God, I love Republicans
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) condemned a dangerous new rule in the House of Representatives that would undermine Social Security by attacking Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The unprecedented rule change would prevent the House of Representatives from passing clean reallocations of the Social Security Trust Fund.
“Today, House Republicans are trying to change rules that have been in place for decades as a way to attack social insurance,” Brown said. “Rather than solve the short-term problems facing the Social Security Disability program as we have in the past, Republicans want to set the stage to cut benefits for seniors and disabled Americans.”
This is routine — you know, the way raising the debt ceiling used to be?
Ben Carson, plagarist
Hey, he’s a doctor and a Fox News regular! The guy is BUSY!!
Several sections of potential Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson’s 2012 book America the Beautiful were plagiarized from various sources, BuzzFeed News has found.
In many cases Carson cites the works that he plagiarizes in endnotes, though he makes no effort to indicate that not just the source, but the words themselves, had been taken from different authors.
The case is similar to a 2013 report from BuzzFeed News that found Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul plagiarized in his book while citing the works he copied in the footnotes. Paul’s book was eventually updated to include attribution.
In one instance, Carson cites wholesale from an old website that has been online since at least 2002, Socialismsucks.net.
In another example, he plagiarizes from two authors whose works he mentions in passing at earlier points in the book: Cleon Skousen, a conservative historian who died in 2006, and Bill Federer, another conservative historian, who Carson thanks in the acknowledgements for helping get his book published.
Carson’s book sold less than 1,000 copies when it was first published in 2012, according to the New York Times’ 2013 profile of Carson. After his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013 exploded on YouTube the book sold 46,000 copies in six weeks, the Times reported.
Carson recently said a decision on a 2016 presidential run is coming before May, and has previously said “the chances are reasonably good” that he will run for president.
Boehner’s revenge
As expected, Boehner was reelected yesterday as Speaker of the House. Now he’s getting even with the Teabaggers who tried to push him out:
After he secured his third term as speaker Tuesday afternoon, losing 25 votes on the House floor to some relative-unknown members of the House Republican Conference, Boehner moved swiftly to boot Florida Reps. Daniel Webster and Rich Nugent from the influential Rules Committee.
The reason was simple: Webster ran against Boehner for speaker, distributing fliers outlining his candidacy and talking about how he would better adhere to the House rules than the Ohio Republican. Nugent supported his fellow Floridian in the quixotic endeavor, which garnered the support of 12 lawmakers. Webster didn’t even give Boehner a heads-up that he was running, although leadership was aware early Tuesday morning that it could happen.
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I am so sick of these racist right-wing fuckers
Colorado is one of those states that attracts political extremes. They have some really liberal residents, and also some of the most radical right-wingers in the country. Gee, I wonder which ones were responsible for this?
An explosion outside an NAACP office building in Colorado on Tuesday morning that rattled neighbors was caused deliberately, officials say.
An improvised explosive device was detonated against the exterior wall of the NAACP building on South El Paso Street in Colorado Springs around 10:45 a.m. Mountain time. No one was injured, said Amy Sanders, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Denver.
A gasoline can had been placed near the device but did not ignite during the explosion, Sanders said.
The sidewalk and the local NAACP headquarters building, which also houses a barbershop, suffered minor damage, she said.
FBI Denver and the Colorado Springs Police Department are on the scene. A man aged about 40 is a person of interest in the investigation. He may be driving a 2000 or older-model dirty white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark-colored bed liner, an open tailgate and a missing or covered license plate.
The greatest bastard
Damien Rice:
Happy Hour: Wynton Marsalis – Cherokee…
Panhandle Slim… Art for Folk….
Chris Christie’s very special treatment
David Sirota has an interesting take on Chris Christie’s little junket to the Dallas Cowboys game on Sunday:
As Gov. Chris Christie has appeared at professional football games to cheer on his beloved Dallas Cowboys, he has faced questions about why his favorite team isn’t a New Jersey local like the Jets, Giants or Eagles. But Christie’s bromance with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones also raises an even thornier question: In accepting owners’ box seats, is the governor complying with New Jersey’s tough ethics rules banning gifts and favors to public officials?
New Jersey’s executive branch ethics rules warns state officials that there’s “a zero tolerance policy for acceptance of gifts offered to you … that are related in any way to your official duties.” The ethics rules specifically prohibits public officials from accepting access to entertainment events from any person or entity that public officials “deal with, contact, or regulate in the course of official business.” The rulesdefine one form of restricted gift as “admission to an event for which a member of the general public would be charged.”
In his role as governor, Christie has had myriad high-profile dealings with the National Football League – many of which have proven highly profitable to the league (and, by extension, Jones). Under Christie’s watch, New Jersey officials delivered almost $18 million of taxpayer money to the league to offset costs associated with the 2014 Super Bowl. That included $8 million worth of sales tax breaks, plus millions more in security costs the state picked up for the league. All that was on top of New Jersey property tax breaks that benefit the league.
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Gene Shay retires
If you’re not from Philly, you may not know that Gene Shay is a folk music legend, with — God, can it really be? — 50 years of local radio. I remember hanging out with him at the Philly Folk Festival, explaining to him (he was completely oblivious to technology) how he could use his computer and mp3 files to program the show in advance when he wasn’t available. (He must have figured it out, because he later did it.)
Anyway, he was so important in the careers of so many artists. He was diagnosed with diabetes some years ago, and his health was taking a hit. (Maybe because he kept taking a hit? Heh.) So good luck to him. Those are some big shoes to fill.