Fascinating tangent from TPM Reader LB on the Whinyassistan thread …
This is kind of tangential to the rural-urban divide, but in Ohio the township-urban divide has been the hallmark of the Boehner-Kasich-Romney GOP as opposed to the Dole-Taft-Bush GOP.
I mentioned a few moments ago the rather comical case of the murder defendant in Florida who is citing Stand Your Ground and the “Bush Doctrine” to have the charges against him thrown out. But what’s even more amazing, frankly, are the facts of the case.
A few hours before the shooting some neighbors holding a Labor Day barbecue had threatened to “get him.” So William T. Woodward “snuck up” on the family barbecue a bit after midnight and opened fire, killing two of the threateners and seriously injuring the other, who survived despite being shot eleven times. In other words, what we normally call cold blooded murder.
As Woodward’s lawyer explained, “I think legally that term has sort of been evolving especially given changes of our government’s definition of ‘imminent. It’s become more expansive than someone putting a gun right to your head. It’s things that could become, you know, an immediate threat.”
Remember a couple weeks ago when a GOP legislator from Colorado got in a bit of trouble for going off at a public hearing on poverty on the role of fried chicken in keeping blacks poor. Well, now a fellow Rep. brought a box of Popeye’s Fried Chicken to the Capitol as a silent protest against the rising tide of intolerance over saying crazy stuff about black people.
I guess the Zimmerman precedent isn’t enough down in Florida. A Florida man is citing both the state’s Stand Your Ground law and the so-called “Bush Doctrine” to justify shooting and killing two neighbors at a Labor Day Barbecue.
When you see the GOP pulling out all the stops to sabotage and undermine the roll-out of Obamacare, you realize that this is what they’re scared of.
With your help, we’re keeping close tabs on where senators and representatives stand on the Syria use of force vote. Keep sending in what you’re seeing in your area (the “Send Comments & News Tips” link is at the top right of this page). It’s a big help.
Here are the running tallies in the Senate and House: Read More
Since I proposed the first non-contiguous, virtual state, conglomerating together all the counties and groups of counties in the country that want to leave their states because, in most cases, their states are trending Democratic, I’ve gotten a slew of responses. They’ve ranged from complaints of urban bias, to fellow-guffawing and many things in between. But the most interesting have been those on the roots of the secession movement in northern California. (Many people mean the Bay Area by ‘northern California’. But here I mean, real northern California, as in, the part in the North of the state.) Read More
In case you missed it yesterday: Eric Holder has informed Congress that the Obama administration will not enforce a law that limits veterans benefits to spouses of the opposite sex.
Meet the 75-year-old, hetero-married county clerk who unilaterally started the same-sex marriage revolution in New Mexico.
Stewart returns: “You know what, senator? Go. There’s a rascal scooter and a bucket of quarters with your name on it over at the “Golden Nugget.” You can play all the video poker you want, 99 cent prime rib. Instead of playing pretend poker in the actual Senate, go to an actual casino and pretend you know what the government should do.”