Superb Owl Time

Open thread for folks while we're waiting for the "Big Game" tonight.

Growing up in North Carolina and having been a Panthers fan since the franchise's start, this is a really big day for me.  We were close in 2004, with that game being one of the all-time greats, only a last-second figgy won it for Brady's boys. We were heavy underdogs that day.  Not so this time.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Sunday Long Read: Abate Is Enough

At the intersection of police brutality, a corrupt justice system, institutionalized racism and government seizure is the NYPD's practice of using nuisance abatement ordinances to evict people, and the vast, overwhelming majority of the victims are people of color.

The nuisance abatement law was created in the 1970’s to combat the sex industry in Times Square. Since then, its use has been vastly expanded, commonly targeting apartments and mom-and-pop bodegas even as the city’s crime rate has reached historic lows. The NYPD files upward of 1,000 such cases a year, nearly half of them against residences.

The process has remarkably few protections for people facing the loss of their homes. 

Three-quarters of the cases begin with secret court orders that lock residents out until the case is resolved. The police need a judge’s signoff, but residents aren’t notified and thus have no chance to tell their side of the story until they’ve already been locked out for days. And because these are civil actions, residents also have no right to an attorney. 

Perhaps most fundamentally, residents can be permanently barred from their homes without being convicted or even charged with a crime. 

A man was prohibited from living in his family home and separated from his young daughter over gambling allegations that were dismissed in criminal court. A diabetic man said he was forced to sleep on subways and stoops for a month after being served with a nuisance abatement action over low-level drug charges that also never led to a conviction. Meanwhile, his elderly mother was left with no one to care for her. 

In partnership with ProPublica, the Daily News reviewed 516 residential nuisance abatement actions filed in the Supreme Courts from Jan. 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014. Our analysis also reviewed the outcomes of the underlying criminal cases against hundreds of people who were banned from homes as a result of these actions. 

• 173 of the people who gave up their leases or were banned from homes were not convicted of a crime, including 44 people who appear to have faced no criminal prosecution whatsoever.
• Overall, tenants and homeowners lost or had already left homes in three-quarters of the 337 cases for which the Daily News and ProPublica were able to determine the outcome. The other cases were either withdrawn without explanation, were missing settlements, or are still active.
• In at least 74 cases, residents agreed to warrantless searches of their homes, sometimes in perpetuity, as one of the conditions of being allowed back in. Others agreed to automatically forfeit their leases if they were merely accused of wrongdoing in the future.
• The toll of nuisance abatement actions falls almost exclusively on minorities, our analysis showed. Over 18 months, nine of 10 homes subjected to such actions were in minority communities. We identified the race of 215 of the 297 people who were barred from homes in nuisance abatement battles. Only five are white.

Runa Rajagopal of the Bronx Defenders, who leads a division that represents people in the civil courts, called the practice a “collective punishment” on the entire family of those accused of a crime, “used by the NYPD to exert power and control largely over communities of color.” 

The NYPD declined to answer any questions about specific cases.

It's nothing we haven't seen before, but it's overtly egregious even by Gotham cop standards.  Just another example of how even in large blue states, people of color are treated like they are less than human.

And yes, collective punishment is a good description of the practice.

Your move, Mayor de Blasio.

Draft Dodgers

I'm not sure which is more laughable right now, keeping in mind that both are ridiculously unlikely to happen: the GOP drafting Mitt Romney to save them from themselves, or the Dems somehow needing Joe Biden to run because Hillary is doomed or something (and Bernie can't possibly beat Trump.)

Over at Fred Hiatt's House Of Clenis, Colbert King warns of doooooooooooom unless the Dems convince Joe to run.

The Hillary Clinton email issue is developing into a real whodunit, complete with Clintonesque legal semantics. “I never sent or received any material marked classified,” she said with respect to the discovery of classified information on her private, unclassified email server. That surface denial nearly rivals Bill Clinton’s classic: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

But this is no laughing matter.

There is nothing trivial about a secretary of state having top-secret information on an unsecured computer in her home. That appears to have been the case, based on the State Department’s announcement last week that 22 emails, across seven email chains, containing top-secret information were on Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

At issue is whether the information in the emails was classified when it was sent to her unsecured server. It was, after all, the State Department, upon review of the content by intelligence agencies, that upgraded the emails to top-secret and ordered them withheld from the public.

Right, because that's totally different somehow from the part where Colin Powell and Condi Rice both received classified information over their personal email and nobody seemed to give a damn.

Colin Powell and top staffers for Condoleezza Rice received classified information through personal email accounts, according to a new report from State Department investigators.

Hillary Clinton has received severe criticism -- particularly from Republicans and computer security experts -- for using her personal email account while serving as the nation's top diplomat under President Barack Obama. Thursday's revelation about the two secretaries of state under former President George W. Bush gave her supporters an opportunity to claim the Democratic presidential candidate was being singled out over the practice.

No kidding?

Look, Bernie may be a bit of an ass, but he's infinitely preferable to any of the Republican clowns. Anybody at this stage of the game screaming that the Dems should be drafting Biden is outright wanting a Republican president and should be ignored.

The Lies And Reconciliation Commission

Senate Republicans are already talking about using budget reconciliation to put massive austerity cuts on a Republican president's desk in early 2017, including the end of Obamacare.

Several Republicans said they’re discussing the possibility of adopting a budget this year that would let the next president’s agenda -- including top goals like repealing Obamacare -- bypass a Democratic filibuster at the very start of the year. Republicans used a similar move early this year to send a bill repealing much of Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood to President Barack Obama, who vetoed it.

The strategy would allow Republicans who control the House and Senate to put just such a bill on the desk of a new president if their party wins the White House, without having to grind through months of budget process. To succeed, Republicans need the Senate parliamentarian to let them use rules set by a budget resolution into the next Congress.

“It could be pretty powerful if it works,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican. “We haven’t yet concluded one way or the other.”

Such a strategy “might pass muster,” said Bill Hoagland, a vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Republican congressional aide.

Legislation generally expires at the end of a Congress. Yet rules set by a budget resolution remain in force until a new one is adopted, meaning that a resolution enacted by the current Congress may allow a filibuster-free vote early next year on a new Republican president’s economic agenda, Hoagland said. “I think it might be an open question,” he said in an interview.

“What unified us this last year on the budget was the ability to vote to defund Planned Parenthood and Obamacare with 51 votes,” Cornyn said. “So if we find a similar unifying theme then I think that does provide us with an opportunity and that’s what we’re exploring. We haven’t settled on anything yet.”

This Congress would first have to enact a budget resolution, something that is optional because lawmakers and the White House agreed to a two-year deal that raised spending caps last year.

Seems to me that this is a rather pointed reminder of what Republicans will try to do if they maintain control of the Senate and win the White House this November, and what Democrats should remember is at stake here. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and any Republican president would be more than willing to shred everything back to the New Deal and then some, and then appoint Supreme Court justices who would cement everything into law for decades.

We may be bickering over Hillary versus Bernie (well not *here* but in general) but in the end we have to go out and vote.

Toyota Crashes On The Race Track

Yet another shining example of exactly what I mean by "structural racism" in America, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau busts Toyota's auto loan arm for overcharging people of color and rings up the lender for a $22 million settlement.

Toyota's financing arm will pay as much as $21.9 million to black and Asian borrowers who paid more for auto loans than whites, settling allegations of discrimination by federal regulators. 

Toyota Motor Credit Corp. in Torrance had been under investigation by the Department of Justice and the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since 2013. It had been targeted as part of a broad probe into auto lending practices that has led to similar settlements with other major auto credit companies. 

The agencies didn't find that Toyota Motor Credit discriminated directly, but rather that the automaker's dealerships increased interest rates more for black and Asian borrowers than for whites.

Lenders like Toyota Motor Credit offer a base rate for buyers based on their credit-worthiness. Dealerships then are allowed to tack on additional interest -- known as a dealer markup. 

Regulators didn't take issue with the markups themselves, but rather that dealerships added extra interest to loans for black and Asian borrowers.

So dealers would charge black and Asian borrowers more for the same loan, and Toyota looked the other way.

"No consumer should be forced to pay more money for a loan because of their race or national origin,” U.S. Atty. Eileen M. Decker of the Central District of California said in a statement announcing the settlement. 

Investigators found that black borrowers paid 0.27 percentage point more for loans than whites with similar loans and credit histories. Asian borrowers paid 0.18 percentage point more. 

The extra interest meant that black borrowers, on average, paid as much as $200 extra over the course of their loans, while Asian borrowers paid $100 extra. It's not clear how many borrowers were affected, but the size of the settlement implies more than 100,000 borrowers.

One hundred thousand people, mind you.  An extra hundred bucks times a hundred thousand loans is ten million.  And the best news?  This is a widespread practice in the auto loan, mortgage loan, and bank loan industries.

If you're black, or Asian, or Hispanic, companies rip you off and you pay more.  It's accepted practice, and something the CFPB was created to fight.

No wonder then that Republicans want to get rid of the agency, right?

Last Call For Recounting A Story

Given Iowa's first-in-the-nation status in election years, the state's Democratic party is hustling to address any issues of impropriety in this week's caucus results, and that means recounts.

Iowa Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses and making updates where discrepancies have been found.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire the day after Monday's caucuses said no review would be conducted, and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory over Bernie Sanders was final.

But as errors are being discovered, the final tally is being changed, party officials confirmed to the Des Moines Register on Friday.

"Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis," Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau told the Register.

The latest development follows widespread questions among Iowa Democrats and national media about the accuracy of the counts reported on caucus night, which saw the second-highest number of participants and closest result in Democrats' caucus history.

The Register, too, has received numerous reports that the results announced at precincts Monday night don't match what the Iowa Democratic Party has posted on its official results website.

Just one example: Grinnell precinct No. 1.

At least three caucusgoers there (including Dan McCue and Zack Stewart) and the Grinnell College newspaper reported that Sanders won 19 county delegates and Clinton 7, but party officials said the final tally was Sanders 18 and Clinton 8.

“19-7 is right,” Pablo Silva, a Grinnell College professor who was precinct secretary, told the Register Friday. “It is complicated, but the issue comes down to a problem with the math that can be complicated in large precincts. Short version: On Monday night, the IDP felt we had not done it right, and they attempted to correct what they saw as errors. We’ve been in touch since then. They are acknowledging our results, but, as I write, will wait on the arrival of our paperwork.”

Lau confirmed those details.

I don't see this as a massive problem yet, but given how close the Iowa race was on Monday, you'd be forgiven for thinking Team Bernie would make a mountain out of a molehill here.  Yes, there are always going to be a few discrepancies in any election, and that's why official results are always finalized after a few days or weeks at any level.

So far, this is well short of any grand conspiracy level stuff, as everyone involved is cooperating and clearly all parties here benefit from doing so in an open and transparent manner.

Will things change enough to affect the final tally of delegates?  Of course not.

We'll see where the final numbers end up, however.

Voter Suppression Laws Are Working As Intended

We know that the point of Republican Voter ID laws are to suppress the votes of Democrats and that of Hispanic and black voters in particular, but now that these laws have been around for a few years, we have evidence of just how much suppression is happening.

The findings are notable because they're some of the first using data in elections that took place after some states implemented photo ID requirements to vote. Previous studies on the effects of these laws showed mixed results. A 2014 report by the Government Accountability Office examined 10 of these studies. Five showed no significant effect of voter ID laws on turnout, four found a significant decrease in turnout, and one found, paradoxically, that the laws increased turnout.

But each of these 10 studies was of general elections that took place before 2008. Most of the strictest ID laws were passed after that, so the ability of earlier research to gauge the impact of these laws is extremely limited. 

That's what makes the current research so important. The study's authors controlled for a wide variety of factors known to affect voter turnout -- age, education, income, marital status, etc. 

They also controlled for other state laws that affect participation, like early voting. And they considered less-tangible aspects that influence turnout, like the competitiveness of races and whether the election was held during a presidential contest year or an off-year. 

After controlling for all these factors, they found "substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws." Their analysis suggests that turnout for Latino voters was suppressed by 10.8 points in states with strict photo ID laws, compared to states without them. For multiracial Americans, the drop was 12.8 points. 

The laws also increased the participation gap between whites and non-whites. "For Latinos in the general election, the predicted gap from whites doubled from 5.3 points in states without strict photo ID laws to 11.9 in states with strict photo ID laws," the study found. For black voters in the primaries, the strict photo ID laws caused the gap with white voters to almost double to 8.5 points. 

The net effect of all this? "Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 7.7 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification laws are in place." Democrats weren't the only ones affected, either. The data showed that Republican turnout was depressed by 4.6 percentage points too.

This makes sense, as Voter ID requirements are a poll tax, affecting those who don't have transportation, time, money, or the ability to produce the necessary documents in order to get a valid form of identification.  Yes, poor Republican voters were going to be disenfranchised too under these laws...but not nearly as many Democrats and especially black and Latino Democrats.

And I'm betting Republicans are more than happy to lose 4.6% of their voters in order to cost Democrats 7.7% of theirs.  This was the point all along, and both parties know it.

Congress, Now With One-Hearing Martinizing

Really is hard to figure out who is more repugnant: former pharma-bro CEO Martin Shkreli for making millions off profiting from jacking up the price of meds, or, well, your average member of Congress for jacking off Wall Street and the rest of corporate America.

The so-called "bad boy of pharma" Martin Shkrelislammed members of Congress on Twitter following his hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

"Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government," Shkreli Tweeted. 

Shkreli, who giggled throughout the hearing, pled the fifth. 

Following the hearing, Shkreli's attorney Ben Brafman said that his client was nervous and didn't mean any disrespect. 

Shkreli, the now-former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, became infamous after he raised the price of a drug used to treat parasitic infections from $13.50 to $750 per pill. 

In December, Shkreli was arrested on securities fraud relating to a hedge fund he previously ran.

If there are somehow more odious people in America than Martin Shkreli who deserve to have their genitals flambeed and then tossed to rabid wombats, they pretty much have to be politicians in Congress (and/or those running for President in 2016).

I really don't know who to root for here (the asshole making the cash off sick people having to pay $750 a pill to live, or the imbeciles in Congress screwing us over in every other conceivable way besides the $750 a pill thing) other than a somehow very specifically localized meteor strike.

On one hand, Shkreli is not wrong about lawmakers largely being imbeciles, but then again we're the imbeciles who elect them either by choice or indifference. On the other hand, hey, look, Congress found someone even more hated than they are and are actually trying to get answers that the American people deserve.

Still rooting for the meteor though.

StupidiNews!

• Pope Francis will meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kyril, marking the first time leaders of these two churches have met in history.
• Senate Democrats, along with several Republicans, have blocked energy legislation as GOP leaders have refused to add aid to deal with Flint, Michigan's lead-contaminated water systems.
• Germany's domestic intelligence agency says that ISIS has sent fighters into the country passing as refugees, a day after the agency stopped a potential Paris-style attack in Berlin.
• Brazil's annual Carnival is facing the realities of the country's historic recession and resources diverted to the 2016 Rio Summer Games as funding and sponsorship is drying up.
• Scientists at the LIGO observatory in Louisiana are looking for gravity waves as the race to find what Einstein theorized a century ago heats up.

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.