Republican Jackass of the Week Part 1

I haven't had an original thought in my life.

Senator Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky.

Not just a Jackass, but a serial plagiarist.

First reported by Rachael Maddow of msnbc, this guy has been repeatedly stealing others' words, using them as his own in speeches and articles, and not crediting the people who actually wrote those words. That's where this plagiarism stuff comes in.

 So does he apologize? Something like, "Gee, I'm sorry; I should have credited those I've quoted."

No. Of course not. Does any Regressive Republican ever apologize?

Instead, he wished, out loud, in front of microphones, that he could have a duel with Rachel Maddow for having pointed this out.

A duel!

Then he blamed his staff. And finally he claimed ultimately it was his fault. But he whined, "do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?"

And he defiantly stated that if he were a journalism teacher he'd fail Rachel and others who've reported on his plagiarism.

See? He shouldn't be punished for plagiarism; those who notice it should.

So if you ever read anything he "wrote" or hear anything he says, know full well it's just cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia or other people's articles.

Rand Paul. Plagiarist. Republican Jackass of the Week.

The Fake Benghazi "Scandal" is Officially Over

Couldn't have said it better myself. From Maddowblog:

Rachel noted on the show last night that the controversy surrounding Benghazi effectively "went away" yesterday, and given the latest information, it's hard to imagine how any serious person could disagree.

The White House yesterday afternoon released the inter-agency communications that went into crafting the "talking points" requested by Congress last September. Lawmakers already saw these materials months ago -- they found nothing controversial at the time -- but Republicans and the media decided it was time to see them again.

So, the administration, eager to put the matter to rest, released the documents. In turn, we learned what we already knew: there was no cover-up; State and the CIA engaged in a predictable bureaucratic "tug of war"; and this:

The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago.

And with that, everything Republican conspiracy theorists desperately wanted Americans to believe -- there's a scandal; there's a cover-up; there's evidence the White House manipulated and lied about a crisis for political ends -- suddenly evaporated before our very eyes.

House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office issued a statement last night saying the revelations raised more questions. In fact, I have one myself: how is any fair-minded person still expected to take the Republican arguments about this non-scandal seriously?

What's more, note that most sensible people realized the right's conspiracy theories were wrong, which is why the so-called "controversy" was relegated to Republican media, until last Friday's report from ABC News pushed the story into the mainstream. That ABC News report, we now know, was wrong.

There's just nothing left. Trying to characterize this as a genuine political story worthy of attention has been a misguided partisan exercise for months, but now, it's reached the point of ridiculousness. Every reporter saying the White House is engulfed in "three scandals" is misleading the public -- there was a deadly attack against a U.S. diplomatic outpost last year, which left four Americans dead. It was a tragedy; it was not a political controversy.

Put a fork in the Benghazi story; it's done.

"That Happened!" by Rachel Maddow

That happened! That really happened. We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade. There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.

We`re not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get themselves health insurance.
We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a 20 percent tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid`s insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.
We`re not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you`re on.

We are not going to redefine rape.

We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay
people from getting married.

We are not going to double Guantanamo.

We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of
Education or housing at the federal level.

We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the
military does not want. We are not scaling back on student loans, because
the country`s new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents.
We are not vetoing the DREAM Act. We are not self-deporting. We are
not letting Detroit go bankrupt.

We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.
 We are not going to have, as a president, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared, gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help and there was no apology, not ever.

We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton.
We are not bringing Dick Cheney back.
We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq war. We are not going to do it.
We had the chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country.
And we said no, last night, loudly.

Now, to be fair:  If you are a conservative or if you are rooting for
the Republicans, a few things did go your way.
Republicans did not lose that Senate seat that they might have lost in
Arizona. Jon Kyl`s old Senate seat goes to another Republican, to Jeff Flake.
Also, Republicans did not lose that other Senate seat they might have
lost in Nevada, the old John Ensign seat that was given to Dean Heller.
It stays with him. It stays Republican just barely.

And while President Obama carried 28 states last time, he carried 25
or 26 states this time, depending on how Florida goes. That means
Republicans did lose everything else, but they got back Indiana and also
North Carolina.

So it was not a totally hopeless night for Republicans.

Big picture in the House, thanks mostly to redistricting the
Republicans were not in danger of losing the House, and they didn`t, even though the Republican majority appears to have shrunk there.


Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts lost by a lot to the nation`s foremost authority on the economic rights of the middle class.

After marriage rights for same-sex couples were voted down in state
after state after state for years, more than 30 times in a row, this year,
all change in Maine, they voted on marriage equality and they voted for it.
In Maryland, they voted on marriage equality and they voted for it.
In Minnesota, they were asked to vote against marriage equality, and
Minnesota refused to ban it.
In Washington state, the vote is not called yet. They are still counting the vote and we will be watching it closely, but if you are on the pro-gay right side in Washington state, it should be noted that it is looking pretty good.

Nevada elects its first African-American congressman this year.

America gets our first openly gay United States senator.

America gets our first-ever Asian American woman senator from Hawaii.

Her seat in the House, I should note, gets filled by this woman, a
Democratic Iraq war veteran. I`m going to tell you right now that her name
is Tulsi Gabbard, because she is on the fast track to being very famous
some day. Tulsi Gabbard.

Speaking of Iraq war veterans, Tammy Duckworth, veteran helicopter
pilot, she lost both her legs in Iraq. She is going to Congress and she is
sending home the opponent who mocked her for her war record, Joe Walsh.
California relaxed its "three strikes you`re out" law and rejected a
law to cripple the power of unions.

Decriminalization of marijuana was approved in Washington and in
Colorado.

The astonishing tide of dark money spent against Democratic Senators
Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio turned out to be pointless.
Both those Democratic senators won, they held on to their seats.
Democrats won a Senate seat in North Dakota, of all places, a seat
that nobody thought they could win.

All of these states that had this hugely aggressive total Republican
takeover from the 2010 elections, Ohio and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and
Pennsylvania and Virginia and Florida, all of those states that went so red
in state government in these past couple of years and that then had these
big fights inside their states over how Republicans were governing there.
In Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and we will see about
Florida, last night not only did Republicans lose the presidential election
in every single one of those states, Republicans lost the Senate race in
every single one of those states too -- Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin,
Debbie Stabenow, Bob Casey, Tim Kaine, Bill Nelson. Depending on Florida,
a Democratic sweep of the presidency, and definitely a Democratic sweep of
the Senate race -- in those states that the GOP was so excited to have
supposedly turned red in a way that was going to stick.

Last night, Democratic women swept every major office in New
Hampshire. Last night, California Democrats won Democratic super majority
in the state House and in the state Senate. Not just majorities in
California, but super majorities. Wherein, if the Republicans don`t turn
up, any of them, any day at work, nothing will be different in California.
They`re completely legislatively irrelevant.

Allen West lost a seat.

More women got elected to the U.S. Senate than at any time in U.S.
history.

The Republican presidential nominee and vice presidential nominee both
lost their home states.

Missouri and Montana and West Virginia chose Democratic governors.
West Virginia chose its first gay state legislature. So did North Dakota.
West Virginia and North Dakota? Yes, seriously.

Joe Lieberman`s old seat went to a real Democrat in Connecticut.

The proportion of young people voting compared to 2008, it went up,
same with African-Americans, up from 2008. Same with Latinos, up from
2008, not down, up.

If you are a liberal or if you are rooting for the Democrats, last
night was a very, very, very big night.

And, oh, yes, this happened. President Barack Obama, yes, will go
down in history as our nation`s first African-American president. But he
will also go down in history as the most successful Democratic presidential
candidate since FDR.

President Clinton got re-elected too, I know, but only Barack Obama
got re-elected with not just big Electoral College margins, but also with
majority wins in the popular vote, twice.

The guy who predicted this outcome, almost exactly, is Nate Silver, of
course, who writes the political statistics blog, "FiveThirtyEight" at "The
New York Times." For accurately predicting, it appears, the exact outcome
of the race, and I mean down to every single state. We`ll see about
Florida, Nate was, of course, pilloried, pilloried on the right and by
right-leaning beltway media types, including Politico., for having the
audacity to print what his poll averages told him was about to happen.
But Nate was right, the polls were right, even without Florida being
decided, we now know that President Obama won in pretty much exactly the
way the state-by-state polls said he was going to win. He won with more
than 300 electoral votes. It was not magic, it was just math. Math that
was completely invisible to the political right.