Last Call For A Company Of Record

The reaper of technology eventually comes for all companies, and those who can't stay ahead of the scythe get cut down sooner or later.

Columbia House – the mail-order music and movie membership club known for selling multiple CDs (eight, for example) for a penny – just couldn’t make it work in the digital age: Its owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Monday, according to Rolling Stone.

In the ‘90s, Columbia House was highly popular and brought in profits of $1.4 billion in 1996. But by 2010, the company had backed out of the music business, unable to compete against MP3s and streaming sites and focusing instead on DVD sales. 

By 2014, revenue had fallen to $17 million. And while the Columbia House membership is still 110,000 strong, about $63 million is owed to over 250 creditors, Rolling Stone says.

“This decline is directly attributable to a confluence of market factors that substantially altered the manner in which consumers purchase and listen to music, as well as the way consumers purchase and watch movies and television series at home,” Glenn Langberg, director of Columbia House's parent company, wrote in court documents, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And no, I never had a Columbia House subscription, although when I was younger, Dad got a bunch of CDs from them and then canceled his subscription early to keep the CDs.  The people who didn't read the fine print, well, they had to pay for those CDs, often those they didn't want, every month. Think of it as Netflix or GameFly, only for music.  Just goes to show you that a billion dollar empire can turn into a multi-million dollar mess the next day.  Progress is a harsh mistress, and there are always going to be losers as well as winners.

Executive Indecision On Gitmo

In the past, President Obama has proposed closing Gitmo only to run into the long knives of Democrats who refuse to let him actually do the job.  This time, Lame Duck Outta F*cks Obama(tm) is trying to use the executive branch to get the job done, and wouldn't you know it, the Justice Department is now saying "Wait a minute here..."

A renewed push by the White House to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been bogged down by an internal disagreement over its most controversial provision — where to house detainees who will be brought to the United States for trial or indefinite detention, according to U.S. officials. 

The White House had intended to provide lawmakers with a new road map for shuttering the facility — a top priority for President Obama’s remaining time in office — before lawmakers went on their August recess. 

As part of the plan, the administration had considered sending some of the 116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C. 

But during a recent video teleconference among top administration officials, Scott Ferber, senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, said the Justice Department could not support the use of the federal prison in Thomson, Ill., according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 

Ferber said the Justice Department had made a public commitment in 2012 when it purchased the facility from the state of Illinois that it would not relocate detainees to Thomson. Then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “We will not move people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is my pledge as attorney general.” 

Holder’s commitment, made during sworn testimony, was apparently overlooked by officials when the most recent plan was drawn up. 

Thomson is no longer being considered, and the White House is again looking at other federal facilities, officials said. 

“Funding for Thomson prison was approved based on the understanding that no detainees from Guantanamo would be held there, and therefore, Thomson is not part of those discussions,” a senior administration official said. 

The last-minute dispute is another sign of the many difficulties plaguing the White House’s attempt to make good on Obama’s promise to close the military detention facility before he leaves office in 2017.

So the first and obvious choice for relocation of Gitmo detainees is 100% out of the picture.  That leaves the Naval Brig at Charleston, something that I don't think Gov. Nikki Haley, Charleston area Representative Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford, or Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott are going to actually support this in any way.

Gitmo detainees are the ultimate NIMBY problem, and putting them in a red state will probably cause packs of crazed Islamophobes to show up with rocket launchers and storm the place anyway, not to mention the endless screaming about "OBAMA'S TERROR ATTACK ON AMERICA" headlines during the 2016 election.

So unless another blue state steps up and does the job, this still isn't happening, no matter how much Gitmo needs to be closed.

The Clinton College Conundrum

Hillary Clinton's new plan this week to invest in higher education and tackle student loan debt is ambitious, bold, and comprehensive.

It also has zero chance whatsoever of becoming law.

At the heart of the plan, dubbed the New College Compact, is an incentive program that would provide money to states that guarantee "no-loan" tuition at four-year public universities and community colleges. States that enroll a high number of low- and middle-income students would receive more money, as would those that work with schools to reduce living expenses. Because Pell grants, a form of federal aid for students from families making less than $60,000, are not included in the no-debt calculation, Clinton anticipates lower income students could use that money to cover books, as well as room and board. 

Although Clinton doesn't mention the word "free" in her proposal, the basic foundation is the same as legislation Sanders introduced in May that would eliminate tuition at four-year public colleges through federal investment. But instead of taxing Wall Street transactions as Sanders has proposed, Clinton would close tax loopholes to pay for her plan.

A senior Clinton campaign official said the candidate would reinstitute Ronald Reagan-era cuts on itemized tax deductions for high-income families. The $350 billion would cover all facets of the far-reaching proposal over 10 years. More than half of the total would be used to increase state investment in higher education, a third would cover the cost of lowering the interest rates on student loans and the rest would support the other initiatives. 

To improve the nation's 60 percent college graduation rate, Clinton would offer grants to schools that invest in child care, emergency financial aid and other interventions to boost completion. Students entering college are older and have more family responsibilities than those a generation ago, yet many institutions have been slow to respond to their needs. Investing in on-campus support systems could help, as could Clinton's proposal to allow federal student aid to be used for online career training programs offering badges or certificates, rather than degrees. 

Among the many policy proposals included in the compact are ideas that liberal and conservative lawmakers have agreed on, including simplifying the application for financial aid and consolidating student loan repayment plans. Clinton is also backing a controversial bipartisan proposal to have colleges pay a portion of the debt when students default on school loans, and planning to use the proceeds to pay for some of her initiatives.

This is an amazing reform of our higher education system to make it affordable and effective for a new generation.

And every single Republican will work to destroy the plan, so unless the white paper on this includes a detailed plan to get Democrats elected at the state level to reverse gerrymandering, so that Dems can win back the House and get 60 solid votes in the Senate, not one single Clinton initiative will ever become law under her administration.

It's up to her to articulate her plan to win back Congress.

Same goes for Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, or you're just wasting my time and my vote.

StupidiNews!

• Seven people have been injured after a US Marine Corps helicopter crashed off the coast of Okinawa, with the Japanese Coast Guard confirming all 17 crew members were rescued.
• A new study finds one in nine American adults suffer from chronic, daily pain and one in seven suffer severe levels of pain.
• The Arlington, TX police officer who shot and killed 19-year old unarmed black man Christian Taylor has been fired for "exercising poor judgment".
• Hillary Clinton will hand over her private email server used during her time as Secretary of State to DOJ investigators looking into whether classified emails were mishandled.
• Harvard professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig is exploring a presidential run in 2016 as a Democrat, running on voting rights and campaign finance reform.

Last Call For In Mortal Perry

Looks like the first casualty of last Thursday's GOP debate isn't one of the also-rans with 1% or so, or the disaster that is Trump, but somebody who given his performance in 2012 should be doing far better than he is right now: former Texas Gov. Rick Perry may be the first out of the Clown Bus.

Former Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign is no longer paying its staff because fundraising has dried up, while his cash-flush allied super PAC is preparing to expand its political operation to compensate for the campaign's shortcomings, campaign and super PAC officials and other Republicans familiar with the operation said late Monday.

Perry, who has struggled to gain traction in his second presidential run, has stopped paying his staff at the national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, according to a Republican familiar with the Perry campaign who demanded anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Perry campaign manager Jeff Miller told staff last Friday, the day after the first Republican presidential debate, that they would no longer be paid and are free to look for other jobs -- and, so far at least, most aides have stuck with Perry -- according to this Republican.

"As the campaign moves along, tough decisions have to be made in respect to both monetary and time related resources," Miller said in a statement. "Governor Perry remains committed to competing in the early states and will continue to have a strong presence in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina."

Katon Dawson, Perry's South Carolina campaign chairman and head of a six-person staff there, said, "Money is extremely tight. We all moved to volunteer status." But, he added, "Our team is working as hard as it was last week."

Let's face it folks, the smart money was never on this idiot.  He crashed and burned in 2012 after his famous "I'll close three government departments" disaster when he could only remember two of them, and even Republicans realized the last person people were going to vote for was another idiot of a Texas GOP governor.

Perry (like Huckabee and Santorum, also in the basement of the poll numbers) is a proven loser.  Republicans don't like losers. The news that Perry doesn't have the cash to keep going makes him even more of a loser, so he'll lose even more fundraising.  Republican fundraisers are tired of backing losers, it's expensive and embarrassing.

That SuperPAC will keep him going or a while, but that too will stop taking in money as the deck reshuffles after the rise of Trump.

But barring a miracle, Perry's done.

The Real Ferguson Problem

Ferguson Police and St. Louis County Police haven't changed a bit in the year since Mike Brown was gunned down by Darren Wilson, and the way protesters were treated over the last 48 hours proves it.

First, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery has been charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer stemming from his coverage of the Ferguson protests from last year.

Wesley Lowery, a reporter on The Post’s national desk, was detained in a McDonald’s while he was in Missouri covering demonstrations sparked by a white police officer fatally shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old. 

A court summons dated Aug. 6 — just under a year after Lowery’s arrest — was sent to Lowery, 25, ordering him to appear in a St. Louis County municipal court on Aug. 24. The summons notes that he could be arrested if he does not appear. 

“Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous,” Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, said in a statement Monday. “You’d have thought law enforcement authorities would have come to their senses about this incident. Wes Lowery should never have been arrested in the first place. That was an abuse of police authority.

“This latest action represents contemptible overreaching by prosecutors who seem to have no regard for the role of journalists seeking to cover a major story and following normal practice,” Baron continued. 

According to the summons, Lowery is being charged with trespassing on private property despite being asked to leave. He is also charged with interfering with a police officer’s performance of his duties because, the summons alleges, he failed to comply with “repeated commands to immediately exit” the restaurant.

It is very, very noticeable that Lowery is so far the only reporter charged with a criminal act from last year's coverage of Ferguson...and that Lowery is black.

Meanwhile, armed white men were allowed to roam free, unaccounted, in Ferguson on Monday night.

Heavily-armed members of a controversial right-wing "patriot" group added an extra dose of unease to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, early Tuesday. 

The Oath Keepers organization says its members — all former military, police and first responders — pledge to "defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic." 

However, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar described their presence as "both unnecessary and inflammatory." 

Protesters and police confirmed that a handful of Oath Keepers with what appeared to be assault rifles, bulletproof vest and camouflage gear were seen early Tuesday on the streets of Ferguson, which was under a state of emergency following demonstrations pegged to the anniversary of Michael Brown's death.

Several protesters confronted members of the group, asking why they were allowed to openly carry weapons. 

"I'm happy that we're able to defend ourselves," one Oath Keeper replied in footage from NBC station KSDK. "It's been our right for a long time." 

The St. Louis County Police Department said it would consult with the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorneys Office about the legalities of the issue. 

Missouri allows individuals with concealed weapons permits to openly display firearms, unless it is done in an "angry or threatening manner." 

Shawn McGuire, a spokesman for St. Louis County Police, said he did not believe officers had confronted the Oath Keepers or told to leave. 

"We do not know who sent them," he added.

Inflammatory, but unlike the dozens of unarmed black protesters rounded up by cops for sitting at a courthouse earlier Monday afternoon, these idiots remained untouched by police.

I guarantee you that if these were Ferguson's black residents who showed up armed and carrying openly like that, there would have been an absolute bloodbath in the streets of Ferguson last night. But these Oath Keepers clowns were white, so it was 100% OK.  No police harassment, no arrests. No tear gas, no tasers, nothing.

When I talk about institutionalized racism in Ferguson, and in America, this is what I mean.

Mitch The Non-Leader

Let's be clear here: Mitch McConnell is trying to save his own ass on budget negotiations for the bill due at the end of next month, not the country.

Mitch McConnell is discretely laying the groundwork for the fall’s budget negotiations, which promise to be a major headache for the new Senate majority leader.

The Kentucky Republican has three priorities for the year-end talks that will dominate Congress starting next month.

He wants to keep the government open, avoid a federal default and avoid alienating his conservative base, which wants big concessions connected to legislation funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.

Government funding expires on Sept. 30 and the debt ceiling needs to be raised by year’s end, according to the administration. 

You can only have two of those three priorities, Mitch, and you know it.

Conservatives will erupt in anger over any year-end deal that busts the budget cap set in 2011 for non-defense spending, which McConnell regularly touts as a significant GOP achievement.

An agreement to boost spending and pay for it with a tax increase would infuriate the party’s base even more.

McConnell wants to avoid both these scenarios, according to sources familiar with his thinking.

The problem for him is a non-defense spending increase offset by tax increases and other revenue-raising provisions is exactly what Democrats are demanding.

So at some point, Mitch and John Boehner will have to come crawling to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi again.  Like I said, we know how this story ends.  How much damage is done to our economy on the trip through hell to get there?

StupidiNews

• Police in Ferguson, Missouri declared a state of emergency in response to protests Sunday and civil disobedience on Monday, arresting dozens throughout the afternoon and evening.
• Former "Little House on the Prairie" television star Melissa Gilbert will run as a Democrat in Michigan's 8th Congressional district, taking on incumbent House Republican Mike Bishop.
• China has devalued the yuan in response to poor economic data this summer, but analysts believe a further slide in the currency may just be beginning.
• US Securities officials have broken up an insider trading ring that used Ukrainian hackers to steal corporate press information from financial news services to profit illegally.
• Google is now a part of Alphabet, Inc, a new parent company formed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to restructure the company's varied corporate interests.

The Other Side: As Ugly As It Gets

President Obama's speech defending the Iranian nuclear deal last week contained some hard words for the deal's opponents and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular, and some of those opponents, realizing the deal is going to pass Congress at this point, are resorting to accusing the president of all but antisemitism. Case in point: Power Line's Scott Johnson.

Obama has a thing about Israeli opposition to the deal. He harps on it both in his American University speech and following it in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to be broadcast today, reported on here by the Times of Israel.

Obama has Jews on the brain. He resents the opposition of America’s organized Jewish community to the deal. In a meeting on Tuesday before the speech, he made the Jewish leaders in attendance an offer he hoped they couldn’t refuse. See this report carried by Jewish Journal. Lee Smith also picked up on the meeting in an excellent column for Tablet. Obama had the assembled Jewish organizations and leaders he convened on Tuesday in mind in this unsavory passage of his speech on Wednesday: 

Between now and the congressional vote in September, you’re going to hear a lot of arguments against this deal, backed by tens of millions of dollars in advertising. And if the rhetoric in these ads, and the accompanying commentary, sounds familiar, it should — for many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.

Obama has jammed this deal down the throats of the American people. With the mechanics of the Corker bill in place and Obama’s Democratic adherents reliably in line behind him, Congress will present no serious obstacle to the deal. Obama’s Jew-baiting is the gratuitous act of an extraordinarily vindictive and, to give him the benefit of the doubt, misguided man. It should be nevertheless be recognized for what it is.

Obama’s real problem is not with Israel or Jews, but rather with the American people. They have the number of Iran’s regime and its Supreme Leader. They know that this deal is good for the Iranian regime and rightly suspect that it is bad for us.

It's amazing how given the fact that opponents of the deal are not going to be able to muster the 67 Senate votes and 290 House votes to override President Obama's veto of the GOP disapproval measure on the Iran deal that Johnson turns to the old anti-Semite canard.  But then again, Power Line has on multiple occasions accused the President of racism, stoking racial tensions, and wanting to start a race war, so charges of antisemitism are actually somewhat of a change of pace in the Obama Derangement rotation for them.

He.s The Heavy, He's My Brother

Of all the problems of his own making that plague Kansas GOP Gov. Sam Brownback (like a state economy disintegrating under tax cuts for the rich, vice tax for the poor, and basic government services like public school districts that can't pay their bills to keep the lights on and can't pay teachers enough to keep them working) the most interesting problem may be his asshole brother Jim.

Undulating fields of crops and livestock-dotted pastures are the domain of a trigger-happy bully who brags about a political cloak of invincibility keeping him beyond reach of the law in faithfully conservative Linn County. 

Adversaries say he has woven a liquor-infused tapestry of fear colored by intimidation, abuse and lies. The saga features stalking, death threats, trespassing, drive-by gunfire, massive explosions, cattle theft, loan defaults, hit-and-run driving and marital strife. Linn County Sheriff’s Department files bulge with complaints about him. 

There is trepidation among acquaintances to speak freely, a point accentuated by the number expressing nervousness about reprisal if they were candid. There is genuine fear. 

Descriptions of events offered by those willing to speak out converge to reveal a potentially lethal menace. Neighbors allege some in law enforcement responded to cries for help with degrees of indifference or favoritism. 

Locals aware of the dynamics shake their head in dismay. In a place where people honor the Second Amendment and revere the self-defense castle doctrine, there is astonishment no one has been gunned down. 

Folks in direct path of this prairie hellion pray for an end to what some coined “neighborhood terrorism.”

So far, their nemesis has found no reason to relent. 

Not when your name is Jim Brownback and you are a brother to Sam, the most powerful politician in Kansas.

I swear, this story reads like a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, or an episode of Longmire. Farm pigs mauled by dogs, a keg of nails scattered on the driveway, drunken shotgun drive-bys, blowing up stuff in the middle of the night to wake the neighbors, cattle unleashed to devour crop fields, frightened insurance adjusters, and good ol' boy shitkicker cops that won't touch the governor's brother.

Jim Brownback is possibly the second biggest asshole in the entire state, next to his brother. It's terrorism by a cartoon bully and nobody can put a leash on this guy.

Least of all the governor of the great state of Kansas. What Jim is doing to his neighbors on the Kansas plains, Sam is doing to the entire state.

Bullies all around, doing what they do best, has always been the way.

A Gradual Berning Curve

Bernie Sanders is starting to pay attention to his critics of color and to his credit, is addressing issues of racial inequality.

A day after being interrupted by Black Lives Matters protesters at a campaign event in Seattle, Washington, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a detailed platform on combating racial inequality. 

Sanders' campaign posted the platform on his website on Sunday, and he addressed the issue of racial justice that evening in front of more than 20,000 supporters in Portland, drawing his largest crowd yet along the campaign trail. Nearly 12,000 people attended Saturday’s event in Seattle.

The platform delineates policy proposals pertaining to what Sanders calls “the four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans: physical, political, legal and economic.” 

Sanders proposes a series of police reforms, including the demilitarization of police forces, a federal program giving police body cameras, and increasing police transparency and accountability. He also calls for an end to mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenses and bemoans the disproportionate rate at which blacks are targeted by police. 

“It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. This must change,” he said. “We must address the lingering unjust stereotypes that lead to the labeling of black youths as ‘thugs.’ We know the truth that, like every community in this country, the vast majority of people of color are trying to work hard, play by the rules and raise their children. It’s time to stop demonizing minority communities.” 

To combat what he calls political violence, Sanders stresses the expansion of the Voting Rights Act and restoring the Act’s “preclearance” provision, which was gutted by the Supreme Court last year. He also proposes ending laws that ban convicted felons from voting.

Again, credit where credit is due.  These are the issues that Black Lives Matter activists in Seattle wanted Bernie to address, and it didn't take him very long to do it, either.  These are all programs and reforms that I can support.  More will need to be done, but Sanders absolutely gets points here for understanding that he will need the black vote to win both the primary and the general.  My estimation of Sanders has gone up somewhat,

But the problem remains that Sanders is willing to talk about people of color, and not as much directly to us.  More needs to be done.

So two things:  Bernie Sanders is willing to learn, and activism does work.

Your move, rest of the Democratic field.

StupidiNews!

• Reports find at least two people were shot and injured late Sunday after peaceful protests marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown turned violent.
• A accidental EPA wastewater spill from a Colorado gold mine is now estimated to have totaled three million gallons, the nearby city of Durango has declared a state of emergency.
• The US consulate in Istanbul came under gunfire early Monday and eight were killed in separate attacks as Turkey's war against both ISIS and Kurdish separatists gains momentum.
• New figures in Saudi Arabia find the number of women in the workforce has increased by half since social reforms by the late King Abdullah were set into motion in 2008.
• Astronauts on the International Space Station will chow down on space-grown veggies while on a mission for the first time.

Last Call For Finding The Problem

The Pew Charitable Trusts put out a survey last month on American household debt.  The figures are pretty shocking by generation (Gen Xers like myself owe six figures as a median point) but they are even worse by race and income.

The substantial wealth gap between white families and families of color has been well documented by researchers. According to the Pew Research Center, white families had a net worth in 2013 that was 13 times more than that of black families and 10 times higher than that of Hispanic families. Net worth comprises assets and debt, so the racial wealth gap can be understood by examining each component individually. 

Among respondents to Pew’s Survey of American Family Finances, black and Hispanic households are as likely to have debt as white households. However, white households’ median debt is more than twice as big (Table 1) and differs in important ways from that of families of color—for example, including more mortgage debt—which often helps white households build even greater net worth. 

White households also typically hold more assets than black and Hispanic households. The typical white household has nearly seven times more assets than black households and over three times more than Hispanic households. These differences are magnified among low income households: The typical white household making less than $40,000 a year has nearly 18 times more assets than black households at the same income bracket and seven times more than Hispanic households. Because of its low asset holdings, the typical lower-income black household has no net worth. At a fundamental level, the racial wealth gap is about a lack of assets in black and Hispanic households, rather than an abundance of debt. 

Let's rewind that statement.

The typical black household with income less than $40,000 has no net worth.



None.

Compare that to the typical white family with income less than $40,000, which still has a net worth of $22,200.

Your typical black person, with all levels of income included, has a net worth of just $6,000.

The system is designed to keep black America poor and always has been.

 

A Close Win For The Dems In 2016?

That's what Moody's Analytics is predicting (just not which Democrat beats which Republican) but going strictly on the parties, they find the Democrats winning a razor-thin electoral college victory in 2016.

It will be an extremely close race, but the next president will be a Democrat, according to Moody's.

This doesn't mean that Hillary Clinton is on her way back to the White House. The model that Moody's uses doesn't focus on individual candidates. Instead, it predicts which party will win in every state, so it forecasts the results of the Electoral College.

Moody's says the Democratic nominee will get 270 electoral votes -- the minimum number of votes needed to win -- while the Republican nominee will accumulate 268 votes. The model correctly predicted every state in the 2012 election and has a nearly 90% success rate in forecasting each state accurately since 1980.

It will all come down to Virginia and Ohio this time because Moody's predicts that Republicans will win Florida. At the moment, Moody's says Virginia will go Democratic and Ohio will swing Republican, but that could change.

"If President Obama's approval rating falls by any more than 2 percentage points by Election Day, Virginia will swing and the Republicans will win the president," the report says.

A race that close will be drowning in recounts, frankly, and will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court again, so who knows which party would actually win.  Florida and Ohio going to the Republicans gives them a pretty big boost on the way to winning too.

So what is the key to such accurate predictions? Moody's says it's all about economics.

The model takes into account how the economy is doing in each state. The researchers have tested a lot of variables over the years, but the best ones are family ("household") income, home values and gas prices. If those three variables are going up, it favors the incumbent party. If they're not, people want change in Washington.

"The economy's performance strongly favors the Democratic nominee for president," says Moody's.

Moody's points out that household incomes have been steadily improving lately and are likely to go up further before Election Day.

"The only missing ingredient is stronger wage growth, which is expected to pick up in the coming months as the job market approaches full employment," the authors wrote.

So the better the economy gets, the larger the Dem lead becomes.  Republicans know this, so their best chance to win is to continue to block any spending that will improve the economy, and blame Obama.  It's worked for them in 2010 and 2014, and would have worked in 2012 if Romney hadn't been the worst candidate since Dukakis.

On the other hand, if the GOP nominee is still this guy...




Maybe it won't be so close after all.

Sunday Long Read: The War On NC Schools

Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss posts this detailed carnage from a NC teacher that Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the NC GOP legislature have inflicted on North Carolina public schools since the red state backlash against Obama in 2012.  It's heartbreaking and very personal to see this, as I grew up and attended both school and college in the state, only to see that education infrastructure being ripped to pieces.

Among their first targets: reductions in unemployment benefits, cuts to public schools, including laying off thousands of teachers, and a massive, nearly half-billion dollar slash from the University of North Carolina system.

Two years later, in the last budget cycle, 2014-15, the legislature providedroughly $500 million less for education than schools needed.

Later in the 2013 session, though, the most radical changes in state financing fell into place. Republicans reconstructed the state’s tax code, relieving the burden on corporations and wealthy residents. They continued to take aim at other parts of the education budget, cutting More at Four program dollars and decreasing accessibility for poor families. The state lost thousands more teacher and teacher assistant positions. The bloodletting was fierce. More on that in a minute.

Across the state, local education districts were faced with budget deficits of considerable proportion after legislators hacked away their funding. School systems raided fund balances, rainy day funds set aside for things like natural disasters, not political ones. Elsewhere, employees were furloughed, teachers were laid off, teacher assistants were forced to take other jobs or lose their classroom positions, and so forth. Non-personnel funding disappeared. Textbooks stayed in circulation another year. Buildings were patched together instead of replaced. Education Week called ours “The Most Backward Legislature in America.”

Republicans defended these austerity measures by saying that lower taxes would eventually yield fiscal growth. And they were right. This year, the government is enjoying a $445 million surplus–a clear victory in light of those multi-billion dollar deficits of yore–but still a statistically small number in light of the state’s $21 billion budget (about two percent), especially after considering that our state budget is still smaller than it was in 2011.

In fact, by 2014-15, North Carolina was still spending $100 million less on public education than it had before the economic recession. And over the past ten years, public schools added more than 150,000 additional students. No Republican legislator can honestly say that per pupil expenditures across the state have increased in the last six years.

The budget fix came at a cost, a steep one.  NC teachers now are the lowest paid in the nation, veteran teachers have been forced to retire, Republicans have completely eliminated the state's Teaching Fellows program in the UNC system that trained new teachers, then created a voucher program to pay for-profit charter schools and religious schools with taxpayer dollars and leave the poorest schools in the state drowning in red ink.

And then they came for the college system I went to.

In four years Republicans have destroyed education in my home state.  It's a depressing read, necessary to drive home that there is a difference between the two parties.