Last Call For Two Seemingly Related Data Points

First data point: 

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

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

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

Second data point:

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

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

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

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

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

Republicans Have No Problem Taking Health Insurance Away From You

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

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

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

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

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

What Middle Class?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

StupidiNews!

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

Last Call For The Wheels Coming Off The Christiemobile

The only person in New Jersey who had a worse weekend than Payton Manning was Chris Christie.  His camp's response to Friday's accusations from former aide David Wildstein that evidence exists that Gov. Christie knew about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge and lied about it at his January 15th press conference was so childish as to all but prove he's guilty as hell.  Here's Saturday's response, in part, sent to media outlets:

Josh Marshall sums it up.

Look at this passage. 

It's genuinely shocking that a sitting governor and presidential aspirant finds himself or his key defenders writing a sentence like this: "He was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior." 

I mean, is that a joke? Or, he's someone who "made moves that were not productive"? 

Seriously, who wrote this?

"Smacks of desperation" doesn't even begin to describe the Christie camp at this point.  These guys are coming apart at the seams.   When you're reduced to not only attacking the messenger (and one who was a former trusted aide) but attacking them in such a ridiculous fashion, you've lost.

Hell, even Chuck Todd has figured it out.

After the last 72 hours of new developments in the scandals hitting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, the political story here is no longer about whether Christie can survive to be a top presidential contender in 2016. Rather, it’s about whether he’ll be able to hold on to his governorship. For starters, former Christie Port Authority aide David Wildstein is now saying -- through his lawyer -- that “evidence exists” that Christie had knowledge of the lane closings in Fort Lee, NJ. Given that Wildstein appears eager to cooperate with investigators and tell his own story, who else follows suit? Former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly? Anyone else? It’s looking like it will be every man and woman for him/herself. (Wildstein didn’t produce any evidence, but he’s clearly in survival mode for himself. And that has to have the Christie folks in a mini panic, because who else could break?)

The comedy of errors will only continue, right up until Christie is forced out of office.  Oh, and things got worse this weekend when yet another Christie aide resigned from his office.

A Chris Christie aide who was subpoenaed in a growing New Jersey traffic scandal resigned Friday, the aide’s lawyer confirmed to POLITICO.

Christina Renna becomes the second person to leave the Republican governor’s office since the scandal escalated in January. But she did not say the scandal, which has threatened Christie’s potential presidential ambitions, was the reason for her departure.

Sure, the scandal has nothing to do with it.  And I have a bridge to sell you.

Christie may yet survive, but if this is an example of the thought processes his advisers are using, he's got longer odds than Manning and the Broncos did down 4 touchdowns plus in the 4th quarter last night.

America The Not-So-Beautiful

Last night's Super Bowl was effectively over in the second quarter when the Seahawks were up 22-0, but the biggest controversy of the night was a commercial that offended millions of Americans from one of the most famous brands on Earth.



A simple message from Coke:  America is beautiful, and we're made up of many cultures from many lands, with many languages  Buy our sugar water with acid in it.  But don't tell right-wing bigots like Allen West that.

No, many conservatives didn't much care for Coca-Cola's one-minute spot, which showcased several singers performing "America The Beautiful" in languages such as English, Arabic and Spanish. 

Former tea party congressman Allen West even took time to write a blog post during the game to voice his displeasure. For West, the ad started out strong enough. 

"Then the words went from English to languages I didn’t recognize," a troubled West wrote, calling it "a truly disturbing commercial." 

Michael Patrick Leahy over at Breitbart was offended, too. 

Not only did Coke use "a deeply Christian patriotic anthem whose theme is unity – in several foreign languages," but Leahy noted that the "ad also prominently features a gay couple."

You see, if you're an LGBTQ person, or wear a hijab, or speak Spanish, you're not an American.  Even though there's millions of Americans who do those things regularly, here in America.  Twitter showcased the awesome hate.

But please, tell me again how racism and bigotry don't exist in America, and how they are all the invention of the delusional liberal mind.  Allen West and his buddies are the same guys who scream that minorities are captive on the "Democrat plantation" and that we should vote for the awesome, inclusive GOP, but apparently anyone other than straight, white Christians don't qualify as American enough.

And they wonder why minorities of all stripes vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and why refusal to pass immigration reform is the biggest problem facing the GOP right now.

Great Art Is About Conflict And Pain And Guilt And Longing...

Rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman, dead at the age of 46.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, perhaps the most ambitious and widely admired American actor of his generation, who gave three-dimensional nuance to a wide range of sidekicks, villains and leading men on screen and embraced some of the theater’s most burdensome roles on Broadway, died on Sunday at an apartment in Greenwich Village he was renting as an office. He was 46. 

The death, from an apparent drug overdose, was confirmed by the police. Mr. Hoffman was found in the apartment by a friend who had become concerned after being unable to reach him. Investigators found a syringe in his arm and, nearby, an envelope containing what appeared to be heroin. 

Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with “60 Minutes” that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was 22. Last year he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin. 

“I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self,” said David Bar Katz, a playwright, and the friend who found Mr. Hoffman and called 911. “I really thought this chapter was over.”

Struggles with addiction, whether it's substance abuse, addictive behavior, overindulgence or otherwise, are never "over".   You just try to keep the bouts off the wagon as short as possible, and climb back on for as long as you can hold on for.

The quote in the title summed up Hoffman's acting pretty succinctly, and it's from one of my favorite roles of his, Rolling Stone editor Lester Bangs in Almost Famous.

Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.

He will be missed.

StupidiNews!

• In one of the largest drubbings in Super Bowl history, the Seattle Seahawks picked up their first franchise championship over the Denver Broncos, 43-8.
• The rate of abortions in the US fell to the lowest level since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 as more women are turning to contraception rather than having children.
• After blocking nearly a fifth of polling places in Thailand for Sunday's national elections, protesters are vowing today to march against the government of PM Yingluck Shinawatra.
• New Japanese auto plants in Mexico set to open this year mean that the country is set to replace Japan as the number 2 auto exporter to the US this year and replace Canada as number one in 2015.
• NASA is looking to crowdsource analysis of nearly half a million celestial objects in order to identify how planets may be formed.

Last Call For Water Fall In The West

Welcome to the future of the American West.

The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply. 

With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days. State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

We're not talking about "Oh well, can't water the lawn during the daylight hours."  We're talking tens of thousands of Americans having to get bottled water trucked in until further notice for months.  

Or longer.

“We are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years,” said B. Lynn Ingram, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Already the drought, technically in its third year, is forcing big shifts in behavior. Farmers in Nevada said they had given up on even planting, while ranchers in Northern California and New Mexico said they were being forced to sell off cattle as fields that should be four feet high with grass are a blanket of brown and stunted stalks.

100-year flooding two years ago, now 500-year droughts.  But climate change is a gigantic myth perpetrated by liberal media outlets to sell hybrid cars.

But it's all okay, because God will fix it.

Paul Ryan Is A Coward

Every day for the next three years, you will hear Republicans call the President "lawless" or some variation of "Will no one rid me of this troublesome Obama".  Paul Ryan is typical in that he is trying to incite someone to take the law into their own hands to "deal" with the President, and is too much of a coward to do anything himself.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday weighed in on President Obama's recent comments that he will use executive actions to push his agenda this year. 

"We have an increasingly lawless presidency where he is actually doing the job of Congress, writing new policies and new laws without going through Congress. Presidents don't write laws, Congress does," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week." 

Ryan drew a distinction between typical use of executive action and the way he believes Obama is using his executive branch powers. 

"It's not the number of executive orders; it's the scope of the executive orders. It's the fact that he is actually contradicting law like in the health care case, or proposing new laws without going through congress," he said. "That's the issue."

Actually, Ryan is wrong, but it doesn't matter.  And no, he won't do anything himself.

When asked if he would move to impeach Obama over his use of executive actions, Ryan said he didn't think so. 

"No, I'm not," he said. "We have a difference of opinion, clearly, and -- and some of these are going to get fought out in court. You have some court challenges with respect to religious freedom going to the court this spring."

He's too much of a coward to impeach, and wants the Supreme Court to do the dirty work.

Or, somebody else...

Projection Is A Funny Thing

Forbes cracks me up.  The number of Wingnut Welfare hacks writing columns over there has reached Breitbartian proportions, and one of the most blatantly stupid is Tom Basile, who is just the latest to criminalize Presidenting While Black in the court of public opinion.

The weaponization of government is happening and it’s time Americans took notice. For all the folks – primarily on the left – who screamed and yelled that the Patriot Act was shredding the Constitution, far more intrusive tactics that have nothing to do with the NSA or Homeland Security are being deployed right under our noses during this Administration. Those tactics reduce every Americans’ personal and economic freedom. 

There is a dangerous arrogance of power among the President and senior-level Democrats that should concern every American.

Which is funny, because these are the same people who told us the Patriot Act was 100% necessary to keep us from getting murdered in our sleep.  But what specific tactics are he complaining about?

There are the new revelations about the Administration intimidating banks to prevent them from doing business with a number of legitimate businesses. The until recently covert Operation Choke Point administered through the Departments of Justice and Treasury is already having an impact on the financial industry and other legitimate businesses the Administration is targeting. According to the Wall Street Journal, J.P. Morgan , has been forced to cut ties with thousands of customers in the last year. Sources indicate that out of fear of government scrutiny, the bank is ending relationships with customers even if there isn’t any sign that the customer has done anything wrong. Other major banks have stopped offering certain popular, legal products or services because of government pressure.

HOLY CRAP OPERATION CHOKE POINT WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Under a new program, "Operation Choke Point," the department is checking banks over...

TO ARMS AGAINST THE KENYAN TYRANT!

...whether they enabled payday lenders to illegally siphon billions of dollars from U.S. consumers' checking accounts in exchange for handsome fees, the newspaper said, citing state and federal officials.

Errm.

In the first action under the program, federal prosecutors have already brought a lawsuit against Four Oaks Bank in North Carolina for being "deliberately ignorant" about processing payments on behalf of merchants, the report said. About $2.4 billion was illegally withdrawn from checking accounts of U.S. customers by companies enabled by Four Oaks Bank, the New York Times said.

Yes, well, I'm sure the armed revolution on behalf of making sure payday lenders have the right to steal billions in fees from bank accounts secretly is totally what Thomas Paine had in mind.

But surely there's more dastardly evidence on the weaponization of government!

Last week he indicated that no one should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. Sounds like the kind of ambiguous language that could lend itself to loosening voting requirements or at least another innocuously-named government agency to “investigate” voter behavior.

The bastard.  Pretty sure that's impeachable.

Our system of government is based on checks and balances. Ever since the beginning of the 20th Century, the Executive has, to one degree or another, been the dominant branch of government in large part due to the explosion of the Federal bureaucracy. Hundreds of agencies, departments, programs, task forces, and commissions are an arsenal that in the wrong hands can be used against the very freedom the government is supposed to uphold, protect and defend. Rest assured, it’s in the wrong hands. It’s time the toothless tiger called the GOP crafted a full-throat-ed strategy to investigate, expose and counter Barack Obama’s weaponization of government.

Wow, this guy really dislikes the federal executive branch.  I wonder why that is.  I mean, with this ridiculous hyperbole and strawman filled idiocy, this guy almost sounds like a former Bush administration press flack or something.

Thomas J. Basile served as a Senior Press Advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was a member of the Office of Strategic Communications staff and acted as spokesperson for Security and Baghdad issues. In this role, Basile aided Coalition officials in message development and communications planning for the Iraq reconstruction effort. In August, Basile and the Deputy Mayor of Baghdad initiated the first regularly scheduled press conferences at City Hall for the burgeoning local Iraqi press corps. 

Prior to joining Ambassador Bremer's staff at the CPA in July, Basile served a Director of the Office of Communications for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. In this role he managed the EPA Administrator's public liaison operation, developed strategic outreach initiatives and supervised the Agency's electronic communications efforts.

Oh well then.  So, basically this guy is the walking epitome of projection then.  Cool.

Carry on.

Last Call For The Necessity Of Denial

The key component to being a conservative think tank pundit is denial, particularly when it comes to denial of bigotry.  It's the fundamental principle, the foundation, of conservative intellectualism.  America must be an absolutely equally fair and equitable society in every way, where there are no structural barriers of any kind to success and happiness.  The only problems in America come when government interferes in the glorious free markets, and that a perfect society would be free of these fetters.  Modern conservatism absolutely depends on this structure.

The millisecond a conservative admits there's any sort of structural problem in society:  racism, misogyny, bigotry based on sexual orientation or religious creed, or anything endemic to the American system, the game ends, and all their logic crumbles to "conservatism cannot be failed, this isn't real conservatism!"

So when presented with evidence that Atlanta's recent crippling by two inches of snow may have been exacerbated by the city's long and uncomfortable history with the city's black population, or that Minneapolis's low percentage of black home ownership meant there were additional structural problems educating black people about the dangers of radon poisoning, the conservative pundit must find a way to bring up another possible cause -- no matter how outlandish -- in order to prove that racism is dead in America.

Case in point:  John Hinderaker.

These are just two examples plucked from the constant stream of news stories that allege racism where none exists. Why is this effort so insistent? Why are we constantly bombarded with allegations of racism, at the very time when actual racism has dwindled to insignificance? The motive, it seems obvious, is political. The Democratic Party desperately needs to keep African-American voters on its plantation if it is to have any hope of maintaining power. (Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 20 points among white voters in 2012, according to some estimates.) Because Americans in their daily lives rarely see evidence of racism, but are often reminded of the ubiquity of affirmative action, liberals in the news media must keep up a constant stream of tales about purported racism in order to create an alternative reality. Sowing racial division is a core strategy of the Democratic Party, and newspapers and magazines are its agents in executing that strategy.

In just one paragraph, Hinderaker encapsulates the seething rage conservatism has towards the minority experience (and not just the black one), erasing the personal experiences of millions of Americans of color, and simply believes any instances of racism to be a political plot orchestrated by Democrats in order to keep minorities ignorant and trapped voting for them.

In Hinderaker's world, minority voters, especially black ones like myself, are simply too stupid to see the the truth.  We're easily bamboozled by the liberal media and trapped like sheep anyway, so why would anyone want to give our experiences with racism any credence whatsoever?  Hinderaker hasn't experienced it, so it can't have any validity.  We're allllllll just making it up.

Bonus points for the real racism is his world being affirmative action, which actually is dwindling in American society thanks to a number of conservative lawsuits and court decisions.

If you're a minority and experience structural racism, you're in an alternate world, not America.  But I guess the incarceration and education and salary and home ownership numbers are all made up too.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

See if you can guess the source of this drivel (emphasis mine):

Americans heard President Barack Obama declare this week that he intends to bypass the gridlocked Hill to get things done on his own. What they didn't hear: just how far he’s actually pushing his executive authority. 

An in-depth examination of the administration’s actions and plans, agency by agency, regulation by regulation, reveals an executive power play that’s broad and bold — and intensely ambitious. Far more than he let on in the State of the Union, the president has marshaled the tools of his office to advance policies, many unabashedly liberal, that push deep into everyday life for tens of millions of Americans. 

He wants to change how power plants operate. And what we buy for lunch. How we travel to work. And how our kids learn math. How our gasoline is formulated. How we light our aquariums. 

Already, the president’s team has enacted 300 economically significant regulations, far more than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan did in comparable periods. Some of those rules are driven by the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank banking reform, the two big laws Obama pushed through Congress early in his first term, when he had Democratic majorities in both houses. But there is far more.

Answer after the jump.

The Proles Are Required To Consume More Confectioneries

Ann Romney feels sorry for you, America.  You didn't elect her husband, after all, and now, well....

Ann Romney isn't sad her husband lost the presidency for her sake — she's sad on behalf of America. And she still regularly runs into people who are sad Romney lost in 2012, probably at the country club. 

The coulda-been-First Lady appeared on Fox News Friday morning to talk Mitt the movie (which is good) and, of course, Mitt the man who, his wife says, is "a pretty independent, wonderful guy." 

Romney ("Best-selling author," per the chyron) "always believed [Mitt] was going to be the president of the United States," she tells Fox's Bill Hemmer. When he didn't: "We lost, but truly the country lost, by not having Mitt as president." Then she decides that she'll "be polite and nice and not comment" on how she actually thinks Obama's second term is going. We tried to guess her opinion on the topic and were unable to do so. 

Responding to reports that Mitt leads in a early 2016 New Hampshire poll (despite his not running), Ann said she wasn't surprised. "I run across people all the time and they're still really upset about the election," Romney says. "They're still really sad." Then she left the studio, perhaps destined for one of the Romney family's various houses scattered around the country.

Marie Antoin-nutjob here doesn't understand why you unwashed troglodytes didn't crown her husband as our new glorious master of America, Inc. and stuff.  She feels only sadness of the one percent who matter, and confusion that the grunting, pissing yokels we so graciously allow to vote didn't discharge their duty and toss the Mulatto-In-Chief from the aptly named abode he resided in.

Which makes sense.  The "conservative intellectual" chattering class likes to entertain themselves by pretending they are super-intelligent and that anyone who pulls the level for a Democrat is a "low-information voter".  After all, if we were all as smart as Ann Romney, not only would we have elected Mitt in a landslide, but we'd all be fabulously wealthy, too, like the Romneys.  Which obviously makes them smarter than all of us.

Just not smart enough to think down to our poop-throwing level in order to convince us to vote for the guy.

I'm betting one of the most sad people she's met is this guy.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The FAA has grounded plans for a Minnesota brewery to deliver beer by drone to ice-fishers until the agency can work out detailed flight rules for commercial drones sometime in 2015.
• President Obama says it's up to Congress to legislate marijuana, despite calls for him to direct the DEA to reclassify pot as no longer a dangerous drug.
• The FBI says suspicious letters containing a powdery substance mailed to locations near the site of this year's Super Bowl are not dangerous, and they are investigating the source.
• GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, says he sees enough Republican votes for a clean debt ceiling increase in the Senate, but the House may be a completely different story.
• South Dakota is the latest state to offer legislation that would "protect" science teachers whose lessons include intelligent design in the classroom.

Last Call To Replace "Repeal And Replace"

If you're wondering where this month's Senate GOP's plan to replace Obamacare went, and why nobody is talking about it on the conservative side, it's because it took all of a couple days to figure out Senate Republicans were about to hit tens of millions of middle-class Americans with a substantial tax increase to pay for their overpriced high-risk pool scheme.

The apparent change centers on the plan's tax treatment of health insurance. Right now, health insurance contributions by employees and their employers are not taxed; the GOP wanted to include a cap on how much of those contributions can remain untaxed. 

But the devil is in the details. The original eight-page proposal released by the Senate Republicans -- Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Orrin Hatch of Utah -- said that the new cap would be "65 percent of an average plan's costs." Health policy experts told TPM that this would likely result in a big tax increase on most Americans and some would probably lose their insurance. 

"It's obviously a substantial increase on people who get employer-sponsored insurance," Gary Claxton, vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told TPM of the original proposal. "This would be a meaningful hit on people. It's a big radical change. This is not an incremental thing, and it affects most people under 65." 

The Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed a similar, though not identical, proposal and estimated that it would raise $613 billion in revenue over nine years, while six million people would lose their employer coverage in the five years after it took effect. 

The initial reporting on the GOP's new proposal, by the Washington Post and National Journalas well as TPM, highlighted that the plan would likely lead to many Americans paying more for their insurance. National Journal observed that, under the GOP's plan as originally proposed, if you had an average health plan, you'd pay taxes on 35 percent of its costs.

So, say you earn $60,000 a year and have an employer-sponsored health plan for your family of four.  Let's say that plan is worth $10,000.  Under the GOP plan, you're responsible for taxes on 35% of that plan as additional income, and the marginal federal tax rate at $60k is 25%.  So 25% of $3,500 is an extra $875 in federal taxes you pay.  Gosh, that seems so much better than Obamacare, right?

No wonder they're scrambling to "fix" their plan:



So they're only going to tax the highest earners with the "most generous" insurance plans?  Oh, I'm sure THAT will go over well with the one percenters.

Christie's Bridge Now Sinking In Radioactive Lava

And the aide GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fired for being "responsible" for the lane closures last year on the George Washington Bridge is now publicly saying Christie knew everything and lied to pretty much everyone in his rambling press conference last month.

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening, and that he had the evidence to prove it. 

In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago. 

“Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” the letter added.

If this is true, he's done.  Good night, Chris.  Shut off the lights on the way out of Trenton.

[UPDATE]  The Newark Star-Ledger calls for Christie's resignation if Wildstein's allegations are true.  Fecal matter just became empirical.

Republicans Have A Bigger Problem

Republicans are hoping that Americans will only care about the problems with Obamacare and vote solely based on that in November.  Unfortunately, the GOP has one glaring, massive problem that is threatening to split the party again, and it's once again immigration reform.

For more than a year House Republican leaders have insisted the chamber would act on new immigration laws. And for more than a year, Republicans have done virtually nothing on the issue — despite intense pressure from activists, business groups, and the nation’s changing demographics.

And although there are a variety of reasons for inaction, one Republican lawmaker recently offered a frank acknowledgement that for many House Republicans, there’s one issue at play that’s not often discussed: race.

“Part of it, I think — and I hate to say this, because these are my people — but I hate to say it, but it’s racial,” said the Southern Republican lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you go to town halls people say things like, ‘These people have different cultural customs than we do.’ And that’s code for race.”

Republicans know that Latino voters will make up an increasingly larger share of the voting population, and while immigration reform is far from the top priority of most Latino voters, the absolute bigotry many Republican lawmakers display towards Latinos is going to keep them from ever winning the White House anytime soon, and they know it.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday said that a House push for "any bill perceived as an amnesty bill" would hinder the attempt by Republicans to gain control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Cruz's statement comes on the same day as the House GOP retreat, at which party leaders were set propose the conference's immigration principles for the legislative session.

"Amnesty is wrong in any circumstance, and if we are going to fix our broken immigration system--and we should--it makes much more sense to do so next year, so that we are negotiating a responsible solution with a Republican Senate majority rather than with Chuck Schumer," Cruz said in a statement to Breitbart.

In other words, Republicans figure they can force President Obama to sign a ridiculous bill rather than a real, long-term solution.  Because Republicans don't want to fix the problem.  They need to keep the issue alive to rally the Tea Party.

Last Call For Henry Waxman

40-year House veteran Democrat Heney Waxman of California is calling it quits after serving 20 terms, and he's blaming the Tea Party.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a diminutive Democratic giant whose 40 years in the House produced some of the most important legislation of the era, announced Thursday that he would retire at the end of the year.

Mr. Waxman, 74, joins a growing list of House members who are calling it quits, many in disappointment over the partisanship and ineffectiveness of a Congress that may end up as the least productive in history.

“It’s been frustrating because of the extremism of Tea Party Republicans,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview on Wednesday. “Nothing seems to be happening.”

The frustration is felt on both sides. More than 30 House members have announced they will retire, resign or run for other offices this year, including stalwarts like George Miller, Democrat of California; Tom Latham, Republican of Iowa; Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia; and Howard P. McKeon of California, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Waxman knows things aren't going to get any better in 2014, and with the Republicans still not having anyone who can win in 2016, they'll be just as insane then, too in the House.

Why would you want to stick around in this funhouse of stupid?

The Illigitimate Presidency

After five years and two elections, you'd think Republicans would accept the fact that Barack Obama is President of the United States.  But of course, you'd be wrong.

Congressional Republicans are taking President Obama to court over his use of executive power to sidestep Congress.

The executive actions that Obama touted during the State of the Union speech are adding fresh urgency to the legal efforts of Republicans, who say he is using the authority of his office in unprecedented ways.“We can go to court,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “We haven’t got many more options except [to] tell the American people that we’re seeing an abuse of the intent of the Constitution.”

Republicans have launched a salvo of legal actions to challenge the president on issues ranging from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance programs.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans would not sit idly by as Obama takes unilateral actions like raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour.

“We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans,” Boehner said.

Remember, these are the same guys who said when Bush was President that not only could the "plenary executive" regularly override the other two executive branches, but absolutely had to in order to win the Warren Terrah.

Now, the President with the fewest number of executive orders in modern history somehow must be reined in by a nearly all-powerful Congress who must resort to the judicial branch to stop any constitutional actions they don't like.  They've all but killed the recess appointment, now they're looking to destroy executive actions in the courts.

The real goal of course is impeachment...