“A Republican candidate for Hillsborough County Sheriff said Wednesday that he believes elective abortions are unlawful and he wouldn’t reject the use of deadly force to stop them… [Frank] Szabo said he doesn’t have any background in law enforcement, but he said his business background gives him the experience to run for the position of sheriff.” [WMUR, via TPM]

Our guest columnist is Tom Head, “judge” (executive) of Lubbock County, Texas.

[Obama’s] going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?

I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.

Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say “you’re not coming in here”.

And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said “you gonna back me”, he said, “yeah, I’ll back you”. Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.

Lubbock Co. Judge warns of potential danger if Obama is re-elected [Fox 34 Lubbock, via TPM]

Our guest columnist is an Oxy-Addled Fat Fuck.

So we got a hurricane coming. The National Hurricane Center, which is a government agency, is very hopeful that the hurricane gets near Tampa. The National Hurricane Center is Obama. It’s the National Weather Service, part of the commerce department. It’s Obama.

The media, it’s all about the hurricane hitting next week, and they’re not talking about Biden, they’re talking about this Hurricane Isaac thing.

Read more »

[via Daring Fireball]

In the course of random thoughts about such things over the last few days, I came upon my memories of the way things used to be in, oh, the early 1990s.  The memories are fading, but it is still real close — the closing days of the analog epoch are totally foreign only to those who never lived in a world where the internet was not a ubiquitous presence.

In that age, we had Republicans like Warren Rudman, John Chafee, William Cohen and Jim Jeffords (pictured).  They shared two distinguishing characteristics.  One: they were from New England.  Two: they could actually THINK.

Now?  Maine (The Way Life Should Be) is no longer the state that gave us Olympia Snowe.  She has decided to hit the silk and jump from the GOP plane, in the wake of the wave that gave us the execrable Paul LePage.  Chris Shays is a vague memory.  New Hampshaah is knee-deep in Tea Party types — maybe not as Southern Fried as the rest of the cohort, but still a little bit nuts.  And Massachusetts may yet send Scott Brown back to the Senate.

Resolved: the House believes that the GOP will never go back to the days when sensible moderates were welcomed.  Floor’s open.

(P.S.: I refuse to use the term “Yankee Republican.”  It’s an article of faith, you know.)

Can’t these people all be swept from office in one election cycle?

Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.

King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.

He can start here.

Rep. Steve King: I’ve Never Heard of a Girl Getting Pregnant from Rape or Incest [TPM]

“This is the platform of the Republican Party; it’s not the platform of Mitt Romney.”

—Reince Priebus, deftly distracting attention from a GOP plank that calls for “legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children,” so nobody will mention it ever again.

Priebus: GOP platform ‘not the platform of Mitt Romney’ [NBC]