Last Call For A Bluff, Broken And Busted

We've talked about Indiana's "religious freedom" bill allowing people to not face penalties for discrimination against LGBTQ folks based solely on belief, so when similar legislation came up in front of the Georgia House of Representatives this week, one Republican bravely stood up and killed it with truth.

As in Indiana, proponents of Georgia’s bill have tried to argue that it has nothing to do with discrimination. Rep. Mike Jacobs, an LGBT-friendly Republican, decided to test this theory by introducing an amendment that would not allow claims of religious liberty to be used to circumvent state and local nondiscrimination protections. Supporters of the bill, like Rep. Barry Fleming (R), countered that the amendment “will gut the bill.” Nevertheless, the House Judiciary Committee approved the amendment with a 9-8 vote, three Republicans joining the Democrats in supporting it. 

Fleming moved to table the amended bill, a motion that passed with 16 votes, making it unlikely the bill will proceed before the legislative session ends. With an exception for nondiscrimination protections, the “religious liberty” bill is dead. 

Before the vote, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Josh McKoon (R), joined the hearing to similarly argue against making an exception for nondiscrimination protections. He claimed that the bill’s religious liberty protections would no longer be “uniform” across the state, adding, “That amendment would completely undercut the purpose of the bill.” Rep. Roger Bruce (D) pressed McKoon: “That tells me that the purpose of the bill is to discriminate.” Without further explanation, he countered, “It couldn’t be further from the truth, no sir.”

Well played, Mr. Jacobs. Well played indeed.

Black Guy Time Machine

Time travel may be fun in movies, novels, and games, but in reality it just doesn't happen.  One African-American physicist however is at least giving it the ol' college try.

When he received his doctorate in 1973, [Ron] Mallett was one of only 79 black Ph.D. physicists among about 20,000 in the U.S., he says. While he detects more tolerance in the profession now, the discrimination — the idea that a black man can’t be this smart — has not disappeared. 

Mallett says he kept his work on time travel secret for years partly because colleagues would conclude he was a crackpot unfit for tenure. If he worked openly and with others, he also worried white physicists would get all the credit. 

“I’m afraid that’s how it would work,” Mallett says. 

He built his first time machine in the basement of the Altoona, Pennsylvania, home where his mother moved him and three younger siblings from the Bronx after their father’s death plunged the family into poverty. He was 11 and had just read “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. The odds and ends he slapped together didn’t work. He knew he would need the science. 

He was miserable much of the time growing up, depressed and isolated. He was an average student. Electronics, English and math were the exceptions.

Mallet says he owes everything to his father, and he wants to give his theoretical equations a chance to be put into practice, maybe to see him again.  There's a lot more to this story than just temporal physics, and hell, I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, he's got this figured out.

The Honey Badger Hangs Up His Gloves

Senate minority leader Harry Reid will not run for re-election in 2016 as yet another big Senate retirement will set off a scramble for both his seat and for leadership among the Dems.

Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance. 

Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s midterm elections. 

“I understand this place,” Mr. Reid said. “I have quite a bit of power as minority leader.”
He has already confounded the new Republican majority this year by holding Democrats united against a proposal to gut the Obama administration’s immigration policies as well as a human-trafficking measure Democrats objected to over an anti-abortion provision. 

“I want to be able to go out at the top of my game,” said Mr. Reid, who used a sports metaphor about athletes who try to hang on too long. “I don’t want to be a 42-year-old trying to become a designated hitter.”

Reid certainly has done a hell of a job trolling Republicans all these years.  The Dems could do a lot worse.  The article ends with this:

Mr. Reid said he had seen one important change for the better in the Senate: an influx of female senators. 

“This place is so much better because of women,” he said. “Men and women are different, and they have changed the dynamic of the Senate.”

Amen to that, Honey Badger.  Maybe with both President Obama and now Harry Reid unburdened by re-election, some interesting last minute things can get done.

StupidiNews!

• NYC officials are calling yesterday's explosion that collapsed an East Village building and injured 19 "gas-related" as utilities inspectors had been on site an hour prior to the blast.
• The Deputy Chief of Fresno, California's Police Department has been arrested on drug conspiracy charges after a federal probe found distribution networks for heroin, oxycodone and pot.
• The GOP-led Senate has passed a budget that cuts more than $5 trillion in domestic programs over 10 years while increasing funding for the Pentagon.
• Turkey's parliament has passed a controversial raft of security laws that expand police authority and online surveillance of citizens.
• Cloud computing firm Salesforce is the latest company to object to Indiana's "religious freedom" law, with CEO Marc Benioff saying the company will no longer invest in projects in the state.

Crash Course In The French Alps

Well, this week's Germanwings Airbus A320 crash in the French Alps just took a very depressing turn.

The chief Marseille prosecutor handling the investigation of the crash of a Germanwings jetliner said on Thursday that evidence from the cockpit voice recorder indicated that the co-pilot had deliberately locked the captain out of the cockpit and steered the plane into its fatal descent. 

“At this moment, in light of investigation, the interpretation we can give at this time is that the co-pilot through voluntary abstention refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude,” the prosecutor, Brice Robin, said. 

He said it appeared that the intention of the co-pilot, identified as Andreas Lubitz, had been “to destroy the aircraft.” He said that the voice recorder showed that the co-pilot had been breathing until before the moment of impact, suggesting that he was conscious and deliberate in bringing the plane down and killing 144 passengers and five other crew members in the French Alps on Tuesday.

Why Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot, crashed the plane on purpose we may never know, and why he chose to take 149 lives with him is still a mystery.

The inquiry shows that the crash was intentional, Mr. Robin said, and he was considering changing his investigation from involuntary manslaughter to voluntary manslaughter. 

He said there was no indication that it was a terrorist attack, and added that Mr. Lubitz was not known to law enforcement officials. After the news conference, the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, told reporters in Berlin that security officials had checked their records after Tuesday’s crash and found no indication that anyone on board had links to terrorism. 

An investigation into the background of Mr. Lubitz, who was 28 years old and came from the German town of Montabaur, is underway. 

Asked if Mr. Lubitz had tried to commit suicide, the French prosecutor said, “I haven’t used the word suicide,” adding that it was “a legitimate question to ask.”

There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle that are still missing, and we may never find all of them, but hopefully officials in France can reconstruct what happened, and we can start asking why a co-pilot would be in the seat alone and able to lock the pilot out of the cockpit.

But Remember, Pro-Life

So it turns out trying to firebomb a Planned Parenthood clinic is actually something that's against the law in Texas. Wonder how long that little oversight will take to get rectified.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that an anti-abortion group was holding a prayer vigil outside the Planned Parenthood clinic Monday night when someone drove by and threw a flaming bottle out of their car window. 

Ruth Allwein with the Texas Alliance for Life told officers that she stomped out the bottle and pulled out the wick. The liquid in the bottle turned out to be Gumout gas treatment, which is flammable. It reportedly burned an area of grass about the size of small pizza before it was put out. 

Although the vehicle’s license plate had been obscured with cardboard, activists provided police with enough information to arrest 52-year-old Melanie Marie Toney.
At first, Toney denied that she had thrown the bottle. But she later admitted that she threw it and that it “might” have been smoldering. 

Toney was charged with felony aggravated assault, and was being held in lieu of $25,000 bond. 

An arrest affidavit said that Toney’s motive was not completely clear. But anti-abortion protesters told police that they felt like they had been targeted. 

“We are just very sad this happened and we are thankful no one was hurt,” Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas President Ken Lambrecht told KVUE. “The health and safety of anyone coming in or near Planned Parenthood Health Center is of the utmost importance to us.” 

The South Austin Planned Parenthood has surveillance cameras, security guards and high fences in place to protect patients and staff.

And of course the anti-choicers protesting against the clinic felt like they of course had to be the victims, and not the clinic itself.

Sure.  Because it's not like America has a history of the "pro-life" movement bombing abortion clinics or anything.

Jesus wept.

StupidiNews!

• A coalition of Arab forces led by Saudi Arabia has launched airstrikes on Yemen, as Yemeni President Hadi appears to have fled leaving Houthi rebels in control most of the country.
• An Arizona bill preventing women from buying health insurance that offers coverage for abortion on the state's federal insurance exchange is headed for Gov. Doug Dicey's desk.
• Former Taliban prisoner of war Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has formally been charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, charges that could result in life in prison.
• The fastest growing US city in 2014 was retirement community The Villages in Florida, with 5.4% growth last year, almost double that of any other metro area in the US.
• After 14 years Steven Spielberg is finally getting back behind the camera to direct the film adaptation of Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One.

Last Call For Coats For Senate

The latest Senate retirement headed into 2016 is Indiana Republican Dan Coats, setting off a Hoosier state shuffle for his seat.

"Today I am announcing that I will not seek re-election to the United States Senate," Coats said in a statement. "This was not an easy decision. While I believe I am well-positioned to run a successful campaign for another six-year term, I have concluded that the time has come to pass this demanding job to the next generation of leaders.

Coats's decision to retire may set off a Republican scramble for the open seat. While the GOP would seem to have the early edge, it is now another state they must defend in a presidential year where they're almost entirely playing defense to protect their new Senate majority.

Potential Republican candidates include Reps. Todd Young and Susan Brooks, both of whom have long been viewed as having statewide ambitions, as well as Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Reps. Todd Rokita, Jackie Walorski and Marlin Stutzman.
An aide to Rep. Luke Messer told The Hill he wouldn't seek the Senate seat.

Coats's chief of staff, Eric Holcomb, is also taking a look at the race and is seen as a top candidate by by Indiana observers. He is close to kingmaker and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), has been traveling the state extensively building connections with the GOP grassroots. 

“Eric has taken a leave of absence from Senator Coats’ office as he considers a run for the open U.S. Senate seat in 2016. He’s grateful for the immediate outpouring of support from every corner of Indiana and will make a decision soon,” Pete Seat, a spokesperson for Eric Holcomb, said in a statement.

Well that's the GOP side, plenty of people salivating over that prize.  But Indiana's other senator is Democrat Joe Donnelly who won because Republican Richard Mourdock was a tea party nutcase that Indiana didn't want to touch..  Could the Dems take both seats in a similar way?

That would mean finding another Blue Dog in Indiana with the cash to run for Senate.  And you know who that means.

Their best recruit would likely be former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who chose to retire rather than facing a tough race in 2010 and still has close to $10 million in the bank for a potential return to politics. Bayh has ruled out a run for governor but hasn't closed the door on a Senate run. 

National Democrats immediately expressed optimism over the newly open seat, pointing back to their 2012 victory.

“Indiana's Senate race is now one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, and Democrats are ready to put together a strong campaign just like we did in 2012. We're confident that we will find a great candidate who will put Indiana first and win this seat in 2016," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Jon Tester (Mont.) said in a statement.

If Bayh doesn't run, former Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) and Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott (D) are potential candidates on the Democratic side.

Oh hooray Evan F'ckin Bayh might be back!  I'm sooooooo haaaaaaaappy.

Cut Until You Can't Bleed Anymore

The House GOP budget proposal is not only lunacy, but dangerous.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have crunched the numbers and found that Republicans want a budget that cuts more than $3 trillion from programs for working and middle class over ten years, and the biggest victim would be health care:

• More than $2.9 trillion in health care reductions for low- and moderate-income people. The plan would convert Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program into a single block grant with drastically reduced funding levels. It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including health reform’s subsidies to make coverage affordable for people with low or modest incomes and its Medicaid expansion. To date, the ACA coverage expansions have extended coverage to 16.4 million previously uninsured people and strengthened coverage for millions of others.
• $125 billion in cuts to SNAP (formerly food stamps). The House plan block-grants SNAP starting in 2021 and cuts SNAP funds by $125 billion, or more than a third, over 2021 to 2025. States would be left to decide whose benefits to reduce or terminate, but cuts of this magnitude would end food assistance for millions of low-income families, cut benefits for millions of such households, or do some combination of the two, according to a new CBPP analysis.[3]
• $159 billion[4] in cuts to tax credits for low- and modest-income working families. The House Budget Committee plan would allow critical provisions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to expire at the end of 2017, which would increase the number of people in poverty by an estimated 1.8 million, including 1.0 million children — and deepen poverty for another 14.6 million people, including 6.7 million children, in 2018. The House plan would also allow the American Opportunity Tax Credit to expire at the end of 2017, which would cause millions of low- and moderate-income families to lose some or all of the tax credits they receive to help offset college costs.[5]
• Roughly $300 billion in cuts in other mandatory (i.e. entitlement) programs serving low-income Americans, much of which is unspecified. Aside from the cuts in SNAP and refundable tax credits discussed above, the House plan cuts more than $550 billion from mandatory programs just in the education and income security categories of the budget. The Budget Committee provided few specifics here, but we conservatively estimate that about $300 billion would come from low-income programs in these areas. The Budget Committee made clear that the plan eliminates the mandatory portion of funding for Pell Grants, which help students from families with modest incomes afford college. The reduced Pell Grant funding would necessitate cuts in the program. Despite the fact that Pell Grants already cover a much lower share of college costs than they used to, the Budget Committee said its plan would freeze the maximum grant level for ten years, even as tuition and room and board costs continued to rise. Other mandatory programs in these areas that would also be candidates for significant cuts under this vague part of the plan include child nutrition programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the elderly and disabled poor, and possibly the underlying refundable portion of the EITC and the underlying low-income (or refundable) component of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). In calculating the size of the cuts in programs targeted on people of modest means, we assumed that low-income program (other than SNAP) would bear their proportionate share of the remaining $550 billion in cuts in mandatory programs that the budget plan makes in the education and income security categories.
• About $160 billion, and maybe more, in cuts to low-income non-defense discretionary programs. On top of the significant cuts already enacted as a result of the BCA’s discretionary caps and sequestration, the House Budget Committee cuts non-defense discretionary programs about $970 billion[6] below their post-sequestration levels. About two-thirds of these cuts are located in portions of the budget that have little or no low-income programs, such as scientific research, natural resources, and transportation infrastructure. But the rest are essentially unspecified or occur in areas where low-income programs reside. Here, too, we make the conservative assumption that low-income programs would bear a proportionate share of the cuts, which is how we derive our estimate of $160 billion in reductions.

The Senate GOP version cuts slightly less from health care (only $2.5 trillion in cuts!) but would keep intact pretty much everything else as far as cuts.  These are brutal cuts too, and where would the $3 trillion in savings go?

Guess.

Here's a hint: if you have to guess, you most likely won't see a dime of it.

Every Breath You Take (I'll Be Blocking You)

The GOP House is responding to President Obama's EPA regulations on coal plant emissions with Kentucky Rep Ed Whitfield (R-Bituminous) introducing legislation to stop the regulations from ever taking effect.

Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky unveiled a draft bill that would allow governors to veto compliance with the federal rule if the governor determines it would cause significant rate increases for electricity or harm reliability in the state. 

The bill also would delay the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rule until all court challenges are completed. 

Whitfield, chairman of the energy and power subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce panel, said the EPA’s proposed rule to limit carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants is riddled with problems and faces an uphill battle in the courts. 

Whitfield and other Republicans cited testimony from an unlikely ally, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, an Obama mentor who has said the proposed EPA rule is unconstitutional. 

“Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy policy,” Tribe told Whitfield’s subcommittee last week. 

Tribe said the EPA was attempting what he called “an unconstitutional trifecta: usurping the prerogatives of the states, Congress and the federal courts — all at once.” 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also cited Tribe’s comments in a letter urging the nation’s 50 governors to defy Obama’s rules for power plants by refusing to submit compliance plans to Washington. 

“Some have suggested recently that failing to comply with the EPA’s requirements would be to disregard the law,” McConnell wrote in a letter to all 50 governors. “But the fact is, it is the EPA that is failing to comply with the law.”

Larry Tribe selling out to the GOP aside, Whitfield's bill most likely won't even make it past the Senate.  But Mitch the Turtle openly calling for states to break federal regulations and refuse to submit emissions reduction plans is cute.  That of course means the EPA will do it for them, and I'm betting they'll be a lat more harsh about it.

That is of course if the regulations aren't tied up in the courts until the Obama administration ends, which is a distinct possibility.  After that, who knows?

We should probably do something as voters to make sure we have a continuation of these EPA policies if we want clean air and to do something about climate change, or at least try to do something.

Or at least the rest of you should.  Kentucky will never comply until forced to by the Feds.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/03/24/3764976_ky-congressman-targets-climate.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• All 150 people aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 are presumed dead after the plane took off from Barcelona and crashed in the French Alps on the way to Dusseldorf.
• Three people have been arrested in Chicago as protesters continue to demand police reforms from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is locked in a tight re-election race.
• Saudi Arabia is building up military forces near its border with Yemen as Houthi Shi'ite rebels continue to advance southwards towards the city of Aden.
• Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway will partner up for a deal to merge Kraft and Heinz into one of the US's largest food companies.
• Gen Con, the country's largest gaming expo, is threatening to leave Indianapolis over a state bill allowing the religious freedom to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Last Call For A Kasich Of Reading Too Much Into Things

Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich is field testing his ridiculous federal balanced budget amendment 2016 presidential hopeful platform with New Hampshire voters and people love it!

According to John Kasich, that is. The Cincy Enquirer's Chrissie Thompson and Meg Vogel are following the governor on the campaign trail in the Granite State.

Already, it's clear: These voters like John Kasich. 

The New Hampshire Republicans I met this morning said they wanted a presidential candidate who prioritized fiscal conservatism and foreign policy, with social issues as a side note. Contrast that with early-primary South Carolina, whose politicos welcomed Kasich politely last month, but worried he was too moderate on issues such as Common Core and immigration. 

The GOP governor focused his New Hampshire speech accordingly. He talked of balancing the federal budget and boasted of his involvement in strengthening coordination in the U.S. military via the Goldwater-Nichols Act. (The latter brought the "most dramatic change in the way the military operated, frankly, in modern history," Kasich said, although his claim to have been a senior congressman at the time might be a stretch -- he was in the second of his nine terms in Congress.) 

Kasich lacked much of the careful deference from his visit to South Carolina. Visibly more comfortable in this state, Kasich spoke of his efforts to force county welfare services to coordinate, boasting about his threat to take away counties money if they don't comply. It's all in the name of "welfare reform," he said. 

"You wanted to clap at that? Go ahead; you can clap," Kasich said.

Yeah go ahead and clap for massive, massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and every federal department, all to make room for tax cuts for the one percent.  More than any other candidate out there, Kasich is the GOP point man on supply-side idiocy.

Yes, Clinton balanced the budget.  And he did it by raising taxes on the rich.

Does anyone think Kasich will do the same?

P.S, That "heartbeat" bill that would ban abortion in Ohio that Kasich is trying to avoid having to sign?  It's baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Bobby Who? Whatsit Jindal? Never Heard Of Him.

NY Times columnist Charles Blow laments the black hole that is Bobby Jindal's presidential hopes (and the Louisiana state budget gap).

In the latest CNN/ORC poll of Republicans and independents who lean Republican, only 1 percent said that he was the candidate they would most likely support for the Republican nomination. Even “none/no one” got 6 percent. 

And in a desperate attempt at relevancy — and press — he has lately been sliding further into Islamic hysteria. 

In January, he caused a controversy by claiming that parts of Europe were “no-go zones” because of Muslim extremists. Jindal said that there were cities “where non-Muslims simply don’t go in,” like Birmingham in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron said in response: “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools’ Day. This guy is clearly a complete idiot.” 

That hasn’t stopped Jindal. Last week on Fox News, he set about defending his statement that America “shouldn’t tolerate those who want to come and try to impose some variant, or some version, of Shariah law.” But he went so far as to say of prospective immigrants:
“In America we want people who want to be Americans. We want people who want to come here. We don’t say, ‘You have to adopt our creed, or any particular creed,’ but we do say, ‘If you come here, you need to believe in American exceptionalism.’ ” 

What? Where is that written? I can’t find this “need to believe in American exceptionalism” anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Isn’t American exceptionalism itself a creed? 

The smart-on-paper Jindal increasingly comes across as nuttier than a piece of praline.

On the contrary, Jindal has all but glowingly accomplished his job: driving Democrats out of what was a reliably blue state.  Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu and friends are ancient history, and the state's vaunted Democratic machinery is in utter ruin.  The state's race to the bottom has been breathtaking.

Now it faces a more than $1.6 billion budget hole, and it's going to be filled with the bones of the state's universities, libraries, and public schools. And when Bobby Jindal leaves office, the state will be a shell of itself, hollowed out in order to give the wealthiest even more money to hoard.

By that criteria, Bobby Jindal has always been the man that he promised to be.

Israeli Getting Messy Out There, Folks

Colonel Mustard's Law And Stuff Emporium:

Now it’s all making sense. The Israelis saw Obama acting deceptively, hiding negotiations that would affect Israel’s existence, and giving away the store to the Iranians.

Netanyahu saw no choice but to go to Congress both through the Israeli ambassador and the speech to Congress, knowing that it would harm Israel with the administration.

This was not something done for election purposes.

Jackass, Son Of Jackass:

How dare Israel undermine American talks with a country that wants to annihilate both Israel and the United States. Our petulant, thin-skinned, mom jeans wearing President is angry because he got exposed. Boo freaking hoo.

 Carl Of Team Israel All Day Every Day:

One final comment. Obama is lucky this story didn't come out last Sunday or Monday. If it had, the Likud might have won 80 seats in last Tuesday's elections. This story doesn't make Obama into a victim (although I am sure that was the administration's intent in leaking it). This story makes Obama look petty, vindictive, and more than willing to abandon an ally that just happens to be the only democracy in a part of the world that is of critical interest to the United States.

Obama has won the title. He will go down in history as the worst President the United States has ever had.

The excuse from the right is that the deal with Iran is soooooooo awful that it has driven Israel to spy on us with, again, the express intent of undermining our foreign policy and involving other US elected officials in the effort. Israel had no other choice, you see to stop Iran from being months away from a nookular weapon, they way they've been for well over a decade now.

 It does explain why the Obama administration has been less than cordial to Bibi over the last couple years. They knew the Israelis were spying on us and going to Congress over it and apparently President Obama has gotten sick of it. Puts that whole "Bibi endorsing Romney in 2012" thing in perspective, doesn't it. Apparently that particular bad bet has continued for the last couple years.

U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia and France. The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said. 

A senior official in the prime minister’s office said Monday: “These allegations are utterly false. The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share.”

And Israel doesn't have any nuclear weapons, either, while we're apparently making up stories that nobody actually believes. So yes, this very much explains Israel's actions over the last several months.  An "ally" spying on us, and then using its connections with Congress to get what it wanted, directly.  To see this dirty laundry in the news is a brushback pitch at about 120 MPH.

Israel's response is rather petty:

The White House was directly involved in an attempt to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last week’s general election, during a nadir in ties between the Israeli leader and US President Barack Obama, a senior Jerusalem official said Tuesday. 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Times of Israel that “it’s no secret” that the Obama administration had attempted to influence the outcome of the election, having been partially motivated by a desire for revenge over Netanyahu’s polarizing speech before Congress earlier this month, which sought to undermine the president’s key foreign policy initiative – a nuclear deal with Iran. 

“The White House is driven by three main motives,” the official said. “The first is revenge [over the Congress speech]. The second is frustration: It’s no secret that they were involved in an attempt to bring down the Netanyahu government – something that we have clear knowledge of – and failed. The third [motive] is the administration’s attempt to divert attention from the negotiations with Iran to the Palestinian issue.”

Well alrighty then.

Enjoy your ride, Bibi.  You signed up for it.  And Obama is fresh out of damns to give about you.

StupidiNews!

• Utah will become the first state to bring back the firing squad as a potential method of executing death row prisoners in cases where drugs for lethal injections cannot be obtained.
• Upgrading LA's aging water and sewer systems to survive the next major California earthquake will cost upwards of $15 billion over the next 20 years according to city engineers.
• The Obama administration is assuring Afghanistan's leaders that US foreign aid to fund Afghan security forces will continue through 2017 at the minimum.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that Greece should stay in the eurozone nations and that she wants a deal that will make the country's economy to succeed.
• Cloud computing networks could be the key to providing the artificial brain power needed to run the next generation of robots.