World News Korner

Fortunately for me there has already been some reporting on the numbers over at Roll Call.

Here is what they had to say:

Sarah PAC, reported it had receipts of $430,217 and disbursements of $461,368 during the first quarter of the year, leaving $1,086,533 cash on hand as of March 31st.

Small contributions of $200 or less, totaled $344,295. Of the $83,777 that came from 261 itemized donors giving more than $200, the largest amounts came from Florida, California, and Texas. The largest donors were Paul Ellgen, a retired scientist from Fort Myers, Florida, who gave $5,000, and Rhodora Donahue, a homemaker from Naples, Florida, who gave $5,000.

The PAC gave $56,000 to federal candidates during the first quarter, after giving only $10,000 to federal candidates in all of 2013. The PAC gave $5,000 each to Senate candidates Karen Christine Handel in Georgia, Joni Ernst in Iowa, Chris McDaniel in Mississippi, Julianne Ortman in Minnesota, Ben Sasse in Nebraska, Tim Scott in South Carolina, T.W. Shannon in Oklahoma, and Sen. Mike Lee in Utah. The PAC also gave $1,000 to leadership PAC of Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.

The PAC gave $5,000 to House candidates Katrina Pierson in Texas, and $10,000 to Lizbeth Benacquisto in Florida.

In non-federal elections, the PAC gave $5,000 to Greg Abbott in the Texas gubernatorial primary, and $3,500 to Gov. Nikki Haley in South Carolina.

This increase in donations to candidates is undoubtedly due to criticisms over her stinginess last time around, and charges that her PAC is nothing more than a slush fund for her own personal use. Which of course it is.

A slush fund that is still being whittled away however, as she only took in $430,217, while spending $461,368. Leaving her with $1,086,533 in the kitty.

Of course she is still spending the vast majority of the money on shady expenditures. Such as over $115,000 on "consultants" of one kind or another, and just under $155,000 for some version of "postage."

She also paid $1,500 to Personal Creative for a video. And purchased copies of her own crappy book to the tune of around $20,000.

The usual list of suspects remain on the list, from Aries Petra Consulting to Northstar Strategies, As well as Timothy Crawford, Marilyn Lane, Carol Ryan, Pamela Pryor, and, of course, $13,515.70 to Clapp, Peterson, Tiemessen, Thorsness LLC.

After all SOMEBODY has to pay the lawyers to keep Tripp away from his daddy.

Of course this time around Palin has many more sources of income than simply convincing the paint chip eaters to hand over their spare change. She also has a soon to be cancelled huntin show on the Sportsman Channel, and that "Rogue TV" app thingamajig.

Good thing too, because from the looks of it she is getting a little long in the tooth to keep up this political pole dance much longer.

Update: Oops I almost forgot. Here is the link to the SarahPAC documents so you can do a little investigating of your own.

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Courtesy of yesterday's post on Queen Ester's Facebook page:

Tonight Jewish families all over the world celebrate Passover, the commemoration of their freedom from bondage and their Exodus to the Promised Land. We join with them in spirit in celebrating mankind’s universal aspiration for freedom, and our prayers are especially with our Jewish friends in Israel. May they continue to flourish as a democracy in a region of the world so troubled by despotic regimes. Chag kasher V'Sameach. Happy Passover. And next year in Jerusalem!

- Sarah Palin

Of course as we have discussed here on IM numerous times Palin's support for the Jewish people and Israel has NOTHING to do with any altruistic feelings, and EVERYTHING to do with the Fundamentalist's belief that it plays a very important part in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

She cares nothing for the Jewish people, and instead sees them only as a means to an end. The End Times that is.

Interestingly enough a new show on HBO, Vice produced by Bill Maher, addressed this very situation recently.

Here is a debrief.

Thomas Morton joined a group of born again Christians as they toured the Holy Land and found out the real reason why they support Israel.

It is certainly not shocking to learn that Sarah Palin is a religious nut who supports the oppression of an entire race of people, simply to usher in a supernatural occurrence that she believes allows her access to eternal life. And it offers yet another opportunity to point out that Sarah Palin does NOTHING that does not, in some way, benefit Sarah Palin.

Speaking of the End Times now some Fundamentalists are saying that the recent red moon sightings are the newest sign.

And speaking of Passover, it is a celebration of an event that never actually took place.

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Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Fresh off a week in which Democrats made clear that a key part of their midterm message will be equal pay, Republicans are set to begin their own efforts to woo women to the polls, focusing on counties that went blue in 2012 and could tip the balance in November.

In West Virginia on Monday morning, Sharon Day, co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, will launch “14 in ’14,” a program that will focus on younger women in suburban areas that lean blue. The idea is to sign up women who will commit 30 minutes per week in the 14 weeks before the election, making calls, recruiting other women, identifying voters and getting people to the polls.

Republicans have been dogged by criticism that their party is out of touch with women. In a CNN poll in February, 55 percent of respondents said they didn’t understand women, a figure that jumps to 64 percent among women older than 50, a group that has traditionally been more Republican.

Day will announce the new effort in Charleston, W.Va., with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat John D. Rockefeller IV, who is retiring.

“Women are a very important part of the electorate and the RNC is very serious about engaging,” Day said. “The Democrats have relied on desperate attacks and we are going to aggressively work to correct the record and build relationships with women voters.”

I have to remain skeptical that such a transparent ploy to seem more female friendly will work, and let's not forget that this is still the party that is aggressively fighting to control women's bodies, votes against bills demanding equal pay for women, and is working to undermine public education which allows many moms the freedom to work outside of their homes.

However I am aware that there is a certain type of woman who still relates to the policies of the GOP, though at this point I have to assume that they are either racist, nostalgic for the Republican party of yore, or are self loathing in some way.

These days a woman supporting the Republican party is not unlike gazelle's protesting for better working conditions for cheetahs.

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Courtesy of TPM:

In its latest projections for Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has lowered the law's costs over the next 10 years by more than $100 billion.

Most of the change can be linked to lower spending on tax subsidies for coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov and its state counterparts, which can in turn be linked to lower-than-expected premiums.

CBO projected that the federal government would spend $164 billion less than previously expected on Obamacare subsidies by 2024. It appears that a number of factors contributed to that change. Premiums, especially in the near term, are expected to be lower than previously projected: The office estimated premiums would rise on average by about $100 in 2015. They are still expected to rise over the next decade, but at a lower rate than previously thought.

It's a combination of rising medical costs, a healthier enrollment population in 2015 and the make-up of the Obamacare plans, which have narrower provider networks and lower provider payments than their counterparts in the large-group market, that contribute to the CBO's calculations on premiums. Other changes, such as a smaller under-65 population, also factored into the revisions.

More good news for the Affordable Care Act.

News by the way that can be used to help defuse the Republican attacks against Democrats in the 2014 election cycle.

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Courtesy of the Washington Post:

The Second Amendment expressly endorsed the substantive common-law rule that protected the citizen’s right (and duty) to keep and bear arms when serving in a state militia. In its decision in Heller, however, the majority interpreted the amendment as though its draftsmen were primarily motivated by an interest in protecting the common-law right of self-defense. But that common-law right is a procedural right that has always been available to the defendant in criminal proceedings in every state. The notion that the states were concerned about possible infringement of that right by the federal government is really quite absurd.

As a result of the rulings in Heller and McDonald, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were “well regulated,” has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make it unambiguously conform to the original intent of its draftsmen. As so amended, it would read:

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

Simple right? Just five little words, and the gun nuts would be shut down completely, and the NRA would lose much of its political influence.

Not only that but I think it's pretty clear to most people that THAT was what the amendment meant all along, and that the drafters never imagined how it would have been reinterpreted in modern times.

Of course the problem with this is that it is a non-starter.

There will never be such an amendment to add those five clarifying words.

Not in my lifetime anyhow.

And because of those "political realities" we will continue to see a never ending parade of coffins filled with innocent bystanders, children, and crime victims, as politicians wring their hands claiming that nothing can be done to stem the tide of violence.

If Sandy Hook was not enough to shake us out of our complacency and wake up the nation to the just how endangered we are by this amendment, then I simply do not know what it will take.

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Courtesy of Business Insider:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has started, over the past few weeks, to ratchet up talk of a potential presidential run in 2016. If that's the case, the reaction he received this weekend at a gathering of conservatives in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire was not what he was looking for.

Bush served as a punch line for — of all people — Donald Trump.

"You know, I heard Jeb Bush the other day," Trump said during his speech at the Freedom Summit, hosted by the conservative groups Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity.

The crowd immediately started to boo and groan upon hearing Bush's name. Trump then referenced comments Bush had made on immigration on April 6, when he said most people who cross the border illegally do so out of "love."

"He was talking about people that come into this country illegally. They do it for love," Trump said as the boos got louder.

"And I said, say it again. I didn't get — that's one I've never heard of before," Trump said. "I've heard money, I've heard this, I've heard sex, I've heard everything! The one thing I never heard of was love. I understand what he's saying, but, you know, it's out there, I'll tell you."

The crowd laughed.

Jeb's name has been popping up with increasing frequency these days, and I agree that he has the best chance imaginable against Hillary.

However this is no longer the Republican party that the Bush family knows so well.

THIS is a party that is split into at least two distinct and adversarial sides.

In order for the next GOP presidential candidate to win the nomination he would have to either unite both sides, or get enough support to shut one side down, as Romney did in 2012.

I seriously doubt that Jeb Bush has what it takes to do either.

For one he has the stink of George W. all over him. Second he is nowhere near ideologically pure enough for the Teabaggers, and third he is too connected with programs like NCLB, Common Core, and Immigration Reform, which are divisive topics that will not help him with certain demographics.

And putting all of that aside, the real problem with his candidacy is that he cannot win, and that his presence on the national stage will open up the topic of his brother's presidency which will lead to more attacks on the Republican legacy in the White House and their history of warmongering.

Ultimately his failed run will further damage the Republican party, and invigorate the civil war within.

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Courtesy of Mother Jones:

When the Supreme Court recently demolished yet another chunk of the nation's campaign finance laws, Dan Backer arguably cheered louder than anyone. It was Backer, a Washington, DC-area attorney active in conservative politics, who had convinced an Alabama businessman named Shaun McCutcheon to challenge the government's limit on the number of candidates, party committees, and political action committees an individual can contribute to in a single election cycle. (The basic limits on how much money that donor can give to each candidate, party, or PAC remain intact.) Backer, who represented McCutcheon, responded to the news of the Supreme Court's decision by tweeting (in apparent reference to William Wallace in Braveheart): "FREEEEDOMMMMM!!!!"

Backer's victory is shining some light on another high-profile cause of his: Convincing Sarah Palin to run for US Senate.

In an email headlined "Palin for Senate" recently blasted out by a PAC called the Tea Party Leadership Fund, Backer writes, "Sarah's the proven leader we need." He goes on, "She has a better grasp on world politics, and she knows what it means to cherish and protect our American freedoms far better than THE MAN WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE LEADING THE FREE WORLD." Backer slams incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) for spending "too much time in Washington, DC, begging the Obama administration for favors rather than representing the good people of Alaska." Palin supporters need to act quick, Backer warns: The window for her to get into the race "has almost closed." And so Backer asks recipients to sign a petition and gather enough signatures to "to push Sarah Palin over the top in a critical run for Alaska's Senate seat in 2014."

In an interview, Backer said almost 100,000 people had signed the Palin for Senate petition. If Palin did enter the race,he said the Tea Party Leadership PAC would bolster her candidacy with direct mail and radio ads. "Nobody's going to be a greater agent for change than Sarah Palin from Alaska," Backer told me. "She will bring something to the race and she will disrupt the Senate. And disruption is good."

I guess this guy did not think he had done enough damage to the country through this Supreme Court decision, and has now decided to release the Kraken.

The problem with that plan is that she has no intention of running, and I doubt that anything this guy could say or do would convince her otherwise.

However let me just say that if her few remaining supporters are aware of his aggressive promotion of her candidacy, and she does not take the bait, that it will be MUCH harder for her to trick them into giving money to SarahPAC.

Even the horniest guys in the strip club will lose their chubby once the dancer loses her grip on the pole and tumbles into the audience. And essentially that is what is happening to Palin, albeit in slow motion.

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