Perhaps AZ-08 Will Be The Reddest Seat To Flip Red To Blue This Year

Trent Franks was a crackpot extremist-- and a pervert. When he got caught in a sex scandal this year, the GOP House leadership forced him to retire immediately. Not many people in Congress were sad to see him go. And his uptight suburban little district in Phoenix's West Valley has been too confused to absorb what happened to their 7-term congressman who never had a serious challenge for reelection. In fact there ws no Democrat running against him in 2016, 2014 or 2012. The district includes Sun City, Surprise, Peoria, Surprise and Litchfield Park and the PVI is R+13. Trump beat Hillary there by a massive 58.1% to 37.0%.

This cycle, with Franks out and in disgrace, there are two serious Democrats competing for the Democratic nomination, Hiral Tipirneni (a self-funder who gave her campaign $93,443) and progressive Brianna Westbook. The Republicans, on the other hand, have 14 candidates in the hunt! The three raising serious money (over $200,000) are former state Rep. Phil Lovas, former state Senator Steve Montenegro and former state Senator Debbie Lesko. Montenegro is about as right-wing as you can be without actually running around in clothes adorned in Nazi symbols. Franks picked him to run and he's been endorsed by every right-wing crackpot from the neo-fascist wing of the GOP interested in the race, from Joe Arpaio, Steve King (R-IA), and JD Hayworth to Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum. He's running on a Make America Great Again Platform and was considered the frontrunner-- until yesterday.

Montenegro is a married man and a "minister" in his father's church whose campaign emphasizes all the typical mealy-mouthed pious GOP hypocrisy about his "virtue, honor and integrity." But his own little scandal just broke and it will derail him-- either now, for today's primary, or in the general. A series of text messages between Montenegro and a female staff member in the legislature puts the lie to all the integrity nonsense. After the staffer sent Montenegro a topless photo via text message, he responded by encouraging her to use a messaging app [Snapchat] where photos vanish after being viewed by the recipient.

Montenegro hid from the media and the public for a few days, deleted his Snapchat account and then emerged to term the charges "tabloid trash." This was his pathetic statement on Facebook:

Tonight I saw a despicable example of the tabloid trash that conservatives around this country have to deal with on a regular basis.

As a Hispanic conservative I knew they would stop at nothing to prevent me from going to Washington DC and fighting for the working families of our district just like I fought for the people at the State Capitol. They have always worked hard to stop me and I knew that this race would be no different. But I assumed the distortions would be limited to my votes or positions on issues.

I am blessed with an amazing wife and marriage. The media wants to drag us down with just a week to go, but we are not going to dignify this false tabloid trash with any further response.

I am proud of my campaign and team of supporters. We will carry on in a manner that respects the process and the voters, and we are confident that our message and commitment will win the day.

UPDATE

Montenegro lost.

Do You Love It When Right-Wing Perverts Get Into Sex Trouble? Most Recent Victims: Trent Franks (R) And Harold Ford (Blue Dog)

Note from one of my neighbors-- a prominent movie director-- when the Trent Franks news started breaking yesterday: "Your old buddy must’ve got caught in the men's room with a pecker in his hair lip.

The world is going nuts…"

In Sacramento, when Democratic state legislators are too conservative-- like as bad as the worsts Republicans-- Democrats and their union allies conspire to send them to Washington as congressmen. Two really horrible state legislators-- corrupt beyond normal bounds and as right-wing as a bad Republican-- Juan Vargas and later Lou Correa-- ran for Congress the entire establishment rallied around them. They tried to do the same thing with Isadore Hall but got sideswiped when his constituents were too smart to fall for the ploy and shocked the string corrupt California political class by elected progressive champion Nanette Barragán instead.

But in Arizona, they had a different trick. The Republican-controled state legislature was happy with Trent Franks' extreme right voting record but after he got caught fooling around with a young man, the state Republicans were happy to see him go off to DC as a congressman. He even managed to find some kind of mail order bride and ordered up a couple of insta-kids. He's one of the most loudly and obnoxiously homophobic members of Congress... but a closet case.

So when rumors started circulating Thursday that he was resigning immediately from Congress because of "inappropriate behavior," those who know about his penchant for the male sex organs, started wondering if he was credibly accused of having sexually harassed someone with a penis again. Republicans don't resign because of abusing women-- see Texas pervert Blake Farenthold, happily still in the House-- but they do resign when they get caught with the meat in their mouths (Mark Foley, Aaron Schock stand out lately).

AZCentral.com, part of the Arizona Republic:

Rumors have swirled for years about Franks’ extracurricular activities.

“I heard rumors of these types of problems in the past,” longtime Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin told me. “And in today’s society it doesn’t come as a big surprise anymore.”

Franks was all set to run for the U.S. Senate in 2012 until suddenly, he wasn’t. Multiple people have told me that his after-hours activities caught up to him.

“The information was there to be had, and it was shared with him, so he walked away from the race,” one consultant told me.

Another told me that Franks wrote sexually charged text messages a decade ago to a Republican operative-- texts that never came to light.

  Whatever the reason, Franks' Senate campaign abruptly ended before it began.

...Expect two things:

1. He'll resign citing family health concerns.

Ah... late yesterday afternoon, his statement came out. No reason to believe it's true by here in is in full:

"I have always tried to create a very warm and supportive atmosphere for every last person who has ever worked in my congressional office. It is my deepest conviction that there are many staffers, former and present, who would readily volunteer to substantiate this fact.

"Given the nature of numerous allegations and reports across America in recent weeks, I want to first make one thing completely clear. I have absolutely never physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff.

"However, I do want to take full and personal responsibility for the ways I have broached a topic that, unbeknownst to me until very recently, made certain individuals uncomfortable. And so, I want to shed light on how those conversations came about.

"My wife and I have long struggled with infertility. We experienced three miscarriages.

"We pursued adoption on more than one occasion only to have the adoptive mothers in each case change their mind prior to giving birth.

"A wonderful and loving lady, to whom we will be forever grateful, acted as a gestational surrogate for our twins and was able to carry them successfully to live birth. The process by which they were conceived was a pro-life approach that did not discard or throw away any embryos.

"My son and daughter are unspeakable gifts of God that have brought us our greatest earthly happiness in the 37 years we have been married.

"When our twins were approximately 3 years old, we made a second attempt with a second surrogate who was also not genetically related to the child. Sadly, that pregnancy also resulted in miscarriage.

"We continued to have a desire to have at least one additional sibling, for which our children had made repeated requests.

"Due to my familiarity and experience with the process of surrogacy, I clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others.

"I have recently learned that the Ethics Committee is reviewing an inquiry regarding my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable. I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress.

"We are in an unusual moment in history – there is collective focus on a very important problem of justice and sexual impropriety. It is so important that we get this right for everyone, especially for victims.

"But in the midst of this current cultural and media climate, I am deeply convinced I would be unable to complete a fair House Ethics investigation before distorted and sensationalized versions of this story would put me, my family, my staff, and my noble colleagues in the House of Representatives through hyperbolized public excoriation. Rather than allow a sensationalized trial by media damage those things I love most, this morning I notified House leadership that I will be leaving Congress as of January 31st, 2018. It is with the greatest sadness, that for the sake of the causes I deeply love, I must now step back from the battle I have spent over three decades fighting. I hope my resignation will remain distinct from the great gains we have made. My time in Congress serving my constituents, America and the Constitution is and will remain one of God’s greatest gift to me in life."

Now let's translate that into something a bit more anchored in reality: The House Ethics Committee is investigating-- or at least was threatening to investigate-- Franks for "conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment." Even Paul Ryan-- who is still protecting Blake Farenthold, admits that the people complaining about Franks have "credible claims of misconduct."

UPDATE: He sure didn't want that Ethics Committee investigation putting anything out about his sordid, hypocritical life! A few hours ago, Franks once again used the phony relationship with his "wife" to end an awkward situation. After pressure from Ryan and McCarthy,  he issued a new statement saying he won't try to hang around until January 31. He's out immediately; maybe they'll take a river cruise down De Nile:

"Last night, my wife was admitted to the hospital in Washington, D.C. due to an ongoing ailment. After discussing options with my family, we came to the conclusion that the best thing for our family now would be for me to tender my previous resignation effective today, December 8th, 2017."

And in the middle of all this, crooked lobbyist Harold Ford, a former congressman who was always known to be chasing women-- he lost his Senate race because of sexual charges-- got fired by Morgan Stanley for sexual misconduct. The company told HuffPo, which broke the story yesterday that Ford "has been terminated for conduct inconsistent with our values and in violation of our policies." He's also a paid regular on MSNBC's Morning Joe-- always ready to show Democrats can be as conservative as Republicans when it comes to anything fiscal-- and I can't imagine they'll keep him on either.

In two interviews with HuffPost, the woman alleged that Ford engaged in harassment, intimidation, and forcibly grabbed her one evening in Manhattan, leading her to seek aid from a building security guard. The incident took place several years ago when Ford and the woman were supposed to be meeting for professional reasons. Ford continued to contact her after the encounter until she wrote an email asking him to cease contact.

The email, which was reviewed by HuffPost, shows that the woman emailed Ford after he repeatedly asked her to drinks. She asked him not to contact her anymore, citing his inappropriate conduct the evening where he forcibly grabbed and harassed her.

Ford replied to the email by apologizing and agreeing not to contact her. “Hey very sorry. Meant no harm,” the email reads. “And I apologize for whatever I may have said or what was said. And my overtures are strictly professional. Again I apologize didn’t mean to be inappropriate at all. Sorry that impression was left.”

HuffPost is not identifying the woman at her request but has reviewed emails that confirm her interactions with Ford and spoke to two people whom the woman confided in about the incident. One woman heard from Ford’s accuser the night of the incident and described her as “distraught, shocked, and frightened,” and said that she was concerned about any career ramifications should she report the incident.

In a statement provided to HuffPost, Ford denied the allegations: “This simply did not happen. I have never forcibly grabbed any woman or man in my life. Having drinks and dinner for work is part of my job, and all of my outreach to the news reporter making these false allegations was professional and at the direction of my firm for business purposes. I support and have tremendous respect for the brave women now speaking out in this important national dialogue. False claims like this undermine the real silence breakers. I will now be bringing legal action against the reporter who has made these false claims about me as well as Morgan Stanley for improper termination.”

John Singer, Ford’s employment counsel with the firm Singer Deutsch LLP, said “Morgan Stanley has still not told Harold directly of his termination, and unlike every other circumstance I’ve been in the company has refused provide me with a reason.”

He added: “This all demonstrates how this was a matter of convenience during a hyper-sensitive time and not based on real facts.”

Ford comes from a prominent political family in Tennessee. His father, Harold Ford Sr., held a congressional seat for 12 terms before retiring, leaving his son to run for the seat, a race which he won handily. Ford served in the House for nearly 10 years before deciding to run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican Bill Frist. Ford lost that hotly contested 2006 race by fewer than three points to current Republican Sen. Bob Corker.

Since leaving Congress in 2007, Ford has worked for two financial services companies, first for Merrill Lynch and then Morgan Stanley, which he joined in 2011 as a managing director.

At the time Morgan Stanley announced the hire, the New York Times described Ford’s role as a rainmaker of sorts: “Mr. Ford will be responsible for ‘building business opportunities’ for clients, Morgan Stanley said. He will manage relationships with corporate directors, senior executives and institutional investors, as well as private clients.”

Time For House Republicans To Lead The Country Into A War Against Iran?

The Good Lord, in His wisdom, has dealt Trent Franks a most unfortunate hand-- and he's been taking it out on the American people for a very long time

Over 60% of American voters understand it was the Republicans who are behind the manufactured crisis threatening a worldwide economic catastrophe-- and they blame them for it. Congressional approval is now an astounding 5% and independents have turned on the GOP in a BIG way.

Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot 46/41, including a 42/33 lead with independents. Independents have shifted 21 points on the generic ballot from July when Republicans had a 39/27 advantage with them. The lean toward Democrats for next year reflects who they blame for the shutdown. By a 51/37 margin they say Republicans are more at fault than Democrats, and by a 57/41 margin they think Congress is more to blame than the President.

The Republican Party is viewed favorably by 28% of Americans-- the lowest since Gallup started polling that question. And even a right-wing ideologue like John Podhoretz is willing to write for general consumption that right-wing extremists have pushed the badly-led congressional Republicans into committing political suicide.

This is what my fellow conservatives who are acting as the enablers for irresponsible GOP politicians seem not to understand. They like this fight, because they think they’re helping to hold the line on ObamaCare and government spending. They think that they’re supported by a vast silent majority of Americans who dislike what they dislike and want what they want.

…One thing we know for sure is that it’s not an equal fight, this fight between a man who received 65 million votes nationwide and a man who received 246,000 votes in one congressional district in Ohio.

Meanwhile, Boehner is basically the face of the US Congress in the eyes of the public. John Boehner is also the effective head of the Republican Party. And the US Congress is viewed favorably by… 11 percent of Americans.

Eleven percent.

When I interact with these conservatives, they say they don’t care about the GOP; what they care about are conservative ideas.

They’re right not to assign special glory or power to a political organization and to hold ideas above party. But here’s the condundrum: There is only one electoral vehicle for conservative ideas in the United States-- the Republican Party.

It’s one thing to refuse to waste your time buffing and polishing the vehicle so that it looks nice and pretty; that’s what political hacks do, and ideologues have every right to disdain such frippery.

But if, in the guise of making the vehicle function better, you muck up the engine, smash the windshield, put the wrong tires on it and pour antifreeze in the gas tank, you are impeding its forward movement. You’re ruining it, not repairing it.

It may not have been a very good vehicle in the first place, and you may think it couldn’t drive worse, but oh man, could it ever. And it’s the only one you’ve got.

So could there possibly be a better time for Republicans to try to rally the nation around them with a full scale war? Remember when war criminals like Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, Bush, Bolton and Cheney were planting sentiments like everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran. One real man-- albeit a notorious closet case-- who never got over it is Arizona's most extreme right congressman, crazed little Trent Franks. Wednesday, Foreign Policy gave the bloodthirsty crackpot and his new bill the spotlight:

A new bill authorizing a U.S. military strike against Iran is set to drop in Congress on Thursday-- just days after leaders in Washington and Tehran began talking openly after three decades of silence.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), is currently being shopped around to various House offices this week in search of a co-sponsor, The Cable has learned. Besides providing President Obama with "all options" to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability, the bill ticks off a list of grievances with the Islamic state dating back 30 years on everything from verbal threats to nuclear enrichment violations.

"Since at least the late 1980s, Iran has engaged in a sustained and well-documented pattern of illicit and deceptive activities to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and has provided weapons, training, funding, and direction to terrorist groups," reads the bill.

The hawkish legislation, which essentially hands the president the full-force of the U.S. military if negotiations fail, comes just one week before Tehran sits down with six major powers in Geneva to discuss its nuclear program. For some foreign policy observers on the Hill, it threatens to spoil the already-delicate negotiations.

"It's hard to imagine a more counterproductive effort to slow the development of Iran's nuclear program-- especially when sanctions have succeeded in bringing the Iranians back to the negotiating table," a Congressional aide tells The Cable. "This attempt to legislate the use of force in Iran is so far out of the mainstream that it makes Netanyahu look like a bleeding heart peacenik in comparison."

Rebuffing critics, Franks insists now is the perfect time to hand Obama the keys to the military. "There's never been a more important time to make sure that any negotiations are backed up by a credible military capability," he told The Cable. "Iran has watched the United States allow redline after redline pass and has played rope-a-dope with the United States to the extent that they're on the cusp of being able to become a nuclear armed nation in potentially months."

Ahead of next week's talks, Iran's newly-elected President Hassan Rouhani has made a series of friendly overtures with the West, including everything from pledging to never develop nuclear weapons to writing Obama letters to mentioning Israel by name -- all of which culminated in a historic phone call with President Obama last month. But no one thinks coming to an agreement on Iran's nuclear program is going to be easy.

Meanwhile, yet another GOP closet case obsessed with war and gore, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is crafting a similar bill for the Senate to reject. What exactly are these Republican closet cases so scared about that makes them need to prove something-- something dark and ugly-- to the American people? Doesn't the congressional health care plan include psychiatric services?

When Did The GOP Become The Party of Unrelenting Misogyny?

Yesterday, crazed woman-hater--and very sick, deranged closet case-- Trent Franks (R-AZ) finally got a bill passed... kind of. Even Republicans found his rape comments so offensive and so dangerous to GOP election prospects that they took him off the case before the vote and put up an anti-Choice woman as the bill's "sponsor," Tennessee crackpot Marsha Blackburn. Franks'/Blackburn's offensive, ugly anti-woman bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks. The exemptions are premised on a Republican ideological psychosis that "women lie" and can't be trusted. It's pure authoritarian, Big Brother-knows-best legislation that targets women in a grotesque and completely un-American way. And it passed. It passed 228-196 in the House, although not before another sick Republican crackpot, Michael Burgess (R-TX), once an Ob/Gyn, went off on a crazy rant about how fetuses start masturbating at 15 weeks and therefore feel pain. (A similar crazy bill, in Arizona, has already been struck down as patently unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.) Women convicted under the Republican law could go to prison for as many as five years.

The DCCC is already rending their garments over the horrible Republicans who voted against women. I would be more likely to believe the depth of their feelings if they moved to cut off the six Democrats who cross the aisle to vote with the Republicans against women, particularly Matheson and McIntyre who will lose their seats without intensive care from the DCCC:

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Dan Lipinksi (IL)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Nick Rahall (WV)

Six Republicans cross the aisle in the other direction: Charlie Dent (R-PA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Richard Hanna (R-NY), and John Runyan (R-NJ) because the bill was too extreme and Paul Broun (R-GA) and Rob Woodall (R-GA) because the bill wasn't extreme enough. Closet case Aaron Schock (R-IL) was too frightened to vote and hid in the little boy's room.

The White House has already said that were the bill to ever pass the Senate-- there's zero chance of that happening thanks to the defeat last year of anti-woman crusaders Todd Akin (R-MO), Richard Mourdock (R-IN), Connie Mack IV (R-FL), Josh Mandel (R-OH), Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Tom Smith (R-PA), Tommy Thompson (R-WI), Rick Berg (R-ND), and George Allen (R-VA)-- Obama would veto it. “[It] would unacceptably restrict women’s health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman’s right to choose. Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor. This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women’s health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients’ health care decisions, and the Constitution."

Going into the vote yesterday, the National Right to Life Committee threatened to oppose any Members of Congress who opposed the bill. Extremist psychopath, John Bircher and Republican Senate candidate Paul Broun (R-GA) promptly announced he would vote NO... because the bill is too liberal.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, on Monday night pulled his support for a measure that would ban a woman’s right to abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, highlighting a split between the foremost national anti-abortion group and its Georgia counterpart.

Language was recently added to the measure that would make exceptions for cases of rape and incest. National Right to Life recognizes those two exceptions.

But Georgia Right to Life does not. Things are about to get nasty.

"Any lawmaker who votes to allow unlimited abortion in the sixth month or later is voting to encourage a continuation of the horrors associated with the likes of Kermit Gosnell," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson in a press release that arrive this morning.

Georgia Right to Life has yet to be heard from officially, but on WSB Radio last night, Erick Erickson of Redstate.com reported that GRTL was in the process of phoning members of Congress, urging them to vote against the bill.

The legislation has no chance of becoming law. (A Georgia version already exists and is under court challenge.) But the open split in a Washington scenario has major implications for Georgia’s race for U.S. Senate. Broun is a major contender. Another is former secretary of state Karen Handel, who has fought with GRTL in the past. The organization has refused to certify her as a “pro-life” candidate because of her endorsement of the rape and incest exceptions to abortion regulation.

Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) spoke for all Democrats and non-misogynists when he spoke after the vote yesterday:

“Republicans are once again trying to restrict the rights of American women to make medical decisions. It’s obvious they haven’t listened to the American people in pursuing this unconstitutional waste of time. It’s less obvious who they think they’re serving with this.

“Women who seek these services are often in extreme economic straits or have discovered serious health risks in their pregnancy. In defending the bill, the author said the incidence of pregnancies from sexual violence is ‘very low.’ I suggest he tell that to the 30,000 women across the country who give birth as a result of rape each year.

“After receiving heavy public condemnation, Republicans introduced an exception for victims of rape. This is too little, too late. We cannot allow the conversation we have about reproductive health to be driven by men who so easily dismiss victims of rape. The women and men of this country are watching this debate. Last-minute fig leaves aren’t going to cut it.

“Despite their endless promises to the contrary, Republicans won’t focus on job creation. The House has now voted 37 times to repeal Obamacare, which prevents insurance companies from charging women more for the same coverage they offer men. Now we’re voting on a bill to restrict women’s rights to make health care decisions. Where are the jobs?

“It’s time to stop hurting America’s women and put people back to work.”

Latest GOP Anti-Choice Nonsense Fails

Friday, Arizona extremist (and closet case) Trent Franks introduced H.R. 3541, a bill that purports to ban abortion based on gender discrimination. It needed a super-majority to pass, so it failed 246-168. Seven Republicans from Democratic-leaning districts voted against it but 20 anti-women Democrats voted with the GOP:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Mark Critz (PA)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
John Garamendi (CA)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)
Lipinski, Jr (IL)
Stephen Lynch (MA)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Colin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Nick Rahall (WV)
Silvestre Reyes (TX)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

Earlier Thursday I was on a conference call of progressive groups with Matt Cartwright the progressive Democrat who crushed reactionary Blue Dog Tim Holden a couple months back. At the outset of the campaign Matt told me he's pro-Choice legislatively but pro-Life personally. Today someone asked him and he said he's pro-Life. The room was stunned. I was stunned. I'm still stunned. He assured us he won't vote against Choice if it comes up in Congress. But it will come up... incrementally, the way Franks brought it up Thursday. How will he vote then? I don't know; it's something we'll always have to worry about.

One of the GOP clowns, NJ anti-Choice fanatic Chris Smith, claimed the bill is meant to be pro-woman because it will supposedly save female fetuses (basically from Asians who want sons). "It is violence against women. This is the real war on women." Asian-Americans were not pleased, as Dana Milbank pointed out in the Washington Post.

The problem with Franks’s proposal is that it’s not entirely clear there is a problem. Sex-selection abortion is a huge tragedy in parts of Asia, but to the extent it’s happening in this country, it’s mostly among Asian immigrants. 

For Franks, who previously tried to pass legislation limiting abortions among African Americans and residents of the District of Columbia, it was the latest attempt to protect racial minorities from themselves. 

“The practice of sex selection is demonstrably increasing here in the United States, especially but not exclusively in the Asian immigrant community,” he announced on the House floor Wednesday afternoon. He quoted a study finding that male births “for Chinese, Asian Indians and Koreans clearly exceeded biological variation.”

Democrats found Franks’s paternalism toward minority groups to be suspect. Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.), identifying herself as a member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said the bill would “lead to further stigmatization of women, especially Asian Pacific American women.” Various Asian American legal and women’s groups opposed the bill. 

In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Franks didn’t dispute that Asian Americans would be targeted. “The real target in the Asian community here is the Asian women who are being coerced into aborting little girls,” he told me, adding: “When the left doesn’t want to make abortion the issue, they say you’re being against minorities.” 

Franks is a principled and consistent opponent of abortion, but his strategy has raised eyebrows before because of its racial component. In 2010, he said in a video interview that, because of abortion, “far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.” (Franks told me this does not mean African Americans were better off under slavery.) 

In 2011, he championed the “Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.” That proposal, similar to the one before the House on Wednesday, relied on the novel argument that African American mothers were discriminating against their fetuses by aborting them on the basis of race. 

More recently, Franks held hearings on a bill to prevent doctors in the District of Columbia-- where minorities are the majority-- from performing late-term abortions. Protesters picketed outside the Arizonan’s office asking whether “Mayor Franks” might help them with other local issues, such as potholes. Franks had blocked the District’s delegate in the House, Eleanor Holmes Norton, from testifying. 

Franks admitted he had no expectation that his latest bill would pass, because House leaders brought it up in a way that required a two-thirds majority. The purpose, he said, was to force pro-abortion-rights Democrats to make an uncomfortable vote.

But in singling out minority groups to make his political points, Franks risks aggravating a long-term problem for the Republicans. According to primary exit polls, 90 percent of GOP voters this year have been white. It’s difficult in 2012 to win with such a statistic; over the coming decades, as minorities become the majority, it would relegate the party to irrelevance.

And, by the way, one of Florida's senior Republican congressmen, the always deranged Cliff Stearns, was on TV yesterday urging that women who have abortions be arrested and charged with murder. Hard to imagine that there are still some women who are planning to votes for Republicans anyway.

Could Arizona Elect A Deranged Closet Case To The Senate? You Bet-- Meet Trent Franks

Trent Franks-- Please don't say he doesn't "look gay"

Even after deranged Idaho ultraconservative (and dedicated homophobe) Larry Craig (R) was arrested for trying to perform fellatio on a police officer in a Minneapolis public toilet and subsequently drummed out of the Senate by his colleagues, the GOP has continued nominating and electing virulently anti-gay closet queens to that body. Although he refuses to address his status publicly, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is so well known in DC and South Carolina gay circles as being gay that he can hardly be classified as even in the closet any longer. Miss McConnell is more circumspect and even went to the trouble of acquiring a beard to give himself a Craig-like patina of being "straight." More recently Republicans elected a closeted congressman from Illinois, Mark Kirk, to the Senate. That seems to have given Trent Franks, far to Kirk's right, some ideas-- and he thinks it's time for Arizona to have a demented closet queen railing against gay families in the Senate. And, of course, gays aren't the only focus of Franks' hatred and vitriol.

Franks is a frequent critic of President Obama, even going so far as to call him an “enemy of humanity” at a right-wing conference, and later claimed unconvincingly that he simply meant he was an “enemy of unborn humanity.” He even wanted to impeach Obama over his decision not to defend unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act and warned that Obama has an “ideological commitment” to “weaken America.” Most recently, Franks joined Rick Santorum to claim that Obama and his allies were deliberately trying to destroy America. Such rancid statements shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Franks has floated Birther conspiracy theories and said Obama consistently “acts un-American.”

Expect the Religious Right to rally behind Franks against the more libertarian Flake. Franks is a noted proponent of the charge that abortion providers are leading a genocide against African Americans, and said that African Americans were better off under slavery than in America with reproductive freedom. He even introduced legislation barring “race-based” abortion along with leading anti-choice figures, believing his bill will “blow a fatal hole in Roe v. Wade,” and also screened the discredited documentary Maafa 21, which argues that Planned Parenthood wants to exterminate African Americans, in Congress. Moreover, Franks participated in Lou Engle’s militantly anti-choice and anti-gay The Call rallies, and worked with Dominionist groups.

The possibility of a Franks candidacy has already forced Flake to abandon his previously pro-reform position on immigration to compete with Franks, who is an anti-immigrant hardliner.

Although the greed-oriented Club For Growth has endorsed Flake, Franks plans to run the kind of extremist teabagger campaign that goes down well in Arizona and he'll be announcing his candidacy at a fundraiser next week hosted by allies Joe Arpaio and Michele Bachmann. Not Sarah Palin though. The new Arizona resident is rumoring to be threatening a run for the Senate herself, having been being a senator-- unlike a governor-- requires no actual work or responsibilities.

Back to to self-loathing gay conservatives, something Franks should think closely about-- After Roy Ashburn, a by then chastened California Republican state Senator, was arrested, drunk, in a car with a young male prostitute he apologized, sincerely, for leading an anti-gay Republican jihad in the state Senate and tried to explain why he had done it. There is no member of the U.S. Congress who should pay more attention than vicious homophobe and closet case Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ):

Patt Morrison: "A lot of people, gay or straight, are probably wondering why you voted even against issues like insurance coverage for same-sex partners."

Senator Roy Ashburn: "The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic 'no' vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that."

UPDATE: That Was Fast

God sometimes works against Satan in mysterious days:

“After diligently and prayerfully trying to consider every aspect a potential Senate bid would entail, I have sincerely concluded that mounting a Senate bid at this time would not be what is best for my family, nor what would best allow me to serve my country at this critical time in her history,” Franks said in a statement released from his Congressional office.

Or maybe someone showed him the compromising pictures that exist of him having sex with multiple male partners. Who knows?

What The Hell Is Wrong With Arizona? Let's Start With Trent Franks

After Roy Ashburn, a by then chastened California Republican state Senator, was arrested, drunk, in a car with a young male prostitute he apologized, sincerely, for leading an anti-gay Republican jihad in the state Senate and tried to explain why he had done it. There is no member of the U.S. Congress who should pay more attention than vicious homophobe and closet case Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ):

Patt Morrison: "A lot of people, gay or straight, are probably wondering why you voted even against issues like insurance coverage for same-sex partners."

Senator Roy Ashburn: "The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic 'no' vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that."

Why bring it up today? Well, aside from having learned nothing from the torment of a dozen Republican colleagues-- like him frightened and hysterical closet cases who have gone out of their way to target gay families for abuse and have then been outed, disgraced for hypocrisy and shunned-- Franks is seriously considering a run for the open Arizona Senate seat being abandoned by Jon Kyl. If he does enter the race, he sets up a social versus fiscal conservative primary battle with Jeff Flake, a far more respected Goldwater-type Republican-- far right but not a drooling hate-monger. Franks is a drooling hate-monger and the primary campaign will be a bizarre circus. And in red, red Arizona, it's likely whoever emerges the winner will be going to the U.S. Senate. This morning I re-read a passage that struck with me about the political situation in Arizona in Will Bunch's extraordinary book, The Backlash.

It is here-- in a land of luscious painted deserts bisected by blue highways, in the forty-eighth state, in practically the farthest corner of the United States from the temperate, coastal habitat of the Founding Fathers-- where the rubber finally met the road for backlash against the presidency of Barack Obama. It is as if the rising mercury in these arid badlands was symbolic of the skyrocketing political temperatures, where the promise of an American melting pot gave way to the realities of immigration and fears over our national identity in the twenty-first century.

Arizona had it all. The loose strands of unrest that you witnessed in other corers of the United States-- the gun worship of Knob Creek, the strange notion that Barack Obama was "not American," all the paranoia about Washington and "socialists" and big government-- were all wrapped together there with a big xenophobic bow. Geographically, this might be the extreme lower-left corner of America, but it was increasingly clear that the Grand Canyon State was the center of a great divide cleaving the nation in two.

The rest of the nation probably should have seen in coming. Political rage had been simmering here for years-- even when economic good times and a real estate boom tamped down the natural tensions between a mostly white, older, transient citizenry and a blue-color work force heavily comprised of undocumented Hispanics. The angry background noise was also submerged in the 2008 elections when the moderate and-- at the time, anyway-- self-proclaimed maverick Republican John McCain became the political face that Arizona was proud to show the rest of the nation. In particular, the middle-of-the-raod albeit occasionally mixed signals that the longtime GOP senator sent out on immigration meant that most outsiders weren't aware of just how angry the talk had become on the radio down in McCain's hometown, and many didn't know about the armed Arizonans patrolling the barren border regions or harassing the day laborers.

...[T]he passion of the anti-Obama uprising swept like a flash flood into the very corridors of the statehouse there, in a flurry of some of the most powerful anti-Washington legislation enacted since the day 150 years ago that South Carolina had actually seceded from the union in a similar jumble of concerns over states' rights-- and skin color. In a remarkable two-week stretch, the Arizona legislature enacted a law that made it easier for rank-and-file citizens to carry guns in public, nearly added an arcane ballot rule for presidential candidates aimed to sow uncertainty about Obama's citizenship, and allowed law enforcement officers to use racial profiling to make arrests and create a climate of fear among Latinos. The three bills may have seemed quite different from each other, but they collectively demonstrated the head start Arizona had when it came to the backlash. Together these pieces of legislation contained all the seeds that had been planted by the far-right radicals ever since Obama's election, and they all addressed the same problem in the eyes of white conservatives wielding political power, "manning the barricades of civilization," in the historian Hofstadter's famous phrase, against the invasion of the dark-skinned Others.

Thus, it is Arizona where the world is seeing the dire consequences of this whole backlash movement-- the most alarming rips in the very fabric of national unity in a century and a half, a nation that appears to be coming apart at the seams for a second time in its young history.

...It should come as no surprise that it was Arizona where the Tea Parties blossomed early. The ideas of the Tea Party "like minds," which included Beck's 9-12ers, gun aficionados, and the militia-friendly, spread quickly among voters here, proceeding rapidly up the political totem poll, where careen-driven politicians were eager to translate the most extreme of these into law. Under the sun-soaked sheen of red-tiled roofs, this was a state of paranoia, a place where men now brandished their legal weapons at the edge of speeches by Obama and where a pastor openly prayed for the president's death.

Enter Trent Franks, a fifth rate opportunistic rug rat with no education beyond high school and nothing to offer but naked bigotry and an ability to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the most nihilistic among the extremists. It could only work in a place like Arizona. His overall lifetime ProgressivePunch score is a startling 1.78-- worse than Michele Bachmann, worse than Virginia Foxx, worse than Steve King, worse than Darrell Issa... worse than any member of Arizona's uber-right wing congressional delegation. (Flake's score, by way of comparison, is 7.23.)

Angry at the world because of his deformed appearance-- he's had 9 unsuccessful operations to fix a cleft palate and lip-- and his urge for sexual contact with other males, he was an activist for religious sociopath James Dobson and his hate group, Focus on the Family. He's led unsuccessful ballot initiatives in Arizona to ban abortions, use tax dollars to pay for private schools and replace the progressive income tax with one favoring the very rich, before going to work as a consultant on the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan. He's also fanatically opposed to online gambling and is probably best known for claiming "Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery," for referring to President Obama as "an enemy of humanity," and for a series of bizarre anti-Muslim assertions

He served two years, 1985-1987 in the Arizona House of Representatives and came in third in a reelection bid after he was reportedly discovered having sex with a man inside the Capitol. Now, as part of the lifelong cover-up, he wants to file impeachment charges against Obama over DOMA

Sociopath Republican Closet Case Trent Franks Gets His Ass Kicked By Lawrence O'Donnell

I have a feeling Arizona lunatic fringe Congressman Trent Franks won't be coming back to The Last Word any time soon-- unless he's a masochist and actually enjoys being exposed as a yappy dimwit on national television. O'Donnell ostensibly invited Franks, probably best known for labeling President Obama "an enemy of humanity," on the show to discuss his widely reported comment after the Tucson massacre that he thought a shootout would have been an appropriate response. “I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that’s all I have to say,” Franks, a fanatic gun control opponent, has been running around telling the media and doing his best to make the tragedy all about himself and his deranged right-wing ideological agenda.

Arizona, with its Old West heritage, has been at the forefront of the gun-rights movement. Last year, it passed a law making it the third state-- after predominantly rural Vermont and Alaska — to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Another law allows Arizonans to carry guns in bars, as long as they're not drinking. The vast majority of the state's politicians-- including Loughner's primary target, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat and gun owner-- are strong Second Amendment supporters. Congressman Trent Franks, a Republican and gun owner, points out that Arizona has a much lower gun-violence rate than Washington, D.C., which has much more restrictive gun laws. "Criminals always prefer unarmed victims," Franks says. There have been no reports out of Arizona of any credible push for new gun restrictions; in fact, several reports show citizens are flocking to gun shops to increase their firepower.

Unfortunately, the gun-rights vision of well-armed citizens shooting down an outlaw like Loughner midrampage did not come true in this case. Nationally, less than 1% of all gun deaths involve self-defense; the rest are homicides, suicides and accidents. In a study of 23 high-income countries, the U.S. had 80% of the gun deaths, along with a gun homicide rate nearly 20 times higher than the rest of the sample. Still, the gun-control movement has gotten little political traction outside selected major cities, and all but three states have laws that invalidate local gun restrictions. According to the NRA, 25 states have adopted "your home is your castle" laws that give homeowners wide latitude to shoot people on their property without fear of prosecution, and only 10 states prohibit or severely restrict the carrying of firearms in public.

In recent years, despite periodic spasms of attention after mass killings like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech, gun control has made no headway at the federal level either. It's telling that a progressive Chicago Democrat like President Obama-- a longtime gun-control advocate whose election inspired fervent warnings about Big Government's confiscating firearms-- has carefully avoided the topic in the White House. He even signed two laws that included provisions expanding gun access, one in national parks and one on Amtrak trains. If he objected to the provisions, he kept his objections to himself. A Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence report gave Obama an F for leadership on gun control. "We haven't seen a lot of political courage on this issue," says Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind. "Republicans march in lockstep with the NRA, and Democrats are scared to death."

Republicans like to point out that Gabby is a gun-owner herself and that she filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing a handgun ban in DC. They don't point out that when she was a state legislator, she favored restrictions on guns in Arizona and that the NRA gave her a D. I got a letter yesterday from Alan Grayson, who always spoke with great enthusiasm about Gabby-- and with far less enthusiasm about Sarah Palin.

When I opened my web browser yesterday, at yahoo.com, there was Sarah Palin, smiling at me.

“Oh, God,” I said to myself, “what has she done now?”

The headline was “Palin Defends ‘Blood Libel’”. That’s interesting, I thought. What else might Palin be defending? Cannibalism, maybe?

Well, it turned out to be a report on Palin’s disjointed remarks on Sean Hannity’s show, regarding the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. I then watched the report. Let me summarize it for you:

Palin: I am so misunderstood.
Hannity: I am so misunderstood.
Palin: I am so misunderstood.

But there was one person who seemed to understand Sarah Palin quite well. Gabby Giffords, herself, during the health care debate. Discussing threats against Democratic Members of Congress. After the door to her office was shattered. This is what Gabby said:

“You know, for example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is the way that she has depicted it is the crosshairs of a gun-sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action.”

And here is Palin’s blithe response, on Hannity’s show: “That map wasn’t an original graphic.”

What is that remark supposed to be, Sarah? An exculpanation?

Even before I heard earlier Palin’s whining about “misguided finger-pointing” and “irresponsible statements from people who are apportioning blame,” I thought about this:

Palin came to my district, and told her people to “take me out.”

Palin told people again and again, “don’t retreat, reload.”

The day before the health care vote, one of my five-year-old twins received a telephone death threat intended for me.

A right-wing commentator offered anyone $100 to punch me in the nose.

We received so many threats of violence from teabaggers that we started a file.

And the day before Gabby was shot, I received a postcard saying “you better get some personal protection. You could very well be getting your ass kicked soon.”

Cause and effect. As Gabby put it, “there are consequences.”

Of course, I wasn’t the only target of these threats.

Gabby’s tea party opponent held fundraisers in which he invited contributors to fire an automatic weapon.

Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s opponent conducted target practice on her initials.

Democrat Ron Klein’s opponent told his supporters to make sure that Klein was “afraid to leave his house.”

Democrat Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy.

Democrat Tom Perriello was burned in effigy. And the gas line to his brother’s house was cut.

Democrat Emanuel Cleaver-- a minister-- was spat on.

Democrat Russ Carnahan had a coffin left at his home.

I could go on, but you get the point. Cause and effect. “There are consequences.”

And the Republicans? The shot supposedly fired at Republican Eric Cantor’s office was quickly exposed as a hoax.

As I observed on MSNBC last week, there has been a stream of violence and threats of violence by the right wing against Democrats. Gabby warned against it, and then became a terrible victim of it. Palin has instigated it, and then tried to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

What do I think? I think that Gabby said it best: “We can’t stand for this.” We have to stand against it.

When Jim DeMint, Mike Pence And Rand Paul Joined The Democrats To Try To Stop Irresponsible Corporate Giveaways By The Republican Party

On June 27, 2003, in the closest of votes (216-215), the Republican-dominated House passed what was called the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act and has been forever known as Medicare Part D. Although 19 very conservative Republicans, warning about the budget-busting catastrophe that this bill would be, crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats (serious right-wing movement congressmen like Jim DeMint, Mike Pence, Ron Paul, Jeff Flake, Tom Tancredo, John Shadegg, Jim Sensenbrenner...) 207 Republicans and 7 Blue Dog lap dogs, delivered for Bush-- and, more to the point, for Big Pharma. Yesterday when Haley Barbour (R-MS) was pontificating on Meet The Press he was either delusional or just plain lying about the Republicans cutting back on deficit spending: "The Federal Government is gonna have to learn that you can spend less money and provide the services that the country needs. So the first thing I think Republicans are gonna do is to make sure that we cut spending. And that’s gonna be a very serious thing." It would also be very out of character for his party.

The program that was created is estimated to cost between $395 and $534 billion over 10 years, none of it paid for with revenue hikes or spending cuts... all of it thrown onto the backs of future generations, exactly what Boehner (who voted for it), Cantor (who voted for it), and Ryan (who voted for it) have been running around accusing the Democrats of doing. That's especially interesting since this one horrible piece of special interest legislation for the pharmaceutical industry-- which dumped $8,705,484 into GOP campaigns that cycle, double what they gave Democrats, and spent another $143,434,740 on lobbying during the same time period-- cost taxpayers more than TARP, the Stimulus and the auto bailout combined.

David Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller General, has said the prescription drug benefit "was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."

More recently, Bruce Bartlett-- former advisor to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)-- said Part D was "a pure giveaway" to drug companies devised by fiscally irresponsible lawmakers.

"It astonishes me that a party enacting anything like the drug benefit would have the chutzpah to view itself as fiscally responsible in any sense of the term," Bartlett wrote in Forbes last December.

"As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt."

Barlett recounts the drama around a bill that Bush and the House GOP leaders were determined to deliver for their Big Pharma benefactors, a bill that was losing in the first vote, as a handful of principled conservatives and all the Democrats stood pat. And then along came Tom DeLay, the Enforcer:

[W]hen the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

Among those congressmen strenuously pressed to change their vote was Nick Smith, R-Mich., who later charged that several members of Congress attempted to virtually bribe him, by promising to ensure that his son got his seat when he retired if he voted for the drug bill. One of those members, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was later admonished by the House Ethics Committee for going over the line in his efforts regarding Smith.

Eventually, the arm-twisting got three Republicans to switch their votes from nay to yea: Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, Butch Otter of Idaho and Trent Franks of Arizona.

...Otter and Istook are no longer in Congress, but Franks still is, so I checked to see what he has been saying about the health legislation now being debated. Like all Republicans, he has vowed to fight it with every ounce of strength he has, citing the increase in debt as his principal concern. "I would remind my Democratic colleagues that their children, and every generation thereafter, will bear the burden caused by this bill. They will be the ones asked to pay off the incredible debt," Franks declared on Nov. 7.

Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.

Moreover, there is a critical distinction--the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers; 100% of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit, whereas the health reform measures now being debated will be paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, adding nothing to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Maybe Franks isn't the worst hypocrite I've ever come across in Washington, but he's got to be in the top 10 because he apparently thinks the unfunded drug benefit, which added $15.5 trillion (in present value terms) to our nation's indebtedness, according to Medicare's trustees, was worth sacrificing his integrity to enact into law. But legislation expanding health coverage to the uninsured--which is deficit-neutral-- somehow or other adds an unacceptable debt burden to future generations. We truly live in a world only George Orwell could comprehend when our elected representatives so easily conflate one with the other.

Yes, there are other Republicans in Congress who are just as hypocritical as Franks, a closet case whose entire life is based on lies and deception. Obviously the entire GOP House leadership-- minus Pence-- is as guilty as Barlett says Franks is. But, in light of the election tomorrow, let's look at some of the Republicans who voted for Medicare Part D, took legalistic bribes from Big Pharma, are currently deceiving voters by claiming to be "fiscally responsible," and are running for higher office. Up for Senate seats we have Roy Blunt (MO), John Boozman (AR), Mark Kirk (IL), Rob Portman (OH), Pat Toomey (PA) and 2 senators up for re-election who were in the House in 2003, David Vitter and Johnny Isakson (GA), each of whom fits the description to a "t." But let's not stop there. New Hampshire corporate shill Charlie Bass, Ohio corporate shill Steve Chabot and New Mexico corporate shill Steve Pearce were all rejected by the voters in the past two cycles-- and each wants back in and each is running a deceptive campaign this year. Chabot and Pearce are favored to win. Nathan Deal is running for governor of Georgia. Adam "Howdy Doody nimrod" Putnam is running for a Florida cabinet position that he hopes will lead him to the governor's mansion. and then there are Republicans just plain running scared and running away from their records, hoping the voters are too ill-informed-- and their opponents too under-funded-- to bring their shameful records into play, from Mary Bono Mack, David Dreier, and Ken Calvert in California to the ones who use racism and extremism as bright, shiny objects to distract the voters-- Steve King, Darrell Issa, Scott Garrett, and Pete Sessions, for example.

It amazes me that Ohio media is so amateur or so in the tank as to never even once question the man who would be Speaker about his role in any of this-- or to just let him off with his explanation that "mistakes were made and we're better now."

Over on the Senate side, the key vote was a procedural one that needed 60 AYEs to proceed. Corporate ConservaDems Blanche Lincoln (AR), Max Baucus (MT), Ben Nelson (NE), Zell Miller (GA) and Mary Landrieu (LA) crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, as usual. So did Dianne Feinstein (CA). Interestingly, McCain was in his Maverick phase then and he voted with the Democrats against the bill, the only Republican other than actual Maverick Chuck Hagel, who did. Among the Democrats who are up for reelection this year are 4 who fought hard against this irresponsible bill: Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold and Patty Murray, all currently under multimillion dollar attack from Rove and the Chamber of Commerce for being "fiscally irresponsible." Mark Dayton who is running for governor of Minnesota now, was a senator then and also fought the bill. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) voted for it and is, once again, pulling the wool over Iowa voters' eyes about his shenanigans in Washington. He's taken in close to a million dollars in veiled bribes from Big Pharma while voting for this boondoggle... and still struts around from the Quad Cities to Council Bluffs impersonating a fiscally responsible conservative warrior.

Are Far Right Politicians Inciting Violence? Perish The Thought

In their awesome new book, Over The Cliff-- How Obama's Election Drove The American Right Insane, John Amato and Dave Neiwert carefully document the dramatic uptick in violence, threats and domestic terrorism since President Obama was elected, much of it-- if not most of it-- driven by unadulterated racism. Amato and Neiwert make the case, and more convincingly than anyone else, that the violence and paranoia have been stoked by the ranting and raving of the right wing media, from Hate Talk Radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham to Fox News hosts like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, the sole source of information for many of the most demented perpetrators.

Obama’s election appeared to feed extremist right-wing paranoia and inspire violent fantasies of a “revolution.” On February 27 in Florida, for example, a mentally ill man named Dannie Baker walked up to the window outside the recreation room of a Miramar Beach apartment complex and opened fire on the gathering of Chilean exchange students therein, killing two people-- Nicolas Corp, 23, and Racine Balbontin, 22-- and wounding three others. After police arrested the 60-year-old Baker at his apartment, neighbors told reporters that Baker had asked them if they were ready for a “revolution”-- and warned them that if they were harboring illegal immigrants, to get them out.

Baker had worked as a local volunteer for the Republican Party during George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns. However, when Baker turned out to volunteer in 2008, his mental state had
apparently deteriorated; a county GOP official said he “just made people feel uncomfortable,” so they asked him to stay away.

Baker fired off a number of angry e-mails to GOP officials, which so disturbed and alarmed them that they turned them over to the Walton County sheriff, who did nothing. In one e-mail, Baker wrote: “The Washington D.C. Dictators have already confessed to rigging elections in our States for their recruiting dictators to overthrow us with foreign illegals here, and have allowed them to kill and run for office in the States to extend their influence into our States.” In another missive, Baker claimed there is a plot to “give our homeland to foreign states and their representatives here in America. Lets execute them and reinstate a legal government that will do something for us.”

Especially remarkable about the Baker case was how little attention it attracted in the United States. In Chile and much of Latin America, the Miramar Beach shootings were front-page national news. Francisco Vidal, the Chilean government minister, denounced the crime as “macabre” and “brutal.” The deputy consul general personally oversaw the return of the two students’ bodies to their homeland. One of the ironies of the murders was that the students were not “illegal immigrants”-- they were studying abroad as part of an exchange program, and all of them planned to return to Chile. In the end, Baker was found incompetent to stand trial and remanded to the custody of the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee for treatment; if he regains competency within five years, he will then stand trial. The story again received no attention outside of Walton County.

Similarly, the case of James Cummings received little national attention. After a day or so of headlines, the case of the Tennessee skinheads and their assassination plot [against Obama] disappeared from the news. And no one, outside of a handful of reporters, followed up on the Denver would-be assassins and Troy Eid’s nonfeasance.

That’s because the mainstream media have their preferred narratives and stick to them like glue. The preferred narrative when it came to these violent acts committed by right-wing extremists was that these were all “isolated incidents” with no connection, no set of radical belief systems that wove them together, and, most of all, nothing to connect them to the hyperbole from mainstream conservatives. As Glenn Beck said, these were just nutcases who had nothing to do with anything he or his fellow right-wing pundits told people.

Perish the thought. If you dared harbor or express it-- as Beck also made abundantly clear-- then you were just trying to silence and oppress poor helpless right-wing pundits. That was the conservative way, and it was about to become one of their favorite and most repeated themes.

And perish the thought that anyone would connect this violence to extremist politicians like Steve King (R-IA), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-GA) or any number of radical right hacks embracing bitherism and other divisive memes intended to drive wedges between Obama and confused, frightened, angry white people who are being told that their world is under attack. No one can deny that the extremists who flocked to Bachmann's House Tea Party Caucus are the ones making serial incendiary comments and are the ones working the hardest to undermine Obama's efforts to rescue the economy. Yesterday at Netroots Nation Paul Hodes (D-NH) referred to this crew as "extremist, obstructionist, lying hypocrites who think you don't have to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest but are holding up help for the neediest." But working families are the only thing these partisan hacks have in their sites.

Paul Broun, a vicious and unrepentant racist, has repeatedly flown his KKK flag when discussing the President and was one of the first members of Congress to accuse Obama of trying to install a Marxist dictatorship. "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," the demented Georgia reactionary told his already very right-wing and paranoid constituents. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist... We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road." Broun has repeatedly suggested that the President isn't a U.S. citizen and that he may be a Muslim.

Bachmann's entire career seems to be based around mixing religious fanaticism and McCarthyism with fundraising for herself. “I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views and now I look like Nostradamus.”

Iowa psychopath Steve King has made even more inflammatory statements:

"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name-- whatever their religion their father might have been," I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States-- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror. Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world... If he were strong on national defense and said 'I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory,' that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror."

This is a guy who coddles crooked K Street lobbyists, appeals to racism at every opportunity, and defends and lionizes domestic terrorists. On the radio with convicted traitor G. Gordon Liddy, King told Liddy's neo-Nazi audience of volatile conspiracy freaks that "The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race-- on the side that favors the black person."

You may not want to call it incitement. The media certainly doesn't. I do-- absolutely. Watch Arizona closet case Trent Franks (R-AZ) calling Obama "an enemy of humanity" and tell me what else it can possibly be if not incitement: