Tales from the States as they try to outdo one another toward retrogression.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would “automatically” punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
I have no words …
Roll Call (via brooklynmutt)
What an asshole.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
Fuck him.
(via waronidiocy)
Vote, and vote Ed Markey!
We don’t need another Republican thug in the United States Senate.
In case ANYONE in Massachusetts mistakes Gabriel Gomez for a decent human being.
I wonder if Lamar Smith knows that the peer review process is, oh, EVERYTHING to science.
Either he doesn’t, or he actually does and is actively trying to undermine the U.S.’ body of scientific knowledge.
Republicans are on a fucking roll.
MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. — Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday cleared another hurdle in his bid for political redemption, defeating a former Charleston County council member to win the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat he held for three terms.
“It’s been a very long journey. And in that journey I am humbled to find ourselves where we find ourselves tonight,” said Sanford, whose political career was derailed four years ago when, as sitting governor, he disappeared from the state only to return to acknowledge an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman.
That woman, María Belén Chapur, and Sanford are now engaged. She appeared at Sanford’s side during his victory speech, smiling and applauding the former governor, who thanked her for being long-suffering while he was campaigning. She did not address the crowd.
With all of the precincts reporting Sanford had about 57 percent of the vote in the 1st District to 43 percent for Curtis Bostic, the former county council member. The candidates were vying in the GOP runoff after they finished as the top two vote-getters in a 16-way GOP primary last month.
Sanford will face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, and Green Party candidate Eugene Platt in a May special election.
Colbert Busch released a statement late Tuesday saying “I look forward to a vigorous campaign that focuses on creating jobs, balancing our country’s budget and choosing an independent-minded leader who shares the values of the great people of South Carolina.”
Sanford, a former three-term congressman and two-term governor, said earlier Tuesday that the runoff would give a good indication whether voters have moved past his personal indiscretions.
“I’m both humbled and grateful for the response of the voters here tonight,” he said later.
Sanford was a rising Republican political star before he vanished from South Carolina for five days in 2009. Reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but the then-married governor later tearfully acknowledged he was visiting María Belén Chapur, which he told everyone at a news conference announcing his affair. He later called her his soul mate and the two were engaged earlier last year.
The opening for Sanford came after U.S. Rep. Tim Scott was appointed to fill the remaining two years of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint’s seat. DeMint resigned to head The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Mark Sanford knows the 1st District well. Elected to the seat in 1994 — Jenny Sanford managed his first campaign and was a close adviser for most of his career — he served three terms before voters elected him governor in 2002.
h/t: Washington Post
The irony of the “family values party” picking a confirmed adulterer and liar to run for Congress.
Needless to say, go Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
That’s actual member of Congress Louie Gohmert explaining his opposition to a ban on high-capacity magazines.
As a wise man once said: Ask not what you can do country, ask why not somebody has a love for an animal.
(via motherjones)
Look. It had to be said—and Gohmert is the straight shooting kind of guy to say it. There is no principled difference between banning high capacity magazines and schtupping a donkey.
(via squashed)
Republicans are quite obsessed with bestiality lately.
(via silas216)
“He has for sure got some pretty significant images.” That’s what Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson said of Lane Rees, 61, a GOP higher-up now charged with possession and transmission of child pornography.
Rees is a party committeeman, though the Republican Party of Florida appears to have purged him from its directory of leaders (an archived listing from last August listing Rees is here.) He also helped oversee the GOP’s state budget in 2011, and was appointed to serve on several policy panels by then-Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican speaker of the Florida House. (A sparse user of Facebook, Rees excitedly updated his personal page in January 2011: “At Florida Inauguration for Governor Rick Scott, LT. Governor Jennifer Carroll and other members of the Cabinet — awesome time.”)
Rees until recently served as chairman of the board for the Foundation for Evangelism, which is associated with the United Methodist Church. (He continues to serve on the board.)
Just last month, Rees reportedly helped train other lay ministers at a retreat in Alabama. His lesson was titled “Living our Beliefs: The United Methodist Way.”
(h/t NW Florida Daily News)
Florida.
(via silas216)
