Last Call

Same Republican anti-minority, anti-immigrant crap, different state.

Four North Carolina House Republicans filed a bill on Wednesday that notably introduces the “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s anti-immigration law. Under the bill, H.B. 786, police can check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest and detain them for “reasonable suspicion.” The bill also makes it easier for police to seize immigrants’ vehicles. Furthermore, it would require a detained undocumented immigrant to pay the costs of his or her arrest, while making bail more difficult.

The bill does provide driver’s permits to undocumented immigrants if they lived in the state for one year. However, these licenses follow the controversial design North Carolina attempted to issue to DREAMers, which mark them from the rest of the state’s population: Undocumented immigrants would receive a vertical license, instead of the standard horizontal one, and they would carry a thumbprint.

Yeah.  Round up time, yeehaa.   If you're wondering when North Carolina became insane, it was the second the GOP got control of the legislature and the Governor's mansion, so welcome to having a bunch of regressive bigots run your state like the rest of racist assholes in the South, guys.

Increasingly glad I left, when Kentucky is more progressive...

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle Part 6

As I covered in last night's Last Call, Progress Kentucky has shaped up to be just about Mitch McConnell's best weapon in defusing the primary charge against him from the right, and completely disarming Kentucky Democrats on the left.  I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who thinks these clowns need to exit the stage as quickly as possible.  Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ruby Cramer bring us the epitaph:

It's probably possible for a political group to be worse at accomplishing its core mission than Progress Kentucky is, but it's difficult to imagine how.

In its short lifespan, the super PAC focused solely on defeating Sen. Mitch McConnell has instead helped the Republican incumbent deflect his low approval rating and conservative critics by subjecting McConnell to comically incompetent political attacks.

"They've managed to become McConnell's favorite whipping boy," said Jimmy Cauley, a longtime Kentucky Democratic strategist. "It's kind of laughable because they didn't exist four months ago. And yet they've gotten wrapped up in a string of four or five controversies."

Kentucky Democrats aren't ready to say Progress Kentucky has helped McConnell, but national Democratic observers have their jaws on the floor as they watch the group turn McConnell into a sympathetic figure, generating good headlines for him time and again. 

And that's the real damage done, these idiots have managed to make one of the most personally vile and villainous scumbags in Congress into the aggrieved victim, despite McConnell's awful, misogynist attacks on Ashley Judd and his atrocious voting record, all while he's managed to use his office to enrich himself by tens of millions of dollars.  The story should be how vulnerable, ineffective, and terrible McConnell is.  Instead, these two pudknockers have collapsed the circus tent and are running around setting bits of it on fire.

If the leakers of the tape wanted it to hurt McConnell, their plan backfired. McConnell raised money off his claim that he had been the victim of "Nixonian" tactics, and generally fomented conservative support with his outrage-based spin strategy after the tape came to light. Now that it looks like McConnell might be proven right about the origins of the tape, it's likely he'll get even more mileage out of Progress Kentucky.

The longer Progress Kentucky is in the news, the less McConnell's record is.  Kentucky Democrats are already a lost cause for most Americans.  If the rest of the Dems across the nation throw in the towel on beating Mitch because Heckle and Jeckle here have made the KY Dem brand too toxic to help...

McConnell has real political problems, including low approval ratings and Tea Party types in the GOP who are less than thrilled with his leadership in the Senate. National Democrats fear that the repeated Progress Kentucky faceplants are letting McConnell coast along.

"If it was them, this is an idiotic move and something that could jeopardize the larger push against McConnell in '14," one senior Democratic strategist in D.C. said of the tape. "If this is true, you ask yourself, why anybody would risk such a maneuver, especially on a tape was damning but not a game changer?"

In fact, Progress Kentucky is so bad at its stated task that some Democrats whisper behind the scenes (a better word is "hope") that it must to be a front set up by McConnell to make him look good and Democrats look terrible. Jennings had a message for those Democrats: no such luck.

"That's wishful thinking on the part of Democrats, I am sure, who seriously want to be as far away from these people as possible," he said.

Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Food For Thought

Stephen Hawking, one of the most intelligent people our generation will ever see, recently spoke to students about more than just science.  He talked to them about life in general.

Hawking rattled off nuggets of advice: Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious.

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at," he said.

A mind so powerful that he is the bar by which genius is measured shows  us the way to success.  Never stop trying, be curious, be creative, and look for your talents and how to use them.  His words are empowering when you consider the GOP attacks on education and the attitude that wanting to study is an entitlement that the common folks don't deserve.

So let's see.  Someone so smart his name is synonymous with genius wants you to think and learn and reach,  learn to relish challenge and apply your given talents, because without those attributes the human race is doomed.  When one of the smartest people alive says this, anyone who disagrees had better pack (or reference) some serious academic weight.  That's all I'm saying.



 

StupidiNews!

• Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Seoul, South Korea in order to try to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.
• Fossil research in South Africa has discovered another early ancestor of man, Australopithecus sediba, who roamed the African plains 2 million years ago.
• In the Senate, gun violence legislation has passed the first of many hurdles to open debate, but it still has a long way to go.
• President Obama has released $10 million in non-military food aid to Syrian rebels as the humanitarian crisis there worsens amid civil war.
• A two-year malware ring designed to target MMORPG players and manipulate in-game currency to steal real money has been uncovered by security experts.

Last Call: Roll The Tape

And the strange tale of Who Recorded Mitch The Turtle's Meeting continues...and takes a right turn straight into Insaneoville.

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative.

Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2.

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting.

Oh yes lawd, the same Wonder Twins who took a big flying crap on everything "progressive" in Kentucky (making my job ever so much harder) by tweeting at best stupid and at worst racist crap about Mitch McConnell's wife are apparently the braintrust behind giving McConnell everything he needs to assume the air of aggrieved victim for the entire rest of the campaign.

Oh, and it gets worse.

Shortly after WFPL broke the story on Thursday afternoon, Conway told Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly that he didn't want the actions by Reilly and Morrison to inflict damage on Democrats in Kentucky.

"The only reason that I came forward with what I knew was I was trying to protect the Democratic Party," Conway said. "I believe in our party's values, and I was doing what I thought was best for the party because I did not want their bad behavior, their poor mistakes — I shouldn't say "bad behavior" — their mistakes, their lack of judgment to hurt our party's efforts here in the state Kentucky and in Jefferson County, here in Louisville."

And worse...

The county Democratic Party official who outed two Democratic super PAC operatives in the Mitch McConnell secret tape case has been contacted by the FBI.

Jacob Conway, who sits on the executive committee of the Jefferson County, Ky. Democratic Party, told TPM on Thursday that he was going in to be interviewed at the bureau's Louisville, Ky. office.

And even worse...

The treasurer of Progress Kentucky, a liberal group accused of recording a private campaign strategy session held by aides of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, resigned soon after Mother Jones published the audio on Tuesday.

"At this time based on advice of both friends and counsel, I will be not be making a public statement available until everything has been reviewed by an attorney at this time," Douglas L. Davis told NBC News on Thursday. "I have resigned my position as treasurer and did not and do not condone any allegations of illegal activity that might have taken place."

And if possible, even worse.

In October 2003, Louisville was shaken to its core when 20-year-old Zachary Scarpellini was gunned down outside his Highlands apartment. The tony and quiet neighborhood of victorian mansions – home to residents like Ambassador Matthew Barzun and prominent businessman-turned-politician Bruce Lunsford – was rattled awake by gunfire, left terrified and in shock over such a violent crime.

The only witness at the scene other than the alleged gunman was Scarpellini’s roommate, Shawn Reilly, now Executive Director of Progress Kentucky. Reilly’s claim at the time of the crime was that he and Scarpellini were merely following someone they thought was breaking into cars. According to a report in the Bellarmine University (where Scarpellini was a student) newspaper, The Concord, investigators believed the shooting was random and the victim did not know his killer.

And even worse than that...

Thru atty, @progressky Shawn Reilly denies taping McConnell meeting, at most a witness, says if anyone's responsible it's Curtis Morrison
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

And God help me, even worse.

Atty for @progressky's Shawn Reilly: Reilly went to US attorney when Mother Jones broke tape & has been cooperating in federal investigation
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

It's...crazy.  Shaw Reilly is now throwing his friend and Progress KY co-founder directly to the Feds at near light speed.  More tomorrow...

Air Farce, Or Into The Wild Blue Slander

The USAF general who unilaterally overturned a lieutenant's conviction for sexual assault last year is speaking out about the case, and frankly, yeah he's just as awful as you could imagine.

Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin drew headlines and outrage in March for overturning Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction, nullifying his remaining prison sentence and returning him to service in the Air Force. In his letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley defending his decision, Franklin explained that he was acting fully in compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that he would be “entirely remiss in [his] sworn military duty and responsibility” if he had not overturned the jury’s findings.

Franklin’s memo listed 18 points of contention he saw in the evidence presented during Wilkerson’s court-martial, including several points that either were ruled inadmissible in court or specifically shifted the blame of any assault on the victim.

Yeah, because the victim deserved it, so he had to overturn a conviction by jury.  Among the general's reasons:

• The victim turned down three offers of a ride and seemed to have differing reasons why she wanted to stay.
• The victim had trouble identifying and describing parts of the house, didn’t remember the attacker’s mustache and didn’t correctly describe her path out of the house.
• Wilkerson’s wife’s account of the events differed in some details from her husband’s, but Franklin said the conflicts suggested that the two didn’t collude on a manufactured story.


• Testimony from the friend who took the alleged victim to the hospital the next day was not admissible in court, but Franklin said it indicated there could be a reason the woman might be less than candid.

Yeah.  His mustache.  That must be totally exculpatory evidence.  Luckily, Chuck Hagel is fixing this idiocy:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Tuesday proposed a change in the current law that would strip the convening authority of their ability to overturn verdicts in most cases as the first step in correcting the military’s sexual assault problem. Currently an estimated 19,000 instances of military sexual trauma take place in the U.S. armed services every year, the vast majority of which go unreported for fear of reprisal or scorn. 

US Air Farce strikes again, but all the armed services need a long, hard serious look at sexual harassment policies.

Death By A Thousand Budget Cuts

Let me point out the obvious:  Republicans plan to make sure Obamacare can't work by cutting funding for it, and then blaming the President.  Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans will find themselves in limbo with no health insurance, and at the tender of mercies of GOP governors slashing Medicare.

Don't get sick, America.  It could kill you.

The landmark health law may have survived the Supreme Court, countless repeal efforts and a presidential election — but none of that required Republicans to shower money on Obamacare. And with at least 33 states refusing to build the critical health insurance exchanges, the federal government is unexpectedly on the hook to set them up — and short of money to do so.

The White House requested $1.5 billion more for the health law implementation in its budget Wednesday, but health officials know they’re not likely to get it.

As past funding requests have been spurned, Health and Human Services officials contend they’ve been able to cobble together the funds and won’t miss the Oct. 1 start of open enrollment in exchanges. Any big delay, or major hitches would be a huge blow to Obamacare and reopen the law to political warfare before the 2014 mid-term elections.

“The Supreme Court has ruled, there has been an election, we intend to implement the law,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Wednesday. She acknowledged that without an infusion of new money, she’s probably going to have to keep juggling and scrambling to keep it all on track.

HHS to date hadn’t been very specific about how it’s been moving ahead — even when lawmakers asked. But Sebelius told reporters that the department hadn’t yet spent the full $1 billion that was initially allocated for implementation — a figure that was decided on long before the states balked at exchange-building. Sebelius said the department had been “judicious” in spending it, and officials said approximately $235 million is left in that fund.

Nice.  Meanwhile, let's keep giving $4 billion a year to oil companies who are making tens of billions in profit and keep screaming how we can't afford to make government work.

Assholes.

StupidiNews!

• Japanese automakers, led by Toyota and Honda, are recalling 3.4 million cars due to airbag inflation problems.
• A gunman in Atlanta who held four firefighters hostage was shot and killed by police late Wednesday afternoon.
• New government figures show as much as $5 billion are stolen yearly by identity thieves through false tax returns.
• The Boston Red Sox's record of consecutive sell-outs at Fenway Park came to an end this week at 794 games.
• Microsoft is working on a new 7-inch version of its Surface tablet to compete with the Google Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini.

Last Call: Randsplaining 101

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul!  Storied and famous traditionally black college Howard University!  What happens when you put the two together?

Randsplaining 101!  Benjy Sarlin documents the atrocities...

As Rand Paul told it, the biggest problem keeping African Americans from voting Republican is that they didn’t know Republicans have long been leaders on abolition and civil rights. As students at Howard University heard it, the problem was that Paul was condescending, misleading, and removed from the issues facing their community.


Paul devoted almost none of his speech Wednesday at the historically black college in Washington, D.C., to explaining the GOP’s thorny relationship with black voters over the last fifty years, and most of it arguing that “the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.” His history lecture focused almost entirely on the period before 1964, when the GOP began to champion the states rights arguments of southern whites. Echoing a popular conservative talking point, Paul repeatedly reminded the audience that Democrats passed Jim Crow laws in the south and that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, as were the first black legislators and the founders of the NAACP.

“Would everyone know here they were all Republicans?” he said at one point, referring to the NAACP’s founders.

“Yes!” came the booming response from nearly the entire audience, who appeared offended Paul would even raise the question. 

And on it went from there, as Rand Paul discovered that a roomful of college students at one of the most prestigious universities in the country (historically black or otherwise) actually do know something about American history.  You know, more than Rand Paul did.

In a way, I'm hoping that this was a humbling experience for the Junior Senator from the Commonwealth, but the odds of that are miniscule at best.  Transcript of the speech is, of course, at Reason Magazine's website.  My fav paragraph:

I come to Howard today, not to preach, or prescribe some special formula for you but to say I want a government that leaves you alone, that encourages you to write the book that becomes your unique future.

Yeah, and on that book was "Died from neglect."

I'm Just A Bill, Just A Lonely Ol' Bill

But I want to become a law so badly I'll blackmail an Oklahoma state Senator in order to win, is that how the song goes?

A co-founder of the Sooner Tea Party was charged Tuesday with blackmail over an email that he admits sending to a state senator.

Al Gerhart, 54, of Oklahoma City, also was charged with violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act.

Both counts are felonies.

Gerhart, a carpenter, denied any wrongdoing after coming under investigation last week. He had not been arrested yet Tuesday evening.

Gerhart sent the email March 26 to Sen. Cliff Branan, promising to make the senator a laughing stock unless the Senate Energy and Environment Committee passed a bill dealing with a United Nations plan.

Branan, R-Oklahoma City, is chairman of the committee. The senator turned the email over to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Misspelling one word, Gerhart wrote: “Branan, Get that bill heard or I will make sure you regret not doing it. I will make you the laughing stock of the Senate if I don't hear that this bill will be heard and passed. We will dig into your past, yoru family, your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it. This is a promise.”

Yeah, that's how the FREEDOM and LIBERTY party rolls, yo.  You do their bidding or they destroy you and move on to the next state lawmaker.  And hell, this guy was going to crush him over some tinfoil nonsense dealing with sustainability. 

We'll crush all dissent unless you stop this bill that might mean the end of our ability to dissent, if you squint at it just right!

Idiots...but dangerous.  And increasingly, they're running YOUR state government.

StupidiNews!

• South Korea continues to be on high alert as North Korean mobile missiles have been moved into a test launch position, according to US officials.
• A Georgia state GOP lawmaker who supported drug testing for welfare recipients in the state has been arrested and charged with his second DUI offense in 4 years.
• New inteligence information reveals the Obama administration has targeted lower-level Pakistani militants with drone strikes, and not just Al Qaeda operatives.
• President Obama's budget proposal released today will include new rules to protect taxpayers from identity theft through tax return information.
• Microsoft Windows XP enters its final year of extended support from Redmond, while 38% of internet users still use the OS.

Last Call

Maybe, just maybe, the Republicans in the Senate are going to lose this gun violence legislation battle after all, especially if somebody doesn't shut GOP Sen. James Inhofe up fast.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn't have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did.

Eleven family members of Newtown victims were in Washington on Tuesday, meeting privately with senators to urge them to support a forthcoming gun package that would impose tighter background checks, crack down on gun trafficking and enhance school safety measures. Speaking to a handful of reporters, Inhofe said he feels bad for those families because they're being used as pawns in a political fight.

"See, I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't," Inhofe said.

When it was suggested that the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe said, "Well, that's because they've been told that by the president."

My main argument Saturday was that Republicans weren't going to pay a political price for opposing background checks.  It's entirely conceivable that Inhofe's idiotic statement here may just have changed the calculus on that, big time.

To recap, a sitting US Senator just told the families of the victims of a bloody massacre of six-year-olds that they have nothing to do with the gun violence debate, and that they are nothing more than pawns.  Even if Inhofe believes this, to actually say something that unrelentingly cold to reporters is a pretty awful thing to do.

Suddenly, the villain in this kabuki play isn't the caricature of Tyrant Obama, but Inhofe's own words.  That's a pretty big shift, potentially.

Still virtually no chance of this getting through the House.  But the Senate, well...there's light at the end of that tunnel.

The Senate will hold a preliminary vote on gun control legislation to break the Republican filibuster on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced, after the Democrats pulled together enough votes from Republicans.

“We’re going to vote Thursday,” Reid said. “I’m going to file cloture on the bill tonight.”

Though Democrats do have the numbers to break the filibuster, they still might not have enough votes to overcome other procedural hurdles and hold an up-or-down vote.

They will after Inhofe's story gets wide play.  Cowardly Dems will have nowhere to hide on this one and neither will a number of Republicans.  If the point of President Obama's push on gun legislation was giving the GOP enough rope to hang themselves, Inhofe jumped at the chance to go first.

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle, Part 5

MoJo's David Corn has yet another blockbuster tape, this time of a recording of Old-Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle's opposition research meeting on Ashley Judd.  It reveals that McConnell was going to spare no expense to go after Ashley Judd with brutal personal attacks.

On February 2, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, opened up his 2014 reelection campaign headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and in front of several dozen supporters vowed to "point out" the weaknesses of any opponent fielded by the Democrats. "They want to fight? We're ready," he declared. McConnell was serious: Later that day, he was huddling with aides in a private meeting to discuss how to attack his possible Democratic foes, including actor/activist Ashley Judd, who was then contemplating challenging the minority leader. During this strategy session—a recording of which was obtained by Mother Jones—McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views.

The meeting was truly vile stuff.

For much of the Judd discussion, McConnell was silent as aides reviewed the initial oppo research they had collected on Judd and weighed all the ways they could pummel her. The recording was provided to Mother Jones last week by a source who requested anonymity. (The recording can be found here; a transcript is here.) McConnell's Senate office and his campaign office did not respond to requests for comment.

The aide who led the meeting began his presentation with a touch of glee: "I refer to [Judd] as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there’s such a wealth of material." He ran through the obvious: Judd was a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama, Obamacare, abortion rights, gay marriage, and climate change action. He pointed out that she is "anti-coal."

But the McConnell gang explored going far beyond Judd's politics and policy preferences. This included her mental health.

And they were going to just paint her a hippie weirdo flake.  They were fully prepared to destroy her personally as well as politically and professionally.  And yet this career politician, who has used his office to enrich himself by tens of millions of dollars, is the good guy here.

Now the McConnell campaign is demanding a full FBI investigation, claiming President Obama authorized "Watergate style tactics" of bugging the meeting, and promising anyone involved will be fully prosecuted...when of course McConnell ran into that ugly incident where his campaign left a recording device at the debate podium of opponent Bruce Lunsford in 2008.

The GOP is accusing Mother Jones and David Corn of bugging the meeting.

Mitch has got to go, folks. 

Bobby's World Is Falling Apart

No state was willing to go the route of full-blown GOP austerity for the 99% like Bobby Jindal's Louisiana.  His tax plan was the logical endpoint of Grover Norquist's wet dreams: the elimination of the state's income and corporate taxes, replaced by a massive hike in the state's sales tax.  And that would of course mean huge additional budget cuts in a state that had already made deep and damaging cuts to education through a voucher scheme to privatize schools and even shutting down a number of parish libraries.

But the people of Louisiana have finally had enough.  His tax plan to put the burden of the state's revenues on the poorest souls in a scheme that would almost certainly require even steeper sales tax hikes or more likely, massive new health care and education cuts in a state where both have been slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars already, all to give the state's richest a $25,000 tax cut each?

Dead on arrival.

Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), considered a leading presidential contender in 2016, is suffering a political meltdown in his home state. His approval rating plummeted to 38 percent in a poll last week by the non-partisan Southern Media Opinion & Research, down from 60 percent just a year ago. In an ominous sign for national Republicans, the immediate cause is a sweeping economic agenda with strong parallels to the House GOP’s latest budget.

On Monday, Jindal scrapped his own proposal to eliminate the state’s income and corporate taxes and replace them with a statewide tax on sales and business services. His retreat was a concession to the reality that the proposal was headed towards a humiliating defeat — and taking Jindal down with it along the way. Jindal said in a speech to lawmakers that the backlash against his plan “certainly wasn’t the reaction I was hoping to hear,” but that he would respect the public’s wishes and start again. 

Those ideas are now opposed by a majority of  Louisiana Republicans, because the math is brutal.  Jacking up the state sales tax from 4 to 7% on everything, including "business services" was going to take a huge chunk out of the hides of small businesses, and big corporations didn't have loopholes to hide behind anymore.  Meanwhile, the poorest Louisianans would have seen their taxes jump by hundreds of dollars, and the middle-class would have seen an even bigger tax hike.  Meanwhile, the richest state citizens could simply avoid paying any state taxes altogether by buying over the border in Texas, Arkansas, or Mississippi.  The resulting tax gap would have left the state short by billions, meaning more cuts or more hikes.

The left, right, and middle have revolted as a result, and Bobby Jindal's political career is, for the moment, as dead as his tax scam.

StupidiNews!

• Original Mouseketeer and film star Annette Funicello died Monday at the age of 70 after complications due to multiple sclerosis.
• Maryland will become the 20th US state to legalize medical marijuana after a bill passed the state Senate with an overwhelming 42-4 vote and Gov. Martin O'Malley will sign it.
• Secretary of State John Kerry has confirmed a new effort to restart stalled Mideast peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
• Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino becomes the first coach to win titles at two different schools as the Cardinals defeated Michigan in last night's championship game, 82-76.
• Wall Street pegs the cost of Google Fiber's rollout nationally at a staggering $11 billion, that would only capture 15% of the nation's broadband market.