Texas Secession Two-Step

Meanwhile, the right-wing nullification/secession train rolls on down the tracks towards 1861.

Texas already seceded once — in 1861, by popular vote in a statewide election. 

But the Texas Nationalist Movement wants a repeat a century and a half later, and thinks the March GOP primary is the place to start. 

The Nederland-based Texas independence group is circulating a petition aimed at getting a non-binding vote onto the GOP primary ballot over whether “the state of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” 

Their goal? 75,000 signatures from registered voters by Dec. 1 — more than the 66,894 the Texas Secretary of State’s office says the group needs to get the language on the ballot. 

Even if the Texas Nationalist Movement gets enough signatures, such a vote would be little more than symbolic. Academics agree that Texas cannot secede from the United States, and point to a post-Civil War Supreme Court ruling, Texas v. White, as evidence. 

But that hasn’t stopped the Republican Party of Texas from rolling its eyes at the secessionists. Texas GOP communications director Aaron Whitehead said the Republican party certainly doesn’t welcome outside groups trying to doctor the party ballot. 

“Historically the executive committee of the Republican Party has chosen what goes on this,” Whitehead said, “and it’s party preference that it stays that way.”

Really?  You've got Republican presidential candidates like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum openly calling for revolt against Supreme Court rulings they don't like, GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell openly calling for states to simply ignore EPA rules on power plants, and House Republicans led by John Boehner openly suing the Obama administration over the implementation of Obamacare.

Republicans are calling for nullification of the federal government on several fronts.  Why is secession suddenly out of bounds for you?  These guys are simply taking existing Republican rhetoric and turning it into action.

“The end game for us is to have a binding referendum on Texas independence, much like the people of Scotland had in November of last year,” Patrick Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, told the Tribune.

When you talk constantly about taking "your" country back, this is what you get.

The Walkering Dead, Con't

Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker (currently polling around two percent in the primaries) is going all in on destroying America's unions in order to save his collapsing campaign.

Seeking to revitalize his presidential campaign, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Monday fired a new shot at labor by proposing to prevent federal workers from collectively bargaining, create a national right-to-work law and eliminate the National Labor Relations Board. 

In a plan released by his campaign, Walker also called for requiring all unions to hold periodic votes so workers could decide whether they should continue to exist. If elected, he also would cancel President Barack Obama's Labor Day order that federal contractors provide paid sick leaveand work to end policies requiring some salaried workers in the private sector to receive overtime — saying in some cases they should get time off instead. 

"We must take on the big-government union bosses in Washington — just like I took them on in Wisconsin," the GOP governor said at a town hall meeting on the shop floor of construction equipment maker Xtreme Manufacturing. 

"Federal employees should work for the taxpayers — not the other way around."

At on point during his speech in Vegas he called collective bargaining itself an "expensive entitlement".  Walker's ideas are pretty bonkers, but hey, this is the 2016 GOP primary we're talking about here.

The real problem is how blithely the article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel dismisses Walker's radical destruction of unions as ever passing.

Many of Walker's ideas — such as dissolving the labor relations board and establishing a federal right-to-work law — would require changes to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Such changes have little chance of becoming law, said Joseph E. Slater, a labor professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio. 

The last major change to the act was in 1959. When Democrats had large majorities in Congress in 2009 and 2010, they tried to make the law more favorable to unions but couldn't get their changes passed. Walker's ideas would likely pass only if Republicans controlled the U.S. House and had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — and even then it would be difficult, Slater said. 

"It's really just red meat for the base," Slater said. "None of that's going to actually happen. I'm not certain you could get even 60 Republicans (in the Senate) to vote for that."

It's cute that people still think that whatever red wave that would sweep any Republican into power in 2016, wouldn't keep the House and Senate in GOP hands, and that Republicans wouldn't dare eliminate the filibuster and merrily turn back 80 years of laws.

That would be almost amusing if it wasn't so amazingly tragic.

StupidiNews!

• Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is blaming the West for the country's civil war and refugee crisis, claiming the problem has been solely caused by countries supporting Syrian rebels.
• The week-long Seattle Teachers' Union strike has ended with a tentative contract giving teachers and support staff a 10% raise, but also a 20-minute longer school day.
• After months in exile, Yemen's government has returned to Aden as Saudi-backed forces have succeeded in driving out Houthi rebels earlier this summer.
• Hewlett-Packard will cut up to 33,000 additional jobs as the PC maker will split into two separate companies serving enterprise and consumer customers. 
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that after years of resisting, the company is working on a "dislike" button for posts where users want to express sadness or empathy.

Last Call Fof a Yooge Headscratcher

Greg Sargent is a bit baffled at the latest WaPo poll showing Republicans thinking The Donald is a great guy.

The new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds Donald Trump way ahead of his rivals with 33 percent support among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. But perhaps the most remarkable finding in the poll is how highly Republicans and GOP-leaners rate Trump on a range of personal attributes: 

1) Republicans say by 64-35 that Trump is “qualified to serve as president.” By contrast, Americans overall say by 60-37 that he is not qualified. 

2) Republicans say by 60-35 that Trump is “honest and trustworthy.” By contrast, Americans overall say he is not honest and trustworthy by 59-35. 

3) Republicans say by 53-45 that Trump understands the problems of people like them. By contrast, Americans overall say he does not by 67-29. 

4) Republicans say by 54-42 that Trump “has the kind of personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president.” By contrast, Americans overall say he doesn’t have those things by 63-33. 

That’s remarkable. And by the way, a recent Quinnipiac survey also found majorities of Iowa Republicans give Trump similarly positive personal ratings.

He goes on to argue that Hillary's 20-plus years in the spotlight in politics makes the fact Democrats like her and Republicans don't somewhat more explainable.  But Trump?  Guy's a reality show host.

But Trump is largely known to Republicans not as a longtime high profile public official who has long been thought about for the presidency, but as a “brash” (as everyone’s favorite euphemism has it) billionaire who suddenly burst on to the political scene, names big buildings after himself, fires people on television, and regularly insults groups that include millions of Americans. Yet majorities of Republicans think he’s honest and trustworthy, understands their needs and problems, and is temperamentally suited to the presidency. 

This may mainly reflect the fact that Trump gets a lot of media attention, so he’s getting far more exposure among Republican voters than his rivals are. That media attention regularly broadcasts images of Trump spewing vaguely Republican-sounding talking points (most of the time, anyway) about things like immigration and China (in addition to all of the insults), which could be helping to create generally positive attitudes towards him. Or perhaps Republican voters just like the show Trump is putting on as he publicly torments the GOP establishment and “tells it like it is” (a quality Republican voters keep telling reporters they admire in him). 

Or here’s one other, rather more ominous possibility: maybe Republican voters are beginning to regard Trump as a possible nominee. 

Okay, that can’t be right. 

Or can it?

Why not?  Trump is the perfect candidate for the GOP in 2016, as far as representing the people who belong to the party: a merging of the racist, xenophobic white FOX News base with the obnoxious Wall Street country club ethos.

It's not confusing at all.

Clerks 3: The Firing

The whole mess over Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis and her refusal to issue marriage licenses has at least one lawmaker here in the Commonwealth asking questions about whether or not the state's 120 County Clerk offices need as much funding if they're not going to do their jobs.

“While there are very many accommodations available, the very simple accommodation I have proposed is to remove my name and my title as the clerk of Rowan County completely off the marriage license,” Davis said. “These licenses can be issued under another authority, including perhaps the Commonwealth of Kentucky or Gov. (Steve) Beshear himself.” 

There doesn’t appear to be much objection to granting her accommodations, but one lawmaker said the authorities that take over issuance of marriage licenses would likely claim the $35 filing fee for themselves. 

“That’s the first thing that will come up, is the money issue,” said state Rep. Dennis Keene (D-Wilder). “Be careful what you wish for.” 

Keene said most of the state’s 120 county clerk offices are “always strapped for cash,” so cutting that revenue stream could lead to salary reductions, layoffs or other budget adjustments. 

“If they choose not to perform those duties, they should not be paid,” he said. 

Keene said the Kentucky County Clerks Association, which has endorsed the removal of clerks’ names from marriage licenses, is a powerful lobbying organization that would no doubt fight any attempts to cut funding to their offices. 

“I can guarantee a lot of clerks would be jumping up and down over that,” Keene said.

Somehow I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of support for using state taxpayer money to pay state workers to not work around here,  We'll see what happens when lawmakers come back to work in Frankfort, but budget cuts for County Clerk's offices seems like they might be in the cards.

You can start with Rowan County.

I Guess America Missed That E-Mail

So last week the Justice Department cleared Hillary Clinton with "Emailghazi" or whatever stupid fantasy the right-wing goofballs are peddling this month, as they found she indeed had not broken any laws by deleting emails on her server.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had the right to delete personal emails from her private server, the Justice Department told a federal court. 

Lawyers for the government made the assertion in a filing this week with the U.S. District Court in Washington, part of a public records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that seeks access to Clinton’s emails. 

Clinton, the former secretary of state and front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has been dogged by questions about her use of a private email account for government business.

She has said that she sent and received about 60,000 emails during her four years in the Obama administration, about half of which were personal and deleted. The others were turned over to the State Department. 

The FBI has been investigating the security of Clinton’s email setup, which she said she used as a matter of convenience. She has since acknowledged that her use of a private email server to conduct government business was a mistake and apologized this week.

But of course the Village has a narrative to push that Clinton is a criminal and as always Democrats must be attacked and it's working.

While Clinton maintains the lead, her support has dropped 21 points among Democrats since July. She has lost ground with most demographic groups, but the sharpest drop has come among women and particularly white women. In July, 64 percent of white women said they supported Clinton; today, it is 31 percent, the same level of backing as Sanders, whose support has doubled among this group. 

A majority of Americans (55 percent) say they disapprove of the way Clinton has handled questions about her use of a private e-mail account while serving as secretary of state. An almost identical percentage (54 percent) say that she has tried to cover up facts. Asked whether Clinton stayed within government guidelines or broke the rules by using a private server, 51 percent say she broke the rules, while 32 percent say she did not, with the remainder offering no opinion. 

The public is divided on the question of whether the e-mail issue is a legitimate one in the coming election, although today, unlike four months ago, slightly more say it is not legitimate. 

On all those questions, there is a big difference in the responses of Democrats vs. Republicans and independents. A majority of Democrats (55 percent) approve of how she has handled the controversy, while a third do not. More than 7 in 10 say the e-mails are not a legitimate issue in the coming campaign.

Well gosh, the Justice Department just said she didn't break any rules, but of course that will never get reported to the American people.

Guess they missed the e-mail.  They have a narrative to sell, remember?

Exoneration!, shout her defenders. Much ado about nothing! A media-created story is debunked! 

Except, not really. That she had the ability and right to delete e-mails was never, really, in question. At issue is the process by which she did it -- and who got to make the final calls on what got sent to the State Department and what didn't. Yes, the way Clinton went about it was within her rights. But, Clinton is not just any government official or even any Secretary of State. She is someone who is, still, the heavy favorite to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. As such, she is held to a different standard than someone who, well, isn't the heavy favorite to be the Democratic nominee for president.

Held to a different standard and has been for more than twenty years now.

As I keep saying, America's current group of Village newspaper editors and cable/network news directors were all looking to be the person who busted the Clintons twenty years ago.

That hasn't changed a bit today.

StupidiNews!

• Authorities in southern Utah say 8 are dead and 5 more missing after flash flooding along the Arizona border washed two vehicles away through canyons.
• The man suspected of fatally shooting a professor at Delta State University in Mississippi yesterday has been found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
• China is building a third airstrip in the disputed island territory between it and Japan, raising questions about Beijing's air power being used in the area.
• Australian meteorologists say the El Nino effect in the Pacific this year could reach record ocean temperatures, possibly causing massive heat waves in the Southern Hemisphere.
• The owner of former Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox faces new embezzlement charges in Japan in connection with the loss of millions of dollars in the digital currency.

Last Call For The War On Women, Con't

So if there are still any questions about the true purpose of the highly coordinated smear job on Planned Parenthood, well, House Republicans put those questions to rest this week.

Congressional Republicans say they are determined to shut Planned Parenthood down, regardless of whether it broke any laws.

In more than two months of investigations, members have yet to turn up evidence that Planned Parenthood acted illegally, the same conclusion reached by a half-dozen state investigations. The Department of Justice has so far declined to launch a formal probe. 

Several Republicans acknowledged this week that they may never find proof of wrongdoing at Planned Parenthood — but said it doesn't matter.

“I don’t know whether we’re ever going to be able to answer that question, whether it was illegal for them to do what they were doing,” Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said during the House’s first hearing on the topic Wednesday. "I don’t know if it was illegal … but it was immoral, what was seen on that video."

Republicans have long been fierce critics of Planned Parenthood, which is the nation’s largest provider of abortion services. Under the law, the organization is banned from using federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or medical necessity.

Stirred by outrage over secretly recorded videos at Planned Parenthood, Republicans opposed to abortion rights say it’s time to end federal funding for the group once and for all.

“The issue is not whether there’s been a crime committed or not,” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas.) told the same group at the hearing. “This issue is whether or not taxpayers should fund Planned Parenthood. That’s the issue before this committee.”

So now do we understand what the goal was now all along?  Changing laws involving abortion in order to shut clinics down is one thing, but now Republican anti-choicers are freely admitting that using laws to stop abortions no longer matters.

It doesn't matter to Republicans if you break the law, they'll take reproductive health care away from women anyway.

Any more questions?

Off To The Red State Races

Democrats are trying to win the Senate back in 2016 and that means contesting red state Senate seats, and hoping for more Claire McCaskill/Heidi Heitkamp/Joe Donnelly style wins against an increasingly damaged Republican brand.

Arizona, Arkansas and Missouri look like unlikely pickups for Democratic Senate candidates to win in 2016. But Democrats are preparing for the unlikely. 

You don’t need to look any further back than 2012, when despite a favorable GOP climate, mistakes by two favored Republican candidates kept Republicans from winning control of the Senate. 

Last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recruited former U.S. Attorney Connor Eldridge to take on Republican Sen. John Boozman in Arkansas — a state where Democrats lost the last two Senate races. But Democrats say Eldridge has the kind of background that could appeal to voters in the deep red state in the case of an opening, and say his entrance into the race could expand the map as the party seeks to win the majority next November. 

Eldridge joins two other Democratic recruits who could forge paths to victory in the right political environment: Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona and Secretary of State Jason Kander in Missouri. Both are adept politicians who face strong GOP incumbents in states that lean Republican in presidential years, but could swing the Democrats’ way in the event of unforced Republican errors. 

“It doesn’t always work, but if you put the pieces together and put the race on the map, only good things can happen,” said Ben Ray, a Democratic operative who helped Sen. Joe Donnelly to victory in Indiana in 2012, when Republican Richard Mourdock’s ill-advised rape comments helped Donnelly win an otherwise dark red state.

Yes, Democrats need to win seats like Marco Rubio's in order to win back the Senate.  But they also need to challenge Red State Republicans, and they figure given how awful the 2016 GOP nominee for the White House is going to be, they might be able to pull off some upsets.

An unpalatable GOP presidential nominee could also shift the tide towards Democrats, giving them an opening down the ballot. With businessman Donald Trump — who has broken nearly every convention in running a presidential campaign as he’s offended significant segments of the electorate — as the Republican front-runner, there’s a chance that could happen. 

“If it’s Trump, you’re going to get a lot of people who are very upset about his candidacy. If they go with someone more mundane, the disappointment for others could very well carry into the general election,” Marsh said. 

In other cases, Democrats might be able to benefit from slowly “chipping away” at an otherwise popular Republican’s credibility by tying them to Washington and a Congress which has been repeatedly panned by the public – a strategy already embraced by D.C. outsiders like Kander and Eldridge. 

A similar strategy paid off for Republicans in 2014 as they took the Senate majority for the first time since 2006. The GOP seized upon President Barack Obama’s unpopularity and an electorate dissatisfied with the status quo.

Look how badly the four GOP senators are doing in the 2016 White House race too.  None are doing better than single digits, where the outsiders, Trump, Carson, and Fiorina have a combined majority of the vote.   Going after seats in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states is a good idea.  How much worse would things be if Republicans had beaten McCaskill, Heitkamp, Donnelly and yeah, even Joe Manchin?

Abbott, Tossed Fellow

Well, things certainly escalated quickly today.  Australia's right-wing dipstick of a Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has lost his party's vote to remain leader and is no longer the country's PM.  The new boss is hopefully less of a jackass, but it doesn't look like by much.

Australia's 29th prime minister is Malcolm Turnbull, who ousted Abbott with the help of the Abbott's deputy, Julie Bishop, 54-44 in a vote of the parliamentary members of the governing Liberal Party, Monday night Australian time. In a late-night press conference, Turnbull, also a member of Australia's conservative party, said he came to power "seeking to persuade, rather than to lecture"—highlighting one of the chief criticisms of Abbott as an inflexible scold who failed to explain complicated policies to the Australian people. 

For those even remotely familiar with Australian politics, you'll know the last few years have been a bloodbath in the corridors of power, with fierce factional divides in both parties, Labor and Liberal, making the prime ministerial office the most treacherous room to occupy in the country. Three sitting prime ministers have now been toppled and replaced by their own parties, partly due to disagreements over climate change, terrible polling, and the management of Australia's resource-dependent economy. But Abbott's fall—in power for less than two years—is extraordinary: for a man who said he would bring stability back to the top job, he served in the position for a shorter time than the two previous prime ministers that he helped topple, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd (both members of the opposition Labor party). Pressure on Abbott had been building for months. 

Turnbull used to be a proponent of a cap-and-trade program, and he once called Tony Abbott's position on climate change "bullshit" because he Abbott was vehemently opposed to a market-based solution. Abbott himself has previously doubted the science behind climate change, then ran a brutal scare campaign against a carbon tax, arguing it would trash the economy. But it's unlikely, at least in the short-term before another election, that climate will be back on the agenda anytime soon: carbon pricing has cut to the quick of Aussie politics and become a symbol for deep ideological divides, something Turnbull is likely loathe to stir up, early in a new prime ministership. Commentators in Australia say Turnbull madeprivate undertakings not to rock the boat too much, as he locked up the votes to contest the leadership. 

Sure enough, Turnbull said at his first press conference that the government's position on climate change will stay the same for the moment. The current policy of government investments in carbon abatement (called "Direct Action"), rather than a market-based system "is one that I supported as a minister in the Abbott government, and it's one I support today," he said, describing it as "very well designed," and a "very, very good piece of work." Still, he did leave the door open to tweak the policy as he begins discussions with his new ministers.

We'll see where Turnbull ends up on the question of climate change, but four PMs in the space of less than three years makes me think that Australia's in a lot worse shape than a lot of people are aware of. Getting Canberra back at the forefront of the climate change fight is going to be vital in the years ahead.

StupidiNews!

• Thousands of people have been evacuated from Lake County, California as a wildfire that began Saturday has already destroyed hundreds of homes in less than 48 hours. 
• Seattle's teacher strike enters a second week as talks continue over salaries that haven't risen in six years despite the cost of living rising sharply during that time.
• Germany has reimposed border controls along its southern border with Austria as Berlin admits it can't handle the flood of refugees coming in from Syria and other locations.
• Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a challenge from his own party as snap elections have been triggered by deeply unpopular and steep austerity cuts last year.
• Corporations are looking at how the NFL tracks players using RFID technology to see if it can be used to track the movements of their own employees.

Last Call For Coal Hearted Republicans

Lack of revenue from coal is badly hurting some of the poorest counties in America, and Republicans are too busy trying to strip mine the last of the coal out of the Appalachians rather than allowing aid packages to pass Congress.

Mine closings, layoffs, and bankruptcies have swept the region. In August, Alpha Natural Resources of Bristol, Va., filed for Chapter 11 protection, following Patriot Coal of Scott Depot, W.Va., which entered its second bankruptcy in May. In eastern Kentucky, coal jobs fell to 7,153 at the end of 2014, from 14,412 in 2008, according to a state report. Production there has fallen to 37 million tons from 91 million.

The Boone County school district received about $5 million less in coal-related tax revenue for this school year than last year, or about 10 percent of its budget, says Deputy Superintendent Jeff Huffman. Whitesburg, Ky., has lost almost half its business tax revenue, says Mayor James Craft. In late August and early September, a gun store, a framing shop, and a uniform supplier closed.

The West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy in Charleston, a liberal nonprofit, has long advocated for the creation of a state trust fund for the days when coal revenue would dwindle. “If you don’t put that money away into a permanent trust fund, then not only will the jobs and wages disappear, but so will the state and local revenue,” says Ted Boettner, the organization’s executive director. “That’s what’s happening now.”

But of course, that costs money and King Coal gets everything it wants from the state legislatures it has bought.

The Obama administration has proposed a package of grants, tax breaks, and money transfers worth several billion dollars in its 2016 budget to help ailing coal communities in Appalachia. The White House offer has met resistance in Congress, with Kentucky Republicans Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, calling for a rollback of environmental rules along with direct federal assistance. “Any plan from the White House aimed at improving the quality of life for the people of coal country is not serious or credible without a legitimate proposal to revisit these wrongheaded, job-killing regulations,” says Rogers’s spokeswoman, Danielle Smoot.

Hal Rogers should be ashamed of himself.  He's arguably the most powerful Republican in the House as chair of the House Appropriations Committee, representing some of the poorest counties in the country.  And he's holding them hostage for King Coal.

Don't think these towns haven't noticed.

Almost a dozen Appalachian towns and counties have passed resolutions urging Republicans in Congress to support the White House plan. “I want to mine coal, but we’ve got to look at other ways to put people to work, so they can provide for their families,” says Dan Mosley, the judge-executive of Harlan County, Ky., a Democrat. His Republican counterparts are also in favor. “If you’ve ever been really hungry in your life, you’d eat at any restaurant you can find,” says Republican Albey Brock, the top official of Bell County, Ky. “The federal government has caused our problems, and they’re going to have to help us solve it.”

Not while the GOP is in power.  You poor bastards won't get an extra dime to help you and you keep voting for the Republicans who will make sure you never do.

Shutdown Countdown, Con't.

Republicans are already trying to blame the President in order to cover their asses on the near-guaranteed government shutdown they're going to cause, which is a major, major sign that one is on the way.

The prospect of a second government shutdown in two years is growing as House conservatives pledge to oppose any funding measure that includes money for Planned Parenthood.

GOP leaders face a familiar problem. A measure that blocks funding for Planned Parenthood would almost certainly lack the votes to pass the Senate, and would be vetoed by President Obama.

But Republicans in the House don't have enough GOP votes to approve a funding measure that continues funding for Planned Parenthood, and don't want to negotiate with Democrats.

Conservatives headed to their districts on Friday expressing certainty that they would force GOP leaders to include a hold on Planned Parenthood funding.

And as in past funding fights, they insisted it would be the Democrats and President Obama who would be blamed for a shutdown.

“Will the president shut down and defund the troops in order to fund Planned Parenthood?” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.). “I don't think he's that politically stupid, but we shall see.”

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), another conservative, sounded a similar theme.

“I’ve seen too many times up here that a threat of a shutdown is why you compromise your principles, and I am sick and tired of compromising my principles,” he said.

The remarks from the lawmakers reflect the strong feelings among House conservatives.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus, with more than 40 members, on Thursday vowed to oppose any spending bill that includes Planned Parenthood funds.

We know what the script will be, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats will come up with a clean continuing resolution to save John Boehner's ass and she'll get everything she wants.  So will Harry Reid.  Enough Republicans will go along too, the only issue is the timing, whether it comes after another 2-3 week shutdown or before, and how long the resolution will cover spending for.

The wild card is the Senate and how many of the four GOP senators running will see shutting down the government as necessary to save face.  Cruz is already at that point, I expect Paul, Rubio, and Graham all will go along because they are all in the low single digits and getting killed by Trump/Carson, and need trophy heads to mount on their walls if they want to stay in this thing.

We'll see.

The Walkering Dead, Con't

Rick Perry was only the first Republican to get crushed by the Trump/Carson/Fiorina revolt of GOP primary voters against Republicans who have actually held public office and failed to annihilate America's liberals while doing so.  Looks like the next domino to fall may very well be Scott Walker.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is refocusing his Republican presidential campaign on Iowa and South Carolina, where his early popularity in opinion polls has crumbled with the ascent of Donald J. Trump, and he has taken the unusual step of canceling major speeches in Michigan and California this coming week to spend time in those two crucial states.

Mr. Walker, who has fallen in one key Iowa poll from first place in July to 10th place this month, no longer plans to appear next weekend at a prestigious Republican conference on Mackinac Island in Michigan or at the California Republican Party convention. Instead, his advisers said, he plans to campaign in Iowa — where he is holding events this weekend as well — and in South Carolina.

Mr. Walker’s advisers said the last-minute cancellations were not a sign of panic about the viability of his presidential bid but rather a recognition that at this point his time and campaign funds are better spent on Iowa and South Carolina. Mr. Walker regards Iowa, which will hold the nation’s first presidential nominating contest on Feb. 1, as virtually a must-win state that would energize his supporters and donors nationwide. And he has long seen South Carolina, which votes later that month, as another winnable early state that could give him momentum and stature in a large field of Republican candidates. 

Any time a presidential primary candidate who has fallen to first to tenth in Iowa tells you there's no signs of panic is of course lying out of his ass, even above and beyond what Walker usually lies about.

By skipping the events in California and Michigan, two states with larger and more diverse electorates than Iowa and South Carolina, as well as more delegates at stake to help win the nomination, Mr. Walker risks diminishing himself. Once a national front-runner, he increasingly looks like a regional candidate — hoping his Midwestern roots will win him Iowa — who is pursuing single-state strategies rather than projecting confidence across the country.

His advisers said his political message — “Wreak havoc on Washington,” inspired by his record of tax cuts and labor and education overhauls in Wisconsin — held broad appeal that would lead to victories in primaries and caucuses after Iowa and South Carolina. They said the travel changes this month were not a reflection of money troubles or weak fund-raising, though one adviser noted that Mr. Walker has had to spend more time at political events in Iowa and elsewhere than at fund-raisers.

Perry after all said he was staying in the race right up until he dropped out on Friday.  Walker will be the same way, but he's done, trust me.

Sunday Long Read: The Guy WIth The Buy

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is ready to buy himself a president, and he has the billions to do it.  NY Magazine's Jason Zengerle takes a look at the man who would purchase 2016 despite Donald Trump in the race wrecking his plans.

In the 2016 presidential race, Adelson insists he will not repeat the mistake he made in 2012 of backing a spoiler. “I think he feels guilty,” says one person who has discussed the matter with him. “I think he knows how much he fucked up.” Adelson has told several associates that he will likely not decide on a candidate until he’s had an opportunity to watch a few debates. Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, an Israel advocate who’s friendly with Adelson, says the mogul’s priority this time is to support a candidate who’s electable: “He’ll match his emotionalism on this issue with some hard data. His principles and his desires remain the same, but I think he’s going to balance those with an empirically based judgment on the reality of the marketplace.”

Of course, thanks to Donald Trump, the Republican marketplace is a flaming mess at the moment. The challenge Adelson now faces is determining which candidate stands the best chance of defeating not onlyHillary Clinton but also the man whose Las Vegas hotel is just a few clicks down Mel Tormé Way from the Venetian. While Trump boasts that his daughter converted to Judaism and blasts Obama as “the worst enemy of Israel,” his knowledge of the Middle East is sufficiently shallow that Adelson apparently believes Trump wouldn’t be an effective ally of the Jewish state.

But Adelson is also said to be conflicted about the various potential Trump-slayers. Scott Walker, despite intensive lobbying efforts, is viewed by many close to Adelson as insufficiently serious about Israel and foreign policy. (“Look, he’s the governor of Wisconsin,” says Morton Klein, the president of the Adelson-backed Zionist Organization of America. “He knows about cheese and cutting pensions.”) Rubio is a personal favorite but might lack the necessary ruthlessness to take out The Donald. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is well positioned to appeal to the same GOP primary voters Trump’s currently energizing, but he is probably too conservative to beat Hillary.

Which brings Adelson to Jeb Bush, the candidate who seemingly has the best chance of slaying both Trump and Clinton but whose relationship with the mogul is as vexed as any of the Republican contenders. If Adelson really feels that backing Gingrich over Romney was a mistake in 2012, backing Jeb this time around would be a kind of atonement. But, frustratingly for Adelson, the heir apparent to the Bush dynasty has not always been so eager to play along.

If there was a big loser in 2012, it was Adelson, who spent a $100 million on Newt Gingrich only to see him crash and burn well before the primaries even started.  He's backing Jebby this time.

Who is at five percent.

Just because you're rich, doesn't make you very bright, I guess.

Your Last Call Chart Of The Week

Here's the chart of average job openings per job since 2000.



In other words, we're back to an employee's labor market rather than the employer's. Thanks Obama!

"The ratio of the unemployed to the level of job openings has decline to 1.43x, far below the near-7x peak at the worst part of the Great Recession and a place we have been at just two other times before (since the JOLTS data were first published.) 

This may well be the most accurate measure of just how tight the labor market is — we are heading to an environment where we are down to one person competing for one job. 

The sands have shifted towards this being a sellers' market for labour. 

Wage acceleration either starts real soon or we can simply take the laws of supply and demand and throw them in the dustbin."

Of course, a well-timed extended government shutdown might cause some problems there with the economy...

That would be a shame, wouldn't it?

United, We Fall

Things are looking pretty bad for United Continental (the parent company of United Airlines, which recently completed a merger with Continental Airways) as CEO Jeff Smisek has suddenly quit his job.  The reason?  The Feds are closing in on Smisek as evidence grows of a bribery scheme where the airline created flights specifically to keep the now former head of the Port Authority of NY/NJ happy.

Jeff Smisek’s sudden exit as United Continental Holdings Inc.’s chief executive officer deepens questions about whether he was more than simply a victim of pressure by Port Authority officials who made demands during business negotiations with the carrier in 2011. 

Prosecutors are looking into whether United’s creation of the so-called
chairman’s flight amounted to a bribe by the airline or a shakedown by then-Port Authority Chairman David Samson, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey is investigating United’s decision to launch twice-weekly flights between Newark Liberty International Airport and Columbia, South Carolina, near Samson’s weekend home after Samson pressed United to do so. At the time, United was seeking millions of dollars in investments from the authority. 

Samson first mentioned his interest in the flights a year before they began, at a September 2011 dinner in Manhattan attended by Smisek and two other United executives who also resigned Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported in April, citing people familiar with the event.

United said the resignations were tied to an ongoing internal inquiry “related to the federal investigation associated with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.”
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, who is leading the probe in Newark, is probably weeks from deciding whether to charge anyone from the airline, according to a person familiar with the case who isn’t authorized to discuss it publicly. 

“The easiest knee-jerk reaction is he stepped down because criminal charges are imminent,” said Michael Koenig, a former federal prosecutor now with Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP who isn’t involved in the case. But Smisek and the two others may have violated a company policy, or it may be a situation where “the very existence of an investigation brings unnecessary publicity on the company -- and someone has to pay the price.”

One hell of a bribe, eh?  Getting an airline to create a twice-weekly flight to your hometown from work?  That's nice if you can get it, especially since oil prices (and jet fuel prices) are a lot lower, and airlines are still charging passengers fees for everything from carry-ons to peanuts.  The airline industry looks like it'll have their best year ever in 2015 too, with $30 billion in profits alone as taxpayers are expected to pay for airport improvements and subsidize the airlines as they continue to cut flights and pack in as many people like sardines in cans.

But hey, if you're in charge of an airport, airlines will like you.  A lot.

Taxing America's Patience

If you're still wondering how Jeb! Bush is hovering around the 5% mark in GOP polls, it's because he's trying to sell his brother's policies with all the charisma of Mitt Romney with a head cold. Greg Sargent:

Time magazine reports that a new analysis from the Dem-aligned Center for American Progress calculates that Jeb Bush’s new tax plan would cut his own taxes by $773,000. This suggests that Democrats will try do to Jeb what they did to Mitt Romney: Cast him as a walking symbol, and personal beneficiary, of GOP priorities that seek to preserve or even exacerbate a tax code rigged for the rich and against the middle class. 

What’s interesting here is the Bush campaign’s response to charges that his tax plan would result in a huge windfall for the rich: It is arguing that his plan would nonetheless increase the share of the overall tax burden that the wealthy bear.

Buttressing the argument that people like Jeb would make out very well from Jeb’s plan, the Wall Street Journal reports that a new analysis from a business-backed tax group concludes that the biggest boost in after-tax income under his plan goes to the top one percent of earners, that is, people making more than $406,000:

They would see their after-tax incomes increase on average by 11.6%, according to the analysis. That’s the biggest change for any income group. 

The average for all income levels would be a 3.3% increase in income. The second-biggest beneficiaries would be folks in the top 10%, those making more than about $117,000. Their incomes would go up by 4.7%. 

The Bush campaign responds that his tax plan also cuts taxes for tens of millions of middle class families, and eliminates income taxes entirely for a range of lower income families. In sum, a Bush campaign spokesman told the Journal, the Bush plan means that “the highest earners actually pay a greater share of the tax burden than they did before.”

Even stupid Republican voters are figuring out that a tax plan that would save the one percent billions in taxes means somebody's got to pay for schools and roads and water pipes and things, and that if the one percent isn't paying for it, somebody else has to.

More and more are finally realizing that "somebody else" = "me".  Only took them 40 years to figure that out, too.

The West's Katrina Moment

It's time to come to terms that with all the idiocies flying around with President Obama's various "Katrinas", policy decisions that somehow evoke the disastrous response of the Bush administration to New Orleans ten years ago, the one single thing in the Obama presidency that actually qualifies as a true humanitarian disaster on his watch is our response to the Syrian refugee crisis.  Emily Hauser:

The numbers are almost unfathomable. What does more than 11 million people look like? It looks like the entire population of Ohio. It looks like Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York City, and Washington, D.C., rolled into one. In relative terms, Syria's 11 million refugees and IDPs are the equivalent of 155 million Americans fleeing death and chaos, more than half of them children. 

Of the the four million or so who have escaped Syria, about 50 percent are being hosted by Turkey. Jordan has taken in 630,000, which, given that country's population of six million, means one out of every 13 people in Jordan today is actually Syrian. Lebanon has absorbed 1.7 million refugees — a number that translates to about one out of five people currently in Lebanon. 

To repeat: This has been going on for four years. More than four years, actually, as it all began when Assad turned his armed forces on peaceful protesters in March 2011. Remember the heady days of the Arab Spring, when news out of the Middle East was actually inspiring? The current Syrian horror show is a big chunk of what happened when the news stopped being so inspiring. When the Syrian "Spring" became all-out war and it got so complicated that seemingly no one knew what to do, so most of the West stopped paying attention and an entire nation imploded. 

During all that time, the U.S. has taken in 1,434 Syrian refugees; the U.K. a total of 216; and the fabulously wealthy Gulf states have sheltered none.

And here, President Obama is not alone.  It's not just his Katrina, but Europe's Katrina and the Gulf States's Katrina as well, Canada and the UK, Germany and Saudi Arabia.  It's Katrina for dozens of world leaders, of which President Obama is one.  He didn't cause this mess, that's all Bashar Al-Assad's fault.

But the response has been an utter, shameful failure on our part, and the failure has been absolute. Half the population of Syria has fled.  Half.

We screwed up on Syria, big time.  As much as this administration has done wonders for America and the world, this is the one subject on which I believe the Obama administration has been totally incompetent to the point of near criminal negligence.  Several other world leaders, from Angela Merkel to King Salman to Stephen Harper and more deserve the blame, and at the top of the list of Bashar Al-Assad.  He is the monster who caused this mess.

And whether or not we should have invaded Syria and deposed Assad is a moot point, we chose not to do that...but we also chose to do nothing as 5 million people lost their homes.  And yeah, times were tough here and we still have our own millions of homeless, but at least here they have some support mechanism which Obama has fought for keeping and improving, unlike the GOP.

It's not going to be a popular sentiment around here, but our response to Syria has been complete indifference and as Emily says, shameful.  It is the world's Katrina.  And we're going to have to live with this for a very long time.

Last Call For Goobye, Governor Goodhair

And Rick Perry is the first out of the clown car.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Friday he is suspending his presidential campaign, becoming the first casualty in a 17-person Republican presidential field.

Perry announced the news on Friday at an event in St. Louis, Missouri.

"I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States," he said Friday at an event in St. Louis, according to prepared remarks sent out by his campaign.

The former governor's campaign has struggled in recent weeks after he failed to qualify for the Fox News main stage debate in early August.

Perry also failed to qualify for the second main stage Republican debate, which will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next week.

Get used to that losing feeling, Republicans.   You'll get to experience a lot more of it soon.