Liberal Viewer: FAUX News trumps up bugging charge against Mother Jones.

Stephen: Oopsie Daisy Homophobe:

Thom: GOP pats Exxon on the back for Arkansas oil spill.

Young Turks: Student v. abstinence only education.

DCCC: “He lied to us”.

Katie Compa: White liberal parents.

Ann Telnaes: The Perpetual War on Terror.

Young Turks: OK Rep, “Don’t Jew me down”.

Bill Maher: War and Peace.

Torture in OUR NAMES:

• Thom and Pap: Does torture nullify American exceptionalism?
• Sam Seder: Non-partisan report says U.S. tortured.
• Pap and Sam Seder: The MSM was complicit.

Chris Hayes: Last safety inspection of West plant was in 1985.

ONN: Week in Review.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Bill Maher with New Rules (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX-1) thinks Muslim terrorists are pretending to be Hispanic.

Bombing in Boston:

• Mark Fiore: Boston Marathon
• Jon thanks Boston.
• Obama speaks on Boston:
• Sam Seder: CNN’s uberbotch
• The three minute version of CNN’s U-Turn on bombing arrests
• Maddow: Identifying suspects
• Young Turks: NY Post takes the trophy from CNN…for wrong.
• Sam Seder: The NY Post falsely accuses teens of being bombers.
• Maddow: Murdoch’s NY Post media failure.
• Chris Hayes: Internet vigilantism
• Stephen: Premature arrest report
• Jon: Exclusive…but completely fucking wrong!
• Sam Seder: Asswipe loon Alex Jones asks “false flag” question
• Young Turks: Father, “true angle”; Uncle, “losers”
• Glenn Beck: Government has until Monday to “come clean” about Benghazi-Boston bombing link.
• Young Turks: “Quiet, shy, like us”.

White House: West Wing Week.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Young Turks: Hunger strike at Gitmo.

Thom: How to create a right-wing terrorist.

Jon: Barrier method.

Ann Telnaes: Tax day.

Young Turks: What happened in Texas?

U.S. Senate Republicans Puts Guns in the Hands of Terrorists!

• Stephen: Ted Cruz and background checks
• Jon: “We think killing our citizens is our job.”
• Sam Seder: Gun reform fails.
• Young Turks: Conspiracy theories kill gun control legislation
• Maddow: Obama shames spineless Senate Republicans
• Thom: “Shame on you, Congress”.
• John Fugelsang: If you’re against background checks, you’re against America
• Maddow: “Killer” Republicans filibuster…
• David Shuster and David Schecter: Congress hears cries of dead children.
• Young Turks: Gun-nut host tells Newtown victim families to ‘go to hell’

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Robert Reich: Why our democracy is succeeding on social issues and failing on economic issues.

Maddow: Terrorism tools within reach of the dangerously deluded ‘patriot’ terrorists.

NASA awesome: What happens if you wring out a cloth in space?

Young Turks: Idiot Republican Rep. “Peter” Hansen calls women “vaginas”.

Slate: BSA lifts ban on Scouts, but not leaders.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Anna Minard, writing at The Stranger, has words for Sen. Rodney Tom (D R–WA-48):

So I’d just like to say this, and get it out of my system, so I can stop saying your fuckstick name over and over again: FUCK YOU, RODNEY TOM.

Amen.

I am a resident of the 48th. In 2006, I worked hard to help the recently converted Democrat defeat incumbent Sen. Luke Esser (R).

Nobody that I have supported and voted for has ever left me feeling so betrayed. Ever.

So, yeah…FUCK YOU, RODNEY TOM.

And read the rest of Ms. Minard’s measured essay here.

Wow…tons of news from the MA in the past 12 hours. I don’t usually do posts on news items, but this is a pretty extraordinary circumstance. I’m going to do a bit of live blogging in the short time I have available.

Please keep this comment thread on-topic of the bombing and the manhunt.

9:18: I frequently learn of breaking news quite quickly. For the Boston marathon bombings, I am among the 10% who heard the news 6 or more hours after it happened.

9:20: KUOW 94.9 FM has ongoing coverage. CNN has a livestream…but, you know, be careful what you believe (e.g.).

9:31: And for a political connection, we get some idiotic tweets from Ann Coultergeist.

9:34: Excellent current summary from Mother Jones.

9:41: I couldn’t embed the video mentioned by MikeBoyScout, but here, from another source, is the uncle of the suspects:

9:43: CNN reports that both suspects are naturalized U.S. citizens, as of September of last year.

9:46: Via SJ in the comment thread (and my correction to the link)…inside news on the location of the suspect.

10:30: I’ve heard it mentioned several times on CNN that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26 year-old suspect, was killed when he was run over by his younger brother. If true (and I’ve seen this reported elsewhere), it add another bizarre twist to this bizarre-iferous set of events. But I also have to wonder if this is psyops rather than truth. I mean, could this be a ruse designed to dispirit 19 year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

11:12: The Family Research Council has figured out why tragedies like this occur (or, at least, what “compound[s] the problem”: “abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility!” Oh,Gay Marriage, what Doom hast Thou wrought?

11:42: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev graduated from “Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school in Cambridge.” Holy shit…I think that is the same high school that HA comment thread personality (and typo-robot) SJ told me he graduated from! Now debating submitting an FBI tip….

4:56 pm: The suspect is, apparently, surrounded in a boat in someone’s backyard. This thing is likely to come to an end soon. Here is a live feed.

5:23 pm: Hmmm…it looks like Glenn Beck is working hard to become the King of the Boston Trufers: “They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it.” “It” being the involvement of a “Saudi national” You Go Glenn!

5:44 pm: On-site news reports are the suspect is in custody. An ambulance has arrived, presumably for the suspect.

Please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at tonight’s Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm, but people will show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Longview and South Seattle chapters meet this Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the nation’s newest chapter, the Lakewood, Washington Drinking Liberally chapter, will meet. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 207 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

I was to work very early this morning, and got home quite late. I was greeted by a thunderstorm that knocked out the internet at my house. So I only heard a bit about the Boston bombs on the radio.

One person who was slightly injured in Boston today was from the Puget Sound region. Bill Iffrig is from Lake Stevens—he is 78 years old, and was knocked down very close to where the bomb exploded. He was interviewed on ESPN:

In the interview, Bill suggests he may have seen how the bomb was disguised just before it exploded.

(H/T TPM)

Ann Telnaes: Kansas abortion law.

Walmart v. Costco: How they treat their employees.

Pap: Rape in the military.

Aqua Buddha Man:

• Jon: On the edumacation of Rand Paul.
• Maddow: Paul goes to Howard University to teach Black history.
• Jansing & Co.: GOP and the black vote
• Sharpton: Sen. Rand Paul lies at Howard University.
• The Young Turks: Rewriting history
• Michael Brooks: Rand Paul whitewashes civil rights record at Howard.
• Bashir: Sen. Paul invents his own history.
• Chris Hayes: Buddha lies

Young Turks: A 51st state?

Mark Fiore: Tar Sands Timmy.

Ann Telnaes: The two escalator economy.

Kid Grows Up?

• Noted Romney supporter, Kid Rock, finds embarrassment in being a Republican.
• Sharpton: Kid Rock is “fucking embarassed”…”to be a Republican”

Young Turks: State lawmaker equates Muslim prayer with terrorism.

Robert Reich: Public morality:

Lawrence O’Donnell: DREAMing for an end of legal limbo.

Guns and Violence

• Maddow: NRA influence seen in court case to allow felons to have guns.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: G.O.P. becomes the party of stupid on guns.
• Obama speaks on reducing gun violence.
• They deserve a vote.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Sandy Hook students demand action.
• Michelle speaks on youth violence.
• Maddow: “Almost angry.”

Sam Seder: NC legislators want an official state religion.

White House: West Wing Week.

CNN: Gabby Giffords, two years later.

Mental Floss: 50 Weird Laws:

Budget Insanity:

• Lawrence O’Donnell: Obama’s budget brings out Republican’s inner lunatics.
• Alex Wagner: The GOP can’t even agree on budget items they hate.

Maddow: Obama uses his head in giving a political lesson.

NRCC’s Buzzfeedified web site.

Red State Update: News of the week.

Obama hosts a Memphis Soul evening at the White House.

The Munchy Majority:

• SlateTV: Live and Let Light-up.
• Stephen: The marijuana majority.
• John Fugelsang: Legal cannabis is the conservative point of view
• WA pot laws don’t allow out-of-state visitors to partake.

Sam Seder: Elizabeth Warren demolishes bank regulators for protecting banks over people.

Maddow: Virgina’s TRAP laws threaten abortion rights.

Republican FAIL.

America under water.

Smokey Joe Does Biblical Science:

• Sharpton: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX-6) says Bible proves climate change is false.
• Sam Seder: Smokey Joe cites bible to challenge climate change.

Maddow: Republicans turn to (probable war criminal) Dick Cheney for advice?!?

Young Turks: Catholic League leader PWNED on gay hypocrisy.

Kimmel: This Week in Unnecessary Censorship.

Jon: Our own worst enemy.

Anthony Weiner Looks for Redemption:

• Stephen: Huge news…after long withdrawl, Weiner ready to thrust back into politics.
• Jansing & Co: Weiner jumps back in?
• Sharpton: Weiner wants redemption.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: If Sanford could do it, can Weiner?

Maddow: Remember when it was illegal for the CIA to assassinate? It still is.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Ann Telnaes: The consequences of a Republican filibuster on guns.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Yo! It’s Tuesday, which means the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets. Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out plethora of other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight there are also meetings of the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday the Bremerton, Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet. Finally, next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 205 chapters of Living Liberally, including fifteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Young Turks: Sarah Palin’s embarrassingly hypocritical PAC expenses.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Maddow: NC GOP takes war on voting to college students:

Young Turks: Weed wins.

Stephen on ‘Morning Joe’ supporting Mark Sanford.

Bill Press: Shocking statistics on poverty in America.

Young Turks: Michelle Obama, the single mom.

Sam Seder with an episode of Random Rush.

WA tries to close down private clubs that serve pot vapor.

Bearing Arms:

• Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: This week in gun control
• Young Turks: Jim Carey and “Cold Dead Hands” fallout.
• Thom: Let’s start treating guns like cars.
• Bill Press praises CT for passing gun safety laws.
• Sam Seder: The “Family Protection Ordinance”
• Young Turks: The disasters and the successes in gun safety regulations
• 154 rounds in 4 minutes.
• Obama speaks on reducing gun violence
• Mark Fiore: Your Daily Gun.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: GOP leaders reveal opinions on kids with guns:

Young Turks: The craziest conspiracy theories believe in.

Pap on the G.O.P. autopsy.

Sharpton: The Republican War on Women is revived.

Sam Seder: Idiot conservatives think that Google honored Hugo Chavez on Easter.

Cracking up over global warming.

Maddow: Once again, GOP embarrasses the U.S. on the world stage.

Sharpton: Bestiality is “The Stupid Party’s” new obsession.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Lawrence O’Donnell: How wrong the G.O.P. has been on marriage equality over the years.

Young Turks: Morning-after pill restrictions thrown out by judge.

Stephen takes down Jeremy Irons.

Fox & Rice:

• Jon on Sean on Rice.
• Young Turks: FAUX News disappointed more coaches aren’t abusing players.
• Sam Seder: FAUX News and the ‘wussification’ of America!

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Obama and the “best looking Attorney General”.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Hillary tops challengers for 2016.

Maddow: Defying extremist’s threats, clinic reopens with community support.

Jon: What is it with Republicans and animal fucking?!?

Sam Seder: Where are the female Libertarians?

Maddow: America’s other Tar Sands oil spill:

Young Turks: VA’s ‘criminalize blowjobs’ gubernatorial candidate.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

This is a reminder that tonight the Northwest Progressive Institute’s Spring Fundraising Gala will be held at the Mercer Island Community Center (8236 SE 24th Street). A reception begins at 6:30 pm and the main program is at 7:15 pm.

This year’s speakers include Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA-1), Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl, State Rep. Gael Tarleton (D-36), and NPI founder Andrew Villeneuve. Tickets are $60 for individuals, $90 for households, and $20 for students and “those living lightly”. Kids are free. Tickets can be purchased here or at the door.

I’ve been to these in the past, and they’re quite enjoyable!

The Republican Party 2012 Autopsy that goes by the name Growth and Opportunity Project is a couple of weeks old now. Two major foci of the report were on messaging and on building “demographic partners.” Essentially, communicating in a way that doesn’t promote the widespread perception that the G.O.P. doesn’t care about people.

Let’s look at today’s news to see how they’re doing.

From the “Killing Us Softly With Our Song” file: Today, RNC Chair Reince Priebus pens a piece at Redstate (via Steve Benen):

The President, the Senate Majority Leader, the House Democratic Leader, and the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (in whose home state this hearing occurred) made funding Planned Parenthood an issue in the 2012 campaign. They should now all be held to account for that outspoken support. If the media won’t, then voters must ask the pressing questions: Do these Democrats also believe a newborn has no rights? Do they also endorse infanticide?

The inference is that if you support Planned Parenthood you support INFANTICIDE! Clearly, users of Planned Parenthood are part of the vast infanticide conspiracy!

There’s one hell of a make-over there! It’s a big tent…unless you support or use the services of Planned Parenthood.

And from the “South Will Do it Again” file: Eleven NC lawmakers come up with a novel interpretation of the U.S. Constitution so that they can do things like establish a State religion:

The Constitution “does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional” according to a resolution sponsored by North Carolina House Majority Leader Edgar Starnes (R) and ten of his fellow Republicans — a statement that puts them at odds with over 200 years of constitutional law. In light of this novel reading of the Constitution, Starnes and his allies also claim that North Carolina is free to ignore the Constitution’s ban on government endorsement of religion

Ian Millhiser points out that this is a sorry attempt to undo the Fourteenth Amendment that is a major constitutional legacy of the Civil War.

Really…it IS a big tent, as long as you worship the right God (i.e. atheists and non-Fundamentalist Christians need not apply). Oh…and you believe North Carolina was on the right side of the Civil War.

And, from the “Catholic Schoolgirls Rule” file comes this from Tennessee:

Republicans are taking a second look at [a school voucher] bill after the possibility arose that some Islamic schools could apply for the same funding made available to other religious schools.

The bill is a top priority for Republican Governor Bill Haslam, but several anti-religion lawmakers in the state senate, led by Sen. Bill Ketron who sponsored several anti-Islam bills in the last few years, are hoping to strip away the ability for any school that caters to Muslim children and their families to receive public dollars:

You see…it REALLY IS a big tent UNLESS you worship the RIGHT God (i.e. the Old Testiment God shared by Islam, Christianity and Judaism) but under the wrong brand name.

And from the “Jamie’s Got a Gun” file comes this NPR interview with Rocky Mountain (CO) Gun Owners President Dudley Brown:

“This is a very Western state with traditional Western values,” he says. “And citizens had to have firearms for self-defense, and right now that’s still the case.”

And maybe the need for guns is for reasons bigger than just self-defense….

“I liken it to the proverbial hunting season,” Brown says. “We tell gun owners, ‘There’s a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats.’ ”

Yes…in this time of troubled shootings of school children, politicians, prosecutors, law enforcement personnel and movie-goers, there is nothing that says, “We care about you” more then not-so-subtle calls for violence against your political opponents.

Feel. The. Love. (or else!)

Today’s news blurbs are just a microcosm of a trend that spells big troubles for the future of the G.O.P.:Republicans are increasingly isolated on major political and policy issues”.

It’s a Big Tent…a Big Empty Tent.

It’s been nine years now, and we are still going strong. Please join us tonight for another evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. And on Thursday, the Spokane and the Tacoma chapters meet.

With 205 chapters of Living Liberally, including fifteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

Goldy gives a good reason for every woman in Washington state to NEVER, EVER VOTE FOR RODNEY TOM AGAIN. Ever. For anything. And why no voter should ever trust Tom again.

So, for future reference, any time you see a press release where Tom is supporting a bill you support…consider that he might be using his committee appointees to kill the bill, as he did with the Reproductive Parity Act, or he might simply fail to use the parliamentary tools available to him to get a simple “up or down” vote on the bill, as he did with the State Dream Act.

Tom thwarted the will of the people (who elected more Democrats than Republicans to the Senate) and the people of his district (you know, people like ME, who thought we were electing a Democrat) by putting the Republicans in charge of the Senate.

It’s disgraceful.

O’Donnell: Sarah Palin is back to pickpocket Teabaggers.

Young Turks: Hypocritical new abortion laws in North Dakota.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Jonathan Mann: George W. Bush paintings:

Young Turks: Veteran GOP Rep. blasted for ‘wetbacks’ comments.

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Sharpton: Republicans “reach out” to minority voters by enacting stricter voter ID laws!

Oral Arguments for Same Sex Marriage:

• Maddow: The GOP’s “incoherent, low rent and … pathetic” positions on same sex marriage
• Stephen slams Sen. Saxby Chambliss on his anti-gay marriage reasoning.
• Jon: Supreme injustice.
• Young Turks: Scalia’s five worst homophobic statements.
• Ann Telnaes: Justice Kagan exposes DOMA’s intent.
• Maddow: An historic week for gay rights.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Santorum blames TV show for gay marriage.
• Adam Gabbatt surveys the crowd outside the Supreme Court
• Young Turks: GOP cat fight over gay marriage.
• Al Sharpton with Chris Hayes: Republicans are losing the culture wars.
• Stephen on the Supreme Court’s arguments
• Young Turks: How will the SCOTUS go on gay marriage?
• Mark Fiore: Dogboy and Mr. Dan: learn that love hurts.
• Ann Telnaes: Making babies and marriage.
• Stephen is shaken to the core by Bill-O the Clown’s flip-flop

Sharpton: Glenn Beck’s latest conspiracy is that Bachmann’s Ethics Probe is a plot by ‘Radical Islam’ .

Rep. Don Young (R-AK): Wetbackgate.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Maddow: A State of the Union promise kept–presidential commission on voting.

Young Turks: Republican OUTRAGE over spring break for Obama’s kids.

White House: West Wing Week.

Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX-1) “Pulls Rank”:

• Young Turks: Gohmert (R-TX-1) freaks out over parking ticket .
• Shapton: The rude teabagger.

Jon is unimpressed with GOP’s Post-election plan (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Washington’s groundbreaking (vaporized) pot bar.

Young Turks: Bill Maher vs. Catholic League.

Sam Seder: FAUX News mocks 102 year old woman who waited hours to vote.

Mental Floss: 45 presidential facts you probably didn’t know.

Gun Safety Reform…or Not:

• Obama: We have NOT forgotten (h/t howieinseattle):
• Joy Reid: Obama raises the stakes….
• Ann Telnaes: NRA’s LaPierre criticizes Bloomberg’s ad campaign.
• Matt Binder: NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s insane lack of self awareness.
• Young Turks: Jim Carrey causes the nutjobs at FAUX News to go totally insane.
• SlateTV: Rand Paul eyes gun control filibuster
• Thom: America’s latest penis enhancer…the AR-15 assault rifle

Thom: Science makes you a more moral person.

The Common Sense Alternative to the Columbia River Crossing (h/t Carla).

Maddow: The stuff Alan Simpson says.

Sharpton: GOP bigots and racists attack Obama’s children.

Finally…an honest cable TV advertisement.

Pap: Right Wing hate turns violent.

Young Turks: Should male politicians be able to vote on abortion?

Detroit’s Lost Democracy:

• Thom: Detroit’s bloodless coup.
• Al Sharpton files lawsuit against GOP’s emergency manager law in Detroit.

Bill Press: Michele Bachmann is a ‘one woman carnival cruise’.

Jeff Wattenhofer: Barack Obama is mint.

Sam Seder spars with a lightbulb Libertarian.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Radical reality-denying rightist Congressman Steve “Never Heard of Anyone Getting Pregnant by Statutory Rape” King (R-IA-4) was recently on a call-in talk show and had this conversation:

CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it. This, I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable.

KING: Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through. […] You’re right on the president. He needs to show some austerity himself. Instead he wanted to tell America how bad it was going to be. […] We’ve got the president doing these things. He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too. And now to the Bahamas at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.

A couple of corrections for the underformed nutburger of a Congressman. First, Obama did not “send his daughters to spring break in Mexico.” One daughter (Malia) was allowed to…

…join a school trip to Oaxaca [, Mexico], where students volunteered at an orphanage, visited archaeological sites and sipped vanilla milkshakes on the honey-colored town plaza.

The school has done such trips for years.

Second, the Obamas pay for their own vacations and school field trips. The government pays for security, as it should. And notice that King isn’t complaining about that—for good reason. Imagine the PR disaster he would endure should any member of the First Family get hurt.

King believes Obama “needs to show some austerity himself” because he was telling “America how bad it was going to be.” Obama has pointed out how the sequestration cuts will hurt Americans, but so have a bunch of Republicans Congresscritters—you know, the the ones whining about losing tax payer-funded economic subsidies to their districts.

How odd that King’s calls for Obama to show austerity.

Obama makes a fair amount of money. He is wealthier than most Americans. Oh…and he is the leader of the free fucking world. He certainly has the money (and credit line) to allow his child to go on a school trip to Mexico, or to send his family on the occasional vacation, like the trip to the Bahamas.

So what’s gotten up Rep. King’s ass that makes him think that the President shouldn’t use his own money how he wants to use it? Isn’t that the American way?

You know who would agree with King that Obama should renounce the trappings of wealth and live the life of a commoner?

Karl Marx.

Once again, I call upon the major newspapers of this country to investigate these members of Congress to find out if they are pro-America or FUCKING SOCIALISTS!

The sequestration cuts to the FAA are forcing the agency to close 150 control towers at low-volume airports (including 5 in Washington state). As a consequence, some Republicans are discovering their inner socialist.

Exhibit 1: Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL-15).

What really bothers Rep. Ross is that Flordia’s Lakeland Linder Regional Airport will lose its control tower. The airport is a relatively low-volume airport, except for one week each summer, during the annual Sun ‘n Fun aviation convention, in which it becomes one of the busiest airports in the world. To put the traffic volume in context, Lakeland Linder has an average of 208 aircraft operations/day making it is slightly less busy than the Tacoma Narrows Airport ( 216/day) and the Renton Municipal Airport (221/day, where the 737 is manufactured).

Ross whines (my emphasis):

The state’s largest convention, SUN ‘n FUN, which is held in April at Lakeland Linder Airport, not only provides incredible economic value to Lakeland, but it serves our children by investing $1.4 million dollars annually in education. It is unacceptable to close this important control tower. Sun N Fun will now have to pay the FAA $284,000 in order to keep this control tower functioning during the convention. This is more money that they must raise that will not go to help our children who are struggling in school.

Really? He wants to keep the control tower so that my tax dollars and your tax dollars will subsidizing the local school systems in Florida’s 15th Congressional District?

FUCKING SOCIALIST!!!!

Exhibit 2: Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX-27). He is…

deeply troubled by the proposed actions of the FAA regarding smaller airports, like the one in Victoria, Texas, as they have long played a vital role in local economies across the country.

At 125 aircraft operations/day Victoria Regional Airport, it isn’t even as busy as Olympia Regional Airport (131/day).

No doubt the airport does play an important role in the economy, but why should my tax dollars be subsidizing the economy of the Texas 27th Congressional District?!?

You’d have to be a FUCKING SOCIALIST to want that kind of Big Government solution to a regional problem!

Exhibit 3: Michele Bachman (R-MN-6):

One-el Michele frets over airport tower closures:

I am deeply disappointed with the FAA’s decision to close the air traffic control towers at the Anoka County-Blaine Airport and St. Cloud Regional Airport. Throughout this decision-making process, I have been in touch with FAA and DOT officials urging them to focus first on eliminating waste and trimming non-essential items in the FAA’s budget before they even consider shutting down essential safety operations.

Wait. WE have to pay for safety in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District? Can’t the regional or local government do that even better?

Yeah…the Anoka County-Blaine Airport is goddamn busy with an average of 536 operations/day, but It isn’t the Anoka FEDERAL airport. What part of “COUNTY” doesn’t Michele understand?

And St. Cloud Regional Airport?!? Give me a fucking break. At 87 operations/day it hardly warrants a paved runway (and federally subsidized, no doubt), let alone a labor-intensive control tower. St. Cloud is nothing compared to Yakima’s McAllister Field (126/day) and Spokane’s Felts Field Airport (156/day).

I have to ask…where in the Constitution does it put the federal government in charge of county safety? Clearly you can only justify this by abusing The Commerce Clause.

You know, I think the major newspapers of the country need to investigate these members of Congress to find out if they are pro-America or FUCKING SOCIALISTS!

BTW: those five Washington state airports whose control towers will be shut down? Renton Municipal, Olympia Regional, Tacoma Narrows, Felts Field, and McAllister Field.