Last Call For The Real Bathroom Fight

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch's statement on Monday about transgender rights as the government sued North Carolina over HB2 is a major change from previous administrations and even a massive about face for this administration.  For the first time the federal government's stated position on transgender rights is that the administration not only acknowledges that those rights inherently exist, but that the DoJ will fight for them as vigorously as any other instances of civil rights.

At the heart of the showdown is whether the bill’s bathroom provision -- which prohibits trans people from using the bathrooms in government buildings and public schools that match their gender identity -- is a violation of civil rights laws that bar discrimination based on one’s sex. 

The dueling lawsuits could prove to be a history-making moment. Since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, the next frontier in LGBT law is the rights of transgender people, and the North Carolina ruling sets the stage for what could be a landmark ruling. 

The Justice Department is suing the state in its capacity as an employer, alleging that implementing HB2 will discriminate against transgender state employees. The Justice Department specifically targeted the University of North Carolina and the state Department of Public Safety. Its continued threats to withhold federal funding from the university and law enforcement suggest the Obama administration is pulling no punches when it comes to blocking the law. 

In press conference Monday announcing the DOJ lawsuit, Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the legislation "state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals, who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security – a right taken for granted by most of us." 

“We see you. We stand with you. We will do everything we can to protect you going forward,” Lynch vowed in her press conference, speaking directly to transgender Americans. 

HB2 was rushed through the North Carolina state house in March as other state legislatures mulled and ultimately abandoned similar bills, for fears of legal sanctions and/or public relations nightmare. At the time, it was called one of the most anti-LGBT laws passed by a state legislature, and the feds have now made clear they don't intend to sit on the sidelines. 

“So long as there’s a Democrat in the White House, you can expect this case to continue on until there’s a final ruling on the merits, likely by the court of the appeals, possibly by even the Supreme Court,” Winkler said.

And that raises yet another difference between Clinton/Sanders and Trump this November, one that is vital to remember.

It's outstanding to see the Obama administration finally stop treating open trans discrimination like it's merely a workplace disagreement or something that needs a paragraph from HR in the employee handbook, and start regarding it for what it truly is: a fundamental curtailing of civil rights that requires the full resources of the Justice Department to remedy, complete with significant punitive damages for states that do not comply.

The billions at stake in federal funding is definitely the hammer the government is using here to get North Carolina to drop the law, and as far as I'm concerned, AG Lynch and her team needs to swing away until NC Republicans are bloodied and bowed. Remember, NC Republicans are arguing that they not only believe transgender folks are not a "protected class" but that the state should be able to legally discriminate against anyone who isn't specifically a member of a "protected class".

That's abhorrently stupid and depressing on a number of levels, and it can't be allowed to stand.

The Hill In The Mountains

EJ Dionne notes that Hillary Clinton understands where she's hurting vote-wise, and that's in Rust Belt counties that went for Dubya, McCain, and Romney.  She thinks she can win them back to the blue side, and given how awful Trump is, maybe she has a shot.

The first rule in elections is: Go for the votes you can get. By that measure, Hillary Clinton is right to try to put the old Obama coalition on steroids. 

Donald Trump will expand the Democrats’ opportunities among nonwhite Americans and produce Clinton landslides among Latinos. These groups have good reason to fear and despise the man who has demeaned them. 

And watch Republicans for Clinton become a major force in American politics, an alliance of mostly well-off, well-educated voters — plus women of all classes. The members of the party of Lincoln who support Clinton will see that against Trump she is the safe and even, by the non-ideological definition of the term, conservative choice. 

But Clinton also has to challenge Trump for at least a share among angry and struggling white, working-class voters with real economic grievances. Their votes matter if she wants to keep Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the Democratic column. 

Clinton’s visit to Appalachia last week reflected this realism, but it was about more than electoral calculation, because she is highly unlikely to carry either West Virginia (most Democrats think she’ll lose its primary on Tuesday to Bernie Sanders) or Kentucky this fall. Believe it or not, there are moral obligations in electoral politics. This is why her Appalachian outreach represented one of the admirable moments of her campaign. A progressivism that writes off the white working class is not worthy of being called progressive.

Technically that's right.  But if President Obama has taught the Democrats one thing, it's that the white working class is no longer necessary for a Democrat to win the White House, either.  On the other hand, if the Democrats want to break the GOP grip on these states at the local and state level, the white working class votes in these states are needed, and besides as Dionne says, it's a moral obligation as well.

It's a good long-term strategy unless you think it's a good idea for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and WV to be under or near total Republican control.  And as someone living in Kentucky, having Democrats at a national level pay attention to Democrats at the state level here instead of the usual condescending "why the hell don't you just move to a blue state already since you're surrounded by hicks and racists" is a good idea.

There are people who can be won over by the Democrats again, and unlike Republicans trying to "win over" black and Latino voters, Democrats are honest about trying to do so.

Brazil Nuts

OK, things just got seriously complicated in the ongoing impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, as the new acting Speaker of Brazil's House has suddenly trashed last month's impeachment vote as invalid.

The acting speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress annulled the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff on Monday and called for a new vote in the chamber. 

Waldir Maranhao, who took over as acting speaker last week, said there were procedural flaws in the April 17 vote in the chamber that accepted impeachment charges against Rousseff. 

After last month's lower house vote, the impeachment process was passed to the Senate, where a Senate committee recommended on Friday that the leftist president be put on trial by the full chamber for breaking budget laws. 

In a news release, Maranhao said the impeachment process should be returned by the Senate so that the lower house can vote again. 

It remained unclear whether his decision could be overruled by the Supreme Court, the Senate or a majority in the house. 

Brazilian markets fell sharply after the surprising decision was announced. 

Rousseff, who denies wrongdoing, has been fighting for her political survival for several months as opposition congressmen push aggressively for her ouster.

The full Senate had been expected to vote to put Rousseff on trial on Wednesday, which would immediately suspend her for the duration of a trial that could last six months. During that period, Vice President Michel Temer would replace her as acting president.

Umm...so...this is kinda looking like a "major constitutional crisis" brewing here, or am I overreacting here to what would be another vote that would still end up with impeachment and a Senate trial?

But that was yesterday.  Today is a different story.

The drive to oust President Dilma Rousseff is back on track after the head of the lower house reversed a decision that had earlier threatened to throw the entire impeachment process into chaos. 

Lawmaker Waldir Maranhao released a statement in the dead of night revoking his own call to annul impeachment sessions in the lower house. That puts the Senate back in the spotlight, with a vote on whether to put the unpopular president on trial still slated for Wednesday. If successful, it would temporarily remove her from office. Rousseff is charged with illegally using state banks to plug a hole in the budget. 

Yesterday’s wrangling jolted investors and underscored the intensity of a power struggle that is sure to heat up even further in coming days. Since proceedings began in Congress late last year, legislators have engaged in shoving matches over procedural debates and Rousseff has accused her vice president of plotting a coup against her. The Supreme Court has also been forced to step in on several occasions to clarify legal questions and further involvement by the highest court can’t be ruled out.

TV footage showed anti-impeachment protesters burning tires to stop the traffic in some of Sao Paulo’s main roads, including that leading to the international airport. Government supporters have scheduled more protests for the next few days. 

"Even the best laws aren’t good enough for the scale of this battle," said Carlos Pio, a professor of politics at the University of Brasilia. "The impeachment process will continue and with it the noise, challenges and uncertainty that we’ve been seeing."

I don't know enough about Brazilian politics to know the answer to what's going on here, but I want to.  Things are getting crazy in Brazil and the Rio Summer Games are just weeks away.  Hell, the country may not have a government by then.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• West Virginia goes to the polls today for primaries for both parties, Nebraska Republicans will also vote with Trump the only candidate left in the GOP race.
• A whistleblower in Flint, Michigan has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for looking into allegations that Mayor Karen Weaver tried to redirect charity donations as campaign funding.
• The trial of the second of six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray gets underway today, the case is likely to be decided by the judge and not a jury.
• The world's major oil companies are giving up billions in Arctic drilling rights as low oil prices simply can't justify the cost of exploration.
• Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has licensed a magnetic transportation technology created in the 90's that may be the key to making "Hyperloop" a reality.

Last Call For Just (San) Juan More Time

Now that Puerto Rico has defaulted on its debt repayments, the scramble by the Obama administration is on to try to fix the problem before it gets out of control.  The problem is, Republicans in Congress don't actually want to fix the problem at all, as it would require a bailout that would hurt our Precious Job Creators(tm) who bet wrong on the island's finances, and the thought of making them actually pay up is giving the one-percenters a heart attack.

Lawmakers have missed one deadline to prevent Puerto Rico from defaulting on its debt, and they’re trying to figure out how to build support for legislation that could prevent a second missed payment. 

Republicans are seeking to produce a revised bill as early as Wednesday, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew is heading to the commonwealth Monday to keep up the pressure for Congress to act. 

All sides are under pressure after a week-long congressional recess, punctuated by Puerto Rico’s default a week ago on most of a $422 million debt payment. Puerto Rico is in an economic recession that’s poised to worsen as residents continue to leave, threatening to deepen the fiscal crisis that’s pushing the island to default on a growing share of its $70 billion of debt.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah plans to craft the Republican legislation that would create a federal oversight board to help manage the island and supervise a debt restructuring, according to a committee aide who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. It will be similar to an earlier version that ran into snags, the aide said, adding that the measure could be advanced by the panel as early as next week. 

The top Democrat on the panel, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, said he’s not sure Republicans will be able to agree on legislation by Wednesday. He and other Democrats have begun to link the impact of the debt crunch to the strain on public services for an island grappling with a health crisis brought on by the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Lew, in his one-day visit, intends to highlight “how the debt crisis has already harmed the health, safety and welfare” on the island, according to a statement. 

The next deadline in Puerto Rico’s $70 billion debt crisis is July 1, when a $2 billion payment is due, including $805 million for the island’s general-obligation bonds, which are seen as its most sacrosanct debt.

It's that "federal oversight board" that's the problem, effectively ceding control of the island directly over to Congress, controlled by the GOP. The other problem is of course making the people of Puerto Rico cough up $74 billion that they don't have in order to full pay off the creditors, because no Republican up for re-election in November is going to want to "bail out" Puerto Rico, not when they're all lining up behind Trump and his mass deportation scheme.

The problem is a municipal bond default that size is going to hurt other states, counties and cities in the US if bond market gurus think that the US Treasury might stiff them, too.  That's kinda bad for things all over, and the GOP knows it.

If that July 1 deadline goes by without a payment, it could seriously hurt the economy in an election year, and not even the GOP wants that albatross around its neck (they have too many large and heavy metal birds to deal with already).

We'll see what happens but I'm tending to think the GOP will get off their ass and take whatever deal Jack Lew can work out.

North Carolina Goes Into The Crapper, Con't

NC GOP Gov. Pat McCrory isn't waiting around for the Justice Department to make good on its implied threat (deadline today) to withhold Title IX federal funding over civil rights violations in the state's HB2 "Bathroom Bill".  Rather, it seems the state's Republicans are going to sue the Obama administration for the right to discriminate against transgender people instead.

Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina on Monday escalated the nation’s clash about transgender rights and sued the Justice Department, which said last week that the state had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it passed a law that prohibited people from using public restrooms that do not correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates. 

In the suit, the governor accused the Justice Department of a “radical reinterpretation” of the law. 

“The department contends that North Carolina’s common sense privacy policy constitutes a pattern or practice of discriminating against transgender employees in the terms and conditions of their employment because it does not give employees an unfettered right to use the bathroom or changing facility of their choice based on gender identity,” said Mr. McCrory’s lawsuit, which was filed in a Federal District Court in North Carolina. “The department’s position is a baseless and blatant overreach.” 

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a message.

McCrory is betting that he can run out the clock on the Justice Department taking any actions while the suit is pending, and clearly he's hoping for both a a friendlier administration in 2017 who will drop the case completely, and a banner issue for NC Republicans to rally around for his re-election campaign in November. By saying that the law "needs to be resolved at a federal level" and that he's "taking the initiative to protect federal funding" for the state, he's framing the left as the bullies here, rather than "suing for the right to tell trans folks where to pee."

It's not an entirely stupid move, that is if you're going to stick with the entirely stupid move of HB2.

We'll see how far he gets, but he's clearly fishing for an injunction preventing any DoJ action pending a Supreme Court ruling, and that could take years.

As a countermove, the Justice Department sued NC right back.

The Department of Justice sued North Carolina on Monday, saying the state’s recently-passed “bathroom law” violates federal civil rights laws. 

The move comes hours after North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory sued the Department of Justice over its interpretation of the law. 

Last week, the Department of Justice sent a letter to McCrory saying the controversial law — which bans transgender people access to restrooms that match their gender identity in government buildings and schools — violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

“The state is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees,” U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta wrote in the letter to McCrory. 

Gupta gave McCrory until Monday, May 9, to respond with a solution to “remedy the situation.”

So now the battle begins.

He Can't Help Himself

My distaste for the King Of False Equivalency, Ron Fournier, and his both-siderism has long been evident, but he may have finally gone off into the abyss with this one.

The GOP is unraveling. Once the American people realize the power of their pull, the Dem Party also will unspool https://t.co/jkzh1YoHBH

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

Now, let's take a look at this.  Fournier is taking an NY Times piece detailing the crack-up of the GOP and because everything must be "Democrats are as bad the Republicans" to him, it's the "Dem Party will also unspool."

He presents no evidence of this, nor is any evidence of this cited in the article he links.  It's just "because both sides."  He goes on.

.@mnhttnstvn there are no good Dem approval ratings. Better than GOP doesn't mean good. Just means a bit less loathed. Congrats

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

2/ Like every other social institution, the GOP & Democratic parties face choice: Reinvent, reform (even cannibalize yourself) or perish

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

It's just going to happen. People hate the parties so they will collapse. It will happen to the Dems too, simoply because it has to happen. You see, if it doesn't, then it was never "Both sides are bad." Just one side, the GOP, crushed by demographics and intolerance. Fournier would be wrong. He can't abide that.

The Democrats are always one election away from extermination.  That won't change in the Village zeitgeist after 2016.

StupidiNews!

• North Korea has expelled a BBC correspondent and his reporting team for filing "disrespectful" reports from inside the country last week.
• As the premier of Alberta is expected to survey the damage from wildfires in Fort McMurray, Canadian environmental officials say the blaze could rage for months.
• Voters in the Philippines go to the polls to elect a new President on Monday, with outsider Rodrigo "The Punisher" Duterte leading the polls for taking a lethal stance against crime.
• A single winning Powerball lottery ticket worth $429 million was sold over the weekend in New Jersey, the sixth-largest lottery prize in US history.
• A California judge has given the go-ahead for a class-action suit from Illinois residents suing social network site Facebook over using facial recognition software to tag people in photos.

Last Call For The Saudi Shuffle

Our good friends the Saudis are in the middle of a major government overhaul as the reality of long-term $45 oil settles in, and its effects on the economy in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia replaced its central bank chief and long-time oil minister as part of sweeping economic changes led by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to reduce the nation’s reliance on hydrocarbons.

King Salman appointed Ahmed Alkholifey to head the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, as the central bank is known, succeeding Fahad Al Mubarak, who had been in the role since 2011. Also out is Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, the architect of the 2014 switch in OPEC policy that’s since roiled crude markets, replaced by Saudi Aramco Chairman Khalid Al-Falih.

Saudi Arabia is undergoing its biggest ever economic shakeup, led by the the deputy crown prince and second-in-line to the throne, as it prepares for the post-oil era following the plunge in crude prices that started in 2014. The kingdom’s energy industry, as well as its central bank, will play a “critical role in the economic transformation” plans, said Simon Kitchen, head of macro-strategy at Cairo-based investment bank EFG-Hermes.

“The deputy crown prince has now put his stamp on both institutions,” he said.

Al-Naimi, 80, retired after heading the oil ministry for almost 21 years. His departure is another sign of Prince Mohammed’s growing influence.

At the April 17 meeting in Doha where producers discussed a possible output freeze to curb the global glut, al-Naimi lacked the authority to complete any deal, according to his Russian and Venezuelan counterparts. The view of Prince Mohammed, who had insisted that no accord was possible without Iran, eventually prevailed and the talks collapsed.

As part of Saturday’s royal decrees, the name of the oil ministry becomes the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, and will undertake tasks and responsibilities related to electricity.

Prince Mohammed’s plans, outlined in the so-called “Vision 2030” blueprint announced on April 25, include setting up the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, transforming Aramco into an energy and industrial conglomerate, and generating an additional $100 billion in non-oil revenue by 2020.

Prince Mohammed is the future of Saudi Arabia, or at least the future of the House of Saud. Whether or not diversification away from oil will work is anyone's guess at this point, but it's clear that the man who believes that the country doesn't have a choice is now the man in charge, and King Salman has spent a lot of political capital getting the Deputy Crown Prince into that position.

The more pressing issue is Saudi's central bank, and whether or not it will keep its currency pegged to the US dollar.  Dropping the dollar peg would cause havoc with oil prices and certainly make things more difficult here in the US, just in time for the elections.

In other words, if you think the Saudis might be sore at us for crashing the price of oil, they could cause a lot of damage come this fall.

Just sayin'.

Pick Up Your Ride And Go Home

Whiny techbros don't like being told what they can and can't do in the Age of Disruption, and Austin, home of SXSW, decided that yes, ride-sharing drivers for services like Uber and Lyft need tougher background checks.  The companies spent nearly $8 million to force a ballot measure repealing the background check ordnance, and voters went to the polls on Saturday.

On-demand ride companies Uber and Lyft suffered an embarrassing defeat in a Saturday election in Austin as voters backed a measure requiring fingerprint background checks for drivers.

The two companies spent more than $8 million to repeal a city ordinance requiring the fingerprint-based criminal checks and launched what turned into the most expensive race in the Texas capital's history. Voters said by a margin of 56 to 44 percent they wanted the fingerprint checks to stay.

The companies outspent their opponents by 80-to-1 and when the votes were tallied their campaign contributions broke down to being more than $200 for each vote in favor of their position.

"Disappointment does not begin to describe how we feel about shutting down operations in Austin," Uber's Austin general manager Chris Nakutis said in a statement.

The stakes were high for the privately held Uber and Lyft, which say their background checks are already rigorous and ensure safety.

"Unfortunately, the rules passed by City Council don't allow true ridesharing to operate," Lyft said, adding it will suspend operations in Austin as of Monday.

That's right, both Uber and Lyft have long threatened to shut down their services if the repeal failed, warning that the city will lose tens of millions in business and that hundreds of drivers will lose their jobs.

Which isn't true, as the cost of the tougher background checks in Austin would have been less than the $8 million they spent lobbying for the repeal, but they figure they can force the city to come crawling back to them eventually.

Most likely I see a Republican-backed statewide measure that repeals the Austin ordnance soon.  In the meantime, the techbros will continue to whine.

Moose Versus Zombie

It seem Sarah Palin (who has been blessedly quiet these last few months because she actually looks sane next to Trump) is injecting herself into faux relevance again by going after GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Sarah Palin will work to defeat House Speaker Paul Ryan by backing his primary opponent in Wisconsin, the former Alaska governor told CNN's Jake Tapper. 

Palin said in an interview that airs Sunday on "State of the Union" that her decision was sparked by Ryan's bombshell announcement to Tapper last week that he wasn't yet ready to support Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee. Palin endorsed Trump back in January. 

"I think Paul Ryan is soon to be 'Cantored,' as in Eric Cantor," Palin said, referring to the former Republican House majority leader who was ousted in a shocking upset in 2014 when challenger Dave Brat ran to his right in a Virginia primary. 

"His political career is over but for a miracle because he has so disrespected the will of the people, and as the leader of the GOP, the convention, certainly he is to remain neutral, and for him to already come out and say who he will not support is not a wise decision of his," Palin continued.

I didn't even know who Paul Ryan's primary opponent is, and I kind of thought Wisconsin's primaries were over, but it turns out the primaries for congressional districts are on August 6, and the only other Republican in the race is a guy by the name of Paul Nehlen. Nehlen it turns out is the newest Tea Party hero of the Breitbart crowd after Paul Ryan's comments on Trump.

When House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday he wasn’t ready to support Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, his Wisconsin primary opponent saw an opening.

Following the Trump campaign’s lash-out on Friday, Paul Nehlen seized that opening, suggesting he will do what Ryan won't: support Trump.

“If Mr. Trump is the nominee, I will support that decision, because it will have been the will of the voters that got him there,” the Republican challenging Ryan for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District seat in the state’s August primary said in a statement.

Nehlen is seeking to gain an edge in the primary against Ryan, who won his 2014 primary by nearly 90 percentage points. This time around, the Trump campaign and allies have aggressively attacked the House speaker and Republican National Convention chair, with Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson intimating that Ryan is unfit for his role if he can’t support the presumptive nominee.

Nehlen now has Moose Lady on his side, for better or for worse.

This is going to be fun.

Sunday Long Read: The Perfect Drug

America's long opioid abuse crisis continues, and no drug is more responsible for the abuse of prescription painkillers the way Oxycontin is.  A new major LA Times investigation into the company that developed it, Purdue Pharma, is a frightening look at to what lengths Big Pharma will go to when it knew it had a $20 billion drug on its hands.

Over the last 20 years, more than 7 million Americans have abused OxyContin, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The drug is widely blamed for setting off the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 190,000 lives from overdoses involving OxyContin and other painkillers since 1999.

The internal Purdue documents reviewed by The Times come from court cases and government investigations and include many records sealed by the courts. They span three decades, from the conception of OxyContin in the mid-1980s to 2011, and include emails, memos, meeting minutes and sales reports, as well as sworn testimony by executives, sales reps and other employees. 

The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wearoff early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing.
Reporters also examined Food and Drug Administration records, Patent Office files and medical journal articles, and interviewed experts in pain treatment, addiction medicine and pharmacology. 

Experts said that when there are gaps in the effect of a narcotic like OxyContin, patients can suffer body aches, nausea, anxiety and other symptoms of withdrawal. When the agony is relieved by the next dose, it creates a cycle of pain and euphoria that fosters addiction, they said. 

OxyContin taken at 12-hour intervals could be “the perfect recipe for addiction,” said Theodore J. Cicero, a neuropharmacologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a leading researcher on how opioids affect the brain. 

Patients in whom the drug doesn’t last 12 hours can suffer both a return of their underlying pain and “the beginning stages of acute withdrawal,” Cicero said. “That becomes a very powerful motivator for people to take more drugs.”

The bottom line is that Oxycontin was designed to addict patients, to hook them and reel them in and line Purdue's pockets with billions of dollars.  They knew full well that the drug wore off sooner than 12 hours and left patients in crippling pain and suffering from withdrawal symptoms, and millions were turned into addicts because of it.  They pushed this poison on to doctors and patients to deal with chronic pain of all types and counted the cash rolling in.

So yeah, don't tell me that the bad guys are street corner pushers and small-time hustlers when Big Pharma is the biggest drug kingpin of them all.

Last Call For The Guy Who Got Trump Right

If there is a reason why one person who got Donald Trump right out of all the pundits was correct, it's probably because he's not a political pundit but an economic one: The Kroog.

Finally, I can almost guarantee that we’ll see attempts to sanitize the positions and motives of Trump supporters, to downplay the racism that is at the heart of the movement and pretend that what voters really care about are the priorities of D.C. insiders — a process I think of as “centrification.”

That is, after all, what happened after the rise of the Tea Party. I’ve seen claims that Tea Partiers were motivated by Wall Street bailouts, or even that the movement was largely about fiscal responsibility, driven by voters upset about budget deficits.

In fact, there was never a hint that any of these things mattered; if you followed the actual progress of the movement, it was always about white voters angry at the thought that their taxes might be used to help Those People, whether via mortgage relief for distressed minority homeowners or health care for low-income families.

Now I’m seeing suggestions that Trumpism is driven by concerns about political gridlock. No, it isn’t. It isn’t even mainly about “economic anxiety.”

Trump support in the primaries was strongly correlated with racial resentment: We’re looking at a movement of white men angry that they no longer dominate American society the way they used to. And to pretend otherwise is to give both the movement and the man who leads it a free pass.

In the end, bad reporting probably won’t change the election’s outcome, because the truth is that those angry white men are right about their declining role. America is increasingly becoming a racially diverse, socially tolerant society, not at all like the Republican base, let alone the plurality of that base that chose Donald Trump.

Still, the public has a right to be properly informed. The news media should do all it can to resist false equivalence and centrification, and report what’s really going on.

This is exactly correct.  It has always been about race in the Age of Obama. Angry white men anting to make sure everyone else gets punished, and using every threat imaginable to discourage the rest of us.

Paul Krugman, to his credit, had Trump pegged months ago.

A Gentlemanly Disagreement Between Co-Workers

Been waiting for this one for months now: Captain America: Civil War is here.




The Non-Spoiler review:  Go see it and enjoy it, it's everything Avengers: Age of Ultron should have been and more, and ties up a lot of loose ends from Captain America: Winter Soldier to boot.

Our movie opens with some unfinished business: HYDRA agents in 1991 programming the aforementioned Winter Soldier (Sebastian Shaw, who was once Cap's faithful sidekick Bucky) to "sanction and retrieve" a target. He is ruthlessly effective, and the mission will have great repercussions 25 years later...

...which brings us to Lagos, Nigeria, present day. Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen), Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are tracking down former HYDRA mercenary Crossbones (Frank Grillo) to a chemical weapons lab.  The mission is going well until Crossbones drops Bucky's name and Cap, distracted by the news, almost gets half of a crowded marketplace blown to pieces.

As it is, the dozens of casualties are one international incident too far for the United Nations to continue to stand back and let the Avengers operate without oversight.  General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt) drops a rather large set of United Nations accords on the team and says sign, or else.  Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Vision (Paul Bettany), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Black Widow all decide doing so is a good idea.  Cap, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch do not.

But when the Avengers once again fail to stop people from getting killed at the accord signing ceremony, and Bucky is the prime suspect, everything goes to hell rather quickly.  Cap is willing to bet everything that Bucky is being controlled again, and he wants to find out who is pulling his strings.  Iron Man is sent to bring Bucky in, especially since the attack at the ceremony kills the King of Wakanda, leaving T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) as the new monarch and protector of the African nation, the Black Panther.

What results is a fight long brewing between the Avengers and their allies in the wake of the most recent Marvel films, and it's worth every penny, particularly the fight scene that you know is coming from the opening scene, and behind it all is a secret long buried in the past...

The SPOILERS (you have been warned!) start after the jump.

No Trump Cards For Mittens

Yes, it's a Slate Pitch, but it's Jamelle Bouie and it's right: Donald Trump is going to lose in November, and the proof of that is Mitt Romney.

Romney wasn’t a bad candidate. He ran a competent and largely professional campaign against an incumbent who presided over high unemployment and slow growth. No, Romney wasn’t favored, but he also had a better shot than most candidates who run against a sitting president. If you believe that Trump can win—absent an exogenous shock like a terrorist attack or recession—you need to show how he beats Romney. You need to move this from the realm of speculation and into the world as it exists.

The idea of Trump as a plausible winner is rooted in the same error that drove pundits to discount and dismiss him as late as the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Then, observers saw the polls—which accurately showed his appeal to a cross-section of Republican voters—but refused to believe them. It was unthinkable that a field of ostensibly talented candidates would fail to stop Trump before he gained traction.

That’s what happened. If Trump had entered the race as an Icarus-type—a candidate who shoots to the top but withers under the heat—then by the fall, he was something different. He was a genuine presence in a crowded field with real support among Republican voters. No one bothered to stop him. Afraid of alienating Trump’s supporters, GOP leaders disarmed themselves; fearful of Trump’s attacks, Republican donors refused to fund a confrontation; complacent about his threat, Republican candidates focused on clearing their respective “lanes” rather than stopping the leader in the field. By the time Republican voters went to the ballot box, Trump had cultivated a following.

None of that is operative in the general election. Unlike Republicans, Democrats plan to hit Trump with a fusillade of attacks from all directions. And they plan to exploit weaknesses that Republicans didn’t touch until it was too late to stop Trump. They’ll hit Trump for his open and vicious misogyny; they’ll publicize his history of racism and discrimination; they’ll attack him where he’s strong with stories of ordinary people he’s scammed and defrauded; they’ll emphasize the fact that he doesn’t know anything about the world or governing.

So just like the math of how Hillary and Trump are going to be the nominees, the numbers also show Hillary Clinton is going to win, unless you think that Trump is going to win the black, Latino, and woman vote.

It's not going to happen.

Like House Of Cards, Only With Idiots

The neocon branch of the foreign policy press is absolutely furious with this NY Times interview by David Samuels with White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

As the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Rhodes writes the president’s speeches, plans his trips abroad and runs communications strategy across the White House, tasks that, taken individually, give little sense of the importance of his role. He is, according to the consensus of the two dozen current and former White House insiders I talked to, the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself. The president and Rhodes communicate “regularly, several times a day,” according to Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, who is known for captaining a tight ship. “I see it throughout the day in person,” he says, adding that he is sure that in addition to the two to three hours that Rhodes might spend with Obama daily, the two men communicate remotely throughout the day via email and phone calls. Rhodes strategized and ran the successful Iran-deal messaging campaign, helped negotiate the opening of American relations with Cuba after a hiatus of more than 50 years and has been a co-writer of all of Obama’s major foreign-policy speeches. “Every day he does 12 jobs, and he does them better than the other people who have those jobs,” Terry Szuplat, the longest-tenured member of the National Security Council speechwriting corps, told me. On the largest and smallest questions alike, the voice in which America speaks to the world is that of Ben Rhodes.

Like Obama, Rhodes is a storyteller who uses a writer’s tools to advance an agenda that is packaged as politics but is often quite personal. He is adept at constructing overarching plotlines with heroes and villains, their conflicts and motivations supported by flurries of carefully chosen adjectives, quotations and leaks from named and unnamed senior officials. He is the master shaper and retailer of Obama’s foreign-policy narratives, at a time when the killer wave of social media has washed away the sand castles of the traditional press. His ability to navigate and shape this new environment makes him a more effective and powerful extension of the president’s will than any number of policy advisers or diplomats or spies. His lack of conventional real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.

And if you're wondering why veteran foreign policy Villagers are calling for Rhodes's head on a pike, well the reaction of Tom Ricks is typical.  They hate the guy, because Rhodes called them out.

Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of politics — I have voted for Obama twice. Nor do I mind Rhodes’s contempt for many political reporters: “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little schmuck. This quotation seems to capture his worldview: “He referred to the American foreign policy establishment as the Blob. According to Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.” Blowing off Robert Gates takes nerve.

I expect cynicism in Washington. But it usually is combined with a lot of knowledge — as with, say, Henry Kissinger. To be cynical and ignorant and to spin those two things into a virtue? That’s industrial-strength hubris. Kind of like what got us into Iraq, in fact.

Rhodes and others around Obama keep on talking about doing all this novel thinking, playing from a new playbook, bucking the establishment thinking. But if that is the case, why have they given so much foreign policy power to two career hacks who never have had an original thought? I mean, of course, Joe Biden and John Kerry. I guess the answer can only be that those two are puppets, and (as in Biden’s case) are given losing propositions like Iraq to handle.

Yeah, that's right, one of the more important Pentagon/State beat writers around just called the Vice President and the Secretary of State "hacks" and "puppets" of a 38-year old creative writing graduate.

There's more.

Last Call For London Calling

London has just elected Sadiq Khan, Labour Party candidate, as Mayor of the city, and the campaign was as brutal, as nasty, and as racist as you can imagine.

Sadiq Khan, a practicing Muslim and Labour Party politician, has been elected mayor of London, marking a political milestone in the Western world. 

Londoners voted in Khan, 45, as the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital city. He will take office in a metropolis where his fellow Muslims comprise about 12% of the population. 

His victory followed an unusually bitter campaign against Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire, in which race and religion have proven ugly flashpoints. 

The London-born son of Pakistani immigrants, Khan grew up with his six brothers and sister in a three-bedroom, public housing apartment. He studied law, became a university lecturer and the chairman of a civil liberties group, and was elected to Parliament in 2005. 

Affordable housing in a city increasingly drawing the super-rich, aging infrastructure and transportation are top issues facing the new mayor. 

Khan is replacing incumbent Boris Johnson, a colorful and popular figure who took office in 2008 and was a rare Conservative mayor in the Labour-leaning British capital. 

Johnson is leading the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union at a referendum on June 23. He is clashing with Prime Minister David Cameron, who is in favor of the United Kingdom remaining.

By the way, Goldsmith definitely played the terror card as it became clear he was going to lose, accusing the Labour Party of allowing the city to fall to Islamic terrorists that had attacked the city on July 7, 2005.

If that wasn't bad enough, there's the whole separate issue of Labour's leader being Jeremy Corbin, somebody very much considered to be wildly far left with that party having definite problems with those who are anti-Semitic making some very ugly comments.

Even PM David Cameron stepped into the fight, openly accusing Khan of being an ISIS sympathizer.

In the end, Khan won by a nearly 60-40% margin, but I fear this is going to have a major effect on the referendum for the UK to exit the EU next month.

We'll find out soon.

A Big Glass Of Nader Aid For The GOP

You can thank Ross Perot for screwing Poppy Bush over in 1992 to the point where Bill Clinton won states like Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Montana and West Virginia on the way to taking a 200 electoral vote win, and ol' Ross came back and did it again four years later to Bob Dole, handing Clinton an even larger re-election victory.

Oh please, please please please let a third party split the GOP and put another Clinton in the White House again 20 years later.

The clock is fast ticking down for a third-party run, at least when it comes to getting on the ballot in many states. Independent candidates running for president must file applications and petitions of support in Texas, which has 38 electoral votes, the second-most of any state, by May 9, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office. 

“It’s an uphill climb, everybody recognizes that, regardless of the route we go, but there are a lot of Republican donors sitting on the sidelines who would rather fund a third party than fund Donald Trump,” said Erickson, who said campaign finance experts within the movement estimate it will cost a minimum of $250 million to fund a third-party bid. 

But even if a third-party candidate failed to make the ballot in many states, the mere presence of a prominent alternative in the race could be enough to deny Trump the White House.

Conservatives have floated several names as a potential Trump spoiler. 

They include former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (R), who is poised to become the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee; former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who was long an outspoken conservative voice in Congress; and freshman Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who early Thursday morning posted on Facebook an open letter calling for a third-party option to Trump and Clinton.

National Review, a leading conservative publication, published a piece Thursday afternoon making the case for Johnson, praising him as a self-made businessman and a fiscal conservative who favors free trade and gun rights. 

“Everybody is looking at Gary Johnson right now to see where decides to settle on some of these issues,” Erickson said.

He added that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R), who dropped his bid for the GOP nomination earlier this year, “would be viable” as well.

Erickson said the key issue is abortion. Any candidate who will at least leave it to the states instead of the federal government to set abortion laws could draw strong support, he said. 

The biggest task ahead is finding a candidate whom conservatives can rally behind, and who has the stature needed to become a national candidate and take on Trump.

I can't begin to tell you how happy I'd be to see a Tea Party v Trump third party run, it would arguably give Clinton 538 electoral votes.  It would be amazing.

So go for it, guys.  Please.

NC Goes Down The Crapper

North Carolina Republicans are calling out federal Justice Department officials, saying they will openly defy a deadline to modify the state's HB2 "bathroom bill".  At stake: billions of dollars in federal Title IX funding for state schools and universities as lawmakers face civil rights violations.

The Republican leaders of North Carolina’s General Assembly defiantly announced Thursday that they would not meet a Monday deadline to suspend or repeal a state law limiting bathroom access for transgender people, setting up a potential legal showdown over what has become one of the nation’s most explosive cultural issues.

“We will take no action by Monday,” said Tim Moore, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, referring to the deadline the Justice Department gave the state to tell federal officials whether the law would stand. “That deadline will come and go.”

Though Mr. Moore criticized the deadline as “unreasonable,” he also seemed to signal that Republicans might eventually agree to alter the law, which forbids people to use public building restrooms that do not match the gender listed on their birth certificates.

“The legislative process doesn’t work where a response can be given by just a few days,” he said, “so we’re going to move at the speed that we’re going to move at to look at what our options are at this point.”

His comments, as well as a private meeting later with a leading critic of the law, Mayor Jennifer Roberts of Charlotte, were indications that lawmakers here may be concerned about the potentially damaging consequences of keeping the law intact and defying the Justice Department.

The Obama administration contends that the law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and its finding could push the federal government to withhold in federal aid.

The law puts more than $4.8 billion in federal funding to state and local governments at risk, according to a recent analysis by the Williams Institute, a research organization at the University of California, Los Angeles, law school that focuses on sexual orientation and gender identity law. The bulk of those losses would be from education funds, though the state could also lose money for career services, health care, housing and other purposes.

$5 billion is real money folks, and I'm not sure what's going to happen to my home state if the feds make good on this threat.  This leverage is there for a reason, but ten million people in North Carolina are going to be hurt if this happens. That's $500 a person roughly, and that's not trivial, especially in the poorer parts of the Tarheel State.

Beyond that, the political fallout isn't going to be fun either.  We'll see which side the voters blame for this, the Obama administration or GOP Gov. Pat McCrory and the NC GOP.  A major court battle isn't out of the question either, so this could drag on for years, especially if McCrory wins re-election in November and voters keep the NC GOP in power.

StupidiNews!

• Newly disclosed court documents reveal that a claim of sexual abuse by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was brought to the university as early as 1976.
• North Korea's ruling party congress will meet formally for the first time in nearly 40 years to bestow its blessing on ruler Kim Jong Un.
• Greek workers began a 48 hour strike Friday to protest austerity measures going into effect to satisfy EU finance officials and creditors.
• As raging wildfires in Alberta, Canada continue near the city of Fort McMurray, estimates indicate the blaze could be Canada's most expensive natural disaster to date, topping $7 billion.
• Commercial rocket company SpaceX has once again successfully landed a rocket on a drone ship, this time at night, and with the rocket traveling faster and further.