Last Call

A very interesting story in Nebraska shaping up this weekend as the state's Republican lieutenant governor, Rick Sheehy, the hand-picked successor to the state's current GOP governor, has abruptly announced his resignation after the Omaha World-Herald discovered he was making inappropriate phone calls to women on his state cell phone.

Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy resigned his post abruptly Saturday after questions were raised by The World-Herald about improper cell phone calls to four women, other than his wife, during the past four years.

An investigation by The World-Herald discovered that Sheehy made about 2,000 late-night telephone calls to the women on his state-issued cell phone, many of them long conversations held in the wee hours of the night.

READ: Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy's resignation letter

Gov. Dave Heineman announced the resignation at a 10 a.m. press conference.

"I've got a knot in my stomach. I'm deeply disappointed. He's done a lot of good things for the state, but that trust was broken, and he's resigned," Heineman said.

He said he would begin the process of filling the post Monday.

Even better, Sheehy's wife Colleen filed for divorce in July after a 28-year marriage.   The Omaha World-Herald started asking questions, and bang: another GOP hypocrite gets taken down by his own stupidity.  But here's the thing: calling women who aren't your wife on the state cell phone isn't worth resigning over, and frankly being a Republican in Nebraska right now means he still would have won in 2014 after two years had passed on the story.

There's something more to this story.  Something big.  Stay tuned.

America's Newest Political Rorschach

The White House released this photo of the President shooting skeet at Camp David last year:

 

What you see here is of course, dependent on your point of view. Steve M:

I don't hunt. Why? Because I grew up in a large city (Boston) and live in another large city (New York). Barack Obama grew up mostly in Honolulu. He's lived since then in places such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Of course he doesn't spend a lot of time shooting.

Gun lovers want us to understand and respect their culture. Hey, why don't you guys try understanding and respecting ours? If you say we shouldn't have contempt for your enjoyment of hunting and target shooting, well, fine, I accept that -- but you need to drop the contempt for those of us who didn't grow up with those recreations, and never developed a fondness for them. It just wasn't part of our culture, and that's OK.

The contempt isn't for non-gun culture.  It's for this President specifically.  There is nothing this President could do to convince tens of millions of Americans that this picture is real, which is why the White House did this.  They are trolling the racist haters, they are trolling the Village, and I for one can't stop laughing at how utterly stupid both groups are.

What really, really, REALLY pisses them off is the fact this President outsmarted them yet again.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• This Groundhog's Day, Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog has not seen his shadow, predicting an early spring.
• Iranian state television has unveiled the country's newest jet fighter, the F-313, on the 34th anniversary of the 1979 revolution.
• President Obama awarded 23 scientists medals at a White House ceremony on Friday, honoring a good year for US researchers.
• The Dow Jones closed above the 14,000 mark for the first time in five years on better than expected jobs news.
• Twitter caught a massive hacking attempt that affected nearly a quarter of a million accounts, calling the attack "sophisticated".

Last Call

Republicans say they will indefinitely block Rob Cordray and any nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until the President agrees to strip the agency of any actual oversight powers, mainly because consumers don't matter to Republicans, only banks do.

Silly consumers.  Adam Serwer:

Senate Republicans want three big changes before they'll stop blocking Cordray. First, they want the CPFB to be by Congress rather than the Federal Reserve. Subjecting the bureau to the congressional appropriations process would compromise its political independence. Second, Republicans want the range of financial institutions the bureau has authority to regulate narrowed. This would leave unsupervised some of the problematic institutions the bureau was created to regulate. Finally, the GOP is demanding that other bank regulators—the same ones who failed to prevent the 2008 financial meltdown—be allowed to chaperone the CFPB by "verifying" that its rules "would not harm the safety and soundness of banks." This would let regulators who turned a blind eye to exploitative practices in the past because they were profitable tell the CFPB what to do—and the more different regulators have to approve of a rule, the more convoluted and less effective it is likely to be.

Blocking Cordray could leave the CPFB without most of its powers to regulate the very financial institutions whose practices helped lead the country into near-economic collapse in 2008. That's just how Republicans want it. Having failed to prevent the financial regulation law from being passed, they are now seeking to nullify it through procedural extortion. 

Either way, the GOP figures, the agency is effectively shut down until Republicans can kill it.   They don't want anyone protecting the people from the banks, they want the banks protected from the people.

But there's no difference between the parties, right?

Turkey Embassy Attack Called "Act Of Terror"

Details are still coming in, but preliminary information indicates a suicide bomber and a Turkish security guard killed in a blast at the US embassy in Ankara.

Tension is high in Turkey after a suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara as officials identified the attacker as a member of a radical leftist group.

The blast killed a Turkish security guard, authorities say. The bomber died.

Istanbul police identified the bomber as Ecevit Shanli, a member of DHKP-C, a Marxist Leninist terror group.

There are conflicting accounts concerning how many were wounded.

Ankara police and health officials said two were injured, while Ankara Gov. Aladdin Yuksel said one person was hurt.

A senior U.S. official said no Americans were wounded.

The "terrorist blast" occurred at 1:13 p.m. at a checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"We are working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation," she said.

Unlike in Benghazi, the Turkish government is fully invested in getting to the bottom of this and assisting US investigators.  I'm thinking the DHKP-C just moved up several places on the "Going to get some drones in your errywhere" list, too.

More on this as it comes in.

The Paranoid, Without Style

Probably won't surprise you to learn that the National Rifle Association has an enemies list.  It will probably be even less of a surprise to you that the list consists of basically everyone who's not the NRA. McAllister at Addicting Info parses the voluminous tome:

A couple of things become apparent while reviewing the NRA list. First, they have no concept of data record formatting. Second, at least some of the folks on the NRA list are dead – which rings familiar to the persistent rumors that many of the NRA “Life” Members are dead as well. Third, unlike Nixon, the NRA didn’t list the politicians who support gun regulations, nor are any of the new media sites – like we here at Addicting Info or Occupy the NRA on the list.

Back to the list. 24 major medical associations, from the AMA to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons populate the list of NRA enemies. And so are the American Bar Association, National Education Association, the Catholic Conference, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church and the American Jewish Conference. From the world of sports are the Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Rams.

Hollywood is represented by a wide variety of actors…from TV’s Barney Miller – Hal Linden to Rambo – Sylvester Stallone to NCIS’ Mark Harmon to George Clooney, Matt Damon, Kevin Bacon, MacGyver’s Richard Dean Anderson. Also on the list, Sigourney Weaver, Oprah Winfrey, Shania Twain, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand – the only person to be on both Nixon and the NRA’s lists.

Former politicians Jimmy Carter, Ed Koch and C. Everett Coop are also listed along with political powerhouse, the AARP, 32 Million strong.

It might be easier to write who is NOT on the list.

And if you want to know how and why the NRA will survive this, they'll brutally attack everyone on this list as gun grabbers who support fascist Obama, so you'd better back the NRA or join the list as a bad guy.  About half of America is willing to do that still, because the NRA is still viewed as more socially acceptable than NAMBLA or the KKK.

Until that changes, gun control laws in Congress will not pass.  Period.  Not even the background check stuff.

StupidiNews!

• Mexican officials say at least 25 are dead and more than 100 injured after an explosion at the corporate headquarters of state oil company Pemex in Mexico City.
• Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel faces an uncertain vote after being angrily grilled by several of his former GOP colleagues at his Senate confirmation hearing.
• The judge in the Jerry Sandusky trial in Pennsylvania has denied a request for a new trial, rejecting the defense's logic that Sandusky was railroaded by a speedy trial.
• Dutch mortgage lender SNS has been nationalized as the country's fourth largest bank has been taken over by the government after massive real estate losses.
• New proposed EU regulations on data protection and intellectual copyrights could "spark a trade war" with US tech firms.

Last Call

And now the Syrian/Israeli dustup is getting a nasty response.

Syria warned on Thursday of a possible "surprise" response to Israel's attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.

Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes", Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria.

"Syria is engaged in defending its sovereignty and its land," Ali told a website of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria and Israel have fought several wars and in 2007 Israeli jets bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site, without a military response from Damascus.

Diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target had been a military research center northwest of Damascus.

Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.

It's not much of a surprise if you announce it beforehand, guys.   Still, with Russia now involved in this mess, Israel is not exactly helping things.  Odds really are pretty good that the Syrian convoy was going to Hezbollah, but jumping borders in order to bomb it still rather counts as a belligerent act, even in the era of drones in my everywhere.

At this point getting a Secretary of Defense confirmed to help America formulate options with this festering pile of crap now on SecState Kerry's plate would be a good idea, yes?

Ironic Goatees For Everybody

Observation:  If you want to know what Nate Silver would be like if he decided to use his powers for “soft jazz glibertarian concern trolling of liberals” instead of for good, then the Freakonomics franchise is about as close as you can get.   It’s what happens when a Village Centrist and a Chicago school social economist team up for maximum totebagger nonsense.

Every single story there is “Here’s this liberal policy that you probably think is a no brainer.  Now here’s our cherry-picked cost/benefit analysis that shows there’s really a massive hidden socioeconomic price of that policy because the evil and stupid federal government gets involved at this point here.  It’s okay however, because you’re subconsciously doing the counter-intuitive opposite of this policy on your own personal microeconomic scale.  And since so is everybody else, that’s why the policy seems to ‘work’ at the macro level.  You’re just a delusional hypocrite, that’s all.  Still, enjoy the guilt while you ruminate on the fact that government can never, ever work.”

And if the story isn’t about a liberal policy screwed up by the gubment, it’s “here’s this conservative free-market policy that you would think doesn’t work but…” and then you have to punch somebody.  Luckily, hanging around this place long enough has allowed me to recognize the standard McBargle/Reasonoid logic these guys employ and go “But your entire premise is self-serving bullshit that only works as the very definition of confirmation bias.  Go stick your head in a goat orifice.  Thanks.”

Makes me want to set a Thermomix on fire.

Rand Paul: Gordian Knothead

My junior senator's logic causes me actual, physical pain at times.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who describes himself as a libertarian, said Wednesday that he opposed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because it could unintentionally result in same-sex marriage becoming legal.

“I believe in traditional marriage,” he said during an interview with Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. “I really don’t understand any other kind of marriage. Between a man and a woman is what I believe in, and I just don’t think it is good for us to change the definition of that.”

Paul noted that his state, Kentucky, had approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. He said he was “not sure” about DOMA, but warned the federal law could result in conservatives losing “the battle for the whole country.”

Paul said marriage rights should be decided state-by-state rather than nationally so that “urban centers” couldn’t dictate the law.

To recap, Mr. Small Government here seems to think that it's not only good but completely necessary for the government to define what marriage is and then enforce it.   The guy is totally okay with legislating his beliefs on other people, but only at the state level, so that nobody in the federal government can tell him he's wrong to do so.  This makes him a "Libertarian".

It makes hm a moron, too.  Sadly, as I mentioned, it also makes him my representation in Washington DC.

This makes me sadder than you will ever, ever know.

StupidiNews!

• Former Nebraska Republicans Sen. Chuck Hagel will today face several of his former colleagues in a Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination for Pentagon head.
• The NY Times says it may have been the victim of Chinese military hackers after a profile story on the country's Premier Wen Jiabao and his large fortune.
• Israel is now involved in Syria's civil war after striking at a Syrian military convoy that Israel says was a weapons transfer bound for Hezbollah militants.
• As American farmers continue to automate and cut jobs, farm owners are seeing record profits in a weak economy.
• After two years European Union officials are scrapping a voluntary plan to stop "terrorist content" on the internet.

Last Call

If this National Review editorial board piece is indicative of the GOP position on immigration (and boy is it ever) then I think I might have discovered why Republicans are basically in an untenable and unwinnable position of their own making on Latino and Asian voters.

Republican immigration reformers with an eye to political reality should begin by appreciating that Latinos are a Democratic constituency. They did not vote for Mitt Romney. They did not vote for John McCain. They did not vote for George W. Bush, and in the election before that they did not vote for George W. Bush again. In 1998, George W. Bush was reelected to the governorship of Texas with 27 percent of the African-American vote — an astonishing number for an unabashed conservative. Bush won 68 percent of the overall vote in that election, carrying 240 out of Texas’s 254 counties. Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Gary Mauro.

And, if we are to take Hispanics at their word, conservative attitudes toward illegal immigration are a minor reason for their voting preferences. While many are in business for themselves, they express hostile attitudes toward free enterprise in polls. They are disproportionately low-income and disproportionately likely to receive some form of government support. More than half of Hispanic births are out of wedlock. Take away the Spanish surname and Latino voters look a great deal like many other Democratic constituencies. Low-income households headed by single mothers and dependent upon some form of welfare are not looking for an excuse to join forces with Paul Ryan and Pat Toomey. Given the growing size of the Hispanic vote, it would help Republicans significantly to lose it by smaller margins than they have recently. But the idea that an amnesty is going to put Latinos squarely in the GOP tent is a fantasy.

It simply hasn't occurred to the NRO folks or the GOP leadership or Republicans in general that comprehensive immigration reform that includes tough border security and a path to citizenship is the correct and humane thing to do.  Conservatives are too busy trying to figure out the calculus of pandering, and are having this conversation as loudly as possible, in earshot of Latino voters, Asian voters and you know, human beings with souls.

But AMNESTY, so there's that.

About that word. Call it “regularization,” call it a “path to citizenship,” it amounts to precisely the same thing: a decision to set aside the law and to ignore its violation. And therein lies a problem for so-called comprehensive reform: Normalizing the status of the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, either in toto or in part, would require the development and application of standards for doing so, whether those are relatively narrow (as in the DREAM Act and similar proposals) or broad. Unless we mean to legalize every illegal in the country — including violent felons, gang members, cartel henchmen, and the like — there will be of necessity a system for sorting them out. It is difficult to believe that the same government that failed to enforce the law in the first place will be very scrupulous about standards as it goes about dealing with the consequences of its own incompetence.

Because as you know,  we've only had an immigration problem since January 20, 2009.  Guess why you're losing the Latino vote, guys?  Maybe you know deciding that Latinos are nothing more than worthless moochers and looters is probably a bad idea, right?

GOP outreach for the win.

Huckleberry Hounding, Ho!

Sen. Lindsey Graham isn't giving up on finding a way to make President Obama burn for Benghazi, and now his increasingly desperate fishing expedition is focusing on outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, as he told FOX on Monday night:

VAN SUSTEREN: Is Secretary Panetta going to testify?

GRAHAM: Well, I’m not going to — I’m going to block Hagel from going forward until he does.

VAN SUSTEREN: So you’re going to block him.

GRAHAM: Absolutely. Why would we not want to understand what happened during the attack itself? How could our secretary — what happened for seven hours? Why were there no military assets available on September the 11th.

Let's keep in mind Huckleberry here has already sunk Susan Rice, and is threatening to sink John Brennan as new CIA chief  as well.  Now he's going to stop Hagel until he gets to the bottom of this "mystery".

Only one problem, of course.  All of the above have given their answers to Congress already.

Graham’s dogged pursuit of “the truth” is undercut by the fact that many of the questions he’s asking have already been answered. Panetta and other administrations officials have repeatedly stated that due to the attack coming in two waves, and the distance between Libya and Sigonella Air Base in Italy, the U.S. was unable to send military forces to respond. Likewise, the question of the editing of Susan Rice’s Sept. 16 Sunday show statements has been previously identified as the result of an interagency process, in which the CIA itself removed references to Al Qaeda.

It doesn't matter.  Obama has to be guilty of some crime, and Graham won't be satisfied until he makes one up that fits.   And now that recess appointments are impossible, who knows how long America won't have a full cabinet to deal with various issues?

But both sides do it, right?

The Banana Splits Get Dumped

The bananas GOP plan to split swing state electoral votes by congressional district has run into a massive backlash in several key states this week.  Michigan's GOP Gov. Rick Snyder is sinking the plan, saying it's not "the right time" for it.  Here in Ohio, GOP state leaders are against the plan entirely, even Secretary of State Jon Husted says it's a bad idea.  And in Virginia, the plan didn't even get out of legislative committee, getting killed 11-4:

ProgressVirginia reported Tuesday afternoon that the Virginia Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee killed Sen. Charles “Bill” Carrico Sr.’s electoral college-rigging bill, despite an offer by Carrico to amend the bill to award electors in proportion to the state’s popular vote. The vote was 11-4 against the bill, although it will not be official until the close of the committee meeting.

The bill, as written, would have awarded 11 of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes to the winner of each of the state’s 11 heavily gerrymandered Congressional Districts. The remaining two electors would have been awarded to whoever won the majority of Congressional Districts. Under this scheme, Mitt Romney would have received 9 Virginia electors to Obama’s 4, even though Barack Obama won the state by four points.

With 4 Republicans joining all 7 Democrats on the committee to kill the bill, it seems not even the GOP has the stomach for this plan.  There's simply no way to disguise the fact this is an attempt to steal the 2016 election, regardless of state election totals.  The GOP is passing on this for now, at least in some states.  We'll see how Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania react at this point, but for now it seems this plan has been blunted.

Key words:  "for now".  It'll be back before 2016, count on it.

StupidiNews!

• The Korean space race continues as South Korea successfully put its first satellite into orbit on Tuesday.
• The annual Reporters Without Borders index of press freedoms finds the United States dropping to 32nd in the world, with Finland number one.
• A new poll finds two-thirds of Americans support the Pentagon's recent decision to open direct ground combat jobs to women.
• The continuing austerity-driven Spanish recession was worse than expected, with 4th quarter 2012 numbers coming in at a larger than forecast 0.7% GDP contraction.
• Microsoft has launched its subscription-based Office 365 service, streaming familiar apps like Word and Outlook to consumers for $100 a year.