Last Call For Good Enough For The Goose

If Missouri's restrictions on women seeking abortion are a "vital and necessary public safety issue" as Republicans insist, then the same restrictions should apply for purchasing a gun, right?

Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman (D) has a creative idea for tackling the high rates of gun violence in her state: regulate gun purchases as tightly as abortion services. 

According to St. Louis Magazine, Newman pre-filed a bill this week that would make it just as difficult to buy a deadly weapon in Missouri as it currently it to get an abortion — including imposing a 72-hour waiting period for prospective gun buyers and requiring them to receive information about alternative to guns, like “peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution.” 

Missouri, which is home to just one clinic that performs abortions, has some of the harshest restrictions on the procedure in the country. Patients must wait three full days before they’re allowed to end a pregnancy and make two separate trips to the state’s lone clinic. 

“It is logical we borrow similar restrictions to lower our horrific gun violence rates,” Newman said in a statement. “If we truly insist that Missouri cares about ‘all life’, then we must take immediate steps to address our major cities rising rates of gun violence.”

This is utterly brilliant, and of course it has no chance of passage, but it quite cleanly illustrates the rank hypocrisy of Republicans when it comes to "choosing life" and the massive stupidity of treating women like they need to have their little stupid minds changed by the state to dissuade them from exercising their constitutional right.

Under Newman’s proposed legislation, prospective gun buyers would be required to jump through multiple hoops before legally obtaining a firearm. 

At least 72 hours before attempting to buy a gun, they would be required to meet with a licensed physician to discuss the risks of gun ownership. After the three day waiting period, they would need to locate a licensed firearm dealer located at least 120 miles from their home, which is the average distance that women currently must travel to get an abortion. 

Before the sale, the buyer would also be required to complete several educational requirements. Newman’s bill stipulates that they must tour an emergency trauma center treating victims of gun violence, meet with at least two families affected by gun violence, and talk to two local faith leaders who have performed funerals for children who have been killed by guns. Then, before walking out of the store with their gun, they would need to watch a 30-minute video in the presence of the firearm dealer that details fatal gun injuries and review information about alternatives to purchasing a firearm.

 I'd love to see a national version of this bill introduced, again, just to make a point, but of course even Democrats fear the NRA more than they fear voters.

Fear And Loathing In Trump Vegas

The Donald notes he gets YOOOOOOOGE poll numbers after terrible things happen, because he's your go-to guy if you need to piss yourself in fear, America!

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday suggested his popularity increases after tragedies, pointing to his rise in polls after last month's Paris terrorist attacks.

Trump made the comment while pushing back on a GOP memo that scrutinizes his White House candidacy and defending his support for certain demographics, such as women, according to CNN. 

"I'm gonna get people jobs and I'm going to protect people. And that's why whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country, we have weak, sad politicians," the billionaire businessman told the network. 

Trump stood at 24.8 percent support in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls on Nov. 13, the day of the deadly attacks in Paris.

He ticked upward in the weeks following the attacks, reaching 27.8 percent support on Nov. 28. 

His comment follows a similar point made by a Twitter supporter, which the celebrity real estate tycoon shared earlier Thursday, that states: "His poll numbers jump every time instances like this occur."

Indeed, the latest CNN poll shows Trump way ahead now at 36% to Ted Cruz's 16%, as Dr. Ben Carson has dropped to 14% along with Rubio.   It's looking more and more like the party of abject fear and loathing wants a master debater like Trump to run things, and they might end up nominating him.

Or maybe they'll destroy him instead.

Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man's past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records. 

Portions of Trump's relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organization as early as 2003. Sater's criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater's criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater. 

But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump's own office in New York's Trump Tower, The Associated Press learned through interviews and court records.

Trump said during an AP interview on Wednesday that he recalled only bare details of Sater. 

"Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump said, referring questions about Sater to his staff. "I'm not that familiar with him." 

According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Sater's role was to prospect for high-end real estate deals for the Trump Organization. The arrangement lasted six months, Garten said.

Which is a big deal because that puts Trump in bed with the mob, and the mob in bed with the Russians.  Which we've known about since 2007, raising questions about if this is the best oppo research that the GOP has on the guy.

I'm not saying he can't win, we know any Republican will get 45% of the vote minimum, even Trump.

But maybe he won't get much more than that.

Jobapalooza: Rate My Economy Edition

Another great jobs report this month, because it's nice to be reminded that under our current "terrible worst president ever" that we've had five and a half straight years of job growth.

Employers added more jobs than forecast in November, underscoring Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s confidence that the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs. 

The 211,000 increase in payrolls followed a 298,000 gain in October that was bigger than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median forecast called for a 200,000 advance. The jobless rate held at a more than seven-year low of 5 percent. 

A healthy rate of hiring has raised the odds that Fed officials will raise interest rates this month for the first time since 2006. The pace of future increases is contingent on progress toward the central bank’s inflation goal and probably depends on how quickly wage pressures mount as the job market tightens.

“It was a broad-based gain across all sectors, and that’s absolutely essential,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose forecast for payrolls was among the closest. The jobs report “is a bright green signal for the Fed to go ahead and move in December,” and indicates future rate increases should proceed at a “moderate pace.” 

Employee pay increased at a steady pace last month. Average hourly earnings at private employers rose 0.2 percent in November after a 0.4 percent gain. Year-over-year hourly pay rose 2.3 percent after a 2.5 percent gain a month earlier.

Unemployment down, wages up, and it looks like the Fed is finally going to start getting us out of zero percent interest rates.  How much of a rate hike in December, we don't know, but the US economy is now sailing along.

That does mean however that as the Fed slows down the economy a bit, that it could have effects on the 2016 election. Whether or not raising interest rates will be enough cover if job numbers go negative, well that's up to Janet Yellen and crew, right?

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• As expected, Senate Republicans used budget reconciliation to get the 51 votes needed to defund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, but the bill is expected to be vetoed.
• Los Angeles County will not prosecute a California Highway Patrol officer seen on video beating a 51-year-ol black woman, calling the violence "legal and necessarily".
• Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the Pentagon will open all military combat roles to women who can qualify for the physical training standards.
• Restaurant industry groups have immediately sued New York City over new sodium warning guidelines for large fast food chains, calling the measure "arbitrary and capricious".
• Several New Jersey cities are demanding an investigation into Verizon, saying the company has neglected to maintain copper landlines in areas where there isn't fiber optic infrastructure.

Last Call For The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver Express

Just in case the "both parties are the same" folks are still reading ZVTS, here's House Speaker Crossfit Brad Paul Ryan to let us know exactly what a GOP Congress and president will bring us in 2017.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that Republicans next year will unveil a plan to replace Obamacare in its entirety, as part of a "pro-growth" agenda that he believes should also include cutting welfare programs and taxes. 

Ryan said even if President Barack Obama will not sign them into law in his last year in office, the Republican majority in Congress must produce proposals to demonstrate "what our ideal policy would be looking forward to 2017 and beyond." 

"Put together a positive agenda and take it to the American people," he urged members of his party. The most urgently needed action, Ryan said, was to replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. 

"Next year, we are going to unveil a plan to replace every word of Obamacare," Ryan said in a speech at the Library of Congress, which his office billed as his first major address as speaker, a job he has held for a little over a month.

Yeah, no difference between the parties, we'll only kick 25 million or so people off health insurance and cut taxes for the wealthy again, because I'm sure with all that extra money they'll invest in raising worker wages, right?

And when like Kansas is showing us, when massive tax cuts fail to magically produce more revenues and we get back to racking up trillion dollar deficits...oh wait, we'll just have to cut trillions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and that will create "growth".

In graveyards.

You think America is bad now, wait until the real austerity starts under a GOP federal government.

What It Will Take To Win

Playing with 538.com's Swing-O-Matic electoral college calculator is actually very cool, but also pretty sobering.  It doesn't take much of a shift among non-college educated white voters for Republicans to win 2016 walking away.

In 2012 they voted 62% Republican, with a turnout of 57%, and Romney lost 332-206 in the electoral college.  College-educated whites voted for Romney 56% with a turnout of 77%.

If college-educated white voters shifted to the Republicans from 56% to 62% Republican, where non-college educated white voters where in 2012, you're looking at a GOP president.  Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia would flip red and Republicans would win 276-262.

If non-college educated whites go from 62% to 67% GOP, Dems also lose.  In that case, Colorado, Wisconsin flip instead of Virginia and they'd win by an even larger margin, 282-256.

Should both happen, it's an absolute wipeout.  Dems would lose those states plus Pennsylvania, Maine, Nevada, and even Oregon and Minnesota.  It would be a 358-180 wipeout.

Black voters would have to turn out at 92% level and vote at Obama's 93% in order to eke out a 270-268 electoral win for the Dems in that case.

On the other hand, should Democrats pick up even slightly more of the white vote, it becomes total carnage for the GOP.  If non-college white voters were split 50-50, Dems would roll to a 404-134 win, and would even win states like South Carolina, Missouri, and Georgia.

So it can go either way, but it doesn't take much.

The Daily Grind

Lost in the noise of OMG MUSLIM TERROISM is the fact the New York Times finds that on average, there's been a mass shooting of four or more people in America every day in 2015.

Including the worst mass shooting of the year, which unfolded horrifically on Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif., a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year, many of which occurred on streets or in public settings, the databases indicate. 

It is impossible to know whether the number of such shootings has risen in recent years because the databases go back only a couple of years. More data is available for mass shootings calculated by a different standard, one used by congressional researchers and other experts who study mass killings: four or more dead. But experts fiercely debate whether mass shootings by that more deadly standard have remained level or ticked up slightly in recent years. 

Nonetheless, the stream of shootings this year — including an attack last week on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado that left three dead and a shooting in October at a community college in Oregon that left 10 dead, including the gunman — has intensified the debate over the accessibility of powerful firearms. 

Two databases that track mass shootings that leave four or more dead or wounded — shootingtracker.com and gunviolencearchive.org — depend on news accounts and are not official. Nonetheless, they give an indication of the widespread nature of such episodes. Since January, there have been at least 354 such cases in about 220 cities in 47 states, according to shootingtracker.com. 

In November, six people were killed, five of them shot to death at a campsite in East Texas; 17 were wounded in a shootout as a crowd watched the filming of a music video in New Orleans; and four died, including twin 5-month-olds, in an episode of domestic violence in Jacksonville, Fla. So far this week, five people were wounded Sunday morning in a shooting in Kankakee, Ill., and a shooting Wednesday, before the San Bernardino attack, left one woman dead and three men wounded in Savannah, Ga.

This is the cost to water the Tree of Liberty, they tell us. Four or five people killed in a mass shooting, and about 95 per day per year total.

StupidiNews!

• San Bernardino police say 14 are dead, 17 more injured as two suspects went on a rampage at a holiday party for state employees and were later killed by police.
• Florida's Supreme Court has signed off on new congressional districts ahead of the 2016 election after the court found existing districts to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
• South African paralympian Oscar Pistorious has been convicted of murder by South Africa's highest court, he was originally convicted of culpable homicide and now faces at least 15 years.
• British warplanes attacked ISIS targets within hours of a British parliament vote authorizing military force against Islamic State targets in Syria yesterday.
• NOAA weather forecasters say this year's El Niño in the Pacific is still gaining strength and could cause record winter warmth across the US.

Last Call For I Left My Sorrow In San Bernardino

Another day in America, another mass shooting.

A man and a woman suspected of taking part in a shooting attack that killed 14 people and wounded 17 at a California social services agency on Wednesday died in a shootout with police hours later, authorities said.

One police officer was injured in the gunfight with the two suspects, who were confronted in their getaway vehicle after fleeing the scene of the shooting in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.

Authorities also detained an individual seen running away from the vehicle, but investigators were not immediately sure that person was involved in the case, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said at a news conference. 

The chief added he knew of no possible motive for the shooting spree, which unfolded at 11 a.m. on the campus of the Inland Regional Center, an agency that serves the developmentally disabled.

The shooting rampage marked the deadliest U.S. gun violence since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, in which 27 people, including the gunman, were killed.

I'd say what I usually do, that I'm numb with despair, but numbness and despair is how these shootings keep happening because our chickenshit Congress refuses to do anything about mass shootings and as voters we refuse to vote whose who do nothing out of office.

So really, these are our fault, America, because we refuse to do anything about it.

Post-Racial America Update

So it turns out that even Southern state cops have their limits when it comes to racism, and that the systematic planting of evidence by cops on black men in Dothan, Alabama for the last couple of decades has finally become too much to bear.

Members of a narcotics investigation squad for the police department in Dothan, Alabama planted drugs and weapons on young black men since the mid-1990s with the approval of their superiors — one of whom is currently the state’s Assistant Director of Homeland Security.

According to the Henry County Report, Andy Hughes was a sergeant in the department while overseeing the unit. But he was also a leader in a neo-Confederate group comprised by squad members, along fellow supervisor Steve Parrish. Parrish, at the time a lieutenant, is currently the city’s police chief.

Documents obtained by the Alabama Justice Project indicate that Parrish and Hughes are frequently mentioned in an internal affairs investigation. However, then-Police Chief John White and District Attorney Doug Valeska did not notify federal or state officials regarding the probe, as is required by department policy.

What we basically have here is white supremacists running the Dothan PD, planting evidence on black men to send them to prison, and getting promoted for it.  One is now chief of the Dothan PD, the other is now the state's Assistant Director of Homeland Security.  Internal affairs investigations were flat out covered up.  The full story linked above is devastating as several officers have agreed to come forward to support a federal investigation.

The documents shared reveal that the internal affairs investigation was covered up to protect the aforementioned officers’ law enforcement careers and keep them from being criminally prosecuted.

Several long term Dothan law enforcement officers, all part of an original group that initiated the investigation, believe the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade. Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison. Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement. They hope the mood of the country is one that demands action and that the US Department of Justice will intervene.

The group of officers requested they be granted anonymity, and shared hundreds of files from the Internal Affairs Division. They reveal a pattern of criminal behavior from within the highest levels of the Dothan Police Department and the district attorney’s office in the 20th Judicial District of Alabama. Multiple current and former officers have agreed to testify if United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch appoints a special prosecutor from outside the state of Alabama, or before a Congressional hearing. The officers believe that there are currently nearly a thousand wrongful convictions resulting in felonies from the 20th Judicial District that are tied to planted drugs and weapons and question whether a system that allows this can be allowed to continue to operate.

Members of the Henry County Report have spent weeks analyzing the documents. The originals, secured at an N.G.O. in Canada, are being shared directly with attorneys in the U.S. Dept. of Justice Civil Rights Division, and are being made available to the lawyers of those falsely convicted that seek to clear their names.

And you are nuts if you think this is the only police department where this is going on.  Loretta Lynch and the DoJ need to be all over this.  A thousand wrongful convictions just in one Alabama city? What about the rest of the country?

It's insanity, and it proves once again that systematic racism is alive and well in America and has been for a very, very long time.

Full Cover Your Ass Mode

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is terrified in the wake of the deaths of Laquan McDonald and Tyshawn Lee, and he's trying to barricade himself in City Hall to hold out against the calls for his resignation by offering up anyone he can get his hands on.  First to go under the bus: Chicago's top cop.

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has been fired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, sources said Tuesday. 

McCarthy was called into City Hall on Monday and when he left City Hall he still had a job. But overnight, the mayor called McCarthy to tell him he was out. 

Headlines from the Laquan McDonald controversy, as well those following the gang execution of Tyshawn Lee, had become too much, according to sources. 

McCarthy appeared “shell-shocked” by the news, sources said. 

But Chicago Police superintendents are like baseball managers and football coaches. They’re hired to be fired. Failure and crises are literally built into the job. When it comes, a head needs to roll. The sacrificial lamb inevitably is the man on top—even though he’s not responsible for the number of wins and losses. 

McCarthy is no different. He’s a fighter who firmly believed he had earned to right to decide when the timing was right to retire from the pressure-cooker job after surviving a serious heart attack more than a year ago. 

But, Emanuel didn’t give him that chance. Although Emanuel is fiercely loyal to his staff and hates the idea of creating political scapegoats, of serving up heads on platters, the pressure to get rid of McCarthy was coming from all sides. Ultimately, it became too intense for Emanuel to resist. 

The final straw appeared to be a front-page editorial in Tuesday’s Chicago Sun-Times. That followed the Washington Post and nearly every black elected official in the Chicago area.

Expect more heads to roll.  Expect none of them to be Rahm's.

StupidiNews!

• Both Britain and Germany are expected to approve measures authorizing additional airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria in the wake of last month's attacks in Paris.
• A bipartisan bill in the US Senate would require fingerprints and photographs of visitors from nations that the US allows to waive visas.
• Moscow is warning that NATO expansion to Eastern European countries like Montenegro will result in "retaliatory measures" from Russia.
• The Supreme Court has rejected Texas's request to delay a case involving the President's immigration deferment program until after the 2016 election.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan say they will donate 99% of Facebook shares "during their lives" to charity.

Last Call For Syria-s Hardball In Texas

Texas is not only refusing to back down from the ridiculously unconstitutional notion that it can deny settlement of Syrian refugees in the state, it's now threatening non-profit refugee organizations with lawsuits if they go ahead with any existing plans to settle Syrian refugees in Texas.

Texas officials are escalating their opposition to Syrian refugees with a new message aimed specifically at resettlement groups that have indicated they will accept people fleeing the war-torn country: change your mind or risk getting sued by the state.

Texas health commissioner Chris Traylor issued the first lawsuit threat over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in a letter to the Dallas branch of the International Rescue Committee, which said earlier this month that it supports accepting Syrian refugees.

"We have been unable to achieve cooperation with your agency," Traylor wrote in the letter, which was released to the Houston Chronicle late Sunday, adding that, "Failure by your organization to cooperate with the State of Texas as required by federal law may result in the termination of your contract with the state and other legal action."

It's ridiculous and unconstitutional to the point of laughability.  If states could arbitrarily decide that it can exclude people of a certain ethnic status from living in the state and that they can sue organizations that help people settle there, then who knows where that will end.

Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, a faith-based organization that has ties to refugee groups and has expressed concern about Abbott's position, decried the letter in an interview with the Chronicle.

"This letter should raise serious concerns for refugees currently receiving assistance in Texas, and also for legislators - who should be asking what fiscal impact the Texas Health and Human Services Commission could be bringing down on the state through its increasingly contentious communications," Moorhead said. "The health commission interacts collegially and effectively every day with multiple federal agencies, so it's astonishing to see these kinds of communications coming from the agency."

Legal experts largely have agreed that states cannot unilaterally block refugees from a specific country because federal law takes precedence over state law on immigration matters. The experts say the federal government can simply work directly with local resettlement groups to place Syrians with them.

Abbott, a constitutional lawyer and former Texas State Supreme Court justice, has insisted he has the authority, citing a provision in federal law that requires refugee resettlement groups to "cooperate" with state officials.

The letter marks another escalation in a political battle just days after federal officials formally told refugee resettlement groups in Texas and elsewhere that President Barack Obama's administration does not believe that governors can block refugees.

Gov. Abbott it seems won't take no for an answer.

Poor People Don't Vote

Ezra Klein crunches the numbers over at Vox and comes up with a chart that shows the more money you make, the more likely you are to vote.



That's it.  That's the whole ball game right there.  The poorest Americans don't vote.  The wealthiest Americans do, at a more than 2 to 1 margin.

If Americans making less than $50,000 a year voted at the same rate that Americans making over $150,000 a year do, Republicans would be out of business.

But they don't, so right now a majority of states are controlled by the GOP completely, and they have partial control over another dozen and change.

Poor people don't vote.  Hence, Voter ID laws.  This was a problem before, in 2016 it could cost us everything.

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Mitch The Turtle is pressing on with his plan to try to repeal Obamacare for the billionth time because the Senate apparently has nothing better to work on.

Senate Republicans will meet Monday evening to discuss plans to pass an ObamaCare repeal package later this week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is convening the meeting to walk through the special budgetary process known as reconciliation, which will allow Republicans to pass the package with a simple-majority vote.Controversial legislation usually must overcome a 60-vote threshold.

But McConnell may not even have 51 votes because several GOP moderates don’t like an added provision defunding Planned Parenthood — and several conservatives think the core bill doesn’t go far enough to repeal ObamaCare.

“We’re regrouping with the expectation that we're moving this week on it,” said a Senate GOP aide, who described the meeting as, “a final get-together to find out where we are so we can move with ObamaCare repeal.”

If all goes well at the special meeting, scheduled after a 5:30 p.m. vote, the Senate is likely to vote Wednesday on a motion to proceed to the package.

That vote would be followed by 20 hours of debate and then a succession of votes on amendments and final passage — a so-called vote-a-rama —on Thursday.

And it'll get vetoed...if it even passes, which it very well may not.  Over in the House, where a government shutdown looms in less than two weeks, who knows what will be added to must-pass budget legislation...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday predicted that a fierce fight over Planned Parenthood funding would not lead to a government shutdown next month.

For months, conservatives in his conference have been threatening to attach language to an omnibus funding bill that would defund the healthcare provider, a move sure to lead to a confrontation with President Obama and Democrats.But McCarthy suggested that Congress’s focus has shifted from Planned Parenthood to national security in the wake of the deadly Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris.

“I do not hear people shutting the government down over it right now,” McCarthy told reporters when asked about efforts to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. “I think security is becoming the top issue, especially [in] the last two weeks.”

McCarthy, who controls the floor schedule, said he expects the House to pass the omnibus spending bill by Dec. 11, when money for the federal government is scheduled to run out. But he also noted that Congress is supposed to be in session through Dec. 18, giving lawmakers an extra week to pass a spending bill before leaving town for the holidays.

While he tamped down talk of a shutdown, McCarthy said there would be no shortage of votes on policy amendments to the spending bill, though he declined to identify what those riders might be.

“For someone to say there’s not going to be riders ... how do you write a bill that’s not a continuing resolution that doesn’t have riders?” McCarthy asked. “I think that is just political banter that the minority party wants to play.

So get ready, folks.  The odds of a "clean" bill are nil and odds of a shutdown remain pretty high.  Remember, it took John Boehner resigning in failure from Congress to buy just a couple of months.