Violent Images Are the Last Refuge of the Incompetent

Yeah, we've seen these before. That's not a fetus, by the way - more like a three-year-old. Probably one killed and dismembered in one of the countless violent conflicts around the world that vicious motherfuckers like Beacham don't give a shit about.  Protesting violence against post-birth human beings, after all, doesn't provide an opportunity to act out your own sexual repression by suppressing women.

From the AP:

An anti-abortion activist who filed for Congress so he could run TV ads supporting his cause plans to air an especially graphic ad showing a dismembered fetus on nine stations.

Andrew Beacham is running in Kentucky's 2nd District but not with the intention of winning. Instead, he simply wants to use his candidacy as a bully pulpit.

Yes, of course he's an acolyte of terrorist Randall Terry and Operation Rescue. He's also an Indiana resident - doesn't even live in Kentucky.

Shame on every television station that runs this ad. It's not a campaign ad, it's blatantly false from beginning to end and it undermines the already shaky integrity of Kentucky elections.

If you're collecting examples of why we need a Constitutional amendment banning all money from elections, here's one for the top of the stack.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/25/2349967/graphic-anti-abortion-ad-to-begin.html#storylink=cpy

Internet Civil Liberties Getting Weaker By the Day

This is not so much about corporate and Wall Street power as it is about the Obama administration gratuitously hippie-punching because it can.

 

Kathleen Geier at the Washington Monthly:

Last week brought the disturbing news that 25-year old coder and internet activist Aaron Swartz was being charged with nine new felony counts for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by downloading too many academic journal articles. Swartz, who helped invent RSS and was a co-founder of Reddit, was also among of the founders the liberal activist groups the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which works to elect liberal members of Congress, and Demand Progress, which has campaigned for net neutrality and other progressive causes. Swartz now is facing a total of 13 felony counts and, if convicted, the possibility of decades in prison plus a $1 million fine. 

 

SNIP

The severity of the punishment Aaron faces is wildly out of proportion with the actions he has committed. After all, the journal articles he downloaded were never publicly released, no harm was done, and at least some of the “victims” were urging the feds not to prosecute. It’s hard not to believe that Aaron is being targeted and set as an “example” by corporate interests and others who want to shut down the open access movement.

The abuse of prosecutorial discretion here is completely outrageous. What’s particularly infuriating for progressives is that, for the charges to get to this stage, it’s inconceivable that Obama’s Justice Department and Attorney General Holder have not signed off on this. Like Henry Farrell, I strongly urge that “those who agree, and who have access to some kind of public platform, or otherwise can exert influence should do what they can to push back against this.”

You may also want to donate to Aaron’s defense fund, which is here. The charges are a horrendous abuse of civil liberties and a threat to anyone who cherishes the right to use the internet freely. This must not stand.

As many have said before me, the internet is just the latest frontier of the war  for civil liberties war, as once pamphlets, newspapers, radio and television were before it. The fight is what it has always been. We defend free expression online or we lose it everywhere.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Oh Fannie Mae"

 From Down with Tyranny back in March:

Ariel Zevon is Warren's daughter. And she's done a great job in putting the foreclosure crisis to song. The more I watch it, the more I love this video!

Spring is almost here and that means the Occupy Movement will be back in full force. Tomorrow they'll be confronting the Willard Wall Street campaign at the Waldorf Astoria. Keep in touch with what's going on there at the Mr. 1% Facebook page. But Ariel's song was done for the Doo-Occupy! Bail Out America project, which is all about community organizing for eviction protection, student debt relief and the other economic democracy causes motivating the 99% since the banksters and their politician cronies were caught with their hands in the till. Their statement is clear and as enticing as the song:

Our hope is to provide focus and capacity to the emerging populist uprising. We wish to help amplify its power through inspiring movement building campaigns that can are rooted in communities and deliver victories that make a material difference in people's lives.

Through this we will grow our movement from the power we have to the power we need to transform society and establish a new social contract based not on citizenship or property, but on universal human rights.

Doo-Occupy! Bail Out America is an intensive "Learning by Doing" action training that will deliver tools to take home, including stories and lesson from a couple of the hottest actions you'll ever experience. Thanks to all our allies for joining the fun.

Open Early Voting in Kentucky

Kentucky's voter ID law is fairly liberal, permitting social security cards, credit cards or personal acquaintance with precinct officials as sufficient identification.

But Kentucky practices anti-Democratic voter suppression in other ways, including barring early voting.


Scott Wartman at Cincinnati.com:

Voters in Ohio, Indiana and most other states can cast ballots well ahead of the Nov. 6 election without needing an excuse.

But not in Kentucky, which remains one of 16 states that doesn’t allow people to vote before Election Day without having to provide a reason.


As the election nears, 34 states will allow people to vote early without an excuse. The percentage of early votes cast nationally has continued to rise, climbing from 20 percent in the 2004 election to 30 percent in 2008.



While Kentucky doesn’t allow for no-excuse early voting, it is surrounded by states that do. Indiana’s early voting opened Sept. 17, and Ohio’s begins Oct. 2.

SNIP



Kentucky allows for people to vote early either via mail-in absentee ballot or absentee ballot at the clerk’s office, but they must cite one of several reasons listed in state statute for why they can’t vote on Election Day and sign an affidavit. Lying could result in a felony, clerks say.


The state statute specifies seven reasons for people to qualify for a mail-in absentee ballot, including being disabled, serving in the armed forces overseas and being out of town due to employment. The law specifies six reasons for being able to cast an absentee vote early by walking into the clerk’s office. People who can walk in and vote can cite surgery and temporary residence outside the state among the reasons. Women can qualify for walk-in absentee voting if they are in the last trimester of pregnancy.


SNIP

Some Kentucky lawmakers said they see value in preserving the tradition of Election Day. They argue that people who vote early wouldn’t have as much information as those who vote on Election Day.

Early voting would raise the price tag on campaigns since ads would have to start earlier, said State Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger.


“It benefits incumbents who are more apt and able to spend the money,” Koenig said. “Incumbents have more money to spend on radio and TV early.”

No, early voting benefits people who have to work for a living at low-paying jobs without paid leave and can't afford to take a Tuesday off work to vote. But repug Koenig is perfectly fine with those people not being able to vote.

State Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, in 2010 tried to start a pilot program for counties to conduct elections by mail. State officials, however, estimated the pilot program would cost $1 million, and the legislation failed to get a hearing.


Rollins, however, sees merit in early voting in person.

“Unless the clerks would oppose it, I think it would be fairly easy to have one voting machine in the county courthouse, and in the time period of two weeks or so prior to election to allow people to go ahead and vote,” Rollins said.

Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes recently returned from a visit to Kentucky troops overseas with the recommendation that those troops be allowed to vote by email.

Secretary Grimes: there are tens of thousands of Kentucky voters who find it just as difficult to vote on a Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. as overseas troops find it difficult to mail an absentee ballot. You've got obvious ambitions for higher office; why not set yourself apart with a campaign to open early voting in Kentucky?

No, You Can't Tell By Looking

I'm surprised. Given the attitude of many non-Hispanics in my Kentucky county, where virtually all the scut work is done by Hispanics, from tobacco cutting to housecleaning, I'd have guessed it was more like two in three, or even three in four.

Amanda Peterson Beadle at Think Progress:

One In Three Americans Falsely Believe Most Latinos Are Undocumented 

More than 30 percent of non-Hispanics inaccurately think that a majority of Latinos in the U.S. are undocumented, according to a new poll from the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) and Latino Decisions about media portrayals of Latinos and immigrants. Only about 18 percent of the Latino population in the U.S. is undocumented, and 37 percent of U.S. Latinos are actually immigrants. In its report, the NHMC said media portrayals of Latinos and immigrants exacerbates “stereotypically negative opinions” about them. “It is producing attitudes among non-Latinos that contribute to hate speech and hate crimes,” said Alex Nogales, president and CEO of NHMC. The organization plans to share its results with the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to push the agencies to study the impacts of hate speech in the media.

As I always say when this subject arises: Unless you are 100 percent Native American, you're here because of immigrants so shut the fuck up about "illegals."

Repugs Don't Need to Win the White House to Take Over the Country

In case you were feeling hopeful about the presidential election.

 

Jonathan Schell at The Nation:

But there is more in the GOP playbook than electioneering.

For at least a generation, the party has also pursued power by extra-electoral means. The procedure has been to use and abuse power acquired in one institution to acquire more power in other institutions. As is well known, the framers of the Constitution established a separation of powers: each branch of government was designed to monitor and correct any abuses perpetrated by the others. The Republicans have thrown this system into reverse. They use each branch as a stronghold from which to mount attacks on the others and usurp their powers, all in pursuit of increasing and consolidating their own party’s power. Thus, in the name of protecting the Constitution—so often praised at the Republican convention—they have stood the Constitution on its head.

Court powers are used to intervene in the executive power, as the Supreme Court did so outrageously in 2000, when it overrode the decision of voters in Florida and put George W. Bush in the White House. Legislative powers are used to curtail the power of citizens, as GOP legislatures have done throughout the country to suppress Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters by raising onerous obstacles to voting, such as requiring government-issued photo IDs. Legislative powers are also used to reach into the executive, as the GOP-controlled House did when it impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 for minor offenses, mostly of a personal nature. Executive power is used to spy on and punish opposition figures, as Nixon did in the Watergate crisis, or to corrupt due process, as the Bush White House did when it fired nine United States attorneys for failing to fall into line with its voter-suppression schemes.

More than government institutions are involved. The pattern extends to trade unions, the news media and, above all, corporations. Legislative and judicial power is used to attack unions, which tend to support the Democrats, as when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker eviscerated the bargaining rights of public employee unions. Judicial power is used to increase the power of corporations, as when the Supreme Court removed limits on their ability to financially intervene in elections with its Citizens United ruling. (This decision may be to the election of 2012 what Bush v. Gore was to 2000.) Legislative power is used to generate more legislative power, as when Tom DeLay used money raised in Washington to manipulate redistricting in Texas (though, in that instance, he was convicted of money-laundering for his pains). Paralleling these moves is the transformation of the GOP itself into an organization that renegade Republican operative Mike Lofgren has characterized as “less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and…more like…one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe.” In the background is the biggest institutional shift of all: the steady transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich and corporations.

With all of this afoot, the GOP doesn’t need to abandon its dream of permanent domination. The long, slow power grab of the institutional structure reconciles its long-term and short-term ambitions. But if it succeeds along this path, then it—and the rest of us—would have to give up the dream of a fair electoral system that expresses the will of the people. The Republicans would have to suspend the Republic—in the name, of course, of saving it.

It's a never-ending fight with multiple fronts.  Democrats - and democracy - lose when we ignore even one of those multiple fronts, or relax our determination for a single election cycle.

Permanent victory is impossible, but long-term defeat is unthinkable.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Blowin' in the Wind"

Uploaded by BoboGuimaraes on May 8, 2011

No Voter ID? Get a Gun

This has been everywhere, but in case you missed it, trust me: it's genius and well worth your time.

Definitely NSFW and the really NSFW part is in the first 10 seconds, so seriously: NOT SAFE FOR WORK.



Now that you've had your laugh, read this shot of cold water in the face from Zandar, on how the only thing that will stop repugs from stealing this election is every single Democratic voter getting out and voting.

Police Near-Tasing of Combat Vet Spurs Training

Let's hope this inspires similar training across the country.

Jason Riley at the Courier:

The man’s clothes were dusty, and he had difficulty speaking. Questioned by a Louisville Metro Police officer inside Mid-City Mall, he couldn’t provide his own address.

Judging the man to be a homeless panhandler, the police officer asked him to leave, and a confrontation ensued — a Taser was drawn, other officers were called and the man was taken down and handcuffed for several minutes.

But the man cuffed and threatened with jail in the Jan. 29 incident was neither homeless nor panhandling. He was a Purple Heart and multiple Bronze Star recipient and a Kentucky National Guard lieutenant colonel going on a routine errand.

Lt. Col. Donald Blake Settle has a poor memory and difficulty speaking as the result of injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, incurred in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan and a vehicle rollover. And on this day, he had stopped to chat with an acquaintance while shopping for a gift card.

His case has resulted in an internal police investigation, sharp questioning from Fort Knox officials, and a potential lawsuit. But it also has prompted a new mandatory training program for police on how to deal with military veterans coming home with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

SNIP 

“Unfortunately this is real familiar,” Eddie Reynolds, outreach director of the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky, said of Settle’s experience. There are more than 250,000 Kentuckians with brain injuries and they are seven times as likely as the average person to have a run-in with the law, he said.

Let's also hope this training addresses broader issues of taser use. Veterans with TBI aren't the only citizens getting tased for unconventional behavior they can't control. And slurring your words in public isn't a crime. Neither is objecting to unreasonable demands from police.

Cops used to know how to talk to people. Long past time to end taze first, ask questions later.

Bush Tax Cuts and Spending Cuts Both Bad - So Cancel Them Both

Seriously, can we stop the bipartisan bullshit about how we can only prevent massive spending cuts that will throw us back into recession if we let billionaires keep their Bush tax cuts?

Because that is precisely the opposite of the facts. The opposite of reality. The opposite of the truth.

There's an easy way to avoid this "fiscal cliff' boogeyman everybody's trying to terrify you with:

End the Bush tax cuts for the rich. That makes the motherfucking parasites start paying the fair share they haven't paid in more than 30 years.

Once the too-lazy-to-even-be-cocksuckers billionaires pay back the trillions they've stolen from the working class, that puts enough money in the Treasury to not only cancel the economy-killing spending cuts, but also to launch trillions in infrastructure investment that creates millions of jobs, growing the economy and eliminating the deficit the old-fashioned way.

Travis Waldron at Think Progress:

The United States is approaching the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012, when a set of policies enacted by the debt deal reached in August 2011 will go into effect. In addition to massive spending cuts, several tax provisions will expire, including the full Bush tax cuts.

Though both the GOP and Democrats agree that the low-end Bush tax cuts, those that give everyone a tax cut but primarily affect the middle class, need to be extended, Republicans have blocked that in order to leverage an extension of the upper-income tax cuts. The logic, Republicans argue, is that not doing so will raise taxes on “job creators” at a time when the economy can least afford it.

An analysis of the fiscal cliff policies by the Economic Policy Institute, however, found that the cost of the Bush tax cuts — and particularly those for high-income earners — far outweigh the benefits:

SNIP

The findings are similar to an earlier report from the Congressional Budget Office that found the expiration of the high-income Bush tax cuts, once multipliers are added, would cause far less economic damage than spending cuts to the discretionary budget favored by Republicans.

Cancel the Bush tax cuts for the rich AND the economy-killing spending cuts. Now that's bipartisan.

Your Grammar Nazi

This is the illiteracy that makes me despair for humanity.

 

David Kurtz at TPM:

It’s narcotic effect is predicated on that ignorance because let’s face it: most people, including most elected officials, have no idea how the tax code works.

I don't think he means to say "It is narcotic effect ..." but that's what he's written there.

"It's" is a contraction and always means "It is."

The possessive - something belonging to it - is always written "Its."

CORRECT:  "Its narcotic effect is predicated ..."

Stop the Deficit Hysterics

The fight this fall is not just over the elections; it's over stopping the deficit hysterics from killing Social Security and Medicare.

Digby says don't take dems' word on entitlements, but hold their feet to the fire.

One hopes that the President will keep that last commitment and not abandon it in another feckless attempt to build credibility with the Republicans in the upcoming "fiscal cliff" negotiations. Assuming they mean this, of course. Considering how eager our allegedly liberal Dick Durbin is to push Simpson Bowles, that's debatable. Simpson Bowles, you'll recall, not only cut the hell out of Medicare and Medicaid, it put Social Security on the menu even though it wasn't part of their mandate and contributes nothing to these deficit numbers. They just did it out of the goodness of their hearts. Fortunately, they couldn't get a majority of the commission to sign on to their plan, but Durbin seems to think it's the template for the talks coming up right after the election.

If you are going to be attending any rallies over he next few weeks and are wondering what kind of signs you should take, how about "No Grand Bargains" or "Just Say No to Simpson-Bowles." Or something like that. They may not be sexy, but if that message starts showing up in the crowds maybe the politicians will realize that we are on to them. I'm not sure they care, but ...

Personally, I like "Stop the Deficit Hysterics." It's accurate and insulting at the same time. 

And if anybody gets in your face about "the debt," throw this back at them:

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

Regardless, in case anyone's forgotten, there is no debt crisis. The United States can easily borrow as much as it needs at low interest rates, suggesting there's nothing even close to a debt crisis. This is a fig leaf Ryan and the right is using to rationalize draconian cut to domestic priorities, which they've long wanted to make anyway.

Second, if Ryan and his allies were seriously panicked about reducing the deficit and getting our fiscal house in order, they'd consider modest tax increases on the wealthy. Indeed, we know exactly what's driving the national debt, and much of it has to do with tax cuts the rich didn't need and the country couldn't afford. When Ryan acknowledges this, he'll start to have some credibility on the issue.

And third, for all of Ryan's alleged fear about the debt, his last budget plan ignored deficit reduction altogether, and instead prioritized more tax breaks for those at the very top. Asked yesterday about tax loopholes he'd be willing to close to help pay for his plans, Ryan refused to go into any detail.

Kentucky Encouraging Kids to Garden

I'll be damned. The how-to booklet for the kids on this program actually does not toe the Monsanto line. It doesn't promote organic principles and techniques either, but I'll take a small victory where I can get it.

From the AP:

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture usually deals with bigger farmers but has joined with the Governor's Office of Agricultural Policy to work with some younger potential growers. First lady Jane Beshear and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer have launched a program to show young people how they can plant their own gardens and grow food, even on a patio.

Comer says "A Kid's Guide to Gardening" also teaches the importance of learning the source of food.

Students from Kerrick Elementary School in Louisville attended the announcement, picking up their copies of the guides and receiving hands-on experience in harvesting and planting.

More information about the initiative, called "Ready, Set, Grow," is available along with the guide here.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "The Whole Wide World Around"

Uploaded by rockingoldies on Jun 13, 2011

"It's time for action"

As long as that action is not a Grand Bargain to gut Social Security and Medicare in return for the change out of rich people's sofas.



Full transcript here.

Is Being Stupid and Venal a Federal Crime?

We're about to find out.

From the Courier

The FBI is investigating Richie Farmer’s stint as agriculture commissioner, his successor says.
“The attorney general’s office has notified me that the FBI is investigating the previous administration,” Agriculture Commissioner James Comer said Friday. “ ... They said that the FBI would be contacting some of our employees” who remain from Farmer’s eight years as commissioner.


SNIP


He said his office was notified late last week by Attorney General Jack Conway’s staff.


Comer said his staff was not told what aspects of Farmer’s 2004-11 tenure are under investigation.

SNIP

 Farmer’s tenure as agriculture commissioner was blasted in an April 30 audit by state Auditor Adam Edelen. The audit criticized Farmer’s administration on a wide range of financial and management issues, including possible misuse of state and federal funds.

Don't ever forget that this is the man Kentucky repugs nominated for Lt. Governor just last year, and that Jamie butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth Comer supported him.

The Hard Work and Heavy Responsibility of Being Poor

I'll take Baby Wonk's explanation to its logical conclusion: the richer you are, the LESS responsible and hard-working you are. Only those with lots of money can be truly lazy.

From Digby:

 But America's poor and disenfranchised are hardly lazy if they are getting government benefits. As Ezra Klein points out in this piece:

Still, for my money, the worst of Romney’s comments were these: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

When he said this, Romney didn’t just write off half the country behind closed doors. He also confirmed the worst suspicions about who he is: an entitled rich guy with no understanding of how people who aren’t rich actually live.

The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier.

That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream.

The problem is that he doesn’t seem to realize how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, or the agonizing choices faced by families in which both parents work and a child falls ill. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

I've always found it so amusing that the right wingers believe, for instance, that illegal immigrants are all on welfare. Clearly, they have no idea how many hoops one has to go through to get on the rolls and neither have they ever considered the absurdity of the idea that people who live in daily fear of the authorities would walk willingly into a government building and submit themselves to close inspection by security and government bureaucrats. They are convinced that these people are in the US to take advantage of our allegedly generous welfare benefits --- and to steal our jobs. But they are still lazy Mexicans who don't know the meaning of a hard days work.

They truly believe that they work harder than anyone else, that their lives are more complicated, that they are the ones who are doing everything, while the poor have it easy. I used to hear it from the wives of Hollywood executives who literally spent their days getting pampered from head to toe by immigrants who worked 80 hours a week and made less than minimum wage. I could never tell if they really believed it or if they just had to say it out loud in order to live with themselves. I suspected the former. There was not the tiniest bit of self-awareness in their complaints.

This is the dark side of America's Puritan work ethic. In order to justify their wealth the upper classes must pretend that those who are poorer have done it to themselves through their laziness and sloth. Otherwise, they wouldn't "deserve" what they have and their whole value system would collapse.

RMoney and his billionaire buddies wouldn't last five minutes busing tables, pouring concrete, nursing the elderly or teaching forty 12-year-olds all day. But I would love to watch the motherfuckers try.

Your Grammar Nazi

This one started spreading after the Boston Globe blew the lid off the Catholic Church's priests raping children scandal several years ago, and now it's ubiquitous. But still dead wrong.

Digby:

Or it will be if they just agree to throw more human sacrifices on the alter:

Sacrifices, human and otherwise, are made on altars. There is no such noun as alter. There is, however, a verb to alter that means to change.

Help Your Grammar Nazi alter this common misuse by confining your sacrifices and your worship to the altar.

The Destructive Reich-Wing Lie Ben Chandler Bought Hook, Line and Sinker

Ben Chandler, DINO-KY6, was one of a handful of dem betrayers who voted with the reich-wing crazies in the House of Representatives to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for ... being a ni**er with power, apparently.

 

No, ol' Cowardly Worm didn't give a flying fuck what the truth was; he just saw an opportunity to suck more repug cock while poking a stick in the administration's eye.

 

Now there's an official report proving what everyone with an ounce of sense knew all along.

 

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

There's not much question that Fast & Furious was a cockup. ATF agents wanted to track guns that were being sold to Mexican drug cartels, but poor planning, idiotic infighting, and a tangle of laws that got in the way of arresting obvious gunrunners produced little but chaos. Thousands of guns ended up in Mexican hands, one of which was eventually used to kill ATF agent Brian Terry. Katherine Eban wrote the best take on the whole sorry affair three months ago in a long piece for Fortune called "The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal."

But this was never enough for Republicans. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican attack dog who was the point man for congressional hearings into the affair, insisted that Barack Obama was using Fast & Furious to "somehow take away or limit people's Second Amendment rights." This was pretty much the party line in the fever swamps of the right: it wasn't just a local mess, it was a carefully planned operation from Eric Holder on down to set the stage for a massive new effort to take away people's guns. As Ann Coulter explained things, Fast & Furious put guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels "to strengthen liberals’ argument for gun control....Innocent people dying was the objective of Fast and Furious, not collateral damage."

On Wednesday that all came crashing down when Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice Inspector General, finally released his lengthy report on the operation. Horowitz is no Democratic hack. As Time's Massimo Calabresi reminds us, "Horowitz managed to impress the House GOP in briefings over the past week, and the report itself was met with support from all quarters....Issa himself called Horowitz and his report 'courageous.'" But there's more:

What none on the right are admitting is that Horowitz’s report systematically reveals how irresponsible and speculative the accusations from their side have been. The report criticizes Holder’s Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer for failing to inform Holder or his deputy that “gun walking” had taken place in the Bush administration in another case in Arizona called “Wide Receiver”. But the report shows that Breuer knew nothing about gun walking in Fast and Furious, and that therefore the scandal existed three levels below Holder (let alone the White House)....As for the source of the false statements to Congress, Horowitz finds they were the result of inaccurate reassurances given to Breuer’s deputy Jason Weinstein, by the U.S. attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke. 

....Horowitz destroys the conspiracy theories on both sides of the aisle over 471-pages, but it’s the right wing screamers who come out looking worst. Horowitz shows definitively that the Arizona ATF agents and prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office there were responsible for the operation, not the White House or the Justice Department in Washington and that the primary source of the inaccurate testimony given to Congress was the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke.

For over a year, it's been an article of faith on the right that Fast & Furious was a carefully constructed scheme directed by the White House to trash the Second Amendment and build support for more gun control laws. It wasn't. Neither the White House nor Eric Holder had any idea what was going on. It was just a local operation that was badly botched. This makes Fast & Furious offically yet another lunatic conservative conspiracy theory that has bitten the dust in the cold light of reality.

So, is Cowardly Worm too fucking stupid to live, or so craven he'll vote for any repug shit they throw against the wall?

No, it doesn't matter. Either way, he's no Democrat.

Exceptionalism: Inexcusable Poverty

Record stock highs, the Wall Street casino going strong, billionaires soaking up tax-free profits; who cares about 50 million poor people?

From HalfinTen:

Today (Sept. 20), in response to new Census Bureau data for 2011 that reveal an unchanged rate of poverty and declining middle class incomes, Half in Ten, the campaign to cut poverty in half in 10 years, urged Congress and the Obama administration to take immediate action. Reacting to the data showing that the rate of Americans in poverty held steady at 15 percent, median incomes declined by 1.5 percent, and 1.4 million people gained health care coverage, Half in Ten’s leadership issued the following statements.

Melissa Boteach, Director of the Half in Ten Campaign:

When poverty is holding steady, and incomes are falling even as the economy is recovering, it is a sign that economic gains are concentrating at the top, leaving working families behind. This data should be a wake-up call to policymakers that rather than budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, we need a focus on good jobs that bring more families into the middle class.

Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition on Human Needs, a Half in Ten partner:

The findings are clear: More work and unemployment benefits have helped keep poverty from rising, which is good news. But 46 million people in poverty and more than one in five children poor remains unacceptably high. We need to keep unemployment benefits in place while we build on these hopeful signs of progress.

Winnie Stachelberg, Executive Vice President for External Affairs at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Half in Ten partner:

Policy matters. The Affordable Care Act helped more families gain health coverage. Tax credits for working families and nutrition assistance kept millions out of poverty when counted as income. And as policymakers make key budget decisions in the coming weeks, it is critical they understand that these policies make a big difference in creating economic security and opportunity.

Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:

Economic security is the civil rights issue of our time. By making policy choices that bring millions of our neighbors off the economic margins and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share, we can grow our economy and cut poverty as we reduce our long-term deficits. It’s about choices.

Check out the interactive maps:

The first column is the congressional district, the second column the district's poverty rate, third column the number of poor people in the district, the fourth and fifth columns the percentage and number of children in poverty. Here are the numbers for Kentucky.

Kentucky 1	20 %   (133,184)		30%   (45,904)
Kentucky 2	17 %   (126,955)		25%   (47,582)
Kentucky 3	17 %   (122,132)		27%   (44,058)
Kentucky 4	15 %   (110,314)		20%   (36,568)
Kentucky 5	28 %   (179,659)		38%   (54,489)
Kentucky 6	19 %   (139,033)		24%   (40,805)