A Camera-shy Politician?

From HUFFPOST:

WASHINGTON ― Rep. Greg Gianforte, the Montana Republican who pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter the day before his election, does not want to be treated like a common criminal ― for more than a month, he has been quietly fighting a court order requiring him to get fingerprinted and photographed at a local jail.

The lawmaker was charged with misdemeanor assault for “body-slamming” The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs after the reporter asked a routine policy question. Gianforte was not arrested for the May 24 assault ― law enforcement officials cited him for it a few hours later. Montanans the next day elected the wealthy tech entrepreneur to the House seat Republican Ryan Zinke had vacated to become President Donald Trump’s Interior Department secretary.

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That’s Gonna Leave a Mark

From THINK PROGRESS:

Yesterday, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) said much of the legislation his state’s Republican lawmakers are pushing is “in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana.” So, as promised, Schweitzer took his red-hot “VETO” branding iron to a stack of GOP bills that range from legislation to weaken Montana’s “clean and green” energy standards — a highly beneficial tax incentive that encourages clean energy projects — to a bill that would eliminate same day voter registration.

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Pat Robertson Said That? He Must Be High!

From The Washington Post:

Television evangelist Pat Robertson has made inflammatory remarks in recent years that offend gays, Muslims and others, but a recent comment he made on his Christian Broadcasting Network was more notable for whom it pleased: people who want to see marijuana legalized.

“We’re locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana, and the next thing you know they’ve got 10 years,” the controversial pastor said on “The 700 Club” on Dec. 16, in a clip unearthed by bloggers this week. “I’m not exactly for the use of drugs – don’t get me wrong – but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot and that kind of thing, I mean, it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people.”

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The Hammer Comes Down on the Hammer

From Technorati:

“It’ll never stand up on appeal,” a defiant but obviously shaken Tom DeLay told reporters moments after his recent conviction for money laundering and conspiracy. […] DeLay’s crime ripped a hole in Texas democracy. It’s serious. His conviction carries a penalty of up to life in prison, though no one really expects him to do hard time. As a politician, however, he’s deader than a truck-squashed armadillo.

DeLay spent his early life as an exterminator. He entered local politics in 1978, eventually rising to become Republican House Majority Leader and earning the nickname, “The Hammer.” In 2005 he resigned in disgrace after close ties to another politics felon, Jack Abramoff, and after this set of charges was filed. He has pompously proclaimed his innocence ever since, while quietly using trick after trick in a cowardly attempt to put off the trial.

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Batshit Bachmann Has a Farm, E-I-E-I-Uh-Oh!

From Yasha Levine at truthdig:

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

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The Gang’s All Here

From Robert Reich at the Wall Street Pit (August 21, 2009):

Last night, the so-called “gang of six” — three Republican and three Democratic senators on the Senate Finance Committee — met by conference call and, according to Senator Max Baucus, the committee’s chair, reaffirmed their commitment “toward a bipartisan health-care reform bill” (read: less coverage and no public insurance option). The Washington Post reports that the senators shared tales from their home states, where some have been besieged by protesters angry about a potential government takeover of the nation’s health care system.

It’s come down to these six senators. The House has reported a bill as has another Senate committee, but all eyes are fixed on Senate Finance — and on these three Dems and three Republicans, in particular. But who, exactly, anointed these six to decide the fate of the nation’s health care?

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