Police in Colorado have cited a 37-year-old man for carrying his computer into an alley then shooting it eight times with a handgun after what authorities said had been a long battle with the uncooperative machine.

Lucas Hinch was cited for discharging a firearm within city limits after officers responded to a “shots fired” call early on Monday evening, the Colorado Springs police department said.

“Investigation revealed a resident was fed up with fighting his computer for the last several months,” a police statement entitled “Man Kills His Computer” said.

“He took the computer into the back alley and fired eight shots into the computer with a handgun, effectively disabling it.”

The Colorado Springs Gazette quoted police as saying Hinch had been good-natured about the citation, telling officers he had not realised he was breaking the law.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/22/frustrated-man-charged-by-police-after-shooting-his-uncooperative-computer

Even before presidential candidates started lining up billionaires to kick-start their campaigns, it was clear that the 2016 election could be the biggest big-money election yet. This chart from the political data shop Crowdpac illustrates where we may be headed: Between 1980 and 2012, the share of federal campaign contributions coming from the very, very biggest political spenders—the top 0.01 percent of donors—nearly tripled:

In other words, a small handful of Americans* control more than 40 percent of election contributions. Notably, between 2010 and 2012, the total share of giving by these donors jumped more than 10 percentage points. That shift is likely the direct result of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which struck down decades of fundraising limits and kicked off the super-PAC era. And this data only includes publicly disclosed donations, not dark money, which almost certainly means that the megadonors' actual share of total political spending is even higher.

It's pretty fair to assume that most of these top donors are also sitting at the top of the income pyramid. Out of curiosity, I compared the share of campaign cash given by elite donors alongside the increasing share of income controlled by the people who make up the top 0.01 percent—the 1 percent of the 1 percent. The trend lines aren't an exact match, but they're close enough to show how top donors' political clout has increased along with top earners' growing slice of the national income. Again, note the bump around 2010 and 2011, when the Citizens United era opened just as the superwealthy were starting to recover from the recession—a rebound that has left out most Americans.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/04/one-percent-campaign-giving

Start with Mr. Christie, who thought he was being smart and brave by proposing that we raise the age of eligibility for both Social Security and Medicare to 69. Doesn’t this make sense now that Americans are living longer?

And while raising the retirement age would impose a great deal of hardship, it would save remarkably little money. In fact, a 2013 report from the Congressional Budget Office found that raising the Medicare age would save almost no money at all.

But Mr. Christie — like Jeb Bush, who quickly echoed his proposal — evidently knows none of this. The zombie ideas have eaten his brain.

And there are plenty of other zombies out there. Consider, for example, the zombification of the debate over health reform.

Before the Affordable Care Act went fully into effect, conservatives made a series of dire predictions about what would happen when it did. It would actually reduce the number of Americans with health insurance; it would lead to “rate shock,” as premiums soared; it would cost the government far more than projected, and blow up the deficit; it would be a huge job-destroyer.

In reality, the act has produced a dramatic drop in the number of uninsured adults; premiums have grown much more slowly than in the years before reform; the law’s cost is coming in well below projections; and 2014, the first year of full implementation, also had the best job growth since 1999.

read all: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/paul-krugman-zombies-of-2016.html?_r=0

Almost all of the declared and undeclared Republican candidates for 2016 could be found this weekend at one of two events, or both.

The first was organized by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, and held in Point of Grace Church in Waukee. Dominated by Evangelical Christians, who were 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers in 2008 and 2012, the Point of Grace Church event drew no fewer than nine Republican hopefuls.

Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, past winners of the Iowa caucuses, were there. So, too, were Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walter. Cruz and Walker are sons of Christian preachers. All nine GOP hopefuls espoused Judeo-Christian values, and all nine pledged unyielding opposition to same-sex marriage.

“At a forum before evangelical Christians,” wrote the New York Times, “the Republican candidates told a cheering crowd that the fight over same-sex marriage would not end with a Supreme Court decision. ”Mr. Cruz said advocates of traditional marriage should ‘fall to our knees and pray.’” Sen. Marco Rubio declared that the “institution of marriage as one man and one woman existed long before our laws existed.”

Onward Christian soldiers!

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/will-vegas-values-take-over-the-gop/

A onetime political ally and former high school classmate of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pleaded guilty Friday — and two other former members of Christie’s inner circle were indicted — in connection with their roles in an intentional 2013 traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge designed to punish a Christie political opponent.

David Wildstein, who as an official at the Port Authority had ordered the closure of two of the bridge’s toll lanes, confirmed to a federal judge Friday that his goal was political retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich had declined to endorse the Republican governor’s reelection bid.

Also indicted were Christie’s deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly and William E. Baroni Jr., a top political appointee at the Port Authority. Wildstein told a federal judge Friday that he had conspired with the two to engineer the traffic jam and falsely claim it was part of a traffic study on the bridge.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/key-christie-aide-pleads-guilty-to-role-in-bridgegate/2015/05/01/d0ea2a90-f00d-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html?hpid=z3

Ted Cruz's presidential ambitions may well live or die with the Iowa Republican caucuses. In recent years, the Hawkeye State has served as the launching pad for candidates courting social conservatives, handing caucus wins to Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008. The Texas senator hasn't been too subtle in his attempts to claim the same mantle. Cruz announced his campaign in March at Liberty University—founded by Jerry Falwell, the late televangelist who once suggested 9/11 was God's punishment for homosexuality and abortion—and during an initial trip to Iowa for a "Faith and Freedom Coalition" conference Cruz argued for allowing Christian symbols in public spaces. But perhaps his best play so far has been snagging former Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz to be his state chairman there, considering that three years ago Schultz was a prominent supporter of Santorum, who is about to announce his 2016 presidential bid.

By tapping Schultz, Cruz also tied himself to Schultz's leading cause: trying to restrict voting under the guise of combating voter fraud. During his four years as secretary of state, Schultz spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to unearth evidence of fraud but ended up finding little and being cited for the mismanagement of public funds.

Schultz was a little-known political figure in 2010, when he vaulted from two terms on the Council Bluffs City Council to be elected secretary of state. At 31 years old, he was the youngest person ever to hold that title. It was a small campaign, with just $100,000 spent on his Republican primary contest and the general election. He campaigned for tightening up Iowa's voting procedures, creating strict photo ID laws, and scaling back the state's same-day voter registration policy.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/ted-cruz-matt-schultz-iowa-chairman-voter-id

Ted Cruz Complains That Running for President Sucks

—By David Corn

Running for president is tough. Candidates must spend long stretches on the road, devote many hours to sucking up to rich people to raise a boatload of money, and eat tons of bad food. Yet those who take the leap usually don't whine about all this. But not Ted Cruz. In one of the more unusual fundraising emails of this campaign season, Cruz, a tea party GOP senator from Texas, bitches about the hardships he is forced to endure as an official presidential wannabe.

In the note, Cruz moans that he's "sacrificing a great deal" to seek the White House. He has less time with his family. He and his wife Heidi, who until recently was a Goldman Sachs executive, are taking a financial hit because of the campaign. His personal time is encroached upon by campaign obligations. ("My days are no longer my own," he grouses. "Days start before dawn and many times don't end until early the next morning.") And, perhaps worst of all, the food is lousy, and—OMG!—campaigning interferes with his sleep needs: "My runoff campaign for the Senate in 2012 took a toll, but now I'm sacrificing even more sleep with long nights and constant travel."

The only thing that seems to be missing from the solicitation is this: Bwaaaaaaaaa!

But here's his pitch: if Cruz can suffer through all these awful sacrifices, other "courageous conservatives" can "make an instant and secure sacrificial gift" to his campaign. From $35 to $1000.

In other words, while Cruz is putting up with a "pizza diet" to advance the conservative cause, right-wingers ought to at least kick in the money for his junk food and hotel rooms.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/ted-cruz-complains-running-president-sucks