1.) Barack Obama is a man of the people… who have lots of money — TheDC’s Neil Munro brings us the latest news from The Most Transparent Administration in U.S. History: “President Barack Obama’s controversial meeting with supporters in the White House’s Blue Room on March 7 included 16 attendees who collected at least $3.95 million for his 2012 election race. Sixteen of the meeting’s attendees are listed as wealthy donors in a report posted at Obama’s campaign’s website on July 15. One of the attendees raised between $50,000 and $100,000, six attendees raised between $50,000 and $100,000, four raised between $200,000 and $500,000 and five raised more than $500,000. These donors are called ‘bundlers’ because they amass donations from friends for the campaign. The March 7 meeting is being criticized by Republicans as possibly violating campaign-finance laws that bar the use of government property for political fundraising… On Friday, the campaign named 244 wealthy bundlers who provided at least 40 percent, or at least $35 million, of the $86 million that Obama collected for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee in April, May and June. The 16 Blue Room donors are included in this list. The list of 244 bundlers paints a very different picture from the populist image painted by Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina, who declared that ’98 percent of all donations that came in were $250 or less.’ But in the days before the financial period ended, the campaign vigorously solicited $3 and $5 donations in exchange for a chance to win one of four tickets to a dinner with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. By attracting many small donations, this lottery may have sharply skewed the percentage of donations that came from wealthy donors. The campaign has kept much information secret. For instance, it has not released how much money the wealthy donors actually gave to the campaign.” Transparency!
2.) Rape and genocide aren’t funny unless they’re happening to Republicans — Remember the good old days of January 2011, when violent rhetoric was bad? Bill Maher and his little pals don’t. TheDC’s Caroline May reports: “The era of civility was on full display during Friday night’s ‘Real Time with Bill Maher.’ In the midst of a conversation about Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus Bachmann’s Christian counseling clinic (recently under fire for attempting to turn gays straight through prayer), comedian Marc Maron spoke about how he thinks about ‘angrily f***ing’ the Republican presidential candidate. ‘I don’t want to be crass, but I just hope that Marcus Bachmann takes all that, ya know, that rage that comes from repression and denial and brings it into the bedroom with her,’ Maron said. ‘I hope he f***s her angrily, because that’s how I would. And I’ve thought about it.'” At another point during the same show, advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage responded to Maher’s characteristically cogent and understated comparison of Republicans in Congress to Yasser Arafat. Savage said, “Unfortunately, [they’re] not exactly like him. I wish they were all f***in’ dead.” Savage had better hope he doesn’t get his wish, because if all the Republicans die, there’ll be nobody left to pay for his favorite government programs. He has since apologized for the comment, not because it’s an awful thing to say, but because his dad is a Republican. No apology yet from Maron, though. Just try to imagine if somebody went on national TV and said, “I hope Barack f***s Michelle angrily, because that’s how I would.” Or “I wish Democrats were all f***in’ dead.” It wouldn’t be the top news story for days. It would be the ONLY news story for days.
3.) Author breaks Obama omerta — What do you do when you’re a prominent author who proves Obama told an enormous lie about his own mother during the push for Obamacare? You clam up, that’s what you do. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York reports: “Many authors of newly-published books are eager to discuss their work, especially if the book has made news. But Janny Scott, author of A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother, doesn’t want to talk about what has become the most newsworthy part of her generally well-received new biography. Scott, a former New York Times reporter, deserves praise for discovering that President Obama repeatedly misled voters during the 2008 campaign, and also during the 2009 health care debate, when he said that his mother, Ann Dunham, spent her final days fighting an insurance company that sought to deny payment for cancer treatment. Scott, who had access to many of Dunham’s personal papers, discovered that Dunham, an anthropologist who spent most of her career in Indonesia, had health coverage that paid for her treatment for uterine and ovarian cancer, from which she died in 1995. ‘Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment,’ Scott wrote. ‘Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month.'” So Obama lied. Again. But Scott’s publicist is now insisting she “does not have any new information to add to the story.” Hey, just because she let the cat out of the bag doesn’t mean she has to feed it.
4.) Sheila Jackson Lee maxes out race card — The Democrats’ accusations of racism have backfired over and over. So what does a smart Democrat do? Who knows? This is about Sheila Jackson Lee. TheDC’s Alec Jacobs reports: “Friday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee gave her assessment of the [debt ceiling] debate. The reason Republicans aren’t negotiating and aren’t willing to compromise on the debt ceiling, she said, is because of Obama’s race. ‘I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president, only this president, only this one has received the kind [of] attacks and disagreements and inability to work,’ she said. ‘Only this one.'” You have to admit, she has a point: Before Obama came along, nobody ever disagreed with the President of the United States. In other SJL news, The Hill reports: “A former staff member of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) has filed a discrimination lawsuit against her. The suit, brought by Mona Floyd, Jackson Lee’s former legislative director, alleges the lawmaker deliberately ignored her staffer’s vision and reading disabilities by forcing her to work long and extended hours with no breaks. At two separate points, Jackson Lee allegedly told Floyd, ‘I don’t care anything about your disability,’ and later when asked about making adjustments to accommodate her disability the lawmaker allegedly told her chief of staff, ‘I don’t give a damn about her disability,’ according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for D.C.” Sheila Jackson Lee is as kind as she is intelligent. P.S. In 2006, every Democratic senator voted against raising the debt limit. Including Obama.
5.) NIH gets to the bottom of the issue — Here’s one for you dumb teabaggers who think the government wastes your tax money. TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports: “The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsidized a study attempting to find out if a gay man’s penis size has any correlation with his sexual health. The research, titled ‘The Association between Penis Size and Sexual Health among Men Who Have Sex with Men,’ began in 2006 and surveyed 1,065 gay men. Among its key findings: Those gay men who felt they had small or inadequate penis sizes were more likely to become ‘bottoms,’ or anal receptive, while gay men with larger penises were more likely to identify themselves as ‘tops,’ or anal insertive. Another discovery from the research: men with smaller penises were more likely to be psychologically troubled than those with larger genitalia.” Which explains Anthony Weiner’s entire career. Take note, wingnuts: This is exactly the sort of vital scientific research that will end forever if the evil Republicans stop the government from spending as much as it wants, on whatever it wants, whenever it wants.
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Twitter feed — “To be misunderstood is the worst feeling.”
VIDEO: Krauthammer To GOP: Call Obama Out For Being “Sanctimonious”
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