Not looking too good for the 20th or earlier Centuries

A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit heard arguments of the conservative Attorney's General of Wisconsin and Indiana Tuesday as the latter sought to forbid same sex marriages from occurring in Madison or Indianapolis.

This is clearly not 2008 anymore.

Judge Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was dismissive when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to ‘tradition’ as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage.

“It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry – a tradition that got swept away,” Posner said. Prohibition of same sex marriage, he said, is “a tradition of hate ... and savage discrimination.”
Posner frequently cut off Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fischer, just moments into his presentation and chided him to answer his questions.

At one point, Posner ran through a list of psychological strains of unmarried same-sex couples, including having to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates’ parents were married and theirs weren’t.
“What horrible stuff,” Posner said. What benefits to society in barring gay marriage, he asked, “outweighs that kind of damage to children?”

The answer has to do with “procreation,” Fisher answered.

Yes...that's all they have left now...sex just isn't sex if a baby isn't made.

That's some powerful logic.

And Posner is THE conservative on that panel.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Way to take Irony right to the grave

The Second Amendment, is the Darwin Award catch-all for the illiterate Amendment reader (who needs an opening clause anyway?).

Anyhow there's this.

And ALSO this.

The Daily Show
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"We're not going to repeat the mistakes that led to World War Two!"

And engage in appeasement. No instead we're going to have a series of actions that repeat the mistakes that led to World War One! This one's for you Franz Ferdinand!

Nato is to deploy its forces at new bases in eastern Europe for the first time, in response to the Ukraine crisis and in an attempt to deter Vladimir Putin from causing trouble in the former Soviet Baltic republics, according to its chief. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark, said that next week's Nato summit in Cardiff would overcome divisions within the alliance and agree to new deployments on Russia's borders – a move certain to trigger a strong reaction from Moscow

I'm sure this will all work out just dandy for everyone. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hobbies

Aside from being rather creepily obsessed with his female producers, middle-eastern grains, and killing people...I mean especially the latter, Bill O'Reilly styles himself as the premier old white guy expert on all things African-American (or as he says "Negro"). It gets rather embarrassing...this embarrassing.

Bill O'Reilly brought Megyn Kelly on his Monday show to have a discussion about the concept of "white privilege."

He asked Kelly if she believed it was real. "There's a lot of evidence behind it," Kelly said. No, this wasn't a rift in the space-time continuum.

Nostradumbass

One could literally put up post after post on the tragic stupidity of Paul Wolfowitz (still getting paid to utter his ever-erring pie whole)...and I guess I will take part.

There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army—hard to imagine

And...of course, in spite of that little thing known as reality...Paul Wolfowitz declared "VICTORY!" (and HE went home). Behold the fruits of the easy victory.

The United Nations said on Sunday it had evidence that fighters from Islamic State (Isis) had killed as many as 670 prisoners in Mosul and had carried out further abuses in Iraq that amounted to crimes against humanity.

And least we can take comfort in Wolfowitz's other prediction that the Iraq War would pay for itself...at least if you are ISIS.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Just so you know where you stand

In Ferguson...

...the recent actions of other police officers have revealed the depth of the rift between the Ferguson community and local authorities On Wednesday, police officer Lt. Ray Albers was suspended after video surfaced of him threatening and pointing a weapon at a crowd of Ferguson protesters. Then on Friday, police officer Dan Page, who worked in Ferguson during the protests, was suspended after video surfaced showing him making racist, sexist and homophobic comments during a speech addressing the Oath Keepers of St. Louis and St. Charles. During the speech, Page unapologetically called himself "a killer." Around the same time, another St. Louis-area police officer, Matthew Pappert, was suspended for posting incendiary messages on Facebook, including a statement that reportedly said Ferguson protesters should be "put down like rabid dogs."

Meanwhile no criminal charges filed yet filed in the death of Michael Brown. But, hey, speaking of dogs...

A Wyoming police officer has pleaded not guilty to animal cruelty charges tied to the death of a dog left inside a sweltering patrol car for more than six hours, local media reported.

Priorities, I guess. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"It was the best of times, it was the "Giuliani Time(s)""

One of the advantages of being soulless and ignorant is that you are not governed against the stench of your own stupidity in the past.

Hannity: "Let me educate you about the legal system in America." Bynes: "I don't need your kind of education."

Yes, if nothing else Sean Hannity can "educate" about the legal system in America and how it works for a person of color.

The father of chief defendant Justin Volpe, an NYPD police officer, regularly appeared on show during the 1999 trial. And Hannity and various guests repeated rumors that Louima's injuries resulted from a "gay sex act" and not from police brutality. Playing on the homosexual rumor and inconsistencies in Louima's story, Hannity and his producer sang a parody of Lionel Richie's song "Three Times a Lady," changing the words to "you're once, twice, three times a liar." Hannity stopped referring to the victim as "Lying Louima" only after Volpe confessed to sodomizing Louima with the help of another officer

I'm sure the "education" extends to the numerous times Louima's (and Michael Brown, Travon Martin etc.) treatment is compared to the contract FoxNews gave Oliver North. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

For more than a thousand words worth

This week's cover of Time.

If there's anything government haters can succeed at

It's bad, bad governing.

More than three times as many women have died here at the hands of current or former lovers than the number of Palmetto State soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. ... The beat of killings has remained a constant in South Carolina, even as domestic violence rates have tumbled 64 percent nationwide over the past two decades, according to an analysis of crime statistics by the newspaper.

Maybe Lincoln should have just let 'em go? There is a lot more in the linked article that will make you sick...especially if you live in South Carolina. If nothing else, it's evidence that no policy and virtually no government serve the interest of one type of person most of all, a white male...or as that particular type of person too often calls it, "the good old days". Those days never ended in South Carolina, whose State Flag should perhaps replace the Palmetto Tree with a simple prehistoric club. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yes, it has come to this

A proud day indeed.

Egypt on Tuesday urged U.S. authorities to exercise restraint in dealing with racially charged demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri

In our defense (via FoxNews, naturally) it is possible that many political protesters in Cairo had not had a "one-hitter" within several weeks of when they were shot six-times at point blank range. It's all about context (as you wish to fashion it from reality). [Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I'm guessing his remedy is "those people should be shot!"

What a bunch of assholes condensed into but one "ass-container":

Breitbart.com, a prominent far-right website, reported this morning, “Republicans are criticizing efforts by liberal organizers to set up voter registration booths at the site where Missouri teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a local police officer.”

In an interview with Breitbart News, Missouri RNC executive director Matt Wills expressed outrage about the reports.

 

“If that’s not fanning the political flames, I don’t know what is,” Wills said, “I think it’s not only disgusting but completely inappropriate.”

Wills is described by the RNC as the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.

Of course he is.

'Murica 2014...(not "literally" Ferguson edition)

Delightful, nothing like an abhorrent technicality to help the wealthy stay in their bubble. This, after all, was a close one.

One new Manhattan skyscraper will greet residents of pricey condos with a lobby in front, while renters of affordable apartments that got the developer government incentives must use a separate side entrance — a so-called poor door. In another apartment house, rent-regulated residents can't even pay to use a new gym that's free to their market-rate neighbors. Other buildings have added playrooms and roof decks off-limits to rent-stabilized tenants.

I imagine the doors well at least replace Arbeit Macht Frei with the respective terms "takers" and "makers". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Worrying story...needs more "panic"

One of the historical claims that is rooted into our social DNA about the plague (which seems to come around about once of twice a millennium, long enough to forget about the last time) is this one.

The plague started in China and made its way west across Asia to the Black Sea by 1347. One theory is that a group of infected Tartars besieged a Genoese outpost on the coast. To harass the trapped townspeople, the Tartars used their catapults to hurl the dead bodies of their comrades over the town walls spreading the epidemic among the Genoese. The panicked inhabitants fled the scene by ship showing up in the ports of northern Italy and bringing the Black Death to Europe.

Or just this not quite as old an allegation.

... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort -- an early example of biological warfare -- which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer.

Public worry about Ebola just isn't World War Z-enough...so how about this claim?

Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital's largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including blood-stained sheets and mattresses.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Iowa's shame, part infinity

Oh sure, you have your Michelle Bachmanns and Louis Gohmerts, and even God forbid next year a fellow Iowan Jodie Ernst, but still no member of Congress is more proudly ignorant than Steve King...representative of Iowa's Fourth District. King's long run of racism is but one of his many low points -- and no situation like Ferguson can occur without King adding his less than two cents.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) claimed that racial profiling is not a concern in Ferguson, Missouri, because all of the protesters are of a "continental origin." Speaking on conservative network Newsmax TV on Wednesday, King disagreed that racial profiling played a role in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown or the targeting of those protesting his death because, King claims, everyone protesting the situation is black.

Yep, just another dead African-American teen cared for only by his fellow "Continentals" [King loves all form of racial statements, but his default is the "old timey" phrases]. At least he didn't discuss the size of their calves. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Ever "Tricky" but he's just the trend setter

As noticed by these folks, George Will had a pretty startling reveal of one of Richard Nixon's less famous crimes.

On Nov. 2 at 8:34 p.m., a teleprinter at Johnson’s ranch delivered an FBI report on the embassy wiretap: Chennault had told South Vietnam’s ambassador “she had received a message from her boss (not further identified). . . . She said the message was that the ambassador is to ‘hold on, we are gonna win.’ ” The Logan Act of 1799 makes it a crime for a private U.S. citizen, which Nixon then was, to interfere with U.S. government diplomatic negotiations.

So Richard Nixon...delayed the end of the Vietnam War so he could help win himself the right to order the illegal bombing of Cambodia.

The fact this comes from George Will, makes one wonder whether a column in coming out in about six years revealing that Ronald Reagan and his campaign advisers mucked up the process of liberating Americans held prisoner in Iran.

Of course, those were the old days when the GOP felt it necessary to commit war crimes in the dark, as opposed to openly as part of the new Fall rollout.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

America 2014

"Land of the Free"*

"Home of the Brave"

Ironic...in that this doesn't even reflect the world's highest incarceration rate.

You cannot usually have strange bedfellows if the bed is on fire

What could be more comforting than plans going badly for those who primarily make the plans...why it's almost as if we don't know what we're doing so much that eventually we find a common ground of "hey, we haven't bombed this guy yet!?"
I bet Iran would have been even more supportive of our "soft-Dieming" if we'd followed the McCain/Graham plan of bombin' Iran 'till the rubble bounced. After all, to the frustration of many repressed unindicted war criminals, a bombing leading to even more bombing is the prescription to all ills so bomb as often and as many as possible. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

One of the useful aspects of Twitter

Is it allows you to recognize just who is a huuugggggge asshole, based on what they for no other reason than they just have to write something completely gratuitous.

Oh...hooray!

Well this surprises nobody.

Jobs growth in the U.S. since the 2008 recession has been undermined by lower wages, with workers earning an average 23 percent less than from jobs which were lost, a report by an organization representing U.S. cities said on Monday.

Middle-class, now with a quarter less value.

Meanwhile.

America's richest 0.1%, who have at least $20 million (£11 million) in net wealth, had at least 23.5% of the country's wealth in 2012, up from 21.5% from previous estimates.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well, now we know

The sorts of things that give Lindsey Graham a chubby.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned on Sunday that militants in Iraq and Syria would attack the U.S. mainland if President Barack Obama did not immediately take military action to stop them.

“I think of an American city in flames because of the terrorists’ ability to operate in Syria and Iraq,” Graham told Fox News host Chris Wallace.

I believe an American city in flames (the sequel) is the kind of "HOPE" that Lindsey Graham not only believes in, but ejaculates to as well.

Good to know you can maybe get around to that...eventually

When it comes to the Fukushima reactor, it is comforting to know that TEPCO, the company running the thing always gets back to you...eventually...to let you know they were wrong the last several times but they've got it all under control...someday.

Almost all of the nuclear fuel in the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant melted within days of the March 11, 2011, disaster, according to a new estimate by Tokyo Electric Power Co. TEPCO originally estimated that about 60 percent of the nuclear fuel melted at the reactor. But the latest estimate released on Aug. 6 revealed that the fuel started to melt about six hours earlier than previously thought.

Thanks TEPCO, any further words of reassurance you can provide those concerned about the safety of nuclear power?

The utility plans to start fuel removal operations at the No. 3 reactor no earlier than in the latter half of fiscal 2021.

Oh, sure, sounds swell...and quite an endorsement on the safety of radioactivity.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

He's also the Queen of Hearts and the awesomist member of Manudo!

In case you wondered whether he is not only allowed out in polite society...but also unaffected:

Paul Wolfowitz, a former senior George W. Bush administration official and one of the chief Iraq War architects, said on Tuesday that the U.S. "won" the war in Iraq. When asked his thoughts about the current situation in Iraq and whether the war was a mistake, Wolfowitz replied, "We have won it — in 2009." The Bush administration’s troop surge in Iraq in 2007 and a moderate Sunni movement against al Qaeda extremists helped quell sectarian violence throughout the country. The U.S. began to draw down combat troops in 2009.

In a room full of people worried about Ebola it figures Paul Wolfowitz is still the deadliest pathogen in the room. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Watching you, watching me, watching them

A real trust circle.

Israel eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during doomed peace talks with the Palestinians last year, German news weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

Of course they did. It's called Pollarding!

Or something like that...after all we undoubtedly knew the Germans were watching us, while we watched them...it would make a great movie about the ol' fashioned ways we used to go on about those totalitarian states that used to be...the states, not the totalitarianism.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And then on to a "Gathering of Juggalos"

But all of them are far better behaved than the modern GOP he helped wrought.

 Churlish hamster Grover Norquist nearly brought the U.S. to the brink of default three years ago, pressuring legislators with his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" into a debt ceiling battle that was both dangerous and inane. This year, Norquist plans to attend Burning Man, which he sees as a stateless capitalist Utopia.

What's old is new again

I appreciate the fact that you are calling them out in asking for balance, but... Were you people at the Guardian born yesterday, or have never watched American news before?

p [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And Alito just turns the volume louder during his Real Housewives marathon

Truer words...never spoken.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday in an interview on Yahoo News that five men on the court have a "blind spot" when it comes to discrimination against women.

Who cares, it's just the general public!

In a world left with few things that are not completely predictable, there are some things more predictable than others.

Ancient water and sewage lines will be about as well maintained as your average post-collapse Roman Aqueduct, until they finally break. 

Unless, of course, something like the Keystone Pipeline suffers the inevitable catastrophic leak...in which case the government will totally give your tax dollars to fix that thing you totally did not want so its corporate ownership doesn't have to reduce their profits.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

In a nutshell...in a multitude of metaphors

It's long been noticed that the anti-choice crowd obsesses about fetuses until the umbilical cord is cut, then they could care less.

So why shouldn't Hobby Lobby just sum up the whole conundrum in one predictable case?

When a very pregnant Felicia Allen applied for medical leave from her job at Hobby Lobby three years ago, one might think that the company best known for denying its employees insurance coverage of certain contraceptives—on the false grounds that they cause abortions—would show equal concern for helping one of its employees when she learned she was pregnant.

Instead, Allen says the self-professed evangelical Christian arts-and-crafts chain fired her and then tried to prevent her from accessing unemployment benefits.

Why if she'd just taken birth control...oh, right.

Hobby Lobby's PR person will get back to you as soon as he goes and gets his plan-supported Viagra from the Walgreen's next door.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I'd say I'm surprised

But I'm not at all surprised.

According to recently unearthed court records, Bob Dowlut—who for 30 years has been the architect of the National Rifle Association's legal and cultural agenda—was sentenced to life in an Indiana prison for shooting a shopkeeper during a robbery before murdering a single mother with the same gun.

Mr. Dowlut...I'm sorry, "Convicted Murderer...by gun" Mr. Dowlut, is however a very very white guy, so he didn't serve all that much of a sentence and got a job allowing guys...especially white guys...to carry all the guns and ammo they can carry, especially when they should not carry any of it.

Oh and it's not as if he has not long had an obsessive gun fetish...it's just he really really liked to put his fetish into action.

Dowlut was already well-known to police in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, having escaped jail time after a juvie judge gave him a pass for robbing a local museum of several guns and using them to hold up a restaurant for $135. So when the mother of Dowlut's longtime girlfriend ended up shot twice in the heart and he was caught in a lie about his whereabouts that night, he explained how he'd come to kill her after trying to rob a store and shooting its proprietor in the stomach.

Well this is kind of embarassing

First their old leader loses a primary...and then...

"Listen, this whole talk about impeachment is coming from the president's own staff, and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they're trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year's election," the Ohio Republican told reporters, in response to a question.

Which means this can only mean one thing.

Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania said Monday that a resolution to impeach President Obama would “probably” pass the GOP-controlled House if brought up for vote.

Man, even the crazy Republicans are Democrats now.

Agent of Change

In the wake of a World Cup that showed the importance of building stadiums over the needs of the populace, FIFA was encouraged to consider moving the 2018 World Cup out of Russia in the wake of the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines flight.

They refused with this statement:

The hosting of the FIFA World Cup with the global attention it attracts can be a powerful catalyst for constructive dialogue between people and governments, helping to bring positive social developments.

Behold the positive social developments.

Officials in Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy [ed. the group helping to organize the 2018 World Cup] have been using offices on the 38th and 39th floors of Doha's landmark Al Bidda skyscraper – known as the Tower of Football – which were fitted out by men from Nepal, Sri Lanka and India who say they have not been paid for up to 13 months' work.

I did not realize the reinstitution of slavery was considered a positive social development. But then again, I'm not a FIFA Official getting money in brown envelopes either.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Silly

The way the American-political world works now -- the leader of the Israeli government CANNOT BE QUESTIONED...but the American President is a never-ending threat to be a traitor...especially to Israel, because for some reason another country is more important than our actual country and if you believe otherwise you are just enabling the next Holocaust and are worse than Hitler, or at least would be if this version of events was supported by anything resembling a viable fact.

Just so we have the irreality straight.

Complain all you want

But FIFA Officials' well-lined pockets are going to really enjoy the 2026 Men's World Cup in Somalia.

Glad to see the person who lost their "PR JOB" with Carnival Cruise Lines a couple years ago has found a new gig.

Ugh.

With Ukraine route off-limits, Malaysia Airlines plane flies over Syria instead

Will Sociopath for Votes

Jan Brewer, who was a heartless troll of an elected official before it was de rigueur, is back to remind us of the not so original article. First, the banality of evils.

A condemned Arizona inmate gasped and snorted for more than an hour and a half during his execution Wednesday before he died, his lawyers said, in an episode sure to add to the scrutiny surrounding the death penalty in the U.S. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m., one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started.

But it's all good.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said Wednesday that she had ordered an internal review of the nearly two-hour-long execution of an inmate, but she said she believed the condemned man who gasped and snorted throughout most of the ordeal "did not suffer."

Soon Jan Brewer will launch her "I'll take your dog to a farm upstate Initiative". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Circle of Strife

For every over the top offensive reaction, somewhere there's an equally offensive counter-reaction, and then a just as offensive counter-counter reaction will happen somewhere else.

Paris, for example.

Eighteen people were arrested for attacks on shops, including a kosher supermarket, a Jewish-owned chemist and a funeral home. Rioters, who carried batons and threw petrol bombs according to eyewitnesses, were yards from the synagogue when they were driven back by riot police who used tear gas.

“They were shouting: ‘Death to Jews,’ and ‘Slit Jews’ throats’,” David, a Jewish sound engineer told The Times. “It took us back to 1938.”

And about every year before that one too.

plus ça change.


[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Just lemme know

When a person in 'Murica can criticize Israel on rational grounds (even while also blaming Hamas as much or more) without being accused of being anti-semetic.

Especially if your pseudonym is "Attaturk".

Thanks.

Won't be holding breath.

Crazy Train, a neverending story

While the right-wing finds a way to go crazy over becaue children as less worthy than others...no not those children, these children...there remains a ever fertile field of insanity.

For example...

"And as to Secretary Kerry, he gave the most ridiculous and delusional summary of American foreign policy I could imagine," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" while discussing Israel's ground operation in Gaza...

Host David Gregory then asked Graham how the Kerry has failed in addressing the Malaysian plane and evidence that pro-Russia separatists likely shot down the plane with Russian weapons.

"One, he didn't call Putin the thug that he is. He didn't call for arming the Ukraine so they can defend themselves against rebel separatists supported by Russia," Graham responded.

Yes, throwing arms around and threatening, or actually, bombing is the only "rational" course of action.

You betcha.  I guess it all started with Benghazi right?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Not in the way I imagined

I have figured his adventurism in the Ukraine would come back to bite Putin in the ass, because they almost always do. But I was imagining the intermediate future. But I agree with Josh Marshall, the inevitable has happened, just in a different way than most anyone imagined.

But what about the fantasies of the gun-infatuated?

Damn that reality...somebody should put a cap in its ass!

Homicides increase under the "castle doctrine" or Stand Your Ground laws, according to two studies published since 2012, while the laws do not appear to deter crime in any significant way. Researchers at Georgia State and Texas A&M universities used different methodologies and data sources to reach their conclusions, but they ended up in the same place: More people are killed after these laws are passed. Researchers at Texas A&M University, for a study published in the Journal of Human Resources, concluded that homicides had increased by 8 percent in the more than 20 states that had passed "castle doctrine" laws, many of which include Stand Your Ground provisions. That equals 600 additional homicides every year in those states, they wrote. At the same time, however, the researchers found no detectable decrease in burglary, robbery or aggravated assault.

So, in short. Not having a gun but masturbating while thinking about one, more effective public policy for gun-nuts than masturbating while thinking about guns and actually having one.

It's like a victim of car theft was going to come forward

Darrell Issa's Marsupial Inspired Court hit sad trombone levels today.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, seemed to catch everyone off guard Wednesday when he suddenly pulled the plug on his committee hearing before witnesses could even testify...

But two things were apparent to those following the hearing: First, Issa began the hearing irritated that the White House had dismissed his subpoena to compel Obama's political office director, David Simas, to testify. He called it "deeply disturbing" that White House counsel Neil Eggleston said Simas was immune from a congressional subpoena. Second, and perhaps more tellingly, Issa may have wanted to prevent Lerner from testifying since, based on the written testimony she provided ahead of the hearing, she was planning to say the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach had done nothing inappropriate, which contradicted Issa's claims leading up to the hearing.

Lerner's shop is charged with enforcing the federal Hatch Act's prohibitions against federal employees engaging in political activity, which makes her the go-to person in the event of allegations of wrongdoing by the White House political office. She was prepared to tell the committee she did her homework and found nothing wrong.

On the other hand she really hate hate hates affirmative action

And wants to do away with all those things that are not based solely on merit (...y'know like merit-based Nepotism)

The best summation of the state of Republican discourse of climate this week came in Mike Allen and Politico’s friendly promotional luncheon for the Cheney family. Asked what to do about climate change, Liz Cheney quickly replied.

“Nothing.”

Scary thing is...

That seems kind of low...

A new Public Policy Polling survey found that 37 percent of Republicans who voted in the Mississippi primary runoff election between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) said they would back the Confederate side if there was another Civil War.

Rebels without a Clue.

You'd think he'd know this already, they are called "Sam's Clubs"

So many faces, so few available palms.

A senior Republican [ed. Michael McCaul, Texas, naturally] has proposed that the US government should build “warehouses” in Central America where thousands of unaccompanied children who have attempted to seek asylum in the US could be deported and processed on their return to their countries of origin.

Uh, what?

I'm sure those countries would be all in with that idea, right? I mean what could go wrong?

But at least he's not showing any signs of paranoia.

"It’s very heart-wrenching as a father to see that — mothers with their babies," McCaul said on "Fox News Sunday." "I also saw some 17-year-olds that I thought looked more like a threat to coming into the United States."

Yeah...

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The "WHAT?!" percent solution

I mean, really?  You wanna go with that number?

Speaking to Italy’s La Repubblica daily, Francis also condemned child sex abuse as a “leprosy” in the Church and cited his aides as saying that “the level of paedophilia in the Church is at two percent”.

“That two percent includes priests and even bishops and cardinals,” he said.

Uh, you are saying that the PRESENT level is one of of every 50 priests is a what?

Blessed are the poor...

Apparently the only part of the New Testament that the modern conservative takes literally...outside of creationism which they are just told to take literally.

Today, more than three-quarters of American conservatives think the poor "have it easy," while fewer than 10 percent believe the "poor have hard lives"

Yeah, it's the rich who suffer...just like always!

Being poor, in fact, is so popular in modern America that many of us seem to be moving that way!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The rubble, make it bounce higher!

Because clearly years of overwhelming firepower have done the trick...if the trick is to keep escalating to exercise your overwhelming firepower.

Binyamin Netanyahu has instructed the Israeli military to "intensify even further" its assault on the Gaza Strip... The air assault continued throughout Wednesday morning bringing the Palestinian death toll to 32 in two days, including several senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. More than 150 people have been injured. There have been about 440 air strikes since the beginning of the week.

And I'm sure it has worked and sure I am overstating whether the retaliation is disproportional?

Well, no and no.

One hundred and sixty-five rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel in the past 24 hours, according to Israeli military estimates.There have been no reports of deaths from the rocket attacks.

To be continued...apparently indefinitely...and profitably for a few.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

NRA's dream "Good Guy vs. Good Guy" circle jerk

I imagine this makes Wayne LaPierre orgasm so hard in David Carradine/Michael Hutchence fashion (sadly without what would be a happy ending for the rest of us).

A North Carolina man was shot to death allegedly by his 11-year-old grandson Monday night after the man shot his son during a family dispute, Raleigh TV station WRAL reported.

The Shape of Wanks to Come

Only a couple years ago, this was the headline.

Bolivia's child workers unite to end exploitation

That was the Fall of 2012, how'd that work out for everyone?

Bolivia to allow 10-year-olds to work

Yep, power to the people.

I'm guessing the Koch Brothers will take notice -- good luck, once again, oh let's just guess, Mississippi.

[Cross-Posted at Firedoglake]

Yeah, not racist just like Adolph Rupp

Yeah, this is the test.

A newspaper editorial in Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel's (R) home county argued that McDaniel couldn't possibly be a racist since he played basketball in college.

As opposed to varments, blackguards, scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells!

Apparently the 19th century robber barons of the GOP are adopting the language of the time as well -- some heavy projection too.

Republicans such as Senator Tom Coburn have argued that the disability program is being “gamed” by “scalawags,” and that a third of claims are bogus, putting the program in financial trouble. Republicans may use the coming hearing to argue for benefits cuts.

May?

Oh the purposeful naivete is rich.

A headline that pretty much sums it all up

Congress May Spend More On The Benghazi Panel Than On The Veterans Affairs Committee

Bullshit before people.

Live and learn...nah, just open gob, swallow air

Oh the profundity.

Yeah, not quite that simple...but it was tragic.

What can we learn from that about the stupidity of jingoism and not considering the consequences of our actions or the morality of war in general?

If you are Jonah Goldberg...not much.

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

That was Jonah's endorsement of going to war with Iraq.  Now he gets to come back and pass judgment on other wars -- after all he's a self-proclaimed expert.

Say what you will about the Black Hand, Gavrilo Princip, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire at least they exited the scene eventually.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Funny how all that works

On the one hand Conservatives told us that if the minimum wage gets raised it hurts job growth.

As CEPR noted in March and April posts, economists at Goldman Sachs conducted a simple evaluation of the impact of these state minimum-wage increases. GS compared the employment change between December and January in the 13 states where the minimum wage increased with the changes in the remainder of the states. The GS analysis found that the states where the minimum wage went up had faster employment growth than the states where the minimum wage remained at its 2013 level.

Continuing the timeless level of inaccuracy the right-wing has had in America, from how awesome Iraq would be to how Americans will always hate soccer, a really really high rate of being wrong. But hey, when it works it works, even though it plainly does not actually work.

The Great Recession and Not-So-Great Recovery have been bad news for most Americans, but some people have suffered more than others. We call those people "Southerners." North Carolina and a handful of other Southern U.S. states saw the biggest increases in the number of people living in what are known as "poverty areas" between 2000 and 2010, according to a new Census Bureau report.

The GOP also knows this as "their base", their gullible, gullible base. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

If at first, and then repeatedly, you fail to succeed

Cash in, cash in, and cash in again.

Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge "business opportunities" to those involved, the Guardian has learned.

Blather, rinse, repeat.

Time for Blair to get booked on Meet the Press and dance closely with Dave.

Good to know that 238 years after independence we can reunite in mutually profitable exploitation of others.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

This report just covers up BENGHAZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Start the Impeachment Hearings!

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 288,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 6.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains were widespread, led by employment growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and health care.

Health care too?

Damn you Obamacareghaziiiiiiiiiiii!

The Darjeeling Tea Party

It only makes sense that all that Koch Brothers' money eventually went to India to create politics that would feel right at home in any number of States.

An Indian MP who threatened to kill opposition workers and have women raped has apologised, saying it was a "gross error of judgement".

You think?

And about that being just the kind of language you'd expect in this country.

LePage denies he discussed ‘executing’ Maine Democratic leaders

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well, so much for that...

I took a small bit of solace in the fact that the Hobby Lobby ruling seemed to be limited to four particular forms of birth control, such as the morning after pill. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling.

Meanwhile at Hobby Lobby, the company happily allows its "dude" employees to continue to get their viagra and vasectomies.

And when will Sammy Alito ask whether the guard was a Christian or not?

After all, a mere border cannot keep him from practicing his "faith" -- in treating foreign teens as cannon-fodder.

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a Mexican teenager killed by a Border Patrol agent was protected by the US constitution, even though the teen was on Mexican soil when he was shot. The ruling from the fifth US circuit court of appeals means the family of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca can move forward with a civil lawsuit against the agent.

The next step for this process is the Supreme Court...and one can be pretty confident the five-vote cast of subjects who usually don't believe in international law, will have at least one find it a real convenient contrivance when killing a foreign kid is a possibility. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Some minds think alike

Not so great.


Isis announces Islamic caliphate in area straddling Iraq and Syria Meanwhile, in this country and with slightly less fanfare (and only slightly less gunfire) Samuel Alito announced roughly the same thing. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

How to make sure you elect a Lunatic

Make sure you split your major parties into fractions then you can get a 33% elected...and that person is often crazy. Minnesota got by somewhat luckily with Jesse Ventura...and I say that ONLY in relation to what Maine has obtained with their current dangerous lunatic in charge.

BushCo's kinda people

This guy and his company are a two-ply wetsuit and a vibrator away from being perfect "Christian" hypocrites.

Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.

Poor Mexico

So far from God, so close to finally making the quarter-finals.

My apologies to this guy...maybe.

Who needs to stop at "third-world level" services?...THIS IS 'MURICA we can make hellscapes like no other!

While everybody in America can have a gun, apparently having water is not so important.

It was six in the morning when city contractors showed up unannounced at Charity Hicks' house.

Since spring, up to 3000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut-off – for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills. Now it was the turn of Charity's block – and the contractor wouldn't stand to wait an hour for her pregnant neighbour to fill up some jugs.

"Where's your water termination notice?" Charity demanded, after staggering to the contractor's truck. A widely-respected African-American community leader, she has been at the forefront of campaigns to ensure Detroiters' right to public, accessible water.

The contractor's answer was to drive away, knocking Charity over and injuring her leg. Two white policemen soon arrived – not to take her report, but to arrest her. Mocking Charity for questioning the water shut-offs, they brought her to jail, where she spent two days before being released without charge.

At this point, a mere quarter-million or so folks have lost their ability to obtain clean water...meanwhile, GM, Chrysler and who knows how many banks are doing just fine on that government bail out money.

But hey, those corporations are people...and those people of Detroit are, uh, apparently not.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"Chemistry"

Sounds like a bit of it may be missing from the Ghanian national team (which is fortunate for the U.S. as a Ghana victory vs. Portugal could be very bad).

Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng have been expelled from Ghana's World Cup squad for alleged indiscipline. 

A statement on the Ghana Football Association website  said both players had "been suspended indefinitely".

It added Boateng had used "vulgar verbal insults targeted at coach Kwesi Appiah" and said Muntari was guilty of an "unprovoked physical attack on an executive committee member".

This comes just after the team literally made the Ghanian government fly in a plan with the $3 million plus in cash bonuses they thought they would not get otherwise.

Which, to be fair, is less money than FIFA officials are asking for from Uruguay's FA to pretend that Louis Suarez was just giving somebody a hickey.

With their squad in complete shambles, now a fresh backlash is expected to rain down on the Black Stars after defender John Boye, who plays in Ligue 1 with Rennes, was snapped kissing his share of the $3 million.

The image of a footballer literally kissing money whilst at the World Cup is possibly one of the best illustrations of the scourge of modern football.

See the image below, together with a second picture of a Ghanaian official counting the money.

So, cost of a soul then?

Next up, defending Chief Wahoo as a lovable scamp of a character not demeaning at all, no sirree Bob...after all the check cleared.

The Washington Redskins have hired longtime Virginia politico and liberal blogger Ben Tribbett to help guide the team's battle over their controversial nickname.

Tribbett, 34, is a native Northern Virginian and lifelong Redskins fan. He was a regular defender of the team's nickname long before the team recruited him to help aid their efforts to defend them.

Might as well be Larry Sabato.

And here I thought all the skits at this year's World Cup focused on the English Team and its fans...

I don't recall the last NFL player that tried to eat human flesh three times.

We usually save that behavior in 'Murica for Rick James, Marv Albert, or the latest teapartying hypocrite at the Twin Cities Airport.

You know it's bad

When your living your life like an actual "Game of Thrones" character (would he not make a good member of House Bolton) has this sponsor thinking about its reputation.

A personal sponsor of Luis Suarez, the betting firm 888poker, say they are "reviewing their relationship" with him and won't tolerate "unsporting behaviour" following allegations he bit Italy's Giorgio Chiellini.

That's right...too loathsome for an a gambling establishment.

"This would go so well with Phillip and a riding crop!"

"Safe word: Cromwell!"

(AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

So...when's the Chris Christie Toll Bridge opening?

Oh, that's right, they are all tolling for him.

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter. While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But we haven't had a chance to bomb anything yet!

The Ukraine, that place the usual suspects wanted to bomb to prove their manhood before returning to the usual shiny pile of rubble, has had the nerve to possibly end their fighting before we get a chance to kill people too.

Vladimir Putin has called on both sides in eastern Ukraine to lay down their arms and compromise, giving his strongest backing yet for the peace plan announced by Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko.

Ol' Soul Eyes is in, Separatists, are you also in?

Separatist leaders in two main areas of Ukraine's east have agreed to observe a ceasefire until Friday, one of the leaders has said. Alexander Borodai made the comments after meeting a "contact group" that included a former Ukrainian president, Moscow's envoy to Kiev and a representative of the OSCE security watchdog.

Okay, that sounds like a maybe, better lob a few warheads in case this thing gets official.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Shame sure to follow Stiff reprimand

Well, apparently Donald Rumsfeld was just as creepy when he compared "Old Europe" to the U.S.'s new allies of Eastern Europe as you may, or should, have imagined.

Just ask Poland's Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski:

According to a transcript of excerpts of the conversation that was published by Wprost on its Internet site, Sikorski told Rostowski: "You know that the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything." "It is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of security ... Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers."

According to the transcript, Sikorski described Warsaw's attitude towards the United States using the Polish word "murzynskosc." That derives from the word "murzyn," which denotes a dark-skinned person and someone who does the work for somebody else, according to the PWN Polish language dictionary.

Well, that is offensively accurate.

Hey, Poland emphasize your oil reserves and we'll be there for you.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Ineffective Clients are a "Diem" a dozen

Whether it's the Middle East or the Far East, it's good to know that the times may change, but America's abilities to out-bully others remains as unchanging as ever.

Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told a hearing on Wednesday that Maliki's government "has got to go if you want any reconciliation", and Republican John McCain called for the use of US air power but also urged Obama to "make very clear to Maliki that his time is up".

Because the greatest way to undermine the fiction of a democratic Iraq is for another country to tell 'em to ditch their leadership.

Especially when bombs and American soldiers have been involved. After all, this could get messy.

And what a look that is, after our other fiction, being the "good guys". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Another selection for the "You Stay (KKK)lassy files" of the modern GOP

Hard to believe, I know.

A Republican official in Arizona on Wednesday confirmed something that's long been suspected. State schools superintendent John Huppenthal has been a prolific and often incendiary anonymous commenter on local political blogs.

Under various pseudonyms, including Falcon9, Thucky and Thucydides, Huppenthal has authored hundreds of comments at the progressive Blog for Arizona since at least 2011. He engaged in self-promotion, writing in February that he's "sure" Huppenthal, who's up for re-election this year, "will be our next superintendent."

He once decried Barack Obama for "rewarding the lazy pigs with food stamps (44 million people), air-conditioning, free health care, flat-screen TV's (typical of 'poor' families)." and even went birther, claiming that the president wrote in his memoir that "he was born in Kenya!!!"

In one comment, he compared Margaret Sanger to Adolf Hitler, writing that the Planned Parenthood founder "fed 16 million African-Americans into the abortion mills. He also argued that Franklin D. Roosevelt's "disastrous economic policies drug down the whole world and directly led to the rise of a no-name hack named Adolph Hitler who was going nowhere until Germany's economy went into the tank."

That's your state "School Superintendent" Arizona.

They are just getting into this whole "smack talk" idea

You'd think China could learn a thing or two from North Korea, but trash talking from the late 1940s is I guess all they had left from the Chang-era.

Britain is an "old, declining empire" which resorts to "eccentric acts" to hide its embarrassment over its declining power, an official Chinese newspaper has claimed on the second day of a visit by the country's premier, Li Keqiang, to London.

Invalid on present-tense usage alone. Who's advising them, Karl Rove and his Sweden-slams?

British Prime Minister then replied in the most stereotypical way possible.

...if you're David Cameron, this is when you use the international hotbed of a card that is Downton Abbey... He gave Chinese premier Li Keqiang a copy of the script for the show's first episode signed by creator Julian Fellowes.

Yeah, that'll show 'em Britain's not an old, declining empire.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake] 

Life is easier if it is lived without a conscience

Sociopathy has its advantages...for example Dick and Dickette Cheney can say this...without the requisite shame...and this being America being shamed.

Cheney and his daughter penned an opinion piece that will be published in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, slamming Obama for being "so wrong about so much at the expense of so many."

When exactly did these things last exist there?

I believe the horse left that barn through the door and promptly entered the glue factory quite some time ago.

The leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and Sunni Usama al-Nujaifi, the last speaker of parliament which dissolved this month, stood apart and listened as Maliki's predecessor Ibrahim al-Jafaari called for "defending the state and protecting its sovereignty and dignity."

I.e. "Bring on the drones!" That will dignify this sucker right up!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Day ending in "Y" and all that

Funny how the only inroads the GOP is making with non-white voters is with those willing to cash a NewsCorp. paycheck.

"If you take a look, you mentioned the Hispanic population — the African American population, there's a number of things that our party stands for that they embrace," Tillis said. He went on to say that Republican need to do a better job reaching out to minority voters. Tillis then said that unlike the Hispanic or black populations, which have been growing, the "traditional population of North Carolina and the United States is more or less stable."

Yes, North Carolina, a tradition of not having black people in it, if you do not count the last four hundred years...or white people for that matter.

Exposure has a tendency to work...Anthony Weiner excepted

Well, imagine that.

It turns out that judges with daughters are more likely to vote in favor of women’s rights than ones with only sons. The effect, a new study found, is most pronounced among male judges appointed by Republican presidents, like Chief Justice Rehnquist.

Yes, actual real-world experiences with plaintiffs or criminal defendants that come before the court, has a tendency to open the eyes of your ivory-towered conservative jurist. Which is why soon, we'll have a new kind of exposure (well, an ancient one to be honest) encouraged by individuals at ironically labeled conservative think tanks. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Fred Garvin Hiatt...Male Prostitute

Hey, ol' Fred was sooooooooooooo very right in supporting the original Iraqi clusterfuck from the beginning, so obviously he's the guy to throw stones now (just like every other asshole)

Unfortunately, disengagement turns out not to work. A drones-first policy has stoked anti-American fervor from Pakistan to Yemen. Libya is on the brink of civil war. Syria has become “the most catastrophic humanitarian crisis any of us have seen in a generation,” as Mr. Obama’s U.N ambassador said. Now Iraq is disintegrating. Of course, as many commentators write, Iraq’s politicians are to blame. But if the United States had maintained a presence, it might have steered Iraqi politics in a more constructive direction.

And if only you weren't so effing gung ho to bomb the enemy de jour Freddie!

Obviously this was worth hurting the poor over

Water wet, death, taxes, and military programs being a huge waste.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. The Missile Defense Agency has conducted 16 tests of the system's ability to intercept a mock enemy warhead. It has failed in eight of them, government records show.

Oh well, maybe if we cut medicare some more? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Another Adventure goes about as rationally predicted

Another "solid" investment in the Saigon of the no-longer aughts:

After Iraq's armed forces were disbanded following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the United States and its allies committed more than $25bn to training and building a new military.

And now we know just how awesome that's working out.

...recent operations in the west on the Syrian border and around Falluja and Ramadi have suggested both serious political and operational shortcomings. The collapse of an estimated 30,000 forces in and around Mosul underlined a lack of morale and an apparently chaotic chain of command.

Good job 'Murica -- put it on the multi-trillion dollar tab!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hard to believe, based on their track record of accomplishment

American intelligence caught off guard on Iraq falling apart (well, further apart).

I mean that never happens, other than normally happening.

And to think of all those text and internet messages they've been hoovering up...somehow they still missed it.

But former girlfriends of their employees...THEY'VE GOT THAT NAILED!

So, Helicopters off the future Iranian Embassy then?

Amazing how Operation Clusterfuck, the ridiculously conceived, stupidly undertaken, poorly managed, and contemptuously defended, invasion and occupation of Iraq -- at a cost of probably hundred of thousands of lives and trillions in tax dollars is going the way of the last similar American gross foreign policy adventure (remember kids, Afghanistan is the best of the three--chew on that one!).


Naturally, this rotten piece of shit, undertaken by a band of war criminals is going to blame this all on Obama...or Obamacare -- take your pick.

The unfettered "Id"

Welcome to the newly emergent European right-wing -- the dormancy is over.

In an explosive political climate, where popular rage is at boiling point nearly five years into the country's worst crisis in living memory, the politics of hate so embodied by Golden Dawn is becoming increasingly pervasive. "Who cares if six million Jews were exterminated?" asked the businessman back at the cafe, in a shocking endorsement of that reality. "I don't care if they were turned into soap. What I care about is the salary I have lost, the never-ending taxes I am forced to pay, the criminals who rule this country, the anger I carry inside."

A little cutting, a little pasting (and some unfairness)...but not a lot...and this could be a Republican voter in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District voting against Cantor.

How's embracing crazy

Working out for you Eric Cantor?

Bread crumbs and you can't come to the Circus

Much is made of the old bromide "Bread and Circuses" as how elite of ancient Rome ("the I percent") placated the masses by giving them free grain and sporting events to make them forget the stratified social order.

True or not, times have certainly changed.

Brazil, home of the 2014 FIFA World Cup has the modern adaptation of that rule.

According to estimates from the federal government, the World Cup will cost the public treasury somewhere around 26 billion reais ($11.6 billion). 

Oh they'll get the stadiums built...but not much other promises will be kept.

So not much for bread.

How about those circuses?

The cheapest World Cup final ticket will cost the average Brazilian 25 hours of work

The circus is for other people.

Although FIFA the organization makes out well, hoovering up as much as they can out of Brazil as they can.   What they cannot carry, they'll leave for the International Olympic Committee in 2016.

And that's the unkindest Brazilian of them all.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"You lucky Bastards!"

That's essentially what George Will is saying about college sexual assault victims.

What a guy, huh?

Another day in America

Another mass shooting by two guys who love guns as much as they hate humanity.

Two Las Vegas police officers were killed Sunday in what appears to be a politically motivated ambush in a pizza restaurant that spilled over to a nearby Wal-Mart, where the two shooters committed suicide after killing a woman in the store. Details are sketchy, but Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that “this is the start of a revolution” before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists.

And I bet these two assholes had a much easier (ed. DERP!) harder time getting the license that allowed them to drive to the spot they started killing people than it took to get the guns they killed them with...before they offed themselves.

And in spite of the fact it's Vegas, nobody is going to take that bet.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

United States of A-holes.

Another day, another time to ponder "what the hell is wrong with you?!"

The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.

I mean, really?

U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior U.S. official said Sunday.

I guess, not even having a vestigial soul helps.

Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle said Friday that the POW was lucky he wasn't found by his fellow soldiers before the exchange. Otherwise, Guilfoyle said, Bergdahl may have been brought home "in a body bag."

Yes, cheering on Americans to one-up torture...USA, USA, USA! At least there's sanity on other stuff.

Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2012, says America is going the way of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Mourdock broke down the comparison in detail on Saturday, the day after the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.

Crazy has no sense of propriety.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Obviously this right-wing lunatic is actually a left-wing plant

His last name was MARX and "the left" is subtle that way.   Sincerely, faithful Sean Hannity apologist.

Hey, you -- middle-aged trender...

Stop watching "Orange is the New Black" and get to work!

You've got to save those "Hipster sick days" for the World Cup!

Rollback...

You go...

Working mothers at Walmart staged a series of strikes on Wednesday in protest over wages and conditions at the world's largest retailer, as a new report claims the company's top executives received $104m in taxpayer subsidies over a six-year period.

The majority of mothers working at Walmart, which drew a $16bn profit last year, earn less than $25,000 a year

 How dare these proles stand up against their betters, especially morally...uh, what?

 Since 2009, Walmart has ducked $104 million in taxes by exploiting a tax loophole around bonus payments to just eight top executives, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF).

The evidence is in

And apparently the world hates Slovenia.

Must be the Charlie Brown shirts.

Things to do in Denver now that you might as well be dead!

Maureen Dowd took pot in the name of channeling Peggy Noonan apparently.

...then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. [ed. 'THAT'S JUST REAGAN] I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. [ed. REAGAN AGAIN!] I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid [ed. REAGAN REAGAN REAGAN!!!], sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall [ed. OH RONNY!]. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

And then I realized FUCK somebody beat me to my obvious joke...obviously.

She'll fit in well

Well congrats there Iowa, you've managed to have your GOP nominate someone who actually aspires to be Sarah Palin (two girls, one drool cup).

Jodi Ernst.

Whose politics fit in well with the famous Ernsts from the past.

Ernst Rohm

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Stavro-Blofeld

Plus the famous German comedy from the late 30s... Ernst Goes to Kamp

Well, I suppose he's had practice

Francois Hollande a man who cheated on wife with a mistress and his mistress with another mistress is undoubtedly the world leader most prepared for this situation. 

Hollande will host President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin on Thursday after separate talks at the Elysée Palace before the 70th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings in Normandy the next day. But because of the tensions over Ukraine between the US and Russian leaders – who are not scheduled to hold talks – two consecutive dinners are to be held in order to keep the politically estranged leaders apart.

I guess it beats being with Vlad and peering into his soul.

Something Hollande is evidently quite good at...or at least claiming to be.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Like it's a day ending in "Y" or "even a stopped clock with no hands is wrong all the time"

I'm sensing a theme...a theme so prevalent it really isn't a theme -- more of a mantra, wrapped inside a cliche, frozen in concrete...made from endangered black-footed ferret tears.

Big GOP Talking Point Debunked