Last Call For Climate Of Backbiting

I'm old enough to remember when the President was able to conduct foreign policy without the opposition party publicly telling foreign allies exactly how they will undermine that policy at every turn.  Of course, that was before the Age of Black Guy in the White House.

Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive — including outreach to foreign officials by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office — to undermine President Barack Obama's hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy.

The GOP strategy, emerging after months of quiet discussions, includes sowing doubts about Obama's climate policies at home and abroad, trying to block key environmental regulations in Congress, and challenging the legitimacy of the president's attempts to craft a global agreement without submitting a treaty to the Senate.

A top policy aide to McConnell (R-Ky.) has had conversations with a select group of representatives from foreign embassies to make it clear that Republicans intend to fight Obama's climate agenda at every turn, sources familiar with the efforts say.

Sources say the aide, Neil Chatterjee, hasn't tried to persuade other countries to oppose a climate deal, though he is informing them about the GOP's options for undercutting it. He has had conversations with officials representing both developed and developing countries. Environment & Energy Publishing first reported on his efforts.

McConnell himself warned foreign leaders last spring to "proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal” with Obama, noting that "two-thirds of the U.S. federal government" — Congress and the Supreme Court — hasn't signed off on the president's plans.

It's amazing stuff.  Aides to members of Congress actively and openly conducting foreign policy in opposition to the President. I can't really recall that happening before.

But then again, Obama.

Iran Out Of Orange Julius

John Boehner continues to be the most incompetent House Speaker in decades, as now the House vote on the Iran nuclear has completely collapsed because he can't control his own little monsters in the GOP caucus.

GOP leaders had to change course after hearing an earful from rank-and-file members during a morning conference meeting.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are demanding that the Obama administration send side deals between Iran and international nuclear inspectors to Congress as part of the Iran deal now under consideration. Opponents of the deal have argued that the clock on congressional consideration of the deal has not even begun until these side deals are submitted.

Under legislation approved earlier this year, Congress has 60 days to review the deal before the White House can begin lifting sanctions on Tehran, as required under the nuclear deal.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) has offered a resolution that would prevent a vote on the Iran deal until all of the documents of the international agreement — including the deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are provided to Congress for review.

“We had a very healthy conversation with our members this morning. There is some interest in the idea offered by Mr. [Mike] Pompeo, Mr. Roskam. We're going to continue to have those conversations,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said after a GOP conference meeting.

I don't blame them.  Orange Julius really did sell them out, like he always does, and yet House Republicans continue to let him take the blame because none of the rest of them want the job.

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) predicted that the procedural vote on the rule would fail if it were held Wednesday. But neither he nor other members of the House Freedom Caucus who believe Congress lacks all the information it needs to vote on the deal would commit to voting against the rule on the floor.

“If we take a vote prematurely, then we’re saying it doesn’t matter. And again, that’s another form of approval. Why do we want to approve anything here when it’s a bad deal and we don’t even know the worst part of it?” Fleming said.

Fleming suggested that allowing lawmakers to review the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA could even flip some Democrats to oppose the deal.

“Let’s say that something comes out that’s so hideous and so egregious that even Democrats wouldn’t dare go along with this deal,” Fleming said. “You don’t know what you don’t know. We didn’t know that the NSA was doing bulk collection of emails until we found about it.”

But other Republicans say it's too late to try to stall the vote when Congress's 60-day review period will close on Sept. 17.

“You know what, I think it’s pretty clear that a month and a half ago we understood that Sept. 17 would be the drop-dead date. And the week we’re doing it is a little bit late to bring up the argument,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas).

It's too late the change the rules of the game, kids. You lost, and there's no way out of this mess.  After the sixty days are up, Republican lose regardless.

And they know it.

Cincy Police Chief Blackwell Fired

It was inevitable that somebody's head had to roll after two Cincinnati police stories made national headlines this summer: first, the death of Officer Sonny Kim in the line of duty, and second, the death of Sam Dubose by a UC campus officer.  On Wednesday the hammer fell on Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell as he was blasted in a 35-page report by City Manager Harry Black in front of City Council and Mayor Cranley, and then summarily dismissed.

Cincinnati's city manager has fired Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell. 

In a 35 page document, City Manager Harry Black cites "lack of sufficient and proper communication" and "consistent and pervasive disregard for chain of command." 

Morale in the department, Black wrote, "is at an unprecedented low level, and the general sentiment throughout the department is that Mr. Blackwell's leadership has created a work environment of hostility and retaliation."

Assistant Chief Eliot Isaac has been named Interim Chief. 

Documents included in the city’s release outline myriad problems with the chief and his leadership style. He is depicted as unprofessional, uncommunicative, and disrespectful to officers and other staff. There are repeated instances of the chief reportedly berating co-workers. 

In a statement, Captain Paul Broxterman says the chief asked him, on several occasions, to use his contacts with the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals to get free game tickets. 

Broxterman says the chief often made promises he wouldn’t fulfill. He adds the assistant chiefs were frequently frustrated over a lack of communication and direction from the chief. “They clearly felt powerless in the day-to-day operations of the department.” Broxterman does praise the chief for being passionate about community outreach, especially reaching out to the city’s youth. 

Now Interim Chief Eliot Isaac says rank and file officers repeatedly told him they felt unsupported by Chief Blackwell. 

Other complaints include the chief allegedly using profane language and harsh, berating language with co-workers, and taking 'selfies' along the funeral procession route for Officer Sonny Kim.

Blackwell got thrown under the bus by everyone in Cincy: his own officers, Mayor Cranley, the police unions and the press. Harry Black did praise Blackwell for his outreach program ti Cincinnati's black neighborhoods, but that was literally the only nice thing anyone's had to say about Chief Blackwell in months.

His days were numbered since Cranley was elected Mayor and Black appointed City Manager, but the deaths of Officer Kim and Sam Dubose were the final straws.  The Cincy FOP was going to give Blackwell a no confidence vote next week, and everyone couldn't wait to get rid of the guy.

Blackwell did have his supporters, most notably City Council members Chris Seelbach and Yvette Simpson, but that wasn't enough to save his job.  What's clear is that Blackwell was summarily fired because the police union and Cranley wanted him gone, and badly.

At City Hall, the former chief, Jeffrey Blackwell, told reporters he had not seen or read City Manager Harry Black's report. He said, Wednesday morning, he was "escorted out like a criminal."

"I've had the support of the White House, the attorney general, the national media, all the national think tanks, but I could never get the support off John Cranley or Harry Black and because I have never had their support, ever, I could never command the department the way it was supposed to be led."

Last week, Council Member Wendell Young, a former police officer, said he thought it was time for Blackwell to go. But, at Wednesday's council meeting, he said he did not like the way it was done, with no opportunity for Blackwell to respond.

"This has been bad theater here,'' Young said, directing his remarks to Cranley. "Mr. Mayor, you created this atmosphere; this is on you."

And you can't tell me that having an African-American police chief didn't have a role to play in why Blackwell never got the support he needed to run the department responsibly.  His job was to clean up the department that's had race issue for decades.

Instead, the CPD cleaned him out and trashed him.  This whole thing stinks, and there's more to it than Blackwell's behavior or going to Reds games.

StupidiNews!

• A major archaeological find in South Africa has revealed the bones of an ancient species of a previously unknown human ancestor dubbed 'Homo naledi'.
• The latest Republican lawsuit against Obamacare has survived a federal court, which will allow the suit claiming the Obama administration improperly allocated Obamacare funds to continue.
• Russian ground troops are now involved in Syria's civil war according to a Reuters report, supporting the Assad regime against Islamic State rebel forces.
• Puerto Rico's government has unveiled a debt restructuring plan that forces creditors to take less than what is owed in order to keep the US territory solvent.
• The major reveal at Apple's event this week is the 12.9 inch iPad Pro and accessories including a smart keyboard and a stylus dubbed the Apple Pencil.

Last Call For Shutdown Watch '15

Forbes's Stan Collender ups his GOP government shutdown forecast to 67% from last month's 60%, saying that President Obama getting the 41 votes he needs to filibuster the GOP's attempt to derail the Iran nuclear deal makes it all the more likely that Republicans will exact revenge.

Because the CR will include appropriations for all cabinet departments, it’s very likely – if not almost certain – that there will be at least one attempt in the House and Senate to include language that prevents from using any of the funds to implement the deal. 

That’s not to say this proposed language will survive, but the process will further slow down a debate on the CR that already was pushing against the time limit. 

Even more important is that an effort to stop the Iran deal in the CR will provide a second take-no-prisoners issue that will further intensify the politics for many Republicans. When combined with the expected efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, it will add significant highly emotional fuel to the partisan fire and make a government shutdown far more politically palatable. 

If that wasn’t enough, neither Iran implementation nor Planned Parenthood funding has anything to do with the big budget issue — military vs. domestic spending — that still must be resolved in the continuing resolution. There doesn’t seem to have been any progress whatsoever on the dispute between Republicans, that want to increase military and cut domestic programs, and the White House, that wants to increase them both.

And somehow this all has to be worked out quickly. Yes, there are only three weeks between now and the start of fiscal 2016, but the debate and votes on the CR have to be completed in the 10 days Congress will be in session before October 1. But because several of these days will be devoted to the Iran deal and Pope Francis’ visit to Washington, Congress and the White House really only have about seven days left to get all of the work done.

I would put the likelihood at 90% or higher.  Once again, there's no way John Boehner will be able to deliver his caucus for a continuing resolution in the House, and with Sens. Cruz, Paul and Rubio all looking for a way to get back into the race, whoever shuts down the government first wins in the Age of Trump.

It's going to be a meltdown, and Republicans will get blamed again.

Whether or not that actually hurts the GOP, well, who knows.  It certainly didn't hurt them in 2014.

Bush Tax Cuts Forevah

Jeb Bush is tired of getting 5% in the polls, so he's going to amaze people with something they've never seen before:  more Bush tax cuts!

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush convened an hour-long gathering in Manhattan on Tuesday morning with three longtime advocates for sweeping tax cuts, seeking their counsel at the office of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and sharing the details of his campaign’s economic plan, which will be formally unveiled Wednesday in Raleigh, N.C. 

The trio of supply-side conservatives — Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore, publishing executive Steve Forbes and CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow — met with Bush alongside Johnson, Bush’s national finance chairman, according to two Republicans familiar with Bush’s schedule. 

Those Republicans, who requested anonymity to discuss the private session and the Bush campaign’s outlook, said the former Florida governor hopes his tax offering will jumpstart his candidacy, which has lagged behind GOP front-runner Donald Trump for months, by proposing lower corporate and personal tax rates while also eliminating a number of deductions that favor Wall Street investors.

Courting the party’s tax-cut enthusiasts Tuesday was the first step in that effort, the Republicans said, calling it a gesture of goodwill and a signal to the party’s business wing that in spite of the rollicking race so far, Bush is mounting an aggressive fall campaign built around traditional GOP principles. Later Tuesday, Bush will visit the offices of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, whose writers have for decades been ardent proponents of smaller government and lower taxes.

Yay tax cuts for the rich!  That'll totally fix all of America problems.

Well, it will for the rich.  Until the economy collapses again, but hey, rich people can survive that, so no problemo, dude!

Seriously, do you get the feeling that the Jeb Bush campaign might be out of ideas?

Jailhouse Rockhead

Judge David Bunning has released Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from jail for contempt with the instructions that she no longer interfere with her deputy secretaries in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Guess who's bad at instructions?

Just minutes after a judge ordered Kim Davis released from jail on Tuesday, her lawyers told CNN that she would violate a court order by forcing her clerks to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

An order from U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning said on Tuesday that Davis would be released after serving six days in jail on the condition that she “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.”

CNN correspondent Martin Savidge, who was at the jail, explained following the order that her attorney, Harry Mihet, said that the judge had ordered the release because her office had satisfied the court by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she was behind bars.

“The problem here is that the attorney says she has not changed her mind, that Kim Davis is adamant that as long as her name appears on those marriage licenses, she objects and she will attempt to stop those licenses from being distributed,” Savidge reported. “Which means if she goes back on the job as is expected, she will bring the process to a halt. That’s what her attorneys believe.”

“They have said they expect her to go by her conscience which means we may go through this all again,” the CNN correspondent noted.

If that actually happens, well, we'll find out pretty soon should Davis burst forth from her office like the evil Kool-Aid Man and tackle the next same-sex couple that comes in the door.

Which necessitates the question being asked: if it's so obvious to Davis's lawyers that she'll violate the court order, how did she get released in the first place?

Won't last long, I'm thinking.

Meanwhile both Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz showed up at the County jail, and Huckabee especially went on with dangerous rhetoric about openly defying the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage.

"We do not want this country to become the smoldering remains of what was once a great republic, where the people rule," the former Arkansas governor told the crowd. That vision of America should not be "exchanged for a place where five unelected lawyers think that they can rule," he said.

"We're here to say, 'No, they cannot,'" Huckabee declared.

Once again, Republican running for President openly saying that Supreme Court rulings he doesn't like are simply invalid.  Somehow, it's  Democrats who are the extremists.  Probably something about Black Lives Matter, I'm sure.

Nodding to the separation of powers and "the genius of our Constitution," Huckabee told Davis supporters on Tuesday that the Supreme Court's power is "limited" and that it "can only review a law." Reasonably true.

But then came his warning that "the founders never gave that one branch of government the power to make a law."

Huckabee added, "That is reserved for the representatives of the people. Our founders were so concerned that they said that should we ever come to the place that we allow a court to run amok of its purpose, then we would be living under what is no less than judicial tyranny."

That's not how it works, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter over what is Constitutional or not, and they have found that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.  What Huckabee is proposing, that the Executive Branch can simply ignore the Judicial Branch, is actual tyranny.

And yet, he's still considered a serious candidate for the GOP nomination rather than a dangerous lunatic.

Spoilers: he's not alone in this view, either.

StupidiNews!

• Officials say 13 people were injured at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport when the engine of a British Airways flight caught fire on the runway before takeoff.
• The Late Show With Stephen Colbert premiered last night on CBS as the talk show host began his run replacing David Letterman.
• United Nations officials estimate at least 850,000 refugees and migrants will cross into Europe by the end of 2016, the bulk of which will be from war-torn Syria.
• Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk says the long-awaited Model X SUV will roll off the assembly lines in California starting September 29.
• Silicon Valley mogul John McAfee announced his intent to run for President as a third party candidate for the new Cyber Party he is founding.

Last Call For Rounding Up The Riff-Raff

Nothing quite like the age-old canard of "If black people would behave, racism would go away."  Juan Williams blames Black Lives Matter for angering white people and accuses them of "being their own worst enemy".

It lacks an agenda, it is antagonizing the black community’s top white political allies, including Democrats running for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, and it is not finding common ground with any of the Republican majority in Congress.

The catalyst for the movement was outrage over the deaths of young black men like Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police officers who arguably used excessive, even deadly force. But where is the list of solutions to the injustices it so often decries? 

The movement’s failure to get its collective act together carries real danger for the political clout of the African-American community in the 2016 elections and beyond.

With the movement potentially discouraging black American trust in Democrats, #BlackLivesMatter is increasing the odds of a sharp drop in black voter turnout in 2016. Already Democrats privately worry that without President Obama on the ballot, the black vote will decrease the turnout needed to keep the White House and win back the Senate.

Williams is already setting BLM up as the source of all the Democrats' problems in 2016.  You have to wonder what his reaction to the civil rights movement of 50 years ago would have been.  He goes on to say Rand Paul and Chris Christie are who black America ought to be listening to (after attacking black Democrats for not being faithful to the Democrats, mind you) and wonders why the movement isn't embracing them

If Williams can't figure that out, he's further gone than I realized.

Patriot Games And Other Cheating

If this ESPN story on former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell is even close to being correct, then Goddell needs to be immediately fired.  It turns out that "Spygate", the controversy over the Patriots getting busted for recording signal calls of opposing teams, was much, much worse than originally thought, and that Gooddell did everything in his power to cover up the mess.

His bosses were furious. Roger Goodell knew it. So on April 1, 2008, the NFL commissioner convened an emergency session of the league's spring meeting at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. Attendance was limited to each team's owner and head coach. A palpable anger and frustration had rumbled inside club front offices since the opening Sunday of the 2007 season. During the first half of the New England Patriots' game against the New York Jets at Giants Stadium, a 26-year-old Patriots video assistant named Matt Estrella had been caught on the sideline, illegally videotaping Jets coaches' defensive signals, beginning the scandal known as Spygate. 

Behind closed doors, Goodell addressed what he called "the elephant in the room" and, according to sources at the meeting, turned over the floor to Robert Kraft. Then 66, the billionaire Patriots owner stood and apologized for the damage his team had done to the league and the public's confidence in pro football. Kraft talked about the deep respect he had for his 31 fellow owners and their shared interest in protecting the NFL's shield. Witnesses would later say Kraft's remarks were heartfelt, his demeanor chastened. For a moment, he seemed to well up. 

Then the Patriots' coach, Bill Belichick, the cheating program's mastermind, spoke. He said he had merely misinterpreted a league rule, explaining that he thought it was legal to videotape opposing teams' signals as long as the material wasn't used in real time. Few in the room bought it. Belichick said he had made a mistake -- "my mistake." 

Now it was Goodell's turn. The league office lifer, then 49 years old, had been commissioner just 18 months, promoted, in part, because of Kraft's support. His audience wanted to know why he had managed his first crisis in a manner at once hasty and strangely secretive. Goodell had imposed a $500,000 fine of Belichick, a $250,000 fine of the team and the loss of a first-round draft pick just four days after league security officials had caught the Patriots and before he'd even sent a team of investigators to Foxborough, Massachusetts. Those investigators hadn't come up empty: Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons. Among them were handwritten diagrams of the defensive signals of the Pittsburgh Steelers, including the notes used in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game won by the Patriots 24-17. Yet almost as quickly as the tapes and notes were found, they were destroyed, on Goodell's orders: League executives stomped the tapes into pieces and shredded the papers inside a Gillette Stadium conference room.

And within three days, the story went away. The Patriots were fined, and that was the end of it.

Only of course, it was only the beginning.

Interviews by ESPN The Magazine and Outside the Lines with more than 90 league officials, owners, team executives and coaches, current and former Patriots coaches, staffers and players, and reviews of previously undisclosed private notes from key meetings, show that Spygate is the centerpiece of a long, secret history between Goodell's NFL, which declined comment for this story, and Kraft's Patriots. The diametrically opposed way the inquiries were managed by Goodell -- and, more importantly, perceived by his bosses -- reveals much about how and why NFL punishment is often dispensed. The widespread perception that Goodell gave the Patriots a break on Spygate, followed by the NFL's stonewalling of a potential congressional investigation into the matter, shaped owners' expectations of what needed to be done by 345 Park Ave. on Deflategate. 

It was, one owner says, time for "a makeup call."

So QB Tom Brady was rung up for Deflategate to pacify the NFL owners who knew that the Patriots had gotten away with cheating for years.  Only, that backfired too.  Brady's suspension was lifted by a judge last week.

And now, ESPN drops this story just as the season begins.

Moose-Information Campaign

I can't imagine how this particular scholar of a candidate didn't win in 2008.

Immigrants to the United States should "speak American," former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Sunday, adding her voice to a controversy triggered by Donald Trump's criticism of fellow Republican White House hopeful Jeb Bush's use of Spanish.

"It's a benefit of Jeb Bush to be able to be so fluent in Spanish, because we have a large and wonderful Hispanic population that is helping to build America," Palin said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"On the other hand, you know, I think we can send a message and say: 'You want to be in America? A, you better be here legally, or you're out of here. B, when you're here, let's speak American.' I mean, that's just, that's - let's speak English," added Palin, Republican presidential nominee John McCain's running mate in 2008.

Politics is hard.  We need somebody mean, not smart.

CNN's Jake Tapper asked Palin Sunday for her thoughts on Trump's exchange last week with radio host Hugh Hewitt. Trump had since called Hewitt's questions "gotcha questions."

"I think I’d rather have a President who is tough and puts America first than can win a game of Trivial Pursuit," Palin told Tapper. "I don’t think the public gives a flying flip who, today, is a specific leader of a specific region because that leader will change of course."

Loud, stupid, and wrong beats measured, intelligent and right any day of the week, stupid liberal nerds!  Just ask President McCain!

StupidiNews!

• Secretary of State John Kerry is warning that Russia's military presence in Syria could worsen the nearly five-year-old conflict and resulting refugee crisis.
• Prolific horror author Stephen King will receive the National Medal of Arts from President Obama later this week in a White House ceremony.
• Jailed Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis is now suing Gov. Steve Beshear for violating her religious freedom and is once again petitioning for an emergency injunction.
• German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says the flood of Syrian refugees into Europe is an "absolute priority" in Berlin's latest budget plan.
• Google says it will comply with Chinese censorship laws in order to get its Google Play app store into the largest mobile app market on Earth.

Last Call For Labor, Dazed

This Labor Day, we find that Ohio workers under Gov. John Kasich haven't had a good year.   Whereas America grew by 3.5 million more jobs in the last 12 months, Kasich's policies managed to cause to the state to lose 35,000 jobs since the 2007 recession began.  The state has yet to recover.

More than six years into the official recovery from the last recession, Ohio has not yet recovered the jobs we lost. The country as a whole and most states passed that threshold over a year ago. Ohio had 35,400 fewer jobs in June 2015 than it had when the recession officially started in December 2007, a 0.7 percent loss. The nation added 2.5 percent to its job base over that period. Ohio has underperformed the nation over various time periods – since June 2005 when Ohio passed tax cuts targeted to the wealthiest in the name of job creation; since January 2011 when John Kasich became governor; since December 2007, when the recession started; and over the last year, since July 2014. By June 2015, the most recent revised data available, we had 5,384,200 jobs in Ohio, still more than 240,000 jobs shy of 2000, the peak job year.

 Wages are down too under Kasich, no surprise there.

Ohio’s median wage, once more than 8.7 percent above that of the nation, was over 5 percent less than the national in 2014. Ohio’s median wage dipped slightly last year to $16.05 an hour and remains lower than in all but eight of the last 36 years, adjusted for inflation. This is at the heart of what remains wrong with the Ohio labor market – regular Ohioans are left out of our productivity growth. The entire bottom 80 percent of the earnings spectrum is earning less than comparable workers did in 1979, adjusted for inflation.

Kasich has taken aim at the unions and is desperately trying to turn Ohio into a right to work state.  His policies have cut wages dramatically.

And let's keep is mind he wants to do to America what he did to Ohio.

What did you expect from George W. Bush's budget director?

The Labors Of Obama

President Obama just made a lot of conservative heads explode with this badly needed labor reform.

President Obama will sign an executive order Monday requiring federal contractors to give their employees seven paid sick days a year.

It's the latest in a series of presidential actions on workplace issues, as Obama has taken unilateral action to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors, offer paid paternal leave for federal workers and encourage cities and states to enact similar policies.

Obama will announce the executive order in a Labor Day speech to a labor group in Boston, where the City Council passed an ordinance requiring up to six weeks of parental leave in April.

In all, 21 cities, counties and states have enacted paid leave policies since Obama called for local action in his State of the Union address — a key part of a White House effort to work around Congress on the issue.

That's great for federal employees, but what about the rest of us?

But many of those city ordinances, like Obama's executive orders, apply only to city employees and contractors, leading to big gaps in who's covered. So Obama will renew his call for has taken as he calls on Congress to pass legislation requiring allbusinesses with 15 or moreemployees to offer up to seven paid sick days each year.

Republicans have been lukewarm to that proposal, saying they would burden small businesses that already face too much government regulation.

Lukewarm?  They've been outright hostile to the notion that American workers are anything other than lazy losers who aren't working hard enough to be millionaires yet, and those Americans who are in the 1% are the only ones who should count. 

No, Republicans have made that very clear, blocking paid leave policies whenever possible, even though American productivity is up almost 250% from 1970.  Democrats have introcduced the Healthy Families Act in the last two Congresses, and it never got a vote.  Republicans saw to that.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez said the nation's paid leave policy is "stuck in the Leave it to Beaver era."

"You shouldn't have to win the boss lottery to have access to paid leave, just as you shouldn't have to win the geographic lottery in order to get a minimum wage that allows you to feed your family," he told reporters Sunday, previewing the president's executive order.

You would think red state Republicans would actually respond to that message.  Sadly, their response is "Well, those people get leave and benefits and I don't.  I will do everything I can to take that away from them and maybe my company will let me have them.  Any day now."

And they've been waiting for 40 years.

Pro-Arson, I Guess

At some point, the right-wing smear machine spewing ridiculous lies against Planned Parenthood has to take responsibility for actions of the fanatics they stir up.

An early-morning fire at Planned Parenthood in Pullman Friday was arson, according to the Pullman Fire Department and the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The fire, which started around 3:30 a.m., caused significant damage that may keep the health center closed for a month or more, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Tanya Riordan said.

Karl Eastlund, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, said in a statement, “This is an appalling act of violence towards Planned Parenthood, but unfortunately a predictable ripple effect from the false and incendiary attacks that fuel violence from extremists.”

FBI Special Agent Frank Harrill said federal agencies were involved because of the history of domestic terrorists targeting healthcare providers offering abortion services.

By the way, you idiots who like "burning down abortion clinics"...

Planned Parenthood’s Pullman health center offers abortion referrals but does not provide abortion services, according to its website.

So yes, all you've accomplished is denying women in the area health services.  Oh wait, that's the point because those dirty sluts had it coming, right?

I mean, these nutjobs bomb clinics, they assassinate doctors, but we're supposed to be shocked and appalled at the edited videos they put up?

Please.