Last Call For America Haters, Unite

Kevin Williamson over at National Review neatly gets around the thorny race issues that Rudy Giuliani questioning the patriotism of President Obama brings up by arguing that the patriotism of any and every liberal must be questioned, ergo it can't be racist to do so.

Does Barack Obama love his country? Call me a rube for saying so, but it’s a fair question. 

To ask the question is not the same as venting the familiar swamp gasses: that he’s a foreigner, at heart if not in fact; that he’s a Manchurian candidate sent to undermine the republic; that he’s a secret Marxist or secret jihadist sympathizer; etc. Put it this way: Why would anybody who sees the world the way Barack Obama does love America?  

For the progressive, there is very little to love about the United States. Washington, Jefferson, Madison? A bunch of rotten slaveholders, hypocrites, and cowards even when their hearts were in the right places. The Declaration of Independence? A manifesto for the propertied classes. The Constitution? An artifact of sexism and white supremacy. The sacrifices in the great wars of the 20th century? Feeding the poor and the disenfranchised into the meat-grinder of imperialism. The gifts of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Astor? Blood money from self-aggrandizing robber barons. 

And this lovely pile of ad nauseum nonsense ends up in an indictment of liberals themselves.

Barack Obama has a great, big, heaping dose of Holden Caulfield in him. That and chutzpah: When as a candidate he was in trouble because of his association with the racist lunacy of the Reverend Wright, he responded by giving the American public at large a lecture on racism and its culpability therein, while his minions began proclaiming that the only reason to oppose this politician with the racist associates was — presto-change-o! — racism. But if you believe that the system is basically rotten, that the society that produced that system is basically rotten, that the game is rigged, that your opponents are all phonies and hypocrites, then what’s a little intellectual dishonesty in the service of the common good? There is very little that a man with Barack Obama’s views and proclivities should love about the country, beyond the fact that its people are so vulnerable to insipid sentimentality that they twice elected him president.

And boom, Rudy Giuliani is absolved.  He can't be racist because all liberals hate America, so saying that Barack Obama, being a liberal, hates his country is not an opinion but fact, along with the fact that 66 million or so people who voted for him also hate America.  We're not a part of Williamson's America, and never will be.  We'll always be "the other", to be hated, shunned, pitied, and exterminated.

Nothing's changed since 2001 for the NRO set.  It's always "We're taking America back!" for them.

Still Terrified Of Israel

Greg Sargent notes that while Democrats overwhelmingly see Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's maneuver to join the GOP in attacking the President as unacceptable, only 23 House Democrats have signed a letter calling for a delay in Bibi's visit and big name House Dems aren't anywhere near it:

Missing from this list are House Democratic members and leaders whose voices could make a real difference here: Foreign Affairs ranking Dem Eliot Engel; Whip Steny Hoyer; DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz. 

All in all, the failure of more Democrats to sign this letter suggests many still fear the politics of appearing out of sync with whatever Israel wants. It’s true that a number of Democrats have said they will skip the speech. But many of those have clarified that this isn’t due to any organized boycott, and far more are attending. And, really, all the talk of a “boycott” is misdirection. It shouldn’t be all that difficult for Democrats to call for amere delay in this speech, while rebuffing efforts to portray such a move as “anti-Israel,” given how egregious the circumstances surrounding this event really are. 

To be sure, given the aforementioned Democratic skittishness, the fact that two dozen Democrats have signed this letter does suggest that a political space is opening up for Democrats to feel like it might not necessarily be suicidal to occasionally appear at odds with Israel, even if it is a small one. 

But still, Congressional Democrats face a problem here: What are they going to do now? The CNN poll I referenced above strongly suggests the Democratic base is not happy with the fact that Netanyahu will be going forward with this speech, which has been portrayed by many commentators as forcing Congressional Democrats to choose between Netanyahu and Obama. If most are not willing to call for a delay in the speech, what will they prove willing to do? If they do nothing, how do they explain that to rank and file Democratic voters?

Very, very few House Democrats, only 23 out of 188, are willing to publicly go to bat for their own President on this.  The others are sitting on their damn hands, and yes, that includes Nancy Pelosi. There should be 188 signatures on that letter, or at least 100.  But 23?  That's only 12% asking for a delay of something that according to that CNN poll, 81% of Democrats are totally against.

Sargent implies at the very least an astonishing lack of support for the President from his own party, and in the worst case this is outright cowardice from Dems in Congress.

Again.

The Dumbing Down Continues

Oklahoma Tea Party nutjobs want to end AP History courses in the state because they teach too much of the bad parts of history, like that messy land grab from Native Americans and all that slavery and civil rights crap, and instead want to teach real US history, like the Ten Frigging Commandments.

An Oklahoma bill banning Advanced Placement U.S. History would also require schools to instruct students in a long list of “foundational documents,” including the Ten Commandments, two sermons and three speeches by Ronald Reagan. 

The bill, authored by Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher, designates a total of 58 documents that “shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in the schools in the state.” Many of the texts are uncontroversial and undoubtedly covered by the Advanced Placement U.S. History course, such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg address. But the bill also has an ideological and religious bent. In addition to 3 speeches by Reagan, the curriculum as includes a speech by George W. Bush but nothing from any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson.

Fisher’s bill was approved by the Education committee on an 11-4 vote.

And yes, those "foundational documents" include the Ten Commandments, as part of "Objects of historical significance that have formed and influenced the United States legal or governmental system and that exemplify the development of the rule of law".  Also, let's keep in mind that the bill would in fact form the basis of all US history taught in the state at all levels, and that the list of approved documents includes George Kennan's infamous "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", which was written post-WWII and ended up being the basis of the Cold War "containment" policy against the USSR.

It's great stuff if you want to raise a state full of conservative think-tank weenies.  Not so much for an objective view of United States history, but apparently Oklahoma Tea Party types are going to decide what these kids are going to learn, dammit!

StupidiNews

• UN officials say Houthi rebels in Yemen who have already overthrown the government there are willing to negotiate in order to prevent a civil war in the country.
• After a federal judge issued a same-sex marriage license to a lesbian couple in Texas, the state's Supreme Court stepped in to stop any other same-sex marriage from happening on Thursday.
• Greece and EU official both say they are now close to reaching a bailout deal for Athens as the clock ticks down to the expiration of existing bailout money at the end of the month.
• The US says a spring offensive by the Iraqi army to retake the city of Mosul could come as early as April if training and conditions are favorable.
• The newest media app on Microsoft's Xbox One console is from ABC News, offering live news, video, and broadcasts on the platform.

A Clown, A Jerk, And 9/11

Rudy Giuliani is still a terrible person, just in case you forgot that fact for a sec.

Rudy Giuliani went straight for the jugular Wednesday night during a private group dinner here featuring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker by openly questioning whether President Barack Obama “loves America.” 

The former New York mayor, speaking in front of the 2016 Republican presidential contender and about 60 right-leaning business executives and conservative media types, directly challenged Obama’s patriotism, discussing what he called weak foreign policy decisions and questionable public remarks when confronting terrorists. 

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Well I don't love Rudy Giuliani either, you know.

How you know President Obama is winning the argument: GOP responds with "He's not like us!" directly from 2007. Might stop a guy with a weird-sounding name like Obama from winning a third term, I dunno.

This code-word racist crap is all they have now, and it's all they ever had against him in the first place. It's also why they lost.

Second City, First Blood

I've talked before about Kansas and the massive austerity regime of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback.  But Republican governors across the country are looking to austerity and are targeting the poor, college students, and the elderly for the biggest hits, and Illinois GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner is no exception.

Illinois' new Republican governor on Wednesday will pitch a plan for fixing the state's budget mess that includes deep cuts to Medicaid and higher education and a new plan for reducing pension costs, according to three lawmakers with knowledge of the proposal.

Gov. Bruce Rauner is set to deliver his first budget address since campaigning on a pledge to reduce taxes and get state spending under control and beating a Democratic incumbent. 

The three legislators, briefed on details of the plan discussed in a Tuesday meeting between Rauner and legislative leaders, told The Associated Press that the governor will recommend cutting Medicaid by $1.5 billion and reducing funding for higher education by nearly $400 million, or 31 percent. They said he'll also propose reducing state aid to local governments and ask lawmakers to approve a new pension reform plan he says will save Illinois $2.2 billion. 

The lawmakers spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to pre-empt Rauner's budget address. Rauner's spokesman declined to comment.

Now keep in mind cuts to Illinois's pension systems have already resulted in the state having the most underfunded pension system in the country, and Illinois having the worst credit rating of all 50 states. The state is in a six billion dollar hole, much like California was in 2008.  But cutting education, pensions, and Medicaid isn't going to make that any better, and the Democrats holding big majorities in the legislature aren't going to put up with Rauner's crap for much longer.

House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat who was briefed by Rauner, said the governor warned he's prepared to deliver some "tough medicine." 

Madigan and other Democrats want to raise Illinois' income tax rate, which dropped on Jan. 1, to avoid some spending cuts. But he said Rauner indicated he won't propose raising taxes. 

"I don't think you can cut your way out of the problem," Madigan said. "I think you need some additional revenue, and that'll be my position (Wednesday)."

So we'll see which side wins.  I'm betting it's not Rauner.

John Kasich Just Disqualified Himself

How ridiculous is Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich, mentioned as a long-shot candidate for the White House in 2016?  Keep in mind these two things:

1) John Kasich's main talking point is that he is running on a federal balanced budget amendment.
2) John Kasich wants to put ground troops back in Iraq and Syria.

In a sign of his rising interest in a potential 2016 presidential bid, Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich (R) said Tuesday he is studying up on foreign policy and beginning to outline his worldview, which includes support for sending U.S. ground forces to fight the Islamic State.

“You will not solve this problem with only air power,” Kasich said in a phone interview from his office in Columbus, ahead of a trip to the early-voting state of South Carolina. “There needs to be a coalition of NATO, Arab states, and ultimately some boots on the ground to stop the advancement of that group.”

Kasich added: “The Western world and the Arab world need to get serious about stopping this kind of radicalism. If not, it will continue to spread and just bombing is imposing the status quo at best.”

Kasich cautioned, however, that he is recommending targeted and multinational strikes, rather than a drawn-out conflict against the Islamic State militants in Iraq.

"It is probably something that can be addressed without an extended affair and without nation-building or any of that,” he said.

The notion that we can invade Iraq again, and possibly Syria, Yemen, and/or Libya with ground forces to battle ISIS is ridiculous.  The notion that we can do any of this and balance the federal budget is an absolute joke to the point where Kasich must be laughed off the national stage.

“Instead of young people talking about Justin Bieber or how bad the Grammys were, maybe we could get people talking about Washington, Madison, and Monroe, and have a renewal of American history,” Kasich said of a possible constitutional gathering to consider a balanced-budget amendment. “The more and more states that sign on, the more hopeful I get.”

It's these same young people who would be saddled with a crushing tax burden and an endless war in the Middle East to fight under a Kasich presidency.

Sheer lunacy.  Meanwhile, Kasich and the GOP have total control over Ohio right now, so you have a pretty good idea of what the mess would look like in the future.

Hint:  Think Kansas.

StupidiNews!

• A major blast of arctic cold is freezing the Midwest, New England, and South today and could set all time record low temperatures in several cities tomorrow.
• An explosion at an oil refinery in Torrance, California has injured three and damaged millions in refinery equipment, investigators are looking into the cause.
• Ukraine's government is calling for the UN to send peacekeeper observers into contested areas to monitor the crumbling ceasefire that began last Sunday.
• Greece has formally submitted a request for a six-month loan extension to EU finance ministers in a last-ditch effort to keep the country from running out of bailout cash at the end of the month.
• The Obama administration is considering exporting armed, unmanned drone technology to a number of allied states, which could be a windfall for the aerospace and defense industries.

Last Call For The Science Of Stupid

FOX News once again proves to be why America can't have nice things, like government or infrastructure or science education.

A Fox News “Trouble With Schools” segment suggested on Wednesday that U.S. kids were behind in the world because a physics teacher in Seattle had tried to teach a lesson to privileged white students on why there were not more black physicists. 

“This probably wasn’t on the curriculum in your high school physics class,” Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck announced. “A high school physics teacher came up with new six-day curriculum that includes lessons on white privilege. He says it will prepare students for institutional racism and social justice! So, what does that have to with physics exactly?” 

“It’s not an open mic night in these classrooms,” the National Review‘s Katherine Timpf opined. “You don’t get to decide you can talk about anything you want to these students. It has to be about what your class is. Physics class, you talk about physics. Really, it’s that simple.”

Well gosh, talking about why there aren't more black physicists seems entirely germane to a physics class, but not if you're an idiot conservative.

But in a guest post at the Quantum Progress blog, University Prep school physics teacher Moses Rifkin explained exactly how his lesson was important at a private school where students “weren’t learning about their own privilege (academic and, in most cases, economic and racial).” 

“I’ve found a way to introduce my students to the ideas of racial and gender privilege, to the idea that our society is far from a meritocracy, and to broaden their conception of who (racially, gender-wise, etc.) does science to include a much broader slice of society,” he wrote. “The project revolves, at least initially, around a question: why are there so few black[1] physicists? [..] Physicists therefore make up a small percentage of the U.S. population (0.06%), but that percentage is 3.2 times higher among white Americans than black.”

So using statistics, in a physics class, to analyze the data and draw conclusions.  Wow.  That is so totally off base for a science class.  Oh, and this is a private prep school.  Pretty much thought conservatives were okay with private schools teaching whatever they hell they want, because free market, right?

This was not enough to convince Timpf. 

“Physics class!” she exclaimed. “He said he was jealous that all the other teachers got to talk about society — English, History — then he also said they’re not learning about. Which one is it?” 

“I don’t’ know what this is really about,” Timpf continued. “I guess it’s just his own agenda. He wants to talk about it.”

You know, I went to a state residential magnet high school for science and math back in North Carolina, and the best teachers I had taught English, US History, and Brit Lit.  And yes, our science and math classes did at times cover the social history of the sciences and the people who were famous for them.

Go figure.  Asking why there aren't more black physicists in physics class seems like a damn good topic to me.

Back To The Orange Dimension

House GOP Speaker John Boehner is convinced that America will blame the Democrats when funding for the Department of Homeland Security expires at the end of the month.  Here in reality, the opposite is true.

Republicans in Congress would shoulder the blame for a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security if they are unable to enact a new spending bill to keep the agency running, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The survey finds 53% of Americans would blame the Republicans in Congress if the department must shut down, while 30% would blame President Barack Obama. Another 13% say both deserve the blame.

Oops. That would mean a majority blame the GOP alone, and two-thirds blame the GOP at least in part.

Of course, that didn't stop Dr. Ben Carson from entering the Orange Dimension either this week.

While Democrats and some Republicans want to pass a clean funding bill for the department, many conservatives, including Carson, want to use the DHS legislation to block the president's executive actions on immigration. Carson told host J.D. Hayworth, a former Republican congressman, that if Obama decides to "stand in the way, particularly to things that are vital to the security of this country, then I think we can start talking about treason." 

"If things are done that are contrary to the security of this country, whoever does them is guilty of treason," Carson said.

Oh, awesome.  So then Dr. Carson is willing to accuse the Republicans of treason, yes?   That should be amusing.

How Dare Obama Do A Thing!

I was wondering how long this was going to take.  Friday's BuzzFeed article with President Obama shooting a short viral video in order to get people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act before the February 15 deadline was apparently the worst thing to ever happen to the presidency.  WSJ's Bret Stephens absolutely blows a gasket over this.

With Barack Obama —you won’t mind, Señor Presidente, if we call you Barry?—it’s another story. Dignity of office? How quaint. In this most self-infatuated of presidencies, the D-word is at best an accessory and more often an impediment to everything Barry has ever wanted to be: Cool. Chill. Connected. 

So it was that, hours after the U.S. confirmed the murder of Kayla Jean Mueller at the hands of Islamic State, Mr. Obama filmed a short video for BuzzFeed, striking poses in a mirror, donning aviator shades, filming himself with a selfie stick and otherwise inhabiting a role that a chaster version of Miley Cyrus might have played had Hannah Montana been stuck in the White House after a sleepover with the Obama girls. 

Ostensibly, the point of the video was to alert BuzzFeed’s audience to the Feb. 15 deadline for ObamaCare enrollment. If communicating with 20-somethings as if they are 11-year-olds is a way to get them to behave like grown-ups, then maybe the White House has at last found a way to make good on its make-believe enrollment numbers. 

But that’s not what the BuzzFeed clip is chiefly about. What it’s about is showing just how totally relatable and adorably authentic and marvelously self-aware is this president of ours. “Can I live?” the president says when caught shooting imaginary hoops in his study by a young visitor. “You do you,” the visitor gamely replies before walking off. 

Yes, you do you, Barry: It’s what your political career has always been about, from your myth-memoir “Dreams From My Father” to your well-nurtured cult of personality to the coterie of flatterers with whom you have surrounded yourself in office to the supine and occasionally complicit news media that have seen you through six years of crisis, failure and scandal. 

“You do you” is the ultimate self-referential slogan for the ultimate self-referential presidency. It’s the “be yourself” piety of our age turned into a political license by Mr. Obama to do as he pleases. It’s what drives his political choices: the immigration amnesty; arbitrary rewrites of the Affordable Care Act; the Environmental Protection Agency’s coal rules; the $128 billion in settlements the administration extorted from six banks convicted of no wrongdoing.

Stephens goes beyond the usual conservative pundit disrepect for President Obama (not "Barry", asshole) straight into open, inchoate fury.  Once again we're back to a racist code-word diatribe about how President Obama in particular is ruining the office with his uppity, blackity black self and needs to be put in his place by a white guy who knows better.

It was tired in 2009, it's tired in 2015.  But most of all it shows that the right has no better arguments against President Obama and never will have any.

StupidiNews!

• Sunday's brokered ceasefire in Ukraine has collapsed as Russian-backed rebels have taken the rail hub of Debaltseve.
• The White House has announced that 11.4 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare health insurance plans this year.
• Greece's government wants a six-month extension of eurozone loan agreements so it can renegotiate bailout terms, a process greatly resisted by German and EU ministers.
• Rolls-Royce has announced plans to build a luxury SUV to compete in the growing high end utility vehicle market.
• Another patent troll case has resulted in a $15.7 million verdict against Samsung over Bluetooth, which could trigger lawsuits against a number of tech companies.

Last Call For Conservative Chumps

GOP Old and Brokedown: "We will stop the IRS from investigating Tea Party poliical groups! They are unfairly being targeted for political reasons! SCANDAL!  IMPEACH!  HEADS WILL ROLL!"

New Hotness:  "Why didn't the IRS protect us from these fraudulent Tea Party political groups?"

In the last few years, political organizations of various kinds have proliferated, as all kinds of people seek to take advantage of the post-Citizens United world in which money can flow in so many directions. This has provided a splendid opportunity for the participants in an old game, one in which gullible conservatives are scammed out of their money by a seemingly limitless number of con artists.

Some of those con artists are obscure consultants and operators, but some of them are quite famous, which we’ll get to in a bit. But today, John Hawkins of Right Wing News released a report on a group of conservative PACs that took in millions of dollars in contributions in 2014, ostensibly for the purpose of electing Republicans, but spent almost none of it on actual political activity. Instead, the money went into the pockets of the people who run the PACs and their associates. Jonah Goldberg, reacting to the report, calls this the “right wing scam machine.”

Perhaps instead of investigating the IRS, you might want to ask why Republican lawmakers weren't investigating these scam artists.

For example, let me tell you how conservatives can be (and have been) ripped off by scam groups. Let’s say Ronald Reagan is still alive and someone starts the Re-Elect Ronald Reagan To A Third Term PAC. Because people love Reagan, let’s suppose that conservative donors pony up $500,000 to help the organization. However, the donors don’t know that Ronald Reagan has nothing to do with the PAC. Furthermore, the real goal of the PAC is to line the pockets of its owner, not to help Ronald Reagan. So, the PAC sets up two vendors, both controlled by the PAC owner: Scam Vendor #1 and Scam Vendor #2. Let’s assume it costs $50,000 to raise the half million the PAC takes in. Then, the PAC sends $100,000 to the first company and $100,000 to the second company to “promote Ronald Reagan for President.”

Each of the companies then goes out and spends $1,000 on fliers. The “independent expenditures” that show up on the FEC report? They’re at 40%. That’s because the FEC doesn’t require vendors to disclose how much of the money they receive is eaten up as overhead. The dubious net benefit that Ronald Reagan receives from an organization that raised $500,000 on his name? It’s $2,000. On the other hand, the net profit for the PAC owner is $448,000. Is that legal? The short answer is, “It’s a bit of a grey area, but, yes, it is legal.”

 Huh.  If there was only some government agency that would take a look at PAC expenditures and issue rules of conduct that prevent such actions.

Oh wait.

That tradition continues, but in new and more complicated ways that I like to call the circle of scam. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks pay radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity big money to offer on-air endorsements that are the radio equivalent of “native advertising.” Future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sells his email list on “miracle cancer cures” hidden in the Bible. Conservative media figures like Dick Morris solicit contributions that somehow are never turned to the political ends they claim. Nobody wants to upend the system, because too many people are getting a taste.

The common thread can be found in the marks: the little old lady in Tupelo who sends in $50 thinking that she’s striking a blow against Barack Obama, the couple in Topeka who hopes Mike Huckabee’s biblical cancer cure can save their daughter’s life, the man in Toledo who thinks that the group with “Tea Party” in its name is going to have an impact on his state’s races. What none of them know is that their money is just going to make somebody who’s already rich a little bit richer.

So even the big name right-wing groups are scamming people out of millions. And there's millions of suckers feeding them money constantly.

You wonder if now the right-wing wants campaign finance reform after it turns out they were played for chumps and suckers?

Courting A Fight Over Immigration

Looks like the Republicans got the federal judge they wanted to block President Obama's immigration programs announced last November, and now begins the GOP plan to simply run out the clock by tying the executive orders up in court for the next two years. Of course, real peoples' lives are at stake here. Vox's Dara Lind:

Here's what this means: Until this ruling is reversed or a different ruling comes down in the future, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything to implement either of the new programs President Obama announced in November to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation. 

Between the two programs, millions of immigrants were supposed to be eligible for deferred action (three years of protection from deportation) and work permits. Neither of those programs had actually started accepting applications yet, although one was supposed to start on Wednesday. Now they won't be able to start until further notice. 

Immigrants who are older than 30 but who came to the US as children or teenagers (and meet other requirements) were supposed to be able to apply for deferred action starting on February 18, an expansion of the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Now they'll have to wait. That's about 230,000 immigrants who'll remain vulnerable to deportation. 

There are also the 3.7 million unauthorized immigrants who are parents of US citizens or permanent residents who'd benefit from another program: Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. Applications were supposed to open this spring, but the government still hasn't put out the official application requirements and fee; it won't be able to finalize that, or announce it, under this ruling.

So yes, about 4 million people are directly affected by this, it's going to head to the Fifth Circuit, and it will probably be months before they get through with it. And surely the states suing the White House over immigration actions are going to want a SCOTUS injunction/appeal either way, which would most likely lead to a Supreme Court battle next year. Even if the injunction is lifted, the damage from the delay will be real:

When the administration created the first deferred-action program in 2012, for young unauthorized immigrants, they discovered the success of the program relied on people signing up — and on the ground, organizers learned that finding eligible immigrants and getting them to apply was the hardest part. Now, community groups are trying to educate a much larger, more diffuse immigrant population about the new deferred-action programs, and persuade them that it's safe to apply. But news and misinformation about the lawsuit is spreading confusion and fear among the very people these groups are trying to reach. 

Organizers are worried about a "chilling effect": by the time applications do open for deferred action, immigrants will have been intimidated out of applying, because they won't believe the program is safe or permanent.

Which of course is the entire point.

The Mask Slips Again...

...And Republicans say what's really on their mind about African-Americans.  This one comes to us from the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi, in an article about education spending in the Magnolia State when 2 in 7 third-graders in the state are expected to fail the state's reading test and will have to attend summer school.  We go to near the bottom of the article, for responses to the request for more state school funding. GOP State Rep. Gene Alday is not a fan and lets the mask slip:

For years, Southern Echo, a grassroots civil rights group in Jackson, has been working with African-American students. "If the governor is sincere about making universal literacy a gateway, rather than a gatekeeper, he would support full funding for what it will take to get the literacy job done," said co-founder Mike Sayer, pointing out that Florida has invested $1 billion. 

State Rep. Gene Alday, R-Walls, doesn't believe any more funding is needed. "I don't see any schools hurting," he said. 

But then he went on to say that Mississippi "has a lot of bad school districts. The people are electing superintendents that don't know anything about education." 

The former mayor of Walls (population 1,248) went on to say, "I come from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call 'welfare crazy checks.' They don't work." 

He had to go to the emergency room for pain, he said. "I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots."

Needless to say, in a state that's 38% black, that's not going over well as at least one Clarion-Ledger columnist is calling for Alday to retire.  If that's the case however, a lot of Mississippians are going to have to recuse themselves from public office, because you're straight up bonkers if you think Alday -- or his constituents -- are alone in thinking this.

Keep up that minority outreach, guys.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge in Texas has blocked President Obama's executive actions on immigration, but the White House says it will appeal the ruling.
• Japanese officials have issued a tsunami advisory after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake rocked northern coastal Japan early Tuesday.
• Egypt is asking for UN action in Libya as Islamic State militants continue to control wide sections of the country and are rebelling against the government in Tripoli.
• Greece continues to defy EU ultimatums on seeking European bank loans in order to stay in the eurozone as time is running out on a deal before the end of the month.
• Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab is all but accusing the NSA of running a government-sponsored hacking ring dubbed "Equation Group" since 9/11.

Last Call For Who Needs Obamacare, Anyway?

Attention red state Republicans:  more of you than you will ever admit have bought plans on the federal insurance marketplace, and now have health care coverage because of it.  Your GOP leaders in Washington are trying to take this coverage from you, and are using the Supreme Court in order to make it unaffordable.

Erin Meredith, a fifth-generation Republican who lives in Austin, was no fan of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which she considered just another wasteful government handout. She didn’t sign up for a health plan until late last year, when she felt she had no other choice. 

By then, Meredith, who is 37 and has two children, had gotten divorced and lost the insurance provided through her husband. Her new job, as an office manager for a roofing company, didn’t offer benefits. About the same time, she learned that her headaches and fatigue were the result of a rare condition that affects the oxygen level in her blood. She couldn’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on doctor’s visits, and her desperation slowly turned to panic. 

In November, at a friend’s urging, Meredith looked for a health plan on the federal online marketplace. With an income of about $30,000 a year, she discovered she qualified for a government subsidy of $132 a month. Her premium would be $89 a month. 

Now that she has coverage, she doesn’t want to lose it. “I can still feed my kids and put gas in my car,” she said. “I’m not trying to go to Cancun or carry a Michael Kors bag. I drive a 2009 Mazda and I’m just trying to make it in my little apartment and not be on government assistance.”

Sorry Erin, according to the Republicans in your state of Texas, you never wanted affordable health care, you never wanted subsidies to make it affordable to you and your family, and you are now nothing more than a welfare queen to them.

Welcome to being one of "those people".

“If they’re not going to participate in Obamacare and I’m not going to have these financial benefits, which will force me to pay $220 a month for coverage, do you know if Greg Abbott, our governor, has any plan to offer something comparable?” Meredith asked in an e-mail. “I understand and support his efforts to put Washington back in its place. I just don’t want that to come at the cost of hard-working Texans and their ability to maintain medical coverage.”

You're no longer a "hard-working Texan" anymore.  You gave up that status when you decided that the federal government was no longer your enemy, and that it could ever "help" you.  You're a welfare cheat on Obamacare.  You might as well be a Democrat, dear.

And if King v Burwell goes bad, your health insurance premiums will triple, and your Republicans will not lift a finger to fix it.

Count on it.

Because That's Where the Money Is

Russian cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab says it has discovered evidence that as many as 100 banks in 30 nations (including the US) may have lost a total of nearly a billion dollars to hackers in a massive cybertheft criminal ring.

In a report to be published on Monday, and provided in advance to The New York Times, Kaspersky Lab says that the scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever — and one conducted without the usual signs of robbery.

The Moscow-based firm says that because of nondisclosure agreements with the banks that were hit, it cannot name them. Officials at the White House and the F.B.I. have been briefed on the findings, but say that it will take time to confirm them and assess the losses.

Kaspersky Lab says it has seen evidence of $300 million in theft through clients, and believes the total could be triple that. But that projection is impossible to verify because the thefts were limited to $10 million a transaction, though some banks were hit several times. In many cases the hauls were more modest, presumably to avoid setting off alarms.

The majority of the targets were in Russia, but many were in Japan, the United States and Europe.

No bank has come forward acknowledging the theft, a common problem that President Obama alluded to on Friday when he attended the first White House summit meeting on cybersecurity and consumer protection at Stanford University. He urged passage of a law that would require public disclosure of any breach that compromised personal or financial information.

But the industry consortium that alerts banks to malicious activity, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, said in a statement that “our members are aware of this activity. We have disseminated intelligence on this attack to the members,” and that “some briefings were also provided by law enforcement entities.”

How'd they do it?  You know all those times your company's IT department says "Don't open weird emails in your work account?"   Bank employees did just that, and ended up installing a piece of malware called "Carbanak" on bank computers.  It would secretly record keystrokes and screenshots of bank transfers at local branches to learn procedures and passwords, and leave the PCs vulnerable to remote access from outside the bank.

Then once they had the keys to the kingdom, they would send money to fake accounts, make wire transfers to overseas accounts, or even make ATMs dispense money at certain times.  As a former bank IT employee, I can tell you the number one vulnerability of any bank network are the people who access it daily.

Think about how much of a pain in the ass it is to change your network password at work. Believe me, the higher up in a company you are, the more likely it is that you're going to ignore procedures, and the bigger the target you make for social engineering hacks like this one.  Eventually a hack like this is going to get a hold of an account that has the authorization to make these multi million dollar transfers, and boom.  Gone.  Temporarily add some zeroes to the end of one account balance and transfer the extra away.  It's the oldest bank hack trick in the book.

At best, bank protection departments have way too many accounts to manage.  Finding these hit and run transfers is nearly impossible because by the time the bank figures out what happened, it's too late.  No red flags or alarms get raised because the attack comes from authorized accounts.

So yes, listen to your IT guys for once. 

The Orange Dimension

House GOP Speaker John Boehner is living in a fantasy dimension.  First, he believes that he alone is somehow in charge of America's foreign policy, and not the person actually elected to do that (and constitutionally required to handle that.

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace on Sunday quizzed House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on his decision to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress.

Boehner invited Netanyahu without consulting the White House, leading numerous congressional Democrats to boycott the speech.

"Haven’t you taken one of the few bipartisan issues in this country — support for Israel — and turned it into a political football?" Wallace asked.

"I have not. The fact is that we had every right to do what we did," Boehner responded. "I wanted the prime minister to come here. There’s a serious threat facing the world. And radical Islamic terrorists are not going to go away."

"And then when it comes to the threat of Iran having a nuclear weapon, these are important messages that the Congress needs to here and the American people need to hear," the speaker continued. "And I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the perfect person to deliver the message of how serious this threat is."

Wallace then pointed out that Boehner asked Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., not to tell the White House about the joint meeting with Netanyahu.

"Why would you do that?" Wallace asked.

"Because I wanted to make sure that there was no interference. There’s no secret here in Washington about the animosity that this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu. I frankly didn’t want that getting in the way, quashing what I thought was a real opportunity," Boehner responded.

Such complete and utter disrespect of the presidency is shameful.  You took it upon yourself to invite a foriegn leader to berate your president and you tried to ambush him with the request because of "interference" from the White House?  Can you name another time in which a House Speaker so brazenly tried to subject a sitting president to humiliation by a foreign leader, on US soil?

No.  No president in US history has even been treated like a non-human insect quite like Republicans treat our nation's first black president.  This is why I despise Republican politicians, the preening arrogance and assumption of privilege is just infuriating.

Oh, but there's more.  In the Orange Dimension, it's Democrats who are somehow in charge of a Republican congress shutting down DHS funding.

The House passed a bill funding the DHS that also contained riders rolling back President Barack Obama’s executive order delaying deportations. Senate Democrats blocked its passage, demanding a “clean” continuing resolution. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the ball was back in the House’s court, which was where Wallace found Boehner Sunday morning.

“The House has acted. We’ve done our job,” Boehner said. “Senate Democrats are the ones putting us in this precarious position. And it’s up to Senate Democrats to get their act together.”

Wallace invoked a rising sense of terror threats, and asked if Boehner and Republicans were prepared let the DHS shut down.

“Certainly,” Boehner replied, adding that Senate Democrats “would be to blame.”

John Boehner is going to let the DHS shut down and put Americans at risk because of their petty hatred of Obama.  That's it.  And he thinks you are stupid enough to believe that Republicans, who have been talking about shutting the government down for months now in order to stop President Obama on his legal immigration policies, aren't to blame.

What a strange place Speaker Boehner lives in.

StupidiNews!

• Egypt has retaliated with airstrikes against ISIS targets in Libya after Islamic State militants beheaded more than a dozen Egyptian Coptic Christians over the weekend.
• The biggest US oil refinery strike since 1980 enters its third week as there appears to be no sign of reaching an agreement between workers and management.
• Another round of snow in Boston has put this February as the snowiest month in the city's history, and more is on the way this week.
• Danish police have detained two people in connection with this weekend's series of shootings in Copenhagen that left two dead and five wounded.
• The FAA is proposing ground rules for operating drones in US airspace, the new rules propose among other things no flights above 500 feet, no night flying, and a certification program.