Tom Coburn: "Good thing I can’t pack a gun on the Senate floor"

Via Politico:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) ripped his colleagues during a tour of northeast Oklahoma, calling them “career elitists,” “cowards” and said, “It’s just a good thing I can’t pack a gun on the Senate floor.”



Coburn’s gun-on-the-floor comment comes less than a month after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) made a triumphant return to the Capitol and the House floor following an assassination attempt in January outside a Tucson supermarket.

Gun-happy Coburn is both a doctor and a Southern Baptist deacon and, of course, is rabidly "pro-life." He may be best known for his involvement in the John Ensign scandal at the infamous C Street House where he helped in the cover up of the affair. Coburn claimed there was doctor/patient privilege involved. Coburn is an obstetrician. As far as is known, Ensign does not have a uterus.



As a congressman, he made news by protesting a televised airing of Schindler's List, saying it was "an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity" and that the airing of the movies was "irresponsible sexual behavior. I cringe when I realize that there were children all across this nation watching this program." (As opposed to the children all across the country hearing a US Senator wanting to shoot his colleagues...)



Another day, another bit of elminationist rhetoric from a Republican.

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Glenn Beck compares Norway camp victims to "Hitler Youth"

"There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing," Beck stated in the first minute of his syndicated radio show Monday. [Link]

Audio here.
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Just a Reminder

This is just a reminder that when Lil Ricky Santorum said at the GOP presidential candidate debate on Monday:

"Not only have I been consistently pro-life, I have not just taken the pledge, but I've taken the bullets to go out there and fight for this and lead on those issues."

That there are actual people who have taken real bullets over providing women with legal abortions:

Dr. Gunn was murdered in 1993.
In 1993, Dr. Tiller was shot but not killed.
In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort, James H. Barrett, were assassinated.
In 1994, Dr. Garson Romalis was shot but not killed.
In 1995, Dr. Hugh Short was shot and killed.
In 1997, Dr. Jack Fainman was shot but not killed, the shooter was a suspect in an unnamed NY physician's murder
In 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian is shot and killed. His murderer, James Koop, was the suspect in 1997's shooting of Dr. Fainman and the other unnamed doctor.
In 2009, Dr. Tiller was shot, again, and killed.

In 1994, Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols were shot and killed at clinics in MA.
In 1998, Officer Robert Sanderson was killed during a clinic bombing and nurse Emily Lyon was severely injured.

What a douchebag.
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Kansas GOP Rep.: Getting pregnant by rape is like getting a flat tire

The point, according to Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf, is that women need to plan ahead.

For getting raped.

And getting pregnant from that rape.

Uh, huh.

This was the discussion during a debate on a bill on a ban on insurance companies offering abortion coverage as part of their general health plans. It passed the Kansas House with an exception only for the life of the woman (not for rape and incest). Via The Pitch:

Rep. Pete DeGraaf, a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill, told her: "We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?"

Bollier asked him, "And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?"

DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, "I have a spare tire on my car."

"I also have life insurance," he added. "I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for."

DeGraaf is an ordained minister.

..	If you'd like to contact him (also via the link above): "DeGraaf's Web site lists his office number as 785-296-7693, his home phone as 316-777-0715 - that's at 1545 E. 119th St. Mulvane, KS - and his e-mail as pete.degraaf@house.ks.gov ." You can also send him a spare tire (model) via Kansas NOW.

(h/t to Daily Kos and Mother Jones.)
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President Obama Releases Long Form Birth Certificate

For the birthers:


(Click to enlarge)


(Please hold on to your heads)
UPDATE: Jesus H Christ, Trump is on my teevee taking credit for this. Douchebag. Oh, God! He's saying we have to look at it and see if it's really "real" and now we can get back to the issues. Fucking douchebag. He's saying it's "amazing" that it's "finally materialized." He keeps saying he's honored.

UPDATE 2: Good Lord! Now Trump is pimping his teevee show.

(h/t to Talking Points Memo)

How low can you go?

Did you happen to read this week's Pittsburgh City Paper? Did you also recoil in disgust at the full-page ad on page 19? Here it is, in case you missed it:


(Click to enlarge)
First, I will preface my remarks by noting that, yes, everyone deserves a lawyer in a criminal trial and that attorneys have the right to advertise. But looking at this ad, I guess we have to be grateful that they didn't just throw up a photograph of a bloody, fatal car crash with the tag line: "Caused this? We'll get you off!" Their ad is only slightly less offensive -- and it offends on multiple levels.

I'm going to ignore the headline for a moment and go straight to the boxed-in "joke." Sorry, I find nothing funny about:

1) Someone driving so drunk that they're "weaving violently"

2) Making the joke about drunk driving specific to both an actual upcoming event and to a real area known to have a problem with too many bars and over consumption of alcohol

3) Thinking it's funny that a woman falls out of a moving car

4) The sexist implication that women never shut up

5) And, yeah, making the joke about some idiot from the burbs driving home drunk from the city specific to a street a mere two blocks from my home

In the ad, Rosselli & Horowitz self-identify as "The South Side's DUI and Criminal Defense Law Firm."

Yes, it a law firm which specializes in DUI cases making a joke about people driving drunk.

Seriously, WTF???

You know what can happen on Carson Street when some asshole drives drunk? A seven-year old can get killed and her mother can have the lower half of her body pulverized ("In addition to broken ribs, vertebrae, toes and an ankle, a doctor said, pieces of her hip and pelvis are simply missing." Oh, yeah, she also miscarried.) This happened just three months before this ad was placed. In fact, according to a recent WPXI story, Carson Street had the highest DUI arrests in our area: 218 in 2009. It also had one of the highest amounts of alcohol-related crashes: 152 wrecks involving alcohol in the last five years.

Funny, huh? A real LOL!

Now, back to the headline. "LOOKING FOR A LAW FIRM WITH TIGER BLOOD?" So, you're comparing your law firm to an obviously troubled person just out of "rehab" for alcohol and drugs, who recently lost their job and is universally ridiculed?! From your lips to God's ears, baby.
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Scalia: Constitution does not prohibit discrimination against women

Via HuffPo:

In a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn't itself outlaw that behavior:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

Here's the relevant part of the 14th Amendment:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This would mean that either Scalia believes that women still aren't "persons" or "citizens" or that since discrimination was allowed against women when that amendment was written they still don't have rights. You know, the same way that he believes that the 2nd Amendment only allows people the right to own muskets and cannons. Right.

Apparently Scalia said something similar back in September. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks points out his hypocrisy when it comes to being a "strict constitutionalist" here:


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“This is not a story.”

According to Lil Mayor Luke, the fact that his four city police bodyguards are "on pace to earn $200,000 in overtime for the past two years" is "not a story."

So, according to Ravenstahl:

Even though the mayor has threatened the city with police layoffs, the $200,000 in overtime pay "is not a story."

Despite stopping the highly successful sweeps on the South Side after only four weeks with no reason given, the $200,000 in overtime pay "is not a story."

And, while it's completely inexplicable that there could be any overtime when his bodyguards work in shifts, the $200,000 in overtime pay "is not a story."

Hat Tip to Ginny @ That's Church for picking up on the story which most missed when it was broadcast on the eve of Thanksgiving and thanks to KDKA for their original report!
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