee in the House; they could be having a hearing every week on" the promise of the future.

Unfortunately, Gingrich said, the GOP is "determined to avoid" thinking about it.

"It is virtually impossible to get people in Washington, D.C., to actually learn how to think about a new world," he said. "It is sobering to me to be standing here, as a senior member of this party, telling you from 1976 to 2013 we have the dominant wing of this party, which has learned nothing and is as mired in the past and mired in stupidity as it was in 1976..."

Please Keep Talking, Palin

'Mama Grizzly' Sarah Palin dishes red meat to CPAC conservative activists - CSMonitor.com

“Mama Grizzly” Sarah Palin served up red meat at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, lambasting President Obama and the “mainstream media,” sneering at efforts to “rebrand” the Republican Party, and telling political “architects” like Texan Karl Rove to “go back to the Lone Star State and put their name on the ballot...”

A Blow For The Constitution

National Security Letter Gag Orders Struck Down As Unconstitutional

Concluding that they suffer from "significant constitutional infirmities," a federal district court judge in San Francisco on Thursday struck down sections of federal law that allow the FBI to warrantlessly obtain private information under a gag order in the name of national security.

But U.S. District Judge Susan Illston temporarily put her order on hold to allow the government to appeal her decision, recognizing that a higher court should first be able to "consider the weighty questions of national security and First Amendment rights" at issue in the case. The authority of national security letters, government orders to communications providers to reveal user information, was vastly expanded in the post-9/11 Patriot Act. The federal government has made wide use of them in the name of the fight against terrorism...

Switching The Gay Hate Gear

Republican senator with gay son now backs gay marriage | Reuters

Senator Rob Portman became the most prominent Republican lawmaker to back gay rights when he reversed his opposition to same-sex marriage on Friday, two years after his son told him he was gay...

I have mixed feelings about Portman. On the left hand I am glad another person has seen the light. On the right hand I don't respect the decision much because it fits a typical GOPer pattern-- changing principles when the chickens come home to roost.

War-- Losing Or Winning?

Gohmert: ‘Vietnam was winnable,’ but ‘people in Washington decided’ to lose | The Raw Story

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Thursday asserted that the U.S. war in “Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!”

“One of the things that we’ve heard over and over again since Vietnam is, you know, we don’t want to get in another un-winnable war like Vietnam,” Gohmert told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I’m not going to debate the merits of whether we should or should not have gone to Vietnam, but what I will tell you is, Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!...”

Uh, dude, what people? Nixon? Oh, and I can make argument that the U.S. did win its war.

About The Shooters?

Since this is an AP story I can't include any of their words in the order somebody typed  them, but the tag-line says it all. No word at all on the disposition of the officers who opened fire on the obviously wrong vehicle. 2 women get $40,000 compensation for pickup truck shot up by LAPD officers during Dorner hunt | Fox News

A Truly Awful Bank Tale

Wells Fargo Bills Elderly Disabled Veteran To Death Over Typo

Every day, we wake up thinking that we cannot possibly dislike the banks (and their enablers) more than we did them the day before, and most of the days we are right, and our fear and loathing glides along on a steady keel. But once in a while we are proven wrong and learn of something so horrible that we are forced to critically examine our current stance towards the banks (and their enablers), and inevitably conclude that the intensity of our feelings requires revisiting...

Sounds About Right

Cable News Obsessively Covers Cuts To White House Tours, Virtually Ignores Cuts To Programs For The Poor | ThinkProgress

Thanks to Congressional gridlock, automatic budget cuts took effect 14 days ago, threatening 700,000 jobs and gutting funds for vital programs in housing assistance, early childhood education, disaster relief, and national security. Secret Service staffing was also impacted, prompting the cancellation of White House tours last week. Republicans immediately attacked the decision as a political move designed to turn the public against the sequester and 14 Republican senators signed a letter demanding information.

The media has also latched on to preserve the White House tours, while largely ignoring other much more devastating sequester cuts. As Ari Melber of The Nation pointed out on Wednesday, there are 12,000 news stories concerning White House tours and less than 1,000 about the sequester’s impact on housing assistance programs, which disproportionately affect low-income Americans...

GOP Follows Historical Precedent

Frank Rich: Surprise! Mitt As Robotic As Thought -- Daily Intelligencer

...The House GOP still doesn’t know that Obama won the election. This includes Paul Ryan, who is like one of those Japanese soldiers who kept on fighting on a remote atoll years after V-J Day, refusing to believe that his army had been defeated. What’s fascinating about the new Ryan budget is that it restates all the planks that failed to move voters when he was on the Republican ticket: repealing Obamacare, vouchering Medicare, cutting taxes for the wealthy, ending the Medicaid expansion (now already being lapped up by Republican as well as Democratic governors), and vowing to close tax loopholes that still remain mysteriously unidentified. Ryan explains this consistency by saying that to compromise on any of this means that he would “surrender our principles.” As I’ve written, the GOP is not going to move to the center after its 2012 defeat any more than it did after Barry Goldwater’s 1964 landslide loss to LBJ. It may even move further right, with each new Ryan budget being “the worst...”

Good Guys Making Money

Costco's Profit Soars To $537 Million Just Days After CEO Endorses Minimum Wage Increase

Less than a week after Costco CEO Craig Jelinek spoke out in favor of raising the minimum wage, the big-box retailer’s earnings showed that paying workers a living wage doesn’t always hurt business.

Costco reported a profit of $537 million last quarter, up from $394 million during the same period last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The healthy earnings report comes just six days after Jelinik urged lawmakers to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...

Comment Of The Day: Jerry Ford Edition

FDIC Covering Up Bank Bailouts - And The Banks Get Off Easy - Esquire

Matthew Pensinger · Top Commenter
As always, our deepest problems have their root in this: we let Ford pardon Nixon. We should have burned this mother down at that point. That established the precedent that's come back to bite us again and again and again: in America, the rules don't apply to everybody. Not even eventually, or reparatively, or secondhand... if some "people" (in the Citizens United sense) do it, it's simply, in practice, not illegal. Letting Tricky Dick off the hook established until the end of time or this republic that there just will not be consequences for the most powerful lawbreakers. No matter how egregious it is, or how pissed we get... that's the rule. Consequences are for peasants and suckers.

Shifting Economies

The Axis of Ennui - NYTimes.com

...By 2020, the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer, according to the International Energy Agency. The U.S. has already overtaken Russia as the world’s leading gas producer. Fuel has become America’s largest export item. Within five years, according to a study by Citigroup, North America could be energy independent. “OPEC will find it challenging to survive another 60 years, let alone another decade,” Edward Morse, Citigroup’s researcher, told CNBC.

All of this was accomplished by people who exist largely beyond the reach of the lavalier-mike circuit...

The New Ryan Pillage

...almost the same as the old Ryan pillage.

Paul Ryan’s budget: Social engineering with a side of deficit reduction

Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts remain, but the military is spared, as is Social Security. There’s a vague individual tax reform plan that leaves only two tax brackets — 10 percent and 25 percent — and will require either huge, deficit-busting tax cuts or increasing taxes on poor and middle-class households, as well as a vague corporate tax reform plan that lowers the rate from 35 percent to 25 percent...

Obama The Idiot

It's not the deficit, stupid.

Obama Falling Into Trap Again–It’s Not The Debt–New Occupy Movement Needed

Middle Class and Poor America must be climbing the walls. President Obama ran a middle class centric campaign and won handedly. He not only won the election but he added to the Senate and the House.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s policies were soundly rejected. President Obama’s 2nd Inaugural Speech gave the impression that he would be presenting his version of FDR’s 2nd Bill Of Rights.

What has since happened is that the President has fallen into the Republican trap. Once again the President has joined the Republican narrative that the biggest crisis facing America is our debt and budget deficits...

It's not the deficit, stupid.

Lieberweasel Gets A Gig

Joe Lieberman joins GOP think tank

Now there’s a surprise.  Former “Democratic,” then Independent, SenatorJoe Lieberman, who famously endorsed Republican John McCain forPresident over Democrat Barack Obama, just joined a Republican think tank, the American Enterprise Institute...

Stalking Horse Rewarded

After Watering Down Financial Reform, Ex-Senator Scott Brown Joins Goldman Sachs' Lobbying Firm | ThinkProgress

During his nearly three years in the U.S. Senate, Scott Brown (R-MA) frequently came to the aid of the financial sector — watering down the Dodd-Frank bill and working to weaken it after its passage — and accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash from the industry. Now, the man Forbes Magazine called one of “Wall Street’s Favorite Congressmen” will use those connections as counsel for Nixon Peabody, an international law and lobbying firm...

O ReNerds

Star Trek President Obama Regains Trek Cred?

..."After a very public mix-up last week, my communications team has provided me with an easy way to distinguish between Star Trek and Star Wars," Obama said, according to the official White House transcript. "Spock is what Maureen Dowd calls me. Darth Vader is what John Boehner calls me.”

Obama went on to make an even more blatant reference to his mangling of Star Trek and Star Wars terminology. "And in the words of one of my favorite Star Trek characters, Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise,” the president quipped, “‘May the Force be with you...’”

The ReLibing Of America

America Is Becoming More Liberal And The Trend Seems Irreversible As Tolerance Grows

One of my writing buddies, Tiffany Willis, at AddictingInfo.org wrote the article “10 Facts That Prove America Is Becoming More Liberal (VIDEO)” that put a very wide smile on my face this morning. I have been stating for some time now that America is not a Center Right country but a center left country. Generally when you ask people what policies they like and it invariably puts them in the Center Left to Liberal spectrum, yet when you ask them if they are Liberal many say no, they are Moderate, Centrist, or Conservative...

Death Dealing Drug Makers

New England Compounding Company Steroid Scandal - The Drug Scandal That's Finally Hitting The Big Time - Esquire

...But the principle obtained — make a deal to make a deal, and the devil take the details. Now, almost 50 people are dead because Everyone Agrees that The Market will always be more efficient at doing things like picking up deadly fungal infections than the dead hand of government regulation will. Some day, we are going to have to count up the cost of The Third Way of the 1990's, and it is not going to be pretty.

Banking Integrity?

War Bucks

10 companies profiting the most from war

The business of war is profitable. In 2011, the 100 largest contractors sold $410 billion in arms and military services. Just 10 of those companies sold over $208 billion. Based on a list of the top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in 2011 compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 companies with the most military sales worldwide...

Gun Control In Old Tombstone

Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone - Los Angeles Times

...And one fact is usually ignored: Back then, Tombstone had far stricter gun control than it does today. In fact, the American West's most infamous gun battle erupted when the marshal tried to enforce a local ordinance that barred carrying firearms in public. A judge had fined one of the victims $25 earlier that day for packing a pistol.

"You could wear your gun into town, but you had to check it at the sheriff's office or the Grand Hotel, and you couldn't pick it up again until you were leaving town," said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of True West Magazine, which celebrates the Old West. "It was an effort to control the violence..."

Ryan Attacking The 99%-- Again

Ryan: New House Republican budget includes ObamaCare repeal | Fox News

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Sunday that his new budget includes the repeal of President Obama’s health-care reform law known as ObamaCare.

Ryan told “Fox News Sunday” that the new proposal will make enough cuts to balance the federal budget in 10 years, compared to his previous one that tried to achieve that goal in 25 years...

The first thing that ought to be cut is Congressional salaries, benefits, and pensions.

Irony Thy Name Is Murder

Montana police: Cable hunting show host shot and killed by jealous husband | The Raw Story

Police in Whitefish, Montana said on Friday that Sportsman Channel host Gregory Rodríguez was shot and killed by a friend’s jealous husband.,,

Civil War Wanted

L.A. Times Warns Of 'Peril' From Home-Grown Extremists | Crooks and Liars

An L.A. Times editorial warns of the dangers of right-wing extremism, and says the government should be keeping a close watch on militias and home-grown "patriot" cells. Those of us here at C&L have been saying the same thing for a long time, especially John Amato and David Neiwert, whose book warned that Obama's election was sending the right wing extremists "Over The Cliff"...

NRA Spreading Fear

Russell Simmons: No Shame: The NRA Shoots Multiple Rounds of Fear Into the Black Community

...Just recently, the NRA has placed their bulls-eye on the heart of Black America with their new advertisement starring some black guy with a Yankees hat! Like Black guys wearing Yankees hats can have any success in this world! But with all seriousness, I find the message of this new video by the NRA deeply troubling, where the guy in the Yankees hat is advocating that our people arm themselves and fight the government (all under the banner of the NRA). Quite hypocritical of them, as during the Civil Rights movement, when the government was overtly oppressing our people, the NRA was quick to pressure legislatures across the country to get the guns out of the hands of the Black militants who were ready to fight back. Iguess those weren't the "well-regulated militias" they had in mind when they read their version of the Second Amendment. But, now that we have a Black president, and we have made great progress in creating a more equal playing field in America (although we still have much work to do), the NRA is encouraging us to pick up guns again and start poppin'. With smokescreens and a barrage of bullets, the NRA is intentionally playing into the fears of very few people. Very, very few...

The Skunks Are Spraying

Rep. Amash Responds to ‘Wacko Birds’ Comment - Washington Wire - WSJ

Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.) has words for Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) for the second time in as many months...

Solving SS Funding

The War On Entitlements - NYTimes.com

...Currently, earned income in excess of $113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 percent payroll tax that funds Social Security benefits(employers pay a matching 6.2 percent). 5.2 percent of working Americans make more than $113,700 a year. Simply by eliminating the payroll taxearnings cap — and thus ending this regressive exemption for the top 5.2 percent of earners — would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, solve the financial crisis facing the Social Security system...

No Jail For Drug Launderies

Elizabeth Warren: Banks Get Wrist Slaps While Drug Dealers Get Jail

..."If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're gonna go to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life," Warren said. "But evidently if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your bed at night -- every single individual associated with this. And I think that's fundamentally wrong."

ACORN Scammer Denutted

Wonket Sexclusive: Totally Blameless Crime-Stopper James O’Keefe To Pay $100,000 To ACORN Criminal

James O’Keefe—the blonde bombshell who set the conservative world of hidden-camera YouTube movies ablaze—has just agreed to a $100,000 settlement to calm down the unjustly fired (and weirdly litigious about it) ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera. According to a copy of the deal, obtained late last night by your wonkettes and viewable after the jump, O’Keefe has also agreed to ink an 11-word non-apology apology, that sources close to reality are calling...

The Trickle-Up Theory

The Nonsense of Austerity | The Business Desk with Paul Solman | PBS NewsHour | PBS

...In other words, once money becomes commonplace and banks exist to collect savings, there is no essential law of markets. Economic equilibrium becomes an accident, not a natural state -- it becomes a social construct that requires planning. Not central planning, mind you. Just some kind of public, purposeful, collective action that acknowledges the social purpose of economic growth.

At that point, I would suggest that you try to figure out what drives growth. But you don't base your decision on a theory from the 19th century, whether devised by Jean-Baptiste Say or Karl Marx. Instead, you might study more recent history. If it turns out that consumer spending rather than investment seems to be the key to growth, you should act accordingly. You should probably not resort to citing Say's Law.

Amen To Warren

Elizabeth Warren Takes On Eric Holder's 'Too Big To Jail' Statement

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took on Attorney General Eric Holder's admission that some banks are too big for the Justice Department to prosecute, asserting that Holder's statement illustrates why the financial institutions should be held accountable.

“It has been almost five years since the financial crisis, but the big banks are still too big fail," Warren said in a Wednesday statement. "That means they are subsidized by about $83 billion a year by American taxpayers and are still not being held fully accountable for breaking the law. Attorney General Holder’s testimony that the biggest banks are too-big-to-jail shows once again that it is past time to end too-big-to-fail..."

More GOPer Obstruction

Republicans Again Block Confirmation of Judicial Nominee Halligan - NYTimes.com

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the confirmation of Caitlin J. Halligan, a prominent New York lawyer, to become a federal appeals court judge in the District of Columbia, the second time in two years Republicans have filibustered her nomination...

Bill-O Melts Down

It's a "must see to believe" moment over at C&L: O'Reilly Attacks Alan Colmes For Telling the Truth About Spending Cuts | Video Cafe

Newt Advises GOP

“In the real world we were kidding ourselves” - Salon.com

...Do you believe long-term that the demographics are the biggest threat to the Republican Party?

No, I think the lack of ideas is the biggest threat. Look at what’s gone on with the sequester, OK? The fact that they haven’t held hearing after hearing for better ideas, that they haven’t told everybody in risk of being furloughed, “Show us the ways to save money,” that were just sort of – cut, to me, is not exactly a battle cry around which you build a majority. Saving, to some extent, is, but breaking out with better ideas, a better future, better solutions – that to me is where we’re going to have to go. And if you do it right, you can then appeal to virtually everybody in the country...

The Droning Of America

Pilot reports seeing drone near NY airport

The FBI says it is investigating the sighting of a small unmanned aircraft near New York's John F Kennedy International Airport, and has asked the public for help locating its operator.

Described as black in colour and no more than 90 centimetres wide with four propellers, the plane came within 61 metres on Monday of an Alitalia jet that was making its final approach to land at JFK, the FBI said...

Menendez Smears Blow Up

Lawyer: Escort Was Paid to Fabricate Menendez Accusations

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — A Dominican woman who once said in a video that she had sex with a New Jersey senator for money is now acknowledging that the allegation was false, according to a sworn statement released by a lawyer enmeshed in the scandal.

The attorney, Vinicio Castillo Seman, told reporters at a Monday press conference that the 23-year-old woman, identified as Nexis de los Santos, now claims in a sworn statement that she not only “never went to bed with” U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez but she never actually met him...

More Bad Journalism

Conservative News Scandals - Hard Times In The Monkeyhouse - Esquire

...This has been coming for some time. The conservative media establishment is so self-contained as to be positively incestuous, so it can't be any surprise that, sooner or later, there are some two-headed cousins gamboling over the public landscape. There is no internal governor to its enthusiasms; there are only wealthy sugar-daddies pushing the boundaries gleefully outward. There is the very strange and self-fulfilling sense of both victimhood and outlawry, that the people who cash checks from the Koch brothers, or from some shadowy Malaysian fixer, are the true revolutionaries. There has been no accounting because there has been nobody to call them to account, and that is not entirely the fault of the conservative movement. Actual journalists have taken a dive as well.

There's been a little crowing in the establishment media over the accumulated comeuppance. On the liberal MSNBC last night, Lawrence O'Donnell went to dinner on the Menendez material. But return with us now, if you will, to those thrilling days of yesteryear — to the 1990s, to be precise, because that's where it all began, and it began with the complicity, and the active participation, of the respectable press. This is one of those moments in which Bill Clinton must chuckle ruefully to himself before he gets on with his day...

Kurtz Hearts Hannity

Howard Kurtz stakes out a position defending Fox gas bag Sean Hannity then shoots himself in the foot on who started what.

Hannity-Ellison dust-up shows our broken politics - CNN.com

...Here's how it got going: Hannity had played a series of brief clips of Obama and began with this highly partisan comment: "If and when the Obama sequester takes effect on Friday, it's because the president is more concerned with fear-mongering than finding a solution to the problem that he himself created."

No sooner did he tell Ellison, "Welcome back, sir," than the congressman took, shall we say, vigorous issue with Hannity's opening...

About That Liberal Media

White House and Press Relations Getting Worse - Ken Walsh's Washington (usnews.com)

...For their part, Obama and his aides consider the mainstream media and the White House press corps too sensationalistic, too preoccupied with trivia and process over substance, and too eager to play "gotcha." Many Americans agree, although my feeling is that these criticisms are exaggerated, and that there are plenty of journalists who want to tell straightforward stories about what's going on, if only White House officials would cooperate. These journalists see their profession as a form of public education, and any White House would be well advised to deal with them rather than shunt them aside...

Injustice For Traitors

Long National Nightmare Over: Jailbird Scooter Libby’s Voting Rights Restored!

...In fact, Republicans are soooo into restoring suffrage to convicted felons that they hardly ever disenfranchise people just for having names that aren’t even the same as those convicted felons! Oh ho ho, and they also hardly ever disenfranchise convicted felons who aren’t actually convicted felons anyway! Goddamn we miss Katherine Harris. That lady was a walking Good Timesparty all by herself! But at least other secretaries of state are keeping the dream alive!...

Comment Of The Day: Scooter Pooter Edition

Comment by thefrontpage

Scooter Libby is one of about 5,000 reasons why about 100 or 200 members of the Bush II administration should have been investigated, charged, tried, found guilty and sent to jail for about 10 years-- each--and that is not a joke. The Bush II administration was literally one of the most corrupt and criminal administrations in this country's history-- along with the Nixon, Reagan and Bush I administrations. Again--no joke. The Republican Party has been simply a center of criminality and corruption for most of the past 50 years-- including scores of civil rights, human rights, war, defense, gas and oil, and big business crimes that have gone uninvestigated, uncharged, untried and unconvicted. The Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations are four of the worst, most criminal and most corrupt administrations in this country's history-- and skanky, criminal thug people like Scooter Libby are one of several thousand examples of this continuing corruption.

Swiss Have Good Plan

Swiss Voters Approve Limits on ‘Fat Cat’ Executive Pay - Bloomberg

Swiss voters approved some of the world’s toughest limits on executives’ pay in a referendum, a move critics say could make Switzerland less attractive to multinational corporations.

The initiative against “fat cats,” proposed by Thomas Minder, head of a herbal toothpaste company, was backed by 67.9 percent of the voters today, the government said on its website today. The turnout was 46 percent. Polls, including one by gfs.bern, had signaled that outcome as probable.

The proposal gives shareholders an annual ballot on managers’ pay. It eliminates sign-on bonuses, as well as severance packages and extra incentives for completing merger transactions. The initiative also includes rules punishing executives who violate the terms with as long as three years in jail...

GOPer Compromise: We Win

Speaker Says a Broad Budget Deal Is Possible, but Not With More Revenue - NYTimes.com

With federal budget cuts beginning to take effect, House Speaker John A. Boehner on Sunday reinforced his opposition to any deal to reverse the cuts that includes new revenues. But he and senior White House officials left open a narrow path to a comprehensive budget agreement that could restore at least some of the money at some point...

In other words, gut all social programs, so we get what we wanted to begin with.

Flogging (UnLiberal) O

Cannonfire--"Of Presidents and Panthers:"

...Electoral politics played no small role in the rationalization process. The unhappy prospect of saying the words "President Romney" forced many liberals to squelch their critiques of Barack Obama. But the election is over, and we must now speak forcefully.

He's Not From The South: Part Infinity

Former Tea Party Candidate's Sewage Rant Gets Him Booted From School Board Meeting | Video Cafe

...Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore on Friday said that Paladino was "demented" and didn't deserve to be on the school board because he had been caught forwarding emails that included bestiality, pornography and racism.

"Women having sex with each other, women completely unclad, African-Americans being apparently run over by an airplane," Rumore told WFBO. "It is really sick that anybody would give any kind of credibility to somebody like this being on a board of education..."

Cantor Claims Credit, Er, Blame?

Eric Cantor, the Sequester, and the Death of the Grand Bargain : The New Yorker

...This history is important—the failure of the Grand Bargain and Cantor’s insistence to “have it out” on these issues in the election led to the Byzantine agreement that gave us sequestration and, more generally, the seemingly endless series of deadlines and potential fiscal crises that we have experienced ever since. The Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain proposal was not necessarily an ideal compromise (plenty of people on both the right and the left disliked it), but at least it would have given us a single, comprehensive solution to our fiscal issues rather than the serial brinksmanship and dysfunction that we have now. And according to Cantor, he was the main force in Washington that prevented that 2011 deal from happening.

Mind Melds Work Best At The Point Of A Gun

Obama dismisses ‘Jedi mind meld’ to solve sequester | Hero Complex – movies, comics, pop culture – Los Angeles Times

...The president’s reply noted that he was not a dictator.

“And I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington,” he added, “that somehow, even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right. …

But if he did have secret powers, watch out...

Shooting In Concealed Carry Class

Texas school employee shoots self at training class to arm teachers

You really can’t make this stuff up.  A school maintenance worker in – wait for it – Texas was attending a concealed-carry class at the local school.

The school district was sponsoring the class as part of its program
to arm teachers and other school employees, in response to the Sandy
Hook Elementary massacre and the NRA’s call for America to arm its schools.

What could possibly go wrong?...

More of the same:

This is the future I also fear.

Vigilante Walmart shopper opens fire on shoplifter, hits three cars

I see the future. A future in which the NRA and the Republican party, along with Democrats like John Dingell, get their way, and America is armed to the teeth. Then we all get shot shopping at Walmart...