Unless One Starts Openly Wearing Nazi Insignia, How Do You Keep Score Of Which GOP Candidate Is More Right-Wing?

Earlier today we talked about the increasingly out of control Republican Civil War. It ties together the deterioration of the adherence of the GOP base to GOP congressional leaders, the toxicity of Ryan and McConnell, the neo-fascist jihad launched by the Mercers and their boy Bannon against the Republican establishment and Trump's reverse Midas touch in Republican politics. We looked at a random North Carolina congressional race, a proxy war between Bannon and Rove that has Ryan peeing in his panties. Now let's turn to the same dynamics in Mississippi and a whole other cockamamie Senate race shaping up in Tennessee.

Jeremy Peters covered the incipient mayhem shaping up in Mississippi for the NY Times. Last cycle far right crackpot, neo-Nazi state Senator Chris McDaniel was cheated out of a sure win against GOP basket case Thad Cochran. He's back this year, with a vengeance... and Steve Bannon, who, Peters writes, "is hoping to make Mississippi the next domino to fall in an insurgency that would remake the Senate-- and the Republican Party."

If Mr. McDaniel runs, as expected, he will face Senator Roger Wicker in a primary in June-- the first election next year in which Republican Senate candidates would square off. The race could offer an early answer to a question that is vital to the party’s future: Does the effort to replace sitting Republicans with populist conservatives in the mold of Mr. Trump have a credible chance of maturing into a national movement?

Its backers are already plotting a course across the South and then westward to states like Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. In all of those states, the insurgents have a rallying cry in Mr. Trump’s name and a villain in the Washington’s Republican leadership, especially in the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“We sensed the anger in ’13 and ’14,” Mr. McDaniel said in an interview at his law practice in downtown Laurel. “That anger,” he added, “reached its apex, it seemed, with Trump’s election. But now that McConnell and his merry band of yes men like Wicker have stood in the way of Trump, that anger has escalated again.”

“I’ve never seen this type of environment,” he concluded.

...On policy, Mr. McDaniel and Mr. Wicker are not very far apart. They have both been supportive of Mr. Trump’s more controversial acts, like the travel ban on foreigners from predominantly Muslim countries. Both hold consistently conservative positions on gun rights and abortion. The biggest difference between the two is the matter of incumbency, which Mr. McDaniel hopes to turn into an unsurmountable liability for Mr. Wicker.

Mr. Bannon and the wealthy conservatives underwriting his campaigns believe that Mississippi offers a strikingly similar environment to Alabama, where Senator Luther Strange lost in a primary last month to Roy S. Moore, a former judge who built a large following as a champion of culturally conservative causes. The parallels are enticing: an incumbent close to Mr. McConnell, a well-known challenger with a political constituency of his own and a Republican base that feels betrayed because the party has yet to pass any major conservative legislation since taking control of both Congress and the White House.

...While some of Mr. Wicker’s colleagues have hedged their support for the president or are drawing attention to areas in which they disagree with him, Mr. Wicker is going all in. His Facebook page is full of photos that show him standing with Mr. Trump. Some do not even show Mr. Wicker-- just the president. He also trumpets his “Trump Scorecard” of agreement with the president at 95.9 percent, ahead of conservative stalwarts like Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah.

But Mr. Trump may not end up being the most important person in the race whose name is not on the ballot. That could be Mr. McConnell, who has become the focal point for Republican grass-roots ire.

“If Mitch McConnell sends a lot of money down here for Roger Wicker just like he did with Luther Strange, I think it will backfire,” said Michael Bostic, a retired electrician and local Tea Party activist who said he believes Republicans have been giving lip service to campaign promises like repealing the Affordable Care Act. “I’ve tried to believe Republicans most of my life. But when they blatantly lie to you, that just doesn’t cut it.”

Mr. Bostic went to courthouses across the state to inspect voting records looking for evidence of fraud after Mr. McDaniel’s 2014 loss, and he said he believed that Mr. McConnell and his allies in party leadership had rigged that election.

“People are mad,” Mr. Bostic said.

Laura Van Overschelde, a local Tea Party leader, put it this way: “People are pretty hot under the collar. You can imagine the animus that still exists four years later.”

Mr. Cochran’s allies in the state and national party helped defeat Mr. McDaniel by using tactics that infuriated Tea Party groups. They encouraged African-Americans and other Democrats to vote in the primary. They went to great lengths to deny that Mr. Cochran was in an inappropriate relationship with an aide, Kay Webber, even as his wife, Rose, was in a nursing home with dementia. (Mr. Cochran married Ms. Webber not long after his wife’s death.)

After a Tea Party leader was charged with conspiring to photograph Rose Cochran in her nursing home, he committed suicide, triggering still more recriminations.

Mr. McDaniel refused to concede the race and fought the outcome for months in court.

“Remember Mississippi” became a Twitter hashtag and a slogan circulated on conservative email lists, and it is now the name of the “super PAC” supporting Mr. McDaniel, which recently received a $50,000 donation from Robert Mercer, the New York hedge fund investor who finances much of Mr. Bannon’s political activity.

If Mr. McDaniel runs, all of that bitterness is likely to return.

Beyond Mississippi, Mr. Bannon sees races in other states that he believes he and his coalition of conservative donors and activists can reshape next year. And in those states, Mr. Bannon said, he sees two common elements that work to the advantage of insurgent challengers: rural, deeply conservative populations and small, inexpensive media markets.

In Utah, he is plotting a challenge to Senator Orrin G. Hatch, another McConnell ally. Or if Mr. Hatch retires, as many expect, Mr. Bannon will take on the candidate that the party leadership endorses to replace him, which could be Mitt Romney.

In Wyoming, Mr. Bannon is pushing Erik Prince, the founder of the military contractor Blackwater, to run against Senator John Barrasso, a member of Mr. McConnell’s leadership team. In Nebraska, Mr. Bannon is interviewing candidates to run against Senator Deb Fischer. Bannon-backed challengers to Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona have already jumped in.

Mr. Bannon was also encouraged by Senator Bob Corker’s retirement in Tennessee, and the emergence of Representative Marsha Blackburn, a conservative firebrand, as the favorite to succeed him.

Marsha Blackburn is already claiming Farmer Fincher is the Pelosi candidate in Tennessee's madhouse GOP primary

OK, Marsha Blackburn is certifiably insane and as far right as you can be without running around with a Hitler mustache and a white sheet and hood. So she'll take the Senate seat Corker is abandoning, right? Well... probably but there's another kink in all this insanity, the real driving force behind all this packaging anyway-- personal ambition-- although this time it doesn't quite fit into the Bannon vs McConnell narrative. Who remembers the reprehensible Farmer Fincher? His miserable career ended when he was caught taking bribes in a payday lender scheme. Just about 4 years ago, I wrote that "it was hard to watch Tennessee Republican Stephen Fincher, a Methodist gospel singer aside from the congressman for the 8th district (Jackson, Germantown, Dyersburg and the whole western part of the state minus Memphis), voting to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program for the neediest American families. Why was Fincher harder to watch than any of the 217 House Republicans who backed this travesty (all but 15 of them)? Well, there's a special little place in hell for the gospel-singin' Fincher from Frog Jump. Fincher, it turns out, has gobbled up nearly $9 million in farm subsidies from Uncle Sam over the last decade, mostly for his cotton crop. Congressman Fincher also received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program. Yes, teabagger Stephen Fincher is a welfare queen. And a hypocrite. A pious hypocrite eager to starve poor families who can't get jobs because of economic policies his party used to crash the economy. And it gets worse, according to Forbes magazine. Remember when we were talking about how so many wealthy congressmembers on the House Agriculture Committee were all gung-ho to shave billions of dollars off the food stamps program? That's Fincher's committee. (No conflict of interest there, right?)

Armed with an array of proverbs and quotes from the Holy Bible, Congressman Fincher is pressing his fight to dramatically curtail the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- better known to most Americans as food stamps-- relied upon by 47 million Americans for some or all of their daily sustenance.

Why?

Because the Bible tells him so.

Appearing this past weekend at a gathering at a Memphis Holiday Inn, Fincher explained his position on food stamps by stating, “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”

Fincher retired from Congress soon after his scandals started breaking... but he's back to try to claim, absurdly, that open Senate seat.

Fincher, who never went to college, says he’s running to help push Señor Trumopanzee’s agenda and shake up a "do-nothing Congress.... We’re going to get in this race, and we’re going to get in it to win it, and go up there and try to get something done. Let’s stand up with the president on his policies. From what people are telling us, they’re just tired of the status quo career politician, and it’s time we-- to take an old saying from the farm-- plow and turn over Congress and put some new growth up there. I think that’s what people want, so that’s what we’re going to try to do."

Aside from Farmer Fincher and the Bannon-backed Blackburn, another far right sociopath has jumped into the race: Andy Ogles, former head of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity Tennessee franchise.

Fincher mostly refrained from speaking about Blackburn during his trip. But he pounced on an opening earlier this week after 60 Minutes and the Washington Post reported on a former Drug Enforcement Administration whistleblower who accused Blackburn and other members of Congress of passing a law that led to lax scrutiny over opioid distribution, handcuffing the federal government’s ability to fight the national opioid crisis.

Fincher said it illustrates that politicians in Washington, D.C., are “out of touch.”

"This is an issue that shows Tennesseans want someone to stand up against special interests,” Fincher said. “We’re losing lives. Our jails, little towns and communities are broken. People, they go to Washington, and have stayed up there too long and are out of touch with what’s really happening all over this great state.”

Fincher, who was in Congress at the time, was among the House members who unanimously approved the legislation without objection.

On Sunday, a Blackburn campaign spokeswoman criticized Fincher and said the race now has a "clear contrast."

"Now we have a clear contrast between a supporter of President Trump who will drain the swamp in Washington, versus Nancy Pelosi's favorite Republican who champions corporate welfare," Blackburn spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said by email.

Republicans routinely use boogeyman Nancy Pelosi against any Democrat who runs for anything. This was the first time I've ever heard one use her against another Republican in a GOP primary! It is widely thought that if the Republicans rip each other to shreds, popular former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen could walk away with the seat... if he decides to run. How funny would that be... to see the deranged Republicans hoist on their own petard that way?

Will The Payday Lender Bribery Scandal End Scott Garrett's And Farmer Fincher's Miserable Political Careers?

Wall Street shill Scott Garrett represents Lodi, home of the Bada Bing strip club from The Sopranos

Last week we talked about a new payday lender scandal breaking in Washington because of bribes that were taken by something like a dozen slimy Members of Congress. Campaign contributions were delivered and legislative favors were given return. "A dozen lawmakers received campaign contributions from payday lenders at around the same time they were introducing bills and writing letters benefiting the high-cost cash-advance industry."

Happily, local newspapers in the districts of the criminal-congressmen have begun picking up on the story. One of the most corrupt men ever to stalk the halls of Congress looking to sell his ass, Wall Street whore Scott Garrett (R-NJ), was one of the first to feel the wrath of the local media in Bergen County:

Garrett is one of 11 House members cited in an ethics complaint filed Monday by a watchdog group that accuses lawmakers of taking actions to protect the payday loan industry around the time they received campaign contributions.

The complaint by the Campaign for Accountability asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate Garrett and 10 others, including two Democrats. Most are members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Garrett is a subcommittee chairman.

The group’s complaint requests an investigation into whether the House members “violated House rules and criminal law,” but there is no guarantee any investigation will be conducted or that any official decision about the complaint’s merits will become public.

The complaint against Garrett focuses on $3,500 in contributions he received between March 2011 and August 2013, a time when his campaign account raised nearly $2.6 million, according to an analysis by The Record of records filed with the Federal Election Commission. In both years, the contributions were made within weeks of an official act Garrett took that would have protected payday lenders from government scrutiny, the watchdog group charges.

“Those contributions seem to be directly tied to actions that he took and that, from our perspective, is really the key here,” said Ann Weismann, executive director of the Center for Accountability. “I understand members accept contributions from industry all the time and there’s nothing per se illegal about that. It is illegal if you accept contributions and it is in exchange for exercising your official authority or taking an official act.”

...The complaint notes that the indictment in April of Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from Paramus, accused him of bribery for allegedly performing official acts around the time his codefendant, Salomon Melgen, made contributions to a political committee supporting Menendez’s 2012 re-election.

The ethics complaint against Garrett says he signed on as a cosponsor of a bill that the Campaign for Accountability says would have limited the CFPB’s oversight of the payday loan industry on March 16, 2011. On March 31, 2011, he received a $1,000 contribution from payday lending executive Ian MacKechnie of Amscot Financial.

The bill, which was not enacted, would have replaced the management of the bureau, currently by a presidentially appointed director, with a five-member commission made up of a vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and four appointees requiring Senate confirmation.

Payday lenders offer small loans that borrowers agree to repay within a short period of time, such as from their next paycheck. The lenders have been criticized for trapping people who are least able to pay into a cycle of ever-rising debt because people who cannot repay are offered bigger loans with higher fees.

Garrett also signed an Aug. 22, 2013 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and FDIC Chair Martin J. Gruenberg opposing a program called “Operation Choke Point,” which was designed to prevent “payday lenders and other unscrupulous Internet-based companies from gaining access to the banking system through intermediaries,” the complaint said. On Oct. 4, 2013 Garrett received a $2,500 contribution from the political action committee of payday lender QC Holdings Inc.

Garrett got the smallest total amount of contributions of anyone in the ethics complaint. Amounts received by others ranged from $5,000 to $68,200... Possible violations listed in the ethics complaint include bribery, honest services fraud, acceptance of an illegal gratuity, and conduct not reflecting creditably on the House. Any member of the public can request an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics, and the watchdog group’s allegation has no legal authority.

You remember Tennessee hypocrite Stephen "Farmer Fincher" Fincher from a different type of scandal a couple of years ago which saw him taking millions of dollars in taxpayer money, while leading an effort to cut food stamps for families living in poverty. (It didn't make any impression on the voters in grotesquely gerrymandered TN-08-- Memphis' white suburbs north to Jackson, Dyersburg and Union City-- who reelected Fincher last year with 70.8% of the votes cast.) This week both the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Knoxville News focused on Farmer Fincher's newest bribery scandal. His constituents in the Memphis 'burbs were reading that "payday loans taken out by their constituents helped fund big paydays for members of Congress who used their positions to advocate on behalf of this unscrupulous industry... The allegations against Fincher, a Frog Jump Republican who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, involve $13,500 in contributions from the payday lending industry or its executives."

The execrable bribe-taking Farmer Fincher (R-TN)

According to the complaint:

• On July 19, 2012, Fincher signed on as co-sponsor of a bill that would have negated actions to safeguard consumers from the risks of products offered by the payday lending industry. Ten days earlier, he received $5,000 in campaign contributions from payday lending executives Dennis and Kimberly Gardner of the Equity Management Group. Five days after co-sponsoring the bill, Fincher received a $2,500 campaign contribution from payday executive William Allan Jones of Jones Management.

• On June 3, 2013, less than a month after Fincher co-sponsored a similar bill, he received a $1,000 campaign contribution from a payday lending industry political-action committee, the American Financial Services Association PAC.

• On Aug. 22, 2013, Fincher signed a congressional letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder and Martin J. Gruenberg, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., complaining about the Justice Department's "Operation Choke Point," which was designed to "prevent payday lenders and other unscrupulous Internet-based companies from gaining access to the banking system through intermediaries." About three weeks earlier, Fincher had received a $5,000 campaign contribution from the Cash America International Inc. PAC, a payday lending industry PAC.

Fincher's office declined to comment.

And there's a Florida Democrat with a shady record as a bribe-taking judge, Alcee Hastings, who must be uncomfortable with the local coverage he's been getting.

Congressional ethics investigators will review allegations that South Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings and 10 other House members took bribes by accepting campaign contributions from the payday lending industry shortly before or after taking official actions in support of the industry.

...Here’s what Hastings, a 23-year House member whose district includes much of Broward and parts of Palm Beach and Hendry counties, is accused of in the letter:

• May 21, 2013. Hastings co-sponsored HR 1566, legislation that Allied Progress said would “undermine oversight of payday lenders by allowing them to bypass the regulatory authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and stronger state laws.” On March 27, 2013, he received a $2,500 campaign contribution from payday lending executive Ian MacKechnie of Amscot Financial. MacKechnie contributed another $500 to Hasting’s campaign on June 28, following Hasting’s support for HR 1566. In all, Hastings and five other congressmen who supported the measure, or similar legislation, received a total of more than $72,000 in contributions from industry executives or PACs, the letter says.

• July 10, 2014. Hastings co-sponsored HR 4986, a bill aimed at ending Operation Choke Point, a Department of Justice initiative investigating banks and their connections to payday lenders, payment processors and others at higher risk for fraud and money laundering. Three weeks earlier, Hastings accepted a $2,500 contribution from Cash America International Inc. PAC, a payday lending industry PAC. Industry PACs sent another $26,000 to the campaigns of four other congressmen.

The other crooked congressmen involved in the scandal include Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) Pete Sessions (R-TX), Steve Stivers (R-OH) and Kevin Yoder R-KS).

Why Would Anyone Expect Farmer Fincher To Employ Someone Unlike Racist Hound Elizabeth Lauten

Republican

People who have known her say Elizabeth Lauten was always a goodie-two-shoes overachiever with a mediocre, inside-the-box mind; she still lists her 1580 SAT score from 2000 on her LinkedIn page-- along with the fact that she's been a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution since 2013. Before thrusting her racist ass onto the national stage last week with a typically nasty KKK Thanksgiving Facebook post about the president's two teenage daughters, North Carolina native Elizabeth Lauten was probably best known for her insipid reviews of episodes of The Bachelor and Miss Universe pageants for AskMissA, a magazine for white girls with pimples that she was entertainment editor of last year.

Inside the GOP Beltway, though, the sharp-tongued Lauten, who had been arrested for shoplifting in a mall when she was a teen-- and had quite the reputation among Camp LeJeune marines in her hometown-- was the vicious voice behind Joe Walsh's psychotic press releases. Before she came to work for the grotesquely hypocritical Farmer Fincher, she was Walsh's press secretary. From her LinkedIn page:

Press Secretary

U.S. House of Representatives - Rep. Joe Walsh (IL-08)

January 2011-- August 2011 (8 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area

• Aggressive media outreach to secure interviews with publications and radio, as well as television appearances

• Executed extensive day-to-day on-the-record and background communication with national and local reporters

• Coordinated district communications outreach including direct/franked mailings and e-newsletters

• Develop tactical messaging strategies to respond to a variety of issues related to public policy including the composition of talking points, opinion pieces and interview preparation materials

• Managed Congressman’s social media accounts, including updating status and responding to messages

- Second largest Facebook following in the freshman class of the 112th Congress
- Ranked in top five most affective political Twitter accounts of the 112th Congress

• Produced elaborate YouTube videos including filming and editing

Even though she's an employee of a congressional office-- albeit Fincher's-- and gets paid by the taxpayers, she has her own one-person lobbying and communications shop, Audeamus Communications, she runs simultaneously. She boasts of her self-declared skills in crisis communication and management: "Extensive experience, rapid response and excellent media relations skills have made Audeamus Comms’ crisis management practice a paradigm for the industry. We will work around-the-clock, if necessary, to craft strategy, draft the appropriate language and contact the media. We are acutely aware that unanswered 'bad' news-- whether true or false-- can inflict long-term damage in a very short time on an organization’s image or an individual’s character. We are highly skilled in quickly identifying the salient points that must be addressed and in determining the manner of delivery most likely to counter the crisis at hand. By disseminating the correct message to key journalists, we are able to help significantly reduce the intensity of a crisis so that an organization may return as swiftly as possible to its day-to-day business operations."

All those "best-in-class" state of the art skills she incongruously claims to be the master of, were put to the test this week, not on behalf of Farmer Fincher, the RNC-- she claims she "was responsible for day-to-day management and online political strategy development for the Committee, completing national interactive strategies using email, Facebook, Twitter and other channels"-- or ex-Congressman Joe Walsh. Today the boastful claims she makes about her mastery of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, are a smoldering wreck. Her social media sites are either all deleted or privatized. And, career-wise, she is toxic. Forbes' Elisa Doucette decided not to waste time on dissecting Louten's motivations for the ugly racist rant on Facebook. "I think we can all agree that when you write about a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old, calling them classless and telling them they look like they belong in a bar, you are simply not being a nice person," she wrote. She covered the crisis management state of the art non-apology apology instead.

IT WAS NOT AN APOLOGY

I get it. This is the internet. We’re all  fast and furious at our keyboards, with the sinfully seductive appeal of immediately publishing our innermost thoughts for the world. We say things we regret. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but as soon as the trolls come screaming at your back door, you know you have done something you are going to have to be held accountable for.

When we do this, there is one simple statement that each and every prepared statement MUST include:

I’m sorry.

Not the “I’m sorry” Lauten stated at the end, to those she has hurt and offended.

First and foremost, to honestly offer an apology, one needs to suck up their ego and political leanings and any other baggage they are carrying.

Secondly, an apology needs to acknowledge the person (or people) who really deserves to hear the apology, and address them directly.

How does this change Lauten’s statement?

Simple.

Instead of apologizing for a post about Malia and Sasha Obama, Lauten needs to treat them like they are human beings deserving of her compassion and respect, rather than puppets to dance around in political battles.

Her previous statement:

I wanted to take a moment and apologize for a post I made on Facebook earlier today judging Sasha and Malia Obama at the annual White House turkey pardoning ceremony:

When I first posted on Facebook I reacted to an article and I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager. After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were. Please know, those judgmental feelings truly have no place in my heart. Furthermore, I’d like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience.

A better apology:

I wanted to take a moment and apologize to Sasha and Malia Obama for a post I made on Facebook earlier today judging them at the annual White House turkey pardoning ceremony:

When I first posted on Facebook I reacted to an article and I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager. After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were. Please know, those judgmental feelings truly have no place in my heart. Furthermore, I’d like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience.

All the same words. Rearranged.

The first apology is what people who have been caught say. It carries this hard-to-shake implication that you are not REALLY sorry you did it, you are instead sorry that people are outraged by it.

The second apology is what people who truly feel badly about what they have said or done say. It carries the personal connection to say “I am a person, you are a person. In this situation I didn’t treat you as an equal, and that is not ok.”

Granted, the chances that Lauten knows the Obama sisters and chats with them frequently is unlikely. Yet if she is willing to “call them out” on the internet like she would a friend in a bar bathroom, she needs to extend the same familiar tone in her apology.

The second apology still has its many flaws, including apologizing to those you have hurt and offended-- again, implying she is not sorry she said it, but instead sorry that people are hurt and offended. Like those judgmental feelings MIGHT still have a place in her heart, she just won’t share them so publicly in the future if people are going to be so cranky about it.

...Treat the people you are apologizing to as if they are actual people, not pixels on a page. Say I’m sorry directly to them, acknowledge it was poor behavior, and promise to be better next time.

Then, make sure you do just that.

I bet the Bible thumpin', holier-than-thou, food-stamp cutting, corporate welfare-taking Fincher (R-TN) doesn't fire her tomorrow. Looks like her colleagues at AskMissA felt her vile attitude was a detriment to the magazine's charitable efforts:

UPDATE: DING DONG

I was wrong; Fincher pushed her out this morning. He has enough problems without this albatross around his neck. Let's see which clueless Republican hires her next.

A Cold Thanksgiving And Christmas Season-- But Just For Poor Families, So Our Congress Of Multimillionaires Doesn't Give A Rat's Ass

The Ted Cruz/Koch brothers-inspired government shutdown cost the American taxpayers an unfocused and gratuitous $24 billion. Conservatives in Congress can at least tell them selves they're recouping part of that loss by cutting back on food stamps. The end of next week-- Friday, November 1-- will come as a shock for millions of American families as food stamp benefits-- including benefits for children, seniors and the unemployed thrown out of work because of bad conservative economic policies that crashed the economy are slashed. Conservatives feel confident that many of the 47 million families impacted won't vote-- so why should they care? They sure aren't part of the campaign donor class.

For a family of four, the cut will be $36 per month, or about 20 meals under the Department of Agriculture’s estimate for the cost of a “thrifty meal.”  Single adults will see their monthly benefits reduced to $189 per month, for a cut of $11.

“We have never seen a cut like this affecting all beneficiaries,” said Lisa Davis of the food bank network Feeding America. “With the government shutdown and other national and international issues going on, many people have no idea this is coming.”

Davis said that food banks are bracing for an influx of the needy as the holiday season approaches, and are concerned about keeping up with demand after donations wane in January.

“We’re hugely concerned … this will affect 23 million kids,” said Tom Nelson of Share Our Strength, a group focused on child hunger. “At a minimum we can’t accept more cuts.”

…Hunger groups are fighting a House proposal to cut an addition $40 billion from food stamps in the farm bill. Those cuts come primarily from provisions that would make it harder to qualify for food stamps when receiving other aid, such as home heating assistance, and by stopping states from waiving work requirements.

With conservatives blocking an increase in the minimum wage, low wage employers, like McDonald's, tell their workers to make ends meet by getting food stamps. Watch:



We've talked about the gospel-singin' congressman from Tennessee, Farmer Fincher, who helped lead the Republican jihad against poor families on food stamps. For many, it was hard to watch Tennessee Republican Stephen Fincher, a Methodist gospel singer aside and the congressman for the 8th district (Jackson, Germantown, Dyersburg and the whole western part of the state minus Memphis), voting to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program for the neediest American families. Why was Fincher harder to watch then any of the 217 House Republicans who backed this travesty (all but 15 of them)? Well, there's a special little place in hell for the gospel-singin' Fincher from Frog Jump? Fincher, it turns out, has gobbled up nearly $9 million in farm subsidies from Uncle Sam over the last decade, mostly for his cotton crop. Congressman Fincher also received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program. Yes, teabagger Stephen Fincher is a welfare queen. And a hypocrite. A pious hypocrite eager to starve poor families who can't get jobs because of economic policies his party used to crash the economy.

And it gets worse, according to Forbes magazine. Remember when we were talking about how so many wealthy congressmembers on the House Agriculture Committee were all gung-ho to shave billions of dollars off the food stamps program? That's Fincher's committee. (No conflict of interest there, right?)

Armed with an array of proverbs and quotes from the Holy Bible, Congressman Fincher is pressing his fight to dramatically curtail the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- better known to most Americans as food stamps-- relied upon by 47 million Americans for some or all of their daily sustenance.

Why?

Because the Bible tells him so.

Appearing this past weekend at a gathering at a Memphis Holiday Inn, Fincher explained his position on food stamps by stating, “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”

The Congressman’s remarks come on the heels of his taking the biblical route when responding to Representative Juan Vargas’ (D-Calif.) somewhat different take on the teachings of Jesus. During a recent House Agriculture Committee debate over the Farm Bill (which contains the food stamp budget), Vargas, citing the Book of Matthew, noted, “[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him.”

Vargas also noted that Jesus directly mentions the importance of feeding the hungry.

Not to be outdone by a Godless Democrat, Congressman Fincher responded with his own Bible quote taken from the Book of Thessalonians-- “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Nicely played, Congressman.

While the biblical back-and-forth is interesting, I wonder if Congressman Fincher would be good enough to refer me to the part of the Bible revealing to us how providing adequate food stamp assistance to those in need violates the teachings of Christianity but venerates accepting government hand-outs in the guise of farm subsidies?

Michael Tomasky, writing over the weekend at the Daily Beast, asserts that "the GOP isn’t trying to cut $40 billion from SNAP just to save money. It wants to punish the poorest among us." He calls it "unspeakably cruel and that it's at least as much about inflicting pain and anguish on poor families as it is about saving any more-- which, of course, the $14 billion cost of the shut down shows definitively the Republicans don't even care about at all.

The basic facts on the program. Its size fluctuates with the economy-- when more people are working, the number of those on food stamps goes down. This, of course, isn’t one of those times. So right now the SNAP program, as it’s called, is serving nearly 48 million people in 23 million households. The average monthly individual benefit is $133, or about $4.50 a day. In 2011, 45 percent of recipients were children. Forty-one percent live in households where at least one person works. More than 900,000 are veterans. Large numbers are elderly or disabled or both.

…The proposed GOP cut is such a piddling amount of money, in terms of the whole federal budget and especially when spread out over 10 years. But nearly half of it is quite literally taking food out of the mouths of children. What’s the point? The point really is that Tea Party Republicans think these people don’t deserve the help. That’s some fascinating logic. The economy melts down because of something a bunch of crooked bankers do. The people at the bottom quarter of the economy, who’ve been getting jobbed for 30 years anyway and who always suffer the most in a downturn, start getting laid off in huge numbers. They have children to feed. Probably with no small amount of shame, they go in and sign up for food stamps.

And what do they get? Lectures about being lazy. You may have seen the now-infamous video of Tennessee Congressman Steve Fincher, who told a crowd over the summer that “the Bible says ‘If you don’t work, you don’t eat.’” This while Fincher, a cotton farmer, has enjoyed $3.5 million in federal farm subsidies. This year’s House bill ends “direct payments” to farmers whether they grow any crops or not-- except for one kind: cotton farmers.

Religious bloggers have noted that Fincher got his theology wrong and that the relevant passage, from Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, wasn’t remotely about punishing people too lazy to work. It was about punishing people who’d stopped working because they thought Jesus was returning any day now. So: mean bastard, hypocrite, and Scripture-mangling idiot to boot. Nice trifecta.

The other argument one sometimes hears concerns the dreadful curse of food-stamp fraud. The actual rate of food-stamp fraud-- people selling their coupons for cash-- is 1.3 percent, but this of course doesn’t prevent the right from finding a couple of garish anecdotes and making it seem as if they’re the norm. Voter fraud, Medicaid fraud, food-stamp fraud…Somehow, in Republican America, only poor people and blacks commit fraud.

This cut is the fraud, because it’s not really about fraud or austerity. It’s entirely about punishing the alleged 47 percent. The bottom half or third of the alleged 47 percent. It’s absolutely appalling. These folks have done a lot of miserable things in the past four years. But this-- the morality of this is so repulsively backward, the indecency so operatically and ostentatiously broadcast, I think it takes the gold going away.

The conference process starts next Wednesday and is going to take maybe a few months. Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow has taken the lead on this issue and has been terrific. Ditto Pat Leahy. Max Baucus, I’m told, is a good get to go a little wobbly (surprise). But this is one where the Democrats have to say this won’t stand. It’s one thing to shut down the government for two weeks and take quixotic stabs at Obamacare. Telling poor children that that fourth box of macaroni and cheese is excessive is something very different.

Fincher and Baucus-- too many corrupt millionaires in Congress for a democracy

Republican On Republican-- Stephen Lee Fincher, Bible Thumpin' Tennessee Hypocrite-- And Welfare Queen

Earlier I was criticizing Beltway Democrats for hypocrisy. Maybe I just should have said Beltway politicians. It was hard to watch Tennessee Republican Stephen Fincher, a Methodist gospel singer aside from the congressman for the 8th district (Jackson, Germantown, Dyersburg and the whole western part of the state minus Memphis), voting to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program for the neediest American families. Why was Fincher harder to watch then any of the 217 House Republicans who backed this travesty (all but 15 of them)? Well, there's a special little place in hell for the gospel-singin' Fincher from Frog Jump? Fincher, it turns out, has gobbled up nearly $9 million in farm subsidies from Uncle Sam over the last decade, mostly for his cotton crop. Congressman Fincher also received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program. Yes, teabagger Stephen Fincher is a welfare queen. And a hypocrite. A pious hypocrite eager to starve poor families who can't get jobs because of economic policies his party used to crash the economy.


And it gets worse, according to Forbes magazine. Remember when we were talking about how so many wealthy congressmembers on the House Agriculture Committee were all gung-ho to shave billions of dollars off the food stamps program? That's Fincher's committee. (No conflict of interest there, right?)

Armed with an array of proverbs and quotes from the Holy Bible, Congressman Fincher is pressing his fight to dramatically curtail the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- better known to most Americans as food stamps-- relied upon by 47 million Americans for some or all of their daily sustenance.

Why?

Because the Bible tells him so.

Appearing this past weekend at a gathering at a Memphis Holiday Inn, Fincher explained his position on food stamps by stating, “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”

The Congressman’s remarks come on the heels of his taking the biblical route when responding to Representative Juan Vargas’ (D-Calif.) somewhat different take on the teachings of Jesus. During a recent House Agriculture Committee debate over the Farm Bill (which contains the food stamp budget), Vargas, citing the Book of Matthew, noted, “[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him.”

Vargas also noted that  Jesus directly mentions the importance of feeding the hungry.

Not to be outdone by a Godless Democrat, Congressman Fincher responded with his own Bible quote taken from the Book of Thessalonians-- “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Nicely played, Congressman.

While the biblical back-and-forth is interesting, I wonder if Congressman Fincher would be good enough to refer me to the part of the Bible revealing to us how providing adequate food stamp assistance to those in need violates the teachings of Christianity but venerates accepting government hand-outs in the guise of farm subsidies?

Maybe the Congressman can instruct heathens such as I on how pocketing huge sums of taxpayer money in the guise of farm subsidies is a righteous act, while accepting government subsidies to feed one’s family is an act of-- to use Fincher’s own words-- stealing from those in the country to give to others in the country?

I don’t ask these questions of Congressman Fincher indiscriminately. I ask them because of Fincher’s unique qualification to provide us with the appropriate proverb intended to instruct.

You see, Representative Fincher happens to be the second largest recipient of farm subsidies in the United States Congress-- which might explain why Mr. Fincher would like to decimate the food stamp budget in order to do the Lord’s work when “supporting a proposal to expand crop insurance by $9 billion over the next 10 years.”

How much money are the taxpayers forking over to Congressman Fincher via farm subsidies?

While Fincher may only come in second amongst his congressional peers when it comes to pocketing huge sums of taxpayer money, he has the distinction of being one of the largest recipients of subsidies in the history of the great State of Tennessee.

Farmer Fincher Is A Gospel Singer-- And A Crook

SNAP! Agricultural Subsidies For Wealthy Republicans-- Starvation For Poor Families-- Sinks GOP Farm Bill

During the Vietnam War I never thought I'd actually return to the U.S. I was so ashamed of what my country was doing to the people of Southeast Asia. But one morning I woke up in Amsterdam and realized I had been dreaming in Dutch. I decided to go home and I was back in America within 2 weeks. I had been away for nearly seven years and I had a real period of readjustment, especially when I washed up in San Francisco, a city I had never lived in. I was lucky to have some Sufi connections from the meditation center I had worked in in Amsterdam and I was lucky to have met Harvey Milk who staked me for the equipment I needed to set up a dark room and get work as a photographer. But, economically-speaking, I had a couple of pretty bleak years before getting back on my feet. I could have never gotten through it without... you... us... the U.S.A. That's right, the America I had fled because of my abhorrence of the bombing in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos stepped up to the plate for me. The government gave me food stamps.

It wasn't much of an investment but it helped keep me alive through the tough times while I invested in building an independent record company. It paid off for Uncle Sam too. Eventually that record company that would never have been built without the food stamps I existed on, was successful. I sold it to SONY. The U.S. taxpayers got their food stamp investment back in one transaction. And then I went on to a successful career in the corporate world. Some years I paid over a million dollars in taxes. No one likes paying that much in taxes but I always reminded myself that without the help I got from the government, I would never have been in the position to make enough money so that I would be paying that much in taxes.

That's why I was so furious when a bunch of political hacks, some of whom have never done much of anything aside from feed at the public trough, voted against food stamp help for desperately poor people. In various committees looking at the SNAP program it wasn't only Republicans voting to slash the program to ribbons, but also some easily corrupted and misled Democrats, primarily New Dems and Blue Dogs.

Tuesday when the Republicans wanted to bring up their latest anti-Choice/War On Women legislation, the resolution read like this: "Providing for consideration of H.R. 1947, to provide for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other programs of the Department of Agriculture through FY 2018; and providing for consideration of H.R. 1797, to amend title 18, U.S. Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia." I don't recall ever seeing such a bizarre and unrelated pairing. But even at that-- and it passed 232-193-- 5 extremely right-wing Democrats were happy to go along with the bizarre duo of bills: Dan Lipinksi (IL), Mike McIntyre (New Dem/Blue Dog-NC), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Tim Walz (MN) and Nick Rahall (WV).

When the House voted on a stand alone resolution to proceed with the debate on Wednesday, 173 Democrats (and 4 Republicans) voted NO. Only 15 Democrats voted with the Republicans, a hint about which ones are willing, if not eager, to steal from the poor to give to the rich. Among them are the 4 sleazy New Dem freshmen most likely to lose in 2014: Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Scott Peters (CA), Ron Barber (AZ), and Dan Maffei (NY).

Yesterday, ThinkProgress took a look at some of the biggest congressional recipients of farm welfare for their own businesses-- and how anti-food stamps they are. These are the 4 worst congressional greed dogs (at least on this matter-- along with their excuses for voting to cut nutrition for poor families:

Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who’s gotten over $500,000 in subsidy payments since 1995, is a particularly interesting case. While Noem is diplomatic in most public statements on food stamps, she endorses a common smear of the program when away from cameras. In a constituent letter obtained by ThinkProgress, Noem wrote that “loopholes and fraud in the current program have lead to federal spending on SNAP to increase [sic] by 270 percent over the past ten years.” Rep. Vicki Hartzler (R-MO) offers to same rationale for the cuts, and has taken $500,000 in farm subsidies as well.

In fact, the jump in food stamp enrollment is due almost entirely to the catastrophic economic collapse and ensuing Great Recession. Even amid that heightened strain on the program’s staff, “SNAP achieved its lowest error rates on record in fiscal year 2011,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Outright fraud is down to just one percent.

Waste, fraud, and abuse are more common in the farm subsidies programs that have sent over a million taxpayer dollars to the Hartzler and Noem households over the years than in food stamps. Crop insurance alone has a 4.7 percent error rate, compared to 3.8 percent for SNAP.

The House started voting on the 103 amendments to the bill yesterday. Corrupt shills for AgriBusiness-- like top Ag Committee Republican Frank Lucas (R-OK) and top Democrat on the committee, and ex-Chair, Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)-- are pushing it. Progressives hate it and so does the far right (take a look at the threatening tweet below from neo-fascist Club for Growth fuehrer Chris Chocola), albeit for different reasons. Pelosi is likely to vote against it and Boehner has said he's not crazy about the bill but he'll vote for it. Peterson thinks he can bring a few dozen of the worst right-wing and most corrupt Democrats along in the end. We'll keep you informed.

UPDATE: United Front Of Progressives And Far Right Teabaggers Gives Boehner A Stunning Blow

When the House voted on amendments to the Farm bill this week, the first one that came up was Jim McGovern's amendment to stop the defunding of SNAP. It lost 188-234, 5 Republicans voting with the Democrats but 8 ConservaDems crossing the aisle in the other direction to back the GOP jihad against poor people:

• John Barrow (New Dem/Blue Dog-GA)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Mike McIntyre (New Dem/Blue Dog-NC)
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Tim Walz (MN)

Meanwhile, the degrading Richard Hudson (R-NC) amendment to make food stamps applicants undergo drug testing somehow made it into the bill, further alienating Democrats who were thinking about voting for it.

The overall bill failed 195-234, 62 mostly far right Republicans sabotaging their own leadership by voting with 172 Democrats. Only two-dozen of the most corrupt Democrats, mostly New Dems like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Blue Dogs like John Barrow (GA) and Mike McIntyre (NC), stood with Boehner and Cantor to try to pass this monstrosity. Kind of funny seeing drooling sociopaths like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Broun (R-GA), Trey Radel (R-FL), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Steve Stockman (R-TX) and, even Paul Ryan (R-WI) leaving Boehner and Cantor hanging while they handed the stunning triumph to Nancy Pelosi. (Boehner and Cantor are blaming Pelosi for their embarrassing defeat and ignoring the 62 Republicans who betrayed him-- or looking at the way their own whip operation collapsed... although Boehner, slightly drunk, had a screaming match with McCarthy, his whip, as the votes were being counted). Cantor went whining to the press:

"I'm extremely disappointed that Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership have at the last minute chosen to derail years of bipartisan work on the Farm Bill and related reforms. This bill was far from perfect, but the only way to achieve meaningful reform, such as Congressman Southerland's amendment reforming the food stamp program, was in conference.

"I strongly supported the Southerland amendment which built on successful welfare reforms that have worked in the past to give states more flexibility and encourage self-sufficiency by increasing workforce participation among those enrolled in the SNAP program. I commend Chairman Frank Lucas and the House Agriculture Committee for their efforts, and am sorry that Democrats shamefully chose politics over progress and meaningful reform."

Chris Van Hollen's retort was, basically, if Pelosi were Speaker this "never would have happened." Pelosi was even more pointed: "The Republicans have the majority of Congress and it's their responsibility to send a bill. What [was] happening on the floor today was a demonstration of major amateur hour. They didn't get results and they put the blame on somebody else."

Kicking Rich Freeloaders Off Agricultural Welfare

Stephen Lee Fincher (R-TN), one of the most dishonest crooks in Congress

Thursday, Dick Durbin's amendment to the Farm Bill passed, rather miraculously, 59-33. The amendment is meant "to limit the amount of premium subsidy provided by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation on behalf of any person or legal entity with an average adjusted gross income in excess of $750,000, with a delayed application of the limitation until completion of a study on the effects of the limitation." I was kind of hoping he would have named it the Congressman Stephen Lee Fincher Amendment. More about why, below. First, a list of senators who voted against these giveaways to wealthy farmers, wealthy fake-farmers and big Agribusiness corners. Most of the names on this list are all men and women, many of whom are pushing the catastrophic European Austerity agenda sponsored by Paul Ryan, who want to protect government subsidies for the rich:

• John Barrasso (R-WY)
• Max Baucus (D-MT)
• Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• John Boozman (R-AR)
• Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
• Thad Cochran (R-MS)
• Mo Cowan (D-MA)
• Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• Joe Donnelly (D-IN)
• Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• Nan Fischer (R-NE)
• Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Kay Hagan (D-NC)
• Tim Harkin (D-IA)
• Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
• Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
• John Hoeven (R-ND)
• Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
• Mike Johanns (R-NE)
• Tim Kaine (D-VA)
• Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
• Pat Leahy (D-VT)
• Miss McConnell (R-KY)
• Jerry Moran (R-KS)
• Mark Pryor (D-AR)
• Jim Risch (R-ID)
• Pat Roberts (R-KS)
• Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
• Dick Shelby (R-AL)
• Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
• John Thune (R-SD)
• Mark Warner (D-VA)
• Roger Wicker (R-MS)

So what does all this have to do with an obscure Tennessee backbencher in the House? Stephen Lee Fincher, one of the most sanctimonious right-wing Republican hypocrites in Congress, lives in Frog Jump. Although he likes telling people he's a gospel singer, Fincher is the managing partner in Fincher Farms, a large Agri-business concern that grows cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat on over 2,500 acres in western Tennessee. The company has received $8.9 million in farm subsidies over the past decade, mostly from the cotton program, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Fincher received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program. Yes, teabagger Stephen Fincher is a welfare queen.

And it gets worse, according to Forbes magazine. Remember when we were talking about how so many wealthy congressmembers on the House Agriculture Committee were all gung-ho to shave billions of dollars off the food stamps program? That's Fincher's committee. (No conflict of interest there, right?)

Armed with an array of proverbs and quotes from the Holy Bible, Congressman Fincher is pressing his fight to dramatically curtail the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- better known to most Americans as food stamps-- relied upon by 47 million Americans for some or all of their daily sustenance.

Why?

Because the Bible tells him so.

Appearing this past weekend at a gathering at a Memphis Holiday Inn, Fincher explained his position on food stamps by stating, “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”

The Congressman’s remarks come on the heels of his taking the biblical route when responding to Representative Juan Vargas’ (D-Calif.) somewhat different take on the teachings of Jesus. During a recent House Agriculture Committee debate over the Farm Bill (which contains the food stamp budget), Vargas, citing the Book of Matthew, noted, “[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him.”

Vargas also noted that  Jesus directly mentions the importance of feeding the hungry.

Not to be outdone by a Godless Democrat, Congressman Fincher responded with his own Bible quote taken from the Book of Thessalonians-- “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Nicely played, Congressman.

While the biblical back-and-forth is interesting, I wonder if Congressman Fincher would be good enough to refer me to the part of the Bible revealing to us how providing adequate food stamp assistance to those in need violates the teachings of Christianity but venerates accepting government hand-outs in the guise of farm subsidies?

Maybe the Congressman can instruct heathens such as I on how pocketing huge sums of taxpayer money in the guise of farm subsidies is a righteous act, while accepting government subsidies to feed one’s family is an act of-- to use Fincher’s own words-- stealing from those in the country to give to others in the country?

I don’t ask these questions of Congressman Fincher indiscriminately. I ask them because of Fincher’s unique qualification to provide us with the appropriate proverb intended to instruct.

You see, Representative Fincher happens to be the second largest recipient of farm subsidies in the United States Congress-- which might explain why Mr. Fincher would like to decimate the food stamp budget in order to do the Lord’s work when “supporting a proposal to expand crop insurance by $9 billion over the next 10 years.”

How much money are the taxpayers forking over to Congressman Fincher via farm subsidies?

While Fincher may only come in second amongst his congressional peers when it comes to pocketing huge sums of taxpayer money, he has the distinction of being one of the largest recipients of subsidies in the history of the great State of Tennessee.

I think we can count on farmer Fincher to lead the charge against Durbin's amendment when it floats over to the House.