COLUMBIA, S.C. – A deputy assistant attorney general who said he was on his lunch break when an officer found him with a stripper and sex toys in his sport utility vehicle has been fired.

Roland Corning, 66, a former state legislator, was in a secluded part of a downtown cemetery when an officer spotted him Monday, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

As the officer approached, Corning sped off, then pulled over a few blocks away. He and the 18-year-old woman with him, an employee of the Platinum Plus Gentleman’s Club, gave conflicting stories about what they were doing in the cemetery, Officer Michael Wines wrote in his report, though he did not elaborate.

Dude was just celebrating Halloween a little early, right? He was the trick, she was the treat, and what better place to get yer spooky freak on than in an isolated graveyard? Come on, people. Stop being so judgmental. It’s South Carolina, after all. That state seems to be the bloody epicenter of aberrant sexual behavior these days.

Besides, it probably wasn’t his fault. He probably dipped into the Halloween sweets bowl a little early, and caught a case of demonic possession by candy corn:

“During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.”

And you thought your little monsters were bouncing off the walls from too much sugar? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news — it’s those Mephistophelian M&Ms they had after lunch. I’m sure Pat Robertson’s crew can arrange an exorcism for you for a slightly exorbitant fee.

So, my friends, I’d recommend keeping an eye on your kids this Saturday. Too much candy corn and they might grow up to be Republicans. And then they’ll get busted for having illegal sex on the family plot.

I’m going to have a bit more to say about the latest developments in the Chris Christie saga, but for now I wanted to point to the “shirt tail” of that NYT article, because I expect it, too, is going to blow up on Christie.

Mr. Christie’s in-state travel has also been questioned. He put in for more than $20,000 in mileage reimbursements during his seven-year tenure, including many trips that his public schedules indicate were made for personal or political reasons.

A die-hard Mets fan, Mr. Christie put in for $73 in mileage costs for a drive to Philadelphia on a night his schedule noted an away game against the Phillies.

Now $73 is small potatoes compared to the $700 limousine Christie took to an event at the County Prosecutors Association in Atlantic City. But Christie was–at least ostensibly–on business in Atlantic City. I very much look forward to his explanation of what kind of business he was conducting at that Mets game in Philadelphia.

Then there are the events that appear to be political. Christie narrowly avoided an investigation into whether he was laying the groundwork for his gubernatorial campaign while still US Attorney. On top of that, there were a few meetings with Karl Rove that showed up in the US Attorney document dump.

But if Christie–whose buddy Michele Brown was trying to time indictments for political reasons–was also charging taxpayers for his in-state political travel, it adds another piece of evidence that he was using the US Attorney’s office as a political playground.

Finally, here’s the bit that really fries my ass. New Jersey is not a big state. What kind of cheapskate do you have to be to charge taxpayers for your personal jaunt to a baseball game?

It ain’t all ‘er nuthin’, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma, you’re seriously NOT O.K.:

On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will “cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.” 

Under H.B. 1595, the state of Oklahoma is going to spend over a quarter of a million of its taxpayers’ dollars annually to try to shame women into foregoing abortions. Isn’t that special? It’s almost enough to make one long for the martini-clouded days before Roe v. Wade, when women only had to deal with the life-threatening dangers of back alley abortions, without the additional stigma of government-sponsored Internet shunning.

The following is the posted information that the Gilead Oklahoma legislators believe will be generic enough to avoid that irksome HIPAA:

1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother

That’s a whole lotta information about the mother, that, while it doesn’t identify her by name, certainly narrows her identity down, especially in the small towns that dot the Oklahoma landscape.

And another thing: Notice anything missing? Go ahead, re-read the list — I’ll wait.

[whistles, files nails, looks up]

Figure it out yet?  Bingo! The father, whom we assume had something to do with the pregnancy in the first place, doesn’t have to account for his actions at all.  Way to put women in their place, Oklahoma!

I think H.B. 1595 is fairly solid evidence against letting states opt out of any public plan that Congress may eventually include in the health care reform bill. Given the current condition of the country’s economy and employment rate death spiral, it simply is impossible for a vast majority of uninsured people living in those Republican states that don’t think their residents deserve the right to decent health care (or ANY health care, as the case may be in Oklahoma), to move to a state that does. 

Yes, down the road, the afflicted citizenry might find the will to vote out these "states’ rights" asshats who pass legislation intended to deny medical care to distinct classes of people, but that doesn’t help those who are living without insurance today. This country can no longer afford to wait to get a real public option passed for ALL the people, not just those who are fortunate enough to live in liberal enclaves.

Shame on you, Oklahoma. 

photo by BNItaly

Atop the front page of the New York Times today is a color photo of Georgia homes flooded up to their rafters, an image that illustrates how when it comes to insurance our Congress applies two standards, separate and unequal, one for property and a lesser one for people.

Unlike people without health insurance, homeowners have access to public option flood insurance. 

Even those who fail to take personal responsibility to buy insurance to protect their property can get benefits, thanks in good part to politicians who are leading opponents of public option healthcare.

Consider the example of  Trent Lott of Mississippi, who was that state’s senior senator when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, flooding his home looking out on the Gulf. Lott had not exercised personal responsibility by taking out flood insurance even though it was available from the federal government at low cost. He did have private insurance, but his insurer refused to pay much of the claim, saying it was not wind damage (which was covered by the policy), but water damage (which was excluded).
                
            Weeks later Lott introduced Senate Bill 1936, which would have authorized retroactive flood insurance. The idea came from Representative Gene Taylor, a Democrat who represented the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which should remind us that when there is voter demand for reform, and campaign contributions are not the driving force, the parties have worked together.    

Lott’s bill would have let flood victims pay 10 years of flood insurance premiums after-the-fact plus a 5 percent late payment penalty. Since this storm was rated a once in 500 years occurrence, even 10 years of premiums would not come close to covering the real costs, meaning a taxpayer subsidy was built into the Lott bill.

Instead of being laughed at by his fellow Republicans for promoting socialism, the concept of retroactive relief was warmly embraced, although not the idea for retroactive insurance. Instead the government went with handouts.

Senator Thad Cochran, also a Mississippi Republican and at the time chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was key to getting taxpayer benefits for flooded property, according to Taylor’s staff.  The benefits were issued and expanded twice, a total of about $18 billion in all, Taylor’s staff estimated.

Contrast the two Mississippi Republican senators’ determined action to get welfare for flooded buildings with their votes against expanding SCHIP health insurance for poor children. 

Cochran opposes a public option in health care; Lott, now a lobbyist, says Obama should just declare victory after some minor tweaks, a way to oppose without quite saying so.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the former head of the Republican Party, has spoken cautiously, but also appears to oppose a public option. But he, too, was an enthusiastic supporter of retroactive benefits for flooded property. Barbour even got the relief expanded and urged everyone to get their government property benefits.     

There is also an interesting twist in this public option for another aspect of the health care debate – what to do about those who decline to buy insurance.     

In  Mississippi the relief for flooded buildings came with a requirement that owners buy flood insurance. It went further, requiring a covenant be added to their property deeds requiring the current and all future owners of that property to maintain public option flood insurance.   

There is another word for that: government mandated insurance.

How about a similar retroactive option for people with a pre-existing condition who do not have health insurance? Many of these people had insurance before the recession cost them their jobs and with it, their health care coverage. Even people who took personal responsibility and had health insurance now may be without healthcare insurance because the recession cost them their jobs or their employers enough revenue to continue coverage.

Why should those who lost their jobs and thus their healthcare insurance be held to a different standard than irresponsible homeowners like former Senator Lott?

I call federal flood insurance a public option because it is provided by the federal government., It is sold, however, through individual insurance agents who collect commissions on the policies.

Private, for-profit insurers could sell this insurance if they wanted. The problem is that rating the risk of a once-in-a-century or even once in-a-millennium event is difficult and requires a huge pool of capital held in reserve to cover benefits that may be due tomorrow on in the year 2805.

Socializing these risks makes sense, and so does trying to minimize them with building codes that discourage building in some areas and require mitigating designs (like putting the first floor 15 feet above sea level). Individual policies for flood insurance, which many people must now rely on for health care coverage, would be like selling insurance for kindergarten in case of pregnancy or prosecution insurance in case you are a crime victim.

Congress is so generous in its subsidies for property that the public option for flood insurance even covers property built in flood prone areas. And you can literally buy insurance on the day of a flood in some cases, and 1 day before in others.
              
            Along the Gulf Coast, on the barrier islands on the Atlantic, in below-water expanses behind river levees and in desert communities plagued by flash floods, our federal government is there using tax dollars to help take care of damaged property.

But people? Providing a public option so people can buy health insurance through the federal government is "socialism," according to Senator John Kyl, the Republican senator from Arizona, a desert state where flash floods are as permanent a feature of reality as sickness and injury. Will someone ask Kyl why he favors what he calls socialist policies for property, but not people?

 And what about the denial of coverage you paid for, which so enraged Lott that he filed a lawsuit against his insurer, State Farm? Lott, like others, was told that their policies would cover the modest damage like broken windows and torn roofs caused by the hurricane’s winds, but not the surge of storm waters, even though the wind drove those waters into Lott’s living room.

Health insurance companies have found more than 1,400 reasons they can retroactively take away health insurance benefits from people, Congressional investigators found after digging through the fine print of insurance contracts. (You, of course, have read and understand every word in your health insurance contract, right?) A woman who had acne was denied breast cancer coverage, for example, though she later got her coverage restored.

And health insurance companies have become masters at digging up excuses to rescind policies, as shown by the recent hearings held by Representative Henry Waxman, who chairs the House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

For-profit health insurers literally reward doctors who deny costly care to people, making corporate-run death panels a lucrative enterprise. As recounted in my book FREE LUNCH,  Dr. Linda Peeno denied a heart transplant to a man she never met even though she was certain it would cause him to die. She did so in Kentucky, where she had a medical license, by stamping "denied" on a form even though the man was in California, where she was not licensed. Humana, one of the biggest for-profit health insurers, rewarded her and Dr. Peeneo got a conscience that caused her to stop that work and start working to end such abominations.

We have elevated property above human lives. That members of Congress who frequently proclaim their religious faith and cite the Bible as their guide would put property above people suggests they need to actually read the texts they claim guide them. Neither Jesus nor the Old Testament prophets ever put property first. They did however denounce those who did, labeling their deeds with a simple word: evil.

Two standards, separate and unequal, for the health of property and the health of people, are un-American. This bias in favor of property over people should be ended with all deliberate speed by raising the standard for people to that of property. A public option would be one small step in that direction. 
 

"The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expression of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking."

– Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

The G.O.P. of the 21st century bears scant resemblance to the Party of Eisenhower. It has been coopted by authoritarians like James Dobson and Tom DeLay, people who, as predicted by psychologist Erich Fromm nearly 70 years earlier, in an attempt to deny their own human flaws, have risen to power by donning the armor of religious, bullying self-righteousness and imposing their misdirected anger on others.

Certainly, the Left has been quick to point out each example of blatantly hypocritical behavior of these conservative politicians drunk on sanctimony, and religious leaders on the Right who rarely, if ever, practice what they preach. But there’s more to the story than just these acts themselves. Why have these particular actors’ personal psychopathologies of sadism and domination struck a nerve with a sizable portion of the country and had such a major impact on politics?

Picking up from where John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience and Jeff Sharlet’s The Family have left off, Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party continues the conversation by offering a psychohistorial analysis of the authoritarianism of the Religious Right and the damage it has wrought on the Republican Party as a whole. Republican Gomorrah is more than an exposé of the salacious, outrageous scandals of the "Family Values" party; it is a withering dissertation on the underlying psychological and ideological dysfunction that serves as the emotional foundation for the Mike Huckabees, Sarah Palins and Ted Haggards of this world.

What’s more, Republican Gomorrah is an implicit indictment of a compliant national media that has eagerly rolled over for these über-Christian, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, racist chest-beaters and provided them with a megaphone from which to blast their messages of hate, intolerance, and self-immolation. 

Max rose to journalistic prominence as he bravely dug through the pile of toxic rubble that is the fundamentalist Religious Right, unearthing and filming the cynicism, hypocrisy, and general psychosis that runs rampant through its ranks of politicians and religious figureheads. (Who can forget the damning and hysterical YouTube sensation he created in 2007, when he interviewed a group of utterly tone-deaf, apologist College Republican National Convention attendees?) At a time where the Religious Right still manages to control the national discourse, it is vitally important and refreshing to have someone like Max out in the field, continuing to shed new light on this rotting darkness within the Republican Party.

And on that note, it is my distinct honor to welcome Max Blumenthal to Firedoglake. 

The Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives has joined a growing chorus of Republicans calling for Gov. Mark Sanford’s resignation.

In a much anticipated letter delivered to Sanford Tuesday, Harrell formally called on the governor to resign.

"What has become clear is that Sanford’s issues will continue to dominate our state as long as he remains in office," Harrell said. "Whether he should be removed from office is a question that will need to be answered from the State Ethics Commission investigation, but our state’s future is too important to have the governor’s issues overshadow everything we do for the next fifteen months. For the good of our state, Sanford should step aside."

Sanford treated this plea the same way he’s treated all the other recent pleas for him to step down before he can be impeached: By thumbing his nose at it. He’s in the catbird seat right now, and while his presidential hopes are permanently toast, he obviously thinks he can ride out this sucker and stay on as governor — or failing that, take one or two people down with him.

One reason for this is the guy who would be Sanford’s immediate replacement. If you’re wondering why the social conservatives who dominate the SC GOP didn’t publicly favor impeaching Governor Sanford until after his lieutenant governor, André Bauer, finally promised not to run for election to the governorship, should he come to occupy it upon Sanford’s likely resignation or removal from office (Bauer had originally promised this in June, but then backed off from that pledge) — well, this might have something to do with it:

I am now able to confirm a rumor that has circulated in South Carolina for years. South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer is a closeted anti-gay politician who stands to replace Mark Sanford should Sanford resign or be impeached (a real possibility as Sanford is caught in his own sex scandal.)

Mike Rogers, the person making that statement, is the guy who outed both Larry Craig and Mark Foley. (By the way, 2008 South Carolina Democratic congressional candidate Linda Ketner said at FDL back in May that "the lieutenant governor" was gay, so it’s not as if Rogers is treading virgin territory here.)

This development obviously works in Sanford’s favor — so much so that Sanford’s enemies (which right now would probably include most of the South Carolina Republican establishment) immediately set to claiming that Rogers was working at Sanford’s behest — and even got a Politico writer to push that particular storyline, without of course calling up Rogers to see if it was true. (Rogers says it isn’t.)

Meanwhile, the hits just keep on comin’. Just the other day, it was revealed that the Feds actually pulled Sanford’s security clearance for a week in the wake of his tearful revelations about his trips to see his mistress. And if he really wants to help out his old-money old buddy Addison "Joe" Wilson, he should resist the urge to come publicly to the guy’s aid.

Oh, and guess what? Bauer’s backing off AGAIN from his promise not to run for Sanford’s seat. Will the religious-right homophobes and self-hating closet cases of the Palmetto State Republicans tolerate this, especially as they have their own favorites for that seat? Or will there soon be another conveniently-timed gay bomb lobbed Bauer’s way — yet another one that will officially be blamed on Mark Sanford?

Sit tight, folks — the fun is just beginning.

Is there a competition for "Most Blatant Politically and Racially Charged Comment" underway in the national discourse? Swear to god, the stupid is being turned up to 11.

The latest yokel terribly upset and angered by the fact that there’s a black man sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office is failed Presidential candidate and alleged man of God, Mike Huckabee. In a tirade on Fox News ostensibly about the death of journalism, Huckabee very publicly heaved himself up on the jug-bandwagon by letting slip this little beauty:

On Van Jones, Huckabee said that when the former Obama adviser was “caught with bright red lips making outrageous statements about Republicans, police officers, and it being discovered of his belonging to numerous radical groups, the media was incapable of so much as a notice of his record and only mentioned him at the time of his resignation.”

Coming on the heels of last Saturday’s "Million Moron March" and this exemplar of the typical neuron-deprived cracker’s tweets about assassinating Obama, I’d say that the Megaphones of Wingnuttia have done an excellent job of not just stirring the pot, but scraping the hardened, nasty crust off the burner, as well.

I wonder — does the antebellum, Reconstruction-denying segment of our society believe that, now that we have a "minority" President, they have license to let the race hate out for everyone else to see? Do the willfully ignorant teabaggers consider the ramifications of alienating a majority of the country . . . or can they even spell "ramifications"?

State and local tourism officials are being flooded by emails and calls from people across the country, saying they won’t vacation in South Carolina because they’re upset by GOP Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst at President Barack Obama.

Maybe, at some point, the media will actually pick up (and hold on to) the real story that this uptick in race-baiting isn’t about health care or taxes. It’s about the Other wielding the power. The lunatic fringe that is the Right these days has convinced itself that regardless of whether or not they are personally affected, someone with more melanin (and greater intellect) than themselves is making the big decisions. And they just can’t accept that.

An now, an administrative note: starting this week, Wednesday late night will be the new Thersday. I’ll be taking over Thers’ spot on Thursday nights. I hope this doesn’t traumatize too many of you. I know how hard change can be.

A Texas school which refused to air President Barack Obama’s live classroom address is planning to bus students to see the president.

Did school officials reverse course after realizing Obama’s speech wasn’t political, as conservatives had claimed?

Nope. They’re sending fifth graders to see another president: former President George W. Bush, and his wife, Laura. Bush is speaking alongside several Dallas Cowboys players and prominent Texas business leaders.

The people who pushed to censor President Obama’s speech, and who habitually call him a Communist or Socialist (and who call the public option "communism") are not only the same ones who approve of Bush and Reagan speaking to our kids, they (or their parents) were running around in the 1960s calling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a Commie, and holding up signs at anti-civil-rights protests that read "RACE MIXING IS COMMUNISM".

Oh, you say, that was forty-plus years ago! Surely nobody exists today who believes that?!

Why, yes they do, and as Lean Left points out, they write for "respectable" conservative magazines like the National Review, and emit (as Lisa Schiffren did back in 2008) things like this concerning President Obama’s white mother and black father:

… Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise about how Senator Obama’s mother, from Kansas, came to marry an African graduate student. Love? Sure, why not? But what else was going on around them that made it feasible? Before readers level cheap accusations of racism — let’s recall that the very question of interracial marriage only became a big issue later in the 1960s. The notion of a large group of mixed race Americans became an issue during and after the Vietnam War. Even the civil-rights movement kept this culturally explosive matter at arm’s distance.

It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution.

Bear this in mind whenever you see somebody like Glenn Beck — the man who was the front operator for the oil-lobbyist-funded campaign to snuff African-American environmentalist Van Jones — spouting off about Obama and Communism. Or when you see somebody like Michael Barone try to pretend that birthers – people who refuse to admit that Obama is a US citizen and thus eligible to be president – are a harmless minority in the Republican Party, when in fact they are a majority of Republicans, including elected ones.

Allen Weh is running for the Republican nomination for governor of New Mexico. You’ll remember Weh from the U.S. attorneys scandal, in which, as chair of the state GOP, he played a key role in pressing the Bush administration, successfully, to fire David Iglesias.

(…)

[T]he Wall Street Journal reported (sub req.):

Mr. Weh, who is currently running for governor of New Mexico, on Tuesday portrayed his role in the firing as demonstrating his willingness to take on officials of his own party. ‘I have been equally critical of leaders in both political parties, those who have either betrayed the public trust or failed to do their job,’ he said.

Then the other day, Weh doubled down on that line in an interview with a New Mexico radio station, saying:

Think about this. I was taking on my own party. This is an appointee of the president of the United States. There would have been a lot of people who would have said, ‘Well, I’m not going to say anything about that guy.’

Yes, that’s right: Allen Weh is packaging himself as a mavericky do-the-right-thing-and-party-be-damned outsider… for pushing the Bush administration to fire a US Attorney who chose law over loyalty.  How could anyone not want a person of such obvious integrity and courage running their state?

Perhaps we can next look forward to, say, NY-GOV candidate-in-waiting Rudy Giuliani bragging that he "took on" the Bush White House by demanding more and harsher torture, or PA-SEN candidate Pat Toomey bragging that he "took on" the Bush White House by demanding weaker financial regulations.

It’s not surprising to see Republicans distancing themselves from Dubya, but I didn’t expect any of them to say he was too honest and they had to push him to do the wrong thing.  Has the GOP gone so far ’round the bend that this is now a winning primary strategy?  Wait, did I really just ask that?

“Fuck you, I got mine.”

No one can ever accuse the Grand Old Party and its media affiliates of loving too much. The disintegrating debate on health care reform continues to highlight the party’s soullessness. Last week, it was (Dr.) Tom Coburn dismissing a weeping constituent who couldn’t afford to care for her brain-injured husband.  This week, it got "better":

Yesterday, an uninsured waitress who has to rely on the emergency room for her children’s medical care, asked boxing historian and Republican harpy, Lynn Jenkins (who already enjoys taxpayer-funded health coverage), why she shouldn’t have an affordable government option, as well. Sure, it seemed like a reasonable question, but when has that ever stopped a Republican from being an obnoxious dick? Buoyed by the hisses, catcalls and boos from the audience, Jenkins instead sneered that the woman should just suck it up and "buy" health insurance with some undefined tax credit, instead of expecting other people to "buy" it for her.  

And in a jaw-dropping exchange, Maria Bartiromo, the CNBC Tube Boob who can certainly afford gold-plated health coverage in the United States, confronted New York Rep. Anthony Weiner about that rotten socialist insurance program also known as "Medicare."

REP. WEINER: No. No. The United States of America, 40 percent of all tax dollars go through a public plan. Ask your parent or grandparent, ask your neighbor whether they’re satisfied with Medicare. Now, there’s a funding problem, but the quality of care is terrific. You get complete choice and go anywhere you want. Don’t look at –

MS. BARTIROMO: How come you don’t use it? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?

REP. WEINER: Because I’m not 65. I would love it. 

Way to use that N.Y.U. degree, Maria. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about Social Security.

It was a close call, but the people who heckled the wheelchair-bound woman in New Jersey last week lost out the Grand Prize to M.C. Steele, who mistook his appearance yesterday at Howard University for an audition to play Cruella DeVille:

When the RNC chair took a written question on health care, he blasted the public option, saying that "every time the government gets involved in something it doesn’t work."

 Then came Amanda Duzak, and Steele’s evening just got a whole lot worse.

Duzak, a 23 year old Towson University grad, stood up, against the rules and out of turn.

"My mother died of cancer 6 months ago because she could only afford three of her six prescription chemotherapy medications," she projected. "There are 50 million people in this country who could end up like my mom, suffering or dying because they do not have adequate health care. Everyone in this room and everyone in this country should have access to good health care."

The room woke up and other than those glaring from the front, the applause was wall to wall. But it’s Steele’s response that makes this moment both newsworthy and a terrible comment on his character. After saying that he believed in a mature, honest discussion and not in shouting, Steele said, "People are coming to these town meetings and they’re like [he then shakes]." He then looked and gestured right at Ms. Duzak and said, "It makes for great TV. You’ll probably make it tonight, enjoy it." He then turned his back to her, as the crowd clapped. 

That’s right – the Man o’ Steele turned his back on a woman whose mother had died because she couldn’t afford health insurance. That is the Republican ethos in a nutshell. Bootstrap your way into better coverage or die trying. Ayn Rand would be so very, very proud.

(It was an especially nice touch that a cadre of Young White Republicans for hire filed in to the "Historically Black Universities" student dialogue at the last minute and occupied the first two "reserved" rows of seats in order to provide Steele a wall between himself and the "rabble" of black students. Way to represent, Mr. "I Once Drove Through the Bronx, So I’ve Got Street Cred With the Homies" Steele. You do Rosa Parks proud.)

I already know the answer to this question, but I have to ask it anyway: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!  

Seriously.