Last Call For The Greyball Special

Ride-sharing giant Uber is exactly the kind of tech company I despise: they come in and "disrupt" business, cheat at it, throw money at it, and act like spoiled brats when they get resistance.  But this NY Times story shows the depths to which the company will sink to when it comes to dealing with curious cops.

Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was being resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been outright banned. 

The program, involving a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from the Uber app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials. Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities such as Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China, Italy and South Korea. 

Greyball was part of a broader program called VTOS, short for “violation of terms of service,” which Uber created to root out people it thought were using or targeting its service improperly. The VTOS program, including the Greyball tool, began as early as 2014 and remains in use, predominantly outside the United States. Greyball was approved by Uber’s legal team. 

Greyball and the broader VTOS program were described to The New York Times by four current and former Uber employees, who also provided documents. The four spoke on the condition of anonymity because the tools and their use are confidential and because of fear of retaliation by the company.

Information is the greatest weapon of them all, folks, and Uber is king at using it.  A company that has an app that literally knows where you are at all times can use that to play all the games it wants to, and nobody beats Uber at it.

Uber’s use of Greyball was recorded on video in late 2014, when Erich England, a code enforcement inspector in Portland, Ore., tried to hail an Uber car downtown as part of a sting operation against the company. 

At the time, Uber had just started its ride-hailing service in Portland without seeking permission from the city, which later declared the service illegal. To build a case against the company, officers like Mr. England posed as riders, opening the Uber app to hail a car and watching as the miniature vehicles on the screen made their way toward the potential fares. 

But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app populated with ghost cars, to evade capture.

The real question is of course if Uber can use this technology to make sure cops don't get rides, well, it can use that technology to make sure anyone it wants to can be "greyballed out".  And you'd never know.

Time is money.  Uber wants to make as much as possible, so matching up fat fares with profitable drives is the kind of thing a datamining startup can excel at, taking into account traffic conditions, weather, position, history, and oh yeah, all your personal information.

So maybe you'd get that ride.  But maybe Uber makes more money if you pick up this other guy over here two blocks over.  Not your fault, it's playing the percentages.  But maybe you don't get a ride for 30 minutes...when Uber can charge later surge pricing, for example, because of high volume.

At a time when Uber is already under scrutiny for its boundary-pushing workplace culture, its use of the Greyball tool underscores the lengths to which the company will go to dominate its market. Uber has long flouted laws and regulations to gain an edge against entrenched transportation providers, a modus operandi that has helped propel the company into more than 70 countries and to a valuation close to $70 billion. 

Yet using its app to identify and sidestep the authorities in places where regulators said Uber was breaking the law goes further toward skirting ethical lines — and, potentially, legal ones. Some within the company who knew about the VTOS program and how the Greyball tool was being used were troubled by it. 

In a statement, Uber said, “This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.” 

Dylan Rivera, a spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said in a statement: “We’re very concerned to hear that this practice continued at least into 2015 and affected other cities. 

“We take any effort to undermine our efforts to protect the public very seriously,” Mr. Rivera said.

Most of all is the fact that Uber has pretty much decided it's going to put every cab company on the planet out of business, and that it's going to run over every local government that dares to get in its way as a multinational "disruptor of tech".  Laws don't apply to Uber, it seems...and it has the money to make those laws go away.  Now we see it also has the tech to make the law go away too.

Nice company, huh?

The Tale Of Three Brothers

No state typifies the Trump/Pence mindset than Indiana, where we meet the Marshall brothers down the road from here a bit over in Evansville, Jeremy, Troy, and Brandon.  They all voted for Trump, but now they're wondering if that was such a good idea.

Unemployment is low in southwestern Indiana, like the Midwest in general, after a seven-year jobs expansion under President Barack Obama. Still, there are thousands fewer high-paying manufacturing jobs than a decade ago. Factory wages have fallen.

As a result, Evansville’s middle class is hollowing out. Household income is flat, compared with strong growth nationally. The dream of a comfortable life with less than a bachelor’s degree — a credential held by only one in four Indiana adults — is receding.

“That way of life has really evaporated,” said Jonathan Weinzapfel, who was Evansville’s mayor the year Whirlpool left, idling 1,100 workers. 

And blue-collar workers are not the only members of the middle class being squeezed. Jeremy Marshall, who has a master’s degree and earns about $50,000 a year teaching at an elementary school, has long worked a second job — first mowing lawns, now as a home inspector. 

After Indiana’s Republican legislature rolled back teachers’ bargaining rights and tied their pay to student test scores a few years ago, Jeremy said, he missed out on what otherwise would have been an automatic $12,000 raise. He said he voted for Mr. Trump, but in statewide elections he supports Democrats, who are union-friendly. 

His workday is longer and more stressful than it used to be, he said. “I go home, and I’m mentally zapped. Everything’s data-driven. It’s always analyzing data, creating assessments to create more data.” 

At Applebee’s, as the conversation circled around the complexities of trade, Brandon Marshall, once in favor of strict protectionism, seemed to shift his view. He considered how tariffs might strain Jeremy’s budget and threaten Troy’s job. 

“It’s hard to say what would happen if we shut the borders off and had to start surviving on our own,” Brandon said.

“The thing about Trump, he never had to worry about a $15 tape measure compared to a $6 one,” he added. “He’s got good intentions. He wants to keep the jobs here. But if all those parts coming for Toyota cost more money to get here, is it going to turn jobs away in the long run?”

Well, you know Brandon, there was another candidate in the race who had some really good ideas on that complex and complicated subject, but you and your bros were perfectly okay voting for the racist bigot who you are now discovering may have not had your best interests in mind.

I'd tell the Marshall brothers would I would tell any Trump voter:  Maybe you're not a racist bigot, but you were super okay voting for the guy who is one to be our president in direct response to the nation's first black commander-in-chief.  In my book, that makes your judgment suspect at best, so maybe you should leave the heavy lifting of voting to the people with actual moral standards next time, eh?

Another Pence-ive Disaster

You could make the argument that as massively incompetent as the Trump regime seemed to be at governing that VP Mike Pence, Indiana's former governor, at least had executive experience and wasn't an obvious chowderhead.  At least, you could have made that argument before the Indianapolis Star dropped this story about Pence using a personal AOL account to conduct state business...an account that was of course hacked.

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cyber-security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence's are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence's personal account was hacked last summer.

Furthermore, advocates for open government expressed concerns about transparency because personal emails aren't immediately captured on state servers that are searched in response to public records requests.

I seem to recall Republicans making a rather large deal about using personal email accounts to conduct government business because it was clearly unsafe and exposed information to hackers.

Cybersecurity experts say Pence’s emails were likely just as insecure as Clinton’s. While there has been speculation about whether Clinton's emails were hacked, Pence’s account was actually compromised last summer by a scammer who sent an email to his contacts claiming Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and in urgent need of money.

Corey Nachreiner, chief technology officer at computer security company WatchGuard Technologies, said the email accounts of Pence and Clinton were probably about equally vulnerable to attacks.

"In this case, you know the email address has been hacked,” he said. “It would be hypocritical to consider this issue any different than a private email server.”

He and other experts say personal accounts such as the one Pence used are typically less secure than government email accounts, which often receive additional layers of monitoring and security, and are linked to servers under government control.

So yeah, turns out Mike Pence was actually guilty of what Republicans spent years accusing Hillary Clinton of doing, and of course it doesn't matter in the least because IOKIYAR.  Pence is just as awful and corrupt as the rest of the Trump regime, and oh yeah, he's trying to hide his emails too.

Oh, and let's not forget that Trump EPA chief Scott Pruitt did the same thing when he lied to Congress during his confirmation hearing about using a personal email account for state business when he was Oklahoma Attorney General.

An environmental group and several Democratic senators are demanding a review of the personal email account of Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, after he said during confirmation hearings that he never used that account for official business as Oklahoma state attorney general.

When asked whether he had ever used a private email account while on the job, Pruitt told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: “I use only my official OAG [office of the attorney general] email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business.”

Yet several of Pruitt’s official emails, released in a lawsuit in Oklahoma, were copied to his personal email — an Apple account that was partially blacked out before being released.

“Lo and behold, the documents Scott Pruitt wanted to keep hidden have confirmed our suspicion that he used his personal email address to conduct official state business and that he was not honest with the Senate about this during his confirmation process,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

But hey, her emails.  So.  Whatever.

StupidiNews!

• The Trump regime has now admitted that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and ousted former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
• With the Trump regime revoking protections for transgender students, eleven states have dropped their lawsuit against the Department of Education.
• Syrian peace talks this week are expected to wrap up with agreement by both the Assad regime and rebel leaders to meet in Geneva later this month for formal negotiations.
• The parent company of the partnership between Sprint and former RadioShack owners is filing for Chapter 11, with the company's wireless sales falling far short of expectations.
• Former Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry has been confirmed as Secretary of Energy in a 62-37 vote with several red state Democratic senators voting in his favor.

Last Call For R'Accuse!

Trump regime AG Jeff Sessions threw together a hasty press conference to announce that hey he was always going to recuse himself from decisions about anything involving the Trump campaign so what's the big deal, anyway?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, facing a chorus of criticism over his contacts with the Russian ambassador, recused himself Thursday from any current or future investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. His conversations with the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, came amid suspected Russian hacking directed at Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 

Mr. Sessions said he made the decision after meeting with senior career officials at the Justice Department. He said he would not take part in any investigations “related in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States.” 

He also strongly denied that any of his conversations with Russian officials were related to the presidential campaign. And he said he did not intend to deceive the Senate when he said he had no such meetings with Russian officials. 

The remarks by Mr. Sessions came not long after President Trump on Thursday expressed his support for Mr. Sessions and said he should not recuse himself from the investigation. Mr. Sessions was a key adviser and surrogate for Mr. Trump’s campaign.

But of course this means that Sessions thinks he is off the hook.  Nobody else in the AG's office is going to call for a special prosecutor and be immediately fired by Trump.  Again, Republicans are clearly hoping that this story goes away now.

Only one problem:  it won't.  The FBI investigation is ongoing.  And leaks from the intelligence community are rapidly turning into a real problem for the Trump regime.   If it turns out Sessions made any phone calls to Kislyak, then we could find out what was said there, the same way we did with Flynn.

At this point Sessions is still in the hotseat, and the temperature's only going to go up.

Our Media Is Too Stupid To Function

At this point the Trump regime is now publicly laughing at the press, openly bragging  that they conned media outlets like CNN into believing Trump was "open to immigration reform" in order to get positive press attention.

CNN reported Wednesday on a senior administration official admitting that the White House intentionally misled reporters ahead of President Donald Trump‘s congressional address in order to get generate positive press coverage as part of a “misdirection play.” 

Multiple reports Tuesday indicated that Trump would embrace a more moderate tone on immigration and would announce that he was willing to negotiate granting millions of illegal immigrants legal status. Most of those reports, cited to a “senior administration official,” came immediately after anchors lunched with Trump. Some of those outlets then just attributed the claim to the president himself. 

But when it was time for Trump to actually give the speech, he said nothing of the sort. CNN’s Sara Murray complained the next day about “the bait and switch that the president pulled when it came to immigration yesterday. He had this meeting with the anchors, he talked about a path to legal status.” 

“Basically they fed [them] things that they thought these anchors would like, that they thought would give them positive press coverage for the next few hours. A senior administration official admitted that it was a misdirection play,” she reported. 

Host John King wondered why reporters should even trust the White House going forward. “It does make you wonder; so we’re not supposed to believe what the senior-most official at the lunch says — who then they allowed it to be the president’s name says — we’re not supposed to believe what they say?” he asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t believe what they say.”

And they will refuse to walk out on Trump, and they will continue to be lied to, and they will continue to praise the President in order to remain in his good graces while the American public turns them off in disgust.

The Trump regime is in full state-controlled media mode, and nobody will challenge them until it's far, far past being too late.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

A double feature of Trump regime/Russian hacking news for you today, first the NY Times reminds us that the Obama administration correctly foresaw that the Trumpies would try to shred The Donald's paper trail to Moscow, so they kept evidence for the FBI ahead of the transition.

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

Then and now, Mr. Trump has denied that his campaign had any contact with Russian officials, and at one point he openly suggested that American spy agencies had cooked up intelligence suggesting that the Russian government had tried to meddle in the presidential election. Mr. Trump has accused the Obama administration of hyping the Russia story line as a way to discredit his new administration.

At the Obama White House, Mr. Trump’s statements stoked fears among some that intelligence could be covered up or destroyed — or its sources exposed — once power changed hands. What followed was a push to preserve the intelligence that underscored the deep anxiety with which the White House and American intelligence agencies had come to view the threat from Moscow.

It also reflected the suspicion among many in the Obama White House that the Trump campaign might have colluded with Russia on election email hacks — a suspicion that American officials say has not been confirmed. Former senior Obama administration officials said that none of the efforts were directed by Mr. Obama.

It's looking more and more like those efforts to preserve this evidence will make a huge impact on the the weeks and months ahead, and I'm sincerely hoping that the documents left behind will be what breaks this regime.

And that brings us to part two of today's bombshell, this half coming from the Washington Post: Attorney General Jeff Sessions is now neck-deep in this Moscow mess.

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.

When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, the senator was a senior member of the influential Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump on the stump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016. 

And if the name Sergey Kislyak sounds familiar, he's the same Russian ambassador that Mike Flynn talked to over the Christmas holidays about relaxing sanctions against Moscow.  You know, the part that helped get Flynn fired (again).

So now the Russian story goes to a new level with Sessions involved.  He's directly involved, and he omitted the fact that he was to the Senate during his confirmation process.  He lied under oath, guys.  This is going to be huge.  Remember, Sessions was not just a Senator at the time these conversations took place, he was also an official Trump campaign adviser at the time...for national security.

Let that sink in.

Again, this story will not go away, because every week we discover a new layer.  And the Trump regime is square in the crosshairs now.  Sessions has to recuse himself and appoint an independent counsel at the minimum.

Dozens of Democrats are already calling on Sessions to resign, starting with ranking House Oversight Committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings:



Democratic senators like Claire McCaskill and Liz Warren are also calling on Sessions to step down. This is pretty serious, folks.  We'll see what happens, but things are going to move quickly from this point on.  Count on it.

StupidiNews!

• Seven Baltimore police officers, members of the city's Gun Trace Task Force, are facing federal RICO charges over allegations they shook down citizen and criminal alike for cash.
• For the first time in 146 years, Chicago has gone through the first two months of the year with no recorded snow on the ground.
• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says the country's state of emergency in response to last July's failed coup attempt against him will continue until "everything settles down".
• Republicans are threatening state colleges and universities with funding elimination if they continue to operate as "sanctuary campuses" protecting undocumented students.
• VR gaming company Oculus is slashing the price of its Rift VR headset and controllers by $100 each as the company points to the "great volume" of units sold so far.

Last Call For White Out In The Senate Dems, Con't

Back in early December I talked about the pretty shameful hiring record of Senate Democratic staffers and the near total lack of diversity among chief of staff positions.  After being publicly shamed for this, Senate Dem leader Chuck Schumer is now promising to fix the problem.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will on Tuesday ask his caucus to adopt extensive new rules to promote staff diversity, including a version of the NFL’s “Rooney Rule,” which will require Senate offices to interview at least one minority applicant for senior staff openings in the future. 

The diversity measures are part of a wider package of caucus rules that Schumer will put forward on Tuesday. The Democratic leader has also vowed to publish official diversity statistics from Senate offices on the website of the Senate Diversity Initiative, which hosts a resume bank for potential Senate staffers of color and will be the subject of beefed-up efforts to work with every individual Democratic Senate office on diverse hiring practices.

The efforts follow intense criticism from interest groups and minority staffers regarding the paltry share of non-white Senate Democratic staff. Several studies, including a 2015 report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, have exposed a severe demographic disconnect between the party’s policymakers in Washington and its core constituencies in the states. 

The report found that just 7 percent of top Senate staffers (counting chiefs of staff, legislative directors, communications directors, and committee staff directors) were people of color. It also noted that while African-Americans provided nearly one-quarter of the Democratic Party’s votes, only one top Senate Democratic staffer was black. 

“We must ensure the Senate be more reflective of our country’s diverse population,” Schumer said in a statement. “Expanding the diversity initiative, following the Rooney rule and dedicating ourselves to increasing diversity are important steps we can take to help achieve that goal and better serve our country.” 

Schumer has already announced the new initiatives to several interested parties, including a group of minority lobbyists that had been working to improve diversity in the Senate and at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where the group met with Schumer two weeks ago. Schumer also publicized the effort earlier this month at a gathering of the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators.

Schumer’s office is still working with Senate legal advisers to figure out exactly how to survey office diversity and post results, but promoters of the new measures see the official statistics as a centerpiece of the plan.

I'm all for this, and Senate Dems deservedly got hell for this.  Shaun King pointed this out months ago and he gets no small amount of credit for forcing Schumer and the Dems to practice what they preach on diversity.

It was unacceptable going forward, and I'm very glad to see Schumer make good on this.  Good job, Democrats.

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

On the final day of Black History Month, the Trump regime decided it was going to shoot a photo op with presidents of several Historically Black Colleges and Univesities (HBCUs) coming to the White House for help in preserving the legacies of these important institutions.  What the HBCU presidents got instead was the DeVos special.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to bolster relations with historically black colleges erupted in controversy Tuesday after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos released a statement equating the history of the schools — founded during an era of racial segregation — to “school choice” policies. 

“HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” DeVos said in the statement, released Monday night in advance of Trump’s planned signing of an executive order giving the schools more clout. “They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.”

Now, DeVos's statement only makes sense if you completely ignore the fact that HBCUs were founded in response to American collegiate apartheid.  Literally, these colleges were founded because black students were not allowed to go to white colleges and universities in the Jim Crow era. In 1962 when James Meredith attended Ole Miss, it led to statewide riots and more than 30,000 National Guard troops called into action to deal with them.

What it had nothing to do with was "school choice" policies.  Why DeVos would choose to so viciously and stupidly gaslight away a century of black history, well that's what the Trump regime does, guys.  Everything was really great back in the Jim Crow south, and black people even had their own colleges!

DeVos also seemed to reject one thing the schools are really hoping to get from the administration: More money. One school president told POLITICO that the colleges had asked the White House to back a $25 billion investment in infrastructure improvements on their campuses in their meeting with DeVos Monday. They also advocated for year-round Pell grants and to maintain or increase funding that goes to schools that serve low-income students. 

“Rather than focus solely on funding, we must be willing to make the tangible, structural reforms that will allow students to reach their full potential,” DeVos said in her statement.

Tangible structural reforms, huh.  But no money to pay for them.

If you want to know what's coming for K-12 education for American kids under the Trump regime, look at the way HBCUs are treated.  It's an era where the framework of segregation by class and race already exists.  Imagine your school district becoming Ivy League white schools, and HBCUs for black students.  That's what's coming.  And like DeVos and HBCUs now, it will be sold as "pioneering school choice" when of course, the actual choice part won't exist.

The Bar Was Set Six Inches Into The Ground

Donald Trump somehow failed to set himself on fire last night while vomiting on anyone during his first joint address to Congress, meaning that in the eyes of many pundits, "it's the most presidential he's been so far".  That's not a high bar, but they couldn't help themselves.  But Ed Kilgore cautions that while the speech's tone was not horrible, the actual content was a vague garbage dump when it came to policy.

Republicans are practically at each other’s throats over how to repeal and replace Obamacare — the party’s top policy priority. Trump has in the past complicated this effort by endorsing a quick replacement plan — on which Republicans are far from agreement — and by insisting the new plan cover as many people as the system being demolished. He did almost nothing tonight address the quandaries his fellow Republicans face on health care policy, other than a brief statement of support for the idea of tax credits to help pay for insurance, presumably a rebuke to conservatives who openly worried such credits would represent a new entitlement. What did Trump want Congress to do about Medicaid, which Obamacare optionally expanded, splitting Republican governors over that key safety net program’s function and future? “[W]e should give our great State Governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.” That’s about as vague as you can get. And there was nothing at all about how to pay for whatever comes next after Obamacare.

Speaking of taxes: Tax cuts are right behind Obamacare on the congressional GOPs urgent action list. There are big differences of opinion among Republicans about the size and structure of tax cuts, and in particular how to deal with the new administration’s demands that the tax code discriminate against companies that import goods and export jobs. In tonight’s speech Trump devoted more time to the feelings of Harley-Davidson’s executives about other countries’ tax codes than to any exposition on what the U.S. tax code should look like. And indeed, his only real mention of taxes was as an intro to an equally vague disquisition on the need for fair as well as free trade—a theme that has provided leaden ballast to thousands of political speeches for many decades.

The third big topic on which Republicans needed his guidance was the budget, and if they expected any specificity on that crucial priority, they were bitterly disappointed. Trump repeated his commitment to a big defense spending increase, and did display an understanding that providing that would mean getting rid of the spending cap agreement under which defense spending would be “sequestered” if budget targets were missed. As to how those caps would be cast aside—something that in the normal course of events would require 60 Senate votes and a lot of Democratic support—we heard nada. And there was also nothing about the rest of the budget, including the fraught subject of which entitlement programs would be on and off the table.

So, no specifics.  And why should he have them?  The Trump regime has shown multiple times through its botched slate of executive orders that when it comes to specifics, they're not very good at getting even the basic stuff done without running into the Constitution and the courts.

Keep in mind though that while Trump's tone was different, the theme still remains that immigrants are an existential threat to the US, and they they will be "dealt with".  He still seeks to divide the country. Never forget that.

StupidiNews!

• The Trump regime will, for now, delay implementation of a new executive order banning Muslim immigration in the wake of last night's joint address to Congress.
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the Justice Department will "pull back" from civil rights suits against police department patterns and practices and focus instead on a "few individuals".
• The US and South Korea are beginning annual joint military exercises this week amid growing tension with North Korea over nuclear testing.
• Brexit tensions are causing London homeowners to deeply discount the price of homes for sale after home prices nearly doubled since 2009.
• An outage with Amazon Web Services knocked out thousands of US web sites yesterday as the company has now restored service and is looking at the root cause.

Last Call For The Criminalization Of Dissent

Some good news to end the evening for once: Arizona Republicans have abandoned their bill to turn protesting the Trump regime into a state felony after outrage spread across the country over the legislation.

The speaker of the Arizona House said he won't hear a bill that makes participating in or helping organize a protest that turns into a riot an offense that could lead to criminal racketeering charges, a move prompted by widespread criticism that the legislation sought to limit First Amendment rights. 

The measure passed last week by the Senate drew nationwide attention, particularly from civil libertarians, because it classified violent protest as an organized crime and said protesters who didn't initially intend to riot could still face criminal charges. That attention led Speaker J.D. Mesnard to decide Monday to kill it for the session. 

Mesnard told The Associated Press that people all across the country now believe that the Arizona Legislature is trying to enact a law that will suppress their First Amendment right to assemble. 

"It's gotten a lot of attention, and frankly whether it's fair or unfair, whether its accurate or inaccurate, at this point doesn't matter," he told the AP. "That's certainly not what the Legislature wants to be about — I know that's not what the sponsor wanted in the first place. The best way to send a very clear signal that we're not doing it is to not move the bill." 

The Republican House speaker controls the path of legislation through his chamber, so Mesnard's decision means the bill is dead. 

The Arizona legislation is the latest in a string of proposals in Republican-led states intended to crack down on protests. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard is pursuing legislation to make it clear that his emergency response powers apply to destructive protests, create new trespassing penalties and make it a crime to obstruct highways, a move prompted by protests in North Dakota over the Dakota Access pipeline. A recent Washington Post tally showed efforts in 18 states, with proposals like stiffer penalties for blocking highways to increased trespassing penalties on critical infrastructure.

Arizona's bill was the most egregious, and the intent was certainly to turn the state's next Black Lives Matter or immigration protest into an opportunity to declare thousands to be felons, throw them in prison (or deport them) and remove their right to vote.  Like most states, Arizona does not allow felons to vote, and if convicted of multiple felonies, that disenfranchisement is permanent.

But several other states are moving to criminalize mass protests.  Republicans in Arizona may have been defeated for now, but eventually this bill or something like it will be passed, and it will be used against people of color to disenfranchise. harm, or even kill.

More Buyer's Remorse In The Bluegrass State

Another month, another story of GOP voters here in Kentucky now terrified that they will lose their Medicaid expansion in the state, and are turning to Trump to beg to be spared.

Whitesburg, Kentucky, is a quiet town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and close to the Virginia border – coal country. It has a population of 2,100 and a deep history of hard work and perseverance. 

“Around here you keep a job and you do as they say no matter what because you’ve got to work to survive,” said Mike Taylor, a former coal truck driver. 

Coal has been at the heart of the local economy for generations, but it’s also the root of health issues for many. 

Taylor was diagnosed with “Black Lung,” a deadly lung disease caused by breathing in coal dust, in 2015. He is on three different inhalers and uses an oxygen tank and a nebulizer machine. 

When he gained insurance through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, he began seeking regular care at Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation, a community clinic where his physician, Dr. Van Breeding, also happens to be his old high school classmate. 

“These people need care,” said Breeding, a primary care physician. “I take care of classmates of mine everyday … people who I went to kindergarten with who are disabled now, who can’t work. So imagine you’re 55 years old and you’re worn out.” 

“And these are the people who have been helped by the Affordable Care Act and these are the people who we can’t turn our backs on,” he added. 

Breeding believes the ACA is crucial to the health of his community. His father was a coal miner, he said, so he is all too familiar with the toll Black Lung disease can take. 

“We're seeing that it's a political war over health care and the collateral damage is the patient's health and life and the quality of life,” Breeding said. “Change the name if ‘Obamacare’ is offensive to Republicans, change the name, and call it what you will, but provide these people who are desperate, and I mean desperate, desperate for some type of health care.” 

Taylor said the health insurance he has under ACA not only saved his life, but also helped his brother-in-law and his former coworkers. 

“It’s a good thing to have it. The insurance,” he said. “I think they just need to reform it.”

But as I keep saying, these people voted for Republicans up and down the line, at the state level last year when they elected Matt Bevin in 2015, and again last year handing the state legislature over to the GOP and decimating the Democrats, re-electing Rand Paul, and giving Trump a 17-point win.

Now all of a sudden they're worried that when Obamacare was going to be repealed, it was going to affect them.  They never thought that would happen, that it would only be taken away from those people in order to benefit people like themselves, because they're good people.

Turns out of course Republicans only care about people making six figures or more.  Turns out when Bevin turns Medicaid into a program like Indiana's "skin in the game" plan where you pay the premium or lose everything, and on top of that funding is cut to shreds by Republicans in Congress turning it into a block grant, not only will the 450,000 people who got health insurance lose it, but hundreds of thousands more will get kicked off the program too.

Maybe by 2020 when the state's uninsured rate is back up to 25% or so, maybe people here will get it.

Sen. Udall's Balancing Act

New Mexico Dem Sen. Tom Udall has an...interesting...plan for solving the Supreme Court issue: talk a current justice into retiring, leaving seven on the high court, then confirming both Neil Gorsuch and Obama nominee Merrick Garland at the same time.

Sen. Tom Udall has an idea that could place both Judge Neil Gorsuch and Judge Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court at the same time. 

The Democrat from New Mexico presented the plan Monday morning to Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, as well as to Gorsuch's team of White House aides and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who's been attending Gorsuch's meetings with senators. 

His proposal is for Trump to meet privately with Supreme Court justices who are interested in retirement. If one of those justices decided they would be willing to retire, and if Trump promises to nominate Garland, President Barack Obama's unconfirmed former SCOTUS pick, in their place, then the retiring justice would submit a letter of resignation contingent on that promise. 

Then, both Garland and Gorsuch would be voted on simultaneously. 

It's a far-fetched idea, and Udall told reporters he got no response or comment from Gorsuch's team in the room. But he added that he's been talking to other senators about it. 

A spokesman from Gorsuch's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If this sounds familiar, that's because we've seen this before, just not in this administration.

The idea closely follows a plot line from an episode of "The West Wing" television show. In season 5, episode 17, "The Supremes," a spot on the Supreme Court opens up and the White House works out a deal with another justice to retire so they can replace him with both a liberal justice while Republicans can get their pick of a more conservative justice. 

Jennifer Talhelm, communications director for Udall, told CNN that the senator did not get the idea from the West Wing, and that while he has maybe seen an episode or two, he doesn't watch the show. 

She said Udall has wanted to see Trump pick Garland all along, and his more recent idea came after he was speaking with a constituent who said they'd like to see both Garland and Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. 

Speaking to reporters, Udall also recalled the time that President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted his adviser Abe Fortas on the Supreme Court, so he persuaded Justice Arthur Goldberg to retire by promising him the position of ambassador to the United Nations. 

So what would be Trump's motivation to move ahead with this idea? 

"It's a good chance for Trump to try to unite the country," Udall said.

I can see the draw, but Republicans aren't about to go for this.  They know that Gorsuch will get confirmed, and there's an extremely good chance that either Justice Ginsburg, Breyer, or Kennedy will retire by 2020, giving Trump a second pick to tilt the court to a 6-3 conservative bent that would end legalized abortion, affirmative action, and maybe even same-sex marriage.  It would certainly continue the Roberts Court path of rolling back the New Deal and Great Society.

Udall makes a good pitch, and it's as good as it's going to get for Democrats.  But Republicans don't want to unite the country, they want to dominate it, and leave liberals and liberalism broken, bleeding, and crushed on the floor, without rights, without power, and without hope.