Last Call For Kentucky's Choice

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Democrats Jack Conway, Andy Beshear and Alison Lundergan Grimes all trailing their Republican rivals with a little more than four months to go.

PPP’s first general election poll of the race for Governor in Kentucky finds a very tight race. In a head-to-head election, 40% of voters choose Republican Matt Bevin over Democrat Jack Conway, who garners 38%. Bevin is viewed favorably 31/28, while Conway is viewed unfavorably 34/31- a plurality of the electorate has no opinion about each candidate.

“The race for Governor in Kentucky is pretty up for grabs,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Voters aren’t that familiar with either candidate and as a result we’re seeing a lot more undecideds than we usually would at this stage of the race. This is one where the campaigns really will go a long way toward determining who wins rather than it being preordained from the start.”

Republicans have leads of varying sizes in the down ballot races. In the race for Attorney General, Republican Whitney Westerfield leads Democrat Andy Beshear 41/36. Republican Steve Knipper has a 5-point advantage (47/42) over incumbent Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the race for Secretary of State. Incumbent Democrat Adam Edelen trails Republican challenger Mike Harmon by 6 points (33/39). GOP candidates lead for Treasurer and Agriculture Commissioner as well.

It's been a very long time since Republicans were able to run the table at the state level here in Kentucky, but to be fair most of us aren't paying attention to November here in June.  That doesn't mean however that the Dems can slack off.  It just means that with four months to go, that it's time to get in gear.

Suddenly Republicans Want The Power Of Executive Orders Again

With the Supreme Court expected to issue a ruling on same-sex marriage in the next several days, the reactionary right-wing GOP 2016 candidates like Mike Huckabee are looking to reverse everything President Obama has done on same-sex marriage at the federal level.

He said that if elected president, he would simply ignore any Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality until Congress passed legislation legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide…which he would then veto.

“Until the Congress of the United States puts on my desk a bill that basically defies the laws of Nature and Nature’s God and defies the longstanding tradition of marriage, the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriage because there is no law that requires it and that would be true for the military and it would be true for all federal institutions,” Huckabee said. “If the Congress decides that they want to pass enabling legislation, they could put it on my desk and I would veto it, and they can attempt to override it. That’s the process.”

Huckabee said that even his detractors should sympathize with his anti-gay-marriage stance: “If liberals were subjected to a conservative court that forced them to tithe their income to scripture or forced them to go to church or forced them to believe something that they don’t want to believe, they would say, ‘We can’t do that, that would go against our conscience.’ And I would say, ‘You are exactly right and we can’t have such a ruling. This is why I find this very unsettling is because liberals will rue the day when the sword they use to enact their agenda is the sword of the court rather than to do it by way of the people’s elected representatives.”

Understand that any Republican candidate in 2016 is going to be under tremendous pressure to do this on day one.  Huckabee will brag about being willing to do it, and the bigoted Republican base will demand it from anyone they nominate.

Democrats are running in 2016 to make America a better place.  Republicans are running to punish liberals and the people who voted for Obama.

But tell me again how there's no difference in the two parties, and that you will make things better by not voting.

More Flagging Approval

You thought this flag thing was going to be easy?

.@DrewGriffinCNN’s intv on #ConfederateFlag w/ SC Rep Chumley incl surprising comments on #CharlestonShooting http://t.co/40iWOHz3BS

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 24, 2015

Keep it up Republicans, keep blaming the people killed by the guy who took your rhetoric to its endpoint.

Meanwhile, in Glibertarian land...

A lot of the surrounding media-led outrage over the flag seems somewhat cold, given the horror of what last week brought. We had nine black people brutally murdered because they were black and sitting in a church with a history of fighting white supremacy. With all due deference to hatred for a Confederate flag on a pole at the statehouse, this seems like an almost childlike attempt to miss the seriousness of the situation. It’s as if they expect us to say, “Congratulations! You oppose the flag of an army that was defeated 150 years ago. We’re all very proud of you, journalists!” This generation seems to excel at inventing controversies, weighing in on those invented controversies, and then patting itself on the back for being so courageous and open-minded.

The far more frightening reality that such invented controversies avoid is that mankind is full of sin, and that some of us show that sinfulness in racism and murder. Or as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

The murderer of the Emanuel nine has done something particularly bad, but he isn’t the only person capable of evil out there. And getting rid of a flag is hardly the remedy for the racism and violence that infects our culture. How juvenile to think otherwise.

Wanting to get rid of the Confederate flag is "childlike" and "juvenile" so why bother?  It doesn't cure racism, but neither did, you know, the entire civil rights movement, nor did electing and re-electing Barack Obama magically fix racism in America.

I suppose those were juvenile and childlike acts too.  Since nothing you can do to incrementally fix society can totally fix it, why bother at all, right?

It's like these guys are trying as hard as they can to be as awful as possible.

StupidiNews!

• France has summoned US Ambassador Jane Hartley to appear today to answer charges from WikiLeaks that the American government has spied on the last three French presidents.
• The Obama administration has lifted some restrictions on medical marijuana research, prompting praise from some lawmakers and legalization advocates.
• Authorities in Hong Kong have quietly removed the last street encampments of pro-democracy protesters, bringing an end to nine months of protests over the city-state's self-determination.
• Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is claiming some of Greece's creditors have rejected Athens' offer to unlock bailout aid, prompting a new round of selling in European markets.
• Google is going ahead with the option of an "unsend" button in Gmail, allowing users up to 30 seconds to undo a sent email and rolling it out to all Gmail users this week.

Last Call For Defending The Wrong War, Again

Everything you need to know about the conservative Republican position on the Confederate flag still as part of state governments in 2015 is summed up by Bloody Bill Kristol:

The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Americans who fought for the Confederacy.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 23, 2015

Because defending the Iraq War wasn't bad enough, now they're defending the Confederacy in the Civil War.

And yet they continue to be baffled as to why black voters don't flock to the GOP.

Trading One Democrat For Another

Over at Salon (I know, I'm asking for it, but the concept is worth bringing to you to discuss) Bill Curry argues that when the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal passes with Hillary Clinton's support, Democrats will abandon both her and President Obama and turn to Bernie Sanders as the party's populist, anti-Wall Street savior.

After eight years of Obama, I’m not sure Clinton can run that race, or that anyone can. I don’t think she can enlist Wall Street oligarchs and recruit an army of dewy-eyed volunteers. Above all, I don’t think she can spout populist rhetoric without any policy specifics to back it up. Clinton insiders also ingratiate themselves to reporters by dishing about her need to seem more authentic. Someone should tell them it’s hard to seem real when you won’t tell people what you really think.

A bigger problem for Clinton may be that we know what she thinks. Her platform is like Obama’s trade deal; she won’t say what’s in it, but we can easily guess. It isn’t populism and it isn’t reform. The TPP? She never met a trade deal she didn’t like. The minimum wage? She and Obama let McDonald’s get the drop on them. The surveillance state? Her handling of her emails told us all we need to know of her views on transparency. More war in Iraq? For 12 years as a senator and secretary of state she was John McCain’s best friend. If she gets to be commander in chief, get ready to rumble.

She’s weakest on the sleeper issue of 2016: public corruption and the general debasement of politics and government. Voter disgust is so deep even consultants who make their real livings off corporate clients tell their political clients to talk about it. In her speech Clinton vowed to “wage and win four fights for you.” The first three were jobs, families and national security. The fourth was “reforming our government and revitalizing our democracy.” She vowed to overturn Citizens United and fight GOP efforts to disenfranchise the young, the poor and people of color, but then drifted off onto technology and cutting waste. Unlike nearly every Republican announcing for president, she never mentioned ethics or corruption.

Democratic elites don’t want to hear it but Hillary Clinton’s in trouble. It isn’t in all the data yet though you can find it if you look. In a straw poll taken in early June at a Wisconsin Democratic convention she edged out Bernie Sanders by just 8 points, 49% to 41%. In a poll of N.H. primary voters this week she beat Sanders by 41% to 31%. An Ohio poll had her in a dead heat with the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. If Sanders can poll 40% in a Wisconsin straw poll in June he can do it an Iowa caucus in January. Imagine a Hillary Clinton who just lost Iowa and New Hampshire to Bernie Sanders. It’s still hard to picture but it gets easier every day.

You don’t win your next race running someone else’s last one. Trying to do so, Clinton repeats her big mistake of 2008: not sensing the times. There are smaller changes she can make right now: hire better speech writers, including at least one with a sense of humor; put her family foundation under independent management; tell her husband to stop giving speeches or else start talking for free. But her whole campaign model is wrong. ‘Clinton Democrats’ hate to admit there are issues you can’t finesse or that they must ever choose between the middle class and the donor class. Clinton better figure it out now. When the data’s all in it will be too late.

Clinton resists change. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party who seems to feel the tectonic plates of our politics shifting, perhaps because he’s expected the change for so long. His is still an improbable candidacy, but less improbable than it was a month or even a week ago. If he clears out the second tier, his battle with Hillary could become epic, forcing not just her but the Democratic Party to choose between the middle class and the donor class; between corporate and democratic rule; the battle over trade carried over into a presidential election.

There's a kernel of truth to all of that.  I've taken plenty of swings at the Clinton-era presidency pinata over pro-corporatist legislation that Big Dog signed that 15 or 20 years later served as the base of the implosion of our economy. The Clintons play an ugly game, and they play it to win.  President Obama at times plays that game too and he wins as well, but he's capable of winning as a liberal also and doing the right thing in the process.

At the same time, I can't say that Bermie Sanders doesn't have his baggage either.  I feel about Sanders the way I did about Joe Biden in 2007-2008: a nice guy, a proven liberal with a strong track record, but Delaware remains the US equivalent of a flag of convenience for corporate America and the credit card industry and Biden's record on those issues is pretty glaring.

It's the same with Bernie and Vermont.  It's the whitest state in the nation and Sanders has a real problem with perception of how he addresses black and Latino voters.  As with Biden, I think Sanders would make an outstanding VP.

No, the TPP is not going to cause a groundswell to support Bernie any more than any other issue. Clinton still leads him by 60 points and to pretend otherwise is moronic. Saying there's a hidden well of support for Sanders may or may not be true, but you can't say that and then say "well polls this early are meaningless."

Curry's emoprog tripe is cute, but it's not going to change a thing.

The Other Side: Flagging Approval

Yesterday SC GOP Gov. Nikki Haley, flanked by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, GOP Sens. Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham and Democratic House stalwart James Clyburn, called for the state's legislature to take down the Confederate flag on the grounds of the State Capitol, something that would require a two-thirds vote to do thanks to legislation passed in 2000.

Our old friend Jazz Shaw disapproves of this immensely.

Some years ago, as I’ve noted in the past, our Red State colleague Erick Erickson penned a column on a completely different subject titled You Will Be Made to Care. Erick was talking about gay marriage, but what he described was the the ever present mode of operation for the modern American Left. It’s not enough to disagree with someone when there is a difference of opinion on social issues, government policy or even the color of the sky. It’s not even sufficient to shut down the conversation, as Guy and Mary Katharine so aptly identified in End of Discussion. Those who dissent must be forced to bend a knee and participate. 

We’re seeing the same thing today in the newly reignited, perpetual debate over the Confederate Battle Flag. Many Southern families still feel a strong association with the stars and bars even though they live in an era when everyone has written off slavery as an evil in our past which was engaged in by the male, landed gentry from both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line. They remember that the civil war was far more than some hotly debated policy discussion over slavery. (Though that was obviously a part of it.) They recall how the North used their enormous industrial advantage to craft policies which created hardship for the more agricultural South and drained them of their wealth. They know the family stories about how the North built up a huge population advantage and curried that into an electoral hammer they could use to write the rules in their own favor. They remember that and much more. 

Other Southern families may not even dwell on those concerns, but they know the pride they feel in the South. They know that their ancestors fought and died for what they, at the time, believed in and stood to defend their loved ones and their homes. And well into the modern era they have felt the sting of the constant derision from the North. Southerners talk slow, so they must be stupid. They are backward. They are ignorant rednecks. What a shame they can’t be as elite and as enlightened as their northern cousins. The fact is, they just don’t fit into proper modern America. Isn’t it a shame? This remains one of the few politically correct topics of “humor” in comedy shows. You can always make fun of the rednecks who speak with a Southern drawl. 

But these same people retain a modern pride in the heritage of their region. I frequently travel to various states in the warmer climes and constantly see signs and bumper stickers which proudly declare that the owner is American by birth, but is Southern by the Grace of God. 

But in keeping with liberal theory, we must eliminate some piece of cloth that reminds them of their heritage, even if it has nothing to do with racism or slavery in their minds. It does to us! That requires a trigger warning, mister, and you didn’t provide us with a safe space!

Now, I figure Jazz is blowing off a lot of steam or something, because frankly, otherwise, this is wholly offensive.  I grew up in North Carolina, I watched the Dukes of Hazzard growing up, with the General Lee and its Confederate battle flag roof paint job, and knew plenty of folks who were wonderful people who despised slavery, as he says, and proudly saw the flag as a symbol of Southern pride, along with NASCAR and ACC and SEC college sports, Bojangles' chicken, Mountain Dew and Cheerwine sodas, and cotillions and Boy Scout camping trips into the woods.

And yes, southerners are damn good people.  I am one of them, black, and American, and from the South.  But I also learned what the flag meant, and where it came from, and why South Carolina, and North Carolina, and Kentucky where I live now did to preserve slavery, resulting in a war that killed hundreds of thousands.  I also learned about June 19th, the day Lincoln freed the slaves, Juneteenth. The 150th anniversary of that date came the same week Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine people for the crime of being black.

The flag was raised in 1961 as a direct response to the civil rights era, as a giant "screw you" to black America and those who were fighting to stop Jim Crow and to win equality for people who looked like me.  That flag is a part of the history of the US, and that's why it belongs in a museum, not the grounds of the state capitol building.

Wal-Mart and Sears are going to pull Confederate flag merchandise from their stores, and even Mississippi, whose state flag actually still has the Confederate emblem in the upper left corner, is now openly discussing changing that as well.

You're on the wrong side of an ugly history, Jazz.  Time to let it go.

StupidiNews!

• South Carolina legislators will meet in session today to debate removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol and place it in a museum.
• Oscar-winning film composer James Horner, whose work included Titanic, Aliens, Avatar and Braveheart, has died after crashing his single-pilot plane in southern California on Monday.
• Greek lawmakers say proposals reached in principle with the EU to continue the country's financial bailout cash flowing will meet with heavy resistance in the Greek parliament.
• South Africa's highest court faces the government's refusal to obey an International Criminal Court order to stop Sudanese President Bashir from leaving the country.
• A privacy advocacy group has at the Federal Trade Commission to block ride share company Uber's location data collection practices using its smartphone app.

Last Call For Spidey's Justice

None of the big decisions slated for SCOTUS came down today, but there will be a decision day on Thursday AND one on Friday in addition to the one already scheduled for next Monday. Odds are extremely good we'll get some major news in a few days on the death penalty, Obamacare subsidies, the Fair Housing Act, and/or marriage equality.

Meanwhile, one of the cases that was handed down on Monday involved Marvel Entertainment, royalties, and Spider-Man and an excelsior opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan, as Steve Benen points out:

The entirely of the ruling is online here (pdf). 

A very small number of people are likely to actually read the decision, which is a shame in a way because Kagan, a comics fan, went out of her way to include quite a few not-so-subtle Spider-Man references in the opinion.

Page 2: ”The parties set no end date for royalties, apparently contemplating that they would continue for as long as kids want to imitate Spider-Man (by doing whatever a spider can).” 

Page 3: “Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but only for a limited time.” 

Page 11: “To the contrary, the decision’s close relation to a whole web of precedents means that reversing it could threaten others.” 

Page 18: “But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly. Cf. S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: ‘Spider-Man,’ p. 13 (1962) (‘[I]n this world, with great power there must also come – great responsibility’).” 

That last one needs to be framed somewhere on the wall in Marvel's office of general counsel.

Over at Vox, Matt Yglesias added, “According to Supreme Court Review, Kagan is an “avid comic book fan” and must have been delighted to score the opportunity to write this decision. That last joke is actually the essence of the case. The Supreme Court is being asked to overturn an earlier precedent, and Kagan is saying that overturning precedents isn’t something the Court should do without a very compelling reason. They have a responsibility to provide the country with a predictable, publicly understood code of laws, and that means being restrained in their use of the authority to change things up.”

Which actually does makes sense here.  The Supremes, in a 5-4 decision, did not overturn precedent to extend royalties further than the law required even though Marvel had reached an agreement to do so.

I'm guessing not too many people get to quote Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in Supreme Court decisions, but hey, you have to when you have an opportunity like that.

The Southern Avengers

I talked this morning about the failure of a number of GOP 2016 candidates to give a coherent answer on the SC Confederate flag issue, but I left out two more candidates: Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, for a reason.

That's because the two of them have much bigger problems right now than a flag.

The leader of a rightwing group that Dylann Roof allegedly credits with helping to radicalise him against black people before the Charleston church massacre has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans such as presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum. 

Earl Holt has given $65,000 to Republican campaign funds in recent years while inflammatory remarks – including that black people were “the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world” – were posted online in his name.
After being approached by the Guardian on Sunday, Cruz’s presidential campaign said it would be returning all money the senator had received from Holt. 

Holt, 62, is the president of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), a Missouri-based activist organisation cited by the author of a manifesto-style text that was posted on a website registered in Roof’s name along with photographs of the gunman. The FBI said on Saturday it was investigating the website. 

The manifesto’s author, who has been widely reported but not verified as Roof, recounted learning about “brutal black on white murders” from the CofCC website.
“At this moment I realised that something was very wrong,” the manifesto said.

Earl Holt is an unrepentant racist scumbag, but the KKK CCC has a lot of money apparently to give. Cruz dropped Holt's donations like the toxic waste they were, but the fact that Santorum and Paul haven't yet (and probably won't) says a lot about them.

Earlier this afternoon Santorum said he'd return his donations from Holt, and that leaves Rand Paul with his especially terrible record on race, pandering at best and outright dog whistle racism at worst.  Don't expect much from him, I certainly don't.

Cause One's Got A Weasel And The Other's Got A Flag

One's one the pole, shove them all in a bag.

South Carolina senator and Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham was asked by CNN’s Alisyn Camerota this morning why the American and South Carolina state flags were flying at half-mast today, but the Confederate flag was not.

As he didn’t seem inclined to answer, Camerota shifted to a more general question, asking the senator whether it’s “time to stop flying the Confederate flag.”

Graham said that it would be “fine” by him if South Carolinians wanted to “revisit that decision,” but insisted that “this is part of who we are. The flag represents — to some people — the Civil War, and that was the symbol of one side.”

He acknowledged, though, that “to others, it’s a racist symbol, and it’s been used by people in a racist way.” But, he added, “the problems we’re having in South Carolina and around the world aren’t because of a symbol, but because of what’s in people’s hearts.”

It's not like Huckleberry here had a real shot at the GOP nomination, but this "real leadership" response on the flag issue shows the world just what kind of joke the guy is.  If you can't take a stand against a racist symbol in 2015 being flown in the capital of your own home state when you admit that the Confederate flag is a racist symbol, you've kind of lost the race for the White House.

Even Jeb Bush, after dicking around again for two days, finally admitted that he was the Florida governor that removed the Confederate flag from his state's capitol in Tallahassee and put it in a museum where it belongs.  Mitt Romney reiterated his 2008 call to take that flag down, but Ted Cruz punted too and so did Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal, referring to the issue (ironically enough) as a states' matter.

Rubio is supposed to be the conservative savior of the GOP, but he can't come up with a coherent position on the friggin' Confederate flag, the flag of traitors to the country?

Good luck in 2016, assholes.

StupidiNews!

• EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg have extended economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine, drawing a swift rebuke from Moscow.
• One person was killed and nine injured when a man armed with a shotgun attacked a block party at a basketball court in Detroit on Saturday.
• Taliban forces in Afghanistan have attacked the Afghan parliament building in Kabul, wounding 19 with a suicide bomber and six gunmen.
• A new proposal by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras ahead of today's EU finance ministers' meeting in Brussels is being met with cautious optimism as a "good basis for progress".
• GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal has vetoed a Louisiana bill that would install automated license plate scanner cameras, citing privacy concerns.

Last Call For Ending The Debate

Peggy Noonan is glad to see the families of the victims of last week's massacre so forgiving...but she will not extend that courtesy to those who wish to bringing up what needs to be done to prevent another one from happening.

Charleston deserves something, a bow. So too do the beautiful people who go to Wednesday night Bible study in America in 2015. They are the people who are saving America every day, completely unheralded, and we can hardly afford to lose them.

There’s only one thing Charleston doesn’t deserve. People apart from the trauma, far away, have already begun to bring their political agenda items to the tragedy and make sure they are debated. Because this is the right time for a political debate, right?

Here’s an idea: Why don’t you leave the grieving alone right now? Why don’t you not impose your agenda items on them? Why don’t you not force them to debate while they have tears in their throats?

Don’t politicize their pain. Don’t turn this into a debate on a flag or guns. Don’t use it to make your points and wave your finger from your high horse.

These people are doing it right without you.

They are loving each other and helping each other. Let them grieve in peace. And respect them as what they are, heroic.

So when is it the right time for this debate that America never seems to have?  Next week?  Next month?  Next year?  When do those of us who said time and time again that America's domestic terrorism problems and documented hate groups would become an issue get to have a word?  Every time another massacre happens, those of us who want to have the debate are told "It's too soon!" and to shut up and go away, and the speed at which this silencing happens to the black community in America often breaks the sound barrier.

Why does Peggy Noonan get to decide when America has this debate? She does not speak for me, and she will never have earned that right from me. I sure as hell won't be silenced by her arrogant ignorance, and neither should anyone else.

Stuff it, Nooners.  The President is ahead of you again.

Secret Serivce Sidearm Silliness

Tucker Carlson makes an argument fit to lose on FOX and Friends: if President Obama hates guns so much, why does the Secret Service have them?

“The president has said a number of times guns are the problem, guns cause violence,” Carlson complained. “There’s nobody in the world surrounded by more armed people than President Obama himself. I notice he’s not suggesting the people around him disarm. He wants to remain protected, but the rest of us have to go without means to self-protection.”

Left-leaning Fox News contributor Jehmu Greene found Carlson’s remarks offense.

“To say that the president of the United States is hypocritical because he has people with guns around him, Tucker, that is beneath this discussion,” Green explained. “You are trying to compared Secret Service armed people to someone who walks into a church and kills nine people.”

“And to say the president doesn’t have a right to talk about gun control because people with him have guns?” she continued. “Is that literally where we are as a country, to compare that he shouldn’t have protection?”

“The president’s position is that guns cause violence, guns are inherently bad and dangerous,” Carlson opined. “The rest of us need to disarm and not protect ourselves. And he’s exempt from that?”

“The president did not say guns are inherently bad,” Greene replied. “The president is saying we’ve had this conversation too many times and there is something we can do about it. There was something we could do about it after Newtown, there was something we could have done about it after Columbine.”

Jehmu Greene is absolutely right.  If every American who owned a firearm had the kind of firearms training that the US Secret Service does and was under the same restrictions and rules governing their use, why, we'd have something like the "well-regulated militia" mentioned in the Second Amendment.

The problem (as Greene points out) is the nation full of gun fetishist who don't want to use guns responsibly, but as a means to intimidate others, as replacements for virility, and for bullying those who otherwise may disagree.  These are not responsible gun owners.  Secret Service, police officers and military soldiers, sailors, and airmen who have firearms are trained to use them and held responsible for misusing them (and yes, I'm well aware of there's a huge debate as to the degree of responsibility police in particular are held to).

But the issue remains, if Americans had to fill out paperwork every time they had to fire their pistols or rifles, maybe we wouldn't have the gun culture that we have today.

Sunday Long Read: God Of Lightning

This week's Sunday Long Read is the story of ZeuS, the most infamous bank-robbing malware suite in the industry, that has led a nine-year campaign to plunder millions of accounts across the world.

In any global outbreak, it’s important to identify Patient Zero. In the movies, you get a leggy Gwyneth Paltrow. In the nine-year online epidemic that helped create cybercrime as we know it, you get “fliime.”

That was the name used by somebody who went on the online forum Techsupportguy.com on October 11, 2006, at 2:24 a.m., saying he’d found some bad code on his sister’s computer. “Could someone please take a look at this,” he wrote.

Fliime probably didn’t realize this was history in the making. But the malicious program that had burrowed into the PC was a new breed, capable of vacuuming up more user logins and website passwords in one day than competing malware did in weeks. With repeated enhancements, the malware and its offspring became juggernauts of cyber bank robbery—turning millions of computers into global networks of zombie machines enslaved by criminals. Conservative estimates of their haul reach well into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Investigators studying the code knew its creator only by aliases that changed almost as frequently as the malware itself: A-Z, Monstr, Slavik, Pollingsoon, Umbro, Lucky1235. But the mystery coder gave his product a name with staying power; he called it ZeuS. Like the procreation-minded god of Greek mythology, this ZeuS fathered powerful descendants—and became a case study of the modern cybercrime industry.

This is the story of a nasty piece of code, and the hunt for its creator.

Who is behind ZeuS and why?  The FBI believes it's a Russian hacker who has been on the run for years, and they are no closer to catching him now then they were in 2006. And ZeuS's source code is now all over the internet and in the hands of crooks and thieves across the globe. The big banks are scared and the small banks are terrified.

And they should be.