This past Sunday, the last American veteran of World War I, Frank Buckles, passed away at the age of 110.  There are now only 2 surviving veterans of the Great War, both British, both also 110 years old.  His family, along with many members of Congress, have requested that his body be given the rare honor of lying in the Capitol Rotunda.  There's no doubt in my mind that he, and his family deserves this.  Right now, this will not happen.  Why?  Because pathetic excuse for a human being and Speaker of the House John Boehner has denied it.  He's yet to give a reason.  Maybe you should call his office at (202) 225-6205 and ask him why.

On a less serious note that I find to be just as illuminating, a little story.  After the 2006 midterm elections, the new Democratic leadership implemented a "Green the Capitol" program in order to cutdown on energy uses.  This included both a composting program and the removal of styrofoam from the cafeteria.  This program reduced energy and water use by 23 and 32 percent.  So what did the new GOP leadership do?  Yeah.  Republicans: Doing anything to be contrary to Democrats.  Christ, this country depresses me sometimes.

I could ramble about this, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

South Dakota wants in on the crazy, and boy do they not disappoint!

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

“The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers,” says Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion providers. Since 1993, eight doctors have been assassinated at the hands of anti-abortion extremists, and another 17 have been the victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes have tried to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials. “This is not an abstract bill,” Saporta says. The measure could have major implications if a “misguided extremist invokes this ‘self-defense’ statute to justify the murder of a doctor, nurse or volunteer,” the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families warned in a message to supporters last week.

I'll repeat what I've said before:

We need to say "No, you have nothing constructive to say and your rhetoric brings nothing but death. The grown-ups are talking now." Until we do, the instigators of anti-choice terrorism will continue to get media attention and will continue to instigate murders.

I won't hold my breath...

Seriously, Missouri, your Republicans are insane.  Stop electing them.

Longer post on actual policy outcomes later.  For realz!

So a few months back I noted that the Missouri Tea Party was opposing regulation of puppy mills, which exist basically to breed dogs in the most "cost effective" way (that is, as many as possible without properly feeding or caring for them).  Well I have a follow up for you, cause guess who took over the Missouri House!

Last November the voters in Missouri approved the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act by over 60,000 votes. So, naturally the wingnuts in charge of the Missouri House and Senate have put overturning the law as a top priority for their 2011 Legislative agenda. Three bills to help protect puppy kickers from oversight and anti-cruelty measures have already been introduced in the Missouri House. The Missouri Senate and House have already held hearings and the “Beat a Puppy Act” is on its way to becoming law. As for the voters, the message from their TeaBagger representatives is clear: piss off and shut up. One can imagine many other Republican Confederate controlled State Houses following the lead of their comrades in Jefferson City.

You can follow the amazing venality of these folks in the local papers as they write about Republicans and puppy mill operators arguing that they could not function if their ability to be cruel was restricted and that voters in Missouri were very, very wrong and mean-spirited to demand oversight and regulation of dog breeding factories.

It is yet another story of why these people are assholes.

Indeed it is!  Hey, at least they're not in favor of shooting them or cutting off their heads.  Oh wait...

I see that Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) has managed to disappoint even my rock-bottom expectations of the GOP:

Marine Sgt. Michael Ferschke, was killed two years ago in Iraq. Two months before his death, he married Hotaru 'Hota' Ferschke, a young Japanese woman he had met the year before while stationed on Okinawa.

The two wed by proxy, which allows a marriage to occur between two people who are not in the same location. Sgt. Ferschke was in Iraq, his bride in Japan. They never saw each other again.

Their son, Mikey, was born after his father's death. The couple had agreed to raise Mikey, now 22 months old, in Tennessee, yet Hota Ferschke cannot move to the United States because proxy marriages aren't recognized under a half-century-old immigration law.

The 1952 law says marriage between an American and a foreign national must be consummated after the wedding before the non-American can gain permanent residency status. The statute was enacted to prevent Asians in the post-World War II and Korean War years from gaining residency status in the U.S. through sham marriages.

After more than a year's delay, the U.S. House voted last Monday to close the immigration law loophole so that Hota Ferschke can move permanently to the U.S. with her son.

The bill would insert language into the immigration law that would keep the proxy provision from applying in cases when failure to consummate the marriage was caused by 'physical separation' of the couple because one of them was on active duty in the armed forces.

The legislation is now before the Senate, and supporters had hoped to move it quickly through that chamber as well.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, already has given his approval to fast-track the bill, Renison said. But those hopes dimmed after Sessions, the committee's top Republican, raised concerns about amending the immigration law, Renison said.

'This isn't a controversial bill,' Renison said. 'For them to make it into a controversial bill, I just think there are other motives at play here.''

A staff aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee said the problem is that some lawmakers on the committee have raised concerns the bill is too broad and would apply not only to those in the same situation as Hota Ferschke, but to any service member's proxy marriage, even when residency and citizenship are available through existing law.

But U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., the Knoxville Republican who sponsored the bill in the House, argues the bill is already narrow in scope.

*golfclap* Well done, Senator.  Even your GOP colleagues think you're being an asshole.  It probably has something to do with your well-documented racism, but it's impolite to mention that in the media...

No, I'm not exaggerating, this is exactly what fascism looks like.

As the candidates arrived, a group of Paul supporters pulled a female MoveOn member to the ground and held her there as another Paul supporter stomped on the back of her head and neck.

According to the Louisville Courier Journal, "Lauren Valle of MoveOn.org approached Paul and tried to give him an "employee of the month award" from Republicorp...a fake business MoveOn created to symbolize what it says is the merger of the GOP and business interests controlling political speech."

I really fear for this country.

I'm not making this up.  What the fuck.  Just... what the fuck?!?  I seriously have nothing coherent to add to this.

Up next: Age of the earth, views differ!!

Via DailyKos, I see that conservative and libertarian principles are hard at work in rural Tennessee:

As the Cranicks fled their home, their neighbors alerted the county’s firefighters, who soon arrived at the scene. Yet when the firefighters arrived, they refused to put out the fire, saying that the family failed to pay the annual subscription fee to the fire department. Because the county’s fire services for rural residences is based on household subscription fees, the firefighters, fully equipped to help the Cranicks, stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground.

Even better: when the fire spread to a neighbor's yard, the firefighters immediately put it out.  Then continued to stand by and watch the Cranicks' house burn.

Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't.

We asked him why.

He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn.

The Cranicks, it should be noted, offered to pay on the spot.  See, this is why we have taxes and public services.  So this kind of thing doesn't happen.

Holy crap, I'm posting.  It's one of my resolution things.  Post more.  Yup.  So expect more of my incoherent ranting!  Hooray!

So last year the Supreme Court ruled that having limits and disclosures of corporate spending in elections was an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.  Because if there's one thing our system really needed, it was more corporate money.  Anyway, the effects have been predictable: during this election cycle, $80 million have been spent by outside groups (that is, none of the official Dem/Rep committees or their candidates) so far.  At this point in our last midterm election cycle, 2006, outside groups had spent $16 million.  Back then, 90% of that amount was disclosed.  This year, less than half is.  Oh, and guess who's benefitting the most from that largesse? [h/t Balloon Juice]

Hint: Which party sucks the most corporate dick?

Seriously, I can't believe America is considering giving the Republicans back Congress.  The idiot Conservadems (and self-proclaimed "moderates" in both parties) are mostly to blame for this, though the White House shares some of the blame for underestimating the severity of the economic crisis.  We needed a larger, more-sustained response.  Of course, the Republican plan is to cut government spending (fucking brilliant guys, way to go), extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and cut corporate taxes.  Because hey, it's not like wealth inequality is at an 80 year high!  Oh wait.