Last Call For Grimm Tidings

So Mikey Suits is out, and the GOP need somebody to run to fill his House seat.  So naturally, Republicans look to the obvious choice: Daniel Donovan.

You know, the Staten Island prosecutor who completely failed to indict the cop who murdered Eric Garner.

Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney who most recently failed to secure an indictment in the Eric Garner case, is lining up support behind-the-scenes for a bid to replace Mr. Grimm. And Mr. Donovan, well-liked by the borough’s Republican machine, is a front-runner to win the backing of the Staten Island Republican Party in a special election that will likely be held sometime next year, sources say.

“Dan is almost certainly in and is lining up his support,” a source close to the Staten Island Republican Party told the Observer. “He will probably emerge as the clear front-runner for the party’s support.”

Of course he will.

Another Staten Island Republican source confirmed that Mr. Donovan has emerged as the strongest candidate. The source cited his career as district attorney, particularly his work battling a prescription drug epidemic and strengthening DWI prosecutions while keeping a balanced office budget.

A special election to replace Mr. Grimm will mean no Democratic or Republican primaries. Instead, the Staten Island Republican and Democratic organizations will each select a candidate to face-off after Gov. Andrew Cuomo selects a date for the election.

Despite the controversy Mr. Donovan courted in December when a grand jury voted not to indict a white police officer in the death of Garner, a black man, the district attorney is still relatively popular in the borough and with party insiders, sources say. Voters in the 11th Congressional District, far more conservative than in many in other parts of the city, did not view Mr. Donovan as unfavorably after the decision in the racially-charged case.

And he'd be a giant SCREW YOU to de Blasio, Eric Holder, President Obama, and oh yeah, every person of color in NYC.

He'll win by 20 points.

Zandar's 2014 Prediction Scorecard

Time to see how I did with my 2014 predictions ahead of any 2015 prognostication, and I'm glad to say this year I did a lot better than in 2013.

1)  The Dems will keep the Senate, the GOP will keep the House in November.

Blew it.  This was a long shot, but I didn't know just how long it was. The Dems failed miserably here for a variety of reasons:  terrible candidates who tied themselves in knots running away from Obama,  garbled messaging, lousy campaigns, and a Democratic base that doesn't vote in midterms.  In fact, Dems bailed so hard on voting that the polls were off by six to eight points in most races, and that turned close races into easy wins, and easy GOP wins into complete routs.  It's as much our fault as it is the Democrats', and I won't make that mistake in predicting we'll vote in 2018, should ZVTS get that far.

We just don't care anymore as an electorate in midterm years, it seems.

2)  Google Glass will be delayed until 2015, or later.

Nailed it.  At best this tech is a niche application for niche users in niche fields.  It'll be a long time before something like Glass is widespread among consumers.

3)  Alison Lundergan Grimes would beat Mitch McConnell to be the next Senator from KY.

Blew it.  In fact, no Dem ran a worse 2014 campaign than Grimes, who bungled things so badly she lost to a guy with a 35% approval rating by sixteen points.  Her absolute refusal to say she voted for Obama cost her everything, she refused to run on Kynect as a national model for Obamacare success, and it's important to note that even the Clintons coming out to rally for her did absolutely nothing...and may have actually hurt her even more.

4)  And speaking of the Clintons, Hillary won't announce any run for 2016...at least not in 2014.

Nailed it.  As I said, too cagey to tip her hand in 2014.  I expect this to continue for as long as she can get away with it in 2015, because as Jeb Bush is finding out, there's nowhere to go as front-runner except down.

5)  Marvel will continue their movie hot streak in 2014

Nailed it. Not only was I right about all three Marvel films I predicted would make $200 million domestically (Amazing Spider-Man 2 barely did it, but did it) but if I had remembered X-Men: Days of Future Past in my prediction, it would have been the fourth Marvel franchise film to break the $200 million mark in 2014.  Big Hero 6 is the movie I left out of that $200 million club for a reason, but it squeaked over the $200 million line by the end of the year anyway. That's five $200 million plus films just domestically, guys.  Marvel is the biggest player in Hollywood right now.

And yes, this means I was right about Guardians of the Galaxy.  Going to enjoy that for a bit.  I'm going to enjoy Marvel in 2015 too.  More about that tomorrow...

6)  The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on same-sex marriage later in 2014, but the decision won't come until 2015.

Jury's still out.  Like a lot of people, I might add, nobody expected SCOTUS to punt on same-sex marriage, but punt they did.  Since then, Michigan and Louisiana are asking for direct rulings from the Supreme Court on this issue, and the Sixth Circuit has upheld state bans with several other circuits striking them down.  There's still a chance that the Supreme Court could take up these cases in January and have a decision by June, or take up the case next fall.

7)  No impeachment measures in 2014, but 2015 will be a different story.

Nailed it.  If the GOP is going to impeach, 2015 will be the year.  The GOP is trying to do everything they can short of it, but eventually somebody's going to bring up articles for a vote.

8)  Obamacare will be around through 2014 and beyond.

Nailed it.  But 2015 will be a radically different story if SCOTUS kills subsidies in federal exchange states.  It will make insurance pretty unaffordable for millions and could even put families on the hook for billions in back payments, which will be an utter disaster.

Of course, that's the point.

9) The Sochi Winter Olympics will be a disaster.

Nailed it.  Sochi was, by any conceivable metric, only the start of the worst year of Vladimir Putin's life.  The Sochi Games were rightfully mocked and the venues were a joke.  We got a close look at how rotten the Russian economy was, and falling oil prices have all but wrecked Moscow.

10) ZVTS will make it to 2015.

Nailed it.  I'm glad to still be here, and I'm back over at Balloon Juice to boot.

So my final score for the year, 7 right, 2 wrong (albeit BIG wrongs) and one big SCOTUS question mark.  Much better than 2013's numbers, for sure.

I'll have my predictions for 2015 out tomorrow, as usual.

Stopped Clock Is Right Alert

Today's contestant on "Even a Stopped Clock is Right Twice A Day": Huckleberry Graham on the GOP and immigration.

If Republicans don't wield their congressional majority next year to pass immigration reform legislation, a GOP takeover of the White House in 2016 will be "difficult, if not impossible," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said during a CNN interview released on Sunday. 

Graham, a Republican who has long-favored comprehensive immigration reform, said he believes the GOP has hurt itself with Hispanic voters due to its resistance to reforming the current system. And without a major change, Democrats will get another four years in the Oval Office, Graham told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." 

"If we don't at least make a down payment on solving the problem and rationally dealing with the 11 million [illegal immigrants believed to be in the U.S.], if we become the party of self-deportation in 2015 and 2016, then the chance of winning the White House I think is almost non-existent," he said.

Yep.  And that's exactly what's going to happen, and why I'm not terribly worried about 2016. Republicans won't be able to help themselves.  (It's also the reason that Jeb Bush will never win the GOP nomination, by the way.)

Graham supports giving a pathway to citizenship to the so-called DREAMers -- undocumented immigrants who crossed into the U.S. illegally as children and have lived in the U.S. since. And in 2014, Graham showed the political viability of his position by successfully beating back a tough primary challenge in his conservative state by reaffirming -- rather than running away from -- his stance on immigration. 

"If the Republican Party cannot muster the political courage to deal with the DREAM Act children in a fair and balanced way after we secure our border, that says a a lot about the Republican Party's future regarding the Hispanic community," Graham said. "I don't believe most Americans would fault the Republican Party if we allowed children who have been here since they're babies to assimilate into society with a pathway to citizenship after we secure our borders." 

Graham was one of the most ardent supporters of a bipartisan immigration bill he helped negotiate in 2013 that passed the Senate but did not get a vote in the House. The bill would have bolstered border security and created a path to citizenship for millions -- many of whom are now getting temporary relief under Obama's executive action.

I doubt that Graham, if he proposed the exact same legislation again, would even get a vote.  The one thing I can guarantee you that won't happen in the next two years is the GOP passing comprehensive immigration legislation, and it'll cost them the White House in 2016.

Of course, they're okay with that as long as they continue to hold Congress, an overwhelming majority of state legislatures, and an overwhelming majority of Governor's mansions.  I don't see that changing much in 2016 either.

StupidiNews!

• Convicted felon GOP Rep. Michael Grimm will be resigning his House seat after all, the Staten Island Republican will step down on January 5.
• An Indonesian naval ship has located at least 40 bodies believed to be from the crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost over the weekend.
• GOP House majority whip Steve Scalise is in trouble for a 2002 speech given at a white nationalist conference organized by former Klansman David Duke in Louisiana.
• Oil has dropped to its lowest price since 2009 as end-of-year supply gluts have pushed the price down to under $57 a barrel.
• British banks see problems with Apple Pay's payment services over data privacy, but at least one London bank is in talks to expand the service into Europe in 2015.

Last Call For The Kroog's Look Back

Paul Krugman takes stock of the last six years, in inimitable Krugman fashion.

Suppose that for some reason you decided to start hitting yourself in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat. You’d feel pretty bad. Correspondingly, you’d probably feel a lot better if and when you finally stopped. What would that improvement in your condition tell you? 

It certainly wouldn’t imply that hitting yourself in the head was a good idea. It would, however, be an indication that the pain you were experiencing wasn’t a reflection of anything fundamentally wrong with your health. Your head wasn’t hurting because you were sick; it was hurting because you kept hitting it with that baseball bat. 

And now you understand the basics of what has been happening to several major economies, including the United States, over the past few years. In fact, you understand these basics better than many politicians and commentators.

The best part is we handed over the economy to the GOP so we can start bashing ourselves in the head some more, because two-thirds of us stayed home in November.

And yes, I'm going to keep harping on "two-thirds of us stayed home in November" until things change.  At some point, we've got to learn that if we don't vote, we get screwed.

The Joke's On Chuck

Pretty telling that Chuck Todd, his Meet The Press ratings even more dismal than that of his predecessor David Gregory, had a panel of political satire show comedians on Sunday, and ended up telling the hard truth about himself and his profession as a pundit.

During a panel discussion with about the popularity of political satire, Todd asserted that comedians may be guilty of fueling the public’s cynicism.

But comedian W. Kamau Bell argued that programs like The Daily Show gave viewers hope.

“You feel like I can laugh my way through this,” he pointed out. “I think that whenever they watch Jon Stewart or John Oliver, they feel like they are at least getting that person’s perspective. I don’t think people believe with the news, you know, you feel like you’re getting a corporation’s perspective.”

The Daily Show‘s Lewis Black said that it was unfair to blame comedy for cynicism when many Americans were even more angry than comedians.

“I have watched you and everybody else,” he told Todd, “where somebody comes on, and I don’t know how you do it because I’d be barking at them.”

“We all sit there because we know the first time we bark is the last time we do the show,” Todd explained. “There’s something where all of the sudden nobody will come on your show.”

Let's think about this.  Todd, in his head, knows he's talking to crazy people, but politicians don't go on news shows to face tough questions, they go to get exposure of their political views and get them vindicated by softball nonsense.  Vindicated by people like Chuck Todd.

Can't ask the newsmakers the tough questions because otherwise you have no guests.  Instead, you get John McCain every third week or so.  And this is the dance that we watch every week.

Or well, fewer of us are watching every week, judging by Todd's rapidly crashing ratings.

Perhaps he should examine the state of his show.  You know, while he still has one.

The Longest War

The 13-year long nightmare that is our combat mission in Afghanistan is finally over.

President Barack Obama says the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.

Obama is welcoming the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan. The war came to a formal end Sunday with a ceremony in Kabul.

Obama says in a statement that the effort has devastated al-Qaida's core leadership, brought justice to Osama bin Laden and disrupted terrorist plots. He says U.S. troops and diplomats have helped Afghans reclaim their communities and move toward democracy.

Obama is also honoring the more than 2,200 Americans who have died in Afghanistan since the war started 13 years ago. Obama says those years have tested the U.S. and its military.

From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind.

Well, the "combat mission" part is over, not the war.   No, I don't blame Obama for this.  He didn't start this mess and he's doing what he can to end it.   His predecessor is another story, however.  Frankly, we never should have been there in the first place, and if Bush had done his job, we wouldn't have been sucked in for half a generation.

At least we're getting out.

StupidiNews!

• Indonesian officials believe AirAsia Flight QZ8501 is "at the bottom of the sea" after disappearing from radar yesterday with 162 aboard.
• Two Idaho men were taken into custody by police after firing a BB gun in a Wal-Mart store in Post Falls, in contrast to a similar incident where a black man was killed by police for holding a BB gun.
• Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will ask for dissolution of the country's current parliament and call for snap elections in four weeks after lawmakers failed to elect a new president.
• "The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies" held off multiple Christmas challengers to win the final weekend of 2014's box office.
• Facebook is apologizing for its end of year review algorithm generating dismal reminders for how awful 2014 was for some users, and then pestering them about it for days.

Last Call For Just Blame Obama

Former Rep. Allen West has gotten the taste of that sweet Wingnut Gravy Train and he's never going to let it go.  He's found his niche as the Black Guy Who Hates Obama and he'll ride that for as long as he can, Ben Carson be damned.

On Sunday, Fox News host Charles Payne asserted to West that many people believed that Obama was the “central reason” why the racial divide seemed to be worsening.

“For President Obama, when you look at it from his perspective as a progressive socialist community organizer, he believes race relations are fine because of the impact they are having on social justice,” West explained. “So when you have this divide among us because that is the goal of collectivism, which is what the president believes in, then everything is fine for him.”

“When you have somebody like Al Sharpton visiting the White House and providing him counsel 82 times, and standing and putting pressure on Sony, and other individuals,” he continued, “and this angst that has happened, and this mob atmosphere that is going on, this is really what the president would like to have. This vomiting of dissension. But that is not what the inner-city needs right now.”

Payne opined that the country seemed to be more racially divided because the president had taken opportunity “at every turn” during his administration to blame racism for America’s problems.

“They created that atmosphere back early in 2009,” West agreed. “Eric Holder said we were a nation of cowards when it came to race. And you look at the fact that we have elected and re-elected the first black president, but yet he still believes that is not enough. We have [black people as serving as] the national security advisor, the [secretary of] Department of Homeland Security.”

“I don’t know what else you need to have.”

How about not being shot for being black, asshole? 

Gotta hand it to West, being a black person making white racists feel better about their racism has been very profitable throughout American history.  It takes a certain hardness of spirit to do that, probably the kind of thing he picked up in Iraq before getting kicked out of the Army for torturing Iraqi civilians.  Please note this didn't stop him from winning a term in Congress, because as I've said before, we're a nation that largely approves of torturing brown people.

But yes, blaming President Obama for "race relations" in this country is exactly what millions of racists want to hear from a black guy on FOX News.  West will be set for a long time.

A Metric Crapton Of Stupid

It's bad enough that we have yet another missing Asian airliner to worry about now (and CNN is having a grand old time with it) but FOX News still takes the cake for stupidity when it comes to disaster porn.

Fox News host Anna Kooiman speculated on Sunday that an AirAsia flight could have gone missing because international pilots were trained using the metric system.

During breaking coverage of missing Flight QZ8501, Kooiman asked former FAA spokesperson Scott Brenner if the “real reason” the plane had disappeared was because of the “different way other countries train their pilots.”

“Even when we think about temperature, it’s Fahrenheit or Celsius,” she pointed out. “It’s kilometers or miles. You know, everything about their training could be similar, but different.”

IT WAS THE METRIC SYSTEM. (lightning, scary organ music)

Brenner, however, said that the major difference between international pilots and U.S. pilots was the reliance on automatic pilot.

“And a lot of that… is because a lot of crashes are due to pilot error,” he explained. “So, if you try and eliminate any potential risk, you try and eliminate the pilot’s ability to make incorrect inputs into the aircraft.”

“It’s not just a difference in the way that we measure things?” Kooiman replied. “Is it not as safe in that part of the world? Because our viewers may be thinking, ‘International travel, is it safe? Is it not safe?’”

Yes, because the world uses imperial system measurements.  OH WAIT, NO IT DOESNT.



It's literally the US, Myanmar, and Liberia.  That's it.  EVERY OTHER COUNTRY USES METRIC.

If there's an example of the intersection of American exceptionalism and rampant ignorance of the world, it's the fact that in 2014 we still use miles, Fahrenheit and gallons unlike the other 7 billion people on this planet and it's because we absolutely refuse to change that the rest of the world has to pay good money to convert to do business with us.

I honestly believe FOX would drum up a shooting war just to prevent us from switching over.

Sunday Long Read: Title, Tag, And Taken

Your Sunday long read is the latest financial sector scam to exploit the poor with low credit and destroy families and neighborhoods through usury: title loans.

For many borrowers, title loans, also sometimes known as motor-vehicle equity lines of credit or title pawns, are having ruinous financial consequences, causing owners to lose their vehicles and plunging them further into debt.

A review by The New York Times of more than three dozen loan agreements found that after factoring in various fees, the effective interest rates ranged from nearly 80 percent to over 500 percent. While some loans come with terms of 30 days, many borrowers, unable to pay the full loan and interest payments, say that they are forced to renew the loans at the end of each month, incurring a new round of fees.

Customers of TitleMax, for example, typically renewed their loans eight times, a former president of the company disclosed in a 2009 deposition.

And because many lenders make the loan based on an assessment of a used car’s resale value, not on a borrower’s ability to repay that money, many people find that they are struggling to keep up almost as soon as they drive off with the cash.

As a result, roughly one in every six title-loan borrowers will have the car repossessed, according to an analysis of 561 title loans by the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit in Durham, N.C.

Subprime loans wiped out minority home ownership.  The median black household net worth has dropped to under $4,000, and most of that is in the last thing black households own: a car.  Now those are being repossessed because banks will no longer do business in minority communities.

It's targeted elimination.

Last Call For Making Good On Their Threat

Behold what two-thirds of you not voting in November hath wrought, America.  Republicans are now making the country choose between the Secret Service and President Obama's immigration order, and one of them will be getting the budget axe thanks to the GOP.

Indeed, the whole arrangement is a fragile patchwork since the Department of Homeland Security — of which the Service is a part — is guaranteed funding only under a continuing resolution that expires Feb. 27.

How did it reach this point?

Top lawmakers in both parties and the White House acquiesced to the compromise, which was judged the fastest way to send Congress home, avoid a shutdown and put the rest of the government on permanent footing through Sept. 30 next year.

But it was House Republicans who really drove the bargain because the GOP insisted on holding Homeland hostage as a spending vehicle with which to challenge Obama over his Nov. 20 executive order shielding millions of undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation.

Before the Homeland CR runs out, Republicans can count on being fully in charge of Congress. Their immediate target is the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the office within Homeland that will implement Obama’s order including the issuance of temporary work permits for qualified individuals who come forward.

Ironically enough, USCIS is largely self-funded, living off the fees it collects and not the relatively small share of annual appropriations it gets from Congress. By contrast, the Secret Service is wholly dependent on appropriations and now caught in the political crossfire.

“There was absolutely no intention to freeze the Secret Service,” said a House Republican aide, who quickly added that “the president must bear some responsibility for any fallout that occurs as a result of the Homeland CR.”

So after complaining that the US Secret Service is underfunded, understaffed, and in need of reform Republicans cut $50 million from the USSS budget to put Obama in his place over immigration.  So if the Secret Service is stretched too thin, with a President that already gets more threats than any in modern history, of course that's where "patriots" like today's GOP make budget cuts.

After all, "the president must bear some responsibility for any fallout that occurs".

Republican hatred of Obama is now a direct threat to the safety of the President of the United States.  Remember that.

Backs To The Wall

New York's Finest continue to show their asses.

Hundreds of officers outside the church where a funeral was held for a policeman killed along with his partner in an ambush shooting turned their backs on the mayor as he spoke during Saturday's service.

The reaction from officers watching Officer Rafael Ramos' funeral on giant TV screens followed comments from police union officials who had said Mayor Bill de Blasio contributed to a climate of mistrust that contributed to the killings of the two New York Police Department officers.

Inside Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens, however, mourners gave de Blasio polite applause before and after his speech.

The mayor said hearts citywide were aching after the Dec. 20 shootings that left Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, dead.

"All of this city is grieving and grieving for so many reasons," de Blasio said. "But the most personal is that we've lost such a good man, and the family is in such pain."

Police union officials have blamed de Blasio for fostering anti-police sentiment for his support of protesters angry that no charges will be filed in the police deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island. At a hospital after the officers' slayings, the police union's president, Patrick Lynch, and others turned their backs on de Blasio in a sign of disrespect. Lynch said the mayor had "blood on his hands."

Why, you'd almost think there was a new police union contract coming up for negotiations or something, and that the police union has hated de Blasio since he was elected last year.

Bernie's Game

Will Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders join the 2016 dance?  He says he'll decide by March whether or not to join the race.

Sanders said the issues about which he's been railing all these years are only becoming more dire. The wealth gap has grown, and the middle class, he says, is "collapsing."

"You have one family, the Walton family of Walmart, owning more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American people," he said. "We have 95 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent. You have millions of families unable to afford to send their kids to college. People are desperately worried about whether or not they are going to retire with dignity."

Sanders has a 12-step plan that he says will restore the economy and especially the middle class, most of it dependent on higher taxes on the rich and corporations. Among the proposals: A $1 trillion infrastructure building program that would "create 13 million decent-paying jobs," more worker-friendly international trade deals and legislation to strengthen unions, and transforming the U.S. energy system "away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy."

He says he'll make a "gut decision" about running for the presidency - and, perhaps, challenging Democratic favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And he has a message that has resonated with the left for years.  But he's exactly the person the GOP wants to run against that would let them put up a Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Paul Ryan as a clear favorite to win.  And as much as I think he'd make a great President, he'd also be the McGovern to the GOP's Nixon.

After twenty years of "taxation is theft" America is not a center-right nation, it's a Tea Party one.  November proved that, the lowest turnout in 84 years.  We don't care anymore.  Sanders running wouldn't be enough of a reason to care, frankly.

Last Call For SCOTUS In 2015

Sam Baker at National Journal (which at this point just exists to scold liberals) is warning that SCOTUS will pretty much destroy Obama's second term.  I've talked about King v. Burwell before:

The justices will hear oral arguments March 4 in a lawsuit that threatens to cripple the health care law, just three years after Chief Justice John Roberts helped save it. This time, the challengers want the Court to invalidate the law's premium subsidies in states that didn't set up their own insurance exchanges. Most states didn't establish their own exchanges, and more than 80 percent of enrollees are getting subsidies—so a win for the challengers here would likely make insurance unaffordable for about 5 million people and could make insurance markets unstable in most of the country.

But there's the Sixth Circuit's decision on upholding same-sex marriage bans as constitutional, which could force the Supremes to act.

When a federal Appeals Court upheld same-sex marriage in several states, the justices declined to hear an appeal. But then the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan and Kentucky, as well as state laws in Ohio and Tennessee. So now the Appeals Courts are divided over the constitutionality of state laws banning same-sex marriage, and almost all of the states in question have asked the Supreme Court to settle the issue for good. Given the patchwork of laws from state to state, many legal observers say it'll be hard for the Court to stay on the sidelines this time.

And there's the fallout from last year's Hobby Lobby case and the next set of questions involving religious freedoms that will be answered:

Religious liberty was the defining issue of 2014's biggest ruling—the Hobby Lobby decision involving Obamacare's contraception mandate—and it's back in a big way this term. The Court has already heard oral arguments in a suit filed by an Arkansas inmate who wants to grow a beard, in accordance with his Muslim faith but in violation of prison rules. During oral arguments, the justices reportedly seemed to be siding with the inmate, questioning whether the prison system could ensure inmates' safety without such strict rules against beards.

The Court has agreed to hear a second, similar case, but hasn't yet scheduled oral arguments. This one concerns a woman who was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch store because the head scarf she wore, as a practicing Muslim, wasn't consistent with the company's "Look Policy." The question in the case is whether a business can discriminate against someone's religion if it didn't know that a religious accommodation was needed.

There are also several free speech issues in front of SCOTUS, one involving what constitutes a threat online, one involving Florida's ban on judges personally soliciting campaign contributions, and one involving putting a Confederate flag design on Texas license plates.

A lot on SCOTUS's plate in the next six months, and the decisions could seriously blow a hole in Obama's second term if they are decided by that infamous 5-4 bloc involving Justice Kennedy and the four conservatives.

We'll see.