Part of this reminded me of a Who/Clash tour where Pete Townsend would pass his guitar to Joe Strummer as the new generation. Keith Richards noted at the time, "that's bullshit - the next generation will just take it". Not some kind of royalty. Asking Pelosi to resign because maybe just maybe someone new will appear? How about they just fucking appear and amaze us and then we'll kick Nancy and whoever else to the curb. Really, sometimes it seems our party's run by Robert's Rules of Order and then we even get those screwed up. Even with Bernie it was all "see, he didn't lose as badly as you thought he would, did he?" How persuasive - here's the keys to the house, take my car, should be enough gas to get you... where'd you say you were going?

Do as I say, not as I do.

And today, Representative Tim Murphy, a repub from Pennsylvania RESIGNED.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tim-murphy-resigns-after-pressure-mounts-following-texts-on-abortion/ar-AAsV0Le?OCID=ansmsnnews11

This is yet another example of some repub who has advocated a pro-life stance forever....who demanded that his mistress (during an adulterous relationship) proceed to abort his child.

Oh the family man.

Oh the protector of the fetus.

OH THE PRICK.

This item is all over the web.

And most of you have read about this mess.

"Albright found that the content had been “shared” 340 million times. That’s from a tiny sliver of the 470 accounts that have been made public. Even if those sites were unusually effective compared to the 464 others, Albright’s findings still suggest a total reach well into the billions of “shares” on Facebook."

'I’m sick and tired of nothing happening,' one contributor says of the party's legislative failures.

By Alex Isenstadt & Gabriel Dibenedetti @ Politico.com, Oct. 5

Republicans are confronting a growing revolt from their top donors, who are cutting off the party in protest over its inability to get anything done.

Tensions reached a boiling point at a recent dinner at the home of Los Angeles billionaire Robert Day. In full view of around two dozen guests, Thomas Wachtell, a retired oil and gas investor and party contributor, delivered an urgent message to the night’s headliner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Just do something [....]

The backlash is threatening to deprive Republicans of resources just as they're gearing up for the 2018 midterms. Party officials are so alarmed that North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who oversees fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told his colleagues at a recent conference meeting that donations had fallen off a cliff after the Obamacare flop. The committee’s haul plummeted to just $2 million in July and August, less than half of what it raised in June [....]

By Madeline Aggeler @ NYMag.com, Oct. 4

Anti-abortion Republican congressman Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania has announced his plans to retire following reports that he had an extramarital affair and urged his mistress to get an abortion during a pregnancy scare [....]

The 64-year-old congressman admitted to having an affair with 32-year-old forensic psychologist Shannon Edwards several weeks ago, after details of their relationship were made public during her divorce proceedings. On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that it had obtained documents from the proceedings, including a text message exchange in which Edwards criticizes Murphy for posting anti-abortion views on Facebook [....]

By Josh Gerstein @ Politico.com, Oct. 3

The Justice Department has released a series of recently overruled legal memos concluding that presidents cannot appoint their relatives to the White House staff or presidential commissions, even to unpaid posts.

In January, a career Justice Department official essentially declared the earlier opinions erroneous or obsolete, clearing the way for President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to take a senior adviser position in the White House. First daughter Ivanka Trump later took a similar official but unpaid slot under the same legal rationale.

The newly disclosed opinions, issued to the administrations of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and obtained by POLITICO Monday through a Freedom of Information Act request, detail how Justice Department lawyers concluded for decades that such appointments of family members were illegal under an anti-nepotism law passed in 1967 [....]

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Tiffany Hsu @ NYTimes.com, 8:30 pm

• Despite adamant resistance to all manner of gun regulation for decades, some top Republicans said they saw no purpose for the “bump stock” device used by the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock.
• The accessory, which can sell for as little as $99.99, allows semiautomatics to mimic the firing capability of fully automatic weapons.

[....] “I own a lot of guns, and as a hunter and sportsman, I think that’s our right as Americans, but I don’t understand the use of this bump stock,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said, adding, “It seems like it’s an obvious area we ought to explore and see if it’s something Congress needs to act on.”

Mr. Cornyn said the continuing legality of the conversion kits was “a legitimate question,” and told reporters he had asked Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman, to convene a hearing on that issue and any others that arise out of the Las Vegas investigation.

Other Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida, said they would be open to considering legislation on bump stocks [....]

By Stef W. Kight @ Axios.com, 1 hr ago.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin are (D-IL) re-introducing a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that never made it to the floor last year. It calls for lower minimum sentences for drug offenders, targets violent criminals and calls for a National Criminal Justice Commission to conduct a review of the criminal justice system.

Why it matters: The Senators hope that the bill can receive bipartisan support by reducing sentences for non-violent drug offenders, but still enforcing harsher sentences for violent criminals [....]

By Pew Research Center, Sept. 14

The 2018 midterm elections will be determined in large part by who goes to the polls and who stays home. Historically, far fewer Americans turn out to vote in midterm than presidential elections and in 2014, turnout hit a 70-year low.

A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that “drop-off” voters – those who voted in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections but not the 2014 midterm, differed in many ways from consistent voters, who voted in all three of these elections, and nonvoters. In this report, nonvoters are those who were registered to vote, but did not cast ballots in any of the most recent national election [....]

By David Ignatius @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 4

[....] Tillerson’s desire to remain on the job is a stabilizing move [....] His departure now would be widely seen as damaging to America’s already fragile position in a world disrupted by Trump’s erratic policies.

The question, as always with Trump, is whether this profession of loyalty will appease what has appeared to be the president’s growing anger with his chief diplomat. For Tillerson, the question is whether, after humbling himself in such a public manner, he can remain an effective and confident representative for the United States abroad. The question, as always with Trump, is whether this profession of loyalty will appease what has appeared to be the president’s growing anger with his chief diplomat.

Tillerson sought to rebut an NBC News report that he had to be talked out of quitting in frustration last summer and that he had called the president a “moron” after a meeting at the Pentagon. He said he had never considered resigning. But on the “moron” comment, he refused to answer such “petty nonsense,” a non-answer that to some ears will sound like a confirmation.

Tillerson rang all the bells in his adulatory comments about Trump. He said he had learned that Trump “loves his country,” is “smart” and properly insists on “accountability.” Tillerson also listed the administration’s foreign-policy accomplishments, including [....]

By Ishaan Tharoor @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 4

[....] Speculation over the deal's demise has given a wing to a flurry of op-eds from neoconservative wonks and Iran hawks in Washington, cheering on possible “decertification.”But there's a crucial constituency that may not be on the same page as Trump: “his” generals. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and fielded questions on the administration's thinking regarding the Iran deal.

During the hearing, Senator Angus King (I-Maine) asked Mattis: “Do you believe it’s in our national security interest at the present time to remain in the JCPOA?” (The JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the formal term for the Iran deal.)

“Yes, Senator, I do,” Mattis responded.

He also stated that “If we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interest, then clearly we should stay with it … I believe at this point in time, absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with.” Iran's Press TV pointedly featured the comments on its social media account [....]

Whatever the mood in Washington, a new poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that a clear majority of Americans say that the United States should stick to the deal. The country's top defense officials seem to share that view. But it's still doubtful that the commander in chief is listening [....]