World News Korner

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

What if militias announced a showdown with the feds and nobody came?

That’s pretty much what happened in Texas this week, after a handful of militia activists called on their fellow militia members to intervene in the increasingly fraught humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, involving large numbers of children from Central America who are straining the government’s ability to process their complicated cases.

For a Texas militiaman named Chris Davis, there was nothing complicated about it. In a video he posted at YouTube – which he has since been removed – he offered a simple solution for dealing with the young border crossers.

“How?” Davis asked rhetorically. “You see an illegal, you point your gun right dead at them, right between the eyes, and say ‘Get back across the border, or you will be shot.’ Simple as that. If you get any flak from sheriffs, city, or feds, Border Patrol, tell them look — this is our birthright. We have a right to secure our own land. This is our land. This is our birthright.”

So did manly man Chris Davis and his rag tag group of camouflaged dipshits show up at the border to wave their metal penises at the immigrant children seeking asylum?

It appears not.

However, Davis’ militia muster call quickly vanished into virtual thin air. Shortly after he began receiving media attention – including accounts in the McAllenville Monitor, Brownsville Herald, San Antonio Express-News and Los Angeles Times – he not only took down all his YouTube videos and deleted his channel there, he also deleted his Facebook page and all its incendiary antigovernment content.

Bummer it looks like Captain Courageous has a yellow streak running down his spine.

And guess what else we know about him.

Courtesy of TPM:

Chris Davis, the reported leader of the militia that encompasses many of the same groups that supported Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in his standoff with federal authorities, was cited by San Antonio police for disorderly conduct because he and two other men were openly carrying firearms outside a Starbucks last year, the newspaper reported. It identified him as a member of Open Carry Texas.

Davis was also reportedly discharged from the U.S. Army in 2001 "under other than honorable conditions in lieu of trial by court martial." Davis had served in the Army from 1996 to 2001. The Express-News reviewed a summary of his military service, which relayed those "other than honorable conditions" for the discharge, but did not provide more details.

So dishonorably discharged from the military and now trying to pass himself off as a poor man's General Patton.

What more could we expect from this bunch of idiots?

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The folks over at Progressive Inc. and the Center for Media and Democracy are publishing new information from uncovered documents that prove Charles Koch was an active member of the Kansas John Birch society even up through the civil rights era.

Here is just a little of what The Progressive writes about the findings:

Charles Koch was not simply a rank and file member of the John Birch Society in name only who paid nominal dues. He purchased and held a "lifetime membership" until he resigned in 1968. He also lent his name and his wealth to the operations of the John Birch Society in Wichita, aiding its "American Opinion" bookstore -- which was stocked with attacks on the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, and Earl Warren as elements of the communist conspiracy. He funded the John Birch Society's promotional campaigns, bought advertising in its magazine, and supported its distribution of right-wing radio shows.

The reactionary ideas learned from his father and stoked by his ideological ally in Wichita, Bob Love of the Love Box Company, were not simply passing fancies of the young scion of an oil fortune. The tools of the trade he absorbed in his late twenties and early thirties appear to continue to animate some of his actions decades later, as with his 2014 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal claiming those who criticize him are "collectivists." The echoes of his past role reverberate along with the millions he and his brother David Koch have spent fueling a John Birch Society-like "Tea Party" peopled with right-wingers like Birchers of decades past who contend against all reasoning that the president is a communist. David Koch himself has claimed President Obama is a scary "socialist." These roots run deep in the Kochs.

In many ways, the playbook deployed by the Kochs today through myriad organizations resembles a more sophisticated (and expensive) playbook of the John Birch Society back then. Even the recent announcement of the Kochs to give a $25 million gift to the United Negro College Fund (with strings attached requiring the recruitment of free market African American college students) echoes that past. In 1964, in the face of criticism for its assault on the civil rights movement, the John Birch Society also funded a scholarship program to give college funds to African Americans who were not active in the civil rights movement, according to documents the Progressive.org/Center for Media and Democracy has obtained.

It has been pointed out repeatedly that the modern Tea Party is simply a reboot of the same organization famous for its numerous communistic conspiracy theories, anti-civil rights stance, and homophobic mindset.

This organization almost doomed the Republican party in the 1960's and it looks like the modern day reincarnation is ready to do the same in 2014.

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Courtesy of Politico:

Sarah Palin this week joined a long line of Republican firebrands in raising the specter of impeachment against the president, writing in a Breitbart.com op-ed: “The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is.”

And like clockwork, the Democratic outrage machine sprang to life — using her comments to mobilize grass-roots supporters and raise small dollar campaign donations from Obama die-hards.

The result was a flood of grass-roots donations, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The DCCC sent at least two emails in 24 hours about Palin’s remarks to supporters — one unsigned under the subject line “BREAKING: Impeachment” and another under House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s name.

In a third email to supporters with the subject line “Palin HUMILIATED,” the DCCC claimed it received nearly 10,000 donations in just 24 hours — double the committee’s typical donation rate.

The committee said as a result of the flood of grass-roots donations, it was just short of a $3 million fundraising goal it set after House Speaker John Boehner threatened to sue Obama late last month — although it’s unclear how much of the money raised was in direct response to the impeachment-related emails.

“Republican overreach continues to be a huge motivating factor for our grass roots. The response to impeachment has been well over six figures,” DCCC spokesman Josh Schwerin told POLITICO.

I know it's not true, but every once in awhile I completely understand why some people think that Palin is an undercover operative for the Democratic party.

Without her help the Democrats would not be doing nearly so well, and the Republicans might not be falling apart quite so rapidly.

P.S. And she is doing it again with yet ANOTHER ghostwritten op-ed over at Fox News.

In it she lays out a whole bunch of bogus reasons for why the President should be impeached.

I think this about sums up Palin's frustration at the fact he refuses to pay any attention to her:

Obama can keep laughing and say, “so sue me” to the House’s tepid lawsuit threat. Let’s hear him laugh off impeachment. At the very least, despite his mocking the Constitution, this Constitutional process will put him on notice.

In my opinion not only is the President going to laugh off the idea of impeachment, so is the majority of the Republican party while the Democrats are crossing their fingers and hoping they go ahead with it.

You know I have seen Palin manic before but this time somebody might need to trank her and slap a straightjacket on her before she hurts herself. Or somebody else.

Update: Well it looks like we can add Bill O'Reilly to list of people who are going to laugh off Palin's idea of impeaching the President.

Damn, that's gotta sting!

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Click image to play video

Courtesy of Politicususa:

That web based Funny or Die clip has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program category.

Really, Republicans deserve the credit for this Emmy nod (which is good since they can’t credit Obama for anything except blaming him for things they did), because if they hadn’t been fear-mongering about Obamacare in the first place, the President never would have had to take such extreme measures to get the word out.

I am sure that this is yet another thing that the Republicans will say the President is doing to distract from Benghazi, or the IRS "scandal," or the border problem, of whatever is the crisis du jour.



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So as has now become apparent to just about everybody Sarah Palin is damned and determined to be noticed in the media so she has become a whirling "derpish" of televised appearances, Facebook posts, and even Facebook videos.

Well now you can add Fox News op-ed writer as well.

And by that we mean she babbled into a tape recorder and had some poor SarahPAC paid hack attempt to form it into a coherent article.

Epic fail by the way. (For those seeking an op-ed that was almost ALL Palin's creation click here.)

Here are some of the lowlights.

First off she is pissed that the President is the Democrat's rainmaker:

President Obama was absolutely swamped the other night, staving off the munchies at a pizza party in the Mile High city, hobnobbing as headliner at numerous Democrat shindigs, collecting big bucks from big donors all day.

Whew. Exhausting. Especially exhausting must be trying to change pace and pivot through the fundraising parties, knowing they’re thrown by those much maligned “fat cats” (Obama’s words, not mine).

The president conveniently disparages these fat cats in public, but in private their group hugs are a whole lot of cuddlin,’ purrin’ and rolling over for more tummy tickling from the one who feeds them. And it wasn’t hairballs any felines coughed up Tuesday just to hear Obama talk…and talk…and talk some more.

Donors forked over up to $32,000 just to get in the door to hear some fancy talk and scratch each other’s backs. These parties may be quite boring, too, making the outings even more exhausting, because politics isn’t a passionate cause for most attendees, it’s a money maker.

Yes how dare the President attract money for Democrats. I mean can't he simply find one or two Koch style sugar daddies like the Republicans?

And how it must burn little Miss Irrelevant's ass to know that people are willing to shell out that kind of money to see the President while she still has to negotiate for air fare and lodging.

Palin then essentially calls the President "boy" by reducing him to the status of an out of control teenager:

After watching what’s going on, does anyone else feel an urgency to take away the proverbial teenager’s car keys to prevent the inevitable crash down the road? But maybe that’s just the mama in me. Maybe I really should give the busy guy a break because with all the screaming chaos around the globe, Obama’s completely tone-deaf, disengaged, and unfocused actions perhaps can be explained.

The "mama" in her? Where was THAT when her kids were off doing drugs, breaking into liquor stores, and getting pregnant?

Palin then goes on to complain that the President in having the bowling alley in the White House renovated, which seems particularly trivial unless she believes the money spent on that could instead be used to send more border agents to Texas.

(Later she has to walk the criticism back after finding out that the project has been axed. I have to believe that this was not a project that the President personally championed as I have seen him bowl, and it does not look as if he spends much time practicing.)

Palin then goes on to criticize the President for visiting Denver:

I love this picture!

But, seriously, our commander-in-chief is busy, as Rome burns. For instance, after satisfying those munchies in Colorado, he carved out room for some super duper important games of pool in a bar with that state’s enabling governor. Ironically, Hickensooperdooper is his name. I think. (Actually it's Hickenlooper, but why bother trying to get it right when you can simply mock somebody instead?) Anyway, Obama won. He told us so. (Funny, he always wins. Golf, basketball, brackets and bets, his grand pronouncements afterward is always, miraculously, humph, he won again!)

Whew. Racking balls, getting buzzed on suds, maybe humming “Rocky Mountain High” while kicking it in those Rockies, hard choices had to be made – stripes or solids? And that beer – do I drink it if the mountains aren’t blue? Talk about miscues.

WTF?

Well it looks as if, unlike the President, when somebody altered Palin a mind altering substance she said "You betcha!"

Next Palin criticized the President for his visit to Texas:

President Obama was in Texas next. No time to visit the porous U.S. border, but lots of time for more fancy talkin’, photo-opin’ and fundraisin’. No plugging holes this time down South.

Yeah why did the President visit Texas for "photo-opin'," and avoiding the "porous" border, instead of doing what Governor Rick Perry was doing.


You know "photo-opin'" ON the porous border. (Isn't there only like one body of water on the Texas-Mexico border? Yet every picture of Perry has him in a boat.)


Well enough screwing around, Palin needs to bring up those "impeachable offenses" again:

But Barack Obama has most certainly engaged in impeachable offenses. Many. That’s a given. No need to waste ink trying to educate the “deniers” on how things are guaranteed to get worse unless this lawless administration, led by an imperial president, is legally slapped down on the House and Senate floors; so instead I’ll use what we’re told are the world’s superpower’s scariest weapons – a pen and a phone – to talk to sane Americans about taking our country back. That’s up next.

Yes this President has done some things that Palin believes are "impeachable offenses" though she has yet to name a single one. (I'm pretty sure that one of them is "Won't acknowledge my existence.")

Palin also believes that she understands what is holding lawmakers back from jumping onto the impeachment bandwagon to hell:

With all due respect, listen up, politicians; you’ve ignored your 7th grade American government lessons long enough.

Yes it is that THEY who are the undereducated ones.

If only they would have paid as much attention in school as little Sarah Heath did in between proselytizing to her classmates, stuffing her bra, and showing the boys that the barracuda did not always use its teeth.

As the great Keith Olbermann once opined, "This woman, is an idiot!"

P.S. By the way I thought this was as good a place as any to remind everybody that the current problem at the border with the unaccompanied children is NOT due to a porous border.

These children, and often adults as well, are TRYING to get captured.

They are not climbing over border fences in order to disappear into the country. They are actively seeking border patrol agents and surrendering because they are terrified and need protection.

There is no influx of guards, or addition of National Guard troops, that is going to curtail this migration into the country. All it will do is help the immigrants find the help they are seeking more quickly.

Somehow this fact seems to be evading the Republicans.

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

A Missouri man reportedly told police that he shot his wife over the weekend because he was “tired of her.”

Ripley County Cpl. Earl Wheetley was called to a home in Naylor on Saturday evening where he found Carolyn Leonard “laying on the front porch covered in blood,” the Southeast Missourian reported.

The woman “stated her and her husband was arguing, and he shot her” in the shoulder, Wheetley wrote in an affidavit.

Her husband, 59-year-old Bobby Leonard, emerged from the trailer, and was handcuffed by Wheetley.

“I asked him if he had any weapons on him, and he stated, ‘No, the gun is in the house on the counter,’” Wheetley recalled.

In Alaska we used to call this a "Spenard divorce." Of course that is usually said by misogynist assholes.

Using guns to win an argument is what cowards do.

But at least this guy did not kill his entire family execution style like the guy in Texas.

Boy that 2nd Amendment is certainly making all of us much safer. Don't you think?

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Courtesy of HuffPo:

In a condemnatory speech last week against the Obama administration’s new Environmental Protection Agency carbon emission regulations, Kentucky state Sen. Brandon Smith (R) claimed that man-made climate change is scientifically implausible because Mars and Earth share “exactly” the same temperature.

Smith, the owner of a mining company called Mohawk Energy, argued that despite the fact that the red planet doesn’t have any coal mines, Mars and Earth share a temperature. Therefore, Smith reasoned, coal companies on Earth should be exempt from emission regulations.

During a Natural Resources and Environment Committee meeting Thursday, Smith, the Senate majority whip, said:

"As you [Energy & Environment Cabinet official] sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I won’t get into the debate about climate change but I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of."

According to NASA, the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit -- 138 degrees above Mars' average of -81 degrees.

I am beginning to think there should be a mandatory entrance exam covering the functions of government, how science works, and economics that every potential candidate for local or national office must pass before being allowed to waste the voter's time.

I mean come on, this is getting ridiculous!

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Courtesy of The Hill:

President Obama on Thursday claimed he is “not that partisan of a guy” as he mocked calls in the Republican Party for his impeachment.

The president spent much of his address in Austin, Texas, hammering congressional Republicans, saying they have "blocked or voted down every serious idea to strengthen the middle class."

“I’m just telling the truth now," Obama said. "I don't have to run for office again so I can just let her rip.”

He teed off on Republicans such as Sarah Palin who have suggested in recent days that he be impeached, and dismissed Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) proposed lawsuit over his executive actions.

"'Sue him! Impeach him!' Really? For what? You're going to sue me for doing my job?" Obama said. "I mean think about that — you're going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job, while you don't do your job? Huh."

The president said that the "best thing you can say" about Republicans this year is that they haven't forced a shutdown of the federal government.

"Of course it's only July, so who knows what they may cook up in the next couple of months," he added.

"I'm not that partisan of a guy," Obama said. "My favorite president is a Republican president."

Obama heralded the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, saying the nation had "great" Republican leaders.

"Richard Nixon started the EPA!" Obama said.

He suggested Republicans had cynically chosen to abandon positions they believed in simply because he had embraced them.

"At least agree with me for the things you used to say you were for, before I was for them," Obama said, adding that "Ronald Reagan passed immigration, and you loved Ronald Reagan."

"It's lonely just me doing stuff," Obama said. "I'd love if the Republicans did stuff too."

The President is absolutely right, the very things he is being attacked for these days are the same things that the Republicans would be celebrating if there was a Republican in the White House.

Or maybe even simply a white President living there.

You know sometimes I think that the President needs somebody around all the time just to give him a big hug once in awhile and tell him he is doing a good job.

They say that the loneliest job in the world is to be President of the United States, but sometimes it seems that Obama is far more isolated than those that came before him.

And fuck the Republicans for putting him in that spot.

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Courtesy of ABC News:

It's official -- Rosie O'Donnell is returning as a host for "The View."

The show tweeted out the news today saying, "ABC confirms Rosie O'Donnell returns as co-host of #TheView w/ moderator Whoopi Goldberg for Season 18."

The host is back after being on the show before from 2006 to 2007. While on the show, she famously clashed with Donald Trump and even some former "View" co-hosts like Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

I don't usually cover this kind of thing on IM, however since Palin set tongues a wagging about the possibility that SHE might like to join the show it made this news just too delicious not to share.

Not only is Rosie back on for sure, there is also talk that Meghan McCain might be offered a slot.

Now there is a truly evil side of me that wants desperately for Sarah Palin to feel the need to promote something that convinces her to be a guest on The View.

Simply the idea of Palin being interviewed by the likes of Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopi Goldberg, and Meghan McCain is the kind of thing that liberal bloggers can only dream of having the opportunity to watch.

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