It’s going to be a perfect Memorial Day Weekend. What’s happening in your world today?

• Good news, bad news: The Boy Scouts have lifted their ban on gay youth (they had a ban on gay youth?), but they’re keeping their ban on gay troop leaders. Honestly, I was talking to some friends about this last weekend, and they seemed to feel like scouting in general is losing steam in American culture — kids today have so many other opportunities, and there are so many other things to do. The idea of everyone wearing identical paramilitary outfits while pledging to be clean and courteous just seems so hopelessly quaint and irrelevant.

I know when I was in middle school, nothing got you branded as a big LOSER faster than wearing a scouting uniform to school. So I think this decision is just a reflection of the demise of scouting in general. People will raise a stink and make a big hoo-hah, I’m sure the right-wingers will want to enroll their kids in one of the many religious/conservative alternatives to the Boy Scouts but all in all, the decline of scouting will continue because it’s not 1950 anymore and kids would rather play on their XBox.

So yes, glad you’re not banning gay youth, something the Scouts never should have done to begin with. But you’re pretty culturally out of touch in general, and I see this as closing the barn door long after the horses escaped.

• New home sales rose 30% in April, reaching near record levels, and prices have risen to near-record levels as well, all signs of a strong economic recovery. Obama is the worst Socialist ever.

• The Ninth Circuit has struck down an Arizona law banning abortions after 20 weeks, calling it unconstitutional because it “deprives the women to whom it applies of the ultimate decision to terminate their pregnancies prior to fetal viability,” and therefore is unconstitutional “under a long line of invariant Supreme Court precedents.”

• Remember Kiera Wilmot, the Florida teen charged with felonies and expelled over a science project gone wrong? She’s been cleared of all charges and given a scholarship to the U.S. Space Academy’s “Space Camp” program, courtesy of a NASA veteran who in high school was accused of starting a forest fire when his science project went wrong.

• Women’s nipples will not be dubbed indecent in North Carolina, at least for now.

• We may not have Michele Bachmann to kick around much longer.

• Tesla says it has repaid its federal loan almost 10 years ahead of schedule.

• After just three years, the Great Crane Project has successfully produced the first crane egg in southern Britain in more than 400 years. Cranes are functionally extinct in Britain.

• Britain’s House Of Commons voted to approve same-sex marriage. The House of Lords needs to pass the bill for it to become law.

• The Peace Corps will allow same-sex couples to serve together starting next month.

• Delaware becomes the seventh state to ban shark fins.

• What hellish hairy beast is this?

It’s a “Strawscaper,” a skyscraper covered in “hair” (actually straws) which harness wind energy and turn your typical skyscraper into an urban power plant. This creepy vision brought to you by Swedish design firm Belatchew Labs.

• Another culture-war battle lost for conservatives: Illinois has banned abstinence-only sex ed.

• It’s not all burqas and backseats for Saudi women: meet Raha Mobarak, the first woman from Saudi Arabia to scale Mount Everest.

Good News, Tennesee Edition:

• Tennessee Congress Varmint Rep. Scott DesJarlais has been fined by the Tennessee Board Of Medical Examiners for having sexual affairs with two patients.

• One of the great things about being the next “it” city is that Nashville has become foodie central. I mean geez, I remember when I first moved here the most exotic food you could get was bad Thai. But innovative chefs have been flocking to our fair city over the past few years and now it seems like there’s an exciting new restaurant opening every week. One newcomer is Chef Sean Brock’s Husk, which opens Thursday. We’ll probably be able to get a reservation sometime around Christmas.

• Congratulations to 2012 Brentwood High grad Mark Daniel, recipient of a $100,000 Thiel Foundation fellowship. Daniel will spend two years launching his start-up, StatusHawk. Much is being said about the fellowship’s requirement that recipients leave school for two years to focus on their entrepreneurial ideas, but I don’t see what the big deal is. Mormon missionary kids leave school for two years to do their thing and no one cries bloody murder. Good luck, Mark.

• First Lady Michelle Obama visited our fair city last weekend to deliver the commencement address at Martin Luther King Jr. High School. It was a tremendous thrill for the kids, especially since this will be the only high school commencement address she will give this year. You can hear her speech at the link.

• On a related note, students at Knoxville’s Sarah Moore Greene Elementary School who helped Michelle Obama plant her White House vegetable garden have been invited back to see the results of that hard work and help with the summer harvest.

• Memphis’ infant mortality rate has dropped.

This week’s cool video comes from CNN: Wolf Blitzer was shocked to find an atheist in a foxhole the Oklahoma tornado rubble. It’s hilarious. Blitzer is taking a lot of flak for his “you gotta thank the Lord” question, but really I think this just shows how trite and cliche American religiosity has become.

Nothing is stopping any church from helping anyone. Please, churches, knock yourselves out. Feed as many people as you want: old, young, whatever. We need you to do this, we really do. Wasn’t that the whole point of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives? Guess what, haters: the Mooslim Usurper Nobummer didn’t close that office, he expanded it. So yes, churches: feed us, house us, help us.

And indeed, the faith community is helping. Good grief, I’ve been part of more church-based programs helping the poor in this town than I can count: Room In The Inn, Rooftop, the Martha O’Bryan Center, Safe Haven Family Shelter, you name it. Here’s Nashvllle’s Downtown Presbyterian Church which feeds hundreds of homeless every week (much to the chagrin of local businesses,who don’t like having a soup kitchen on their doorstep). The Salvation Army has soup kitchens all across the country feeding the hungry (for which they are reimbursed by the government, I might add.)

But the need is great. There are not enough congregations doing enough of this work to help everyone. Every church-based effort I’ve been part of has had to ration the amount of help it provides because the need is simply greater than funds allow. At Rooftop, which provides temporary, one-time rental and mortgage assistance to keep people from being evicted, we routinely ran out of money and had to suspend services, sometimes for an entire month.

The need is great. Many churches are helping the poor. But many do not. C’mon, you know it’s true. Many church organizations prefer to spend their money on bullshit marketing efforts like the Scripturally-dubious I Am Second campaign, whose billboards have popped up all over town. Harold Camping’s Family Radio empire raked in millions of dollars in donations, money which could have been spent helping the hungry and needy. Instead, it went toward buying thousands of billboards across the country proclaiming a hilariously wrong prediction about the Second Coming.

No one can tell any faith community how to spend its money. And they don’t always spend it on the needy. Sometimes they spend it on ideological bullshit like this. How many kids could have been fed if the Mormons had channeled their $20 million somewhere other than the Prop 8 campaign?

Right-wingers are always telling us we don’t need the government to provide services, “charity” should take care of it for us. But what do right-wing billionaires spend their money on? Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and Cato Institute, whose sole purpose is to promote conservative ideology. Or phony conservative “foundations” like Citizens for a Sound Economy (now known as FreedomWorks) and Americans For Prosperity — political groups spreading the low-tax, low-regulation, free-market message. Maybe if Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers redirected the billions they spend on political power toward social welfare, the need wouldn’t be so great. Maybe if they walked their talk, their views might have more credibility. And yes, I know these and other billionaires spend a lot on charity, I’m not saying they don’t. But they spend at least as much, if not more, on political power.

And that’s the problem. The fact that so many billionaires would rather spend their fortunes on politics not people proves our point. The lure of power is great, is it not? Indeed, too often the lure of power is greater than the lure of helping your neighbor. I’m pretty sure Jesus and the Old Testament prophets knew this.

This is why we need government programs like SNAP: to fill in the holes left by human nature’s failure to always do the right thing. Charities and faith communities are doing a lot but they can’t do it all. Ask any social worker and they will tell you. Ask any secretary of an urban church, inundated with calls for help on a daily basis. They will tell you.

But this discussion is all big a waste time. Because people like Rep. Fincher don’t really care about the poor, do they? When I hear someone say, “let the churches deal with x, y, z problem,” what I’m really hearing is, “I don’t want to deal with x, y, z problem.” That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

If only the poor would just go away. But they won’t, Rep. Fincher. They won’t just “go away.” They will always be with us, as Jesus said, as an eternal reminder of human failure — an eternal reminder of our sin, to use church parlance.

The poor will always be with us as long as we expect someone else to deal with the problem.

It’s not “stealing” when Rep. Fincher does it!

USDA data collected in EWG’s 2013 farm subsidy database update — going live tomorrow –shows that Fincher collected a staggering $3.48 million in “our” money from 1999 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the congressman was cut a government check for a $70,000 direct payment. Direct payments are issued automatically, regardless of need, and go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country.

I am literally at a loss for words. Surely Tennessee’s 8th district deserves better than a heartless bastard who has his hand in the till while telling poor children to go begging at the church door. And you call yourself a Christian with that mouth? No. That’s not Christianity. That is the opposite of Christianity. That is being selfish, greedy, and abusive.

I’m sick of these assholes and their phony faith.

—————————————————————————————

What is it with Tennessee Republicans and hungry children? First we had Williamson County GOP Chair Kevin Kookogey calling the National School Breakfast program a “perverse handout.” Yes, that’s right, making sure hungry kids start the day off right with some nutrition so they can actually learn something in school is perverse.

Then we had state Sen. Stacey Campfield’s now-infamous “starve the children” bill. And now we have Rep. Stephen Fincher, TN-08, passionately arguing to cut food stamps in the Farm Bill because, Jesus:

Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., then quoted a verse from the 26th chapter of Matthew, saying the “poor will always be with us” in his defense of cuts to the food stamps program. 

Fincher said obligations to take care of the poor should be left to churches, not the government.

Right, that worked so well for hundreds of years when the obligation to care for the poor really was left to the churches. Also, way to cherry-pick the Bible, dude.

But also, Jesus Hates Lazy Poors:

Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said.

First of all, the idea that the poor don’t work is astonishingly, dumfoundingly stupid. Here’s a guy crafting policy affecting the poor and he knows absolutely nothing about what it’s like to be poor in America. But second of all, since Fincher brought the work topic up, what does he do for a living? When he’s not sucking on the taxpayer teet as a Congressmonster, of course.

Let’s ask the Great Gazoogle:

A seventh generation farmer, Fincher is a managing partner in Fincher Farms, a family business that grows cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat on more than 2,500 acres in western Tennessee. The company has received $8.9 million in farm subsidies over the past decade, mostly from the cotton program, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.[6][7][8] Fincher received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program.[9]

Oh! So Stephen Fincher thinks it’s perfectly fine for the taxpayers to send him a handout, but when the poor need help putting food on the table, it’s sorry! Jesus says no!

OMG.

In fact, Fincher — a self-described member of the Tea Party, ‘natch — was the largest recipient of farm subsidies in the U.S. Congress, according to this 2011 report, raking in $3,368,843. This was so horrifying that at one point some pundits thought this might be a problem for him with Tea Party voters.

Guffaw.

Get real. If you’re looking for principles on the right side of the aisle you will continually be disappointed.

Rep. Stephen Fincher, you are a horrible person who uses the Bible to selectively justify your greedy, selfish ways. Woe unto you.

Repent, asshole.

In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation (which recently found itself in hot water over the racial IQ theories of the co-author of their widely panned immigration reform study, Jason Richwine, who resigned from the think tank last Friday), urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.

The letter, which is addressed to House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, trumpets the negative media buzz surrounding the White House, saying that, “for the first time, the activities of the Obama administration are receiving a sustained public vetting. Americans’ outrage over Benghazi is amplified by the Internal Revenue Service’s intimidation of conservative grassroots organizations and a cascade of negative headlines. There is the real sense the Obama administration has been less than forthright with the American people, the press and lawmakers.”

Unfortunately for conservatives, who are still hermetically sealed inside their conservative information bubble, “Americans’ outrage over Benghazi” is completely non-existent, and the IRS scandal is still so new that most Americans aren’t entirely sure what it’s about. This hasn’t stopped Tea Party groups from trying to fire an IRS official who had nothing to do with the scrutiny of 501(c)4s, though. Why? Because she’s in charge of enforcing Obaamcare.

But I digress. Back to our letter:

In light of the white hot media spotlight on the administration, and to deflect attention from the many policy areas where Republicans don’t quite get along, the letter urges: “it is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.”

“To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another ‘circular firing squad’ article.”

It’s always all about the obstruction with these people. God forbid anyone should do their jobs. Nope, political games take priority with conservatives. And hey, that’s no surprise: conservatives don’t know how to govern — and how could they? They don’t believe in it! So when they get in power they use their position to line the pockets of their fat cat friends and play political games. When they’re out of power, they use every trick in the book to keep anyone else from governing.

Republicans are truly horrible people.

• Congratulations to Helene Ballmann Dudley of Miami, FL, who was honored by Former President Jimmy Carter and Peace Corps Chief of Staff Stacy Rhodes with the 2013 Lillian Carter Award.

• Is there an evil corporation in your life you’d like to boycott? Koch Bros., say, or Monsanto? There’s an app for that.

• A Danish teenager with a metal detector uncovered a cache of Viking-era coins and artifacts. Hmm. Maybe I should renew my search for the Lost Dutchman gold mine?

• The Catholic church voices opposition to Eurozone austerity.

• Atlanta’s city council is considering zoning for gun ranges so they are at least 800 feet from residences, churches, schools, libraries and hospitals. The proposal is supported by the council’s public safety committee.

• The Senate rejected an NRA-backedproposal that would have allowed firearms on more federal lands, such as those operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

• Mobile payment startup Square, run by billionaire Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, bans gun, weapondry and ammo sellers from using its technology.

• Citing the Republican Party’s prevailing “culture of intolerance,” the Hispanic Director for the RNC-FL has switched to the Democratic Party.

• Brazil becomes the 15th country to legalize same-sex marriage. And here in the U.S., Minnesota makes it 12 states.

• Faith communities and the Pasadena, CA, PD hosted a gun buyback event.

• A Florida “parent trigger” bill which would have allowed private corporations to seize taxpayer-funded schools failed for the second year in a row.

• Guatemala’s ex-dictator has been convicted of genocide. It’s the first time any former head of state has been found guilty of genocide by the courts of the same state.

• U.S. Marines are packing up and leaving Afghanistan for good.

• Nestle will use non-GMO maize in its infant cereals in South Africa. Maybe the rest of us can get that deal?

Good News, Tennessee Edition:

• Gov. Haslam announced he will veto the ag-gag bill.

• Congratulations, Dr. Frances Henderson: the first African American woman to get tenure at Maryville College.

And this week’s cool video is this bizarre English language lesson/self defense class/aerobics video. Oh, Japan. Stay adorable:

 May 14, 2013:

• Kids today:

KNOXVILLE — A Bearden Middle School student arrested Monday for having an unloaded .357 magnum gun at school got the weapon from a family member, a police spokesman said.

“It’s a family member’s gun,” Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Tuesday. He declined to say that meant the boy brought the weapon from home.

DeBusk said the student brought the gun to school “just to show it to friends.” The seventh-grade student showed the handgun to friends before authorities found the pistol.

• Kids today 2.0:

An East Tennessee State University student was arrested Sunday after campus police responded to a call about possible drug use and found a loaded handgun, according to court and school records.

Jahmar D. Adams, 19, 260 Riverview Road, Johnson City, is charged with carrying weapons on school property.

ETSU Public Safety Officer Waymond Babb responded to the 6th floor of Centennial Hall and was directed to the east side stairwell, according to university records on the incident.

According to Babb’s report, he smelled a strong odor of marijuana and then a “blunt” fell from above him. A blunt is a hollowed-out cigar with the tobacco replaced with marijuana.

This is how grandma and grandpa learn what a “blunt” is.

• And closer to home … Hey look! Watch this! Erm ….

Police said the Tullahoma man accused of shooting his 1-year-old son in the chest while field stripping two handguns was acting recklessly.

Witnesses said Kevin Sayre, 26, was showing how parts of one gun were interchangeable with the other one when he fired, according to Lieutenant Jason Ferrell. Sayre was charged with aggravated assault.

“You’ve got to ask yourself if a reasonable person would consider those actions reckless,” Ferrell said. “It’s our contention that it was reckless that he was even performing those steps with the child present.”

May 12, 2013:

• Call It Nutbush City Limits:

(Memphis) – A man is dead and another is on the run after an argument leads to a shooting in the Nutbush Community.

Police say they have a good idea of who the shooter is because this all started over a family argument, but people in the neighborhood are saddened that a man lost his life on Mother’s Day.

Family Members were overwhelmed with grief Sunday evening after finding out their loved one was shot to death.

Nutbush sure has changed since Tina Turner wrote a song about the West Tennessee town.

May 11, 2013:

• Don’t get drunk and try to load your Springfield XD .45 at 4 a.m.:

BRISTOL — A bullet traveled through several walls of an apartment complex on Volunteer Parkway without injuring anyone early Saturday morning.

Jarred B. Horton, 25, 1270 Volunteer Parkway, was loading his Springfield XD .45-caliber handgun while intoxicated when it accidentally discharged at about 4 a.m., according to Bristol police.

[...]

Horton was charged with reckless endangerment because he was inebriated, his wife was also in the apartment and residents were in the apartment the bullet traveled through, police said.

• Just as the Founders intended, no doubt:

Police are looking for an individual who discharged a gun next to another man’s head early Saturday morning during an apparent argument, injuring the man’s ear.

[...]

“He put the gun up next to his head and fired off to the side of him, more or less to scare him, I think,” McGill said. “And it was the gas or recoil or something which caught his ear and cut his ear.”

May 7, 2013:

• In my fantasy moonbat world, unhinged crazies don’t have guns:

According to an incident report, officers met with the victim at a Moreland Drive business. She allegedly said her estranged husband had left several threatening voicemail messages on her phone — including one that sounded as if there was a gunshot, followed by Blevins boasting that one of her dog’s was, “suffering.”

Being afraid to go to the South Creek Court residence to retrieve the animals alone, police accompanied the woman to the home. An arrest report states Blevins met police in the driveway, with deputies “immediately” noticing that he emitted a strong odor of alcohol.

When asked where the victim’s large poodles were located Blevins allegedly stated, “running around the house somewhere.” Police say he then became belligerent and unruly, ignoring officers’ commands and attempting to walk away.

When his estranged wife began making her way towards the residence, Blevins allegedly attempted to “take off after” her. He was then taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication.

When the victim and an officer opened the home’s door one dog was spotted walking around, but trailing blood and suffering a gunshot wound to the neck. The woman’s second poodle was reportedly located dead on the floor of a bedroom, a bullet hole in its back.

Police say a pair of loaded handguns were found on a kitchen table, along with two bullet holes in a kitchen wall. Furniture was also allegedly flipped upside down throughout the home.

May 6, 2013:

• Hey, it’s not all bad news:

Shelby County Commissioners voted down a resolution Monday, May 6, that would have backed the idea of state legislators and county sheriffs across the state “nullifying” federal gun control laws they consider unconstitutional.

The debate about Commissioner Terry Roland’s “Second Amendment Preservation Resolution” dominated a short commission agenda that also included a resolution honoring Commissioner Steve Mulroy for donating a kidney last week to the Methodist Healthcare transplant program.

Roland said he sponsored the Second Amendment resolution because his constituents wanted it. And he insisted the resolution was simply to state the commission’s general support of the right to bear arms.

“I’m not going to change any minds here,” Roland added as the debate continued.

Mulroy, a law professor at The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, questioned why the commission would want to do that. He also questioned the wording in the resolution which called on the Tennessee Legislature to “reject and nullify the enforcement of any federal acts, laws, executive orders, rules or regulations in violation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and of the Constitution of the State of Tennessee.”

He termed the resolution “an extreme right-wing position.”

Gee, ya think?

May 2, 2013:

• Always amazes me that all of these responsible gun owners are constantly forgetting about their guns. Seems like the first sign of a responsible gun owner is knowing where your guns are at all times:

(Memphis) A passenger at Memphis International Airport was stopped at a TSA security checkpoint Thursday morning after a .38 revolver was found in a carry-on bag.

TSA Federal Security Director Kevin McCarthy said this is the 9th gun found in a carry-on at Memphis International in 2013.

Nine guns total were found in all of 2012.

“People are not aware of what they have in their bags. The most common excuse we hear is I forgot about it or I didn’t pack my bag, but that’s not good enough,” said McCarthy.

Thursday’s passenger received a misdemeanor citation.

May 1, 2013:

• Coffee County Commissioner doesn’t think this is intolerant at all:

A Coffee County commissioner’s Facebook post suggesting Muslims are best greeted from behind a rifle barrel is prompting demands for an apology.

Commissioner Barry West’s post follows a string of anti-Muslim acts throughout Middle Tennessee in recent years, including at least four incidents of mosque vandalism. Opposition to a new mosque in Rutherford County was so strong it took federal Justice Department intervention to open it last year.

West played no active role in any of those incidents. He just put an image on his Facebook page, which shows a man aiming a shotgun under the phrase “How to wink at a Muslim.” But even that put a chill through Muslims in Middle Tennessee.

Dumbass.

April 28, 2013: 

• Art that makes a statement about gun culture comes to Chattanooga:

[...] visitors to the Main Gallery at the Association for Visual Arts weave their way through a sea of 1,000 black pingpong balls he installed and then see what awaits them on the other side — an assault rifle.

“Guns are fetishized in the U.S.,” says Murphy, an artist and assistant professor of art and technology at Georgia College. “Many, many Americans love guns. I’m creating a giant gun. Gun enthusiasts should love the piece.

“I just want people to keep talking about guns [and] why we should have guns,” he says. “Communication is necessary because I don’t see any sort of solution being proposed.”

Stay safe, y’all.

Hilarious:

There was a commissioner, Douglas Shulman, who was appointed by the Bush/Cheney administration five years ago, and who was in charge when the agency began treating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status unfairly. It’s unlikely that a Republican deliberately targeted groups on the right for extra scrutiny.

But more to the point, Rubio’s demand is problematic given the fact that Shulman has already resigned, leaving the IRS last November. It’s tough for a guy to fall on his sword after he’s already packed up his stuff and gone home.

So the guy in charge of the IRS when conservative groups say they were unfairly targeted was a Bush appointee, and he’s been gone for six months.

I’d say the Teanuts have been played.

—————————————————-
Help me out here, people. Other than massive butthurt and shrill whining, skills which the Tea Party employ with surgical precision, I don’t get what this supposed “scandal” involving the IRS is all about.

Tea Party groups were applying for 501(c)4 status. Political groups can’t be 501(c)4s. They can’t be involved directly in politics, raise money for candidates, launch primary challenges, run for office, etc. But groups calling themselves “Tea Party” and “Patriots” had been in the news for months doing exactly that! So why is it a big deal that the IRS was looking into the activities of groups calling themselves “Tea Party” before granting them non-profit status?

What am I missing here?

Also, many on the left have mentioned the numerous ways the Bush Administration did the same and even worse, without so much as a tear from conservatives or a front page headline from the mainstream media. Remember All Saints Church in Pasadena, California? Following a 2004 anti-war sermon which went viral, the IRS investigated the church for two years and threatened its non-profit status. At the same time, conservative “Patriot pastors” telling their congregations how to vote were ignored.

Remember when the FBI infiltrated anti-war groups as they planned protests ahead of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis? Probably not — there’s little mention of this in the corporate media.

Or what about this one:

The FBI improperly targeted Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and two antiwar groups in domestic terrorism investigations between 2001 and 2006, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice said in a report released today.

The IG found there was “little or no basis” for the terror investigations, and that they were “unreasonable and inconsistent with FBI policy.”

At least two of the investigations resulted in innocent people being placed on the domestic terror watch list for years, and one resulted in FBI Director Robert Mueller providing Congress with “inaccurate and misleading information,” according to the report.

Remember the Pentagon’s TALON data base, which targeted anti-war Quakers and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell protestors? Doubtful: most people have probably never heard of it. Outside the lefty press, it got little attention on cable and network news.

Remember back in 2003 when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation took down names of anti-war protestors at an MTSU peace rally? More recently, remember when the FBI targeted Occupy Wall Street?

Imagine the Tea Party hysterics if the FBI put their leaders on the terror watch list. But you don’t see Morning Joe booking the head of PETA to discuss the ways they were targeted; today he did book Newt Gingrich. And the Wall Street Journal is calling this “Nixonian.” Seriously? So you had to wait a little longer for your tax exempt status to clear on account of your politicking. Cry me a damn river, you big babies. Call me when your name is placed on a secret domestic terror watch list.

This is one giant nothingburger, another chance for the Tea Party to whine and call for the fainting couches about how unfair everyone always is to them. Seriously? The media is playing along with this? After ignoring the far worse ways liberal groups have been targeted by different government agencies — including the IRS?

Just further proof that the media is not liberal and its infatuation with all things Tea Party has continued.

You know what I think? I think the news media are desperate for a political scandal. We had so many of them during the Bush years, and then there was Clinton’s blow job and Gennifer Flowers and TravelGate and all the other Clinton-era scandals, phony and otherwise. Obama is just too boring.

• It’s a miracle: a survivor has been found in the rubble of the collapsed Bangladesh garment factory where more than 1,000 workers perished.

• On a related note, an increasing number of clothing retailers are responding to consumers’ concerns about where and how clothing is manufactured.

• Saudi Arabia will start letting girls play sports — in private schools, if they dress “modestly.” Baby steps.

• Elizabeth Smart explained how abstinence-only education actually harms women who are victims of sexual assault. This is a perspective on the sex education debate I’ve never considered before, and I really appreciate her candor.

• Environmentalists and agricultural groups are touting a compromise reached on farmland conservation. Have to say, I don’t know much about this issue at all, but FWIW, it’s seen as a promising sign in getting a farm bill through Congress.

• Cheaper, faster Wi-Fi in-flight, that’s better than what you get at home? I might actually enjoy flying again.

• The California State Assembly passed a transgender rights bill. The measure has moved on to the state Senate.

• Hong Kong port workers ended their 40-day strike, winning a 9.8% pay raise.

• Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have drastically lowered the cost of their HPV vaccines in Third World nations to under $5 a dose.

• New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, facing backlash over her vote against universal background checks, has done the ol’ flip-flop.

• Another one bites the dust: Delaware becomes the 11th state to legalize same-sex marriage. I think we all know how this one it gonna play out.

• …. and Minnesota would make 12…

• Seems like I’ve posted this before, but it appears the slowdown in rising healthcare costs is permanent. While I’d prefer permanently declining costs — this isn’t that — I’ll take what I can.

• The Louisiana Supreme Court struck down Gov. Jindal’s school voucher plan, saying its method of funding is unconstitutional.

• College divestment campaigns are creating the next generation of environmental leaders.

• This is so cool: linguists have discovered two dozen 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’. So study up before you crawl inside that time machine!

Good News, Tennessee Edition:

• A Clarksville Boy Scout leader has resigned to protest the Scouts’ anti-gay policies.

• Pit bull puppies and dogs will no longer immediately be killed at Metro Nashville Animal Control, a reversal of longstanding policy.

• Meet the Tennessee Justice Center’s Dad of the Year, who fought to obtain healthcare for his son.

* LightWave Solar completed the installation of a 211 kW solar system for the Music City Center, making it the largest solar installation in Nashville. Here’s ‘a photo:

• Good riddance Albert Tieche, and good riddance Jim Gotto. I haven’t written about this but y’all have to know there’s been a major internecine battle going on inside the Davidson County Republican Party which has involved the Nashville-Davidson County Election Commission. The state GOP appointed a Tea Party wacko to head our election commission, which predictably resulted in some major election day problems and angered moderate Republicans, who are tired of Tea Party stupidity:

The state report said the problems included failing to open the polls on a Saturday during early voting; machines that sometimes defaulted to the Republican ballot during the primary; and shortages of poll workers, printed forms, parking and phone lines on Election Day.

Commissioner Jim Gotto resigned during the meeting and criticized others for seemingly fast-tracking the firing of Tieche. Gotto told the commission’s chairman that he had lost his “respect and trust.”

The fact that Jim Gotto “resigned in protest” is just icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned. Our election commission lost two partisan wackjobs for the price of one. Hooray. A more detailed report on this story is here, for those interested.

• Good riddance, number two. This is one legislator who stayed long, long past his expiration date, and I say this because I lived in his district for years. I still haven’t forgiven Sen. Henry for his crackpot statements about rape. Every time I called his office in the past few years I ended up speaking to an extremely rude and unpleasant female aide, and I’ve even wondered on occasion if this person hasn’t been acting as our de facto state senator because the octogenarian Sen. Henry was unable to do so. So, farewell, good riddance, and it’s time for some fresh blood.

This week’s cool video: What American English Sounds Like To Non-English Speakers:

My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime.

I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?

This was supposed to be funny? Oh, FFS! Why is Nashville home to one of the world’s largest populations of Kurds? Why are there so many Somalis here, and now people from Burma are arriving? You know why? Because of refugee resettlement programs and support services from all of our churches and Catholic Charities. So Stein wants to know why Indians chose Edison, New Jersey? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe just to piss you off with “the amount of cologne they wear.”

Honestly, is this click-bait or what?

(Both Time and Stein has apologized for the column’s offensiveness, BTW.)

CBS 11’s I-Team has obtained a study that says Oncor, the giant electric utility company in North Texas, is collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from customers for federal taxes that don’t exist.

“Since 2008, they have collected $500 million for the purpose of paying taxes on their income,” said Randy Moravec, executive director of the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a coalition of member cities – including Arlington, Plano and Frisco – that works toward finding the lowest rates for residents.

Asked how much of that money has actually reached the Internal Revenue Services, Moravec said: “None … not a penny.”

Gee, where I’m from that’s called theft. But in Texas, it’s all perfectly legal:

Although Oncor collects for federal taxes, it actually does not owe the IRS anything because its majority owner, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, has been operating in the red for years.

“In the state of Texas, it’s perfectly legal for Oncor to do what they’re doing right now,” said state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who is a critic of the utility company’s collection for federal taxes.

[...]

Sen. Davis said there should be a law against charging consumers for taxes that are never levied.

“Unfortunately, rather than moving in that direction, the state is actually trying to move in the opposite direction,” she said, referring to a bill that has already passed the senate and is still pending in the Texas House.

If the bill becomes law, the senator said, “It would remove the Public Utility Commission’s authority to regulate utility companies in this particular arena.”

See, you thought they hated taxes in Texas, right? Nope. Not as long as they’re another angle that can be played in the state’s culture of grift.

Reason #10,981 why I will never, ever live in Texas. Ever. Rick Perry can take his bogus campaign and shove it.