Last Call For Marked By The Beast

Are we surprised that the same Donald Trump calling for an Eisenhower-era "Operation Wetback" style roundup of eleven million Latinos is now calling for a national database to identify and track the country's Muslim citizens?

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump believes that the war on terror will require unprecedented surveillance of America’s Muslims.

“We’re going to have to do thing that we never did before,” he said during a Yahoo interview. 

“Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said. 

“Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy,” he added. “We’re going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” 

Trump would not rule out warrantless searches in his plans for increased surveillance of the nation’s Muslims, Yahoo reported Thursday. 

He also remained open toward registering U.S. Muslims in a database or giving them special identification identifying their faith, the news outlet added. 

“We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

Closing mosques, tracking Muslims, perhaps giving them armbands to identify them?  Hey Republicans? This is your current front-runner for President saying this.

And I don't blame Trump for his racist idiocy, I blame the "moderate Republicans" for accepting this and supporting this and the voters for electing Republicans who don't have a problem doing this to fellow American citizens.

Time to reclaim your party and clean house, guys.  Or live with your racist, awful party's consequences.

Riding The Redline in Richmond

Meanwhile, in Post-Racial America(tm)…

Black borrowers in Richmond are less likely to be approved for home loans and refinancing than white applicants regardless of their income levels, according to a study by fair-housing advocates. 

The effect is a continuation of the “redlining” that explicitly denied loans to minorities in the 20th century, according to Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia.
“Certainly lenders and banks tell you money is all the same color and they’re an equal opportunity lender, but when you get down to it, you have individuals who are underwriting loans who have biases,” said Brian Koziol, the nonprofit organization’s director of research and the report’s author. 

The group’s study found that between 2010 and 2013, the most recent year for which mortgage data is available, 13.7 percent of white borrowers had loan applications denied while black applicants experienced a 34.6 percent denial rate.

The report found that Hispanic residents also faced higher denial rates than white residents, but overall were granted loans more frequently than black borrowers.

Koziol said that a lenders’ willingness to finance home purchases directly corresponded to a neighborhood’s racial makeup.

The study found that for each percentage point increase in the minority population of a census tract, 12.5 fewer mortgages would be made.

The neighborhoods impacted are the same ones historically excluded for lending through redlining, and more recently, targeted for subprime loans, Koziol said.

While those neighborhoods have disproportionately high poverty rates, a borrower’s income doesn’t account for the difference: The report found a 9.9 point disparity in loan approval rates among black and white low-income applicants and a 27.5 point disparity among black and white upper-income borrowers.

That’s the best part, really. The higher your income as a black potential mortgage borrower, the larger the disparity in actually being approved for a mortgage. Because a black family making good money is automatically more suspect, you see. They could afford the house in the nicer white neighborhood, but why would the bank want to lower the property value of the houses of their other mortgage clients? Mortgage loan decisions aren’t made by banks, they’re made by people.

Redlining has been going on for decades, folks. It’s been going on not just in the South but all over the country, in red states and blue states and liberal enclaves and conservative strongholds.

And if you don’t think this isn’t happening in just about every decently sized US city in America right now, with the rush to segregate schools and neighborhoods through gentrification and exurban gated communities where “we don’t think it’s a good idea that you move in to this neighborhood, you see”, well I have some property for sale for you that you mysteriously can’t get a mortgage on.

Very little has changed in the last few decades, social media and instant news just makes it more visible.

Post-Racial America Update

This kind of thing happens in America more than we like to admit, and it's racism, pure and simple. Fay Wells is a black entrepreneur in California, and she made the criminal mistake of locking herself out of her apartment in a white neighborhood.

On Sept. 6, I locked myself out of my apartment in Santa Monica, Calif. I was in a rush to get to my weekly soccer game, so I decided to go enjoy the game and deal with the lock afterward. 

A few hours and a visit from a locksmith later, I was inside my apartment and slipping off my shoes when I heard a man’s voice and what sounded like a small dog whimpering outside, near my front window. I imagined a loiterer and opened the door to move him along. I was surprised to see a large dog halfway up the staircase to my door. I stepped back inside, closed the door and locked it. 

I heard barking. I approached my front window and loudly asked what was going on. Peering through my blinds, I saw a gun. A man stood at the bottom of the stairs, pointing it at me. I stepped back and heard: “Come outside with your hands up.” I thought: This man has a gun and will kill me if I don’t come outside. At the same time, I thought: I’ve heard this line from policemen in movies. Although he didn’t identify himself, perhaps he’s an officer. 

I left my apartment in my socks, shorts and a light jacket, my hands in the air. “What’s going on?” I asked again. Two police officers had guns trained on me. They shouted: “Who’s in there with you? How many of you are there?” 

I said it was only me and, hands still raised, slowly descended the stairs, focused on one officer’s eyes and on his pistol. I had never looked down the barrel of a gun or at the face of a man with a loaded weapon pointed at me. In his eyes, I saw fear and anger. I had no idea what was happening, but I saw how it would end: I would be dead in the stairwell outside my apartment, because something about me — a 5-foot-7, 125-pound black woman — frightened this man with a gun. I sat down, trying to look even less threatening, trying to de-escalate. I again asked what was going on. I confirmed there were no pets or people inside. 

I told the officers I didn’t want them in my apartment. I said they had no right to be there. They entered anyway. One pulled me, hands behind my back, out to the street. The neighbors were watching. Only then did I notice the ocean of officers. I counted 16. They still hadn’t told me why they’d come. 

Later, I learned that the Santa Monica Police Department had dispatched 19 officers after one of my neighbors reported a burglary at my apartment. It didn’t matter that I told the cops I’d lived there for seven months, told them about the locksmith, offered to show a receipt for his services and my ID. It didn’t matter that I went to Duke, that I have an MBA from Dartmouth, that I’m a vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation. It didn’t matter that I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket. It didn’t matter that I calmly, continually asked them what was happening. It also didn’t matter that I didn’t match the description of the person they were looking for — my neighbor described me as Hispanic when he called 911. What mattered was that I was a woman of color trying to get into her apartment — in an almost entirely white apartment complex in a mostly white city — and a white man who lived in another building called the cops because he’d never seen me before.

Nineteen cops.

Nineteen.

I'm desperately tired of this, and there but for the grace of God this hasn't happened to me yet in my apartment building where I live in a 92% white state.

It doesn't matter if you're "one of the good ones", educated, a pillar of society, not wearing baggy pants or tattoos or not flashing gang signs.  If you're a person of color, you are an assumed criminal in your own home if a white person decides so.

So bone-weary of stories like this, because it's only a matter of time.  And if one of those officers had decided Fay Wells was a threat, she'd be dead, and these officers would have told us she was a threat that had to be dealt with, and they would not have been charged with her murder, much less convicted.

I am tired of only being alive because a white person hasn't decided I am a threat yet.

StupidiNews!

• As French police are trying to determine whether the ringleader behind last week's Paris attacks was killed in raids Wednesday, Belgian police are conducting related raids around Brussels.
• Minneapolis police clashed with Black Lives Matter activists protesting the shooting death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, who was shot by officers while handcuffed and unarmed.
• House Speaker Paul Ryan insists that at GOP bill to tighten vetting practices for Syrian refugees is not a "religious test" but the legislation faces a veto threat from President Obama.
• China says it wants any climate deal arising from Paris talks next week to be legally binding on all signatory countries, a nearly impossible sell to GOP lawmakers in the US.
• Ride-sharing service Uber has lost an appeal to stop a California class-action suit that could classify drivers as employees entitled to benefits and not independent contractors.

Last Call For A Member Of Club Wrong

Yet another reason why more liberals need to be involved in local politics and especially school boards: otherwise, they get infested with horrible theocratic bigots.

A North Carolina K-12 charter school has caved to parents and shut down all student clubs over concerns about the inclusion of a student LGBT group.

The Daily Courier reported that parents and other members of the community “blindsided” the Lake Lure Classical Academy board of directors at a meeting on Friday after a students formed the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Club.

On grandmother reportedly complained to the board that she would have to explain the meaning of “gay” and “lesbian” to her grandchild because of the club.

“Another citizen told the board since it is a public school it has the ability to do away with the club,” The Daily Courier noted. “He said he did not have a child at Lake Lure, but if he did he would take them out immediately. He said the only diversity the school needs is the Bible.”

As long as "Christians" like this continue to run out politics because the rest of us are too busy to give a damn, then they'll continue to be in charge. These are wingnuts who would rather see all clubs shut down rather than be exposed to those people.

Lake Lure Baptist Church Pastor Anton Roos warned that attendance at the school would dwindle if the LGBT club was allowed to continue.

Roos said that it was unfair that the “Raptors for Christ Club” was not allowed to hang posters in the school but he said that the LGBT club was allowed to kick off with an “advertising campaign.” And the pastor asserted that, Layne Long, the teacher who sponsored the LGBT students, should be disciplined.

“This [LGBT] club was put together by a teacher and I would like to know what action was taken against her,” Roos said. “We are in a time in which you as a board need to take a stand. We have entrusted [School Director Jessica Boland] with our children and you have failed them.”

To recap, the point of a school board in 2015 is to punish those educators who disagree with the board.

Got it.

Think maybe you should look into the school board where you live, yet?

Operation La Kocha Nostra

Guess which major right-wing political donors are so wealthy and powerful that they have their own 25-person strong in-house intelligence gathering agency to spy on liberals?

The competitive intelligence effort, reported here for the first time, also hints at the audaciousness of the Koch network’s mission. While the Republican Party focuses on winning elections, the Kochs want to realign American politics, government and society around free enterprise philosophies that they hope to spread more broadly. 

A key to accomplishing the mission, from the Kochs' perspective, is countering super PACs and other big-money groups funded by rich liberals, as well as allied public sector unions and academic and media elites. The Kochs’ allies feel that those forces have worked together for decades with Democratic politicians and government bureaucrats to institutionalize the philosophy that heavy regulation and taxation of business is the only way to ensure an equitable society. 

The Kochs concluded that defeating this well-funded left-wing infrastructure requires tracking the professional left in real time ― a capability they realized they lacked after the 2012 election. In the run-up to that election, the Koch network spent $400-million-plus attacking Democratic politicians and policies, only to see President Barack Obama win re-election and his party maintain control of the Senate. A forensic audit of the network’s efforts concluded the Kochs had been out-maneuvered by the left on the airwaves, in the data war and on the ground. Vowing not to let that happen again, the network began investing in the competitive intelligence team and other efforts to keep tabs on the left. 

To be sure, the Kochs’ operation isn’t the only one focused on pulling back the curtain on its opponents. In fact, liberal activists and groups have frequently worked to expose the activities of the Koch brothers and their network. But the competitive intelligence team, like so many other Koch-backed programs, appears to be unique in its scale and its thoroughly methodological approach.

The outfit is run by a former CIA operative named Jim Roman, and from all indications it's a very professional deal. Keep in mind that if it was a left-wing business group that had its own intelligence group tracking conservatives in real-time, there would be congressional hearings, subpoenas , endless breaking news stories, and conservatives screaming that American take up armed resistance to overthrow "tyrant" Obama's network of spies.  Hell, those attacks on the "Dems'' private Stasi" would be coming from the right and the civil libertarian left.

But it's the Koch Brothers, so it's okay. And of course, the paranoid style runs deep.

In addition to delving into the left, the competitive intelligence team also monitors potential Koch network threats, according to sources familiar with it. It tracks people deemed suspicious outside the offices of Koch network groups, circulating be-on-the-lookout photos to internal network email lists, while keeping an eye on the network's own ranks for possible leakers or disloyal employees. 

One former network executive remembers an email containing a photo of a man identified as an operative with the environmental group Greenpeace who allegedly had been spotted taking his own photos outside the network’s cluster of offices in the Courthouse neighborhood of Arlington. 

Connor Gibson, a Greenpeace researcher who focuses on the Koch network, said he visits its component groups’ offices once a year to pick up their tax filings, and he speculated he could have been the operative photographed by the competitive intelligence unit. While he said he’s never sought to conceal his identity during such visits, he added “If the Kochs consider me an opponent, I’m flattered.” 

In another instance, sources say, Roman's team set out to identify an IT contractor who was working for one of the network's groups and was posting anonymous messages to Reddit, proclaiming that he worked for the Koch brothers but despised their stances. Within 48 hours, the team had sleuthed out the offender and his contract was terminated. 

“They were scared to death of moles,” said the former executive. 

A separate source ― an organizer who’s worked with the unit ― described it as “a full opposition research operation, only at about 10-times the level of any political campaign.” The organizer added “my guess is that most people inside the network don’t even know about it.”

Understand that this is the logical endpoint of believing your political opponents as an enemy that needs to be ferreted out and destroyed, to spy on them, track them, identify them, and to conduct counter-espionage against, all in the name of controlling the country's politics.  And they have access to billions in resources in order to do it.

The Kochs see liberals -- fellow Americans, mind you -- as people who must be tracked in real-time.

This is who controls American politics.

Syrian Shutdown, Con't

GOP Old and brokedown: threatening to shut the government down over Planned Parenthood.

GOP new hottness: threatening to shut the government down over Syrian refugees.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Republicans in a closed-door meeting Thursday that he is looking to address this week the concerns many GOP lawmakers have raised about Syrian refugees in light of the Paris attack, an anonymous source in the room told Politico.
It's not clear which steps Ryan will take, though Politico reported there are several legislative options to consider in the coming days.

Some Republicans have suggested attaching a measure blocking or restricting President Obama's refugee resettlement program to the must-pass spending bill due in December. Avoiding a government shutdown over the refugee program -- which Obama has continued to defend -- will likely be Ryan's first major test as speaker.

That's right folks, the government shutdown game isn't over yet, and the Paris attacks just threw the whole thing into doubt.  Ryan and Mitch the Turtle made it the official GOP position last night:

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, embracing his new role as the highest-ranking Republican in Washington, was the leading voice in his party urging immediate suspension of a State Department program to settle Syrian refugees in the United States. The Republicans cited evidence that at least one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe by posing as a refugee.

The Republican demands raised the possibility that legislation temporarily barring the admission of Syrian refugees could be attached to a spending measure that Congress must pass before Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown. Republicans said they had not yet settled on a legislative strategy.

“Our nation has always been welcoming,” Mr. Ryan said at a news conference. “But we cannot allow terrorists to take advantage of our compassion. This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry. So we think the prudent, the responsible thing is to take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population.”

Mr. McConnell also endorsed a suspension of the program, which so far has brought only small numbers of Syrians to the United States and, Democrats noted, only after a lengthy screening process. The administration earlier this fall pledged to take in up to 10,000 additional Syrian migrants.

“We’re going to continue to have refugees as long as Syria looks like it does, and so what we need is a strategy obviously to give the refugees an opportunity to stay in their own country,” Mr. McConnell said.

The spoiler here is that the Republicans will never agree to unpause in this particular aspect while a Democrat is president.

The Donald also wasted no time in taking the lead on the demagoguery among the 2016 GOP hopefuls.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is going after President Barack Obama claiming the administration is sending Syrian refugees to Republican states.

“They send them to the Republicans, not to the Democrats, you know because they know the problem… why would we want to bother the Democrats?” Trump told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday, as reported by Politico.

The question becomes is this something the GOP can win, or is it their usual overplaying their hand and getting smashed by President Obama?

We'll see.  The answer is how many Democrats are believe they are going to survive political ads showing SCARY BROWN TERRORISTS and "Shame on X for possibly allowing deadly terrorists pretending to be refugees into our backyard!" voiceovers next year.

We'll see, and soon.

StupidiNews!

• French police have conducted a raid in a Parisian suburb and have arrested five looking for the purported coordinator of Friday's attacks, the raid also meant to stop possible further attacks.
• Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has ended his GOP 2016 presidential campaign, saying "it wasn't his time" as he languished at the bottom of the polls.
• Two people are dead and 360,000 remain without power this morning after a major storm swept Seattle overnight, flood watches and warnings for the Puget Sound area remain.
• In Manila at the APEC summit, President Obama says that he supports bold international measures to settle island disputes in the South China Sea, many of which involve China.
• NASA may be launching a mission to land on Jupiter's frozen moon Europa in the next decade, a moon that contains the solar system's largest ocean underneath its icy crust.

Last Call For Welcome To Bevinstan, Con't

Well it's good to see that the Lexington Herald-Leader has finally caught up to where this blog was two weeks ago on noting that Kentucky counties that gained the most from Medicaid expansion overwhelmingly voted for Bevin to cut their own health care.

The 66 percent of Owsley County that gets health coverage through Medicaid now must reconcile itself with the 70 percent that voted for Republican Governor-elect Matt Bevin, who pledged to cut the state's Medicaid program and close the state-run Kynect health insurance exchange. 

Lisa Botner, 36, belongs to both camps. A Kynector — a state agent representing Kynect in the field — recently helped Botner sign up for a Wellcare Medicaid card for herself and her 7-year-old son. Without that, Botner said, she couldn't afford the regular doctor's visits and blood tests needed to keep her hyperthyroidism in check. 

"If anything changed with our insurance to make it more expensive for us, that would be a big problem," Botner, a community college student, said Friday at the Owsley County Public Library, where she works. "Just with the blood tests, you're talking maybe $1,000 a year without insurance." 

Yet two weeks earlier, despite his much-discussed plans to repeal Kynect and toughen eligibility requirements for Medicaid, she voted for Bevin. 

"I'm just a die-hard Republican," she said. 

Maybe I've been overthinking this.  Maybe rural Kentuckians are just goddamn stupid after all. Stupid or racist?  We may never know.

Owsley County Judge-Executive Cale Turner, a Democrat, said the election results didn't surprise him. His constituents wanted to express their opposition to Democratic President Barack Obama and what they perceive as "the liberal agenda" on social issues, Turner said. 

"To be honest with you, a lot of folks in Owsley County went to the polls and voted against gay marriage and abortion, and as a result, I'm afraid they voted away their health insurance," Turner said. "Which was their right to do, I guess. But it's sad. Many people here signed up with Kynect, and it's helped them, it's been an absolute blessing."

Oh well.  They'll just blame Obama for that too, I guess.

The trend seemed to hold across the state. At Transylvania University, political scientist Andrea Malji said she has crunched state data and found a "99 percent confidence level" between the counties' Medicaid enrollment levels and their gubernatorial choices. The larger the Medicaid numbers, the more likely they were to back Bevin, she said. The lower the Medicaid numbers, the more likely they were to favor the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Jack Conway. 

So Bevin — who said during the campaign that "the fact that we have one out of four people in this state on Medicaid is unsustainable" — racked up votes in rural, mostly poor counties where far more of the local population than that holds a Medicaid card. This was true even in traditional Democratic Party strongholds, such as Pike and Breathitt counties. 

Malji, who is from Pulaski County, where Bevin captured 72 percent of the vote, said she heard people back home denounce "Obamacare" while thousands rushed to sign up with Kynect. They didn't seem to realize that Kynect, Kentucky's response to the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is the same thing as Obamacare, she said. 

"There's either voter disconnect here, where the people weren't thinking about or weren't aware of Bevin's stance on health care, or these counties just have higher levels of social conservatives who thought it was more important to vote on social issues," Malji said.

Hanlon's Razor again: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."  Or perhaps we should call it Bevin's Razor.

It's going to cut deep here.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article45093165.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article45093165.html#storylink=cpy

Syrian Shutdown, Con't

The indispensable Steve M. plays devil's advocate and predicts the Obama administration will ultimately lose on Syrian refugees, much like closing Gitmo has led to numerous attempts by Democrats in Congress to stab Obama in the front, much less the back.

And if this can't be legally blocked by governors, the courts, or a Republican Congress, I'm predicting raw George Wallace-style resistance by the governments of the Southern states especially -- or, perhaps, confrontations involving angry True Patriots with AR-15s. As I've said before, I lived through busing in Boston. I know how ugly this sort of thing can get if at least some of the people holding government power reject the rule of law.

We've been through this sort of thing before in the Obama years. The president wanted to close Guantanamo, send some of the detainees to stateside penal facilities, and conduct trials in New York City. The backlash was fierce, and no one had his back -- and please recall that this was in 2009 and early 2010, when his party had large majorities in Congress. (The mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, who'd endorsed Obama in 2008, ultimately stabbed him in the back on this.)

When Obama's opponents have an ideal opportunity to prey on voters' fears, they'll do it, relentlessly. So this is going to be a losing battle for the White House.

I have to say that given the history of Democratic cowardice and Republican hatred, I suspect that a bill to either defund Syrian refugee relocation or giving Congress authority to vote in a moratorium on refugees from Country X will pass with veto-proof margins or as part of must-pass budget legislation and that Democrats will come to the White House and tell the President that the battle is over for this reason:

Yes, there are a lot of red states on that list. But there are also a lot of states that are generally counted as unswervingly Democratic in presidential elections (Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin), plus a couple that are regarded as tossups but were won by Barack Obama twice (Florida, New Hampshire). I know the president won't be on the ballot in 2016, but his first secretary of state probably will be. 

This is going to go like Gitmo.  President Obama will continue to fight for the right thing, but by the time November 2016 rolls around, you won't find a Democrat outside of the few remaining safe blue states who will back him.

Republicans win completely when assisted by Democratic fear and cowardice, and nothing makes that happen faster than America's virulent Islamophobia stoked by the right and enabled on the left. We know how this ends: why didn't Obama keep his promise? He failed us.

And Congress will escape blame once again.  I don't want to admit it, but in the end we're not much different than we were in November 2001. Greg Sargent:

A major new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests these GOP lawmakers and candidates may be reading the mood of the overall public — and GOP voters in particular — with dispiriting accuracy. 

The poll finds that Americans overall agree by 56-41 that the values of Islam are at odds with American values and the American way of life. Meanwhile, Americans are almost perfectly split on the value of immigration: 47 percent say immigrants strengthen the country with hard work and talent, while a depressingly high 46 percent say they are a burden on the U.S. because they take jobs, housing and health care. The CEO of PRRI tells religion writer Sarah Posner that the findings show an “increased xenophobic streak” among the American public overall.

We have learned nothing in 14 years.

Drugged Up And Everywhere To Go

Republicans are realizing Big Pharma charging ridiculous, monopoly-level prices for drugs sold to Republican-voting Seniors is a big, big problem for Republicans, and with an election coming up, suddenly Republicans want to do something about it.

A U.S. House of Representatives investigative panel said it plans to hold a 2016 hearing on skyrocketing drug costs, a move that comes at a time when Valeant Pharmaceuticals International is facing increased scrutiny into its pricing practices.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform said on Monday the panel is conducting a thorough investigation into drug pricing and has reached out to drug companies to gather information.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging launched a new probe into drug pricing at Valeant and Turing, signaling growing bipartisan agreement on the need to review the rising cost of prescription drugs in the United States.

Democratic members have pressed House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, for months to invite Valeant Chief Executive J. Michael Pearson to testify at a hearing over his company's massive price increases of two heart medicines.

The top Democrat on the investigative panel, Elijah Cummings, had previously urged the panel to subpoena Valeant. On Monday, Cummings also sent a letter to Pearson requesting interviews with a handful of Valeant executives who were directly involved in the operations of specialty pharmacy Philidor Rx Services.

According to a letter seen by Reuters, Cummings asked Pearson to make employees Gary Tanner, Bijal Patel and Alison Pritchett available for "transcribed" interviews.

"Troubling new allegations suggest that a group of Valeant employees helped launch Philidor's business in 2013 and have remained involved in its daily operations," Cummings wrote.

Not that I expect too much from Jason Chaffetz, but he's going to have to at least pretend like busting Valeant is something that might happen someday if he wants to keep his job.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• The number of state governors in the US rejecting taking in Syrian refugees has risen to 27, but it remains unknown how these governors would enforce this over federal law.
• President Obama yesterday ruled out using US ground troops to attack ISIS forces in Syria, saying more troops would be a mistake.
• Egyptian authorities have detained two airport employees in connection with the downing of a Russian jet on Oct. 31, an attack that Russia now confirms was a bomb planted on board.
• Oil prices briefly dropped below $40 a barrel for the first time since 2007 as inventories across the globe continue to rise with no production slowdown in sight.
• The Anne Frank Foundation is taking action to maintain the copyright on the famous account of a Jewish girl hiding from Nazi forces in Amsterdam in WWII until 2050.

Last Call For Syrian Shutout

It began last night with Alabama GOP. Gov. Robert Bentley vowing that he would not allow any Syrian refugees at all to relocate to his state, and within 24 hours the number has grown to 21 governors who are too stupid to read the Constitution...and not all of them Republicans.

Several state governors announced on Monday that they will not accept Syrian refugees following the attacks in Paris, citing concerns for security.

The governors of Idaho, Iowa, Maine, South Carolina, Georgia, Nebraska, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas, and Arkansas announced measures on Monday to stop or oppose any additional Syrian refugees from resettling in their states. Alabama and Michigan made similar announcements on Sunday.

The terrorist attacks in Paris have brought renewed attention on the U.S. refugee program, specifically the threat that ISIS could exploit the process to infiltrate and attack the United States. Several Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates have called on the administration to stop taking Syrian refugees, citing security concerns.

The governors of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Connecticut, meanwhile, have backed the Obama administration’s policy, voicing their support for accepting refugees in their states.

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan became the first Democratic governor to join the dozen-plus Republican governors in calling for a halt to new Syrian refugees.

Protecting the safety and security of our people is the first responsibility of government,” Hassan communications director William Hinkle said in a statement. “The Governor has always made clear that we must ensure robust refugee screening to protect American citizens, and the Governor believes that the federal government should halt acceptance of refugees from Syria until intelligence and defense officials can assure that the process for vetting all refugees, including those from Syria, is as strong as possible to ensure the safety of the American people.”

Look, even if this wasn't an absolutely moronic and childishly political waste of time with the whole "The US federal government determined refugee status", exactly how do you enforce Syrian refugees not living in your state?  What kind of fascist nonsense is this?

Are you guys planning checkpoints and identification cards?  Will you deploy armed National Guard troops to use deadly force?  What's the play here, guys?  How far down the "papers, please" waterslide are these governors going to go (and yes, this includes Matt Bevin.)  Special ghetto areas? Security sweeps? Publishing their names and addresses in a registry for "citizen safety"?

I think we have a right to know here.  What's your play, governors?  How are you going to keep your state "safe" from Syrians who have suffered through a four year civil war and constant bombing?

Put up or shut up.

Bringing Bankrupt Ideology To A Pastry Fight

John Oliver sums up in two minutes my feelings on Paris and the monsters who perpetrated the attack.  Needless to say, you're in for some outstanding premium cable profanity, so this is very NSFW for language.

Experience Matters

Republican presidential candidates in the back of the pack behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson may finally have their best reason yet to attack the frontrunners, both of whom have never held public office. In the wake of Paris, they say, now's not the time for an untested GOP candidate without foreign policy "experience".

“Well obviously, extending, you know, our support to the French,” he said Sunday on Fox News when asked what a President Carson’s first steps would have been following the Paris terror attack. When host Chris Wallace pressed him three times on who he would call first to put together an international military coalition, Carson demurred three times before saying he would call "all of the Arab states" and "all of our traditional allies."

"I don't want to leave anybody out," Carson said.

Donald Trump, who before the attack had said his ISIS policy would be to "bomb the s--t out of them," was unusually absent, not just from the Sunday interview circuit but the discussion. He had spent the weekend shouting on Twitter in all-caps: "When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM?" "He is just so bad! CHANGE." "We need much tougher, much smarter leadership - and we need it NOW!"

The violence in France comes at a time in the cycle when numerous 2016 operatives say voters are starting to shift from not just deciding who they like, but who they want to serve as president. Even before the attacks, for instance, a super PAC supporting John Kasich held a focus group in New Hampshire last week and reported that every attendee mentioned "experience” as important to them.

It was the first time that had happened, according to Matt David, a strategist for the Kasich super PAC.

On Sunday, Kasich, who has been almost alone in touting his congressional committee experience on the campaign trail, was rushing to get out all his specific prescriptions on Fox: arming the Kurds, putting in a no-fly zone, tying in the Saudis and Jordanians, coordinating intelligence better internationally.

"There’s so many things we need to do and, frankly, we’re behind the curve,” Kasich said.

Bush, Kasich, Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham were among those who spoke fluently on foreign affairs on the Sunday shows.

In other words, Republican foreign policy now consists solely of how quickly each candidate wants to get us back into a Middle Eastern invasion.  It's 2003 all over again, and the supposed "moderates" like Kasich are calling for heavily military intervention in Syria.  Suddenly, Ben Carson and Donald Trump's ignorance on global affairs might actually matter to GOP voters.

But it's just another reminder than in many ways, the Republican alternatives to Trump and Carson are even more dangerous to have in power.