Money Can't Buy You Empathy, Apparently

A couple of videos for your StupidiVid Friday viewing pleasure, first up, a TedX talk from social psychologist Paul Piff on how people behave in a rigged Monopoly game where one person (determined by a coin toss) is clearly rich and has all the rules favoring them, and the other player doesn't.  Here's a hint: lots of money turns people into complete jackasses with all the empathy of a hunk of volcanic pumice.




Second, a Bloomberg News piece on billionaire investor Sam Zell, on why the one percent is better than you are.  Here's a hint: lots of money turns people into complete jackasses with all the empathy of a hunk of volcanic pumice.




The more money you have, the less empathy you have, period.  Nothing new there, but it's worth reinforcing.

The Turtle In Trouble?

The newest Lexington Herald-Leader/WKYT Bluegrass poll for Kentucky's Senate race this year finds Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes up 4 points over Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell, 46-42%, and the news gets worse for him:

In an especially troubling sign for McConnell, his job-approval rating was two points below the approval rating poll respondents gave President Barack Obama, who remains deeply unpopular in the state. Only 32 percent approved of McConnell, compared to 34 percent for Obama. Both men won a disapprove rating from 60 percent of those surveyed. 

With women and young voters, McConnell trails Grimes badly, losing the women vote 49 percent to 37 percent and the 18-34 demographic 43 percent to 34 percent. 

Among voters who identified themselves as politically "moderate," another key demographic, 55 percent said they had an unfavorable view of McConnell, compared to 15 percent for Grimes. In the General Election match-up, Grimes holds a 20-point advantage over McConnell among moderates. "McConnell has the support of conservatives and Grimes has the support of liberals, both of which are to be expected," according to SurveyUSA's analysis of the poll. "But Grimes outperforms McConnell five-to-three among moderates, and on this rock she builds her church."

As much as this is NOBAMA GO BACK TO KENYA country here in Kentucky, to see the same level of hatred directed at Mitch the Turtle is really, really something.  But I wouldn't put too much stock in McConnell's terrible approval rating:  He's stomping Matt Bevin, his Tea Party primary challenger, in this poll by 26 points, and given these numbers against Grimes he's got at least 10% of Kentucky voters willing to vote for him even though they don't approve of him anymore.

In other words, Republicans and Obama haters will gladly vote for Mitch again, but this will be a tough, tough race for him.

If this race is about Mitch McConnell, he loses.  If this race is about Barack Obama, Grimes loses.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/02/06/3073014/alison-lundergan-grimes-holds.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• The National Republican Congressional Campaign, the House GOP's campaign arm, is under fire for using fake Democratic candidate websites to fundraise for Republicans.
• Several senators are sponsoring a bipartisan bill aimed at requiring President Obama to get congressional approval for keeping any troops in Afghanistan past 2014.
• Day one of the Sochi Winter Games opened with snowboarding, alpine skiing and figure skating preliminary events all taking place before the opening ceremonies for the first time in 30 years.
• India is turning to increasingly cheaper solar power to help farmers operate water pumps instead of increasingly expensive diesel fuel.
• Comcast users receiving new cable modems are finding out that the default setting for the new equipment allows them to function as public wi-fi hotspots for Comcast customers.

Last Call For The Ransom Of Orange Chief

As any truly accomplished supervillain can tell you, villainy by committee never works, hence all the bad guys are monomaniacal tyrants and stuff.  The House GOP by comparison just looks like a bunch of dipsticks, because they can't even agree anymore on their demands for taking the country's economy hostage.

House Republicans are abandoning plans to link a debt ceiling increase to the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline or a repeal of the risk corridors provision in the Affordable Care Act, a GOP leadership aide confirmed to The Huffington Post.

"Following informal conversations with a broad range of members, it is clear we cannot get 218 Republican members to support a debt limit increase along with either Keystone or the insurance company bailout," the aide said. "We're exploring a range of other options."

While a formal offer had not been made in which a debt ceiling hike was tied to Keystone or Obamacare's risk corridors provision, those were two of the more popular proposals to emerge from a House Republican retreat last week. The latter was dealt a significant blow Tuesday when a Congressional Budget Office report found that a repeal of the risk corridors piece of Obamacare would actually increase the deficit by $8 billion over three years.

The big problem is Republicans by themselves can't pass a bill to raise the debt limit at all, and no Democrats are going to help them take the country's economy hostage and plunge us into a debt crisis.  What will happen is what always happens at this point:  the Senate will pass a clean debt ceiling hike, and Boehner will be forced to take a vote on it or be responsible for crushing the economy during an election year.  There will be enough Democrats and Republicans who do want a clean debt ceiling hike in the House to pass it, President Obama will sign it, and the Republicans get nothing.

Boehner also knows that if there's one thing that will get Obamacare off the front page, it's another government shutdown fight blamed on the GOP.  And yet all indications are by doing this, he's putting himself out of a job.

And I have no sympathy.

Assassination Tango

The video of last month's town hall meeting in Oklahoma for GOP Rep. Jim Brindenstine is making the rounds, and for good reason.  Oklahoma is the most anti-Obama state in the nation, the only state where President Obama failed to win a single county in either 2008 or 2012, and the crowd at the town hall near Tulsa proved why over and over again.

In a video circulating online, supporters of Oklahoma congressman Jim Bridenstine, called for the 'impeachment' and 'execution' of President Obama in a town hall meeting. 

"Obama is not president, as far as I'm concerned. He should be executed as an enemy combatant," said an unidentified woman in the video. "I can't tell you, or I can't say because we are in a public place, this guy is a criminal." 

Now, you would think with this being taped for posterity that Brindenstine would have enough sense to try to tamp down these Tea Party lunatics calling for the President's assassination at one of his events.

But this is the Republican party we're talking about here.

Bridenstine responded to the woman, stating "everybody knows the lawlessness of this president," however he never said anything about the execution of Obama or agreed with the women on those charges. 

"The only way I see out of this is to overwhelmingly change the senate, so that we can then impeach the SOB," said another unidentified woman. 

"You know, you look so sweet..." said Bridenstine to the woman.

When the Oklahoma Democratic Party asked for an apology, Brindenstine played the victim card in his statement to the press:

"A public figure cannot control what people say in open meetings. I obviously did not condone and I do not approve of grossly inappropriate language," Bridenstine said in a statement. "It is outrageous that irresponsible parties would attribute another person's reckless remarks to me."

So, check out the video and see if you can tell me where Brindenstine "obviously did not condone" the calls for the assassination of Barack Obama.



Keep up that outreach, guys.  By the way, these are the people who win when you don't vote.

Koch Blocked Again

Nothing to see here, folks.  Just top corporate CEOs and billionaire tycoons having high-level donor meetings with Koch Industries and the Americans For Prosperity political arm, making plans to buy the 2014 elections with "free speech".

The billionaire industrialists and their political operatives strive to ensure the anonymity of the wealthy conservatives who fund their sprawling political operation—which funneled more than $400 million into the 2012 elections—and to keep their plans private. Attendees of these summits are warned that the seminars, where the Kochs and their allies hatch strategies for electing Republicans and advancing conservative initiatives on the state and national levels, are strictly confidential; they are cautioned to keep a close eye on their meeting notes and materials. But last week, following the Kochs' first donor gathering of 2014, one attendee left behind a sensitive document at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort outside of Palm Springs, California, where the Kochs and their comrades had spent three days focused on winning the 2014 midterm elections and more. The document lists VIP donors—including John Schnatter, the founder of the Papa John's pizza chain—who were scheduled for one-on-one meetings with representatives of the political, corporate, and philanthropic wings of Kochworld. The one-page document, provided to Mother Jones by a hotel guest who discovered it, offers a fascinating glimpse into the Kochs' political machine and shows how closely intertwined it is with Koch Industries, their $115 billion conglomerate. 

Some more of the corporate titans dedicated to buying our political system:

The more than 40 donors courted by the Kochs include hedge fund and private-equity billionaires, real estate tycoons, and executives of top corporations, including Jockey International and TRT Holdings, owner of Omni Hotels and Gold's Gym. A number of them have never been identified as members of the Koch donor network, including Schnatter, one of the more prominent names on the list. An outspoken opponent of the Affordable Care Act, he is a longtime Republican donor who hosted a fundraiser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. The document notes that the pizza mogul was scheduled to meet with Ryan Stowers, the director of higher education at the Charles G. Koch Foundation. (Schnatter did not respond to requests for comment.)

Yeah, and Schnatter's Tea Party politics are the main reason why I'm no longer a customer of Papa John's.  Doesn't surprise me in the least to see he's getting personal meetings with Koch bigwigs.  I wonder how Papa John's franchisees and employees feel about their company spending millions on Tea Party politics instead of cost of living increases for wages or benefits?

Ahh, but there's more.  There's always more.

Another top conservative contributor on the list is TRT Holdings' cofounder Robert Rowling, whose net worth is estimated at $4.9 billion. During the 2012 election, Rowling directed $3.5 million to American Crossroads, the super-PAC spearheaded by Karl Rove, and he cut a $100,000 check to the pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future. According to the document, Rowling was scheduled to sit down with Charles Koch at the "Koch residence"—presumably a reference to the Wichita businessman's vacation home at theVintage Club, a short drive from the resort where the donor conference was held. Top Koch operatives were expected to participate in this session, including Kevin Gentry, the Koch brothers' fundraising guru; Daniel Garza, the director of theLibre Initiative, a Koch-funded organization dedicated to Latino outreach; and Marc Short, who runs Freedom Partners, the centerpiece of the Kochs' political network, which distributes donor funds to a large web of conservative nonprofit groups. (Rowling did not respond to requests for comment.) 

Other heavy hitters slated for meetings with the Koch brothers or their representatives included Carl Berg, a Silicon Valley real estate tycoon worth $1.1 billion; Ken Griffin, who founded the hedge fund Citadel and clocks in at No. 103 on the Forbes 400 (net worth, $4.4 billion); John W. Childs, a top private-equity investor; and Fred Klipsch, the chairman of the headphone and speaker company Klipsch Group.

Gotta love billionaires having conferences in Palm Springs in order to figure out how best to purchase our politicians and political system.  The corporations you buy products from are more than happy to take your money and buy political power with it.  Their goal in 2014 is to buy the Senate for the GOP, and they're well into winning.

Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, is emerging as the most powerful ally of the Republican Party ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, bombarding Senate Democrats with early air attacks that could help the GOP retake the Senate. 

The organization is set to announce on Thursday a three-week ad campaign against Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.), bringing to five the number of vulnerable Senate Democrats in its cross-hairs. It also is going after Democrats running for open Senate seats in Michigan and Iowa and running ads against House Democrats, including Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.).

Everything's for sale, folks.  America!

StupidiNews!

• US officials are advising airlines with direct flights to Russia to be wary of explosives concealed in toothpaste or cosmetics tubes as the Sochi Winter Games start in a few days.
• Firefighters are working to contain an underground blaze at New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a facility used to dispose of radioactive waste.
• New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will skip marching in next month's St. Patrick's Day Parade due to exclusion of gay-rights groups.
• McDonald's will open its first restaurant in Vietnam this weekend as it moves into the Southeast Asia country to do battle with Burger King.
• Analysts speculate Amazon may be getting into the game console business with the purchase of gaming studio Double Helix Games.

Last Call For The Cowards Of The Counties

A sobering analysis of America's uninsured finds that more than half live in just 116 of the country's more than 3,400 counties, mostly in and around large cities.



The numbers are pretty brutal: 2.2 million in Los Angeles County alone, another 1.1 million in and around Houston and Harris County, Texas.  These counties are where federal and state exchange officials are working to sign up people.

Federal officials are focusing on 25 metro areas, the AP said, including Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, northern New Jersey, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis. The feds are less concerned with cities like Los Angeles and New York, where states are running their own health-care exchanges.

These signup will go a long way towards making Obamacare work, despite continuing GOP sabotage.

A Tobacco-Free Workplace

CVS Caremark, one of the nation's largest pharmacy chains, says as of October 1, it will no longer sell tobacco products.  Sarah Kliff goes over the math and concludes it's a long-term win for the chain.

CVS executives said the decision could cost billions of dollars in revenue because cigarettes draw so many customers to their stores. But by jettisoning tobacco products, CVS can further define its pharmacies as full-fledged health-care providers and strike more profitable deals with hospitals and health insurers. CVS stores already are home to more than 750 MinuteClinics, the country's largest chain of pharmacy-based health clinics, offering flu shots and diagnosis of common ailments like ear infections and strep throat. 

"An important and growing part of our business is the work we do with clients and health insurance plans," CVS Pharmacy President Helena Foulkes said in an interview Tuesday. "As we thought about supporting their goals about improving outcomes and lowering costs, we believe that's the future we're looking towards. As we become more connected to their health-care work, this is an important decision for us to make." 

The company plans to phase out all tobacco sales by Oct. 1 and expects it could lose about $2 billion in annual revenue generated by tobacco sales and other products purchased by the same shoppers. The pharmacy chain generates about $125 billion in revenue annually.

So yes, it's about a 2% drop in revenue, but the chain expects to make that up and then some with more health care offerings and partnerships with clinics.

CVS has increasingly moved beyond its traditional role as a pharmacy in recent years, expanding its reach as a health-care provider. Its MinuteClinics services have allowed the company to increasingly enter into contracts with hospitals and health plans, often providing primary care services on the weekends and evenings, when doctors' offices tend to be closed.

CVS chief medical officer Troyen A. Brennan estimates that the company has between 30 and 40 partnerships with health-care systems across the country and is in talks with a similar number about starting additional arrangements.

He said the decision to halt tobacco sales will make it easier to strike such deals, particularly those that include financial rewards for CVS if they can help patients stop smoking and reduce their medical bills.

This is a smart move for both the company and its customers.  Smoking-related illnesses remain the number one cause of preventable deaths in the US, and those illnesses cost billions annually.  Expect to see more health care related chains make moves like this.

Our "Liberal Media" Got Everything Wrong Again

No surprise there.  A number of news outlets got Tuesday's Congressional Budget Office analysis of how Obamacare will affect the labor market completely, totally, 100% wrong.

The Congressional Budget Office issued a new report Tuesday on the federal budget deficit, Obamacare and jobs -- and Official Washington exploded. 

It all centered on one line about how the health care reform law would affect employment. CBO actually said that Americans would choose to work less, for various reasons, and that if you translated the fewer hours worked into full-time jobs, it would equal 2.5 million by 2024 (2.3 million by 2021). It didn't say that Obamacare would cost the country 2.5 million jobs, but Republicans said so anyway. 

But it wasn't just the GOP, which had a political incentive to take advantage of economic jargon. It was the political press as well. They either misrepresented what the report said -- or shrugged off the actual facts, opting instead to speculate on what the political spin would mean for the horse race.

Forget the fact that FOX News, the Daily Caller, the DC Examiner, all lied about the CBO report.  We know they have no integrity or credibility.  But the NY Times, the Washington Post, and a number of journalists and pundits on Twitter also blurted out the GOP spin, and did almost nothing to correct it.

The pundits' explanation?

Tho much reporting & GOP response to new CBO report on ACA is inaccurate/false, problem for Dems: If you're explainin', you're losin'
— Jackie Calmes (@calmesnyt) February 4, 2014

Because relating facts and correctly analyzing the situation is just too hard.  Better to bleat idiocies like "If you're explainin', you're losin'" and nod your head like the morons you are, eh Villagers?

StupidiNews!

• With the Sochi Winter Games opening in a few days, US counterterrorism officials say they are tracking "credible, specific threats" against the Olympics.
• Doctors and engineers have come up with a "spray-foam" method of sealing battlefield bullet injuries that can cover a gunshot wound in 15 seconds.
• Speaking before a Senate hearing in the wake of December's massive consumer data breaches, retailers admitted hacker "have the upper hand" when it comes to credit card info. 
• China is facing yet another strain of bird flu, H10N8, which has already claimed two lives and is related to the same virus responsible for the previous H5N1 strains.
• Microsoft has finally decided on a new CEO: Satya Nadella, former VP of Enterprise Solutions, as the new person at the helm as Bill Gates will step down as Chairman of the Board.

Last Call For Two Seemingly Related Data Points

First data point: 

Just days away from the administration’s deadline to extend the nation’s borrowing authority, Speaker John A. Boehner told House Republicans he sees no reason to pick a fight on the issue. 

“There’s no sense picking a fight we can’t win,” the Ohio Republican told members in a private conference meeting, according to sources in the room. 

Leadership has been looking for a plan that could draw Republican support for a debt limit increase, and Boehner urged his members to coalesce around a plan. If they do not, he warned, the Senate could move first and tack a provision to a debt limit hike that is unpopular among Republicans, such as an extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Second data point:

ForAmerica announced Tuesday that it's pouring six-figures into its "Dump The Leadership" campaign. 

It probably won't come as a surprise that the man behind the group is none other than L. Brent Bozell III, the right-wing flamethrower who's proven himself plenty willing to take on the GOP establishment. 

After Paul Ryan hashed out a bipartisan budget deal late last year, Bozell predicted that the conservative base would "stampede away from a party that has lost its principles and bearings.”
"Time and again, year after year, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate has come to grassroots conservatives, and Tea Party supporters pleading for our money, our volunteers, our time, our energy and our votes," Bozell told CNN in a statement. 

Bozell said the group will use digital ads between now and November to target House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX).

Your math may vary, but it seems to me we're back into "Republicans in disarray" territory and in deep.

Republicans Have No Problem Taking Health Insurance Away From You

When Republicans start screaming about hoe Obamacare is "taking people's insurance away" tell them about Arkansas, where Republicans are lining up to reverse the state's Medicaid expansion that they voted for last year, and now will take insurance coverage away from 85,000 people for the sole reason of they hate Barack Obama.

The revanchist Republicans are setting up their state, one of 25 to expand Medicaid this year under the health care reform law, to be the first to strip Obamacare coverage from people who already have it. Arkansas expanded the program, using a unique privatized model, under the tutelage of Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe and with the support of most GOP leaders in the legislature. But a cohort of conservative lawmakers believe they now have enough votes to block funding for the expansion during the legislative session that starts next week.

So the Tea Party is taking health insurance away from tens of thousands, all because they can't stand Barack Obama.  This seems pretty reasonable, right?

If that came to pass, more than 85,000 Arkansans who have signed up for coverage through the Medicaid expansion would presumably have that coverage stopped in 2015. Arkansas's alternative Medicaid plan uses Medicaid dollars to pay for low-income residents to purchase private coverage through HealthCare.gov. A select few, those making between 100 and 138 percent of the federal poverty level, would qualify for tax credits to purchase new coverage through HealthCare.gov. But the poorest of them, those below the poverty level, would be left without insurance.

But that doesn't matter to the Republicans in Arkansas or any other state for that matter.  Why?  It's okay to punish the poor in a red state.  It's their fault for being poor anyway.

What Middle Class?

A sobering NY Times piece by Nelson Schwartz details just how bad it's been for the American middle class since the 2008 financial meltdown.  It's gotten to the point that in 2014, the business world as all but given up on us.

In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models. 

As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away.

America is a consumer driven economy, and nearly all the growth in consumption is at the top.

In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, the researchers found. 

Even more striking, the current recovery has been driven almost entirely by the upper crust, according to Mr. Fazzari and Mr. Cynamon. Since 2009, the year the recession ended, inflation-adjusted spending by this top echelon has risen 17 percent, compared with just 1 percent among the bottom 95 percent. 

More broadly, about 90 percent of the overall increase in inflation-adjusted consumption between 2009 and 2012 was generated by the top 20 percent of households in terms of income, according to the study, which was sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a research group in New York. 

The effects of this phenomenon are now rippling through one sector after another in the American economy, from retailers and restaurants to hotels, casinos and even appliance makers.

After a generation of stagnant middle-class wages, the money in the last five years has gone to the richest Americans, and life is very, very good for them.

For the rest of us, not so much.  And so the American business model has now given up on the American middle class.  The real growth industries are goods and services for the moneyed elite.  And the divide between rich and poor is only going to get worse.

StupidiNews!

• Spanish law enforcement officials have busted a major cocaine smuggling operation involving waterproof backpacks hidden underwater, and have netted nearly a ton of the drug.
• The World Health Organization is predicting a doubling in the number of 2012 global cancer deaths by 2032, saying sedentary lifestyles and processed foods will contribute greatly.
• Bell Canada says over 20,000 small business customer accounts and passwords were posted online when a third-party supplier was hacked over the weekend.
• Switzerland's upcoming vote next week on immigration restrictions could hinge on how ex-pats vote on allowing EU workers to fill Swiss jobs.
• New laser 3-D printing techniques have given rise to lightweight, super-strong polymers that could be the material of the future.