The DCC does not like to support Democrats, unless they are conservative.

Larry Kissell, running in North Carolina on an entirely progressive/populist platform won a smashing victory, clobbering the incumbent 157,185 (55%)- 126,634 (45%)... 3 points better than Obama's 53% win over McCain in the district.

But almost as soon as Kissell got to Congress, he started to change.

The outspoken progressive champion wasn't quite so outspoken at first. And then he wasn't progressive either. The DCCC told him that if he hoped to hold the seat, he would have to vote like a conservative. He's a weak, insecure, vane and vacillating man-- and he flipped.

He started voting regularly with the Blue Dogs and, shockingly, after the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010, he actually joined the shriveled, shrunken caucus. Now he has no support among the progressives who elected him in the first place and the Republican-controlled legislature has redistricted him in such a way that he can't possibly win. Recall a minute ago when I mentioned Obama scored 53% in NC-8? Under the new lines, he would have scored 42%. Kissell is toast and he has virtually no chance to beat a corrupt Republican establishment hack named Richard Hudson, who won the GOP primary a couple weeks ago with a gigantic cash infusion of Chinese prostitution money (via Sheldon Adelson and Eric Cantor).

A real Democrat would be able to make that work for him. But not Kissell. He has no credibility with anyone. Yesterday Think Progress reported that he's now trying to take credit for the benefits his constituents are starting to get from the Affordable Care Act, even though he was one of the fucking Blue Dogs who voted against it-- and then joined with the GOP to repeal it!

Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC) voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and was one of five Democrats to support repeal of the law earlier this year. But opposition to health care reform hasn’t stopped this two-term Congressman from taking credit for it.

In June, this lying sack bragged about helping secure $379,167 in federal money provided by the Act “for a new health care clinic near China Grove in Rowan County.” “I’m glad to have worked to help secure this funding and will continue to make sure that our tax dollars are being spent here at home to put people to work and take care of our citizens,” Kissell said in a release and then dodged reporters who pressed him on the hypocrisy...

Kissell has also “refused to endorse Obama’s re-election bid” and joined Republicans in voting to hold U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

Go to ActBlue.com and see which progressive voices are in your district!

This is the level of hatred, loathing and disinformation the right has produced.

Another verbatim conversation from the wilds.... This is the level of loathing and disinformation  that permeate the conservative mindset. The hatred and vilification of the poor that Reagan began, is in full bloom, and the lies began by Atwater, Rove, Ailes, Limbaugh, Beck, and the other hate'riots told about taxes has firm root amongst low effort thinkers, the gullible and the selfish.


The Great Intellectual     (Really...That's his nick!)
07:18 PM on 07/27/2012
Romney didn't have a Olympic gaffe Romney spoke the truth. I guess the media and the Brits wanted Romney to lie and not mention what the British Press has been mentioning for weeks now.
Also what Obama said was not a gaffe it was his true thought. What I don't understand is how people can say his words were taken out of context. Don't mind the "You didn't build that part" which to me is astonishing a President would say such a thing. But what offended me more was the " They think they are so smart, there is a lot of people smarter than them, they think they work hard, there are people who work a lot harder than them" what I want the President to explain is who is they??? And how is that not a attack on success?

Me:
01:06 AM on 07/28/2012
The great intellectual has serious cognitive issues... What YOU heard is the edited version of Obama's statements...And refusing to accept the fact that you were lied to by right wing media and the Romney campaign.....
You were offended because you did not build the infrastructure that helped you to succeed?
I am offended by the continued belief in an easily disproved lie, by you folks, rather than taking the ten seconds to research your poutrage.

You have ignore the actual context of the president's statement and replace it with this ginned up nonsense...

The Great Intellectual
01:58 PM on 07/28/2012
Not at all.
Sorry did you hear the whole speech? Because I did.
How do you take "They think they are smarter than you they think they work harder than you" out of context?
Sorry his speech was full of anger and was anti success. Plain and simple.


Me:
5:07 PM 7/28/2012
Your comprehension skills are as weak as your argument...Those are simply not accurate quotations.

    "There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

YOU seem to be full of hatred for the president, or you would try to comprehend the actual remarks, instead of the Fox reaction to their own edited nonsense.


The Great Intellectual
5:59 PM 7/28/2012
Reading doesn't change my opinion. I watched the speech live. Anger and hatred. If he replaced Rich with Jew he would sound just like Hitler.

Me:
6:10 pm 7/28/2012
Thank you once again for proving a complete dearth of intellect, or any subject knowledge about Hitler, WW2, America's history, the POTUS or just about anything else. Where you home schooled by illiterate parents?

By saying, If you were Jewish, you did not get there alone.... Yeah...Hitler to a tee....What a mind bogglinly stupid assertion.

In an offshoot thread, same forum:

The Great Intellectual
02:06 PM on 07/28/2012
Actually I did built that Infrastructure. I was in Construction building a lot of Infrastructure for years. It is you who did not build that my friend.

Also I watched Obama's speech live. Not clips. His speech was full of Anger and Hatred. The whole "they think they are smarter than you" shows his Community Agitator roots. He despises people who can succeed on their own. He thinks by someone succeeding they must of made someone fail or take something from others. It is astonishing how you could agree with Obama's viewpoint and speech.

He used Anger, Envy, and Hatred to push for Tax Increases on successful people. Tax Increases that are only for Political Purposes.
How is raising taxes on the Rich making my tax liability different?

My taxes aren't being lowered so raising taxes on the rich isn't changing anything for me. I guess it makes you Liberal/Progressive happy though because you are unfairly taxing people who have more than you because you are envious of their success.

Me:
04:41 PM 7/28/2012
 “Good for you. Nope, I did not build it any infrastructure, that is correct. However I did defend it .

Anger and hate? Envy? Are you sure you watched the same speech?  Since Obama praises successful people frequently, and suggests that the very wealthy give back to the country that made them so, you see that as envy?
Your own superiority complex is on full display, since nothing you have stated is  anything more than the right wing echo chamber's version of reality.
Your taxes are lower than they have been in decades, so cry me a river with your ridiculous claims of unfair taxation...Since you built the infrastructure as you claim, YOU were paid by taxpayers, were you charging too much? Did you do it out of your love for country, or your love of money?

Tax revenues for the nation are where they were in 1950, when there was 100 million less people....You argue with opinion, half truths and your indignation and resentment that you are a part of a society, instead of a hermit.

This nation educated you, and allowed you to succeed as much as you could, and now you do not want to pay for anyone else to have the same opportunity that you did.
It's just selfish and small.”

The Great Intellectual
 5:57 PM 7/28/2012
No I do not want to pay for people on Food Stamps for three generations of their family. No I do not want to pay for generations of families to live in HUD housing. No I do not want to pay for the poor to have a Cell Phone.
The Government didn't give me any of those things to succeed. My family and I earned our food, our home, our vehicles, our phone by hard work not by a hand out.

Me:
 4:37 PM 7/29/2012
You have not done so since Reagan's welfare reform eliminated generational welfare in the mid 80s....
HUD? Everyone pays for that, including the people living in them, through sales, excise, gasoline taxes etc. Just say it, you hate poor people, especially poor people of color.

The government provided those things to everyone... EVERYONE!
You earned them, by being a citizen, and by being born into the Social Democracy that America was until the Neo-cons decided that America was only for the wealthy....

Unless you built the libraries, and the schools your family used, the roads you took to get to the schools, paid personally the teachers that educated you, personally laid the electrical and phone lines that powered your home and phone;  you received the bounty of America...You know, the very bounty you and your ilk want to keep from everyone you deem inferior.

It was handed to you by those who came before, and if you cannot understand that simple fact, your intellectual acuity appears to be that of a child. Learn the history of America sparky....Begin with the Depression, and see the effort YOUR grandparents and parents put into this society, the very society you hold in such contempt.

Try being a human being for one full minute and not the ignorant, selfish and pretentious asshole you appear to be.

Still waiting for his reply.

American Taliban?

Frederick Clarkson has written an important essay for Religion Dispatches about calls on the religionist right for revolution. NY Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas, is equating Obama with the Nazis and you'll even hear something about "bullets." in the video below:

In Metaxas' broken mind, Obama is Hitler and America needs to stop him now. Metaxas sounds perfectly reasonable-- he isn't drooling or screaming-- until you listen closely to what he's actually saying and realize he's mentally ill. Equating a regulation in the Affordable Care Act that requires employer insurance packages to include contraception coverage with Nazi atrocities probably makes a lot of sense to people who follow Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann... but it's this kind of hysterical hate talk-- this time in plain paper wrapping-- that is tearing the country apart.

“This HHS mandate,” Metaxas warned the matter-of-fact way of a psycotic in the grip of a delusion, “is so oddly similar to where the anti-Nazi German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself” early in the Nazi era. “If we don’t fight now, if we don’t really use all our bullets now, we will have no fight five years from now. It’ll be over. This it. We’ve got to die on this hill. Most people say, oh no, this isn’t serious enough. Its just this little issue. But it’s the millimeter... its that line that we cross. I’m sorry to say that I see these parallels. I really wish I didn’t.”

This is what Clarkson means when he explains how elite Christian Right "thinkers" are imagining revolution and encouraging whoever gets suckered into listening to their bullshit to do the same. Clarkson says that this doesn't necessarily mean that they are organizing or stockpiling bullets. "But it does mean," he says, "that they are trying out giving people a vision."

And this asylum escapee, Metaxas is not alone.

An Opus Dei Catholic priest C. John McCloskey wrote an essay that is a 30 year look back from the year 2030 describing how the Church was persecuted; that Catholics and evangelicals joined forces in a bloody civil war; and succeeded in breaking up the U.S. into independent regions. If Ayn Rand hadn't been an atheist she and John McCloskey might actually have been parents in more than ideology to freaks-of-selfishness like Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson, and the rigid ideologues of today's Republican Party.

McCloskey recently published an update of his paranoia driven essay. “I-- or perhaps my thesis” he wrote, “received quite a bit of vitriolic criticism from the elite mainstream media and even from the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press. A goodly number of faithful Catholic writers also found it dark and threatening, however, although I had intended it to be positive and optimistic.” “My avatar priest,” he continued, “looked back from the vantage point of 2030 to reflect on recent ‘history’: the story of American Catholics who became confessors and martyrs to the faith as the federal government of the ‘Culture of Death’ persecuted them.” In his original essay, McCloskey’s avatar, Fiar Charles, explained how “the great battles over the last 30 years over the fundamental issues of the sanctity of marriage, the rights of parents, and the sacredness of human life have been of enormous help in renewing the Church and to some extent, society.” McCloskey’s literary device allows him to avoid openly seditious language, while suggesting that conservative Catholics and allied evangelicals should prepare for civil war.

Is this is what crazy that Conservative Catholics and evangelicals are brewing? Sounds just like the nutty shit that radical Imam's come up with to convince young men to strap bombs to themselves.....Same crazy, just a different language....

Two things....

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/fla_republican_we_suppressed_black_votes/

And Patric Murphy's scathing Allen West site, that vilifies West by using his own words and insanity laced comments.

WhatWestSaid.com

Republicans are like frightened children......

A story in the Arizona Capitol Times by Jeremy Duda, one of many this week, expressing quite a bit of antipathy towards McCain for calling out Bachmann for being a divisive publicity hound. But this one is about a freak in McCain's own backyard who says he's going to lead an effort to recall McCain from office.

    A prominent Phoenix tea party leader who believes Muslims cannot be trusted to be loyal to the United States and should not be working for the federal government is incensed with U.S. Sen. John McCain’s defense of a top State Department official and is eying a recall drive against Arizona’s senior senator.

    Wes Harris, the founder and chairman of the Original North Phoenix Tea Party, said he plans to take out a recall petition against McCain. While Harris has many problems with McCain, a mass email he sent out focused solely on the senator’s recent defense of Huma Abedin, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Harris accused Abedin of having ties to an Islamic extremist group, and he objected to the fact that a Muslim was working for the State Department in the first place.

    Harris said he believes Muslims’ loyalty to the U.S. is questionable because their ultimate loyalty is to the Quran and Islam, which he described as “more a fascist type of organization.”

    “Have you ever read the Quran? I suggest you do so, because anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country, and that’s a fact,” Harris told the Arizona Capitol Times. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If they are Muslim they have to follow the Quran. That’s their religion and that’s their doctrine.”

    Harris said he plans to circulate recall petitions against McCain. In his email, he said, “We must find a way to get rid of this embarrassment.”

    The email Harris sent includes a forwarded item from the blog Bare Naked Islam that castigates McCain for defending “Islamic enemies of America” and attacking U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican and tea party favorite. The blog piece ends by saying, “Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap.”... “Is she a Muslim? Is she an active Muslim?” Harris said. “I rest my case. That’s all she needs to be.”


Easy enough to dismiss someone as obviously profoundly disturbed as the King of the North Phoenix Tea Party... but what about when a U.S. Congressman-- albeit one who only pops his head out of his anus from time to time-- sounds just as deranged. Yes, of course I'm talking about the most embarrassing buffoon Texas has ever sent to Washington, and that inclueds GW Bush, Louie Gohmert. He called McCain "numb nuts" on the Dennis Miller Show... yeah, it's that kind of show and Gohmert is that kind of congressman.

And the award for dumbest man in Congress goes to LOUIE GOHMERT!!!

Collapse this post

Billionaires are purchasing our Democracy, tanks to Citizens United.

The virulently-- and historically-- anti-democracy Koch family usually gets blamed for the financial elite's move against the democratic form of government they and other obscenely rich conservatives have always despised and feared. The move to get rid of democracy once and for all is really rolling now and it goes way beyond just the Kochs.

Organized crime figure and reputed operative for the governments of both China and Israel, Sheldon Adelson and his Israeli wife, are now the biggest contributors to the Republican Party, to the campaign to elect Mitt Romney and to both Eric Cantor and John Boehner. Adelson, under investigation for a myriad of serious national security violations as well as for corruption at home and abroad, has given Boehner and Cantor $5,000,000 each, an unprecedented amount of money for congressional efforts in the history of America, a bribe made possible by the 5 anti-democratic corporate whores on the Supreme Court-- Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito.

A lot of the unregulated cash flowing into the Romney efforts go to the Restore Our Future superPAC, which, appears to be 100% coordinated with the Romney's campaign, which is patently illegal.

Many of the biggest donors are shadowy figure who have become commonly known now. Each of these has given at least a million dollars to Restore Our Future.

    • Miriam Adelson Sheldon's Israeli wife, a drug addiction specialist, known for pushing methadone treatment, which just switches the drug addicted to. Donation: $5 million

    • Bob Perry- Houston home builder and the original financier of the swiftboat liars and scum. Total donations: $6 million

    • F8 LLC and Eli Publishing- Very shady Provo-based firms that share an address and are eager to finance a Mormon take over of America. Both have been linked to former executives of Nu Skin, a Utah-based skin care and cosmetics company. Total donations: $2 million

    • Oxbow Carbon & Minerals- a West Palm Beach-based firm run by Bill Koch, third of the notorious Koch brothers. Total Oxbow Carbon and Koch donations: $2 million

    • Julian Robertson- Predatory hedge fund manipulator and major credit default swap crook. Total donations: $1.3 million

    • Frank VanderSloot- Obsessed with hatred of gay people, an Idaho pyramid scheme crook and Mormon supremacist who runs fake nutritional and makeup company, Melaleuca. Total donations: $1.1 million

    • Kenneth Griffin- Chicago-based hedge fund manager and CEO of Citadel LLC. Total donations: $1.1 million

    • Huron Carbon- another shady shell company that shares its address in Florida with Oxbow Carbon. Donation: $1 million

    • Crow Holdings- Dallas-based investment firm managing the wealth of the family of the late Dallas real estate mogul Trammell Crow, whose sons Harlan and Trammell S. Crow are also donors. Total Crow Holdings and Crow donations: $1.3 million

    • John Paulson- another sleazy hedge fund manager who, like so many Romney top financial supporters, became fabulously wealthy by short-selling subprime mortgages and tanking the American economy for their own private gain. None have ever gone to trial, I feel one of one of the Obama administration's greatest shortcomings. Donation: $1 million

    • John Kleinheinz- Texas hedge fund manager and criminal thug. Donation: $1 million

    • Edward Conard- Another Bain Capital vulture who headed the Wall Street operation for the Boston based Romney corporate raisers and outsourcers Donation: $1 million

    • Paul and Sandra Edgerly- Paul Edgerly is another Bain Capital predator who got rich destroying businesses across America. Total donations: $1 million

    • Robert Mercer- Far right hedge fund manager at Renaissance Technologies. Donation: $1 million

    • Paul Singer- Another corrupt hedge fund manager (Elliott Management) and swiftboat financier who buys distressed debt cheaply and sells it at a profit, often by suing for full payment. Donation: $1 million

    • Rooney Holdings Inc (AKA- Rooney Brothers)- private investment operation and owner of Manhattan Construction, which builds large projects at taxpayer expense, bilking everyone along the way of all the money they can. Total donations: $1 million

    • Richard Marriott- Key member of the Mormon Mafia. Total donations: $1 million

    • J.W. Marriott Jr.- Another Key member of the Mormon Mafia. Total donations: $1 million

    • Steven Webster- Predatory leveraged buyout specialist at Avista Capital in Houston. Total donations: $1 million

    • John Childs- Another predatory leveraged buyout specialist, founder of J.W. Childs Associates LP in Florida. Donation: $1 million

    • Robert Brockman- CEO at Reynolds and Reynolds, a Dayton, Ohio-based car dealership support company that shares a P.O. Box with CRC Information Systems Inc, Fairbanks Properties LLC and Waterbury Properties LLC, which split the donation three ways. Total donations: $1 million

    • Miguel Fernandez- chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm. MBF Family Investments also donated to the Super PAC. Total donations: $1 million

On top of that, of course, is American Crossroads, the swiftboating operation being run against Democrats by Rove. As of the end of June they had raised over $40 million. Their million dollar and above donors include:

    • Harold Simmons- billionaire Dallas bankster and father of the leveraged buy-out scheme who operates on the premise that the rich shouldn't pay taxes; currently owner and CEO of Contran Corp. Total donations: $11 million

    • Bob Perry- (See above) Total donations: $4.5 million

    • Joe Craft- Billionaire coal executive from Tulsa, Oklahoma, CEO of Alliance Holdings, which is also a donor. Total donations: $2.1 million

    • Contran Corp- Simmons' Dallas-based maker of titanium components. Total donations: $2 million

    • Jerry Perenchio Living Trust- a trust of billionaire television tycoon A. Jerrold Perenchio, who is a former chairman of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. Donation: $2 million

    • Crow Holdings - Dallas-based real estate investment firm. Total donations: $1.5 million
    • Robert Rowling- an Irving, Texas, businessman and a conservative and active Republican donor. Donation: $1 million

    • TRT Holdings, Inc- Anti-gay fanatic Robert Rowling's company which runs the Omni Hotel and Gold's Gyms chains. Total donation to Rove's operations: over $6 million

    • Robert Brockman- (See above) Total donations: $1 million

    • Whiteco Industries- Indiana-based company involved in advertising, construction entertainment and hotels. Donation: $1 million

    • Philip Geier- Propaganda expert. Total donations: $1 million

    • Irving Moskowitz- Like Adelson, a shady gambling magnate and Florida bingo executive who supports Israeli's taking over Palestinian land in East Jerusalem Donation: $1 million

    • Kenneth Griffin- (see above) Total donations: $1 million

What do these billionaires want for their money? What kind of returns are they expecting?

Republicans tell American workers to fuck off!

Debbie Stabenow's S. 3364, the Brings Jobs Home Act, is a pretty simple bill and a bipartisan majority of the Senate supports it. But Mitch "I am a corporate whore" McConnell, in a desperate attempt to not embarrass Mitt Romney', with his long record at Bain of outsourcing and offshoring American jobs as part of his company's very profitable business model, is big shock... filibustering the bill and keeping it from being voted on.

This week, Harry Reid tried once again to bring the bill up for a vote and his attempt failed, 56 voting in favor (every single Democrat plus 4 Republicans) and 42 conservatives voting NO.

Remember when a majority vote was all that was needed to pass legislation? Oh yeah! That ended the day Democrats took the majority.

This bill is probably one of the least contentious pieces of legislation for American voters and support is practically universal:

    Bring Jobs Home Act-- Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) grant business taxpayers a tax credit for up to 20% of insourcing expenses incurred for eliminating a business located outside the United States and  relocating it within the United States, and (2) deny a tax deduction for outsourcing expenses incurred in relocating a U.S. business outside the United States. Requires an increase in the taxpayer's employment of full-time employees in the United States in order to claim the tax credit for insourcing expenses.

Is it time for an adult conversation about gun control?

On May 30, 2012 a gunman walked into Café Racer in Denver Colorado and killed four people.

On January 17, 1989, a gunman in Stockton, California walked onto a playground and opened fire, killing 5 children and injuring 30 more.

On July 1, 1993, a gunman in San Francisco walked into a law office and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 6.

On April 20, 1999, two gunmen in Columbine, Colorado walked into their high school and opened fire, killing 13 people and injuring 21 others.

On January 16, 2002, a gunman in Virginia walked into a law school and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 3.

On July 8, 2003, a gunman in Mississippi walked into a factory and opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 8.

On March 21, 2005, a gunman in Minnesota walked into a high school and opened fire, killing 7 and injuring 5.

On November 20, 2005, a gunman in Tacoma walked into the mall and opened fire, injuring 6.

On March 25, 2006, a gunman in Seattle walked into a party and opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 2.

On February 12, 2007, a gunman in Utah walked into a mall and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 4.

On April 16, 2007, a gunman in Virginia walked onto the Virginia Tech campus and opened fire, killing 32 people and wounding 17 others.

On December 5, 2007, a gunman in Nebraska walked into a mall and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 4.

On December 9, 2007, a gunman in Colorado Springs walked onto a church parking lot and opened fire, killing 2 and wounding 3.

On February 7, 2008, a gunman in Missouri walked into a city council meeting and opened fire, killing 5 and wounding 2.

On February 14, 2008, a gunman in Illinois walked onto a college campus and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 17.

On June 25, 2008, a gunman in Kentucky walked into a factory and opened fire, killing 5 and injuring 1.

On January 24, 2009, a gunman in Portland walked up to a nightclub and opened fire, killing 2 and injuring 7.

On March 29, 2009, a gunman in North Carolina walked into a retirement home and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 2.

On August 4, 2009, a gunman in a suburb of Pittsburgh walked into a fitness club and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 9.

On November 5, 2009, a gunman at Fort Hood in Texas walked into a medical center and opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 29.

On November 29, 2009, a gunman in Lakewood, Washington walked into a coffee shop and killed 4 police officers.

On January 7, 2010, a gunman in St Louis walked into a power plant and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 6.

On January 12, 2010, a gunman in Georgia walked into a truck rental place and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 2.

On February 12, 2010, a gunwoman in Alabama stood up in a college faculty meeting and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 3.

On August 3, 2010, a gunman in Connecticut walked into a warehouse and opened fire, killing 8 and injuring 2.

On August 7, 2011, a gunman in Ohio broke into his girlfriend’s house and opened fire, killing 7 and injuring 1.

On September 6, 2011, a gunman in Nevada walked into a pancake restaurant and opened fire, killing 4 and injuring 7.

On October 5, 2011, a gunman in Cupertino, California walked into a quarry where people were working and opened fire, killing 3 and injuring 7.

There are more....Many more. Yet only one of these was called terrorism. Guess why?

Xenophobia rules the conservative mindset.

It was nice that McCain had the guts to stand up to the Islamophobic sociopaths in his own party-- and lucky for her and the country that he knows Huma Abedin, who is married to former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is Jewish, personally. Nice to see some sanity, even if McCain has problems with reality at times.

But where's the GOP's presumptive leader on this. Have you heard a peep from Mitt Romney?
Of course not.

Mitt Romney has never bothered to take on the radical freaks like Gohmert and Bachmann and the rest. Right now they're beating him into the ground about his desire to not give Sarah Palin a prime time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. They'll win-- just the way virulent homophobe and Christian impersonator Bryan Fischer forced Romney to fire his one gay staffer.

Romney is a classic coward-- fine to lead a bunch of teenagers terrorizing a younger student then hold him down and cut his hair, but standing up to bigger boys?
Mitt Romney?  When a woman at a rally called the president a "Monster", he responded weakly "That is not a term I would use"....Way to take a stand Willy.

He's the most dangerous kind of cowardly bully we could ever dream of giving elected office.

Even John Boehner spoke up tepidly in defense of Huma, chastising Bachmann and reminding decent Americans of all stripes that Bachmann's baseless hate-fueled accusations were "pretty dangerous." . Future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on he other hand, praised McCain for “his powerful rejection of these baseless accusations.

The 5 Congresspeople, vying for the title, "Dumbest in Congress", Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Tom Rooney (R-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) and Ms. Bachmann (R-MN), are in the midst of a shared paranoid delusion that Muslim terrorists have infiltrated our government...The logical twists and turns needed to attach Huma to the Muslim Brotherhood is convoluted, and circumstantial at best.

Ms. Bachmann's attachment to terror groups is far less convoluted.

HSBC Holdings, accused in a Senate report this week of exposing the U.S. financial system to illegal funds from Saudi Arabian terrorists, Mexican drug cartels and rogue regimes in North Korea and Cuba, is a major donor of Ms. Bachmann's.

A paranoid individual might suggest that she implicated Huma and others in order to divert attention from her connections to terrorism and drug trafficking. But that would be wild speculation and merely guilt by association, and who would do that?

Bribing Members of Congress is a cost of doing business for Big Pharma. Lobbying and bribing congressman (which in reality is just giving them their cut of the profits of what they rip off from American consumers) is nothing compared to what they spend on advertising. As for who to bribe... they have it down pat. Here are the Big Seven for the 2012 electoral cycle:

Cantor, Boehner and McCarthy control the House agenda, so they automatically get their cuts. Fred Upton is the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Pitts chairs that Committee's subcommittee on Health and Eshoo is one of the senior Democrats on the Committee. And Dave Camp is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and chairs the Joint Committee on Taxation. For a few paltry bucks to a handful of greedy corrupt Members of Congress, Big Pharma gets to charge American consumers 400% more than people anywhere else for the same drugs. What could be better?

Dr. Syed Taj is the Democrat running for the now empty Thaddeus McCotter seat in the Detroit suburbs. He thinks John Aravosis hit the nail right on the head...
http://www.americablog.com/2012/07/i-just-paid-111-in-paris-for-drugs-that.html

"Much more than just dollars and cents are at stake in the health care and pharmaceutical industries. When insurance companies raise rates or deny coverage to increase profits, or when pharmaceutical companies increase costs because the demand will be met regardless, the wellbeing and general health of millions of people are affected. When middle-class Americans are forced to pay upwards of $8,000 a month for cancer treatment medication, it’s obvious our priorities are not in the right place.

It’s been shown that drug companies price discriminate-– they sell drugs in Canada and elsewhere for less because they know they can still hike prices in the United States. This is proof that a laissez faire pharmaceutical market does not work; the
greater the profits for drug companies, the sicker and poorer people become."

What the fuck is wrong with Texas Republicans?

 Seriously, they are the single most backwards thinking people outside of Mississippi republicans.... It seems that they want to abolish critical thinking, because that might harm children's "Fixed beliefs"..You know, superstitions and racism....

In a document  that outlines their platform, it becomes frighteningly clear:

The Republicans it seems are against government interference and demanding strict adherence to the original intent of both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. They then proceed immediately to the sanctity of a fertilized egg and the end of a woman's right to privacy regarding her reproductive health. They acrobatically flip between a fierce belief in the freedom of choice and demanding limits on that freedom. They have decided to tell Texans, exactly what constitutes a family. Families must consist of the marriage of a "natural" man and a "natural" woman.
Period.
Lest we think that the "un-naturals" have any legitimate rights or choices. Number 11 on the rambling preamble list makes no sense, but gives an insight to the dominionist ideology presented here:

    11) "The laws of nature and nature's God" as our Founding Father's Believed.

 They are also screeching for more border security, and against Washington D.C. becoming a state. In no particular order they are also against:
Executive Orders
Affirmative Action
The Voter Rights Act
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Campaign Finance Reform

And a host of other things including flag desecration. Flag desecration it seems is far more important to Texas Republicans than education, because education is mentioned four pages later. After a few more demands such as the return of plaques honoring the Confederate Widow's Pension Fund, they get down to the telling their constituents what constitutes a family.

The next four pages go into fine detail just exactly what a family is and is not. According to the Republicans a family consists of those related by blood, heterosexual marriage or adoption. That's it.

Domestic Partnerships do not count! Gay or straight, kids or no kids, you are not and can not be considered a family.

Period.

On the subject of gays they let their bigot flags fly!: " Homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family."

Not only can gays never be a family or have a family other than the one they were born into, they are said to be directly responsible for tearing families apart...Based on I am sure "Biblical facts".....

From here they go into insane ramblings around all things "life" related for three pages and it is a tough read to be sure. They want to repeal Roe v. Wade, ban stem cell research and go on a tear against Title X, Public Health Services and Medicaid.

I was already deciding that these were the most corrupt, bigoted moronic folks to ever walk the Earth when suddenly,  there it was... a statement repudiating "Human Trafficking." OK,  we can agree on that.  The practice of selling young usually poor, usually minority girls into prostitution must absolutely be abolished.

Next he Texas Republicans address the matter of health care by promoting self-sufficiency in all things. This sounds good on paper and would be quite noble if it was even possible. Of course this asinine mentality has resulted in Texas leading the way, "NUMBER 1!! in uninsured children and adults and last in everything else.
50 out of 50...Not exactly a "Great State"....

As for their ideas about education, they start of...START OFF! Demanding that students should pledge allegiance to the American and Texas flags. They want career and technology programs, corporal punishment and equal treatment of "all" sides of scientific theories around things like life origins and environmental change; you know, the science side and the religious or the current corporate side.

I get it, calling for measures that will indoctrinate children with their preferred religious and social values. No surprise there, but the next two points of the Republican agenda are mind boggling... Really pull down your pants and slide on the ice kind of mind boggling . As in put down your beverage or you might do a "spit-take", loony tunes!
This is a direct quote from their PDF, because you have to read it to fucking  believe it.

    "We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development. "

And the second point will cause any reasonable thinking person to just stroke out:

    "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

For fuck sake!!! Isn't that the entire POINT OF AN EDUCATION?

Again, this is Texas....Where they rewrote their history textbooks to more coincide with current conservative Christian ideology, as opposed to historical facts...But this is the Religious Reich's real goal, a nation of indoctrinated Christian simpletons who believe that the Founders were all Evangelical Christian Ministers, and Free Market, Prosperity Gospel, Capitalists.

Thank you Mr. Reagan for bringing these dingbats into government, and blurring the lines between Church and State, you and your followers and their Randian bullshit set this country into a flaming death spiral, and lowered the bar enough so that a man, who had no real talents other than baseball and stubbornness to rise to the highest office in America.

He was a Texan...Go figure.

Who are the Bros. Koch? And why have they bought the Republican party?

The Koch family has always been a very foreign, profoundly anti-American operation. The family background is a collage of racism, fascism and hate. Looking at it makes clear the genesis of the current generation as the biggest threat to American democracy since the Nazis -- and for many similar-- if not identical-- reasons.

 To understand why Charles and David Koch are using their billions to assault American democracy-- even teaming up with Iran (the way their father had teamed up with Stalin) to do so-- you have to look back at the history of this family.
Their Dutch-born Nazi-oriented grandfather, Harry Koch, took part in a years long right-wing propaganda campaign to shoot down New Deal programs. Grandfather and grandsons employ eerily familiar talking points to bash government pension and welfare programs... In a series of early editorials, Harry Koch scoffed at the idea that land rents should be regulated, and ridiculed the plight of heavily indebted farmers, writing that while they might find indebtedness unpleasant, a much bigger problem was their laziness and inability to take care of the farm equipment they had purchased on credit." His son, Fred, another neo-Nazi-- the father of the current generation, Charles, David and William (brother Frederick is just a normal billionaire)-- was one of the founders, and chief financier, of the John Birch Society.

The Koch father was as ruthless as his sons appear, only more likely to share his obsessive racism and anti-American rants with the general public than the current crop of pseudo respectable Kochs do today.
The Koch Father claimed that the Democratic and Republican parties were infiltrated by the Communist Party and he was a big time supporter of European fascists, like his hero Benito Mussolini. He wrote that "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America," and that "Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment a vicious race war." He may sound a lot like David Duke, but he was far more damaging and dangerous for this country than Duke and the whole KKK ever was. And now his obscenely rich sons have bought the Republican Party, bag and baggage.  They own it outright, and dictate its every move through shell organizations, shadow groups, think tanks and PACs....

Groups like Americans for Prosperity, ALEC, FreedomWorks, the Tea Party, John Birch Society, the CATO Institute, the Mercatus Center, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Democracy Data & Communications, a firm specializing in helping major corporations to activate their employees politically, etc
.
Their Foundations give money to nonprofit organizations that do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries, the Institute for Justice, which files lawsuits opposing state and federal regulations; the Institute for Humane Studies, which underwrites libertarian academics; and the Bill of Rights Institute, which promotes a conservative slant on the Constitution, the Independent Women’s Forum, which opposes the presentation of global warming as a scientific fact in American public schools.


ALEC in case you don't know, is the Koch-funded group largely responsible for the latest round of  voter ID laws which is being halted by the Justice Department for discriminating against minorities, it’s also responsible for “Stand Your Ground” laws around the country.

Just about two years ago investigative journalist Lee Fang first broke the story wide open about the nature of the relationship between the Kochs and Rep. Mike Pompeo, (R-KS). And the relationship isn't normal and isn't conducive to a democracy-- though it sure explains a lot about Pompeo's shameful behavior in Congress.
Over the weekend, the Kansas City Star published a lengthy article explaining how Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kansas, has for years maintained a symbiotic relationship with the right-wing oil plutocrats David and Charles Koch and their conglomerate Koch Industries.

Pompeo, who actually penned an OpEd in Politico denouncing people who want to look into the Koch brothers' shady dealing and the danger they are posing to democracy and to America. Pompeo's attacks don't stop with the usual target--President Obama-- but go on to savage Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) for daring to ask the Koch brothers to send "a representative" of their business for a hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Former Rep. Dan Glickman (D-KS), who lost to Tiahrt in 1994, said that Koch Industries funneled resources-- including its employees and funds-- to oppose him. Now, with an open seat in Koch Industries’ backyard, the massive “Kochtopus” network of Koch money and front groups is working to elect a new right-wing Republican to fill the seat: Mike Pompeo. Pompeo isn’t just another Wall Street-friendly, pro-polluter GOP radical (his initial response to the BP oil disaster was to say that he “fervently” hoped the government wouldn’t “overreact”), he is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers’ business empire.