KY's Congressmen on the Pumpkin Traitor: Two Turncoats, Three Cowards and Congressman Awesome

Yeah, AynRand Paul and the soul-less Thomas Massie decided that just shitting on the poors isn't enough; they're ready to join the Tangerine Twat in pledging allegiance to the Russian Thug.

Meanwhile, Candy Barr lied about being in "meetings" - c'mon, there isn't a meeting on the planet that wasn't interrupted yesterday so everyone could watch the dotard lick Putin's taint live on TV.  I bet Amy McGrath's "where's he hiding" commercial is already in production.

John Yarmuth, of course, demonstrated true American patriotism by denouncing the mangy cocksucker in no uncertain terms.

Thomas Novelly at the Courier:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and several other Kentucky representatives said they agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, breaking with Donald Trump's comments after his friendly meeting with Vladimir Putin. 

“As I’ve said repeatedly, the Russians are not our friends and I entirely agree with the assessment of our intelligence community," McConnell said in a statement to the Courier Journal on Monday. 

Trump received immediate backlash from politicians on both sides of the aisle when he met with Russian President Putin. During the meeting, he accepted Putin's claim that the Russians did not interfere, contradicting the U.S. intelligence community's research. 

SNIP

Kentucky's delegation in the House of Representatives, which consists of five Republicans and one Democrat, was split on the matter.

Rep. John Yarmuth, the lone Democrat from Louisville, said he believes Russia unequivocally meddled with the 2016 election, according to spokesman Chris Schuler. 

"President Trump showed the free world today that they cannot rely on the U.S. as an ally because Vladimir Putin now calls the shots," Yarmuth said in a statement. "This is a disgraceful chapter in American history and proof that U.S. interests are not even a factor in the decision making of this president."

Rep. Andy Barr, from Kentucky's 6th District, had "been in meetings all day" and did not have a chance to respond, according to spokeswoman Jodi Whitaker. Rep. Brett Guthrie and Rep. James Comer did not return a request for comment. 

But Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky's 4th District, and Sen. Rand Paul, the two self-proclaimed libertarians of Kentucky's delegation, were less critical of Trump's meeting and welcomed the chance for discussion. 

"I believe that dialogue with other countries is important and President Trump was right to meet with Russia to promote peace and commerce, just like President Obama was right to meet with Cuba," Massie said in a statement. 

Rep. Hal Rogers, from Kentucky's 5th District, stood by Paul's comments, according to spokeswoman Danielle Smoot. 

(Hal Rogers is 163 years old, wins by double-digits and doesn't give a shit.)

SNIP

Yarmuth added that he was disgraced at the state of the United States presidency after the summit.  

“The President of the United States made his choices clear today in Helsinki," Yarmuth added. "He chose a murderous dictator over his own intelligence community, propaganda and bullying over a Constitutional free press, his own political aspiration over U.S. election security, and frankly, Russia over America."

Rosebud Lakota to XL Pipeline: You. Shall. Not. Pass.

A: They're Lakota, not "Sioux."

B: They're not fucking around.

The Guardian:

A Native American tribe in South Dakota has called a congressional vote to approve the Keystone XL pipeline an “act of war” and vowed to close the reservation’s borders if the US government tries to install a pipeline there.

The prospective route for the pipeline, which would connect Canadian tar sands fields to the Gulf coast, runs through the 922,759-acre (1,442 sq mi) Rosebud Sioux reservation in south-central South Dakota. The House of Representatives voted 252-161 on Friday to approve the pipeline.

“I pledge my life to stop these people from harming our children and our grandchildren and our way of life and our culture and our religion here,” the tribe president, Cyril Scott, said on Monday. He represents one of nine tribal governments in the state.

Scott said he will close the reservation’s borders if the government goes through with the deal, which is scheduled to come up for a Senate vote on Tuesday.

SNIP

Scott said the creation of the pipeline would violate the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, an agreement between the Sioux and the US government allocating parts of the Dakota territory to the Sioux. He also said he has not been consulted by the US government or TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the 1,700-mile pipeline.

“Did I declare war on our government? No I did not,” said Scott. “Did I declare war on the Keystone XL pipeline? Hell yeah I did.”

Barr, Rogers, Whitfield vote to let the NSA keep illegally spying on you.

Teabagging Tommy Massie sponsored the legislation to stop the NSA, and Brett Guthrie joined John Yarmuth in the bipartisan vote, so voters in Kentucky's Sixth, Fifth and First Districts might want to look a little harder at the ballot come November.

Down with Tyranny:

The success of Massie's amendment limiting NSA domestic spying-- and it was a big success, having passed 293-123-- came as a surprise. It's not exactly the bill Glenn Greenwald would have written but if it ever becomes law-- I can't imagine Dianne Feinstein allowing it to get through the Senate-- it will block intelligence agencies from conducting warrantless and “backdoor” searches of U.S. communications. The amendment prohibits the search of government databases for information on U.S. citizens without a warrant and cuts off funding for the CIA and NSA to build security vulnerabilities, or "backdoors," into domestic tech products or services for surveillance purposes. Massie: "The American people are sick of being spied on."

\

"Where Congress Won't Act, I Will."

If this be tyranny, I say make the most of it.




Full transcript here.

"Working Americans have struggled through stagnant wages for far too long."

Add the minimum wage to the list of things to shame Congress on, Mr. President.  Make it the centerpiece of the 2014 midterm campaign. It might be the one thing - other than impeachment - that could take the House away from the repugs in November.



Full transcript here.

"If they don’t support raising the federal minimum wage to ten-ten an hour, ask them “why not?” "

Credit where credit is due, Mr. President: your executive order raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors gave this train a big push. Now it is up to us to push our congress critters to expand it to everyone.



Full transcript here.

For MLK Day, The Death Knell for Voting Rights

Yes, the proposed new voting rights bill is actually an anti-voter bill.

Fuck this shit. Every civilized country on the planet has federal voting laws, and ours should be simple: vote by mail, polls open 24-7 a full month before election day, same-day registration, sign in (no voter ID), redistricting by nonpartisan commission.

Anything less is a violation of civil rights.

Ian Milhiser at Think Progress:

On Thursday, Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) plan to introduce bipartisan legislation that will undo much of the damage done by the Roberts Court’s 5-4 decision to neuter a key prong of the Voting Rights Act. Since its enactment in 1965, the Voting Rights Act required states with a record of racial voter suppression to “preclear” any new voting laws with the Department of Justice or a federal court in D.C. The Supreme Court’s decision last June struck down the formula that determined which states are subject to this preclearance regime, effectively halting federal supervision of many states that were actively engaged in voter suppression.

Prior to the Roberts Court’s decision, nine states were subject in their entirety to the preclearance requirement, and parts of six others were also covered. Notably, much of the state of North Carolina, which recently enacted the most aggressive voter suppression law in the nation, was covered under the old formula.

The bipartisan fix to the Roberts Court’s decision creates a new formula that would initially lead to far fewer states being covered by preclearance. As the Nation’s Ari Berman explains, the new formula requires preclearance in states “with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past fifteen years,” and to localities “if they commit three or more violations or have one violation and ‘persistent, extremely low minority turnout’ over the past fifteen years.” The upshot of this new formula is that only four states, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas will immediately be subject to preclearance in their entirety. Notably, none of these four states are North Carolina, with its comprehensive voter suppression law.

The other piece of bad news is that the bipartisan bill creates a special carve-out for voter ID laws. Voter ID, which requires voters to show a photo ID before they can cast a ballot, are one of the most common voter suppression tactics in the country. Though their proponents claim that they are necessary to prevent voter fraud at the polls, such fraud is virtually non-existent. Indeed, a Wisconsin study found that just 0.00023 percent of votes are the product of in-person voter fraud, so a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit fraud at the polls.

What voter ID does accomplish that it removes many low-income, student and minority voters from the electorate, all of which are groups that tend to favor Democrats over Republicans. Yet, despite their impact on racial minorities, the bipartisan voting bill will not count voter ID laws as a violation of federal voting rights that that can be used to subject a state to preclearance. Berman reports that this special carve out for these racially discriminatory laws was necessary to secure the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and some other Republicans.

Kevin Drum has a great summary and analysis. He concludes:

So the odds seem pretty long against reviving preclearance. That may be a helluva note to usher in Martin Luther King Jr. Day with, but it's most likely the truth. Now that blacks and Hispanics identify so overwhelmingly as Democrats, Republicans simply have no incentive to make it easier for them to vote. Nor does it seem possible to shame them into doing it, as it was even eight years ago. The GOP has simply changed too much since 2006.

Half a century ago, the fight over the VRA was a fight between racists and everyone else. Today, it's a fight between Republicans and Democrats. You'd think that might make it an easier fight to win, not a harder one. But it's not.

"Where Congress isn't acting, I’ll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who’s willing to work for it."

You could make a huge start, Mr. President, by ordering that all federal contractors must pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour and provide paid sick and vacation leave. With the stroke of a pen, you could improve the lives of millions of workers immediately and spur a leap in economic growth.




Full transcript here.

Kentucky's Second District Gets a Democratic Candidate

I'd prefer that Leach stood up for some real Democratic principles rather than bleating about bipartisanship, but in the blood-red Second, I'll take what I can get.

Jack Brammer at the Herald

Democrat Ron Leach, a retired military officer from Brandenburg, filed Thursday to run for Kentucky's 2nd District U.S. House seat, which stretches from western Jessamine County to Owensboro.

Leach, 49, is making his first bid for public office. He filed his candidacy papers at the secretary of state's office with his wife, Kelly, and other members of his family.

So far, Leach is the only Democrat to file for the office, now held by Republican Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green. The district includes Bowling Green and Elizabethtown. It primarily covers west-central Kentucky. Last year, state lawmakers moved Garrard, Mercer and Boyle counties from Central Kentucky's 6th District to the 2nd.

Leach said he is entering the race because he "got frustrated while deployed in Afghanistan in 2011 in that it seems we no longer have a functional democracy."

He said he wants to improve working relationships in Congress.

"These tragedies must end, and to end them we must change."

This, more than any other issue, Mr. President, is going to require not just Democratic but liberal majorities in both the House and Senate elected next year.


Full transcript here.

"If Congress refuses to act, it won’t just hurt families already struggling – it will actually harm our economy. "

The only way to get congressional repugs to vote to approve unemployment benefits or anything else, Mr. President is to somehow trick them into thinking it will hurt the country and get them the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. You can't appeal to the better nature of people who don't have one.




Full transcript here.

Beshear to Dems: Run on Obamacare

Attention Alison: Take your fingers out of your ears, stop yelling "lalalala I can't hear you" and listen to Kentucky's - and the South's - most successful Democratic elected official.

From the Courier:

For congressional Democrats worried about the toll Obamacare might take on their re-election chances next fall, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear delivered a surprising message.

“You know what Democrats ought to run on next November? The idea that we want every American to have affordable health care,” the two-term Democrat said Thursday.

Beshear spoke to House Democrats in a closed-door meeting about his state’s experience with implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The commonwealth has become “the gold standard” for implementation thus far, Beshear said, with heavy interest from residents and 69,000 enrollments so far.

“We showed that the system can work and will work,” Beshear said.

With rank-and-file Democrats frustrated at the Obama administration’s bungled rollout of the health law, particularly glitches at the federal portal, HealthCare.gov, party leaders invited Beshear to talk about how the law can succeed where implemented successfully.

Kentucky’s story is particularly compelling as a conservative state where just one of the congressional delegation’s eight members is a Democrat. The state Legislature is also divided, with Democrats controlling the House and Republicans the Senate.

Beshear, though, successfully pushed for creating the state’s own health exchange, and also decided to expand its Medicaid rolls, taking advantage of a provision of the law in which the federal government picks up the entire cost for the first few years. After long study of the issue, experts told him that his state “couldn’t afford not to.”

With his state’s poor health statistics, Beshear said he knew it would take a “transformative tool” to reverse the trend. The president’s health care law proved to be just that tool.

During Thursday’s meeting, Beshear told lawmakers about how a tea party Republican told him how much he hated Obamacare, but changed his tune after visiting the state’s website and finding out he qualified for Medicaid.

“This is going to change the face of Kentucky in the next decade,” Beshear told Democrats, according to a participant in the meeting. “This going to change the face of America.”

Beshear urged lawmakers to take a long view of the law, saying it would be wrong to grade the law based on its first months. “It’s not about websites or process, it’s about people,” he said.

Later, joined by the House Democratic leadership for a news conference, Beshear said the climate of uncertainty over the law was worsened by an “avalanche of misinformation” put out by the law’s critics.

“I have a U.S. senator who keeps saying Kentuckians don’t want this,” he said, referring to Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s minority leader. “Well, the facts don’t prove that out.

“They’re confused about it, just as people in Kentucky have been confused about it,” he said. “But just like in Kentucky when folks elsewhere get the information, they like what they find, and they will sign up in droves.”

Beshear said the new health law could be an issue in McConnell’s re-election campaign, and midterm elections in general, next year.

“People are going to start looking at the critics and saying, ‘What was all that yelling and screaming about? I think you must have misinformed us,’ ” Beshear said.

By next fall, Democratic candidates who are not running on Obamacare are going to look stupid. Especially after they lose.

Bill to "Protect Reproductive Rights" is a Worthless Piece of Shit

A law to prevent further erosion of women's constitutional right to abortions that does nothing to correct the dozens of state laws that already make getting an abortion impossible for non-rich women is worse than worthless.

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled new federal legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of the medical dangers and constitutional concerns. The Republican South Carolinian said he thinks it’s important to put social issues on Congress’ legislative agenda in advance of the 2014 midterms.

 

Be careful what you wish for, senator. Laura Bassett reports today:

Following an unprecedented three-year wave of state legislative attacks on abortion and family planning services, a group of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate plan to go on the offensive Wednesday with a historic bill that would make it illegal for states to chip away at women’s reproductive rights.

 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) will introduce the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2013, joined by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Reps. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Lois Frankel (D-Fla.). The bill would prohibit states from passing so-called Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, which impose strict and cost-prohibitive building standards on abortion clinics, require women seeking abortions to have ultrasounds, and create other barriers to abortion access.

SNIP

 

If signed into law – and with the current House, it’s best to keep expectations low – the Democratic measure wouldn’t automatically invalidate the state restrictions, though as Roll Call reported, the Women’s Health Protection Act “would set markers for federal courts.”

I appreciate the point Wonkette is trying to make, but it's wrong.

It won’t actually get School House Rocked into law, of course, because even if the Senate manages to pass it, there is no way the Republican-controlled House is going to let it go through. Sigh. But it’s still nice to see Team Blue fight back a little and maybe, just maybe, try to change the conversation about women’s health to how we can maybe improve women’s health instead of make it illegal because it makes the Republican menfolk and their chick accomplices so darned mad.

No. You don't respond to someone stealing everything inside your house by threatening to call the police if they try to take the porch furniture, too.

Free, no-questions-asked, no-restriction, available-everywhere Abortion on Demand. Anything less is a violation of human rights.

Surprise Small Victory in the End-Shutdown Bill

They'll be back, of course, with even more campaign cash for cooperative congress critters, but for the moment, there's a ray of hope for those of us who value safe, available, affordable food.

Zoe Carpenter at The Nation:

Other than re-opening the government and averting a global financial crisis, one good thing about the funding bill passed last night was that it put an end to a corporate giveaway known colloquially as the Monsanto Protection Act.

Formally called the Farmer Assurance Provision, the measure undermined the Department of Agriculture’s authority to ban genetically modified crops, even if court rulings found they posed risks to human and environmental health. Republican Senator Roy Blunt worked with the genetically modified seed giant Monsanto to craft the initial rider, and it was slipped into a funding resolution that passed in March. There was concern that an agreement to end the shutdown would extend the provision, which is set to expire at the end of the month.

Jon Tester, a farmer and Democratic Senator from Montana, removed the measure from the bill yesterday. “All [the Farmer Assurance Provision] really assures is a lack of corporate liability,” Tester argued in March. “It…lets genetically-modified crops take hold across the country – even when a judge finds it violates the law.”

SNIP
  Meanwhile, Monsanto is facing at least 16 lawsuits for failing to contain genetically modified wheat, which was found growing on an Oregon farm earlier this year. Concerns about the company’s aggressive patent policies and their implications for food sovereignty are global: this summer, Chileans protested a law protecting GMO manufacturers, and activists rallied in dozens of countries this weekend as part of the second “March Against Monsanto” demonstration. 

Americans "Just Want the Fighting to End" Only If Our Side Wins

James Carroll should know better than to cite polls that ask broad questions with multiple interpretations.

There isn't a single sentient person in this country who "just wants the fighting in Congress to end."

Everybody wants her side to win. 

I defy James Carroll or anybody else to find a Democratic voter who wants the fighting to end by President Obama surrendering the presidency to a minority of the repug minority in Congress.

I defy anybody to find a republican voter who wants the fighting to end by repugs in Congress surrendering to President Obama on Obamacare and the budget.

The polarization in Washington perfectly reflect the polarization in the nation as a whole. There are no independents, no swing voters.  Just repugs and Democrats who always vote the party line, and repugs and Democrats who vote the party line when they are sufficiently inspired to get out and vote at all.

I think that is a good thing.  Polarization clarifies issues and where politicians stand on those issues. Polarization forces elected officials to fight for the laws and policies their voters want.

But polarization makes politics a zero-sum game.  For one side to win, the other side has to lose.

The fighting won't end until somebody loses. And nobody wants that somebody to be them.

Why Does Congress Suck So Bad? Because Repugs Slashed the Staff Budget

Until the Gingrich takeover in 1995, staff kept Congress honest.  The Office of Technology Assessment issued a constant stream of fact-stuffed but clear and concise reports on every issue to come before Congress, preventing members from spouting gravity-denying lies in front of TV cameras.

Veteran staffers with prosecutorial experience handled the questioning of witnesses, keeping hearings on track and avoiding wasting time with pointless grandstanding by members.

But Newtie closed the OTA and members preferred to make speeches in place of questioning and here we are.

Naked Capitalism:

Another big change took place when the Republicans took control of the House in 2010. They put through significant cuts to the budgets of individual members. The result was big reductions in the pay to Congressional staffers and the evisceration of other budget items. For instance, staffers no longer have funds to buy trade journals or travel to conferences to obtain information and develop contacts outside the Beltway reality-distortion machinery. The result is that it is becoming more difficult for staffers to get information outside the predigested, persuasively-packaged positions served up by lobbyists. And even worse, the pay levels make it well-nigh impossible to hire anyone who might be inclined to do so. As one staffer remarked, “Only the children of rich parents or people who plan to become lobbyists can afford to take this job.” And needless to say, most children of rich parents aren’t predisposed to challenge the current order of caviar for the elites, crumbs for everyone else.

And on top of that, the pay levels also assure that the staffers are overmatched by lobbyists who have top-dollar law firms providing language to be inserted in pending legislation. The average pay for new graduates of top law schools is the in the $130,000 to $167,000 range. By contrast, junior Congressional staffers make just above $20,000, mid range staffers (those with X to Y years of experience) get salaries of $30,000 to $50,000, and senior staffers (X to Y experience) receive in the $70,000s. A few very seasoned staffers might just breach the $100,000 mark. And remember, House ethics rules make it effectively prohibit to earn additional income through writing or speaking. The problem of low pay relative to job responsibilities is made worse by the fact that Washington, DC is a high-cost city by virtue of the impact of a tsunami of lobbying dollars on living costs. At the Atlantic Economy conference in March of this year, Paul Volcker voiced disapproval of the way-too-obvious sheen of prosperity in the capital. The AACRA cost index of American cities put Washington DC as number 8 of 307 urban areas, with costs 145% of this national average.

Once upon a time, it was possible to have Congress produce well-crafted, terse, durable legislation. Former member of the Australian Treasury John Hempton has called the Securities Act of 1934 the single best piece of legislation ever written. By contrast, there was a good reason Dodd Frank was a sprawling bill that left numerous issues open by punting on major questions by kicking them over to further studies or rulemaking (which was recognized to give the banking industry lobbyists a second go at watering the rules down).

The health care matter may seem a minor issue, but it’s not. When you have staffers that are already significantly undercompensated and then make it worse by inflicting another de facto pay cut on them, you just assure further bribery. It’s no different that underpaying cops leads to more abuses, like only a fraction of the cash seized in drug and numbers rackets bust being turned in (a former DA in Brigdeport, CT, a famously rough city, told em the skimming in his day was about 20%. His guess is that it is now closer to 80%).

Sadly, some corruption in government may be inevitable, but there’s a huge difference between a system which has some petty pilfering around the margin and one that is being redesigned to stymie anything other than influence-peddaling. And we can already see that the best government money can buy is a crappy product. But the people who’ve succeeded in making Congressional staffers even more susceptible to lobbying have done a masterful job of diverting attention from the real game by playing on class and economic resentment. Nothing like getting the peasants fighting among themselves to keep the nobles safe.

If citizens want a public sector that can govern, they are going to have to pay for it by either taxing the rich or raising the compensation of public servants, or probably, both. There’s no free lunch. Talented and effective people are going to go where they are rewarded, and they are going to work for those who pay them. That means an army of incompetents in Congress, or worse, an army of talented people in Congress who work for the private interests that actually pay their salaries.

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No, the Rich Do Not Work for a Living

They lounge around collecting the profits off your work. Then they use that money to bribe Congress to given them even more of your earnings. That's why the taxes on their unearned income should be 90 percent.

Kevin Drum:

This won't come as any big surprise, but the chart below from the Tax Policy Center does a very nice job of showing how the rich are different from you and me. Most of us earn money from our jobs. Even up at the 90th percentile (about $150,000 or so), ordinary income makes up 77 percent of all cash earnings. Business and investment income make up only 9 percent. But in the top 0.1 percent, the domain of millionaires and billionaires, business and investment income make up 57 percent of cash earnings. As Jared Bernstein says, this explains a lot about economic policy preferences:

Think about these differences the next time you hear a politician explaining why we need to cut taxes on corporate income or capital gains....The framing is invariably “trickle-down”—such cuts will lift everybody’s fortunes—but the real motivation is what you see here. Once you get up to the very top of the income scale—the top 0.1% in the bar furthest to the right (as it were)—you’ve got two-thirds of their income coming from non-labor sources.

Low corporate and capital gains taxes, as well as cuts to top marginal rates, are always framed as crucial to economic growth. Conversely, high payroll taxes are always framed as crucial to keeping Medicare and Social Security fully funded. And maybe so. But it's quite a coincidence that all of these policies just happen to be precisely what benefits rich people the most, isn't it? Keep that in mind the next time you hear the latest self-serving bit of richsplaining from some Wall Street titan about taxes and the economy. You know the drill: job creators, incentive effects, globalization, capital formation, etc. etc. Just don't worry your pretty little head about the details, OK?

Parasites. Economic terrorists. Clear and present danger to the republic.

Will KY-6 See An Actual Liberal Primary Challenge?

I don't know enough yet about either of the two Democratic candidates declaring to challenge Candy Barr in the more-blue-than-it-used-to-be Sixth District, but it's possible one of them is not a Blue Dog/New Dem/DINO clone of Loser Ben Chandler.

Then we might get the kind of race repugs have been winning for years: a True Believer winning the primary to the dismay of the Party Establishment, only to shock everyone by beating the incumbent.

When liberals start doing that, then we'll see the congressional worm start to turn.

Here's hoping it starts in the Bluegrass.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Lexington attorney Michael Coblenz said Friday he will seek the Democratic nomination next May for Central Kentucky's 6th Congressional District seat, now held by Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr.

Coblenz, 53, said he has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to set up his candidacy.

He is the second Democrat to announce his candidacy to challenge Barr, a Lexington attorney who was elected to the U.S. House in 2012. Longtime education advocate Elisabeth Jensen of Lexington announced last month that she will seek the Democratic nomination.

Coblenz, a former member of the U.S. Air Force, ran unsuccessfully in 2010 for the state legislature in the Lexington district represented by Republican Stan Lee.

"I'm running for Congress for a number of reasons," Coblenz said. "First and foremost, I'm tired of politics being so silly, and campaigns being so condescending. Whatever else I do, I hope to address the problems we face as a nation in a serious, thoughtful and thorough manner."

He said his main goal is to introduce ideas — and propose legislation — "to restructure our political system to allow viable third parties to participate in our elections."

Hmm. Running against freakazoid fanatic Stan "Porn 'Stache" Lee took guts. But third parties? If he's a liberal, he's a very confused one.

Mr. Libertea Freedumb Votes for Forced Birth

Funny how the only ones the teatards want to have any liberty and freedom are straight white xian males.

From VoteNote

Abortion Ban – Passage - Vote Passed (228-196, 10 Not Voting)

The House detoured briefly from debating the farm bill to pass a measure that forbids abortions performed at 20 weeks after fertilization or later. The bill makes an exception for cases where the woman’s life is in danger or where rape or incest has been reported to authorities. Under the measure, physicians who violate the ban would face a maximum five-year prison sentence, fines or both. Six Republicans voted against the legislation, while six Democrats voted in favor. The justification for the 20-week limit was the belief that an unborn fetus can feel pain by 20 weeks of pregnancy. Although the medical veracity of this theory is debated, a handful of states have passed laws with the same benchmark. The White House issued a veto threat on the bill, and Democrats who control the Senate are expected to ignore the measure.

Rep. Thomas Massie voted YES