Sunday started off with an explanation of the connection between Marco Rubio and vulture investor Paul Singer, who is now trying-- along with several other slimy billionaires-- to buy Rubio the white House. (Don't worry...
On the day the House was bidding a fond adieu to one corrupt Speaker, the corrupt Republican who played Speaker before Boehner, Denny Hastert, pleaded guilty to one carefully constructed charge of "structuring," evading reporting requirements in connection to a multimillion dollar blackmail scheme.
Although I loved the Rand Paul/Trumpy junior high exchange and Rand Paul's line that "there will always be a Bush or a Clinton for you if you want to go back to Iraq," probably the most memorable bits from CNN's long, mostly boring debate Wednesday night were when Jeb defended the honor of his brother's failed presidency by making the absurd statement that "he kept us safe," forgetting, apparently, the worst disaster to have happened on American soil in over a century;
Everyone in Washington knows that Chuck Schumer is one of the shadiest and most corrupt Members of the Senate, right up there with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip and member of both the Budget and Finance Committees John Cornyn. Cornyn is best known as a whore for Big Oil, which has given him $2,876,106 for services rendered since being elected to Congress. The financial sector (Wall Street) has given Cornyn far more-- $7,940,416 since he was first elected in 2002. They've been even more generous-- or strategic-- with McConnell, who's been buttered up with $11,444,704.
bipartisanGenerally speaking, the New Dems are thought of as the arm of the conservative, corporate-oriented DLC inside the House. That isn't the way it was meant to be, however. Almost two decades ago 5 right-wing Democrats-- Blanche Lincoln (AR), Joe Lieberman (CT), Bob Graham (FL), Evan Bayh (IN) and Mary Landrieu (LA)-- started the Senate branch of the New Democrat Coalition, primarily to push through the unfair trade agreements Wall Street and Big Business were clamouring for.
The day after Rachel's report (above), McConnell fired Jesse Benton as his campaign manager. BOOM! Out! McConnell didn't like him much anyway, since Benton has been quoted and requoted telling Kentucky libertarians that he was "sort of holding my nose for two years because what we're doing here is going to be a big benefit for Rand in 2016." Benton, a longtime Paul family retainer, is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, Valori Pyeatt (Rand's niece). Before remaking himself into a Paulista, though, he worked for Louisiana sleaze bag David "Diapers" Vitter.
It's very hard to trace the Koch cash sloshing around American politics; it's meant to be hard. They funnel so much money into so many right-wing groups that it would be a full time job to sort it all out. Perhaps it's safe to assume, though, that the recipients of legalistic bribes from Koch Industries directly are among those most devoted to the Koch war against democracy.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the "candidate" she picked to run against herThere was a time that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen represented a safely red district. But that was quite some time ago. The old 18th CD-- the boundaries of which she helped draw when she was in the state legislature, was an R+4 district and filled with anti-Castro reactionaries. Many of those reactionaries are dead and Ileana's new district (FL-27) is a blue district.
You may have noticed that the latest polls show have completely turned around from October when voters were furious at Republicans for shutting down the government and were reporting 50-42% that they planned to back Democrats in 2014. Republicans have now opened a 49-44% lead over Democrats in this generic polling.
Patterns play a major role in identifying entities. We get to know people, organizations and governments based on their record and their pattern of behavior and actions. This is a fact. What happens when an entity identified by a consistent set of patterns suddenly deviates and engages in actions and behavior that completely differ from all its previous ones? We question the sudden deviation. We question the reasons behind the differentiation. Because we must. Because we have to-especially when the entity in question is our government and the current ruler of our lives.
