Late Late Night FDL: The Swan

Aniko Illenyi -- The Swan.[...]

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How David Pogue got his iPhone back

A very cool story about technology and a neat little setting on the iphone that lets you trace it if it's lost or stolen.

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The Great Honey Boo Boo Royal Go Go Juice Heist

I really can't think of anything else to say about that photo.

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The Nightowl Newswrap

By @BGinKC

• For a sitting Congressman, @SteveKingIA doesn't know very  much about how the government works. The always entertaining -- in a horror-film kind of way -- fringe lunatic from the Iowa Fifth is absolutely certain that President Obama is going to be defeated soundly and the dayn that Mitt rMoney is sworn in he wants to send him a bill that repeals everything Obama signed into law in a single page of legislation. In other words, he wants to legislatively turn back the clock to January 19, 2009.

• A crime for which I could enthusiastically support a swift and certain death penaltuy. Bryan Fischer, the hatemonger from the American Family Association is calling for an "underground railroad" to spirit away the children of same sex couples to keep them safe from the love of their gay parents. I have a lesbian daughter and she and her wife will welcome their first child in the spring. If anyone tried to "save" my grandchild from two loving mothers who were "expecting" for over a year before finally conceiving, I would hunt that person down and show them a world of pain they have no idea could possible exist.

• Todd Akin is 2012's Ken Buck, Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell rolled into one. He's an extremist who is a founding member of Michele Bachmann's "tea party caucus" who believes Medicare is unconstitutional, student loan reform amounted to a "stage III cancer of socialism," homosexuality should be criminalized, the US should withdraw from the UN and kick the organization out of New York and liberals, by definition, "hate God."  Congratulations Claire McCaskill -- you are blessed by your choice of opponent.

• Oops! A Romney ad that attacks President Obama over car dealerships in Ohio that were closed down as part of the auto industry rescue showed images of a shuttered dealership that was actually shot in Oklahoma. President Obama is blessed with an opponent who is as incompetent as Claire McCaskill's opponent is extreme.

• Oops! (Part deux.) A Romney spoxperson went where no republican is supposed to tread and defended RomneyCare in Massachusetts, saying that a woman who lost her healthcare coverage and access to cancer treatment when her husband lost his job after Bain Capital shuttered the company he worked for would have been covered by RomneyCare is she lived in Massachusetts. The right wing started howling like scalded pups immediately.

• We all have a mail-order horror story about getting something we didn't order. In my case it involves being a redhead and getting a fuschia sweater when I ordered a paisley tunic in earthtones. But that experience pales in comparison to the guy who ordered a teevee and got an assault rifle.

• I have been warning you about the Kansification of the GOP longer than Thomas Franks and last night they added some more evidence to the file when eighteen moderate republican state legislators were purged from their seats, some of them with decades of service.

• Colbert Speaks After Stephen Colbert suggested that his viewers embrace truthiness and go edit the Wiki pages of potential Romney running mates, the on-line open-source encyclopedia locked the pages to keep the general public from editing them.

• "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" The most dangerous place to be is once again between Newticles and a rolling camera or live mic as he nasally intones that racial dog-whistles about gutting welfare reform and "people who do nothing and get a check" aren't really race bating. And we believe that because we're stupid and gullible and believe lying republicans before we believe our lyin' eyes.

• And gay bating is definitely beneath the dignity of the campaign...The never-right Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist who still pushes the birther nonsense, is now peddling a brand new conspiracy theory. This one has him peddling the notion that before President Obama married Michelle, he was in a same sex marriage with a man from Pakistan.

• Ummm...they aren't supposed to know because campaigns and superPACs aren't supposed to coordinate, so I fail to see what the scandal is supposed to be here.

• This is blatant cheating and it  should be illegal and halted by the courts. In Ohio, republicans are expanding early voting hours in republican strongholds and reducing them in the precincts that went for Obama in 2008.

And finally...

• This will set the creationists to screaming and pearl-clutching and falling on the fainting couch. Two million years ago when our hominid ancestors stood up on their hind legs and ventured out of the Olduvai Gorge, they were not alone in their "quest for fire." Archaeological evidence and the fossil record show that there were at east two other species who were also clambering for that next rung on the evolutionary ladder.

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If There Was Only Some Way. . .

Romney is not the only person saying what Reid is saying is not true. Lots of Republicans are scrambling to blame Reid and take the heat off of Romney -- except one, John McCain, the only one who has actually seen Romney tax returns. Isn't it interesting that McCain doesn't saying Reid's accusation is not true?

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Open Thread

enlargeCredit: Blue Gal

I wish I had enough money to go on a vacation to go see all the money Mitt Romney hides from the tax man. Is that too much to ask?

Open Thread below...

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Dancing with The Mitt That Brung Ya

In the early days of the 2012 Republican primaries, many thoughtful commentators took the position that it was simply impossible for Mitt Romney to win his party's nomination. Despite all his evident strengths as a candidate?money, the most professionally run campaign in the group, the endorsement of many establishment figures?Romney simply would not find a way to get past the fact that as governor of Massachusetts he had passed a health care plan that became the model for the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans had come to see as the very embodiment of evil in the modern world. The party's base would never abide it.

Yet he did. Without all that much trouble too. And he didn't deal with the health care issue through some brilliant strategy, either. He made no dramatic mea culpa, and never repudiated Romneycare, at least not directly. Whenever he was asked about it he would give a convoluted and utterly unconvincing argument about how what he did in Massachusetts was great, though of course it shouldn't be applied anywhere else, and even though the ACA is almost exactly the same as Romneycare, the latter was a pragmatic and effective policy solution while the former is an abomination so horrific that putting a copy of the bill in the same room as an American flag could cause said flag to burst into flames and be sucked through a demonic portal to the very pits of hell. Democrats shook their heads at the hypocrisy and smiled at Romney's pain, while Republicans narrowed their eyes and listened skeptically. I feel fairly confident that there was not a single person anywhere who upon hearing Romney try to make these absurd distinctions responded with, "Well that makes sense?I'm convinced."

And amazingly, it almost seems as if Romney thought he could get through the rest of the campaign without this coming up. Yet come up it did, when his chief campaign flak Andrea Saul responded to an ad from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA that attacks Romney with the story of the spouse of a worker laid off from a Bain Capital-owned company who died without health insurance by saying, "To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney?s health care plan, they would have had health care." Saul was right, of course?in Massachusetts, as in the rest of the country after the ACA fully takes effect in 2014, losing your job doesn't mean losing your coverage. But conservatives became apoplectic that the Romney campaign would tout Romney's greatest achievement as governor and imply that people having secure health insurance might actually be a good thing. The less thoughtful among them insisted that Romney and his team need to be "housebroken."

All of which, I'm sure, has caused no small amount of panic at Romney headquarters. As I keep saying, it's just incredible that Romney still has to invest so much energy in keeping his restive base in line. By this time he's supposed to be going after independent voters, but he can't, because every time he turns around the right has found a new reason to be mad at him.

But really, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Just look at the desiccated husk of a man they've turned their nominee into, a candidate terrified of his own shadow, devoid of anything resembling principle, so frantic to morph into whatever anyone wants him to be that there's barely anything left of him at all. And it isn't as though he was imposed on them or something?they picked him. Granted, he was running against a truly remarkable collection of nutballs and buffoons; imagine being a Republican and having to explain to someone a few years from now how it came to pass that at various times, your party's front-running candidate for the presidency of the United States was Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich. But still. In the end Republicans went with Mitt Romney. He's what they chose, and they should have known that the guy they're looking at is exactly what they'd get.

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Is It That Bad Pt.2

From TPM Reader JR ...I read Josh's editor's blog post excerpting from an e-mail from reader EW on the John Kerry fiasco of saying he would've voted for war on Iraq even without WMDs. And it floored me, because I long ago totally forgot about that, and[...]

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News Desk: Egypt Moves on Sinai Extremists After
Security Force Killings

Deploying its air force for the first time in nearly 40 years, the Egyptian military launched an air offensive in the unruly Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, three days after Islamists killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in an attack that threatened both the Egyptian-Israeli border and the political standing of Egypt?s new president. [McClatchyDC]

THE ARAB SPRING has opened a path for the Sinai Peninsula to become a safe haven for Islamist extremists, which has suddenly posed a direct challenge to Pres. Morsi’s new leadership. Morsi met the threats by unleashing the Egyptian military and directing airstrikes against the militants who on Sunday killed 16 Egyptian security forces.

From the Washington Post:

The strikes on Egyptian soil came three days after armed militants in the Sinai killed 16 members of Egypt?s security ­forces, broke through the border into Israel and attempted to launch a separate attack there. Among security officials fired by Morsi on Wednesday were Egypt?s intelligence chief, Murad Mowafi, and the governor of North Sinai province, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk; the president also ordered his defense minister to relieve the head of the country?s military police, a spokesman said.

The steps signaled a clear, if belated, acknowledgment from Morsi, Egypt?s first Islamist president, that Islamist militants who have taken root in the Sinai pose a significant challenge to Egypt.

Leaked Wikileak cables in late 2010, which caused a ruckus at the time, revealed through Ambassador Margaret Scobey that U.S. efforts to get Egypt to concentrate on the Sinai Peninsula, but particularly asymmetrical threats posed in the wide open spaces of the Sinai where weapons were awash, were ongoing.

One real issue for Morsi is that the Islamists and militants that are causing problems in the Sinai also happen to be the same types who make up his base, so to speak, at home. They’ve become comfortable with little attention, which has allowed them to move further into a Sharia law governance that could pose a threat to the new Egyptian President’s prowess.

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The DCCC's War Against Women... No, Really

The DCCC is on board with that
Earlier today the DCCC announced their latest batch of crappy Red-to-Blue candidates-- all mediocre to horrible except progressives David Gill (IL-13) and Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01). When I opened the press release the first place my eyes landed was on anti-Choice fanatic (also an antigay fanatic), Hayden Rogers, a hopelessly corrupt insider and North Carolina Blue Dog who's running for Heath Shuler's old seat. He was Shuler's chief of staff before Shuler looked at the new district lines and decided to go into the more lucrative lobbying business. Under the old NC-11 lines, McCain took the district 52-47%. The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature specifically redrew the district-- even putting Patrick McHenry in jeopardy next door in the 10th-- to defeat Shuler and make the 11th a solid red seat. Under the new boundaries McCain would have won 58-40%. That's quite the turn in the wrong direction. But, when it comes to corrupt Blue Dogs, no one can ever talk any reason to Steve Israel. He represents an upscale suburban Long Island district and if he voted his anti-Choice heart and antigay soul, he'd be out on his ass in the next election but Israel specializes in recruiting horribly reactionary anti-Choice candidates and then spending a ton of cash on them. Hayden Rogers is as much his Frankenstein Monster as Heath Shuler was Rahm Emanuel's.

And I did mention the 10th next door, where the district is less red and where an incredibly popular state Rep with a well-earned reputation for honesty and integrity-- two characteristics that curl Steve Israel's hair with anger-- Patsy Keever is running. Her race is no walk in the park either but at least the voters know who she is-- and like her. She's pro-Choice and 100% supportive of equality for LGBT families and other progressive values. McCain won the 10th by a wide margin in 2008-- 63-36%. It would have been a lot closer under the new boundaries-- 57-42%... still tough, but not as tough as the 11th. Keever, of course, is being aggressively ignored by Israel and the DCCC while they lavish all their attention on fanatic woman-hating rightist Hayden Rogers, who is just dying to get into Congress and vote as frequently with the GOP as his old boss did-- more than 60% of the time on substantive issues. Ron Paul was more supportive of progressive legislation than Heath Shuler!

But I didn't even mean to use Hayden Rogers as my example of the DCCC War Against Women. Let's scoot over to the results in Michigan instead. A wealthy, elderly reactionary, Steve Pestka, another anti-Choice fanatic-- who doesn't even believe in exceptions for rape and incest!-- failed miserably at fundraising but is rich enough to have bought the primary. He just wrote himself check after check and drown his progressive opponent, Trevor Thomas, is negative advertising, as you can see from the chart below:


Republican incumbent Justin Amash will beat him decisively without even breaking a sweat. The DCCC added Pestka to one of their ridiculous lists today, a few hours after the primary. In 2008 the district went for McCain by a handful of votes in a 49-49% tie while the Republican incumbent won 61-35%. The new boundaries and a tiny bit more favorable to a Democrat... but if voters want an actual Democrat, Pestka isn't someone they'll be voting for. Across the state, the DCCC ignored the convincing win last night by Dr. Syed Taj in a bluer district-- and one with no Republican incumbent, Thaddeus McCotter having resigned under a cloud of electoral scandal. Instead, Dr. Taj, a progressive, faces off against a bizarre right-wing fanatic who even mainstream conservatives don't want to vote for. Obama won MI-11 in 2008, 54-45% and under the new boundaries would have won it 50-48%, a slightly better performance than Amash's/Pestka's district. As for the fundraising that the DCCC dishonestly tells candidates and the gullible media they make their decisions based on, here's Dr. Taj's report:


And while Amash is at around a million dollars already, the teabagger Bentivolio, hardly raised anything, just wrote himself a fat check:


Women looking to take back the House should be very careful about giving the DCCC a cent-- unless they also want to cement in place the anti-Choice majority that has been passing one awful anti-woman law after another, laws that both Hayden Rogers and Steve Pestka would have supported. How do I know? Well Rogers doesn't even hide from it; he's proud of it. And Pestka... when he was in the state legislature he not only amassed a perfect anti-Choice voting record, he even joined the Republicans to try to defund Planned Parenthood. This is the stinking heap of garbage the DCCC is betting on this year!



Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-dcccs-war-against-women-no-really
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