Unless A Supine GOP Stops Him, Trump Will Do To America What Brownback Did To Kansas

You know how states are supposed to be petri dishes for new ideas? Long before the federal government was looking into protecting consumers from predatory mortgage banksters, Assemblyman (and then state Senator) Ted Lieu was hammering out and passing controversial legislation that did just that in California. Today California Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez's revamped paid family leave plan-- revamped so that the benefits go to working class families, not just the upper middle class-- is a model for state legislatures across the country and will eventually become the foundation for a national law. But this same kind of thing happens when Republicans gain control of states-- or at least the mirror imagine happens. Last week Dominic Rushe, writing for The Guardian from Kansas, wrote about how Trump is using that state as a model for his tax cut plans. The problem, of course, is that, after years as a radical right petri dish under Gov. Sam Brownback, Kansas is a fiscal basket-case.

Details like that seem to escape Trump and he's bringing the widely despised Brownback into his Regime and bringing Brownback's failed ideological point of view into his tax agenda. "Kansas is broke," wrote Rushe, "but you wouldn’t guess it looking at its shining state capitol in Topeka. The imposing limestone monument, crowned by a shiny copper dome and limned with John Steuart Curry’s luminous murals, has just undergone a $325m facelift. What’s happening inside the state house is a lot less pretty, and may well foreshadow the far uglier battle looming over the future of taxation in the United States."

Kansas is one of the reddest states in America. The entire delegation to Washington is Republican, as are the state wide constitutional officers. The state Senate has 32 Republicans and 8 Democrats and the state House contains 97 Republicans and just 28 Democrats. And Kansas hasn't awarded a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since LBJ in 1964. Trump beat Hillary 671,018 (56.6%) to 427,005 (36.0%), winning 103 of Kansas' 105 counties. Nevertheless, the underfunded Democratic candidate for the special election to replace Mike Pompeo in April, James Thompson, stunned Republicans by closing the gap by over 20 points and winning the biggest county in the district despite having been massively outspent by Republican state Treasurer Ron Estes. In the end Estes won with 63,505 votes (52.5%) to Thompson's 55,310 (45.7%). 5 months earlier Trump had won the district 60.2% to 33.0% and in 2014 Pompeo had been re-elected 60.7% to 29.6%. Two years before that Pompeo had taken 67%. Thompson will be running against Estes again in 2018. Democrats sense a change in the air in their battered state. Trump doesn't. Trump's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn and his Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin-- a couple of swamp-dwelling Goldman Sachs banksters-- have used Kansas' failed model for a national model.

The plan’s similarity to the one that has left Kansas in crisis is “unbelievable,” according to Duane Goossen, the former Kansas secretary of administration.

The economic spirit behind Trump’s plan is Arthur Laffer-- the go-to guru of “supply-side economics” since the Reagan era, and one of the architects of Kansas governor Sam Brownback’s original tax plan.

The former member of Reagan’s economic policy advisory board is best known for the “Laffer curve,” an illustration of the theory (not his own) that economic activity is tied to taxation, and that lower taxes, up to a point, mean more revenues.

That curve was famously scribbled by Laffer on a napkin over cocktails with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in 1974, and helped underpin Reagan’s so-called trickle-down economics-- as well as launching Laffer’s career as one of the most influential economists in Republican circles.

The curve is his calling card, but he also collects and publishes a vast trove of economic data on state revenues and taxes that seems to-- handily-- point to one conclusion: taxes bad, tax cuts good.

Fairly or not, “Laffernomics” is being blamed for a plan that has left the state in crisis and Brownback’s ratings in the Kansas dust. And Kansas, it seems, is about to act as the model for the biggest US tax cuts since the Gipper was in office.

Thanks to Kansas’s budget woes, Brownback regularly polls as the least popular governor in the union. Nor is there much love for Laffer. “How does he sleep at night?” one parent asked.

“Politics is politics, and I have been the object of political attack and praise. I have gotten both,” Laffer told the Guardian. “What can I tell you? If you climb up the pole, your ass sticks out pretty far, and I climb up. I’m not afraid of taking a position on things.”

Sitting in the capitol’s vaulted lobby, Goossen, now a senior fellow at the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, has little time for Laffer’s arguments, and says that the Trump administration’s recent presentation gave him the shivers.

When Brownback outlined his plan in 2012, he, too, said the tax cuts would pay for themselves. “He too said the tax cuts would benefit everybody, [that] they would be be ‘a shot of adrenaline to the heart’ of the Kansan economy,” said Goossen.

Instead, Goossen claims, the money has gone to a small group of wealthy Kansans while the state’s budget has been left with a roughly $1bn shortfall. Its school system, once its crown jewel, has suffered year after year of cuts, and its savings are gone. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center calculates Trump’s tax plan would cost $6.2tn over the first decade.

“We are a cautionary tale. It sounds great, everybody gets a tax cut and it’ll balance-- but it just doesn’t work,” said Goossen.

Campaigning for re-election in 2014, Brownback pledged his tax plans would add 100,000 new jobs over four years. By March this year, the state had added just 12,400 private-sector jobs. Kansas isn’t even keeping up with its neighbors. Hiring in Kansas increased by 0.3% in the last year; Missouri’s growth rate over that same period was 1.4%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The prop of the Brownback plan, as with Trump’s, was a huge cut to taxes paid by limited liability companies (LLCs)-- and so-called “pass-through” businesses-- which meant independent business owners would pay no state tax on the bulk, if not all, of their income. Those businesses would then go out and invest and create new jobs, or so the argument went.

At the time, Kansas had about 190,000 LLCs. Now it has about 300,000, but so far they have not spurred a new hiring drive in the state. “There is no evidence whatsoever that suggests this plan worked,” said Goossen.

Upstairs, the state senate is arguing over the budget for the 2018 fiscal year. Estimated revenues are $5.7bn for the year; expenses are $6.4bn – and that’s before you add in $500m-$750m the schools are owed. As Charles Dickens once wrote: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”

Goossen said: “The bigger problem is that now all the energy of the state is focused on how we scrape by and make do when we ought to be focused on the future.”

...Brownback has told the Kansas City Star he’s “heartened” by Trump’s tax plans, saying they would spur business growth. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans are seeking to kill off his business tax breaks as the state struggles to balance it books.

Yesterday's NY Times reported that congressional Republicans-- at least some of them-- are cautiously distancing themselves from Trump. But only because he's probably going to be impeached over the ballooning Putin-Gate scandals. "Republicans on Sunday inched away from President Trump amid mounting evidence that he may have sought to interfere in the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In a sign of growing anxiety, several important Republicans expressed discomfort with Mr. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who had been leading the agency’s inquiry into whether Mr. Trump’s associates colluded with Russian officials. But the Republicans stopped short of explicitly criticizing Mr. Trump." But when it comes to his deadly tax agenda... that's something they all love and are all complicit in.

But even with something as fundamental to Republicanism-- tax breaks for the rich coupled with big cuts in services to the middle and working class-- there are problems that shouldn't exist for a party that controls the White House and both Houses of Congress. The combination of Paul Ryan + Mike Pence and Señor Trumpanzee and the Goldman Sachs crew are proving deadly to the GOP's efforts. Over the weekend, Fox Business reported that the Republican tax effort "is still in a precarious state, weighed down by internal policy disagreements and external political turbulence... Business groups and Senate Republicans have been pouring buckets of cold water on the ideas that make the House plan add up." The Regime, Fox reports, "has released only a vague, one-page outline of tax goals, leaving it to Congress to work out the details. Optimistic talk of committee votes this spring have given way to discussion of action this year. And if a tax bill emerges, it will land amid a storm of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, which have swept up the Trump administration and distracted lawmakers."

"Members will lose their nerve to do controversial things as they instead focus on distancing themselves from the president and scrambling for their own political life," Jon Lieber of the Eurasia Group consulting firm wrote to clients this week. "A tax bill could be completely derailed by this, but either way can't come together until early next year."

...Even with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, a major tax bill was never certain. Republicans agree on cutting tax rates and lightening the tax burden on U.S. companies' foreign earnings, but they split over whether they want a net reduction in tax revenue and they divide along regional and ideological lines on crucial details.

Still, they entered the year optimistic. House members worked from a detailed outline, the "Better Way" blueprint House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled in June 2016. And they still sound positive about reshaping the tax system in 2017.

"President Trump is leading the charge for bold tax reform that will unleash the growth of jobs and paychecks nationwide," Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Thursday. "Our committee is ready to answer that call."

To lower tax rates without adding to budget deficits, Republicans plan to bank on revenue created by economic growth and three big money-raising ideas: introducing a so-called border-adjustment tax proposal, scrapping deductions for business interest and repealing the state and local tax deduction for individuals.

Each of these measures faces sustained attacks from interest groups and fellow Republicans. None is sure to survive in the final bill, and there are no obvious revenue-raising alternatives in reserve.

Adding a border adjustment to the corporate tax-- taxing imports while exempting exports-- drew fierce blowback from retailers and Koch Industries Inc., the conglomerate run by billionaires influential in GOP politics.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said this week the border-adjustment tax plan probably couldn't pass the Senate.

The same could be true for repealing the business interest deduction, an idea opposed by debt-dependent industries such as real estate, private equity and agriculture. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) said this week that the proposal would face an uphill fight in a Senate sensitive to rural interests. He is exploring a cap instead.

The House plan to repeal the individual deduction for state and local taxes has buy-in from the White House. But many House Republicans are objecting and there are enough of them to block the plan.

Such forces would have slowed the GOP tax plan under the best possible circumstances.

"Tax reformers may have to lower their ambitions," J.P. Morgan Chase economist Michael Feroli wrote this week. "Absent a backup plan, the slow demise of Ryan's Better Way program is revealing the tough road ahead to getting anything big done on corporate tax reform."

...Republicans plan to pursue tax legislation after passing a health-care overhaul. While the House has passed a health bill, the Senate is just starting on its version.

Lawmakers also can't complete the tax bill until they adopt a budget, a process that will force them to confront deep divisions within the GOP over spending priorities and deficits.

The Russia investigations-- and related probes into Mr. Trump's campaign and his firing of FBI Director James Comey-- could bog down a tax bill as well. The more time and political capital Republicans spend on Russia, the less they have for tax policy.

"Raising an umbrella in a light rain might keep you dry and not impede your travels," said Sage Eastman, a former GOP Ways and Means aide. "But in a full-fledged tropical storm-- well-- you're going to get a little wet."

Taking The Guess Work Out Of Who's The Worst Governors

Earlier today, Morning Consult released it's latest survey on how the citizens of the 50 states view their own governors. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has both the highest disapproval ranking (71%) and the lowest approval ranking (23%). That guy is dogshit. Well... this disapproval of Brownback and his policies by Kansas voters is hardly new. When he was up for reelection 2 years ago he was just as hated and polls tended to show him losing. The last poll I found showed him losing the election 39-43%. 24% of Republicans said they were going to vote for Paul Davis, Minority Leader of the state House of Representatives. In the end, a week later, Brownback beat Davis 433,196 (49.82%) to 401,100 (46.13%). Kansas has 105 counties. Davis won 7 of them-- 5 more than President Obama had won in 2012. (In fact, although Obama only got 38% of the vote in Kansas, more Democrats voted for him than bothered to show up to for against Brownback-- 427,918 for Obama and about 26,000 fewer for Davis.

Right behind Brownback in Connecticut's widely-hated corporate Dem, Dan Malloy, with a 70% disapproval and a 26% approval. There are 10 governors with disapprovals numbers higher than approvals, 8 Republicans who have had an opportunity to prove themselves unsuitable for public office and 2 corrupt corporate Democrats who working families have comet realize are basically just Republicans with "D"s next to their names on the ballot, Malloy and Rhode Island crooked Wall Street shill Gina Raimondo. Here's the list (+ one governor who's tied between those who approve and those who disapprove, Mike Pence)

The survey was taken before federal prosecutors finally said aloud in court what most people have long suspected, that Christie "knew" about the lane closings in real time and then lied about it to cover up... well, what he was covering up will be the subject of future litigation, but I would say it's 99.9% safe to assume he was covering up the fact that he ordered the closure of the George Washington Bridge. In any case, even before, the newest revelations, 68% of New Jersey voters said they disapproved of Christie and just 29% approved (presumably New Jersey's deplorables who appreciate how he's made himself an appendage of Trump). Morning Consult pointed out that "Christie’s negatives rose by 8 percentage points since the beginning of the year, and he lost 6 points in approval ratings." Yesterday Newsweek asked the question many Americans, including many in New Jersey, have been asking for two years: why hasn't Christie been charged? Why isn't he in prison?

When the lane closure scheme became public, federal investigators got wind of it, eventually making the case that went on trial Monday.

Christie himself hired a $650-an-hour Manhattan law firm-- a taxpayer expense that eventually totaled $8 million-- to investigate the scheme. That investigation exonerated him in 2014. The legislative committee also concluded its work in late 2014 without accusing Christie of involvement.

But the legislative investigation was hampered by the concurrent federal investigation, which limited the ability of the state Assembly to call in witnesses. After Monday’s bombshell opening remarks, a number of New Jersey assemblymen suggested that they would reopen the investigation after the trial ends.

“It’s possible-- we don't know-- that the governor may be one of the unindicted co-conspirators," says Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who chaired the legislative investigation. "The government made it very clear. They did not hedge: They said the governor knew about the lane closures while they were happening. That is damning. That puts him at the nexus of the conspiracy.

“As for why he remains potentially an unindicted co-conspirator: The governor may have learned from his days as a U.S. attorney how to insulate himself by keeping the records, the paper trail, at a minimum. Whether or not that status changes will depend a lot on what is said, argued and entered into evidence at this trial,” he says.

...When the federal government formally charged only his aides, Christie described the action has having “exonerated” him.

But a former federal prosecutor who spoke to Newsweek about the case and discussed why Christie was not indicted declined to use the word “exonerate.” He speculates that the feds never charged the governor because federal investigators had been unable to come up with a paper trail with which to convince a jury.

“In theory, they seem to be saying that Christie was generally aware that havoc was being wreaked, but he wouldn’t have known the particulars of what went on,” says the attorney, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the case. “As a general rule, federal prosecutors say federal conspiracies are very broad, and you don't need to know all the details to be guilty of involvement. But I assume the prosecution believes the governor didn't know all the details, that he had a general knowledge, but not enough to hold him criminally responsible and to persuade a jury to hold him personally responsible.”

Monday’s opening remarks made clear that the federal case will be based on Christie’s knowledge of and acquiescence to the scheme. Lawyers for the defendants were already expected to argue that the accused acted under authority of the governor. Furthermore, the prosecution will be bringing unindicted alleged co-conspirators who are expected to further elaborate on what the governor knew and when.

Ultimately, it appears the federal prosecutor will make the case that the defendants are part of a corrupt system, and that “the fish is rotten from the head down,” one attorney says.

...In the end, the show that opened Monday in Newark reveals the abysmal state of American political culture, from presidential politics on down, characterized by the practice of laying total waste to one’s opponents, seemingly without the slightest regard for duty to public service and the common good. Bridgegate is just another tactic out of a playbook that has run from Congress’s government shutdowns to Trump lying about his opponent and his own record. Christie might never be held legally responsible for Bridgegate, but his reputation and very likely his political future are on trial now.

Next year will be New Jersey's next gubernatorial election and Christie is term-limited. Maybe he'll be part of the Trump administration by then. Most of his potential replacements aren't much better than he is: the crooked boss-backed hack who runs the state Senate for George Norcross, Stephen Sweeney, some Goldman Sachs crook named Philip Murphy (in case people have forgotten how much they hated Corzine) and the sleazy assemblyman and chair of the state's Democratic Party, John Wisniewski, who ostentatiously backed Bernie while also backing crooked Machine candidates down-ballot. Bright spot would be if Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, a real reformer, runs.

Trouble For The Republican Party On Its Far Right Flank

There's a crackpot version of this video courtesy of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)


This isn't the kind of video meant to give right-wing ideologues a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's scary to think about what does though. Morning Joe may be ground zero in the non-Fox corporate media world's anti-Hillary jihad, but their Mark Halperin pointed out in a Bloomberg column yesterday that there are even more deranged Hillary-phobes than the ones he spends his mornings with. "A virulent strain of Clinton Derangement Syndrome," he wrote, "which scientists and Republicans thought had been wiped out at the end of the last century, is now inflicting millions of conservative Americans. Some Republicans so detest Hillary Clinton they are badly underestimating how likely she is, at this point in the campaign, to be America’s 45th president. Their denial is just as strong now as it was a month ago, before Clinton began a run of political victories that have enhanced her prospects, all while the roller derby/demolition derby that is the Republican nomination contest has continued to harm the GOP’s chances of winning back the White House... Republicans are erroneously convinced they can beat Clinton solely with talk of Benghazi, e-mails, and other controversies that have nothing to do with the economy and the real lives of real people. Nowhere does the Fox News-Rush Limbaugh echo chamber more hurt Republican chances of beating Clinton than in the politics of scandal and controversy. To paraphrase the famous line attributed to Pauline Kael: everyone who conservatives know think the Clintons should be in prison. The problem is that swing voters don’t share that view in sufficient numbers to actually warrant banking a victory on placing those arguments front and center. Kevin McCarthy’s acknowledgement that the Benghazi committee was set up to damage Clinton politically has not just polluted the select committee’s efforts; it also means that one of the most effectively tried-and-true Team Clinton defenses (that any controversy that swirls around her is a ginned up political attack because Republicans don’t want to talk about real issues) has got legs straight through next November."

Yeah... when the GOP is counting on their presumed opponent to spend election day in jail-- or are already bragging about impeaching her on Day-one of her presidency-- the party establishment might as well save themselves the trouble of fighting off Trump or Carson (as of this morning, leading Trump nationally, at least according to the new CBS poll) or Cruz and just let them have the worthless nomination.

Yesterday South Carolina closet case Lindsey Graham was on Morning Joe wondering how he could possibly be losing to the sociopaths running for the Republican nomination. "The number two guy [Carson] tried to kill somebody at 14 and the number one guy [Trump] is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these guys?"



Of course, Lindsey Graham isn't the only one noticing that the far right fringe has dragged his party off the rails. Yesterday, reporting for the Washington Post, Mike DeBonis was talking about the civil war starting up within the fringe. They're already going after each other, basically because the right-wing sell-outs gave Ryan a pass-- despite his horrible record of establishment corruption. They weren't far right enough for the psychopaths they helped give voice to over the last year or two!

“You should all be replaced,” a critic told Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.). Another called Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the most persistent thorns in Boehner’s side, “a RINO establishment lap dog” and “another go-along to get along phony who will GLADLY step on the throats of the Conservative electorate.”

...“Look, I imagine that there’s theoretically a chance that [we] all went from being radical extremist crazies to Washington sellouts in 12 hours,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus leader. “But maybe a more likely narrative is that we really think that this is a good step for the conservative movement. And it’s up to us to try to explain that to people, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

They would seem to have a lot of explaining to do.

The anger over Ryan’s ascent has been fueled by voices across the conservative media landscape. On the Internet, sites such as Breitbart.com and the Drudge Report have pumped out a steady stream of anti-Ryan stories casting doubt on his record, while such prominent commentators as Erick Erickson, Ann Coulter and Mickey Kaus have sharpened their teeth and urged conservatives to contact lawmakers and tell them to spurn Ryan.

Particularly brutal have been the syndicated talk-radio hosts who have helped foment the anti-establishment outrage that has kept Donald Trump atop the GOP presidential race and forced Jeb Bush, a well-financed mainstream conservative, to undertake a campaign shake-up.

Laura Ingraham last week called Ryan “basically John Boehner with better abs” and featured segment after segment attacking Ryan’s positions on trade and immigration. She also mocked his desire to spend his weekends with his family.

Another influential host, Mark Levin, lambasted Ryan as a creature of the establishment elite. “I think it’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to choose a speaker from outside the House of Representatives,” he told his audience Wednesday. “This is the best the Republican establishment can do; it’s just not good enough.”

And the biggest conservative talker of them all, Rush Limbaugh, on Thursday called Ryan a favorite of the Republican “donor class” and “the new Cantor”-- a reference to former House majority leader Eric Cantor, who was ousted last year in a GOP primary.

...[North Carolina extremist Mark] Meadows said Thursday that he and like-minded members were more concerned that Ryan might have made contradictory pledges to different groups while courting support last week. And he suggested that Ryan might be at risk of fraying the House GOP anew if he didn’t make a clearer statement before Thursday’s speaker vote.

“It’s important that a down payment be made in order to keep that supermajority intact,” he said.

A handful of House hard-liners, perhaps 10 to 15, remain proudly outside the pro-Ryan camp; most continue to back Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), a backbencher who has emphasized procedural reforms.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking, really,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a Webster backer, said of the Freedom Caucus.

“If you’ve got problems with a man today, and the man tells you, ‘Tomorrow, I’ll be a different person’-- it doesn’t happen,” said Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), who said he has received more than 100 calls over two days from constituents opposing Ryan.

Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of lunatics in the North Carolina suburbs of Wilmington, New Bern, Greenville and Elizabeth City and in Jacksonville and all along the state's coast. But if you really want to know what happens when right-wing ideologues and purists take over, just look to Kansas, where a neo-fascist senator, Sam Brownback, was elected governor and implemented all the policies the far right is always whining about. Kansas is one of the most Republican states in the country. After voting for FDR in 1932 and 1936, they abandoned him and the Democratic Party until Goldwater was nominated in 1964-- and never again since then. Their state Senate has 31 Republicans and 9 Democrats and the state House has 97 Republicans and 28 Democrats. Every state officer from Insurance Commissioner to Governor-- plus ever Member of Congress from Kansas-- is a Republican. Romney beat Obama 678,719 (60%) to 427,918 (38%). Of Kansas' 105 counties, Obama won just 2-- Wyandotte and Douglas. Gove, Sheridan, Scott and Rawlins counties gave him just 13% of their votes-- and Wallace county outdid them all, handing Romney an 90-9% victory over the president! But Kansans aren't happy as the real-life laboratory for far right theories of governance now. A new local poll from the Docking Institute shows that only 18% of the voters are happy with Brownback's performance and 61% of them rate his vaunted tax policies as either a "failure" or a "tremendous failure." The same percentage want him to expand Medicare and 84% oppose his insistence that colleges allow guns on campuses. In fact 82% of the voters now see through the GOP ruse that voters fraud is a significant enough problem to warrant the Secretary of State's war against voting and against democracy.

Like a similar poll conducted this spring, the fall poll portrays a much more moderate adult population than is reflected in the Legislature. That's likely due to the fact that the Fort Hays State poll surveys "adults," as opposed to "registered voters," or even "likely voters."

But the high level of dissatisfaction with Brownback and his policies may be important for Republican candidates running in the 2016 elections. They will likely have to ask themselves how closely they want to be identified with a governor who is personally unpopular, and who cannot run again himself because he is term limited.

Not surprisingly, the poll showed a wide partisan divide on most questions. But when it came to assessing Brownback, even among those who identified themselves as "strong Republicans," 45 percent said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied with his performance. Only 9 percent said they were very satisfied.

Thirty-eight percent of "strong Republicans" said they believe his tax policies have failed to stimulate economic growth.

As we mentioned the other day, the GOP Establishment has its hands full with full-on crackpot and neo-fascist candidates wanting to run-- across the whole country-- as Republicans. The establishment is worrying that, as Politico put it yesterday, looney candidates like Sharon Angle "could again jeopardize the party's chances," not just for winning a specific seat, but for holding onto the Senate majority. And in Angle's case, "[t]he GOP in Nevada and Washington is trying to chase her out of another campaign."

Angle’s very public flirtation with a primary bid against Rep. Joe Heck, the party favorite to take on Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, is reviving Democratic dreams and Republican nightmares from the 2010 election. Angle — along with lackluster candidates Christine O’Donnell and Ken Buck — blew a winnable race for the GOP, and her name still causes eyerolls among Republicans of all stripes.

And now that Republicans finally control the Senate, they aren’t about to let Angle screw things up.

"[Heck] can win. It is about winning elections after all," said Texas Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during Angle’s run. Angle "had a shot and has been unsuccessful. So my money is with him."

...A divisive GOP food fight in Nevada would unquestioningly aid Democratic efforts to win the four or five Senate seats the party needs (depending on the result of the presidential election) to win back control of the chamber. Republicans already are defending seven seats in states President Barack Obama won in both presidential elections, six of which are very competitive.

Republicans view Nevada as much-needed insurance to preserve their majority. Democrats know that losing Nevada makes the math that much harder for a party that already has little margin for error... Still, some activists remain wary of Heck, who has lower ratings on scorecards from conservative groups-- even if those votes could help Heck in a general election in a blue-leaning state.

Medical Care in Kansas and Why It Won't Be Fixed

 Coffeyville, Kansas, where nearly one in five people lives in poverty (source)

by Gaius Publius

I want to present this story as a story first, before I let the writer make an analytical point and I make one of my own. This is from a much longer, excellent piece in The Nation called "Life and Death in Brownback's Kansas" by Kai Wright. No, this story doesn't end in death, but the steps its subject takes along the way, the drops she experiences from one level down to the next, are so predictable as to be obvious. They are also terribly common.

Charmaine's Story

This is one of many example stories in the article. It appears near the end and concerns a woman named "Charmaine," last name withheld. Here is Charmaine's story as Wright tells it:

Charmaine, who didn’t want her last name used, entered the recession feeling good about herself. At 51, she was living in Kansas City and working as a district manager for the discount furniture chain Big Lots, having clambered her way up through the company’s ranks over 15 years. “I started on the floor,” she says. “I didn’t go to college or anything like that, so my hard work got me to where I was. And then…” She swats at the air in frustration.

The recession presented both peril and opportunity for discount retailers like Big Lots, as consumer spending dropped but bargain hunting surged. In 2008, the firm took steps to capitalize on the moment. Company leaders, based in Ohio, streamlined operations by consolidating middle management. Charmaine’s job was gone. “You go from 60-some thousand dollars a year—with great health insurance, company car, everything—to nothing,” she says. She found herself in a job market where all the rules had changed. “Here I am in my 50s. Guess what? They want somebody with education, younger.”

So she downsized, moving from Kansas City to Coffeyville to live with her grown daughter. She got a job as a home health aide for $9.70 an hour, with no health plan. Then she got sick.

It started as a mild case of ulcerative colitis, a disease marked by inflammation and sores in the large intestine and colon. At first, she didn’t feel that bad, and she had more pressing claims on her limited funds than the anti-inflammatory drugs she’d been prescribed. “You know how much the prescription was? $1,000 a month,” she says. “So I didn’t do the medicine, which was my fault, I now realize. But I couldn’t pay for it.”

That was 2011 and, as will happen, over the ensuing years, her condition grew from uncomfortable to debilitating. By July 2014, it had become a crisis. “One day I got up in the morning and just—” She flinches at the memory. “Blood, solid blood just coming out of me like a waterfall.”

She ended up, at Griffin’s advice, in a Bartlesville, Oklahoma, emergency room, one of the nearest hospitals with a gastroenterologist. Charmaine spent two weeks there, the first of five hospital stays over six months last year. The second stay came just two days after the first. She was running an errand at Walgreen’s when she lost control of her bowels. “It was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever been through,” she says.

This time she went straight to the local ER. They found a gastroenterologist at Kansas University Medical Center who they believed could help, but she would have to get to Kansas City, 165 miles north—an expensive ambulance ride for someone without insurance. “Here I am sitting here, bleeding like crazy, and I’ve got to find a way to get to Kansas City right then. Finally, they had me sign a document saying I had to pay the $4,000 if I wanted to get to the hospital. So I agreed! I signed it.”

The Kansas City doctors discovered that she had picked up a bacterial infection that had complicated the colitis. Now her inflamed colon won’t heal, and the upshot is thousands of dollars in medication and ongoing doctors’ appointments. She’s lost track of the debt she’s racked up. She gets many of her meds free through drug-assistance programs, but the supply can be unpredictable. For her other meds, she’s on a payment plan. When we spoke in January, Charmaine had just run out of her free anti-inflammatories. If she can’t find a new source and her colon worsens, doctors will have to remove it.

Throughout this ordeal, Charmaine has continued working. In the 29 states (plus Washington, DC) that have expanded Medicaid, her income would likely put her in a gray zone; depending on how many hours she puts in each month, she could fall just over or under the 138-percent-of-poverty cutoff to qualify. But in Kansas, she’s completely out of luck. She qualifies for tax credits to buy insurance, but she’s struggled to find a plan in which she can afford both the premium and the cost sharing on all of her meds. She could apply for disability, but she can’t imagine living on the small income that would provide, even if it did bring health insurance.

The steps — decent job with health insurance, then fired at an unhirable age, then service-sector job with no insurance, then sick with barely affordable medicine, then complications to the illness, then mountains of debt with no good choices. And she's still sick.

How common is that? I would guess very, and because there are so many more whites than blacks in the U.S., this happens to far more whites than to any other group. Not just "Life and Death in Kansas" — "Life and Death in the U.S. of A."

Why This Won't Be Fixed

The writer, Kai Wright, offers this tag to the story, which shows one compelling reason why this problem, adequate health care for poorer citizens, is so hard to solve, especially in states like Kansas. Wright closes Charmaine's story this way:

“I’m not ready to give up. I’m a hard worker,” she says, before breaking down in tears. She’s been taking anti-depressants for the first time in her life. “I’ve worked 30-some years and paid my dues, and here I can’t get any help? And all these years that people get food stamps and medical cards for their children, I helped pay for that. So what about me? What did all my hard work get me?”

It’s a sentiment I heard often, talking with southeast Kansas’ sick and poor. Everyone is convinced that someone else is getting a better deal, that somewhere a horde of Kansans are gaming the system and preventing the truly needy from getting help. It’s a sentiment that Brownback eagerly exploits when attacking Medicaid expansion and other forms of public assistance. In his January State of the State address, he pointed to a black single mom in the audience, saying she had been on welfare and was now in a full-time job. He asked her to stand with her teenage son, then lauded the “courage and perseverance” of her redemptive journey. “We will continue to move forward,” he vowed, “helping people move from dependence on the government to independence.”

It's the song of the hard-working right-wing white person — "Everyone is convinced that someone else is getting a better deal, that somewhere a horde of Kansans are gaming the system and preventing the truly needy from getting help" — and people like Brownback are leading the choir.

This is the writer's problem statement, the finger he points, in telling Charmaine's story. (Did I mention that the whole article is a fantastic read?)

Obamacare and Medicare

I'll point a different, additional finger. It's not just Brownback and Charmaine's complaint about winners and losers that's the problem. There would be no winners and losers, no "better deals" to be had among citizens, if everyone were receiving the same guaranteed government-provided health insurance.

The argument in favor of Obamacare, the patchwork, publicly-mandated private insurance mélange, is: "We couldn't get else anything passed. It had to be this way." The counterargument is: "You could have simply offered 'Medicare for All' or 'Medicare Plus 5%' and voters in both parties would be for it."

Obama rejected Medicare as a solution, or anything else that looked like government-offered "single payer" insurance. Then he rejected the "public option" as a lesser solution. He made these choices based on his relationship with the insurance companies (and drug companies), not based on the unpopularity of his alternatives. He chose to populate the space always intended for Medicare — health insurance for those under 65 — with a cobbled-together private insurance scheme instead.

And this is where we are, some of us doing just fine and some of us where Charmaine is now. One day soon, President Obama will be here...

Barack Obama’s Presidential Library as envisaged by the Chicago firm HOK (view 1; discussed here).

... but he'll need some help to get there. I suspect he has that help all lined up.

Charmaine may have Brownback to blame, though she may not know it. But she also has Obama to blame, for a reason she may not suspect. Brownback and Obama, two politicians maintained in place by money. One of them is close to a well-paid retirement, a choice Charmaine, earning $9.70 an hour, will likely never have.

GP

Could November Prove To Be A Wipeout For Kansas Republican Extremists?

Kansas has been nearly a one party state for a very long time. Ravaged by the Republican Party's Great Depression, Kansans voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 (against Hoover) and in 1936 (against Alf Landon, their former governor). After that they went back to their innate conservatism, backing Wendell Willkie against Roosevelt in 1940 and Thomas Dewey against Roosevelt in 1944. There have been 17 presidential elections since then and the only time Kansas voted for a Democrats was in 1964 when they backed LBJ over Goldwater 54.09- 45.06. In 2012 Kansas was one of the only states that failed to give President Obama even 40% of the vote, the rest being primarily bastions of vicious and sick racism. Since 1900 Kansas has elected exactly two Democrats, William Thompson in 1913 (one term) and George McGill in a 1930 special election to replace a Republican. who died in office. Chances are, the only Kansas senators you've ever known of were Republican James Pearson (1962-1978), Republican Bob Dole (1969-1996), Republican Nancy Kassebaum (1978-1997), Republican Sam Brownback (1996-2011), Republican Pat Roberts (current) and Republican Jerry Moran (current). No one imagined that in what's shaping up to be a very Republican year, Kansas might throw out the current Republican, a very senile 78 year old Pat Roberts. And not just Roberts. Kansans may not be ready to embrace Obama but the Koch-owned state has come to realize that the GOP has been absolutely toxic for them.

The state has a lopsided Republican legislature-- 31 Republicans and 9 Democrats in the state Senate and 90 Republicans and 35 Democrats in the House. And it's not all gerrymandering. 790,345 (44.6%) of the voters are registered Republicans and only 446,237 (25.2%) are Democrats-- significantly less than Independents. But then along came Governor Brownback to turn the state into a laboratory for crackpot, extreme right-wing theories.

Brownback's tax cut proposal came as Kansas's revenues were on an upswing. Spending cuts and a one-cent sales tax passed by Brownback's Democratic predecessor had combined with economic growth to give Kansas a surplus. Now, Brownback argued, his tax cuts would lead to even more success. "I firmly believe these reforms will set the stage for strong economic growth in Kansas," he said. The governor proposed to cut income taxes on the state's highest earners from 6.45 percent to 4.9 percent, to simplify tax brackets, and to eliminate state income taxes on most small business income entirely. In a nod to fiscal responsibility, though, he proposed to end several tax deductions and exemptions, including the well-liked home mortgage interest deduction. This would help pay for the cuts. Yet as the bill went through the state Senate, these deductions proved too popular, and legislators voted to keep them all. The bill's estimated price tag rose from about $105 million to $800 million, but Brownback kept supporting it anyway. "I'm gonna sign this bill, I'm excited about the prospects for it, and I'm very thankful for how God has blessed our state," he said.

Democrats, and some Republicans, weren't buying it. "It bankrupts the state within two years," said Rochelle Chronister, a former state GOP chair who helped organize moderate Republicans against Brownback's agenda. And the House Democratic leader, Paul Davis, laid down a marker. "There is no feasible way that private-sector growth can accommodate the price tag of this tax cut," he said. "Our $600 million surplus will become a $2.5 billion deficit within just five years." In return, Brownback's administration claimed the bill would create 23,000 jobs by 2020, and would lead 35,000 more people to move to Kansas.

After the cuts became law, it was undisputed that Kansas's revenue collections would fall. But some supply-side analysts, like economist Arthur Laffer, argued that increased economic growth would deliver more revenue that would help cushion this impact.

Yet it's now clear that the revenue shortfalls are much worse than expected. "State general fund revenue is down over $700 million from last year," Duane Goossen, a former state budget director, told me. "That's a bigger drop than the state had in the whole three years of the recession," he said-- and it's a huge chunk of the state's $6 billion budget. Goossen added that the Kansas's surplus, which had been replenished since the recession, "is now being spent at an alarming, amazing rate."

Kansas has to balance its budget every year, so when that surplus runs out, further spending cuts will be necessary. The declining revenues have necessitated extensive cuts in state education funding, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Moody's cut of the state's bond rating this May was another embarrassment. And the economic benefits Brownback promised haven't materialized either. Chris Ingraham wrote at Wonkblog that Kansas's job growth has lagged behind the rest of the country, "especially in the years following the first round of Brownback tax cuts."

…Brownback's approval rating has plummeted-- in a recent poll by PPP, his 33 percent was actually lower than Barack Obama's 34 percent approval. This is good news for state House Democratic leader Paul Davis, who announced his run for governor last September. "I'm profoundly troubled by the direction our state has been heading over the past three years," he said in his first campaign email. "The wealthiest and well connected have gotten all the breaks, and the Kansas economy feels broken." In the most recent poll of the race, Davis leads Brownback by 6 points.

Yesterday, the first public poll in Kansas was reported since Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race, leaving Roberts to face Independent Greg Orman. The top 3 Republicans on the ballot, Pat Roberts, Sam Brownback and the neo-fascist Secretary of State Chris Kobach are all losing.

As of today, 09/08/14, about 7 in 10 Kansas likely voters are aware that Democrat Chad Taylor has withdrawn from the race, with a formal request that his name be taken off the ballot. About 6 in 10 Kansas likely voters are aware that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican in his own tight-fight for re-election (more on that in a moment), has inserted himself into the fray and refuses to remove Democrat Taylor from the ballot. That creates a nightmare for state and national party officials, for Kansas voters, and for public opinion pollsters. At this hour, subject to possible lawsuits and back-room bargains which could further upend the race, Independent Greg Orman and Roberts are effectively tied, 37% for Orman, 36% for Roberts, 10% for Taylor, 6% for Libertarian Randall Batson. The exact wording of the question that SurveyUSA asked respondents is: "If there were an election for US Senate today, and Democrat Chad Taylor's name still appeared on the ballot even though he no longer wants to run, and the other names on the ballot were Republican Pat Roberts, Independent Greg Orman, and Libertarian Randall Batson, who would you vote for?" Orman gets 52% of the Democratic vote, 42% of the independent vote, and 26% of the Republican vote. Roberts holds 59% of the Republican base, and is backed by 11% of Democrats, and 16% of independents. Orman leads among the most educated voters and among the most affluent voters. The contest is effectively tied in Greater Wichita, and effectively tied in greater Kansas City KS. Orman has a slight lead in greater Topeka. Voters focused on the economy back Orman over Roberts 3:2. Voters focused on Obamacare back Roberts over Orman 2:1.

…Kobach's insertion into the Senate contest did nothing, at first blush, to help his own campaign for re-election. 2 weeks ago, KSN-TV and SurveyUSA had Kobach tied with Democratic challenger Jean Schodorf. Today, the contest is still within the theoretical margin of sampling error, but Schodorf now has a nominal 3-point advantage, 46% to 43%. Men don't take kindly to Kobach's interference. 2 weeks ago, Kobach had led by 10 among male likely voters, now by 3. And residents of greater Kansas City KS don't take kindly to Kobach either. In that part of the state, Kobach had been tied with Schodorf, but today the Democrat Schodorf leads by 7.

…Sitting on the sidelines, ostensibly minding his own business, is incumbent Republican Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback could fairly be accused of being, in a "wave-election" year when Republicans are expected to win statehouse and congressional contests coast-to-coast, the falling tide that is sinking all Kansas Republican boats. Brownback was already in trouble long before anyone was worried about Roberts and long before anyone outside of Kansas knew Kobach's name. Now, Brownback is staring at basically the same "upside-down" numbers that he howled about when SurveyUSA released them 2 weeks ago. Today, Brownback is down 7 points to Democratic challenger Paul Davis. The Democratic ticket of Davis and Jill Docking gets 47% today, the Republican ticket of Brownback and Lt. Gov Jeff Colyer gets 40%… Brownback holds 66% of the Republican base and 74% of the conservative vote. Brownback is down 22 points among independents and down 47 points among moderates.

Why Are Bobby Jindal And Sam Brownback So Unpopular With Voters In Their Deeply Red States?

Last week there was a minor news buzz about how unpopular Bobby Jindal has become among Louisiana voters, 60% of whom agree he's doing a lousy, unsatisfactory job. His approval rating had plummeted in less than a year from 51% to 38%, coincident with his embrace of the ideologically-driven Austerity agenda for his state-- state cuts to higher education and health care, plans to privatize the charity hospital system and the governor’s proposed state tax overhaul, the last of which is especially hated. 63% oppose the plan to abolish personal and corporate income taxes and raise state sales taxes, while only 27% support it.

There may be an even more hated governor lurking in the fringes-- and he was chosen to give the weekly Republican Party radio address yesterday, Kansas reactionary Sam Brownback, who, like Jindal, has seen his approval rating disappear as he decided to use his state as a laboratory for failed European Austerity agendas. And of course, he actually used the speech to tout his unpopular tax policy as something everyone ought to try. Like Jindal he's trying to eliminate the state income tax and the services it pays for.

A poll just over a month ago shows that Brownback and his Austerity agenda so unpopular among Kansas voters, that he could have troubling winning reelection in 2014. His approval rating, 37%, is even lower than Jindal's.

Brownback has a negative -15 job approval rating, with 37% of Kansas voters approving and 52% disapproving of his performance as governor. 72% of moderates disapprove of his performance as well as 30% of Republicans and 66% of independents.

Brownback’s plan to phase out the state’s income tax is almost as unpopular as he is, with 48% of voters opposed and 37% supportive. 65% of moderates and 56% of independents oppose the plan. Even 34% of somewhat conservative voters and 28% of Republicans are opposed to the proposal to overhaul the income tax.

And then there's the Republican War Against Women, in which Kansas is a major battlefront and in which Brownback in a leading general. Friday night the Republican-dominated state legislature gave final approval to the worst anti-Choice legislation-- clearly unconstitutional-- in the country, declaring that life begins at fertilization. It passed in the House 90-30 and in the Senate 28-10. Brownback will sign it and it takes effect on July 1.

The declaration that life begins at fertilization is embodied in "personhood" measures in other states. Such measures are aimed at revising their constitutions to ban all abortions, and none have been enacted, though North Dakota voters will have one on the ballot in 2014.

But Kansas lawmakers aren't trying to change the state constitution, and the measure notes that any rights suggested by the language are limited by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. It declared in its historic Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that women have a right to obtain abortions in some circumstances, and has upheld that decision while allowing increasing restrictions by states.

Thirteen states, including Missouri, have such language in their laws, according to the National Right to Life Committee.

Sen. David Haley, a Kansas Democrat who opposed the bill, zeroed in on the statement, saying that supporters of the bill were pursuing a "Taliban-esque" course of letting religious views dictate policy limiting women's ability to make decisions about health care and whether they'll have children.

And in the House, Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat, complained that the bill was "about politics, not medicine."

"It's the very definition of government intrusion in a woman's personal medical decisions," he said.

Brownback has signed multiple anti-abortion measures into law, and the number of pregnancies terminated in the state has declined 11 percent since he took office in January 2011.

I'm going to just take a guess that many of those poll respondents who have made Brownback one of the least popular governors in America, are women.

Michele Bachmann Knows She Deserves God's Wrath

I was hoping-- when I saw her in the video below-- that Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was finally going to confess she had gotten drunk at a congressional St. Patrick's Day party a couple years ago, puked in the lady's room and then snuck out without cleaning up, only to then cower in fear that her crazy colleague from southern Ohio, Mean Jean Schmidt, had slipped in the vomit and ruined her dress. But no, it was just about persuading God to help Republicans keep people from getting healthcare.

I spent nearly the whole day yesterday, starting at 8:30 AM, in the Vatican. It was wonderfully uplifting. I've been there several times before, but never with an art historian nor with any kind of a guide. This time my docent, Sarah, took me through the vast art collection-- or at least a part of it; it would take weeks to see it all-- and helped me understand that most of the popes had more to do with commissioning and collecting art-- and in the Baroque Period, primarily as propaganda-- than they did with anything remotely spiritual or even "religious." Glorifying their noble families' names-- it wasn't until 1978, with the election of John Paul I as the 263rd pope, that a man not of aristocratic family ascended to the papacy; he was murdered after 33 days-- was the name of the game for many; temporal power was what it was about for even more.

Sarah went to Catholic school when she was a girl, which, I assume is where she lost her religion and became, I'm guessing, an atheist. She was happy to repeat all the phony baloney Vatican propaganda as we traipsed through the museums, the Sistene Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica, assuring me, when I pressed her, that none of it was remotely true. But the art was so inspiring and... divine. Look at that wonderful Pietà by the then 23 year old unknown Michelangelo above! It's breathtaking. (If you can't make it to Rome, there are authorized duplicates at the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Poznań, St. John's Cathedral in Bundang, Korea, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasília, Brazil, St. Mary's Parish, Spring Lake, MI, St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, Cathedral of Our Lady of Refuge in Matamoros, Mexico, the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis and at St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York.)

Somehow I doubt many people look at this sublime work, or the authorized copies, and think about how healthcare for American families must be derailed by God's intervention. But then I've never met deranged religious fanatics like Jim DeMint (an admitted member of the DC-based religio-fascist cult called The Family), Sam Brownback and Michele Bachmann. The Founding Fathers had, though, which is why they took such pains to erect a wall between Church and State, a wall these fanatics are determined to tear down. They very much want religion-- particularly their inauthentic religion to have a hand, to put it mildly, in public policy so it can be used the way authoritarians have used religious hocus pocus since the beginning of history. Sometimes we lose track of how much less bad Democrats like Obama, Ben Nelson and even Rahm Emanuel are than Republicans. Now, please, watch Rachel Maddow put this all in context while I go tour the fabulous Colosseum, a place where a wall between church and state was never contemplated.




UPDATE: When Shit Don't Stink

Sarah didn't bother to walk over herself but she encouraged me to take a peek at the glassed-in open casket of Pope John XXIII who died in 1963. Popes are usually buried downstairs but this one is supposed to be an example of incorruptibility so he's hanging out upstairs where he's hard to miss (under the wax that encloses his body). It's macabre. Yogandanda, who's at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, was certified incorruptible before he was embalmed in 1952. Anyway, the current head of the Church announced today that he's movin' two other popes, John Paul II and Pius XII-- but not John XXIII-- along the road to sainthood. Like the current head of Catholics, Inc., the non-incorruptible Pius XII, was a detestable Nazi stooge. By pairing the loathed Nazi pope with the loved JP II, Benedict probably hoped there wouldn't be as much of a stink. Next stop for these two is beatification.

And... the healthcare reform bill, now mutated into an unrecognizable form as one conservative lackey after another threw a tantrum and was placated, looks like it has the requisite 60 votes to overcome the GOP filibuster. Nelson feels the ability for backward, racist states to opt out of abortion coverage for poor women is good enough for him.

Two GOP Political Dwarves Square Off For The Honor Of Being Pulverized By Katherine Sebelius

Sam Brownback, a suspected Opus Dei cultist and admitted far right religious fanatic, obsessed with bizarre morbid sexuality, decided to retire from the Senate and run for the Kansas governor's mansion in 2010. The current governor, wildly popular Democrat Katherine Sebelius, is serving her second and last term and is likely to trade jobs with him.

But a couple of Republican hack pols have decided to fight it out in a primary contest over who will have the honor of being defeated by her. Todd Tiahrt announced his bid yesterday in Topeka. The other one, who announced after winning re-election to his House seat in November is Jerry Moran. Although the differences between them are barely perceptible, Tiahrt is considered to the right of the Nazi Party and Moran is just a garden variety conservative extremist. In terms of their congressional voting records, they were both absolute rubber stamps for Bush. Moran has a 5.16 (out of 100) on the Progressive Punch score of crucial partisan votes and Tiahrt has a 2.23. In the arcane world of right wing fanaticism, that makes one (Tiahrt) purer than the other (Moran). Neither has ever voted in favor of anything that would benefit working families and each is considered a complete shill for Big Business.

Polls show Moran way ahead of Tiahrt, who is perceived by the Kansans who even know who he is as an extremist and kind of a far right fringe candidate. The fact that he's further right will tend to help him as the primary gets really contentious, as is expected, probably by noon tomorrow.

THREE ROTTEN WING NUTS BOWING OFF THE NATIONAL STAGE: BROWNBACK, HASTERT, ROBERTS... BUT NOT CRAZY ANN

Last night, just a few hours after he was named as a recipient of major bribes in the Wilkes/Cunningham bribery trial in San Diego, Republican ex-Speaker Denny Hastert, let it be known that he would resign from Congress imminently.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is withdrawing from the parade of pygmies™ for less nefarious reasons. He's broke and his race has garnered no interest from any quarters. Imagine how humiliating it has been for someone who has worked so hard and for so long to distinguish himself as one of the most extreme and far right kooks in the Senate Republican caucus to keep hearing from the GOP base how unhappy they are about Giuliani, Full O'Mitt, McCain and Frederick of Hollywood not being "real conservatives" and if only there was one... Look for him to run for governor of Kansas in 2010. Brownback's "thunder" was stolen by... Huckabee... because he's a Baptist minister-- although today's Washington Post is reporting that even the evangelical, religionist right wing of the Party of Hatred and Greed isn't happy with any of the pygmies™-- including Huckleberry.

But the first thing I saw this morning when I woke up and turned on the news was that Oral Roberts Buy Bull College head honcho was "taking a leave of absence" from the family business after he was caught chin deep in monkey business. Buy Bull "University" President Richard Roberts "will continue to live in his university-provided house and be paid his $228,000 salary" and his hand picked board will decide when it's safe to bring him back "based on the outcome of its own and an independent auditor's investigations into the allegations... Roberts will continue to work as chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries, stick with his television work, keep teaching and preaching, and continue to write letters and books. The decision was in 'the best interest of my family and the university,' Roberts said."

They're claiming his leave of absence isn't an admission of guilt. "Three former ORU professors filed the lawsuit, claiming that they had been wrongfully fired or forced to resign. The lawsuit alleges that Roberts involved ORU in politics in violation of tax laws. A report-- which the professors claim cost them their jobs-- attached to the lawsuit alleges that the Roberts family misspent ORU and Oral Roberts Ministries money on themselves, among other allegations."

One Republican the public has seen more than enough of who is not going away is Republican Party spokeswoman/propagandist and Mitt Romney supporter Ann Coulter. On Monday Coulter was on a GOP radio show hosted by right-wing fanatic Michael Medved talking about her outrageous and anti-Semitic assertion from last week that "we Christians... just want Jews to be perfected." Chatting amicably with Medved she claimed, lying as usual, that it was the Jews who were insulting her religion. "The Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don't see me sniffling and crying." Just like there were a few self-loathing and somewhat stupid Jewish people who voted for Hitler's party in 1930's Germany, there are actually Jews in America who vote for Coulter's party today (or for Al Wynn)..




UPDATE: ANOTHER REPUBLICAN FLEEING IN HORROR FROM A HOPELESS TASK

Florida Senator Mel Martinez has had it with the hateful, bigoted, party he was supposed to be leading. He announced his intention of resigning as Chairman of the RNC. Although the failure of most of the pathetic pygmies™ to show up at an RNC fundraiser may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, the camel's been saggin'-- badly-- for a long time. Many Republicans didn't want him from day one when their lame duck president appointed him but when he backed a pro-corporate stand on immigration instead of the bigoted, racist Know Nothing demands most of the GOP base embraces... it was just a matter of time. Well, time has come today.


UPDATE: MARTINEZ-- THE DIRT STARTS COMING OUT ON WHY HE REALLY QUIT THE RNC

Yesterday Republicans tried to make light of Senator Mel Martinez' (R-FL) abrupt resignation as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Today's L.A. Times plays it up as more of a big deal.

The Republican Party's highest-ranking Latino official abruptly resigned Friday, marking the latest casualty in the GOP's bitter internal fight over immigration and dealing another setback to President Bush's years-long effort to court Latino voters.

The announcement by Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida that he was quitting as general chairman of the Republican National Committee came after he had expressed frustration over the tenor of the immigration debate within his party. Martinez will remain in his Senate post.

"Mel Martinez was a symbol of the party's outreach to Latinos, and that seems to be disappearing," said Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican strategist and advisor to GOP presidents since Ronald Reagan. "It is not a good day for Latino Republicans, that's for sure."

Republicans of Hispanic decent are frustrated, worried and angry. Robert Posada, head of the Latino Coalition says "The radical conservative base has a temporary victory right now." He's a Republican.