SAR #14162

“The important thing to do in response to making a monumental mistake is to compound it.” Charles P. Pierce

No Tears: Eric Cantor's $5.5 million lost to Dave Brat's $122,000, behind the slogan “Dollars don't vote – you do.” Cantor - one of the meanest self-serving cretins in Congress , which is a dubious but hard-won distinction these days - did not lose over immigration policy, but over corporate control of our political system. Brat, by the way, isn't dealing from a full deck either, having not gotten over a teen-age crush on Ayn Rand.

Multiple Choice: Elizabeth Warren's bill to let student loan borrowers refinance their school loans at lower rates was blocked by a) the same party that blocked a minimum wage increase, b) Republicans, or c) all the above.

School Supplies: Add bulletproof blankets to the list.

Castor Oil: Under the pretense of fighting cyberbulling, Canada wants to let the government "remotely hack into computers, mobile devices, or cars". For your own good, of course. As usual.

Our Gang: Louie Gohmert (Revivalist-TX) reminded the House that all non-Christians were going to Hell. In Indiana, a GOP legislative candidate points out that he is the only candidate with “the guts to just let [poor people] wither and die.” A GOP candidate in OK has repeatedly advocating that gays be stoned to death. And an op-ed in the Washington Post claims the way to stop violence against women is for all the women to get married because "married fathers provide direct protection by watching out for the physical welfare of their wives and daughters." 
 
The Question: Trying out his stand-up routine, Mohamed El-Erian wonders “What if the Fed has created a bubble?”
 
Scapegoats: A California judge has decided that doing away with teacher tenure will cure all the problems of the public school system. Overnight parents will become supportive of the school administration, children will do their homework, mom and dad will live together and stop doing drugs, gangs will take up knitting and more talented, highly skilled people will turn to teaching as a rewarding career. Then again, maybe it's a little more complicated than that.

Making Allowances: Two years after graduation, half of the graduates are still depending on their parents or other family members for financial help. Less than half have found full-time jobs and less than 30% said they were completely self-sufficient. 
 
Scared Straight: Faced budget problems, raising medical costs as inmates age, and overcrowding, California is going to privatize its prisons, beginning with new inmates. When the street gets the word, crime rates will plummet.

Idle Hands: Will the capture of the Northern Iraqi oil fields by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant drive up world oil prices? Ask me about what camels do in the desert.

Behind the Headline: “Dozens indicted in Georgia food stamp fraud case” seems to suggest that the villains are welfare queens, when it was actually 54 people who opened grocery stores in order to buy food stamps at a discount and to turn them in to the federal government for face value. And that's not an acceptable way to swindle the government; they should have formed a bank.

Is Our Children Learning: In New Jersey, Child Services has threatened to put a 13 year old up for adoption if the kid's father doesn't get him psychological counseling because the boy twirled his pencil in class.

Porn O'Graph: Unemployment is mean.

The Parting Shot: