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Well, we already knew that Rand Paul's brand of "libertarian conservatism" was actually a front for the far-right beliefs he gets from his father -- even though he's done his best to scurry away from the consequences of having revealed that extremism inadvertently when Rachel Maddow put it in a context that mattered -- in this case, the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

But you know it's going to keep bubbling up, nearly every time he opens his mouth. For instance, in a recent interview with an English-language Russian news station recently, Paul held forth on immigration [via Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress]:

Paul: I recently have been talking more about satellite observation. They say you can sit in front of the store here and a satellite can read the headline on your newspaper. So I think you could also monitor your border with satellites, and then you just have to have some means of intercepting people who come in illegally. You could have helicopters stations positioned every couple of hundred miles.

I think you just have to have some means of intercepting people who come here illegally. You could have helicopter stations positioned every couple of hundred miles. And I think you could control your borders and control your borders within months if you had the willpower to do it. And I think neither party in our country has had the willpower to control our borders.

Q: Why not?

Paul: I don't know. Some of it may be labor force, things like that. But I'm not opposed to letting people come in and work and labor in our country, but what I think we should do is, we shouldn't provide an easy route to citizenship.

A lot of this is about demographics. If you look at new immigrants from Mexico, they register 3-to-1 Democrat. So the Democrat Party's for easy citizenship and for allowing them to vote. I think we need to readdress that.

We’re the only country I know of that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.

It's worth noting that Paul is not only opposed to providing a path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants already here, but he is apparently also opposed to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. You know, the one that reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This is a bit odd, don't you think, for someone who not only constantly cites the Constitution and calls himself a "constitutionalist," but also accuses his opponents of "violating the Constitution" at every turn? Indeed, only earlier in the segment he declared that President Obama's health-care reforms were "unconstitutional."

Note the words that people like Rand Paul never want to use when they talk about this, but which are what we're talking about here -- namely, birthright citizenship.

And contrary to Paul's assertion, there is a long list of nations [predominantly in the Americas] that practice jus soli. Moreover, it's not, as the Wikipedia entry explains, a particular innovation of American law, having its origins in British common law:

Birthright citizenship, as with much United States law, has its roots in English common law. Calvin’s Case, 77 Eng. Rep. 377 (1608), was particularly important as it established that under English common law “a person's status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth--a person born within the king's dominion owed allegiance to the sovereign, and in turn, was entitled to the king's protection." This same principle was adopted by the newly formed United States, as stated by Supreme Court Justice Noah Haynes Swayne: "All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural- born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country…since as before the Revolution."

That, of course, hasn't stopped the Nativists who want to either overturn or ignore the Constitution. Indeed, Paul is just echoing the latest efforts of Arizona's immigrant-bashing nativists. And as we noted then:

Continue reading »

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Pete Sessions had some help on the House floor today defending those poor downtrodden corporations... wingnut Virginia Foxx. Hey Virginia, can I have my money back that you guys "confiscated" to illegally invade Iraq?

You know, there are a lot of things Glenn Beck the nutbag does that make me crazy-angry, but most of the time I just write him off as a crazy, desperate has-been Rush Limbaugh wannabe and ignore his ugly self. Not this time.

I am mom. And I roar, scratch and bite when someone thinks it's perfectly okay to mock an 11-year old child for any reason, but especially when it's to stoke up more political hate toward the President and his family.

For this, he ought to have to get on his knees with real tears in his eyes, look in her eyes and beg forgiveness before he does the same to the President and First Lady. There is absolutely no excuse -- NONE -- for mocking an 11-year old child.

Obama remarked yesterday during his press conference that Malia asked him of the Gulf oil spill: "Did you Plug The Hole Yet, Daddy?" Beck, taking off on this, mockingly affected Malia's voice, asking "Daddy" why he "hates black people so much." Then Beck attacked Malia's intelligence, saying: "That's the level of their education, that they're coming to - they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' "

This routine continued for several minutes, as Beck and his co-hosts touched on a variety of topics and laughed the entire time, all of it at the expense of an 11-year-old girl.

Yet it was only a few days ago that Beck, on his radio show, demanded that liberal pundits "leave people's families alone" when it came to Sarah Palin:

Beck: There's a difference! Leave my family -- leave people's families alone! I don't think I've -- I mean, I don't think I have ever -- I mean, I made this when it was Bill Clinton -- you don't go after Chelsea Clinton! You don't talk about the Bush kids! Now, the minute they get into politics, that's a different story. You leave the families alone! We've never done anything but protect the families, and question why the White House would bring their children into political debate. Leave the families alone!

Beck proves every day how excrementally evil he is. He should not have the microphone or the platform. There will come a day where he'll look in the mirror and actually see who he is.

I hope his children grow up to be just like him, but liberals. That would be a start toward making the universe right again.

(h/t QueenofSpain)

Update: Beck has issued a half-hearted apology. If he apologized with half the passion he laces his invective with, I might even believe it. He rang the bell and did it evilly. He didn't bother to apologize to Malia or to the Obama family, so as far as I'm concerned, he's still on the hook.

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As part of his press conference yesterday, President Obama announced that he was suspending drilling permits for offshore oil temporarily, until environmental officials were able to assess the safety of these operations, now that the consequences of failing to do so are manifesting themselves in the Gulf.

This had Neil Cavuto and Eric Bolling at Fox News in a tizzy yesterday, complaining that the price of oil had already risen on the Obama's news, and fearing that we might again see $5-a-gallon gas this summer as a result.

Cavuto: I don't want to sound too jaded or cynical, but -- do you think a lot of this was baked into the energy cake. In other words, this accident happened, horrific as it was and is, and it -- it provided a very good excuse to just say "no, no" to "drill, baby, drill".

Evidently, Cavuto still believes "drill baby drill" is a good idea.

But maybe he can explain to us the difference between "an obviously sound reason" and an "excuse".

Because with Obama's decision on drilling yesterday, those twenty-mile-long plumes of oil now in the Gulf are clearly the former.

Most of all, it leaves the proponents of "drill baby drill" without the latter.

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I wonder if this is going to be enough to get the right wingers to quit calling for impeachment hearings and calling this "Obama's Watergate"?

White House asked Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about Senate run:

Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

But the White House maintains that the Clinton-Sestak discussions were informal, according to the sources. The White House, under pressure to divulge the specifics of its interactions with Sestak, will release a formal statement later today outlining their version of events, including Clinton's involvement. Read on...

White House offered Sestak unpaid advisory board position:

According to a source familiar with the situation, the White House asked Clinton and his adviser, lawyer Doug Band, to suggest to Sestak an unpaid position on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

... Here's the official response from the White House counsel on what happened. The White House says, as noted above, that they asked Clinton to suggest to Sestak an unpaid advisory board position.

The White House's response says no Secretary of the Navy gig was discussed, and that this sort of offer has happened numerous times in past administrations.

Also: Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says there's no "there" here. This couldn't be bribery, she says, because the position was unpaid.

Beyond that, Sloan adds, the Federal bribery statute requires an offer of something of value in exchange for an official act. Sloan says that not running for Senate would not constitute an official act in any case, even if a paid position were offered in return for dropping a run for office. And: Sam Stein has more new detail, including the interesting fact that the White House looked into this and reached its conclusion over two months ago, making one wonder why they didn't put this to rest earlier.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't understand why they let this wind out of control for so long.

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Rep. Pete Sessions rails on about how terribly unfair the Democrats are being by wanting to raise taxes on the "job creators". Here's the legislation he's complaining about. I guess somebody's got to stick up for those poor little old hedge fund managers and multi-national oil companies.

Democrats announce deal on extenders, tax on hedge fund income:

The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act will be released Thursday as the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 4213, the two said.

The bill extends several popular individual and business tax breaks, which are partly paid for by increasing taxes on a common form of income used by hedge fund managers to pay themselves. Levin and Baucus reached a compromise on how to tax "carried interest" which had been a divisive issue for years. Read on...

FACTBOX-U.S. tax, jobs bill targets fund managers:

The bill's total net cost, now at $31 billion, has been trimmed by Democrats several times to gain support from fiscally conservative Democrats.

... It would extend unemployment benefits that are set to expire at the end of the month for hundreds of thousands of Americans, tighten tax rules for multinational companies and renew a set of popular business tax breaks that expired last year.

Final action on the total package will have to wait until Congress returns from its recess on June 7, as the Senate was not expected to approve the bill before then.

... FUND MANAGER TAXES

The tax would hit the typical 20 percent share of profits that fund managers reap for managing money, known as carried interest. Fund managers, who can earn millions of dollars in a good year, pay a long-term capital gains tax rate of only 15 percent on their share of profits.

The bill proposes to treat 75 percent of those profits as ordinary income, a 35 percent tax rate for the highest earners. Until 2013, 50 percent of the profits will be treated as ordinary income.

The tax change would affect private-equity, venture-capital, real-estate and hedge funds, and has passed the House three times. It has yet to gain traction in the Senate.

The bill also slaps a 40 percent penalty on those caught attempting to skirt the taxes.

Revenue raised: $18 billion.

... BUSINESS TAX BREAKS

The bill renews a set of popular tax breaks for business and individuals, the biggest being the research and development tax credit used by major Fortune 500 companies. Other benefits extended include a tax credit for the use of biodiesel and renewable diesel and accelerated depreciation for certain business improvements. Cost: $32 billion

OIL COMPANIES, SPILL CLEANUP

The bill would boost the amount oil companies pay into a trust fund that pays economic damages from oil spills, to 34 cents a barrel from the current 8 cents a barrel.

The bill would also raise the $1 billion per incident limit on certain claims against the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to $5 billion. The fund was authorized for use in the aftermath of the Exxon Mobil Corp Valdez spill.

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Thanks, Sen. Stabenow, it's nice to know someone has a clue. But what about the Speaker of the House? I know Nancy Pelosi can change minds, because we saw the work she did on the health care bill. And I even understand the struggle she has with lily-livered House members who are much more interested in winning than helping the unemployed.

But I have to ask, once again: If the Democrats don't stand for helping the victims of this economic depression, if they don't stand for protecting the people who need it most, what, exactly, do they stand for?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states.

Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its "extenders bill," formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December.

Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a "Tier V" to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks.

A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers.

"No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we'll take up something, but not between now and then," said Pelosi (D-Calif.). "The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November."

But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that "99 weeks is sufficient."

Well, yes, Max. I'm sure for you, it is sufficient. Of course, you probably don't even know that people like me who were collecting the maximum benefit ran out at 72 weeks, nor do you care. But don't expect us to care about you, either. Buh bye, DSCC! Buh bye, mid-term elections!

Here's more evidence of the Democratic party's concern for the unemployed:

WASHINGTON – Laid off workers would lose subsidies to help buy health insurance and states would be denied billions in federal aid under a plan by House leaders Thursday to trim a bill extending jobless benefits.

Democrats struggled to extend jobless benefits for people who have been out of work for long stretches as lawmakers worried about the growing budget deficit balked at the price tag of the package.

The cuts would reduce the package by about $31 billion, to about $112 billion. Business tax increases would pay for some of the bill, which would still add more than $50 billion to the deficit.

[...] When the subsidy was first enacted, Congress estimated it would benefit 7 million laid-off workers and dependents. It would have cost $6.8 billion to extend it through November.

Democratic leaders have also proposed eliminating $24 billion in aid to cash-strapped states to help cover Medicaid expenses, Cuellar said. Congress increased the federal government's share of the federal-state insurance program for the poor last year.

Oops! There goes that touching concern about healthcare coverage for those hit hardest in these hard times. No Medicaid money? Oh well, those people should just die and decrease the surplus population.

What will it take to make the Democratic leadership understand that their half-assed attempts to win the mid-term elections are the very same tactics that will convince so many voters to stay home on Election Day?

We have a seemingly endless supply of money for war. Why are we so very thrifty when it comes to this economic disaster?

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Fox News has been running with the "Obama offered a job to Sestak not to run against Specter" scam endlessly on cable and while there was a serious press conference going on about the catastrophic BP oil spill, Major Garrett had to toe the Roger Ailes line and was the only reporter at the sixty-three-minute press conference to even mention it.

It's the last question of the presser.

Q Two issues. Some in your government have said the federal government’s boot is on the neck of BP. Are you comfortable with that imagery, sir? Is your boot on the neck of BP? And can you understand, sir, why some in the Gulf who feel besieged by this oil spill consider that a meaningless, possibly ludicrous, metaphor?

Secondarily, can you tell the American public, sir, what your White House did or did not offer Congressman Sestak to not enter the Democratic senatorial primary? And how will you meet your levels of expressed transparency and ethics to convey that answer to satisfy what appear to be bipartisan calls for greater disclosure about that matter? Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: There will be an official response shortly on the Sestak issue, which I hope will answer your questions.

Garrett is a good little doggie making sure Ailes gets his bone. Why Obama would engage at all is ridiculous because now more reporters will want to be in on the con. His first question was just nasty and makes no sense in the larger discussion of the pil spill, but that was just the set up for his "con."

Jonathan Chait writes:

I'll keep saying this: A job offer is not a quid pro quo to get somebody out of a race. It is getting somebody out of a race. Accepting one job means you cannot run for another. It happens all the time -- the White House appointed John McHugh Army Secretary in part to get him out of New York's 23rd Congressional District. It offered Judd Gregg a cabinet slot in order to get him out of the Senate. This is completely routine, neither illegal no immoral nor especially unusual. Can't we wait to appoint a special prosecutor until there's at least some possibility of underlying illegal behavior?

Digby and Jamison Fosier have been writing a lot about this flim flam reporting and engaging in any fashion is like playing Three Card Monte against a bunch of pros.

...is a confidence game in which the victim, or mark, is tricked into betting a sum of money, on the assumption that they can find the money card among three face-down playing cards.

In its full form, Three-card Monte is an example of a classic short con in which a shill pretends to conspire with the mark to cheat the dealer, while in fact conspiring with the dealer to cheat the mark.

FOX News or some right wing propaganda outlet is the confidence man. The media are the shills and Democrats are the marks. It's very simple. The scam can't be beat so the White House should just walk away.

Digby explains:

But here's the thing. None of that will do any good. There is no winning with these noise machine pseudo-scandals. They have an alternate media structure that is designed to stoke scandal fever and the way they keep the mainstream media on the hook is with "smell tests" and demands that the person address the claims, apologize or make amends, none of which will be deemed adequate and all of which necessitate another round of investigations, demands etc. With every impossible requirement that isn't met, the press will become more convinced that the person must be hiding something, is too hot to handle and will eventually agree that he has to step down or quit the race because "the scandal" is devouring him.

Later an article or a book will be written explaining that there was never anything to the charges, that the whole thing turned into a feeding frenzy but that the real problem is that the politician didn't get "out front" or establish a "war room" or otherwise magically change this dynamic and it will be deemed his fault for failing to be a stronger, better politician. Some pols survive this, notably Bill Clinton. But it takes a willingness to recognize that they are not going to leave you alone, give yourself up to it and greet each day with the knowledge that this is going to dominate until it either passes or kills you.

The right wing scandal machine creates political viruses that mutate and take on a life of their own. There's no antidote once you've caught it --- you either have a good immune system and a will to survive or you don't.

Update: read this piece by Foser from 2006 on the same theme.

Fosier does and outstanding job of listing all the Democratic politicians that have been smeared to the high heavens by the right wing bunko brigade which was aided by the MSM. The Villagers act like the shills and become part of the con, playing the straight man who make believe they are part of the card game to draw the sucker in to be taken for all he's got. It's a long piece, but well worth the read.

What the bunko brigade count on is that the rest of the unwitting and witting accomplices (media) that will join in the party because they feel left out of the "Three-Way" confidence game. It happens every time as history shows. President Obama should keep his money in his pocket and move along.

I thought this was pretty funny and hey, we can all use a good laugh these days, right?

Sarah Palin has been whining all over the place about author Joe McGinniss, calling him a stalker for renting the house next door while he's writing a book about her. And of course Fox hacks like Steve Doocy have been whipping themselves into a self-righteous frenzy, while ABCNews breathlessly regurgitates Palin's "stalker" narrative.

Turns out there's a little more to the story. From Gawker:

Earlier this year, Palin used her clout with Alaska State Police to get 16-year-old Willow Palin off the hook after she and some high school buddies trashed a vacant home during a bender. The other kids were hung out to dry, and Alaska's Mat-Su Valley boiled at the injustice of Willow's preferential treatment. We warned that Palin should watch her back lest small-town high school drama explode in national scandal.

So, another instance of the Lamestream Media trying to ruin Sarah Palin's life, right? Actually, it appears this whole situation was orchestrated by a vengeful neighbor. McGinniss' son said in an email reprinted by Politico that his dad was offered the spot by Palin's neighbor because the Palins owed her money:

"A woman was renting her house and sought out the author because the Palins had crossed her (owed her money for renovations she had done at their request and never paid her for). So she knew McGinniss was writing the book and found him and offered him the house."

The Palins apparently tried renting the place all winter to head off any Liberals. Not only did her neighbor refuse, she called up McGinniss and was like, "Hey, got this awesome house right across from Sarah Palin. Want?" There's no purer form of small-town drama than the stiffed contractor out for non-monetary revenge. Unlike those in New York or LA, where the elitists settle their labor disputes with fancy lawyers, small-town builders have the means to hit back in way more satisfying ways. (Momof3wildkids points out that the email may actually be saying that Palin asked her neighbor to fix up her own house, promised to pay for it, then stiffed her in the end. Nervy!)

Palin's rise was based on a creation myth that had her springing from a fantasy Real America that loves guns and embryos and hates immigrants and socialists. But the Real America Palin really inhabits just wants her to stop acting like a diva and to cough up the 1500 bucks or whatever she owes them for building her deck. Do not cross your people, Sarah Palin! Your speaking career and presidential prospects don't stand a chance against their hard-won sense of frontier justice. Installing a sworn enemy in your own backyard is just the beginning. They will destroy you.

Bwahahahahahahaha.

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In less than two weeks Hayward has changed his story from "relatively tiny" compared to the Gulf of Mexico, to "Oil Spill Impact Very Modest", to today declaring what we already knew, that the spill "is clearly an environmental catastrophe. There is no two ways about it." Yessiree.

It's clear. It is clear that we are dealing with a very significant environmental crisis and catastrophe."

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, dumbass. You're a bit late.

Hayward on May 18: