Wiretap: The return of the ’47 percent’

 
In the first major blow in the race for governor, a video of Bob Beauprez slamming the 47 percent who don’t pay federal taxes has surfaced. It was first reported in the Denver Post, but the video has apparently been out there on YouTube since Beauprez delivered the speech to a Rotary Club audience back in 2010 — two years before Mitt Romney’s video. In his speech, Beauprez says that nearly half of Americans are “perfectly happy that someone else is paying the bill.” He says it’s a Democratic strategy to keep people “dependent on the largess of government” so that they will vote for Democrats. Via FoxNews 31.

Hobby Lobby is just the beginning, writes law professor Paul Horwitz in the New York Times.

Five false conservative arguments on Hobby Lobby, via the Daily Beast, and six stupid liberal arguments, via the Federalist.

Behold below Ben Jacobs’ fantastic Twitter reporting Wednesday afternoon from inside the post-Mississippi Republican Party U.S. Senate primary-race Thad Cochran phone presser. Perfectly in line with the nasty campaigns, the election night hijinks, the runoff election shenanigans and the tragic aftermath colored by suicide, politician bitterness and recrimination that marked this Tea Party-Republican contest, the call descended into wingnut conspiracy theories, race baiting and just more generally sad-comic commentary on the state of the political right. Begin reading at the bottom:

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Burial photos of Pfc. Aaron Toppen are a sad reminder of the fact that the war in Afghanistan is not over.

Rand Paul has figured out how to try to win over conservatives on his foreign policy – by talking in defense of Israel. Well, he had to try something. Via the National Journal.