Comer's Going Down; Which Democrat Will Replace Him?

Maybe Marine veteran Samuel "Sam" K. Gaskins, who filed way back on Nov. 15. His website is up, though minimal. He's on Facebook, too.

Seriously, if Kentucky Democrats can't take advantage of this they deserve to keep losing.

Joe Gerth at the Courier:

U.S. Rep. Jamie Comer, who lost the 2015 GOP primary for governor by just 83 votes after a former girlfriend said he had hit her when they dated in college, is a bully.

Want proof?

In October — as rumors were swirling and just before a legislative staffer complained that she had been sexually harassed by Comer’s good buddy, House Speaker Jeff Hoover — a bizarre, vulgar, threatening, grammatically incorrect Twitter message was sent, targeting the chief clerk of the state House of Representatives. 

“Hey Brad, when the House finally fires your dumbass, (which will be very soon) for being a lazy dumb sh--, David Williams can help you find a job cleaning sh-- stains off the commodes in the Corner Pool Room in Burkesville. But I’m sure you won’t last long there because everyone hates you and you are dumb and lazy.”

SNIP

You have to wonder what would cause a United States congressman to fire off a message like that. 

It was sent as a direct message to a Twitter account that goes by the name @kyblindside. The account posted a screenshot of the message that day.

Courier Journal was able to establish that the message came from Comer’s verified account when the operator of the @kyblindside account provided us the password for the @kyblindside account on Jan. 3. We were then able to view the original message and were able to click through to Comer’s verified account.

The operator of the @kyblindside account hasn’t revealed their identity to us.

I asked U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan to respond to Comer’s outburst. Haven’t heard back from him either.

Reading that message, three words come to mind.

Petty. Abusive. Vulgar.

Matt Bevin Doesn't Know What the Fuck He's Doing, Part 17

What's the opposite of coattails in an election? That's what Matt Bevin's filming-the-empty-House-chamber did for Tuesday's special elections.  Instead of handing control of the state House to repugs for the first time in 90 years, his stunt managed to give three of four seats to the dems, increasing their majority to six.



Funny how voters don't respond to billionaire bullying the way exploited workers do.

"sophomoric threats in a transparent attempt to try to intimidate and bully"

Michael Aldridge, the executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky - who was at the County Clerk's Office in Louisville today when the first same-sex couple received their marriage license - penned the perfect response to the police declaration of war on the citizens they are sworn to protect.

Consider this an open letter to Louisville FOP Lodge 614 President Dave Mutchler, who chose to send an incendiary letter to Louisville Metro residents shortly after the staggering tragedy in Charleston, S.C., a time of national grief and mourning.

Know this: The ACLU of Kentucky, our coalition partners and allies, community activists, and citizens of this community will not stand on the sidelines while you resort to sophomoric threats in a transparent attempt to try to intimidate and bully those who you view as your political opponents.

If you didn’t know already, rest assured that through our litigation and public policy advocacy, the ACLU will continue to work for meaningful, long-lasting, and systemic reforms of the Louisville Metro Police Department, alongside, and by supporting, communities directly harmed by racial profiling and excessive force.

The ACLU will continue to work to help build community-police partnerships with the shared goals of equality, fairness, dignity, and public safety to prevent future tragedies from happening again.

The ACLU is committed to encouraging de-escalation practices in all instances of community/police interaction.

Armed with the Constitution, the ACLU will protect the First Amendment rights of Louisville activists to question government policy and speak their minds without fear of prosecution.

If people hadn’t spoken up and questioned authority, we would still be living under monarchs, without the freedoms and civil liberties that we prize.

It is obvious to nearly everyone who read your letter that you sought to attack the very citizens you are sworn to serve and protect instead of taking steps to address the real issues — the long-standing and troubling problems of racial profiling, over-criminalization of communities of color, and incidents of excessive force that drive a wedge between community members and police officers here and across the country. And if, as you claim, your letter has received “overwhelming” support from your fellow officers, then the divide between law enforcement and this community is very troubling indeed.

You want our attention? Well you have it. As a starting point, we challenge you to review the Law Enforcement Code of Conduct (page 5 of the Standard Operating Procedures handbook for the Louisville Metro Police Department). You may find the following excerpts particularly helpful:

As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve the community; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the constitutional rights of all to liberty, equality and justice.

I will maintain courageous calm in the face of danger, scorn or ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others.

Mr. Mutchler, we need an end to the prevailing Us vs. Them policing paradigm. We hope you will join us in the goal of developing successful police/community partnerships.

Why the Very First Thing the Next President Must Do is Destroy the CIA, Immediately, Completely and Permanently

Because if you wait even so much as a day, they've got you by the short hairs.

Martin Longman at Political Animal:

Shortly before he died in July 1988, former CIA officer David Atlee Phillips said that “My final take on the assassination [of JFK] is there was a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers.” He left an unpublished book which was supposed to be fictional in which he wrote “I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald… We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba… I don’t know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president’s assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt.” For those who think the CIA played a part in the assassination of JFK, David Atlee Phillips has long been one of the prime suspects, but you don’t have to subscribe to such conspiracy theories to understand that no leader of any country will lightly take on their own intelligence agencies and hold them accountable for actions they may have taken with a prior executive’s approval.

These type of considerations, more than the self-serving motivations attributed to President Obama by Conor Friedersdorf, probably explain why John Brennan isn’t being fired. Without question, John Brennan should be fired. That he isn’t being fired shows that the president is simply afraid to fire him. Friedersdorf explains this fear as trepidation that Brennan will spill damaging secrets that make Obama look like some kind of war criminal himself. I think the fear is more related to the kind of murderous rage than might ensue if the CIA is held to account for their performance in the aftermath of 9/11. Whether this fear is well-founded or not, it is not irrational. Just look at what the CIA has already done to try to cover its tracks.

What was the last thing the CIA did right?  When was the last time the CIA proved itself an asset to American Democracy?  When has the CIA ever been anything but a bumbling, torturing cesspool of assholes? Never, right?  NEVER.

If the next President of the United States does nothing else but eliminate the CIA and send its officers to the Hague for trial as war criminals, that president will deserve memorialization on Mt. Rushmore.

Using Sexual Panic to Dehumanize Teachers

I seriously cannot believe this is legal.  I cannot believe there are not riots in the streets over this. I cannot believe that sexual-predator hysteria has gone this far.

From The Nation:

Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as “teacher jail”: she doesn’t belong there.

And she doesn’t.

SNIP

If she were a de facto kidnapper, police should have been called long ago. But, no, this is not about criminality or even misconduct; it is about a larger game of control being played by School Superintendent John Deasy. That game owes quite a lot to sex, because a few years ago a scandal tripped the panic button, which Deasy has kept his finger on ever since, exploiting justified public anger over a classroom pervert to pursue a war on teachers.

The political question, then, is not just whether Stevenson belongs in teacher jail but what this institutionalized containment regimen, this sub-bureaucracy of punishment, exists for in the first place, and how the specter of sex is the cowing excuse to go after anyone.

SNIP

There is no more reason teacher jail should exist than doctor jail or fireman jail. For teachers accused of child molestation or other crimes, there is the option familiar in every other area of life: the police and, assuming there are charges and no bail, actual jail. For serious accusations pending investigation, there are leaves of absence. Alleged minor infractions do not require the disruption of classes and lives.

 

What’s happening in Los Angeles is not about reason as reasonable people understand it. A Miramonte teacher who is back at work but anxious about using her name still feels the sting of her detention. She said of Deasy’s administration: “They want to dehumanize the profession as a whole, because if you can bring this profession down, if you can make people lose trust in this profession, then you can do anything.”

This, writ large, is the legacy of moral panic: dehumanize anyone, and everyone is vulnerable.

If You've Got A Gun, You're Not Demonstrating

Digby:

Demonstrating for your political beliefs is as American as apple pie. Organize boycots, march on the capitol, carry a sign, scream at your officials, argue in the face of those who oppose you. But the minute guns enter the picture you are no longer demonstrating, you are physically intimidating people with a deadly weapon. But of course, that's really the point isn't it?

Impeachment Now: Obama Deserves It

And it's the only way Democrats can take back Congress in November.

Steve M:

The benghazi inquisition might be a bigger deal than a lot of non-Fox viewers think because it's starting to get buy-in from the so-called liberal media. Yes, non-Republican journalists still think there's no crime involved and therefore no cover-up that should be actionable ... but, really, the White House committed a political error, didn't he? So, really, he had it coming, right? Therefore, if the GOP is going to paralyze the country with a phony constitutional crisis for the rest of this year --or the next two and a half years, or onward into infinity if Hillary Clinton is elected president but Congress is still Republican-controlled -- then it's as much Obama's fault as the Republicans', isn't it? Wasn't Obama asking for it?

SNIP

Yes, but this line of thought easily morphs into the sort of "just world" thinking that partly absolves Republicans of responsibility for the fraud they're committing. It's as if these reporters are watching a kid get bullied in the junior high cafeteria and telling themselves that, after all, he does all those weird things, so of course he gets picked on. They lose perspective on what should be the unacceptability of what's being done.

SNIP 

A nasty cafeteria beatdown is now inevitable, and reporters and pundits are making themselves comfortable with the idea that it's going to happen, because acknowledging that sociopaths control half our government is too much to ask of them.

Don't despair; Steve Benen reminds us of how repug bullshit attacks on a Democratic president backfired.

Go on, repugs: impeach the kenyanmuslinterristni**er.  Do it now.

Stop Giving Screaming Liars a Forum

I screamed it at the TV during All In Wednesday night, but Zandar calmly posted it:

By the end Stefano is all but calling Hayes a woman-hating criminal.  He's had Stefano on his show before, but he's shocked that Stefano is ripping into him personally.  I'm sure he saw her as a friend up until this point, because the whole purpose of Chris Hayes's show is to have a decent discussion on the topics of the day's news.

The poor naive little lamb.

News flash, Chris:  Conservatives from Americans for Prosperity are not there to be your friend.  They are there to kick you in the head and spout as many lies per minute as they can about President Obama and his policies.  They are there to do exactly what Stefano did to you, that is use you like a punching bag and pummel you on your own show.  They are daring you to devolve into a screaming match, because lord knows if your goal is to try to inform your viewers about the Affordable Care Act, her job is to stop you from doing that, and she did exactly that.

The lesson you're supposed to draw from this is that conservatives from think tanks are not your friends, Chris.  They are your tormentors.

Maybe you should stop inviting them on your show?

No maybe about it. Just stop giving liars a forum. Even if they don't scream.

Create a Secular Safe Zone

It doesn't have to be in a school.  Every place I've ever worked - especially the supposedly secular government offices - bullied and demeaned non-believers.  What I wouldn't have given to have known that in one office I could find relief from the scorn and the pressure.

Via Divine Irony and the Atlantic:

confrontingbabble-on:

Despite secularism and atheism being on the rise, some areligious students feel discriminated against—at times violently. Now teachers across the U.S. are creating Secular Safe Zones to “curtail anti-atheist bullying, discrimination, and social isolation.”

The Secular Safe Zone initiative is designed to create “safe, neutral places for students to talk about their doubts without fear of religious bullying.” That’s done by recruiting “allies” and training them to recognize and respond to anti-atheist bullying. The initiative is modeled off of Gay Alliance’s LGBT Safe Zone program, which was started several years ago, in that it allows mentors at schools to explicitly demarcate spaces where “students know that bullying won’t be tolerated.”

School faculty members who affiliate with the program never have to say a thing; they hang the yellow, green, pink, and blue emblem, and students come to them.

“It’s shocking how often people tell secular students that they don’t belong in America,” Jesse Galef, communications director for the SSA told me. “Sometimes there are threats of violence against students who openly identify as atheists … We’re calling on supportive role models nationwide to stand up for these students.” That can include “teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, RAs, even chaplains, who want to create safe places for people to discuss their doubts and be open about their identities.”