Just two weeks in and John Oliver’s already got the hang of it.

In the six months since the Newtown massacre, 5,056 Americans have been shot to death.

Or, as the NRA says, “Shut up already with your gun deaths!”

A House Republican drew a sharp response during debate on an abortion bill when he said that the number of pregnancies resulting from rape is very low.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., later sought to clarify his remark, saying he intended to say that later-term abortions linked to pregnancies caused by rape are infrequent.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, where Franks made his original comment, quickly compared it to the statement made by former Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., that women’s bodies can avoid pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.” Akin’s 2012 campaign for a Senate seat in Missouri foundered after the comment.

Franks’ original comment Wednesday was: “The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.”

The New York Daily News, “Republican Congressman Clairifies Comments on Pregnancy from Rape.”

No need to clarify if all you were saying was what you truly believe, asshole.

Stephen Colbert’s tribute to retiring Republican rep Michele Bachmann is aces.

The Colbert Report

I will continue to work vehemently and robustly to fight back against what most in the other party want to do to transform our country into becoming.

Quitting GOP Minnesota congresswoman MICHELE BACHMANN, in her farewell video.

And to think that her brand of fucking Tea Party idiocy won’t end when her term does.

(Via the Colbert Report)

THE EYES HAVE IT Ethically-challenged Michele Bachmann (R - Minnesota, eh?) won’t run for a fifth term in Congress. But she’ll no doubt continue to remain batshit paraoid and cray cray.

When CVFC, a conservative veterans’ group in California, applied for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, its biggest expenditure that year was several thousand dollars in radio ads backing a Republican candidate for Congress.

The Wetumpka Tea Party, from Alabama, sponsored training for a get-out-the-vote initiative dedicated to the “defeat of President Barack Obama” while the I.R.S. was weighing its application.

And the head of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, whose application languished with the I.R.S. for more than two years, sent out e-mails to members about Mitt Romney campaign events and organized members to distribute Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign literature.

Representatives of these organizations have cried foul in recent weeks about their treatment by the I.R.S., saying they were among dozens of conservative groups unfairly targeted by the agency, harassed with inappropriate questionnaires and put off for months or years as the agency delayed decisions on their applications.

But a close examination of these groups and others reveals an array of election activities that tax experts and former I.R.S. officials said would provide a legitimate basis for flagging them for closer review.

“Money is not the only thing that matters,” said Donald B. Tobin, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s tax division who is a law professor at Ohio State University. “While some of the I.R.S. questions may have been overbroad, you can look at some of these groups and understand why these questions were being asked.”

The New York Times, “Groups Targeted by IRS Tested Rules on Politics.”

Things that make you go hmmmmm.

TOGETHER AGAIN Seven months ago, President Obama visited the Sandy-devastated towns of New Jersey, with Governor Christie leading him on a tour of the battered coastline. To some — if not most — Republicans, the resulting photo op was a stab in the back to the GOP and specifically to presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who would lose an election to Obama just days later. Today, the President paid a follow-up visit to see recovery efforts in the Garden State, and there again was Christie to shake his hand. Or, as conservatives called it, “Waaaaah, Christie is telling us to fuck off again” (Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times)