Last Call For Dispatches From Bevinstan

And just because Gov. Matt Bevin hasn't wasted enough taxpayer money on fighting the Obama administration, he's joining the Texas suit over where kids pee.

WKYT has learned Kentucky is joining the list of states suing the Obama administration over a federal directive concerning transgender students in public schools. 

Governor Matt Bevin's office made the announcement on Friday. 

Earlier this month, President Obama issued a directive telling schools that they must allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity instead of the sex on their birth certificate. 

In a statement, Governor Bevin says that since Attorney General Andy Beshear did not act, his administration is joining in on the lawsuit. 

“The federal government has no authority to dictate local school districts' bathroom and locker room policies,” said Gov. Bevin. “The Obama Administration’s transgender policy ‘guidelines’ are an absurd federal overreach into a local issue.” 

“Unfortunately, Attorney General Andy Beshear is unwilling to protect Kentucky’s control over local issues. Therefore, my administration will do so by joining this lawsuit. We are committed to protecting the Tenth Amendment and fighting federal overreach into state and local issues.”

Yep, gotta protect the state's right to discriminate and treat people like sub-human garbage.  So when the courts tell Bevin "Why yes, if you take federal money for schools, local and state government buildings, and  public facilities, you can't actually use them to discriminate" then I'll have a good laugh, but I really, really hope that at some point we get rid of the hatred this man proposes.

He's been in office six months and he already is tiresome.

Oh well.  I voted for Conway.

Berned Out, Con't

It's kind of hard to talk about "party unity" when Sanders supporters are openly hoping for an FBI indictment for Hillary Clinton.

Senator Bernie Sanders may be trailing Hillary Clinton by hundreds of delegates, and Mrs. Clinton may be treating the Democratic nomination as hers, but Julie Crowell, a stay-at-home mother and a die-hard Sanders supporter, is holding out for an 11th-hour miracle: divine deliverance at the hands of the F.B.I. 

Like many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters, Ms. Crowell, 37, said she hoped that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state would eventually yield an indictment, and she described it as the kind of transgression that would disqualify another politician seeking high office. 

“She should be removed,” said Ms. Crowell, of Tustin, Calif., who attended a Sanders rally here on Tuesday and said she planned to vote for a third-party candidate if Mr. Sanders failed to overtake Mrs. Clinton and capture the Democratic nomination. “I don’t know why she’s not already being told, ‘You can’t run because you’re being investigated.’ I don’t know how that’s not a thing.” 

Campaigning in California, where polls show a tightening primary race, Mr. Sanders continued to hit Mrs. Clinton over her positions on Wall Street, trade deals, the minimum wage, hydrofracking and “super PACs” — seemingly everything except her emails, which he famously took off the table as an issue during an early Democratic debate. But Mrs. Clinton faces renewed criticism after an inspector general’s report faulted her for violating the State Department’s records-retention policy. And as the F.B.I. continues its investigation into the handling of classified information, attendees at Sanders rallies have repeatedly expressed hope that the scandal would result in criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton. 

“If there’s any chance of her getting indicted, they shouldn’t even consider her for the nomination,” said Zachary O’Neill, 21, of Escondido. “We can’t have a criminal in the White House.” 

And what would be a more colossal comeuppance to the Democratic establishment? 

“We can’t go back and undo giving her the Democratic nomination,” said Jennifer Peters, 28, of Costa Mesa. 

I know, 2008 was far worse.  I was there. It's why I started the blog nearly 8 years ago. But it's going to be months more of idiocy like this, and every bit of it will only help Trump.

Sanders is the one who will have to bury the hatchet.  I still have reservations believing he will, because assholes like this exist:

Victor Vizcarra, 48, of Los Angeles, said he would much prefer Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton. Though he said he disagreed with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, Mr. Vizcarra said he had watched “The Apprentice” and expected that a Trump presidency would be more exciting than a “boring” Clinton administration. 

“A dark side of me wants to see what happens if Trump is in,” said Mr. Vizcarra, who works in information technology. “There is going to be some kind of change, and even if it’s like a Nazi-type change. People are so drama-filled. They want to see stuff like that happen. It’s like reality TV. You don’t want to just see everybody be happy with each other. You want to see someone fighting somebody.”

Trump'll make the trains Bern on time!

Seriously, folks, there's a subset of Bernie voters who were never, ever going to vote for Clinton in the first place, and they're having their day in the hot take sun.

They were never Dems to begin with, just embarrassed Republicans, most of them. Treat them as such.

The Sound Of The Police

With two of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore getting off with no convictions so far, two more of the officers are now suing Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby for defamation of character ahead of their respective trials, essentially saying they were scapegoated.

Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter, who are facing charges of involuntary manslaughter in the 25-year-old's death last April, filed the lawsuit against Mosby, Baltimore sheriff's office Maj. Sam Cogen and the state of Maryland on May 2, according to Baltimore Circuit Court records made public Wednesday. 

The officers claim that Mosby and Cogen knew the statement of charges filed against the officers and other statements made by Mosby at a May 1, 2015, news conference announcing the charges "were false." 

"These among other statements were made not for the purpose of prosecuting crimes that had allegedly been committed by White and Porter, but rather for purposes of quelling the riots in Baltimore," the suit alleges. 

The officers had asked that the lawsuit be sealed to "avoid any suggestion" that they were "not complying with the spirit of" a gag order issued in their criminal cases by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, and to "avoid any additional pretrial publicity in connection with their upcoming criminal trials." They said they had to file the lawsuit at this time because of statute of limitations concerns. 

Judge Althea Handy on Wednesday denied the motion to seal the case, saying the officers had "failed to provide a special and compelling reason to preclude or limit inspection of the case record sufficient to overcome the presumption of openness" under Maryland law.

Basically, White and Porter are saying the charges are trumped-up just to stop rioting last year.  It's a stupid shot in the dark, but considering Mosby is zero for two so far, and given the minuscule percentage of cops ever convicted for murder, it's probably worth the hassle.

Not that I expect a single charge to stick to any of these scumballs.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama became the first sitting US president to visit the Hiroshima Memorial in Japan today, speaking at length on a need for a world without nuclear weapons.
• After 25 rounds of battling it out, America once again has two US Scripps National Spelling Bee co-champions in Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar.
• The first case of colistin-resistant bacteria in the US has been confirmed in Pennsylvania, health officials warn that more such infections are inevitable.
• In his first campaign rally since gaining enough delegates to win the GOP nomination, Donald Trump in North Dakota vowed to dismantle the Obama administration's climate policy.
• Cyber-security procedures at a dozen more international banks are now under investigation in relation to an attempted billion-dollar heist at Bangladesh's central bank in March.

Last Call For Shutting The Door

Gotta love Republicans who think Donald Trump isn't going far enough on immigration and deportation.

Robert Blaha, a Republican primary candidate in Colorado’s Senate race, said on Tuesday that Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the country doesn’t go far enough. 

“I want to go beyond just Muslims,” Blaha said at a GOP meeting in Fremont County. “And I’ll tell you why. The issue is not—the issue is partially a religious issue, but the real issue there is—the real issue is security. The real issue is we do not know who these people are. We don’t know where they’re coming from, we don’t know whether a terrorist state. We do not have the ability as a government right now to vet these people.”

But please, tell me again how being the party of "Let's get rid of all the brown people!" is going to help in 2016.

“Until we can properly vet people and know who they are and know where they’re coming from and know what their belief structures are they’re coming out of, we cannot afford to take that risk,” he said. “So it’s bigger than just a religious issue, to me. It’s a much bigger issue than just a religious issue. So we must secure the border, and we must not allow people to come into this country when we do not know who they are.”

Forget Trump blocking Muslims from coming into the country, this guy wants to block everyone.

I hope this guy wins the primary next month.  It'll be funny to see Michael Bennet defend his Senate seat and win by 20.

The Bern Out Continues

Apparently this whole horrible idea of a Bernie Sanders/Donald Trump debate in California is not only a real thing, but apparently may actually happen.

Donald Trump late Wednesday said that he is ready and willing to debate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for charity. 

“Yes, I am,” he said on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!" "How much is he going to pay me? If he paid a nice sum toward a charity, I’d love to do that.

“If I debated him, we would have such high ratings and I think I should take that money and give it to some worthy charity,” the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee added. 

Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, later accepted Trump’s offer, even offering a potential battleground site.

I'm with Steve M. on this.  It's an atrocious idea that only plays into Trump's stubby little hands.

Trump will spend most of the "debate" either agreeing with Sanders (on trade deals, on the need for more jobs) or chiding him gently. Trump will have no motivation to bang heads with Sanders -- remember, in the primaries he attacked opponents only when they seemed to be gaining on him in polls of upcoming contests. Trump's goal will be to use the words of Sanders as a club to beat Clinton with. Sanders won't see that coming, though he certainly won't object when it happens. He'll pile on. 

It's not going to be a great moment in the history of Western democracy. Sorry, kids.

Agreed.  This is going to be a slag fest on Hillary, and Sanders won't lay a glove on Trump. He'll be too busy trashing Clinton. I don't see any reason for doing this unless Sanders is willing to destroy the party for his own ego (entirely possible at this juncture.)

And can you imagine the howling of "Arrogant!" and screaming of "What a bitch!" from the Sanders camp if Hillary debated Trump before the California primary?

Nope, there's zero upside for Sanders here other than to be used as a tool to attack Hillary with by Trump, and at this point Sanders is okay with that.

Right now any possible goodwill I've had left for the Sanders camp is gone. The man was never a Democrat, and with this stunt, he clearly shows that he doesn't care if he fractures the party and hands the country over to Trump.

But the joke's on Bernie: Trump has no actual intention of debating him.

Chances of a @realDonaldTrump @BernieSanders debate? From 3 #Trump sources: #NeverHappen "0" & "It was a joke." #TooBad #PayPerView

— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) May 26, 2016

I'm done with him at this point.

Don't Come Ryan To Trump Anymore

Looks like the "principled conservative Never Trump movement" is about as dead as the Reds' chances of winning the World Series this year, as GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan is now waving the white flag in surrender to the Party of Trump.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has begun telling confidants that he wants to end his standoff with Donald Trump in part because he’s worried the split has sharpened divisions in the Republican Party, according to two people close to the lawmaker. 

Ryan aides say nothing has been decided about a possible Trump endorsement. But Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, told a small group of Republican lawmakers Thursday that he expects Ryan to endorse the party’s nominee as early as this week, according to two people in the meeting. 

If Ryan were to endorse Trump, the move would end a nearly unprecedented standoff between the House speaker and his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, and remove the biggest remaining obstacle to Trump’s efforts to unite Republicans around his campaign.

In fact, Manafort told the gathering of Republican lawmakers that Ryan’s endorsement would put more pressure on the party’s remaining Trump holdouts to fall in line.

Which would be the first truthful thing Paul Manafort has said this year, but he's right.  Not that there ever was any real resistance to Donald Trump's racist, misogynist, Islamophobic, fear-based garbage, because Republicans are now the party of hate, but you guys they tried to stop him, they tried really, really hard and I guess they'll just have to support him rather than that mean ol' Hillary.

I'm so tired of Republicans.  It really is hard for me not to just say "Every single one of you are racist dirtbags who hate anyone darker than a paper bag" and be done with it, except I know that's not true.

But it's difficult to find a Republican who rejects Trump, and by the time November rolls around, they'll be voting for him for President of the United States of America in the tens of millions.

I miss Republicans who weren't insane.  Then again, Paul Ryan knows exactly what he's doing, and that is attempting to destroy Social Security, Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid for good, so maybe Trump by comparison isn't the actual problem.  Paul Ryal after all is already in office, and he's House Speaker.

Perhaps we should fix that in November.

StupidiNews!

• The Afghan Taliban's new leader says no peace talks with the Afghan government will be tolerated after US drone strikes killed the group's former leader last week.
• A Kentucky judge has ruled that the city of Louisville can remove a monument to Confederate soldiers near the University of Louisville.
• President Obama is in Japan meeting with other G7 leaders at the group's annual summit, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe wants countries to boost spending for the ailing global economy.
• Crude oil has reached $50 a barrel for the first time since November as the summer driving season in the US approaches amid signs that the world oil glut is ending.
• Several countries are contributing funds to a massive radio telescope project in Chile, the European Extremely Large Telescope could be completed as early as 2024.

Last Call For A Bathroom Break

Republicans have decided that the social issue hill to die on in 2016 is which bathroom schoolkids use to go to poop.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and officials in 10 other states on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court resisting the Obama administration’s guidance that instructs schools to let transgender students use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. 

Among the defendants in the case, filed in federal district court in Northern Texas, are the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S Department of Education. 

The guidance issued to public schools on May 13 instructs publicly funded education institutions to allow transgender students use facilities consistent with their gender identity in a wide range of setting — from restrooms and dorms, to sports teams.

So this is really a thing now, red states are now suing to stop trangender people from being treated as human beings by the government.  Hey, superb work, Christians.  So, let's check the list of usual suspects, shall we?

The state of Texas is the lead plaintiff and was joined by Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia, plus the Arizona Department of Education and the governor of Maine.

Schools districts from Texas and Arizona also joined the suit, which names the U.S. government and a host of federal agencies and officials as defendants.

Ahh, good ol' red states.  What would we do without you making sure Americans are miserable Puritanical losers?

Dear lord I cannot wait for that ninth Supreme Court justice to be appointed so we can smash these idiots in the mouth for years to come.

The Third Degree In 2016

I've talked about a possible conservative third party challenge to Trump, and I've even entertained Bernie Sanders breaking off and joining Jill Stein over in Green land, but as Clare Malone over at Five Thirty Eight reminds us, there already is a serious third party candidate on the ballot in November, and Libertarian Party mainstay Gary Johnson is polling in double digits in a three-way race.

At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. 

A Morning Consult survey published Tuesday and found Clinton getting 38 percent of the vote, Trump 35 and Johnson 10, with 17 percent undecided. A Fox News poll conducted from May 14-17 showed Trump leading over Clinton, 42 percent to 39 percent, but Johnson at 10 percent as well. Lest you think this is some fluky May development, a Monmouth Universitysurvey conducted in mid-March — while the political universe was still busy wringing its hands over the Republican nomination — found that in a three-way race, Clinton would get 42 percent, Trump 34 percent and Johnson 11 percent. 

Given that Trump and Clinton are sporting historically high negative ratings, Johnson’s polling makes a fair bit of sense; Gary Johnson is neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton. He might not win a state, but he could make some noise.

This seems like it could maybe turn into another Ross Perot moment.  Maybe.  Still a long shot.

The most serious third-party candidate in recent memory was Ross Perot, who third-wheeled his way onto the political stage in 1992 and 1996, eventually taking 19 percent and 8 percent of the national vote in those respective years. In May of 1992, Perot, a former businessman, was polling gangbusters; a Gallup poll found him at 35 percent and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey had him at 30 percent. Perot entered the race in February of that year, a few weeks after the county was initiated to the first of Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, and in the midst of a tough economy for President George H.W. Bush — plenty of voters were looking for other options. Four years later, he was still polling well for a third-party candidate, but not nearly at his 1992 levels: May polls (not to be confused with maypoles) had Perot at 17 percent (ABC/Washington Post), 12 percent (NBC/Wall Street Journal), and 10 percent (Gallup1). 

But that was the ‘90s, back before most of us in the interior of the country had ever even seen an avocado let alone mashed it up on toast. How have third-party candidates polled recently? Johnson ran as the Libertarian candidate in 2012, and won about 1 percent of the national vote, becoming the most successful Libertarian candidate ever; in polls done in May and June of 2012, he was polling at 2 percent. Bob Barr, the Libertarian nominee in 2008, also polled at 2 percent in the late spring of that year. 

It must be noted that Johnson is not yet the Libertarian nominee. The party will be holding its nominating convention this weekend in Orlando, where he will face Austin Petersen, a young party operative, as well as former fugitive millionaire businessman John McAfee, who was once called“extremely paranoid, even bonkers” by the prime minister of Belize. 

Given that this is 2016, no result should be ruled out.

The point is there are people out there who have no intention of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and if they start seeing Johnson as a viable alternative, it's possible that he could get enough votes to swing a close state or two. As 2000 showed us, you don't need more than a few thousand votes in the right state to change the course of an election and of history.  Even if Johnson doesn't get 10% of the vote, 1% of the vote could be enough in places like Florida, NC, and even Ohio.

It wouldn't be the first time in American history.

North Carolina Goes Into The Crapper, Con't.

The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce is raging mad at NC GOP Gov. Pay McCrory and the state's GOP lawmakers as so far the state's idiotic HB2 "bathroom bill" has cost the state $285 million in lost business...

...and that's just Charlotte.

Mecklenburg County has suffered an economic blow of $285 million and a loss of as many as 1,300 jobs as a result of House Bill 2, a new Charlotte Chamber report says. 

The report also says inquiries about new economic development are down 58 percent since lawmakers passed the bill in March, and client visits down 69 percent from last year. 

“We have said all along that the economic loss has been real, the risk of further loss is great, and this is potentially catastrophic to our economy,” Chamber President Bob Morgan said. 

The report was distributed to Charlotte City Council members and some lawmakers. The council voted 7-4 Monday night against considering a repeal of the city ordinance that prompted lawmakers to pass HB2.

That toll is expected to climb higher if the law stays in place, too.  $285 million in lost business and 1,300 jobs is nothing to sneeze at, and that's not counting any other of North Carolina's other 99 counties that have lost business and jobs because of NC Republican bigots.

That's the kind of losses that look bad to lawmakers, and look even worse to voters around election day.  Hopefully my home state will finally kick these idiots out of office in November, starting with McCrory.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article79503287.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces in Syria are launching an offensive campaign today to retake the area around Raqqa, the Islamic State's effective capital in the war-torn country. 
• Michigan GOP Gov. Rick Snyder has declared a state of emergency in Detroit in response to an outage at an oil refinery, the declaration allows fuel trucks to travel longer hours.
• A Donald Trump rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico turned violent as police used smoke and pepper spray to break up protests against the GOP candidate.
• Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell will cut 2,200 additional jobs in 2016, raising global layoffs for the company to at least 5,000 as the oil slump continues into its third year.
• Former McDonald's CEO Ed Rensi is warning that a national $15 minimum wage will force the restaurant industry to automate and cost millions of jobs.

Last Call For It's Still About Suppression

Just another friendly reminder that new Republican voter suppression efforts in a dozen states will definitely lower turnout in the 2016 election, because voter ID laws are designed to keep people of color, the elderly, students, and the poor from voting at all.

In November, 17 states will have voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Eleven of those states will require their residents to show a photo ID. They include swing states such as Wisconsin and states with large African American and Latino populations, such as North Carolina and Texas. On Tuesday, the entire 15-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans is to begin hearing a case regarding the legality of the Texas law, considered to be the most stringent in the country.

Supporters say that everyone should easily be able to get a photo ID and that the requirement is needed to combat voter fraud. But many election experts say that the process for obtaining a photo ID can be far more difficult than it looks for hundreds of thousands of people across the country who do not have the required photo identification cards. Those most likely to be affected are elderly citizens, African Americans, Hispanics and low-income residents. 

“A lot of people don’t realize what it takes to obtain an ID without the proper identification and papers,” said Abbie Kamin, a lawyer who has worked with the Campaign Legal Center to help Texans obtain the proper identification to vote. “Many people will give up and not even bother trying to vote.” 

A federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the forms of identification that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
Across the country, about 11 percent of Americans do not have government-issued photo identification cards, such as a driver’s license or a passport, according to Wendy Weiser of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. 

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), compares his state’s new voter-ID requirement to what is needed for “boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed.” Texas officials, who say the laws are needed to combat possible voter fraud, recently said in court papers that the Justice Department and civil rights groups suing the state are not able to find anyone “who would face a substantial obstacle to voting.” 

But former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. has called the costs associated for voters seeking a photo ID a “poll tax,” referring to fees that some Southern states used to disenfranchise blacks during the Jim Crow era of laws enforcing racial segregation between the late 1800s through 1965.

And that's exactly what these new laws do: make it specifically more difficult for people who don't have the proper IDs to get one, and then keeping those people from voting.  Yes, the law does keep some people from voting Republican (mainly the elderly) but the effect is far more prevalent for groups that favor Democrats.

Republicans of course are fine with that, because that's the point.  Turnout among black voters, Latino voters, and students gave Barack Obama wins in states like North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin on the way to two terms, while coming very close to wins in Indiana in 2008.  Republicans are trying to make sure that never happens again.

Bottom line: if GOP voter suppression laws were in place in 2012, and flipped Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Wisconsin to the Republicans, Mitt Romney would be president right now.

2016 is going to be a lot tougher than Democrats realize, and the key to that is massive voter registration NOW.

Meet The Old Boss, Wish He Was The New Boss

Given the less-than-thrilling choices ahead of us this November, America is starting to miss Barack Obama as president already. I'm right there with them.

As the race to succeed President Barack Obama rages around him, the man who currently sits in the Oval Office has hit his highest approval rating since his second inauguration, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. 

Fifty-one percent of registered voters say they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. 

The last time more than half of the electorate gave Obama a thumbs up in the poll was in January 2013, when Obama took the oath of office after his successful re-election campaign against Republican Mitt Romney. His approval rating sunk as low as 40 percent before the 2014 midterm elections but subsequently rebounded, particularly since primary voting in the 2016 presidential race got underway at the beginning of this year. 

Obama's approval rating remains dismal with self-described Republicans, who disapprove of his performance by an 88 percent to eight percent margin. It's nearly the inverse image for Democrats, who approve of the job Obama is doing by 88 percent to 11 percent. And more than half - 54 percent - of independents give Obama high marks, compared to 44 percent who do not. 

Voters overall were less enthusiastic about the idea of electing Obama to a third term in office if such a move was allowed by the Constitution, although about four-in-ten respondents said they were willing to entertain the idea. Fifty-nine percent said they would not consider voting for a third Obama term, while 39 percent said they would consider it. That's compared to 34 percent who said they would consider voting for a third term for Bill Clinton in September 2000.

Granted, 2000 wasn't exactly Clinton's best year, but still, where was Dubya in spring 2008? Somewhere in the 20's by now?   Seeing Obama above water despite the daily programmed hatred of the man by the right-wing noise machine just goes to show you that if Republicans were reasonable instead of being the bugnuts party of Trump, Obama would be staking out future real estate on Mount Rushmore.

It tells you just how badly we're going to miss the guy, despite my grumblings about his foreign policy.

OK GO: This Too Shall (Not) Pass

Earlier this month I talked about Oklahoma being in such a budget hole that Republicans were seriously considering taking Obamacare's Medicaid expansion as the state's oil boom turned into an oil bust.  Now however it looks like Republicans would rather close down dozens of hospitals and nursing homes rather than admit they took help from the first black president.

A bill to expand Medicaid eligibility in Oklahoma so that the state could tap into an infusion of federal funding available under the Affordable Care Act appears to be dead, the state's Senate leader said on Monday.

With just one week remaining before lawmakers are set to adjourn, Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman said there isn't enough support in the Republican-controlled Senate to approve the plan. A proposed $1.50-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes to help pay for the state's share was defeated in the Oklahoma House last week, and Bingman said that proposal is also likely dead for the year.

"I think part of the (plan) is the expansion of Obamacare, and I think the Senate has been pretty clear for the last six years that we don't want to expand that portion ... because Oklahoma can't afford it," said Bingman, R-Sapulpa.

The plan called for expanding Medicaid eligibility to about 170,000 uninsured low-income Oklahomans and shifting about an equal number of currently Medicaid-eligible pregnant women and children onto the private market. Because of Republicans' bitter resistance to the federal health care law, the plan was dubbed a "rebalancing" instead of an expansion since the overall number of people on Medicaid was projected to stay the same.

If the plan had received federal approval, the federal government would have covered 95 percent of the state's Medicaid costs. That figure would have decreased to 90 percent of the share in 2020.

Without more funding, the state's Medicaid agency has said it would have to impose 25-percent cuts to the reimbursement rates paid to Medicaid providers, a slash so deep that many hospitals and nursing homes have said they would be forced to close their doors.

Oh well.  I guess this is what happens when you put fanatics in charge of your state government. Republicans would rather do nothing and kick out elderly nursing home patients and close dozens of rural hospitals than take taxpayer money to keep even basic health care facilities open.

I guess if you kill off all the poor people, then your Medicaid problem is solved, right?

StupidiNews!

• After a House Oversight Committee hearing, the top security official at the TSA, Kelly Hoggan, has resigned in the wake of long airport security lines.
• The children of Sam DuBose, killed in a traffic stop by University of Cincinnati police officer, will receive a nearly $5 million settlement from the university plus free college tuition.
• Vietnamese dissidents who tried to meet with President Obama about the country's human rights record were stopped by the Hanoi government, according to the White House.
• Fast food chain Arby's says it will be moving into Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with 25 new locations as the chain beefs up its international sales.
• Japanese police say dozens of suspects were involved robbing multiple ATM machines at convenience stores targeted across several prefectures in a nearly 1.4 billion yen mass heist.

Last Call For Bad Morning Vietnam

Last night I watched the HBO movie about Lyndon Johnson's 1964 presidential run, All the Way. Bryan Cranston definitely deserves an Emmy nod for his performance as the embattled Texas Democrat, and Anthony Mackie played MLK, Jr.  The film very much centered on their relationship as both the Civil Rights battle and Vietnam War were heating up.  It's a good movie, I recommend it.

Which brings us to today, more than 50 years later as another US president seems to think that arming Vietnam again with US weapons is somehow a good idea.

As US President Barack Obama announced the lifting of the decades-long embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam, he seemed at pains to explain the decision "was not based on China or any other considerations". 

Yet his mention of China reveals some of the greatest security concerns brewing in Hanoi. 

Since a brief but bloody border war in 1979 that cost thousands of lives, Vietnam-China relations have been bumpy to say the least. From being Vietnam's biggest ally, ironically, in the war against the United States, China has increasingly been seen as a dominant, and at times, threatening neighbour. 

Recent tensions in the South China Sea have added to the growing mistrust. Vietnam protests against what it sees as excessive Chinese maritime claims and supports the court case brought against China by the Philippines. Not only does China's growing assertiveness in the area challenge Vietnam's sovereignty, it could greatly affect its fishery, oil and gas activities, too.

I'm not sure what President Obama's game here is, but the notion that this is not "based on China" is not complete garbage like it seems at face value, Of course this is about protecting Hanoi from Beijing's navy, happily building their own airstrip islands across the pacific to project power.

But if there is somehow another country involved, it's actually Russia:

It is no secret that Vietnam is trying to boost its maritime defensive capability. Its largest arms contract to date with a foreign country was the $2bn purchase of six kilo-class submarines from Russia. 

A large number of patrol and missile ships and fighter jets have also been purchased from Russia, as Vietnam's military spending more than doubled between 2004 and 2013. It is now the eighth largest importer of weapons in the world.

"Better for Vietnam to be buying weapons from us than Putin" isn't exactly the kind of thing Obama should want to be remembered for, but here we are neck-deep in the realpolitik quagmire once again, hooray!

No way this will come back and bite us in the ass or anything.  Hey, those US jobs in the TPP have to be paid for by selling some sort of good or service, and that apparently includes military equipment to Hanoi. See, new markets!

New markets, and same old mistakes.  Sigh.

Bernie's California Love

To be honest, California's "jungle primary" rules are a flaming hot mess, and I definitely see why Bernie Sanders supporters are suing for extended party primary registration up to the June 7th vote.

A federal lawsuit alleging widespread confusion over California's presidential primary rules asks that voter registration be extended past Monday's deadline until the day of the state's primary election on June 7. 

"Mistakes are being made," said William Simpich, an Oakland civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday. 

At issue is whether voters understand the rules for the presidential primary, which differ from those governing other elections in California. 

Unlike statewide primaries — where voters now choose any candidate, no matter the political party — the presidential contests are controlled by the parties themselves. Democrats have opened up their primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to voters that have no political affiliation, known in California as having "no party preference." 

But the lawsuit alleges elections officials in some of California's 58 counties aren't making that clear to these unaffiliated voters. 

"There's mass confusion," Simpich said in an interview on Saturday night. "This is a situation that really shouts out for some uniformity." 

Simpich said a judge should require state elections officials to conduct a broad public awareness campaign about the voting rules before May 31, the deadline for requesting a ballot by mail. 

And to ensure unregistered Californians aren't disenfranchised in the presidential contest, the lawsuit asks voter registration be extended from its deadline on Monday until June 7, the day of the election. 

There is no indication yet of whether a judge will agree with the suit.

Yes, this reeks of enlightened self-interest for Team Bernie, but the point is that it's not just red states that have issues with voting (Gosh, if there were only something like a national Voting Rights Act that would establish equal standards for all US voting, preferably legislation that hadn't been completely gutted by the Supreme Court recently.)

Sure, this is all about helping Bernie's vote (and delegate) totals in the Golden State, but it doesn't mean the changes aren't necessary.  California's primary system really is confusing and the rules need to be made more clear, and considering one in seven US voters live here, it's rather important to the nation that this gets fixed sooner rather than later.

So yeah, here's hoping the suit allows more people to vote and vote correctly in the state's primary. I'm no fan of open primaries, but if that's the rule of the state, it needs to be clearly enforced and made clear to voters that this is how the primary works. That's on the state to perform, and if they're not doing the job, then the federal government needs to step in.

It's the same principle that applies to voter ID laws, they are there simply to disenfranchise, and again, the feds need to step in.

Having said all that, Sanders is still lying to his supporters about his chances in interviews in California.

“Here’s the math,” he said. “there are polls that came out recently where Hillary Clinton actually lost to Donald Trump. So part of the math, is which candidate stands the best chance to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States? — and that’s me.” 

If he does win the California primary, does he expect a divided convention? 

“I think we have a realistic chance in the sense that if we do really well in California, and in the other five states, and the non-state primaries, it will be possible for us to get 50 percent of the pledged delegates,” Sanders said.

Sure, he just has to win more than 80% of the remaining delegates.

That's "realistic" right?

The Viennese Gambit, Or Make Austria Great Again

With Sunday's votes in Austria's presidential election, far-right nationalist candidate Norbert Hofer has a slender lead against centrist Green Alexander Van der Bellen, and the final vote tally will be decided by absentee and mail-in ballots still being counted.

Austria is split. The soft-spoken, charismatic Mr Hofer, sometimes described as a wolf in sheep's clothing, caused turmoil in Austrian politics when he won a clear victory in the first round of voting in April.

But now his rival, Mr Van der Bellen from the Greens, has caught up. The far right has profited from deep frustration with the established parties of the centre left and the centre right in Austria. And in recent months, it has been boosted further by fears about the migrant crisis.

If Mr Hofer wins, it could have an impact far beyond Austria's borders - possibly giving momentum to far-right and Eurosceptic parties in other EU countries.

According to the interior ministry's final count of votes cast at polling-stations(in German), Mr Hofer took 51.9% to 48.1% for Mr Van der Bellen.

Postal voting accounts for 750,000 ballots, roughly 12% of Austria's 6.4 million eligible voters, said Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka.

"None of us wished for this," Mr Hofer said when he and Mr Van der Bellen were interviewed by ORF after the vote on Sunday.

"After all, both of us wanted to have a good night's sleep but it is so exciting. I've been in politics for a long time but I've never experienced an election night like this one."

Whoever won, he said, would have "the job of uniting Austria".

Mr Van der Bellen said that if he were elected president he would be welcome in all member states of the EU.

"I have been pro-European during the five months of campaigning," he said. "I made clear how important the European Union is for freedom, security and prosperity - also in Austria."

In the first round, Mr Hofer secured 35% of the votes, while Mr Van der Bellen polled 21%.

The two rivals had engaged in an angry TV debate earlier in the week, described as "political mud-wrestling" by commentators.

If this sounds familiar, there's a similar tune being played by Hofer's Freedom Party here in the States, and it sounds an awful lot like Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric.  We'll see where the voters stand after the mail ballots have been counted, but don't be surprised if the winner here wants to build a wall, kick those people out of the country, and want to Make Austria Great Again.

The same anger brought on by demographics in Europe is the same as the flames being stoked here, and the results may scorch a whole lot of Europe and the US before they are contained.

[UPDATE] : The BBC now saying that the postal votes are showing a Van de Bellen win.  Austria barely avoids a right-wing nationalist disaster.

For now.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama is lifting the decades-old ban on US arms sales to Vietnam as part of his trade tour this week to Pacific Rim countries, despite human rights concerns with the government.
• Greece's parliament has passed another raft of austerity measures despite heavy protests in Athens, ahead of a Tuesday EU meeting to provide the next stage of bailout money.
• Islamic State militants in Syria are claiming responsibility for multiple suicide bombing attacks against areas controlled by the Assad regime, at least 100 are dead in Jableh and Tartous.
• Pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG has made a $62 billion offer to buy agricultural giant Monsanto as global food and drug mega-mergers continue in 2016.
• Vermont could become the first state to pass legislation against prescription drug price gouging, the bill would level $10,000 fines against those that refuse to justify cost increases.