Via ThinkProgress:

On WMAL radio, hosts Brian Wilson and Cheri Jacobus pressed Cuccinelli about why he has not opened a major investigation into what they suggested was wide-spread voter fraud in Virginia — an assessment they made based on receiving unproven allegations by email from listeners. Studies have shown Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud. Cuccinelli endorsed the idea of such investigations, but noted that he lacks the statutory authority to do launch an investigation.

Cuccinelli backed Jacobus on her conspiracy theories:

JACOBUS: There needs to be a way for people to be able to report this stuff and have it looked into. I mean, just across the country, we’re hearing so many stories. And people can talk about it, but nothing seems to be done. And, in fact in these states where voter ID is required to vote…

WILSON: Photo ID.

JACOBUS: Photo ID. Voter photo ID.

Obama lost every one of those states. He can’t win a state where photo ID is required. So clearly there’s something going on out there and until there’s a way to have something done about it where when you report it, you know it’s going to be looked into, the other side just says “Oh, well, you’re just poor losers,” and that sort of thing.

CUCCINELLI: Your tone suggests you’re a little upset with me. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m with you completely.

These people are just evil. I got into an argument on election night because of people like this who actually think over three million people faked their identity and stuffed the damned ballot box nationwide. Because they hear stories, and damn the facts about Voter ID, all that matters are the stories.

But to tell these radio host conspiracy buffs that their stories suggest Barack Obama would not have won had all 50 states had Voter ID laws? That's evil.

Ken "Cooch" Cuccinelli, by the way, is running for governor in 2013, hoping to ascend to Governor Ultrasound's lofty perch.

I hope Virginia shows him the door and hands him the ultrasound wand on the way out.

I'm sure that many of you are like me and would like to see The Donald would fade back into his reality show world and work on raising whatever those animals are that live on his head. But this story is just too shadenfreude-licious to ignore.

Donald Trump's anti-Obama campaign has apparently reached "embarrassing dad" status, because his three eldest kids recently staged an intervention of sorts advising him to tone it down, reports the New York Daily News. Eric, Donald Jr., and Ivanka "showed a lot of respect" during the mid-October meeting, a source tells the paper, "but told him he’s worked too long and too hard to build up the reputation he has. They understand completely he’s always been outspoken and that he likes attention, but this is too much."

Gee, you think? Just because the man has become a national joke...

Of course, Trump denies that this is the case, but really, does anyone believe anything he says now?

I'm perfectly happy to call out the Obama administration when I think they deserve it, but this whole Susan Rice "controversy" is nothing but one in a long line of Republican faux outrages. What I find appalling is how this worthless, bootlicking American media helpfully blows this up and fans the flames when the Republican whack jobs roll out of their clown car:

WASHINGTON — Susan E. Rice may have hoped that paying a conciliatory call on three hostile Senate Republicans on Tuesday would smooth over a festering dispute about the deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and clear a roadblock to her nomination as secretary of state.

But the senators seemed anything but mollified, signaling instead that they would still oppose Ms. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, if she is nominated by President Obama, even after she conceded errors in the account of the assault she gave on Sunday morning television programs shortly after it occurred in September.

Two of the Republicans, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, said they would seek to block Ms. Rice, who according to administration officials remains Mr. Obama’s preferred choice to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The third Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said on Fox that he would be “very hard-pressed” to support Ms. Rice.

“Bottom line, I’m more disturbed than I was before,” Mr. Graham said after the tense, closed-door meeting.

The continued criticism of Ms. Rice, 48, a diplomat with close ties to Mr. Obama, deepens an already bitter and unusually personal feud between the White House and Republicans over Libya. Responding to a question about criticism of Ms. Rice at a news conference two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, “If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.”

If Rice is who Obama wants as his Secretary of State, then he should make her a recess appointment and be done with it -- you know, like Bush the elder did with Lawrence Eagleburger.

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Joe Scarborough, apparently aware that the American public isn't buying John McCain's and Lindsey Graham's nonsensical attacks on Susan Rice, finally had enough this morning and called their escapades a "clown show".

He also made this rather good point:

SCARBOROUGH: Did John McCain say that Colin Powell was unfit to continue as Secretary of State after the information that he gave before the united nations that led us into the Iraq war? Did that make Colin Powell unfit to be Secretary of State or was Colin Powell given bad intel? I never heard him say that. I never heard Lindsey Graham say that.

You really wonder what these guys are thinking.

I've really had it with the Obama Administration making the case that we must include entitlement reforms (cutting Social Security & Medicare benefits) to solve our fiscal problems -- especially when they begin equating realistic concerns about what those cuts would have on the American people with the nonsensical right-wing ideological war waged by Grover Norquist, dedicated to the proposition that Republicans can never raise taxes, evah! How does this argument meet the requirements of a reality-based populace?

In post-election remarks at the University of Delaware, Plouffe warned of "paralysis" if both parties remain beholden to their base, saying Obama is looking for a deal that sets the country on the right fiscal path for a 10- to 20-year period. "The only way that gets done is for Republicans again to step back and get mercilessly criticized by Grover Norquist and the Right, and it means that Democrats are going to have to do some tough things on spending and entitlements that means that they'll criticized on by their left," Plouffe said at his alma mater in conversation with former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt.

There is no evidence to back up anything Grover Norquist and the GOP assert while making their endless claims that low tax rates create jobs and that raising federal revenues and taxes is innately EVIL. It's actually the opposite:

There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. The evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced.

I forgot, Republicans had a cow over this report by the Congressional Research Service and had it pulled.

On the other hand, there is plenty of real evidence that raising retirement ages for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and implementing the chained CPI will have a devastating effect on the middle class.

Continue reading »

I wonder why Eric Holder doesn't bring a RICO suit against Grover, Turd Blossom, and the Koch brothers? After all, you could make a reasonable case for extortion: Grover tells Republican officials to vote his way, or he will drown them in a primary challenge. It doesn't seem like that's how democracy is supposed to work. Lee Fang for The Nation:

Grover Norquist’s iron grip over much of the Republican Party is somewhat puzzling. Why should Senators and other lawmakers listen to a guy caught laundering money for Jack Abramoff?

But consider Norquist’s tax pledge and political power another way: that he’s just a proxy for the powerful interest groups that finance him. In the nineties, it was big tobacco that used Norquist’s tax pledge as a cover to lobby lawmakers against cigarette taxes (Norquist still uses an e-mail system donated to him by Altria to send out Tea Party action alerts against tobacco taxes).

Now, big PhRMA and other industry groups provide grants to Norquist while his foundation endorses other giveaways, like protectionist support against importing cheaper drugs from Canada and the classification of tax subsidies to refineries as “tax cuts” that must not be cut.

I took a look at the last available budget numbers for Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist’s group. Though they do not reveal their donors, we can cobble together much of Norquist’s donors using foundations and other nonprofits that donate money to him.

The disclosures show that only two billionaire-backed groups have provided over 66 percent of Norquist’s funding:

• The Center to Protect Patients Rights donated $4,189,000 to Americans for Tax Reform in 2010, 34 percent of the group’s budget that year.

• Crossroads GPS donated $4,000,000 to Americans for Tax Reform in 2010, 32.46 percent of the group’s budget that year.

The Center to Protect Patients Rights is the foundation used by the billionaire clique led by the Koch brothers to distribute grants to allied groups. In 2010, wealthy moguls like Steve Bechtel of Bechtel Corporation and Steve Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group met behind closed doors to help lend money to these types of efforts.

Crossroads GPS is the undisclosed group run by Karl Rove. The only known donors are folks like Paul Singer, the “vulture” hedge fund king who benefits enormously from tax strategies like the carried interest loophole. Norquist’s pledge largely benefits billionaires like Singer and Schwarzman, who pay almost nothing in payroll taxes and likely pay a lower rate than their secretaries.

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At least three AIDS activists were arrested on Tuesday after they and other naked demonstrators briefly took over House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) to protest budget cuts to health care services.

Activists from ACT UP, New York ACT UP, Philadelphia ACT UP, Housing Works and the Student Global AIDS Campaign stripped down in the lobby of the Speakers office and began chanting to send Congress a message ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.

"Budget cuts are really rude, that's why we have to be so nude!" the protesters shouted. "Boehner, Boehner, don't be a dick! Budget cuts will make us sick!"

After several warnings from Capital Police the protesters agreed to get dressed and leave the building. But after media left, activists said at least three of the women who had been nude were arrested on charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure. No male protesters were reportedly arrested.

Prune Juice Media: Standing up for Susan Rice

AnarchoQueer: Still legal to videotape the cop arresting you.

Andrew Graham: Reid's options for filibuster reform

Thrillhouse1980: Two posts here and here on the assassination of a Mexican mayor and the futility of the drug war. (No graphic content and safe for work).

Blog round up by Blue Gal of The Professional Left Podcast. Send tips to MBRU [AT] crooksandliars [DOT] com

Some of the best on-air bloopers from 2012. Open thread below....

Today would have been Jimi Hendrix's 70th Birthday. Wow. Got a favorite?

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