Last Call For The Bribes Heard Round The World

The Huffington Post has published the results of a major international bribery investigation into a company called Unaoil, which is apparently something of a global bribery fixer outfit responsible for helping multinational corporations do business with unsavory failed state types and paving the way for terrorist organizations.

Hundreds of major international corporations — including Halliburton, its former subsidiary KBR, Rolls-Royce and Samsung — counted on Unaoil to secure lucrative contracts in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and other countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, tens of thousands of internal emails and documents reveal. It’s common for large multinational corporations to partner with smaller firms with local expertise to win contracts. But in many cases, Unaoil wasn’t winning contracts because of its expertise — it was winning them by paying millions of dollars in bribes to corrupt officials. 

Most of the companies that worked with Unaoil denied involvement in corrupt activities. “KBR is committed to conducting its business honestly, with integrity, and in compliance with all applicable laws,” a spokeswoman said. “We do not tolerate illegal or unethical practices by our employees or others working on behalf of the Company.” Samsung “has always complied with the laws and regulations when performing business,” the company said. Rolls-Royce, which sent a Unaoil subsidiary a letter in 2013 suspending the relationship, citing corruption allegations, said that it is “co-operating with the authorities and do not comment on ongoing investigations. We have made it clear that Rolls-Royce will not tolerate business misconduct of any kind.” 

By aiding the corruption of already-distrusted regimes and accelerating the flow of money and resources out of poor countries, Unaoil and its partners were risking far more than fines and criminal penalties. They were creating political instability, turning citizens against their governments, and fueling the rage that would erupt during the Arab Spring — and be exploited by terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Companies and individuals pay at least $1 trillion in bribes to public sector officials annually, according to an estimate by Daniel Kaufman, a governance expert with the World Bank Institute.

The Unaoil emails don’t show corrupt third-world kleptocracies shaking down helpless western corporations. They show the opposite: Unaoil, working for western companies, is seen slowly corrupting foreign officials, starting off with small gifts and shopping sprees and eventually hooking them on major graft. 

“There is always somebody who pays,” the billionaire hedge fund magnate George Soros has said, “and international business is generally the main source of corruption.” That’s part of the story that terrorists have long told local populations to justify jihadist insurgency. In many of the cases uncovered here, it happens to be true.

I'm not surprised that international corporations are involved in blood money in order to move products and resources through other companies to hide that involvement.  I'm more that a bit concerned however at the number of companies that all used Unaoil to grease the skids over the last decade or so and basically nobody noticed.

Based in Monaco but incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, Unaoil says it provides “industrial solutions to the energy sector in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.” It was founded in 1991 by Ata Ahsani, an Iranian-born millionaire who left the country after the 1979 revolution. The company’s work, Ahsani told HuffPost and Fairfax Media, is “very basic. What we do is integrate western technology with local capability.” Two of Ata Ahsani’s sons, Cyrus and Saman, are deeply involved in the company’s day-to-day operations. 

Here’s how Unaoil’s schemes often worked. During the time frame covered by the documents — most of which date from the end of 2003 to the middle of 2011 — Unaoil’s practice was to ask its partners for a percentage of the revenue from any contracts Unaoil helped them win. Once Unaoil made sure it had a stake in its client’s business, it would sometimes use a portion of its cut to bribe government officials — and keep the rest for itself.

They say the simplest schemes are the most tried and true methods, I guess.  All we need is a fabulous desert casino, a car chase in Abu Dhabi or Tunis, some Russian mobsters, and an exotic assassin or three and James Bond would be damn proud.  Throw in the angle that these bribes are going to everyone from tinpot dictators to terror groups like AQ and IS and you wonder just how much blowback we've avoided here in the US that we're more than due.

Because insurgents thrive when Western-friendly governments become corrupt and weak, they are especially pleased when the U.S. and Western corporations undermine governance by enabling corruption. As Soros said, somebody has to pay the bribes. Corruption in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, has only gotten worse since the U.S. invaded, bringing western corporations and money with it. Between 2003 and 2015, Iraq fell from 113th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index to 161st. “We’ve learned our lesson kind of the hard way,” said Keith Henderson, who evaluated Iraqi anti-corruption efforts for the State Department in 2008 and now teaches at American University’s law school. “If you don’t do something to abate or address corruption in state institutions, one of the very probable outcomes is civil unrest and possible insurgency.”

We'll see where this all goes.  The US government is definitely looking into bribery fueling terrorism, but how far are they going to get when the major players paying up have bought the same governments investigating them?

More Tortured Logic, Con't

The recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and mass shooting spree in San Bernardino hasn't made Americans any less bloodthirsty when it comes to justification of torture of terror suspects.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common. 

The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium. 

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign. 

Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama's ban on waterboarding - an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if elected. 

Trump's stance has drawn broad criticism from human rights organizations, world bodies, and political rivals. But the poll findings suggest that many Americans are aligned with Trump on the issue, although the survey did not ask respondents to define what they consider torture. 

"The public right now is coping with a host of negative emotions," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, a Vanderbilt University professor who has studied the link between terrorist threats and public opinion. "Fear, anger, general anxiety: (Trump) gives a certain credibility to these feelings," she said. 

The March 22-28 online poll asked respondents if torture can be justified "against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism." About 25 percent said it is "often" justified while another 38 percent it is "sometimes" justified. Only 15 percent said torture should never be used.

Republicans were more accepting of torture to elicit information than Democrats: 82 percent of Republicans said torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

About two-thirds of respondents also said they expected a terrorist attack on U.S. soil within the next six months.

So more than half of Dems and more than 80% of Republicans think torture is justified in some way, including a quarter of folks saying it's often justified.  Two-thirds expect some kind of terror attack before the election as well.  Americans are frightened out of their wits, frankly.

The effect this will have on the election?  Politicians have been playing the fear card for a long time, and it works time and time again.

We've learned very little since 9/11, and I don't see any reason why we'd start learning now.

The Budget For Bevinstan

With time running out on a March 31 deadline for Kentucky's 2017-2018 budget, GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and the Republican-led Kentucky Senate are starting up the blame game on Kentucky Democrats in the House for daring to resist Bevin's across the board austerity cuts.

The Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate appear to have made no progress in conference committee negotiations that began Thursday on a 2016-18 state government spending plan. 

A press release from Bevin's office early Tuesday said, "Gov. Matt Bevin and House and Senate GOP leadership will hold a media availability to discuss the status of budget conference negotiations." 

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, on Monday blamed the deadlock on Bevin, saying the governor was interfering with the talks. 

Between negotiation sessions of the conference committee on Monday the governor visited Senate Republicans behind closed doors. And later he blamed Stumbo. "We are willing to negotiate with anyone who is willing to sit down at the table," Bevin said. "Greg Stumbo is not such a person, unfortunately."

The sticking point is who will have to bear the billions of shoring up Kentucky's critically underfunded state pension system.

Over two years the Senate budget would add nearly $1.48 billion to the state's ailing pension funds. The House also adds a lot for pensions - about $1.4 billion. The House provides a bit more for the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System than the Senate but significantly less than the Senate to Kentucky Employees Retirement Systems. And the Senate also leaves $250 million in a reserve fund - called the 'permanent fund" - to be used in the future for pension funding. 

The House leaves no money in the permanent fund. Instead, the House uses that money to restore deep cuts Bevin and the Senate have proposed to universities and scores of programs that support public schools. 

Also apparently still part of the discussions is the judicial branch budget.- which has been passed by both chambers in a form that chief Justice John Minton said is $76 million short of funding the court system in the next two years. 

Minton has said if that budget becomes law it would require him to cut 600 employees in the judicial branch, shut down successful drug courts and likely result in 17,000 people awaiting trial on criminal charges being sent back to jail because of a lack of staff to supervise them while on release.

It's those school and university cuts that are the dealbreaker so far, especially since Bevin wants to use those massive austerity cuts to make a half-billion dollar slush fund to spend on his budget priorities, a non-starter for KY Dems.  It's not quite Kansas's level of austerity cuts.  Yet.

We'll see where this goes, but the clock is almost up, and without a budget, all of Kentucky will suffer.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama has announced new initiatives to fight opoid abuse, including making anti-addiction drugs easier to prescribe by doctors.
• Dutch officials say they passed on an FBI warning to Belgium about potential suicide bomber activity a week before Brussels was attacked earlier this month.
• Reuters analysis of Russian materiel movements in Syria indicates Moscow may have moved more equipment into the area under cover of a partial withdrawal.
• Apple iPhone supplier Foxconn has made a controlling bid for Japanese tech manufacturer Sharp, giving the Taiwanese company a $3.5 billion foothold in Tokyo.
• The Federal Trade Commission is suing Volkswagen for deceptive advertising over the company's "Clean Diesel" campaign related to emissions test cheating in millions of US cars.

Last Call For Counting Diversity In The Counties

A new look at US Census data by Randy Olson for The Atlantic shows the five most racially diverse counties in the US, and the five least diverse.  I was surprised by the former:

The 5 most diverse counties in the U.S., according to Olson's calculations, are:

1. Aleutians West Census Area, Alaska (31.4% white/non-Latino, 5.7% African American, 15.1% Native American, 28.3% Asian American, 13.1% Latino, and 6.4% other)
2. Aleutians East Borough, Alaska (13.5% white/non-Latino), 6.7% African American, 27.7% Native American, 35.4% Asian American, 12.3% Latino, and 4.4% other)
3. Queens County, New York (27.6% white/non-Latino, 17.7% African American, 0.3% Native American, 22.8% Asian American, 27.5% Latino, and 4% other)
4. Alameda County, California (34.1% white/non-Latino, 12.2% African American, 0.3% Native American, 25.9% Asian American, 22.5% Latino, and 5.1% other)
5. Solano County, California (40.8% white/non-Latino, 14.2% African American, 0.5% Native American, 14.3% Asian American, 24% Latino, and 6.2% other)

Alaska's a tough place, where you have to count on your neighbors.  It takes a special kind of person to live and work there, and I guess you don't really have too much time for worrying about race and culture.  Queens in New York and Alameda and Solano in California make a lot of sense, Queens is the heart of the Big Apple's melting pot and Alameda contains most of San Francisco bay's east side. Solano County covers the suburbs north of the SF bay towards Sacramento. Definitely areas with a lot of different cultures and people with major cities in and around.

On the other side of that coin are the Appalachians and plains states:

And the 5 least diverse: 

• Tucker County, West Virginia (100% white/non-Latino)
• Robertson County, Kentucky (100% white/non-Latino)
• Hooker County, Nebraska (100% white/non-Latino)
• Hand County, South Dakota (99% white/non-Latino and 1% Latino)
• Owsley County, Kentucky (98% white/non-Latino and 2% Latino)

As to what surprised Olson the most? "As a Michigander," he writes, "I’m the most surprised to see how diverse the Upper Peninsula is. I thought only crazy white people lived up that far in Michigan."

Two Kentucky counties among the five least diverse in the nation is arguably the least surprising fact I've read all week.

Anyway, why is this important?  Those diverse Alaska counties are being used as part of an argument that Sanders's big wins in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state over the weekend are proof that Sanders has large support from non-white voters. Raw Story's Katie Halper:

Leslie Lee III is a writer and English teacher from Baton Rouge, LA, who lives in Yokahama, Japan with his wife Kelly and their dog Taco. His writing ranges from essays and articles on politics and Japanese wrestling, to the novel he is working on with his father about Kentucky’s Black coal miners. But according to some sources, Lee does not actually exist. He’s a figment of the imagination. Because he’s both Black and a supporter of Bernie Sanders.

The nice thing about the notion of the unbearable whiteness of being a Sanders supporter is that it doesn’t need to be based in reality. On Saturday, for example, CNN attributed Sanders’ landslide victories in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington primaries to the whitey-mcwhiteyness of the states:

These caucus states — largely white and rural — are the type of places Sanders traditionally does well. In order to win the nomination, he must replicate this success in other, more ethnically diverse states that hold primaries, as he did in Michigan last month. In theory, it’s possible. But the reality is tough.

Likewise, in theory, it’s possible to portray these states as white. But the reality is tough. Because they’re not. Washington state is literally the seventh most diverse state in the Nation. Two (if not three) of the five most diverse counties in the country are found in Alaska, which CNN itself described as “the most diverse place in America,” in an article in January. And Hawaii, according the Pew Research Center,

stands out… more than any other state… when it comes to its racial and ethnic diversity… The Rainbow State has never had a white majority. In fact, non-Hispanic whites, the largest group in most states, account for only 23% of the population, according to 2013 census figures.
But you know the old adage, necessity (to correct irresponsible journalism and media bias) is the mother of (viral) invention. And So, Mr. Lee launched his epic #BernieMadeMeWhite hashtag, mocking the idea that all supporters of Sanders are white.

Well, basic math could tell you that of course Sanders has some women and non-white voters backing him, simply because he's managed to close within 10 points of Clinton in the very diverse Democratic party.  But the argument once again from Sanders supporters is that the votes of Southern red state Democrats don't really count and shouldn't count in a Democratic primary, and that Bernie's winning the "real" states, making him somehow...I don't know, more magical or something?  It's coming across as a massive dismissal of a lot of voters that the Sanders folks believe should not have a say at all in the process, support that Sanders would need in a general election.

Whether it will be enough support going into the final primaries this spring, we'll see.

Nothing Matters, Especially Primaries

And America's favorite Salon/HuffPo Sanders supporter, H.A. Goodman, goes off the deep end and into some other dimension where mathematics simply doesn't apply.

With Bernie Sanders now slightly ahead of Clinton nationally in the latest Bloomberg poll, it’s time to reevaluate the meaning of pragmatism. Hillary Clinton might be ahead of Bernie Sanders in delegates, but Vermont’s Senator has a monopoly on political momentum. Sadly, his opponent has a monopoly on controversy, and will face FBI interviews in the near future. A Los Angeles Timesarticle titled Clinton email probe enters new phase as FBI interviews loom highlights why Clinton’s campaign is stuck in political quicksand:

Federal prosecutors investigating the possible mishandling of classified materials on Hillary Clinton’s private email server have begun the process of setting up formal interviews with some of her longtime and closest aides, according to two people familiar with the probe, an indication that the inquiry is moving into its final phases.
Prosecutors also are expected to seek an interview with Clinton herself, though the timing remains unclear.

Yes, federal prosecutors will interview Hillary Clinton, in addition to her close associates. 

At what point will establishment Democrats admit this fiasco is horrible for a general election?

When federal prosecutors are interviewing your candidate for president, even Donald Trump has a good chance at the White House.

Yep, that's right, the FBI wants to talk to Clinton, so Goodman is demanding that she immediately concede the entire race to Sanders.

This is the dumbest pile of rodent intercourse activity I think I've read.  It's indistinguishable from the "legal analysis" you would find on your average right-wing blog these days.  Look, I've not had the chance to vote yet in Kentucky's primary and right now it's still a toss-up for me, but when you're making the same arguments Republican talk radio blowhards make in order to dismiss Clinton and her voters out of hand, there's something fundamentally wrong with your argument.

It's not just Goodman, however.

One of the biggest question marks for Democrats heading into a 2016 general election that should be a cakewalk with a candidate like Donald Trump on the other side is what happens to Bernie Sanders’ supporters if he loses the nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Some will inevitably fall in line and find a way to get excited about the likelihood of America’s first woman president. But many others may end up feeling just as alienated from the political process as they did before Sanders entered the race and just decide to stay home.

For instance, there’s Susan Sarandon.

The actress and activist has been a powerful surrogate for Sanders on the campaign trail over the past few months, and during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Monday night, she said she doesn’t know if she can bring herself to vote for Clinton if it comes down to it.

“I think, in certain quarters, there’s growing concern that the folks that are into Bernie Sanders have come to despise Hillary Clinton or reject Hillary Clinton and that should she be the nominee which is as yet undetermined, they will walk away,” Hayes said.

“Tha’'s a legitimate concern,” Sarandon replied, “because they’re very passionate and principled.”

“But isn’t that crazy?” the host asked. “If you believe in what he believes in?”

“Yeah but she doesn’t,” Sarandon shot back. “She accepted money for all of those people. She doesn’t even want to fight for a $15 minimum wage, so these are people that have not come out before, so why would we think they’re going to come out now for her, you know?”

That's just stupid garbage.  If you as a Sanders supporter are falling back on Republican anti-Clinton arguments, you have completely failed to make your case to Democrats that they should be voting for Sanders.

Look, I understand the argument that you're worried about Clinton's vulnerabilities, but she's winning right now and most likely will end up the nominee.  It's up to Sanders to make the argument that he would be a better choice, and so far I'm not seeing it.

BREAKING: A Supreme Split Saves Public Unions

Today the US Supreme Court issued a 4-4 split keeping in place a lower court decision that preserves public sector union fees.

Conservatives bent on crippling the power of public employee unions lost their best opportunity in years Tuesday when the Supreme Court deadlocked over a challenge to the fees those unions collect from non-members. 

Rather than seeking to reschedule the case for their next term, the justices simply announced they were tied 4-4 -- a verdict which leaves intact the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholding the fee collections. 

That was a major victory for the unions and the court's four liberal justices following Justice Antonin Scalia's death last month. During oral argument in January, it had appeared almost certain that the court would strike down the requirement in 23 states that teachers and government workers contribute to the cost of collective bargaining, even if they disagree with their unions' demands. 

The result would have been the demise of a nearly 40-year-old Supreme Court precedent that allows unions to impose such requirements on non-members. It would have made it harder for unions representing teachers, police and firefighters, and other government workers to maintain their power by affecting their pocketbooks. 

Instead, the judicial deadlock allows the California Teachers Association to keep collecting the fees, but it does not have nationwide impact. The 9th Circuit standard applies only to states within its jurisdiction, including Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington as well as California. 

The case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, signified a major threat to public employee unions that represent nearly 36% of government workers — far more than the plummeting average for unions overall. Only 11% of Americans belonged to unions in 2014.

In other words, Scalia's passing is the only thing that saved public sector unions from being all but dismantled by SCOTUS. Scalia certainly would have been the fifth vote against the unions, and there almost certainly would have been a national, broad ruling that would have affected public sector unions in all 50 states.

For now, at least, public sector unions will survive.  How long that's the case, well, we'll see if Merrick Garland fills Scalia's seat...or if it is filled at all.

Hot Trump Time Machine

I know it's easy to joke about how Donald Trump wants to take America back to the pre-Civil Rights era when white men ran the country unopposed and all, but it turns out he's really not joking.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's campaign slogan "make America great again" has become as ubiquitous as his personal brand (or, say, widespread violence at his rallies). But until now, Trump's remained frustratingly vague about just when the U.S. was actually winning. 

Now he's finally given the public a clue of just what era he wants to take the U.S. back to. In an interview with the New York Times, the billionaire business mogul pointed to the onset of the 19th century and era during and after World War II as times when the U.S. was truly great. 

"If you look back, it really was, there was a period of time when we were developing at the turn of the century which was a pretty wild time for this country and pretty wild in terms of building that machine, that machine was really based on entrepreneurship," Trump told the paper. 

"And then I would say, yeah, prior to, I would say during the 1940s and the late '40s and '50s we started getting, we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war, we were pretty much doing what we had to do, yeah around that period," he added. 

Perhaps by sheer coincidence (though likely not), this happens to be the era before extensive civil rights legislation was passed by Congress.

So the Gilded Age and the years that followed.  Awesome. Yeah, I'm sure it's not a coincidence either, guys.

Let's stop pretending that it is.

StupidiNews!

• Officials in Cyprus continue to negotiate with a Egyptian man who apparently hijacked an Egypt Air flight from Alexandria to Cairo and diverted it to Cyprus over political prisoners.
• The US Geological Service says as many as seven million Americans live in areas threatened by man-made earthquakes caused by fracking.
• President Obama took journalists to task with remarks in DC for the Toner Prize in reporting, saying that America's newsrooms have contributed to the disturbing tone of the 2016 race.
• Belgian police have released a video in order to appeal to citizens for information about the third suspect in last week's bombing attacks in Brussels.
• DVD rental company Redbox is looking to launch a digital streaming service in order to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Last Call For Fighting The Bigotry

As expected, the first of many expected federal lawsuits over North Carolina's sweeping new anti-LGBTQ law has been filed. BuzzFeed's Dominic Holden and Chris Geidner:

Three individuals and two LGBT advocacy groups early Monday morning filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the recently passed North Carolina law that nullified local LGBT rights ordinances and restricted transgender people’s access to restrooms. 

“By singling out LGBT people for disfavored treatment and explicitly writing discrimination against transgender people into state law, H.B. 2 violates the most basic guarantees of equal treatment and the U.S. Constitution,” the lawsuit argues.

The complaint argues the law violates people’s equal protection, privacy, and liberty rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and their civil rights under Title IX of the Education Act of 1972. 

The lawsuit is asking for a declaratory judgment that the law violates the Constitution and Title IX and an injunction against enforcement of the law. 

The case was filed overnight in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on behalf of Joaquín Carcaño, a transgender man who works at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Payton Grey McGarry, a transgender man who is a student at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro; and Angela Gilmore, a lesbian who is the associate dean for academic affairs at North Carolina Central University. Also named as plaintiffs are the ACLU of North Carolina and Equality North Carolina. 

The defendants include Gov. Pat McCrory, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and the University of North Carolina and several of its senior officials. 

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina, Lambda Legal, and Equality North Carolina are all backing the litigation.

Considering this odious piece of garbage was only crapped into existence last Wednesday in a 10-hour blitz of bigotry, I guess the Easter weekend made things a little slower than usual for filing, but I'm glad to see the ACLU and Lambda Legal are all on the ball with this lawsuit.

I'm hoping for an injunction that keeps the NC law from going into place while the suit works its way up the system.  We'll see what happens.

Oh, and over in Georgia, GOP Gov. Nathan Deal doesn't exactly want to lose the Super Bowl over that state's most recent attempt at "religious liberty" and will veto the bill pending there

The measure “doesn’t reflect the character of our state or the character of its people,” the governor said Monday in prepared remarks. He said state legislators should leave freedom of religion and freedom of speech to the U.S. Constitution. 

“Their efforts to purge this bill of any possibility that it would allow or encourage discrimination illustrates how difficult it is to legislate something that is best left to the broad protections of the First Amendment,” he said. 

The two-term Republican has been besieged by all sides over the controversial measure, and his office has received thousands of emails and hundreds of calls on the debate. The tension was amplified by a steady stream of corporate titans who urged him to veto the bill – and threatened to pull investments from Georgia if it became law. 

The governor’s planned veto will likely infuriate religious conservatives who considered the measure, House Bill 757, their top priority. This is the third legislative session they’ve sought to strengthen legal protections from opponents of gay marriage, but last year’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex weddings galvanized their efforts. 

It is also likely to herald a more acrimonious relationship between Deal, who campaigned on a pro-business platform, and the evangelical wing of the Georgia Republican party. Already, prominent conservatives have vowed to revive the measure next year if Deal chooses not to sign it.

Expect this battle to continue in the states and the courts for some time to come.

The Smoking Remains Of Kynect

So one month after the debut of the new state benefits system to replace Kentucky's successful health care exchange Kynect, which Gov. Matt Bevin is calling Benefind, (a "one-stop shop" for all your Kentucky benefit needs, including food stamps, CHIP, unemployment benefits and Medicaid!) and rolling everything into Benefind to save taxpayer money, Kentucky has discovered a bit of an issue with the centerpiece of Bevinstan.  There's only one slight problem: Benefind is an absolute disaster.

A new state computer system meant to help people get public benefits more easily instead is creating turmoil throughout Kentucky, interrupting health coverage, food stamps or other assistance for countless individuals, according to health and social service advocates. 

People seeking help must wait hours or days, repeatedly calling a state helpline only to get a recorded message that advises them to try later and then hangs up, the advocates said. Others visit overcrowded state benefit offices where they must wait for hours - sometimes the entire day - to get help, they said. 

"It's really frustrating," said Emily Pickett, a Louisville mother who learned Feb. 29 two of her three small children had been cut off from Medicaid coverage. 

Further, the new system known as Benefind has disrupted the state's highly successful health insurance exchange, kynect, shutting people out of their online accounts or eliminating their health coverage altogether, they said. 

"Benefind is a disaster," said Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of health advocacy groups. "It's not working."

Of course, the people who warned Bevin that Benefind was a massive failure are no longer in the Bevin administration. Seems Gov. Bevin deals quite swiftly and harshly with those who may expose his administration's many flaws here in Bevinstan.

The top official in charge of complaints at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services was fired one business day after he said he warned his bosses that people were so angry over problems with a new public benefits system that he feared some might become violent, endangering state workers. 

Hundreds of callers have grown increasingly frustrated over the abrupt loss of benefits such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, said Norman "Chip" Ward, the former executive director of the cabinet's ombudsman's office. 

Many are furious they can't reach anyone on a state hotline to handle questions about benefits they said were wrongly canceled under the new system know as Benefind. 

"I expressed my concern that something bad was going to happen," Ward said in an interview Monday, adding he was worried an angry client might visit a local state benefit office and become violent. "It was really reaching a boiling point." 

Among the cabinet officials Ward said he notified of his concerns on March 18 were Secretary Vickie Yates Glisson; Tim Feeley, deputy secretary; Adria Johnson, the commissioner of the Department for Community Based Services, which handles public benefits; and Steve Davis, the cabinet's chief of staff. 

In an interview Friday, Davis declined to elaborate on Ward's dismissal, saying the decision to fire the ombudsman was "a personnel matter." Davis said he is acting as the current ombudsman. 

Ward said that as a political appointee he lacks merit protection and Davis gave him no reason for firing him.

So now, Bevin has taken a state government system that actually worked and has replaced it with a broken system in order to save costs.  And Bevin is blaming everything on his predecessor, former Gov. Steve Beshear.

Bevin blamed the backlogs on former Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration, which created the original version of Benefind but hadn’t opened the program to the public before the end of his term. 

“We were told that it was, it had been double-checked, it was user-ready and it was time to unveil it. You have found out firsthand that it’s not exactly as we expected it to be,” Bevin said in a Youtube video addressed to employees of the Department for Community Based Services, which manages the program. 

“I know it’s frankly been scary in some measure, with just the onslaught of people that have been piling up, the amount of work that is at hand,” Bevin said in the video.

So Bevin is blaming Dinosaur Steve for the mess and firing the whistleblowers who say otherwise. But that's how Gov. Bevin rolls, you see.  Not too much accountability here in Bevinstan. You'd be forgiven for thinking Bevin dismantled Kynect and then replaced it with a mess of a system to make sure that people couldn't get their benefits they were entitled to get.

We can't have government actually working in he Commonwealth, you know.

Sanders And The Superdelegates

Running a pretty big victory lap after this weekend's wins in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington state, Bernie Sanders is confident that Democratic party superdelegates will start jumping from the Clinton ship any time now.

"I think the momentum is with us," Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper on Sunday. "A lot of these superdelegates may rethink their positions with Secretary Clinton."

The Vermont senator swept Saturday's Democratic contests in Washington, Alaska and Hawaii, easily winning the majority of the 142 pledged delegates in those states. The biggest prize of the day was in Washington, which offered 101 delegates to be split up on a proportional basis.

The latest delegate counts still put Sanders behind Clinton, however, with 1,004 pledged delegates to her 1,712.

Of those, 469 are superdelegates who have pledged to Clinton and only 29 have pledged to Sanders.

Sanders on Sunday said those superdelegates may begin to see the "reality" that he's the best candidate to beat GOP front runner Donald Trump.

"I think when they begin to look at reality, and that is that we are beating Donald Trump by much larger margins than Secretary Clinton" Sanders said. "And then you've got superdelegates in states where we win by 40 or 50 points. I think their own constituents are going to say to them, 'Hey, why don't you support the people of our state and vote for Sanders?'"

Bernie Sanders has a long way to go, frankly.  Yes, he's still in the race, and no Clinton hasn't put him away yet.  But I think Sanders is engaging in a bit of wishful thinking here. He needs to make up more than 200 pledged delegates from the remaining primaries, and unless you think he's going to win states like California and New York by the kind of margins he got in Washington's caucus, that's not going to happen.

Sanders knows however that he needs both superdelegates and big primary wins to pull this off, and it's still very much a long shot.  However even if he doesn't win he does have influence, and Clinton is eventually going to have to deal with that. Juan Williams:

Sanders’ “socialist” label is a liability in a general election. The Vermonter will hurt Clinton’s effort to win support from political moderates, especially older voters. Sanders would also be a bridge too far for Republicans disenchanted by their party’s wild primary season and the prospect of either Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as the GOP’s presidential candidate. 

Adding Sanders to the ticket would also create an opening for Republican ad-makers. They would gleefully target his past congressional votes opposing tax cuts, the Patriot Act and new military defenses against a possible Iranian missile attack. 

But if Sanders is not to be made the prospective veep, Democrats will have to find something else to give him. After all, he has exceeded all expectations during the primary season. The depth of his support was underlined by his three strong victories on Saturday in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington. And Democrats live in fear of a him mounting a third-party run along the lines of the populist campaign run by Ralph Nader in 2000 that arguably gave the White House to George W. Bush. 

The heart of this troublesome political puzzle for Democrats is how to get Sanders’s passionate supporters to line up behind Clinton. In early March, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found a third of the people voting for Sanders saying they “cannot see themselves voting for Hillary Clinton in November.” 

The Nation magazine, a leading voice of the left, reported recently that “nearly 60,000 people have signed the ‘Bernie or Bust’ pledge,” vowing to remain loyal to him even if Clinton wins the nomination.

The next battle is April 5 in Wisconsin for both parties, the state has a open primary. We'll see how this all shakes out, but the better Sanders does going forward, the higher a price he can extract come July.

StupidiNews!

• Ash is spewing from the Pavlof Volcano on Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands, aviation alerts in the area remain in effect through today from low visibility.
• California lawmakers have reached a tentative deal with unions and labor activists to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 a hour over the next six years to avoid a ballot initiative battle.
• Pakistani authorities are looking for the Taliban splinter group claiming responsibility for an Easter Sunday suicide blast targeting Christians in the capital Lahore that killed at least 70.
• European union officials have expanded the search for suspects in this month's deadly blasts in Brussels to include arrests in Italy and the Netherlands as well as the Belgian capital.
• A heist worthy of a super villain happened last week in Macon, Georgia as more than $200,000 in vintage comic books were stolen from a comic shop.

Easter Eggs

Hope everyone is having a good Easter Sunday.  I'll be back tomorrow with the usual stuff.

Last Call For Flipping The Script On SCOTUS

The number of Republican senators up for re-election and who do not want to go down with the burning wreck of the USS Donald J Trump is starting to become a nice little crowd now.

Senate Republicans and the White House are signaling a tentative point of agreement on a key part of President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination process: the nominee questionnaire.

The statements regarding the questionnaire are part of the careful maneuvering on the issue by all sides in this tense and unusual Supreme Court nomination process for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland.

Traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a personalized questionnaire for Supreme Court nominees to the White House. This time, the White House has not received one from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democratic member of the committee.

Nonetheless, on Friday evening, Grassley’s spokesperson, Beth Levine, told BuzzFeed News that the Republicans “assume the administration will fill out the standard questionnaire submitted for judicial nominations.”

Levine reiterated, however, the Republican leadership’s position that “a majority of the Senate has made clear that the American people should have an opportunity to weigh in on this vacancy.”

The White House reacted to the statement with cautious optimism.

“It appears that Chairman Grassley is prepared to accept a questionnaire from Judge Garland,” White House spokesperson Brandi Hoffine told BuzzFeed News on Saturday. “We are heartened by this development and look forward to the Committee making this request directly to the nominee as well as to the White House, as is standard practice.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire is a critical part of the process for those nominated for a federal judgeship. The questions focus on the basics, like education and employment history, but also seek detailed information on speeches and writings of the nominee, as well as information about the nominee’s experience as a practicing lawyer and a complete recounting of the decisions of nominees who already are lower-court judges.

Hoffine said Garland “is prepared to provide all relevant information, consistent with standard practice, in short order.”

In front of the cameras, Republicans are screaming about "no hearings" and "let the people decide in November."  Here in reality, the nomination process is going forward.  Slowly, but it's going forward.  Republican senators figure they'll start getting credit for basic courtesy to President Obama, and frankly that bar has been set deep into the floor for years now.  Perhaps the notion that the GOP is expected to lose control of the Senate with a Trump nomination has something to do with it.

But that's how this game works these days, and nobody plays it better than Obama.