I’m so pissed after watching the video of those assholes with their AK-47s shooting a wounded policeman in the head when he was clearly gravely wounded and begging for his life. It’s of a piece of the rest of the cowardly, low and despicable murder they committed in the name of God today. I hope they’re captured alive, so we can see just what kind of dead-end dumbshits they are. After a trial, I hope they’re thrown in the French version of a Supermax so they can rot for the rest of their natural lives, to discourage other morons from following in their footsteps. No martyrdom for these assholes–their lives should end in Depends and false teeth long after the world has forgotten that they ever existed.
Reich to Rise, JEB!
@dandrezner all I could think of was the prison scene in "The Dark Knight Rises"
— Andrew Lebovich (@tweetsintheME) January 6, 2015
Jeb Bush's new campaign fundraising org is called the Right to Rise PAC. Which I guess is gonna lead the fight for Obamacare Viagra coverage
— Billmon (@billmon1) January 6, 2015
Doing his Grandpa Prescott proud, our Jeb — money first, principles to be determined later. As Robert Costa reports in the Washington Post, “Jeb Bush and his allies form leadership PAC and super PAC, both dubbed Right to Rise“:
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and his supporters launched two new political action committees on Tuesday as he moves closer to a 2016 presidential campaign, underscoring his desire to get a head start on his potential rivals on both fundraising and organizing.
The official formation of the new leadership PAC Right to Rise, the plans for which were announced by Bush in December, will serve as a holding area for staff and a policy shop until Bush formally decides on whether to run. It will also serve as the focal point of Bush’s political efforts, from commissioning polls and producing ads to making hires for his digital team…
He will visit Greenwich, Conn., on Wednesday to raise funds for it, one of many events he has held in recent weeks as he has ramped up his activity.
Greenwich was the hometown of the late Connecticut GOP senator Prescott Bush, Bush’s grandfather, and has long been a place where the Bush family has deep roots. More fundraising trips are in the works, including stops in Washington and New York…
The Grey Lady, whose most desirable advertising targets subscribers lives in Greenwich, is absolutely delighted by the news:
Jeb Bush on Tuesday delivered a powerful message about two of the most vital ingredients in a presidential campaign, money and ideas, transforming himself from a figure who once seemed paralyzed by ambivalence over a White House run into the most forceful presence within the emerging Republican field.
With the flip of a Facebook switch, Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, disclosed the formation of a full-time political apparatus that can begin raising money with an eye toward 2016 and laid out a campaign rationale that was striking for its emphasis on big, knotty, bipartisan concepts like immigration overhaul and income inequality.
Mr. Bush, 61, a figure indelibly linked to the Republican Party’s past, seems determined to offer himself as an intellectual midwife of its future — a break from the party’s struggle to win over minority voters and the kind of ideological infighting, on display Tuesday when conservatives tried to oust Speaker John A. Boehner, that Mr. Bush could face in primaries…
Not so much, the jumped-up hustlers from the Jersey sticks, per the Post:
… Christie in particular has been squeezed by Bush, who has cast himself as the same kind of pragmatic, reform-oriented center-right candidate. Bush aides are intensely courting the New Jersey governor’s financial backers, seeking to persuade them to change sides.
Startled by Bush’s early offensive, Christie allies acknowledge that he has upended the competition for major party contributors.
“The Bushes have been very effective at going at Republican donors,” said former New Jersey governor Tom Kean (R). “They know that to a lot of people in the party, Jeb is the favorite son.”…
DFH Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly, casts a cold eye:
…[T]he first actual event in his name, a fundraiser in Connecticut, is getting an unwholesome amount of attention for a proto-candidate who is already compared unfavorably to Mitt Romney… [T]his event will remind everyone of the dynastic issues Jeb faces, and of his positioning as the candidate of the GOP Donor Class. You’d think some of the high-life political advisors in Team Bush would have figured out he needed to do a $20-a-plate sandwich fundraiser at some Baptist Church in the pineywoods before decamping to Greenwich to rub shoulders with his familial peers. But that’s apparently not how he rolls.
Not to mention, the GOP in-every-sense base:
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Meet the New Bosses…
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Dana Milbank sums up the “Conservative pests [who] swarm John Boehner on Congress’s first day“:
… Twenty-five conservatives — more than 10 percent of the Republican caucus — rebelled against their leader on the first day of the new Congress. It was the largest revolt against a House speaker in more than a century, and the rebels were within striking distance of the 29 votes they would have needed to deny Boehner the speakership — if all sitting members of the House voted.
But more than two dozen were missing when Congress convened at noon, a few because of snow-related travel delays but most of them Democratic members of the New York delegation who were attending Cuomo’s funeral. Because the speaker is elected based on the majority of those voting, this reduced the number of votes Boehner needed from about 218 to 205 — and the conservative rebellion fizzled before it ever had a chance…
It was conservatives’ last, best chance to disrupt Boehner and his leadership team. Right-wing interest groups had pushed for the rebellion against the speaker Monday, claiming it was the most important issue to tea party activists since Obamacare. Conservatives saw it as a crucial time to make their stand because, now that Boehner has the gavel and the largest Republican majority in decades, he can afford to ignore the roughly two dozen die-hard conservatives in his caucus — if necessary, recruiting Democrats to offset their “no” votes on legislation….
And the stalwart RWNJs True Conservatives have learned from this — what?
First action as Chairman. Subpoena Eric Holder on Fast & Furious. @GOPoversight #FastandFurious pic.twitter.com/1xtH4kLMQB
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) January 6, 2015
***********
Apart from watching our opponents proving the old saw about doing the same thing over and over, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Meet the New Bosses…Post + Comments (89)
Something Something Obama’s Fault
Remember this greatest wingnut hit from the 2012 campaign?
In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, David Siegel, billionaire chief of Florida timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all employees. “Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for,” Siegel wrote, but offered “a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.” These included that re-electing Obama would “threaten your job” and result in “less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”
Obama carved a backwards letter B on my economic growth picture and if you minimum wage slaves vote for him well it would be a shame if something were to happen to your job and HOLY CRAP IS THAT OBAMA’S ENTRANCE MUSIC I HEAR JIM?
Just over two years after penning that company-wide email, Siegel informed Westgate employees that instead of layoffs, he would boost their minimum wage to $10 per hour beginning in 2015.
In fact, according to Siegel, 2014 was a banner year. “We’re experiencing the best year in our history and I wanted to do something to show my gratitude for the employees who make that possible,” Siegel said in announcing the wage hike. He also recently told the Orlando Business Journal that “things have never been better.”
Westgate currently employees about 12,000 people. Though the minimum wage increase won’t impact all workers, including those who receive tips, commissions, or work under a collective bargaining agreement, a company spokesman told Vegas Inc. that thousands of employees will receive a raise because of the move.
Oh. Well then. Must be President Eric Cantor’s doing.
Open Thread: Shuckabee
Nightmare social con scenario: Huckabee, Santorum and Cruz all run, Jeb wins Iowa with like 28% of vote.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 4, 2015
Elizabeth Titus, at Bloomberg Politics:
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Saturday he is ending his show on Fox News because he is not ready to rule out running for president in 2016.
“There has been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president,” the Republican said in a statement posted on his website. “If I were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can’t make such a declaration.”
“I won’t make a decision about running until late in the spring of 2015, but the continued chatter has put Fox News into a position that is not fair to them nor is it possible for me to openly determine political and financial support to justify a race,” he said…
Huckabee… took fourth place in a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers in October, with 9 percent. Romney was included in that poll and led with 17 percent. The Hawkeye State caucuses, which Huckabee won in 2008, will kick of the nominating race in 2016.
Yeaaaah… Huck’s not running. He’s just taken a lesson from the Gingrich/Cain/Palin School of Political Grifting, where announcing that you’ve chosen to explore the ramifications of campaigning give you increased media shelfspace to market your brand. He’ll be back on Fox no later than October 2015, “analysing” all the other Repub candidates for a bumped-up fee, and sitting next to John McCain on every Sunday talk shows to explain how anyone who complains about the ramped-up eliminationist rhetoric from his Talibangelical marks fellows is the real racist/sexist/homophobe/ratfvcker.
There’s Always An Idiot
Patrick Lynch, the NY Post editorial page, and these anarchists should sit down together. And never leave that room. http://t.co/aRlyWiW5gT
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) January 3, 2015
I’d been sitting on the protest video, and on the subsequent Daily Beast stories (“The Monsters Who Screamed for Dead Cops” and “Trayvon Martin’s Family Rejects ‘Dead Cops’ Marchers“) because it felt like bringing theatre to a crowded fire. But the flapmouth arseholes (ir)responsible for the chant have decided to out themselves at Buzzfeed…
NEW YORK CITY — On Dec. 13, about 100 protesters splintered off from the #MillionsMarch in lower Manhattan — a huge, peaceful demonstration against police brutality — and headed up Sixth Avenue…
The chant in the video — “What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!” — has been viewed nearly half a million times and rallied critics of the protest… Indeed, the chant soon became central to allegations that the movement against police brutality, whose leaders have called for non-violent action, could not be as easily separated from the murders as its members would like. That claim has, in turn, has produced outrage from nonviolent protesters and their leaders.
But one group has been largely silent since lighting this particular match: the people who marched down 32nd street, chanting.
BuzzFeed News on Friday spoke to one person who participated in the Dec. 13 chant heard on the video, along with two other people who marched with other radical contingents involved in the protests that day. All of them claimed that, despite the literal words of the chants, they weren’t actually advocating for the murder of police officers…
The unplanned chant, the person said, was to distinguish a more radical message from the vast majority of the protesters. “The larger march … had a liberal, reformist agenda. The people who wanted a broader transformation, they were gravitating toward whatever chants could express that,” the person said.
“In that moment of outrage, the chant was the only way to express that we wanted to separate ourselves from people who just want to get a guy fired,” the person added. “We wanted to see the police disbanded.”…
“I don’t think people wanted dead bodies,” the person who participated in the chant said. “It was not bloodlust. Some people were laughing when they were chanting it — there was a humorous element to it. Everyone is a human being, and I don’t think any of us wants to see someone suffer and die.”…
Rhetorical calls for violence against the police are nothing new, the third person argued.
“Death to cops chants have populated protests since the ’90s and beyond!” the person told BuzzFeed News. “Blaming TMOC [the ‘Trayvon Martin Organizing Committe’, i.e., the idiots chanting] is a mess, and a dangerous one for sure, especially considering that fighting cops is so entrenched in popular imagery,” including popular rap music….
So, this was the “street fighter” version of the well-worn trustafarian “Rap musicians use the n-word, why can’t I establish my radical credentials the same way?” whinge. Can someone wrap the Mumia hoodies really tightly over their mouths, now? Because I think they’ve contributed more than enough to the conversation already.
Open Thread: In NRO-world, Oprah Winfrey is the Real Racist
Whenever Rich Lowry writes this, I hear people blowing the dust off NR’s actual Civil Rights era editorials http://t.co/qo6c41U7aA
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 2, 2015
Not just open, but gaping! Rich ‘Starbursts’ Lowry explains it all for you his readers:
… The movie’s stars showed up for the New York City premiere with “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts, and held their hands up for photos. One of its producers, Oprah Winfrey, says of the film, “It is here for a reason in this moment.” The actor who plays Martin Luther King Jr., David Oyelowo, calls the parallels with Ferguson “indisputable,” and the rapper Common, who plays activist James Bevel, pronounces, “Obviously, the story took place in 1965, which is almost 50 years ago, but we know that it’s happening now.”…
Whatever you think of the merits of voter-ID laws — often brought up to make the case that the struggle for voting rights is not over — they are not the least bit redolent of the Deep South of the mid-20th century. No one asks anyone to recite the preamble to the Constitution to get a driver’s license or some other valid ID…
As for policing, the worry in 1965 wasn’t ambiguous encounters or tragic accidents. It was beatings, or worse. It was whips and forced march by cattle prod. It was the violence of police who were the oppressive instruments of a lawless authority.
The protesters who faced off against the police in Selma didn’t shout abuse, although they would have been amply justified; they didn’t burn down local businesses; they didn’t randomly fire guns, or throw rocks or stones. The difference between demonstrators in Selma and Ferguson is the difference between dignity under enormous pressure in a righteous cause and heedless self-indulgence in the service of a smear (that Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown as he surrendered)…
@daveweigel Lowest moment was when magazine said Birmingham church bombing perhaps done by a "crazed negro": http://t.co/0bZHeFmHOz
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) January 2, 2015
@daveweigel One of my favorites: When National Review slammed "the ludicrously named 'civil rights' movement' — that is, the Negro revolt."
— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) January 2, 2015
@daveweigel @EricBoehlert Read the comments section of the piece to get a flavor of the perspective of his readers on the subject. OMG.
— John Hentschel (@jchench) January 2, 2015
Open Thread: In <em>NRO</em>-world, Oprah Winfrey is the Real RacistPost + Comments (96)