Democratic challenger to Iowa Congressman Steve King drops out in the face of death threats.

Courtesy of The Des Moines Register:  

Kim Weaver is ending her campaign for Iowa's 4th Congressional District. 

In a Facebook post Saturday, Weaver, a Democrat, cited threats to her safety, financial security and her mother's ongoing health problems as reasons for her withdrawal. 

"Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats," Weaver said in the Facebook post. "While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern." 

In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Saturday, Weaver added to that rationale, alleging that the state of Iowa's Office of Long-Term Care Ombudsman, where she is an employee, saw its budget cut this year as "punishment" for her political candidacy. 


The office received a $164,000 cut this year — a 12 percent reduction from the previous year. 

"I'm feeling guilty that we lost this funding because I'm running for office," Weaver said, adding that she was prepared to take a "voluntary layoff" if the cut requires a staff reduction.

Death threats and dirty political tactics, just a further reminder that the Republicans will do ANYTHING to stay in power.

Weaver was challenging staunch conservative, and strident climate change denier, Steve King whose ardent support for Donald Trump may have put his reelection in jeopardy.

Perhaps that is why they took no chances, and worked to remove the threat early on before his Democratic challenger could attract significant support to take away his seat.

The ends justify the means, and for the Republicans the meaner the means, the better.

No Democrats you CANNOT text your vote for Hillary despite fake ads which tell you that you can.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

First things first: There is no such thing as voting by text message. Period. If you want to cast a ballot, you can vote at your polling station or vote absentee. That’s it. 

But ads circulated on Twitter recently would have you believe otherwise. 

Lifting imagery directly from Hillary Clinton’s campaign materials, the ads encourage supporters of the Democratic nominee to “vote early” and “vote from home” by texting their candidate’s name to a five-digit number. 

“Save time. Avoid the line,” one reads. 

“Vote early. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” says another. 

At least four such ads began making rounds on social media this week, each containing the Clinton campaign’s “H” logo and a line saying they were “paid for by Hillary for President.” 

And just when your thought you had already seen the Republicans go as low as they can go.

I don't really think there is a bottom to that.

Well that's mature.

Courtesy of the Cincinnati Enquirer:  

A load of manure was dumped outside the Democratic Party headquarters in Warren County. 

"What reasonable person thinks this is OK????" party chair Bethe Goldenfield said in a post in the Greater Cincinnati Politics Facebook Group. "I won't be responding to anyone who thinks this is acceptable behavior. It is ILLEGAL!" 

The same thing happened in 2012, Goldenfield noted. The suburban Cincinnati county is overwhelmingly Republican; Mitt Romney got 69 percent of the vote four years ago. It's been almost 40 years since a Democrat was elected to countywide office. 

Goldenfield told The Enquirer the Warren County Sheriff's Office called her around 7:45 a.m. Saturday alerting her to the manure pile outside the Lebanon building. Deputies met party officials later to review video. 

"Hopefully the perps will be held accountable for their actions," she said.

It should be noted that the Warren County Republican party says they had nothing to do with this and have offered to help clean it up.

However the fact that this also happened in 2012 is just a reminder that the "basket of deplorables" actually predates the Donald Trump campaign.

I guess if I have a Christmas wish it would be that we pull politics out of the gutter and elevate the level of discourse to at least that of a preschooler.

This has been by far the most embarrassing campaign cycle in recent memory, and perhaps the most embarrassing campaign cycle in American history.

Ted Cruz fires spokesman for distributing video that falsely depicted Marco Rubio criticizing the Bible. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Ted Cruz asked his national spokesman Rick Tyler to resign Monday, after he distributed a video that falsely depicted Marco Rubio dismissing the Bible. 

Cruz says he spent the morning investigating what happened before making his decision. 

"I have made clear in this campaign we will conduct this campaign with the very highest standards and integrity," Cruz said, adding that Tyler is a "good man."

"The highest standards and integrity?"

The Ted Cruz campaign?

I'm sorry but I thought having no moral rudder was a prerequisite for working with Ted Cruz.

The story mentioned by Tyler was about a video that shows Rubio walking into a hotel lobby past Cruz's father Rafael and a staffer reading the Bible, and subtitles in the video misquote Rubio as saying, "Got a good book there, not many answers in it." 

I think the ONLY reason that Cruz fired this guy, is because they were caught red handed falsifying the transcript, and he had to make a show of firing SOMEBODY to cover their tracks.

This video has correct transcript; any other is another dirty trick by Cruz camp. How do I know? I'm in the video!! https://t.co/llZGimU5Jp

— Alex Conant (@AlexConant) February 21, 2016

I have every confidence in the world that once this blows over Cruz will go right back to his same dirty tricks. 

In Montana, some of the Democratic candidates on the primary ballot are really Right Wing extremist wolves in sheep's clothing.

Muppet hater Michael Comstock

Courtesy of Southern Poverty Law Center:  

Democratic primary voters in some Montana legislative districts will see new and unfamiliar names on the ballot this year. That’s because at least eight Democratic candidates are actually far-right “constitutionalists” and Tea Party activists. One of them is the current Republican vice-chairman for Sanders County. Two of the others have turned out to be homeless. 

Most of the activity has occurred in Gallatin County, where Bozeman is the main population center and county seat. The county is home not only to Montana State University but also a variety of extremist elements. Key members of the radical Montana Freemen group were active there in the 1990s. 

Chief among the new crop of candidates is Michael Comstock, a well-known local Tea Party activist and antigovernment “Patriot” movement organizer who has run previously as a Republican. This year, he filed to run in the Democratic primary for the state Senate seat in District 24, a seat currently held by Republican incumbent Roger Webb, who is running for re-election. 

Comstock claimed during an interview with KCFW-TV in Bozeman that he’s a mainstream Democrat in the tradition of John F. Kennedy and Montana icon Mike Mansfield, and more mainstream than his primary opponent, Democratic activist and educator April Buonamici. But as the blogger Montana Cowgirl observed in her posts calling out Comstock and the other candidates, no one in Bozeman who knows Comstock is fooled by this, since he has been a colorful figure on the local political scene for many years: 

Comstock’s main focus is his concern about a possible takeover by ‘a one-world UN controlled government,’ the Bozeman Chronicle has reported. In his campaign literature and on Facebook, he says he is worried about the impending collapse of civilization. He proudly calls himself ‘a Tea Party extremist’ and believes the Muppets have ‘sold out to socialism and bad behavior.’

Yes, well everybody knows that the Muppets are tools of the radical Left Wing. Right?

So here's a question.

If the Democrats are in such trouble in 2014, and the Republicans have such clear sailing ahead, WHY are they resorting to all of these dirty tricks in order to sabotage the Democratic primary, and suppress turnout?

No, everything indicates that they are the ones that are worried, and that we are the ones who need to recognize that we are the ones in the catbird's seat. 

Of course if we don't have that confidence we could still shoot ourselves in the foot.

Palin adviser, and SarahPAC treasurer, used "dark money" group to fund attack ads against Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Color me unsurprised.

Courtesy of The Nation:

Last year, a “mysterious non-profit” called the Government Integrity Fund appeared in the midst of the campaign season and began airing campaign commercials in support of Republican Josh Mandel’s bid to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). 

Although the Government Integrity Fund does not disclose its donors, a recently released tax form shows that a group run by Tim Crawford—a Republican known for his work as a close adviser to Sarah Palin, who also serves a a spokesman and treasurer of SarahPAC, Palin’s official campaign committee—provided $627,000 to the pro-Mandel mystery fund. 

Crawford used an entity called “New Models,” itself another undisclosed political fund that raised over $4.4 million last year, and dispensed that money to Republican polling operations, Super PACs and undisclosed attack-ad organizations like the Government Integrity Fund. Crawford is the only board member of New Models, which he used to provide himself with a $265,000 salary. Where did Crawford find the cash for these undisclosed political endeavors? Crawford did not respond to a request for comment, but a tax form from the Business Roundtable, a trade association for large corporations, shows that the group gave Crawford’s New Models $600,000 the previous year. 

The Business Roundtable represents companies including J.P. Morgan Chase, GE, Wal-Mart, Honeywell, MasterCard Worldwide, AT&T, ExxonMobil and General Electric. 

This isn’t the first time Crawford has been connected to a mysterious campaign effort. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, New Models was “behind controversial automated calls to Pennsylvania voters made during the 2008 presidential election. The calls told voters that Barack Obama’s aunt was living in America illegally and that he accepted campaign contributions from his ‘illegal alien aunt.’” 

So Palin's crappy treasurer has a side job does he?

Can't say I'm surprised that it involves shady monetary dealings and underhanded political attacks. After all what would you expect from somebody associated with Sarah Palin?  

According to SarahPAC's recent financial report Crawford was paid $138,000. Since that was for half of the year it is safe to assume that Timmy rakes in a cool $276,000 annually from the paint chip eaters who still throw their hard earned money at Granny Grifter.

The fact that he also pays himself a $265.000 dollar salary from this other group means that he is getting over half a million dollars a year.

And they say crime doesn't pay!

So it seems safe to assume that, like Palin, this "New Models" group is undoubtedly funded by the Heritage Foundation and Koch brothers.

As Alice would say "Curiouser and curiouser."

Anti-Obama video mailed to 1.5 million voters across the country. Gee I wonder who is paying for THAT?

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:

An anti-Obama movie claiming — without evidence — that President Barack Obama's real father is an obscure African-American communist has been mailed to 1.5 million voters across the country, its creator told BuzzFeed Friday. 

A reader in Ohio emailed this photo of his free copy of the film Dreams From My Real Father, which claims that the Chicago activist Frank Marshall Davis is actually President Obama's father. He received it in the mail this week. 

The film's director and producer, Joel Gilbert, said that the film was sent out to more one million voters in Ohio; 200,000 after a mid-summer conference, and a million after that. He said that 50,000 copies had been sent to voters in Nevada and 100,000 to voters in New Hampshire. 

"We're sending out bulk mailings to many states," Gilbert said. "Probably Illinois, New York, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, we'll hit every state if we can to stimulate and force the national media to cover the story." 

Gilbert declined to say how much his company, Highway 61 Entertainment, is spending to distribute the film for free, but said that the film was making a profit through online orders. He also wouldn't say how the company is funded and how they come up with the money to distribute so many free disks. 

"We’re a private media company, a journalistic company that’s privately held and we don’t disclose the nature or makeup of our finances," he said. 

He said "We’ve made 12 successful films and we are also making current revenue on the current film" and compared the company to Citizens United, but said that it wasn't a political group and didn't have donors.

Not "a political group," and don't have any "donors?"  What a crock of shit that is!

Just when you think you have seen the Republicans go as low as humanly possible, they dig themselves down even further.

This is a particularly disgusting attempt to smear our President, and it is quite literally something that this Joel Gilbert douchebag pulled directly out of his ass. Until this "movie" I had never heard even the MOST anti-Obama assholes claiming that he was fathered by somebody other than Barack Obama Sr. (But hey, according to this I guess we can stop suspecting that he is not a US citizen now at least, right?)

As for not being political, the other films made by this guy's company, Highway 61 Entertainment, are called  "Atomic Jihad" and "Farewell Israel." Gee I wonder which side HIS political affiliations lie?

I guess we should be, in some way, pleased that these scumbags are in such a panic that they are now throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the President. Clearly they smell the putrid aroma of defeat in he air, and are essentially losing their collective minds. (Some even going so far as to suggest there might be a civil war in response to his reelection in the hopes that it will scare people away from the polls.)

And who can blame them. The most recent polls by the Washington Post show the President with a growing lead over Mitt the twit in Ohio, as well as some other key states:

In the presidential race, Obama is ahead of Romney in Ohio by 52 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. In Florida, the president leads 51 percent to 47 percent, a numerical edge but not a statistically significant one. Among all registered Florida voters, Obama is ahead by nine percentage points.

And perhaps even more upsetting to the Republicans (Who really don't trust polls unless THEY are winning anyhow), is that early voting has already started in a few places, with many more states soon to join them.

This means that the election, for all  intents and purposes, has started, and right when Mitt Romney's foot is still firmly wedged in his mouth and his head is neck deep up his own ass. (Go ahead, just TRY to visualize that!)

I actually heard a conservative on the TV saying that the problem with early voting is that it is taking place BEFORE the debates, and they are now convinced that Mittens is going to wipe the floor with Obama.

Oh man, are THEY about to have jarring reality check!

Anyhow we all need to remember that the GOP dirty tricks are still coming hard and fast and the BEST thing we can all do is to get out and vote just as soon as possible. Alaska early voting starts on October 22nd, and you can bet your house that I will be standing outside the polling place with my ID in hand, well before they even unlock the doors.