Scumbags

Raw Story: The bombshell IRS audit released in May omitted information about liberal groups at the request of House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s office.

A spokesman for Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George told The Hill on Tuesday that Issa had requested investigators “narrowly focus on tea party organizations.” 

This whole thing has been a set up.  What Issa and his Republican colleagues in the house are doing is a disgrace.   They're not fit to hold public office.   Republicans can't be trusted.  It's a simple as that. 

Just The First Poll Tax

TPM: Texas is wasting no time capitalizing on the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

Shortly after the high court issued a sweeping 5-4 decision Tuesday striking down a centerpiece of the historic 1965 law, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) vowed to immediately implement a controversial voter ID law in the Lone Star State that was blocked last year by the now-gutted preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act.

Well that didn't take long.  What was that 4 hours?  Granny better find her birth certificate.

This is but one way they're making it harder for the poor, the elderly, the disabled, minority, young and Democrats in general to vote.  Others ways include but are not limited to making it impossible for college students to cast ballots on campus, limiting the number of voting machines in urban precincts so Democratic base groups have to wait hours in line to vote (many will abandon their effort), while ensuring there are plenty of machines available in suburban Republican precincts, keeping felons off the voting rolls, even after they've paid their debt to society, creating voter ID laws so restrictive, that even drivers licenses aren't good enough to vote and imprisoning people for registering voters.

This strikes at the very heart of our democracy.  There's only one way to correct this outrage.  We have an election in 2014.  Work to elect a Democratic majority in congress and the ability to vote to vote will be returned to everybody the very next day.  Keep the GOP in power and it could be your vote they take away next.

Gonna Party Like It's 1964

TPM: South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) praised the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act Tuesday, claiming that a provision struck from the legislation had "imposed an extraordinary intrusion into state sovereignty."

Yeah, they said the same thing when we forced them to end slavery.  In fact, the Voting Rights Act was a direct response to conservative efforts to answer the end of slavery with a massive terror campaign designed to among other things, keep black people from voting.

South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union in order to fight for slavery.  Given that a return to slavery is out of the question, it stands to reason they would again want the right to keep black people from voting.  We understand why conservatives do what they do, but that doesn't make them any less putrid and disgusting. 

Traitors To Democracy, Civil Rights, America

Huffingtonpost: The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.

The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the south nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.

What hasn't changed at all is the movement represented by the 5 conservatives on the USSC, the five who voted to gut the voting rights act, the conservative movement - the Republican party - wants to steal elections by robbing all manner of poor, disabled, elderly, young, and minority Americans of their ability to vote.

The Voting Rights Act was the crown jewel of the Civil Rights laws.  So basically, you can kiss the Civil Rights Act goodby as well.  It seems congress no longer makes law in this country.  At least no law the conservatives on the USSC don't like. 

But back to the Republican party, they know that if all eligible voters vote, they lose.  So they try to keep all eligible voters from voting.  It's a simple as that. Remember that the next time you have the opportunity to vote (assuming they haven't already struck you from the rolls).

Wire Hanger Republicans

TPM: One Texas GOP state representative is apparently confused about what "rape kits" are used for.

While the Texas House debated an anti-abortion omnibus bill for 15 hours Sunday night, Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D) called for an exemption for victims of rape and incest, the Associated Press reported. Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R) objected, saying "rape kits" make that exemption unneccessary:

"In the emergency room they have what's called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out," [Laubenberg] said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. "The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development."

Her apparent confusion about "rape kits" — a phrase generally used to describe the equipment used by medical personnel during forensic examinations to gather physical evidence following allegations of rape or sexual assault — sparked widespread ridicule on social media sites. Laubenberg then simply rejected all proposed changes to her bill without speaking until the end of the debate.

Republicans in the Texas House passed the bill this morning, after hundreds flooded the state legislature to oppose the measure which would place new restrictions on how, when and where a woman could obtain an abortion in the state.

Rep. Thompson made her case for a rape and incest exemption while a wire hanger hung from her podium's microphone, a symbol of pro-choice protests like the one recently held in Wisconsin.

As we've said before, Todd Akin and all these other Republicans are not saying these crazy things because they think they know something about how the female body works or because they believe whatever bullshit they conjure up about rape kits.  They say this stuff because it's a plank in their party platform that abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, incest, and danger to the mother.  They then have motive to minimize pregnancy by rape because most Americans recoil in horror at the notion of being forced to have a rapists baby. 

Back of The Bus Bitch

Raw Story:  A Republican county official in Illinois called a black woman candidate for the House of Representatives a “love child” of the Democratic Party and accused her of being a “street-walker” whose “pimps” are party leaders. According to the St. Louis Dispatch, Montgomery County GOP Chairman Jim Allen made the statements in an email in which he went on to say that after the election, candidate Erika Harold will end up “working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.”

Allen was writing to a Republican website about Harold, who is a former Miss America and Harvard-educated attorney. She is running for the Republican nomination for Illinois Congressional District 13, which encompasses Champaign, Illinois and eastern Chicago. Allen supports her opponent, incumbent Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville).

You got that?  Harvard Law educated attorney gets called a stupid whore by a redneck Republican just because she's black.   But to be honest, our first reaction was not that this was a racist screed, we've come to expect that from the party of the southern strategy, but more, where was he educated?  She graduated from Harvard Law.  Where did Dick Trickle Jim Allen go to school?  Jefferson Davis U?  Liberty University?  Pray tell...

The Moral Majority

TPM:  Christopher Allen Simcox, the co-founder of the vigilante border group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of child molestation, according to The Arizona Republic.

Add another to the list.  We figure the reason for such a high incidence of child molestation in conservative circles is the repressive nature of the fake morality in their movement.  If they're gay they have to hide it.  It they want a divorce they have to hide it.  If they want to dress up in women's clothes, they have to hide it.  They can't be who they are and so they hide and suppress their legal adult urges until they explode in fits of criminal perversion, all to often, with a child.  

Words, Actions

Rove on Obama: “He’s right, he’s not Dick Cheney," Rove said. "Dick Cheney at least had the guts to step up and defend these National Security Agency programs, where the president was sending out underlings in order to defend it himself and then going on a talk radio program, a TV talk program, as he fled the country for the G-8 meeting."
 
There is so much wrong with this we don't even know where to begin.  Yes, Obama is no Cheney.  Cheney lied and cheated to bring this nation to a devastating war and occupation in Iraq.  So Cheney is a war criminal, Obama is not.  Cheney deliberately outed a vital national security asset in order to try and silence somebody who was calling out his Iraq lies.  So Cheney is a traitor and Obama is not.  And last... Robert Gates after Obama got Bin Ladin:   "I worked for a lot of these guys. And this is one of the most courageous calls – decisions — that I think I’ve ever seen a president make.”

So... fuck you Karl.

Still a Horror Show

AP: House Republicans have modified a tough anti-abortion bill to include exceptions for rape and incest after the GOP sponsor of the legislation raised a firestorm by declaring that very few rapes result in pregnancies.

As we've said before, Todd Akin and all these other Republicans are not saying these crazy things because they think they know something about how the female body works.  They're saying them because it's a plank in their party platform that abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, incest, and danger to the mother.  They then have motive to minimize pregnancy by rape because most Americans recoil in horror at the notion of being forced to have a rapists baby.  But if does happen anyway, well, in GOP world it's a gift from God.

GOP Rep: Women Are Stupid

Huffintonpost: Maine House Minority Leader Ken Fredette (R-Newport) appeared on the state House's floor Wednesday, making his pitch to oppose federal funding (of Medicare expansion). Maine People's Alliance posted video of Fredette invoking the book during his speech, which also included some differences between the brains of men and women.

"From the other side of the aisle I hear the conversation being about 'free this is free, we need to take it and it's free and we need to do it now' and that's sort of the fundamental message that my brain receives," Fredette said. "Now, my brain being a man's brain sort of thinks differently, because I say, well, it's not if it's free is it really free because I say in my brain there's a cost to this."

ThinkProgress captured backlash from the female side, with State Rep. Diane Russell (D-Portland) blasting Fredette's remarks.

“I thought it was 2013, not 1813," Russell told the site. "Apparently, I was wrong.”

Let us set this stupid, neanderthalic, assclown straight:  Obamacare and the expansion of Medicare contained within save money over what we currently do because those dollars are spent on medical care and not private jets, massive yachts, and yet another mansion for transnational insurance company CEO's.

As for calling women stupid, yes the base of the GOP is not only racist, but sexist as well.  So let's make sure as many women in this country read what he said and remember that when they vote.

Now onto the latest mandatory rape with a foreign object law in the bizarre dystopia that is GOP rule.

Issa (R-Liar)

Raw Story: House Oversight Committee ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings on Sunday said that the so-called scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of tea party groups was “solved,” but Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has refused to release the testimony of a “conservative Republican” IRS manager because it indicated that the White House was not involved. 

Last week, Issa had told CNN host Candy Crowley that IRS agents “were directly being ordered from Washington,” but he declined to produce complete transcripts of the testimony of IRS employees to back up his claims. 

On Sunday, Cummings explained to Crowley that he had “begged” Issa to release the full transcripts.

“He’s the chairman of the committee, we’re not in power,” the Maryland Democrat pointed out. “If he does not release them, I will. Period.”

Republicans lie and then try to hide release of the truth.  Along with the fact all these billionaire backed conservative superpacs perjured themselves in their applications to the IRS, that should be the main lesson of the IRS "scandal."  

And somebody needs to hold some hearings into Issa's lying.  If the witnesses are sworn to tell the truth then for sure the chairman on the committee should be under the same oath.  He needs to go. 

Consumer Protection

Thinkprogress:  Americans who bought individual health plans in 2012 saved $2.1 billion thanks to Obamacare consumer protections that limit how much insurers can profit off of Americans’ premiums, according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). The vast majority of those savings stem from individual health plan providers lowering the premiums they charge Americans in an effort to comply with the reform law.

Which is why Republicans hate Obamacare.  The fact of the matter is Republicans represent the transnational CEO class and the stockholders, not the American people.  They will happily stand by while you get raped by your for-profit insurance company.  Better to elect people who will not allow that to happen.

Back In The Kitchen!

Americablog:  Republican governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, thinks working moms are the reason America’s schoolkids score so badly in education proficiency test.

Well, it couldn't be because Republican have been trying to destroy, defund, and privatize public education for decades, now could it?

Anyway, you hear that America?  If you're a kid raised by a working mom, you're a dumbass.  If you're a mom, you have no business having a career, much less a job.  Such is life in GOP world.  

Time For a Career Change

TPM:  Civil rights organizations and legal ethics experts filed a judicial misconduct complaint on Tuesday against a senior federal judge, alleging that she made inappropriate statements against minority groups and people with mental disabilities, the New York Times reported.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, the complaint alleged that Judge Edith H. Jones, of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said in a speech in February at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that African-Americans and Hispanics are "predisposed to crime" and that defendants facing capital punishment who claim "mental retardation" disgust her.

So she thinks blacks and Hispanics are genetically predisposed to be criminals.  That might be a shocking and racist opinion in any other place except the Republican party.  Since she's obviously not impartial, and thus has disqualified herself from being a judge, and she's a racist, she should seek work as a Republican politician. 

To Promote The General Welfare

Think Progress:  On Tuesday, Golden State small businesses and their employees got some great news: two of the state’s largest insurers will have to give them over $36 million in insurance rebates because of an Obamacare consumer protection.

The health law forces insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they charge on paying for actual medical services, rather than administrative overhead or profits. That means more money for ordinary consumers — and less for profitable insurance companies. 

The so-called “80/20 rule” put $1.5 billion back into Americans’ pockets in 2011 alone. The average rebate was $151 per family across all insurance markets, and in states where insurers blatantly gouged prices, average rebates topped a whopping $500 per family.

Now, the benefits for Californians with small business health plans are beginning to materialize. Blue Shield of California will be forced to pay back $24.5 million in rebates. Anthem Blue Cross will have to pay back another $12 million. 

And here you have the real reason Republicans hate Obamacare.  Republicans represent the transnational insurance giants that are gouging the people. Obamacare is helping to correct that injustice.

In a more general sense, this makes very clear who's on who's side.  Republicans legislate on behalf of transnational corporations, and Democrats legislate on behalf of the citizens of the United States of America.

Rape, Incest, Danger To The Mother and Prison

An all-male House Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday approved legislation that would impose a new nationwide restriction on abortion.

By a party line vote of 6-4, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice approved a bill that would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is based on the belief that fetuses are capable of experiencing pain after 20 weeks gestation.

And remember, it's a plank in the Republican party platform that abortion be outlawed even in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother.  This would put women all over the country under direct threat of a murder charge.    

On Behalf Of The (super rich) People

Raw Story:  Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton was one of 151 people arrested at the North Carolina Legislative Building on Monday to protest what they said was an overreach by the Republican-controlled state government. 

For weeks, protesters have been participating in civil disobedience as part of “Moral Mondays.” 

North Carolina NAACP president Rev. William Barber told the crowd that the agenda of conservative lawmakers was being driven by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and billionaire brothers David Koch and Charles Koch. 

This is true of Republicans all over the country.  Conservatives have been working on behalf of the plantation owner since before this country was founded.  And we're all slaves now.  If you vote Republican and you're not a multi-millionaire, you're an idiot.  

Because Genocide Is Not Enough

Raw Story:  A high school graduate in Alabama is being denied her diploma after being fined $1,000 for wearing a feather reflecting her Native American heritage.

Ah yes, the reddest state in the union (remember that Alabama, despite your best efforts, you are still part of the union) making us proud.  We really should have deported all white southerners after they betrayed the United States in the civil war.  The country would be a better place without them. 

Mainstream GOP: Women Are Subservient to Men

Raw Story: Fox Business personalities had a collective freak out on Wednesday night after learning that mothers were now the primary source of income in 40 percent of U.S. households.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs asserted women earning more than their husbands was an indication of the dissolution of American society. Fox News political analyst Juan Williams agreed, describing it as a sign of the disintegration of marriage that would have negative consequences for generations to come.

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson went one step further, saying nature itself commanded that women be subservient to men.

First of all, Fox Business News, Lou Dobbs, et all is about as mainstream Republican as you can get.  The rest of the Republican party is to the right of these people, more extreme than these people, and yes, more bigoted and chauvinistic than these people.  And you see how bad even these people are.  Something for all women to remember when they vote.