Last Call For In Like Flint

Flint, Michigan's water crisis is a dangerous and immediate problem, but it's a symptom of a much larger issue of urban structural racism in America that affects all aspects of communities with large populations of black and Hispanic residents.  It's as much economic racism as it is environmental and social.

“It costs money to move,” said Sandra Ballard, a 62-year-old retiree who lives on the impoverished north side of Flint. Shesaid she struggled to pay her $350 a month rent for a three-bedroom apartment with a patched ceiling. “You’ve got to put first and last month’s rent down. Believe me, I wish I could get out of here.” 

People in poor and crime-ridden pockets of cities like Detroit and Baltimore often share the sense of being trapped because of market forces and limited resources. But the people of Flint have a special urgency about leaving. 

Because of the health crisis stemming from their tainted water, they spend their days dealing with the consequences. 

They use bottled water for drinking, washing their hands and preparing food. In between, they shuttle children to pediatricians for blood tests, lug bottled water home from firehouses and install and change water filters on their home faucets. (Even so, city and state officials warned Friday that lead levels were still so high in some homes that the filters might not be strong enough to be effective.) 

Yet many people here have no alternative but to stay. 

“I couldn’t rent out my house now if I wanted to,” said Joyce Cruz, 35, a homeowner and the mother of five. “Who would want to move to Flint?”

Republican misrule in Michigan and in dozens of other states makes that increasingly clear.  Even if there wasn't mass incarceration of black and brown individuals and a two-tiered public education system that's designed to close the poorest schools, now we're seeing black and brown communities being denied basic services and human rights.

I don't want to make light of the brutal situation in the West Bank or Gaza, or of the completely indecent and utterly inhumane conditions that Palestinians are forced to live in, but you look at cities like Flint and you wonder if America isn't going down a smilar path yet again in its dark history of internment and apartheid.

And in many ways we never left that path.

Mosque Of The Red Derp, Con't

The call that President Obama visiting an Islamic center in Baltimore would cause Islamophobic outrage among the GOP frontrunners was about as close to guaranteed as you can get.

Trump was asked to share his thoughts on the Obama's mosque visit -- his first as president -- during an interview with Fox News's Greta Van Susteren. 

"I don't have much thought, I think that we can go to lots of places. Right now, I don't know if he's -- maybe he feels comfortable there," Trump said. "We have a lot of problems in this country, Greta, there are a lot of places he can go, and he chose a mosque. I saw that just a little while ago, and so that's his decision, that's fine."

This isn't the first time Trump has seemed to question the president's religion. Years ago, Trump joined some fellow Republicans in questioning if Obama was truly born in the United States. At a town hall in New Hampshire in September, a man in the audience said Muslims are a problem facing the country and "our current president is one" -- a comment that prompted Trump to laugh. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in December, Trump questioned why Obama doesn't use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" and commented: "There's something going on with him that we don't know about." At a rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Trump described Obama climbing into Air Force One to celebrate Christmas "or whatever he celebrates" in Hawaii.

Trump has long been a birther and proponent of the "secret Muslim" theory, while Marco Rubio of course called the visit "divisive".

Rubio's reaction to Obama's mosque visit came during a town hall meeting at a pub in Dover, N.H., on Wednesday evening. Rubio accused Obama of pitting Americans against one another “along ethnic lines and racial lines and economic lines and religious lines.” His comments were part of a meandering response to a question about what his management style would be like as president. 

“I’m tired of being divided against each other for political reasons like this president’s done," Rubio said. "Always pitting people against each other. Always.” 

“Look at today – he gave a speech at a mosque,” Rubio continued. “Oh, you know, basically implying that America is discriminating against Muslims. Of course there’s going to be discrimination in America of every kind. But the bigger issue is radical Islam. And by the way, radical Islam poses a threat to Muslims themselves.” 

“But again, it’s this constant pitting people against each other -- that I can’t stand that. It’s hurting our country badly," Rubio said. "We can disagree on things, right? I’m a Dolphin fan, you’re a Patriot fan."

Rubio's response is essentially "All lives matter!" plus some garbage about his religion being football or something.

And remember, these are supposedly the people the pundits think have the best shot at being the GOP nominee right now.  Neither one thinks there's a place in America for those who practice Islam.

What's The Matter With Kansas, Con't

I am really, really hoping that the lesson Democrats get from the Obama years is "Not voting in midterm elections and letting Republicans get complete control of a majority of state governments is a bad idea."  You keep getting states like Kansas.

Kansas Republicans are pushing for a bill that would allow teachers to face criminal prosecution if they teach students material they consider harmful, the Wichita Eagle reports.

The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R), stems from a controversy over a poster in the Shawnee Mission public school district in which a poster reading, “How do people express their sexual feelings?” The poster listed “oral sex” and other acts, the Eagle reports.

The bill was brought up for consideration at a committee meeting Tuesday.

Pitcher-Cook said “state laws should protect parents’ rights to safeguard our children against harmful materials, especially in schools.”

As of now, teachers are protected from misdemeanor charges associated with giving children sexual content, if the content is part of a lesson. If the bill passes, teachers could be charged and spend up to six months in jail, along with a fine.

Tom Witt spoke out against the bill on behalf of his husband, who is a teacher, and said it would be used to intimidate teachers and create fear. He submitted a list of books from the American Library Association which are the most banned, including Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

“Here’s what my husband wants to know: Which of the books on the list are going to send him to jail?” he demanded. “That’s all we need to know.”

At this point Republicans in 2016 want to criminalize being Muslim, being LGBTQ, being Latino, being black, being a voting Democrat, and now being a sex-ed teacher. These people are crazy, dangerous lunatics.

But you know what they do that liberals, progressives, and Democrats refuse to do?

Vote.

StupidiNews!

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he will leave asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and face arrest by British police if he loses tomorrow's appeal at a UN panel.
• Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum joins Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in dropping out of the 2016 GOP nomination race this week for president.
• President Obama will propose a 1.6% pay raise for federal employees as part of his fiscal 2017 budget proposal expected on Tuesday.
• Massive hyperinflation in 2015 kept Venezuela on top of the list of the world's economic misery index, with the US coming in as 13th happiest economy.
• The FDA is recommending approval for further testing of mitochondrial replacement for preventing genetic diseases in newborns, a procedure now available in Britain.

Last Call For Treason Season

The dangerous Republican Islamophobic rhetoric continues apace, as they say.

A Republican state representative in New Hampshire on Wednesday submitted testimony to a state House committee hearing arguing that giving public assistance to Muslims amounts to treason.

State Rep. Ken Weyler submitted the testimony for a hearing on a bill he co-sponsored that would prohibit "any member of a foreign terrorist organization from receiving public assistance, medical assistance, or food stamps."

But Weyler's testimony went way farther than the bill purports to go.

"Giving public benefits to any person or family that practices Islam is aiding and abetting the enemy. That is treason," Weyler wrote in his testimony, according to a copy of the testimony submitted by Weyler and provided to TPM by the state House Democrats' office.

Weyler is one of 400 members in the expansive state House.

In his written testimony, Weyler said that all "terrorist attacks of the last twenty years have been by Muslim fanatics" and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers. He said the Boston Marathon bombers were "raised on public benefits."

"Then one of them married and put his wife on public benefits. If he had to support his family, he might have had more devotion to his job and not to bomb building and radicalizing his brother," Weyler continued in his testimony.

The lawmaker acknowledged that there are "Muslims in our community who are working hard to be economically successful."

"I do not believe that they represent a threat, but if one does not have to be responsible for what all the rest of us do to support ourselves, then ‘The Devil has work for idle hands," he added.

Weyler then launched into an argument that all Muslims are responsible for terrorism, charging that Islam is not a real religion.

"You may hear from some opposition to this bill, but I must remind you that in the Muslim religion the word ‘taqiyya’ describes how its adherents are expected to lie to non-believers to advance their cause," he said. "I say cause rather than religion because this is an ideology posing as a religion. Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘sharia’ law."

"Anyone who attends a mosque is expected to contribute. Ten percent of the contributions are labeled ‘zakat’ and are used to fund ‘jihad’ or religious war against us," Weyler continued in his written testimony.

Not much of a jump here from "All Muslims are traitors" to "we should probably round them all up for our own protection".  America's done it before.  We're maybe one election away from it happening again.

Exit The Randman

After finishing a disappointing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses, Rand Paul is out of the Clown Car.

Rand Paul, the libertarian-minded freshman senator who was once viewed as a formidable presidential contender, is suspending his White House bid. 

Paul discussed the matter with staff Wednesday morning and sent out a statement confirming the decision to drop out of the Republican presidential primary. 

"It's been an incredible honor to run a principled campaign for the White House," Paul said in the statement. "Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of Liberty." 

Paul, a Kentucky Republican, is expected to instead place his focus squarely on his Senate reelection bid, where he faces a wealthy Democrat, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, who has the money to partially finance his campaign. 

Paul finished a disappointing fifth place in Monday's Iowa caucuses, registering just 4.5% of the vote despite placing a heavy emphasis on the state's college towns to bring out younger voters inspired by his libertarian-minded message. He promised that night to continue his campaign.

Paul will not make an endorsement in the GOP presidential race before next week's New Hampshire primary, his spokesman Sergio Gor told CNN. 

But sources close to Paul said a morning-after review made clear to Paul that there was not a viable path to winning the Republican nomination and that fund-raising was becoming extremely difficult.

Well, that's because despite Rand Paul's goofy-ass brand of Glibertarian Nonsense, he has all the charisma of a urinal cake.  Besides, all the dudebros ended up with Bernie, so.

Ironically, Sanders served a damn useful purpose helping to get rid of Rand.

Water Under The Bridge

Looks like the FBI is finally getting involved in Flint's water crisis as the Obama administration is bringing major resources to bear, investigating Michigan officials to see if federal laws were broken.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it was joining a criminal investigation of lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, exploring whether laws were broken in a crisis that has captured international attention.

Federal prosecutors in Michigan were working with an investigative team that included the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General and the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit said.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was determining whether federal laws were broken, but declined further comment.

Of course, a largely Republican-controlled Congress over the last several decades has made sure that criminal charges for environmental disasters are very, very tough to bring.

The ability to seek criminal charges under U.S. environmental laws is limited, according to Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former federal prosecutor. Prosecutors would need to find something egregious like a knowingly false statement.

“You need something that is false to build a case,” he said.Simply failing to recognize the seriousness of the situation would not rise to that level, Henning added.

Actually poisoning the water through gross negligence or incompetence apparently isn't a criminal act when it affects tens of thousands, but lying about it or trying to cover it up is another story.  We'll see what the Feds can find in Flint.

StupidiNews!

• An explosion blew a hole in the side of a passenger jet over Somalia Tuesday, the jet landed safely but authorities believe at least one person fell through the hole and died.
• Residents of Ferguson, Missouri packed a town hall meeting to discuss the Justice Department's police reform plan in the wake of the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown.
• The first Zika virus case has been confirmed in Texas by the CDC, likely transmitted through sexual contact after a mosquito bite.
• A new study finds around 13 million Americans have hidden a bank or credit-card account from their live-in partner, with younger Americans the most likely to do so.
• Higher-density cities offer greater upward mobility for children than larger, sprawling cities according to a new Brookings Institution report.

From Dubuque To Davenport

Nate Cohn makes some very good points about Bernie's "tie" in Iowa.  He should have won big in a state with an electorate made for his strengths, and he didn't.

He fares best among white voters. The electorate was 91 percent white, per the entrance polls. He does well with less affluent voters. The caucus electorate was far less affluent than the national primary electorate in 2008. He’s heavily dependent on turnout from young voters, and he had months to build a robust field operation. As the primaries quickly unfold, he won’t have that luxury.

Iowa is not just a white state, but also a relatively liberal one — one of only a few of states where Barack Obama won white voters in the 2008 primary and in both general elections. It is also a caucus state, which tends to attract committed activists.

In the end, Mr. Sanders made good on all of those strengths. He excelled in college towns. He won an astonishing 84 percent of those aged 17 to 29 — even better than Mr. Obama in the 2008 caucus. He won voters making less than $50,000 a year, again outperforming Mr. Obama by a wide margin. He won “very liberal” voters comfortably, 58 to 39 percent.

But these strengths were neatly canceled by Mrs. Clinton’s strengths. She won older voters, more affluent voters, along with “somewhat liberal” and “moderate” Democrats.

This raises a straightforward challenge for Mr. Sanders. He has nearly no chance to do as well among nonwhite voters as Mr. Obama did in 2008. To win, Mr. Sanders will need to secure white voters by at least a modest margin and probably a large one. In the end, Mr. Sanders failed to score a clear win in a state where Mr. Obama easily defeated Mrs. Clinton among white voters.

Mr. Sanders’s strength wasn’t so great as to suggest that he’s positioned to improve upon national polls once the campaign heats up. National polls show him roughly tied with Mrs. Clinton among white voters, and it was the case here as well. It suggests that additional gains for Mr. Sanders in national polls will require him to do better than he did in Iowa, not that the close race in Iowa augurs a close one nationally.

The bottom line is in a 91% white state, Bernie should have won.  Instead he got a split.  When it comes to states like South Carolina and Nevada, he's going to start losing, and losing handily.

On the Republican side, what does a Cruz win, with The Donald finishing second and Rubio a very, very close third?  It means massive pressure on everyone else to drop out and get behind Rubio, but New Hampshire is making that hard.

Whether Mr. Rubio’s showing will be enough to change the race in New Hampshire is hard to say — there isn’t much precedent for a logjam like the one we have in New Hampshire. Four mainstream conservative candidates — John Kasich, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mr. Rubio — have all been clustered near 10 percent of the vote in New Hampshire surveys.

If Mr. Rubio’s performance in Iowa bestows enough media coverage and credibility for him to break the deadlock, it would be a crucial turning point in the race. A strong Rubio showing in New Hampshire could push several mainstream candidates out, freeing up endorsements and fund-raising dollars that have sat on the sidelines. It would also allow him to consolidate the voters who have supported the mainstream candidates.

It would bring about a true three-way race heading into South Carolina.

Rubio's not the establishment lock that people think he is.  He still has to do well in New Hampshire, and if he finishes further back than third, suddenly the picture gets all murky again if he gets edged out by Kasich, Christie or Bush (my money's on Kasich finishing third.)  Should Rubio collapse in Iowa and finish well out of the running, then it becomes Cruz versus Trump and then who knows?

We'll see in a week.

A Grand (Jury) Ol' Time In Kentucky

And in more awesome news for the Kentucky Democratic Party, it looks like the Feds would like to have a little talk with Alison Lundergan Grimes about her campaign finances.

A federal grand jury in Lexington has subpoenaed records of Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and her father Jerry Lundergan in an investigation that relates to the finances of her political campaigns in 2014 and 2015.

David Guarnieri, an attorney for Grimes, confirmed Monday that she received the subpoena last week. He said Grimes is not a target of the inquiry and said she is fully responding to the subpoena.

“Secretary Grimes has received a request from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to provide certain documents from her Senate and Secretary of State campaigns,” Guarnieri and his associate Jaron Blandford said in a statement. “Secretary Grimes intends to cooperate fully with respect to this request.”

Guarnieri and Blandford said, “This information is being requested of her because she was the candidate in those campaigns.”

Lundergan, reached on his cell phone Monday, said, "I have no comment about any of that stuff, OK."

Guthrie True, his attorney, said Monday that a federal grand jury subpoenaed records of Lundergan and two of his companies. “There’s nothing that would indicate that either he or his companies are in any way the subjects of any inquiry. So we’re intending to provide documents in response to the subpoenas in a timely fashion,” True said. “But no one has shared with me the specifics of whatever inquiry is being conducted or who may be the subject of that inquiry.”

Lundergan was deeply involved in his daughter's 2014 campaign against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and used his companies to provide more than $60,000 worth of services to the campaign. After Lundergan was complimented for his daughter's campaign roll-out at a historic home owned by one of his businesses, he said, "That's what daddies do for their little girls."

Kyle Edelen, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lexington, said, "Per Department of Justice Media Policy - I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”

Yeah, well, the feds never convene a grand jury unless they think somebody needs to go to prison, and Jerry Lundergan has been playing fast and loose for 25 years.  You can bet that if Jerry's involved, whatever happened is Good Ol' Boy backroom nonsense that the Feds want to know about.

And election was barely 3 months ago.  If the US Attorney's office is moving this quickly on a grand jury, then this has been cooking for a while now.

We'll see how this goes, but man. Can Grimes be any more of a massive disappointment?

StupidiNews!

• Last night's Iowa Caucuses were close affairs, with Hillary Clinton barely edging out Bernie Sanders for the Democrats and Ted Cruz beating Donald Trump and Marco Rubio for the GOP.
• Republican Mike Huckabee is exiting the race after his poor showing in Iowa, a state he won in 2008, along with Martin O'Malley on the Democratic side.
• The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency over the emergence of the Zika virus in Brazil, where it has been linked to thousands of cases of birth defects.
• Oil giant BP is the latest energy company to announce a massive profit drop from a year ago with crude oil prices at ten-year lows, saying it will also cut 3,000 more jobs in 2017.
• Google parent company Alphabet is now the most valuable company on Earth, surpassing Apple on earnings reports and a market cap of $550 billion.

Last Call For Trolling In The Derp

Adele would really, really like Donald Trump to stop using her music at his campaign rallies, and I can't say I blame her.

Pop star Adele has issued a statement to distance herself from Donald Trump, after he used her music at his rallies. 

The Republican presidential candidate, whose slogan is "Make America great again", has recently been playing Adele's hit Rolling In The Deep as his "warm-up" music. 

"Adele has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning," her spokesman confirmed. 

It is not the first time Trump has been criticised for appropriating pop songs. 

Lawyers for Aerosmith star Steven Tyler sent Trump's campaign a cease-and-desist letter last year, after the politician played the band's hit single Dream On at numerous rallies around the US. 

The letter said Trump's use of the song gave "a false impression" he endorsed Mr Trump's presidential bid. 

Trump responded on Twitter, saying he had the legal right to use the song, but had found "a better one to take its place". 

"Steven Tyler got more publicity on his song request than he's gotten in 10 years. Good for him!" he added.

I know, no publicity like free publicity for a showman like The Donald, but at some point one has to wonder if he's the guy were going to get.  America really does deserve a professional troll for President, frankly.

You know, if it wasn't for the fact he'd burn the country down by 2018.

Groundhog Daze

I'm not sure if Paul Ryan has a sense of humor or not, but House Republicans will take up voting to repeal Obamacare again tomorrow.  You know, February 2.  Groundhog Day.

All eyes will be on the Iowa caucuses on Monday, but Congress is back in session this week for an energy fight in the Senate and yet another vote to repeal the healthcare law.

Groundhog Day references will likely be inevitable when the House votes once again Tuesday, Feb. 2, on legislation to repeal ObamaCare.

The House has voted more than 60 times since Republicans took over the majority in 2011 to undo the healthcare law. Tuesday’s vote, however, will be the first attempt to override President Obama’s veto of a measure to overturn his signature legislative accomplishment.

Consideration of the repeal measure - the first to pass both the House and Senate - is expected to stall after this week’s vote. Republicans are not expected to secure the necessary two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto. And once the veto override attempt fails in the House, the Senate won’t be able to consider it.

So it will fail like the other five dozen times, but that sure hasn't stopped Republican lawmakers from trying.  Oh, and wasting America's time and avoiding doing real work.

But that's the point.

The Bern And The Don

Vox's John Judis argues that the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders shows massive discontent with -- all together now -- both political parties, who are ignoring what Americans want on economic policy.

Sanders and Trump differ dramatically on many issues — from immigration to climate change— but both are critical of how wealthy donors and lobbyists dominate the political process, and both favor some form of campaign finance reform. Both decry corporations moving overseas for cheap wages and to avoid American taxes. Both reject trade treaties that favor multinational corporations over workers. And both want government more, rather than less, involved in the economy.

Sanders is a left-wing populist. He wants to defend the "collapsing middle class" against the "billionaire class" that controls the economy and politics. He is not a liberal who wants to reconcile Wall Street and Main Street, or a socialist who wants the working class to abolish capitalism.

Trump is a right-wing populist who wants to defend the American people from rapacious CEOs and from Hispanic illegal immigrants. He is not a conventional business conservative who thinks government is the problem and who blames America’s ills on unions and Social Security.

Both men are foes of what they describe as their party’s establishment. And both campaigns are also fundamentally about rejecting the way economic policy has been talked about in American presidential politics for decades.

That may be technically true, but Judis spends the rest of his article skating around the obnoxious similarities of Trump voters and Sanders voters.  Yes, there are major economic questions that need to be answer by the next President and real issues of inequality across America.  But the people who are affected the most by inequality in America, people of color and women, aren't being represented by Sanders or Trump, and that's the elephant in the room that Judis won't touch.

We'll see what happens today in Iowa, but I think one of the best things we could do in the future is drop-kick Iowa and New Hampshire from their first-in-the-nation status in politics, when America no longer looks like the voters of either state.

Inexplicably there are a dozen Republicans still left in this mess, and the one thing we do know by next week's New Hampshire primary is that a lot of them are going home after, and it's time to consolidate the fight against Trump and Cruz.  Same with O'Malley, I don't see how he goes on after New Hampshire.

But that still leaves Trump and Sanders, and their voters.

StupidiNews!

• Boko Haram militants attacked a Nigerian village on Sunday, killing 46 people and injuring 35, and burning most of the village to the ground.
• The CDC is expected to announce an end to the E. coli outbreak at Chipotle as soon as today, good news for the now struggling Mexican food chain.
• Two Virginia Tech engineering students have been charged in the kidnapping and murder of a 13-year-old girl, her body found 90 miles away in Surry County, North Carolina.
• After a six-week recess of Brazil's Congress ends Tuesday, President Dilma Rousseff will once again face impeachment as the country's economy struggles. 
• Facebook says it will remove posts involving sales of firearms and stop advertising from firearms makers and sellers in response to President Obama's executive orders last month.