![Poll: Red state voters want expanded background checks by big margins. [photo via Wikimedia Commons]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/f7d5b4eb15fe74e0804d783ee295f433/tumblr_mnko81zsml1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
See, now that’s your problem right there…
While the RNC was busy trying (and failing) to get together a Celebrity Task Force in Hollywood, something else was going on in Georgia. See if you can figure out which might be a bigger impediment to voter outreach.
Raw Story: Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) has refused through a spokesperson to endorse one town’s first-ever integrated high school prom, saying that he would rather not take sides on the issue. According to Atlanta’s WMAZ Channel 13, politicians from both parties have stated their support for black and white students from Wilcox, Georgia, but Deal declined to join them.
Raw Story spoke to activist Bryan Long of the progressive group Better Georgia, whose group has asked Georgia elected officials “to publicly support the students of Wilcox County who are fighting to end a ‘separate-but-equal’ high school prom.”
“We thought it would be nice if our elected officials would support these students,” said Long. “They’re taking a great stand in their community. We thought that officials all across the state should send a message to the nation that we’ve moved beyond the racial divisions of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.”
He added, “We were surprised to read that the governor’s spokesperson said that he wouldn’t be ‘taking sides’ on this issue. I didn’t know that there were sides to take.”
Of course there are sides to take. There’s the racist side and there’s the non-racist side. It should be a no-brainer — you take the non-racist side. But Deal refuses to do that; whether because he’s a racist himself, because he’s afraid of alienating racist voters, or both is pretty much irrelevant. When the party can’t be counted on to stand up to honest-to-goodness racism — and segregation is blatant racism — then you’re going to have yourself a little trouble convincing minority voters they should vote for you.
If Deal’s not a racist, then he’s a coward. Worse, by saying he’s not going to take sides, he takes sides with the racists by default, since this is conceding — without actually saying it outright — that the segregationists have a valid argument. Racism isn’t something you can “stay out of.” By fleeing from the argument in cowardice, Nathan Deal has chosen his side and that choice does not redound to his glory.
RNC head Reince Priebus should personally fly down to Georgia and kick Deal in the ass — if not as a Republican, then as a Wisconsinite. We don’t have a history of putting up with this shit. At the very least, he ought to realize that the problems the GOP faces aren’t caused by a lack of celebrity endorsements, but by cowardly morons like Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.
![While Washington debates our loose gun laws, gunman takes four firefighters hostage.
[photo by kcdsTM]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/5c0adc508c2a9bc48701bec5189b55be/tumblr_ml28m1frEt1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Georgia Republican demonstrates typical GOP reasoning skills.
A top Republican in Georgia has sounded an ominous warning that legalization of same-sex marriage may also lead to fraud.
Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told the Marietta Daily Journal in a story published Saturday that once gay nuptials are legally permitted, there will be nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits.
“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”
You noticed the problem here right away, didn’t you? Yeah, there’s nothing keeping straight people from entering into mixed-gender marriages to commit fraud, either. Therefore — if we follow Everheart’s “reasoning” here — neither same-sex nor mixed-gender marriages should be allowed.
From now on, it would be a great idea for Republicans not to take their policy cues from awful Adam Sandler/Kevin James movies. They don’t make any more sense in a newspaper interview than they do in movie theaters.
![Reopening a front on the War on Voting. Dave Weigel reports that “Georgia’s legislature, now run by a Republican supermajority, has inched ahead on a resolution endorsing the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Honestly, I thought that fad died out sometime in 2011, but it’s easy to forget that the 2012 election firmed up Republican control in red states, and that ideas like this have empowered sponsors.” The 17th Amendment allows the direct election of senators, who were previously chosen by legislatures and sent to Washington. The amendment was part of a far-ranging election reform movement that, along with party primaries, sought to reign in government corruption and cronyism caused by senators and candidates being chosen behind closed doors in the infamous “smoke-filled rooms.” So why would you want to do away with that? Simple. “If state legislatures were re-empowered to pick senators, there’d be no nettlesome Democrats from North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan,” Weigel explains. “The only states with Republican senators who wouldn’t be there under the legislative-election system are New Hampshire and Maine.” See, the issue here is gerrymandering. Republicans can rig state legislative and federal house elections by drawing electoral maps that screw Democrats. What they can’t rig are Senate elections. Those are statewide offices, so there are no district maps to redraw. But if gerrymandered legislators elect senators, you wind up with what amounts to gerrymandered senators. You also wind up with the corruption and the cronyism and the smoke-filled rooms. Of course, this means that Republicans want to shrink democracy quite a bit. The loss of a vote is an erosion of freedom. ” I still find it rather remarkable that those who celebrate ‘freedom’ the loudest also hope to transfer power away from the American electorate when it comes to electing members of the Senate,” comments Steve Benen. The enemies of democracy are the enemies of freedom. Republicans can take those stupid little flag pins off their lapels, because their pretense of patriotism is a damned lie. [image source]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/4525090939972ee65549481625551a2e/tumblr_mijklf5O0v1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Reopening a front on the War on Voting.
Dave Weigel reports that “Georgia’s legislature, now run by a Republican supermajority, has inched ahead on a resolution endorsing the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Honestly, I thought that fad died out sometime in 2011, but it’s easy to forget that the 2012 election firmed up Republican control in red states, and that ideas like this have empowered sponsors.”
The 17th Amendment allows the direct election of senators, who were previously chosen by legislatures and sent to Washington. The amendment was part of a far-ranging election reform movement that, along with party primaries, sought to reign in government corruption and cronyism caused by senators and candidates being chosen behind closed doors in the infamous “smoke-filled rooms.”
So why would you want to do away with that? Simple. “If state legislatures were re-empowered to pick senators, there’d be no nettlesome Democrats from North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan,” Weigel explains. “The only states with Republican senators who wouldn’t be there under the legislative-election system are New Hampshire and Maine.”
See, the issue here is gerrymandering. Republicans can rig state legislative and federal house elections by drawing electoral maps that screw Democrats. What they can’t rig are Senate elections. Those are statewide offices, so there are no district maps to redraw. But if gerrymandered legislators elect senators, you wind up with what amounts to gerrymandered senators. You also wind up with the corruption and the cronyism and the smoke-filled rooms.
Of course, this means that Republicans want to shrink democracy quite a bit. The loss of a vote is an erosion of freedom. ” I still find it rather remarkable that those who celebrate ‘freedom’ the loudest also hope to transfer power away from the American electorate when it comes to electing members of the Senate,” comments Steve Benen.
The enemies of democracy are the enemies of freedom. Republicans can take those stupid little flag pins off their lapels, because their pretense of patriotism is a damned lie.
![How insane are Republicans? This insane.
Mother Jones:
President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as “Delphi” to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That’s according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.
On October 11, at a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus convened by the body’s majority leader, Chip Rogers, a tea party activist told Republican lawmakers that Obama was mounting this most diabolical conspiracy. The event—captured on tape by a member of the Athens-based watchdog Better Georgia (who was removed from the room after 52 minutes)—had been billed as an information session on Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement that commits member nations to promote sustainable development. In the eyes of conservative activists, Agenda 21 is a nefarious plot that includes forcibly relocating non-urban-dwellers and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth. The invitation to the Georgia state Senate event noted the presentation would explain: “How pleasant sounding names are fostering a Socialist plan to change the way we live, eat, learn, and communicate to ‘save the earth.’”
[…]
The meeting consisted of a PowerPoint presentation followed by a 90-minute screening of the anti-Agenda 21 documentary, Agenda: Grinding America Down. It was emceed by Field Searcy, a local conservative activist who was forced out of the Georgia Tea Party in April due to his endorsement of conspiracy theories about the president’s birth certificate and the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 7. The presentation also featured a special video cameo from conservative talking-head Dick Morris in which the former Clinton aide warns that Obama “wants to force everyone into the cities from whence our ancestors fled.”
“Obama, of course, has taken no steps to bring the United States under the control of a United Nations sustainable-development-themed dictatorship,” MJ reports. I guess you have to say that.
Rogers is, in fact, the Georgia Senate majority leader — meaning he is the Republican mainstream in Georgia. If you doubt that, then ask yourself why most of the people at the meeting didn’t shout, “This is fucking insane!” before rushing out.
And it’s not just Georgia:
…In May, the Kansas Legislature approved a resolution blocking Agenda 21 from being implemented in its state, following in the footsteps of Tennessee. Rogers, the Georgia Senate majority leader, introduced legislation in January that would have blocked the nonbinding UN resolution from being applied to his state. Among other things, the resolution noted that, “according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialists and communist redistribution of wealth.”
If it seems as if Rogers is just repeating John Birch Society conspiracies, he is—literally. As in Tennessee, large portions of his 2012 bill, SR 270, were lifted word-for-word from draft legislation prepared by the Birchers.
This should be less shocking than a lot of people will think. After all, it’s no more or less insane than the idea that the US is on the verge of being ruled by sharia law — the last global conspiracy theory fad from the GOP’s local yokels. It’s fun to point and laugh — and by all means do — but also be warned that a significant chunk of actual elected Republicans are completely unhinged basket cases.
You know how GOP leadership are trying to tell their base to stop being so freakin’ nuts? Yeah, good luck with that. Saying “knock it off” is not the cure for mental illness.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdjbnogtxR1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
How insane are Republicans? This insane.
President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as “Delphi” to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That’s according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.
On October 11, at a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus convened by the body’s majority leader, Chip Rogers, a tea party activist told Republican lawmakers that Obama was mounting this most diabolical conspiracy. The event—captured on tape by a member of the Athens-based watchdog Better Georgia (who was removed from the room after 52 minutes)—had been billed as an information session on Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement that commits member nations to promote sustainable development. In the eyes of conservative activists, Agenda 21 is a nefarious plot that includes forcibly relocating non-urban-dwellers and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth. The invitation to the Georgia state Senate event noted the presentation would explain: “How pleasant sounding names are fostering a Socialist plan to change the way we live, eat, learn, and communicate to ‘save the earth.’”
[…]
The meeting consisted of a PowerPoint presentation followed by a 90-minute screening of the anti-Agenda 21 documentary, Agenda: Grinding America Down. It was emceed by Field Searcy, a local conservative activist who was forced out of the Georgia Tea Party in April due to his endorsement of conspiracy theories about the president’s birth certificate and the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 7. The presentation also featured a special video cameo from conservative talking-head Dick Morris in which the former Clinton aide warns that Obama “wants to force everyone into the cities from whence our ancestors fled.”
“Obama, of course, has taken no steps to bring the United States under the control of a United Nations sustainable-development-themed dictatorship,” MJ reports. I guess you have to say that.
Rogers is, in fact, the Georgia Senate majority leader — meaning he is the Republican mainstream in Georgia. If you doubt that, then ask yourself why most of the people at the meeting didn’t shout, “This is fucking insane!” before rushing out.
And it’s not just Georgia:
…In May, the Kansas Legislature approved a resolution blocking Agenda 21 from being implemented in its state, following in the footsteps of Tennessee. Rogers, the Georgia Senate majority leader, introduced legislation in January that would have blocked the nonbinding UN resolution from being applied to his state. Among other things, the resolution noted that, “according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialists and communist redistribution of wealth.”
If it seems as if Rogers is just repeating John Birch Society conspiracies, he is—literally. As in Tennessee, large portions of his 2012 bill, SR 270, were lifted word-for-word from draft legislation prepared by the Birchers.
This should be less shocking than a lot of people will think. After all, it’s no more or less insane than the idea that the US is on the verge of being ruled by sharia law — the last global conspiracy theory fad from the GOP’s local yokels. It’s fun to point and laugh — and by all means do — but also be warned that a significant chunk of actual elected Republicans are completely unhinged basket cases.
You know how GOP leadership are trying to tell their base to stop being so freakin’ nuts? Yeah, good luck with that. Saying “knock it off” is not the cure for mental illness.
![Being a vigilante moron is becoming a fad.
Huffington Post:
A Georgia couple who were trying to move into their new home were confronted by neighbors at gunpoint before they were then arrested and held overnight in jail.
Jean-Joseph and Angelica Kalonji said they were told by their real estate agent to go to their new home in Newton County and change the locks. Their son had just purchased the home, and the entire family was slated to move in.
But when they arrived and tried to enter, two neighbors, Robert Canoles and his 18-year-old son, Branden, snuck up behind the Kalonjis with semiautomatic weapons.
“He [said] to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us,” Jean Kalonji, who hails from the Congo, told a local television station.
You’d think you’ve gotten to the bad part here, but you’d be wrong. It gets much worse.
The couple did not have their closing papers with them, and could not prove that they owned the home. When deputies arrived, they arrested the Kalonjis and charged them with loitering and prowling.
The sheriff’s deputies who arrived at the scene commended the two neighbors for their response.
“The police told me I did a good job,” said the elder Canoles. He said deputies did not question him on the night of the incident.
No only did the cops praise Tweedledum and Tweedledummer here, they assumed — without any evidence at all — that they were right. And don’t tell me racial profiling didn’t play a part in any of this. Luckily, things got straightened out and the vigilantes are now in jail on charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal trespassing — but not before an innocent couple were terrorized by a couple of redneck dopes and put in jail overnight by a second wave of redneck dopes.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3238sPcm71qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Being a vigilante moron is becoming a fad.
A Georgia couple who were trying to move into their new home were confronted by neighbors at gunpoint before they were then arrested and held overnight in jail.
Jean-Joseph and Angelica Kalonji said they were told by their real estate agent to go to their new home in Newton County and change the locks. Their son had just purchased the home, and the entire family was slated to move in.
But when they arrived and tried to enter, two neighbors, Robert Canoles and his 18-year-old son, Branden, snuck up behind the Kalonjis with semiautomatic weapons.
“He [said] to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us,” Jean Kalonji, who hails from the Congo, told a local television station.
You’d think you’ve gotten to the bad part here, but you’d be wrong. It gets much worse.
The couple did not have their closing papers with them, and could not prove that they owned the home. When deputies arrived, they arrested the Kalonjis and charged them with loitering and prowling.
The sheriff’s deputies who arrived at the scene commended the two neighbors for their response.
“The police told me I did a good job,” said the elder Canoles. He said deputies did not question him on the night of the incident.
No only did the cops praise Tweedledum and Tweedledummer here, they assumed — without any evidence at all — that they were right. And don’t tell me racial profiling didn’t play a part in any of this. Luckily, things got straightened out and the vigilantes are now in jail on charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal trespassing — but not before an innocent couple were terrorized by a couple of redneck dopes and put in jail overnight by a second wave of redneck dopes.
On the GOP’s definition of ‘expertise.’
Republican Georgia state Rep. Terry England says that his experience with cows, pigs and chickens has proven to him that women should be forced to have their babies after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In a debate over Georgia House Bill 954, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks even if the baby is not expected to live, England recalled the time he had spent with livestock.
“Life gives us many experiences,” he explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”
I’m speechless…
Stories to Watch: 9/25/11
Yet another shorty. Deal with it. Now here’s the news…
Occupy Wall Street protests take a dark turn as police begin seemingly spontaneous mass arrests. Widespread reports of excessive force characterize the independent reporting from the scene and although mainstream sources also acknowledge the violence, they don’t seem to go beyond reporting press releases.
Herman Cain wins a meaningless Florida beauty contest, while Mittens takes the pageant crown in Michigan.
Ann Althouse simply doesn’t understand why people get upset over the death penalty, but not life imprisonment. I pays to remind people that she’s a Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin. You’d expect her to be bright enough to understand the difference between life and death.
Also in fun with the death penalty news; NYT’s Ross Douthat argues that Troy Davis was kind of lucky there’s a death penalty.
Finally, one of those news items you really don’t know which way to take; Saudi Arabia will allow women to vote and run for office. Of course, that doesn’t mean all that much in a sham democracy.
If the terrorists blow up a single bus, we can work around that. When they blow up a rail, that just brings the system to a grinding halt.
J.D. Van Brink, a Tea Party supporter who tries to make an argument against light rail in Cobb County, Georgia. [Mother Jones] (via producermatthew)
Of course, this same “logic” could be applied to roads, highways, bridges, airports, etc.
If we build an overpass, we’re playing right into the terrorists’ plans. What fools we are!
Nothing but dirt roads and cow paths or the terrorists have won!
