The Lady Stands Tall Once More

As I mentioned in this morning's StupidiNews, the Statue of Liberty is finally reopening to the public today after having been closed since Hurricane Sandy.

She didn’t even get her skirt wet.

Yet when Hurricane Sandy caused a wall of harbor water to wash over her island home, Lady Liberty was forced to close up shop for months.

She reopens to visitors today amid fanfare — visiting dignitaries, fireworks, music.

And while it came down to the wire, the National Park Service was able to repair the docks at Liberty State Park in time for tourists to be able to leave from the New Jersey side, too. 

While the statue itself was undamaged by the storm, the buildings and landscaping around it took a hit that federal officials estimated would cost $59 million to repair. 

Some of that damage was cosmetic: The storm surge swept aside walkway pavers and even small monuments in its path — with some objects from Liberty Island ending on along the Jersey City waterfront. 

The biggest problem was below ground, however, where floodwaters damaged heating and cooling equipment, sewage treatment equipment and most of the island’s power supply.

The good news is Lady Liberty is ready to go after the island's tune-up and stands once again as a symbol of the United States of America.  It's good enough news to make you want to go down to Coney Island and have a hot dog or 69.

Another Race To The Bottom Moment

I'm not sure if Rasmussen is trying to start a fight or what, but apparently white people seem to think black people are tremendously racist, white-hating hate machines filled with hate.  Well, if you ask Rasmussen, anyway.

Americans consider blacks more likely to be racist than whites and Hispanics in this country.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American Adults think most black Americans are racist, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 15% consider most white Americans racist, while 18% say the same of most Hispanic Americans.

Because apparently there's no greater tear in the social fabric of America over the last 400 years than angry, racist black people.

There is a huge ideological difference on this topic. Among conservative Americans, 49% consider most blacks racist, and only 12% see most whites that way. Among liberal voters, 27% see most white Americans as racist, and 21% say the same about black Americans.

From a partisan perspective, 49% of Republicans see most black Americans as racist, along with 36% of unaffiliated adults and 29% of Democrats.

So, to half of conservatives (and Republicans) and a pretty non-trivial chunk of Dems, I'm racist, period, just because I'm black.  I'll let you dwell on what that means for a country with a black president for a while, and Happy 4th of July!

StupidiNews, Independence Day Edition!

• Colorado Democrat Sen. Mark Udall's brother Randy was found dead Tuesday after being lost hiking in the Rocky Mountains for several days.
• City College of San Francisco, the state's largest community college, has been stripped of accreditation due to a number of administration and financial issues.
• House Democrats will try to repeal the rest of DOMA left intact by the US Supreme Court, while the House GOP wants a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
• Belgium's King Albert II will step down in favor of his son Prince Phillipe as the country's Flemish minority looks increasingly towards an independent state.
• Computer science legend Douglas Englebart, inventor of the computer mouse and pioneer behind many networking and word processing advances, is dead at age 88.

Last Call For Fat Stacks Of US Foreign Aid Cash

With Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi now apparently detained under house arrest as a guest of the Egyptian military in a nice little coup d'etat, it's time to cut off the military aid (for now.)

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday the United States was required by law to cut aid to Egypt following a coups d’etat.

“The Morsi government has been a great disappointment to the people of Egypt, and to all who wish Egypt a successful transition to responsive, representative government under the rule of law,” he said in a statement. “He squandered an historic opportunity, preferring to govern by fiat rather than work with other political parties to do what is best for all Egyptians. Egypt’s military leaders say they have no intent or desire to govern, and I hope they make good on their promise.”

“In the meantime, our law is clear: U.S. aid is cut off when a democratically elected government is deposed by military coup or decree,” Leahy added. “As we work on the new budget, my committee also will review future aid to the Egyptian government as we wait for a clearer picture. As the world’s oldest democracy, this is a time to reaffirm our commitment to the principle that transfers of power should be by the ballot, not by force of arms.”

Indeed, President Obama agrees that a review of funds to Egypt is now a top priority.

President Barack Obama urged Egypt's military Wednesday to hand back control to a democratic, civilian government without delay, but stopped short of calling the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi a coup.

In a carefully worded statement, Obama said he was "deeply concerned" by the military's move to topple Morsi's government and suspend Egypt's constitution. He said he was ordering the U.S. government to assess what the military's actions meant for U.S. foreign aid to Egypt.

Under U.S. law, the government must suspend foreign aid to any nation whose elected leader is ousted in a coup d'etat. The U.S. provides $1.5 billion a year to Egypt in military and economic assistance that is considered a critical U.S. national security priority.

Now the wheeling and dealing begins.  A billion and a half is a pretty big carrot to a country that kind of has no real economy right now.

I'm hoping somebody in the White House has Mohamed ElBaradei's phone number on speed dial.

Tarheel Pirates In The Night

Apparently not to be outdone in sheer awfulness by Texas and Ohio, North Carolina Republicans are moving to close all but one abortion provider in the state with new TRAP laws latched on to, of all things, an anti-Sharia law bill.  Because theocracies are bad, unless they're Christian theocracies.

The Senate took a surprise vote Tuesday night to add more restrictions on surgical and medical abortions. Abortion clinics would have to meet standards similar to those for outpatient surgery clinics. Doctors would have to be present when women take pills that induce abortions.

The bill’s supporters say its about safety, but opponents said the real reason is to restrict abortions. A legislative staff member said only one abortion clinic in the state would meet the new licensing standards. A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood said she knew of none.

Women who found out about the vote on Facebook and Twitter last night came to the legislature on about 12 hours notice. By 9 a.m. the gallery was full and about 200 people had gathered outside.

“I’ve seen this happening elsewhere in the country,” said Valerie Evans of Raleigh. “I feel like we have to stand up and push back.”

Evans said she knew the Senate would probably approve the measure, but she wanted them to know that many people disapprove.

“It’s sneaky,” Tanya Olson of Durham said of the surprise Senate action. “It’s not right. They have to know that people know this.”

So happy Independence day, NC.  Sorry about your rights and all.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/03/3007643/opponents-of-nc-abortion-bill.html#storylink=cpy

 

Ezra's Mandate With Destiny

Ezra Klein argues (as he has for years now) that the Obamacare employer mandate was a terrible idea, always had been a terrible idea, and always will be.  So he's outright gleeful to see the Treasury Department direct the IRS to delay implementation of the mandate until 2015.

The irony is that the worker-based employer mandate got passed in part because employers preferred it to a payroll-based mandate — a fact that puzzled Senate health aides at the time, but that they made peace with in order to pass the bill.

Part of the reason is that the mandate, as written, affects relatively few employers. “You’ve got 5.7 million firms in the U.S.,” says Wharton’s Mark Duggan, who served as the top health economist at White House’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010. “Only 210,000 have more than 50 employees. So 96 percent of firms aren’t affected. Then if you look among those firms with 50 or more employees, something on the order of 95 percent offer health insurance. So it’s basically 10,000 or so employers who have more than 50 employees and don’t offer coverage.” Those companies probably employ around one percent of American workers.

But that’s still a lot of employers, and a lot of workers, and so the health-care law has gotten a stream of bad press as one employer or another threatens to cut hours or fire workers in order to dodge the penalty.

It’s also proven difficult to enforce. Implementing the mandate requires a complex reporting process that’s left the administration flooded with comments from anxious employers — even those who offer insurance and have nothing to fear from the provision.

On Tuesday night, the White House solved that problem, at least temporarily, by announcing that that the penalties won’t go into effect until 2015. They say they plan to use the interregnum to simplify and streamline the reporting process. Until then, compliance will be “voluntary.”

Now if the mandate never gets enforced and gets fixed, great.  But let's not forget that the real problem is that Republicans are breaking everything they can about Obamacare, and it's forced the Obama administration to resort to goofy solutions like this.

There's a better way, but it'll never happen as long the GOP controls the House and an overwhelming majority of states.  

The bigger issue is Ezra's wrong about the "lot of employers".  It's one percent, people.  One.  Perspective.

StupidiNews!

• As the clock ticks down on the last few hours before the ultimatum from Egypt's military comes due, President Mohammed Morsi remained defiant in a 45-minute speech and will not step down.
• Illinois Dem Gov. Pat Quinn has vetoed several "flawed" provisions in the state's concealed carry firearms bill, which is backed by the NRA.
• European concern and anger at the US over NSA spying revelations is beginning to strain relationships and prompting demonstrations at US embassies.
• The IRS is debating whether or not to allow same-sex couples in states where same-sex marriage is prohibited to file jointly, which could save couples thousands in taxes each year.
• A small local telco in Vermont is offering gigabit internet and phone service for the unheard of price of $48 per month, highlighting again how uncompetitive internet service is in the US.

Last Call For The GOP Big Tent

Benjy Sarlin, over at his new MSNBC.com digs, discusses the GOP view on immigration, and the growing backlash against Latinos that goes something like "All we have to do is increase white voter turnout by being a bunch of nativist pricks."

This will probably sound a little odd if you were watching TV on election night 2012. Romney won 59% of the white vote in exit polls, better than President Bush’s 58% in 2004. Unfortunately for Romney, the white share of the electorate declined from 79.2% to 73.7 % over the same period. The result: Obama won by an even bigger margin than Bush did thanks to blowout margins with minorities.

But conservative commentators are convincing themselves they can find a few million more whites tucked between the couch cushions–at least enough for one more election. Two columnists have been particularly influential in this regard. Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics has argued that census data shows about 5 million mostly poor and rural white voters were “projected” to vote in 2012 based on population growth and past turnout but didn’t show up to the polls. Byron York, a columnist at the Washington Examiner, published a related piece noting that Romney would have lost even if he had racked up a majority of Latino voters.

“Recent reports suggest as many as 5 million white voters simply stayed home on Election Day,” York wrote in May. “If they had voted at the same rate they did in 2004, even with the demographic changes since then, Romney would have won.”

The problem is there’s no way Romney would have won all 5 million of those whites, so Obama’s lead would have held. But if Obama had failed to replicate his 2008 performance with minority voters and Romney had matched Bush’s 2004 performance with whites, the GOP could have narrowly prevailed. This was the exact scenario Romney was shooting for.

So yes, expect Republicans to be even more racists towards minorities over the next 41 months.

Cash In, Kerry

Jeffrey Goldberg, over at Bloomberg, makes the least courageous pundit call ever: that Secretary of State John Kerry is wasting his time trying to negotiate anything with Israel and the Palestinians (just like pretty much every other US Secretary of State.)

The delusion at hand is that Kerry will succeed where numerous secretaries of state have failed, and succeed in what might be the most inauspicious moment in years to start new negotiations: The Middle East is erupting all around Israel, which makes even centrist and some left-leaning Israelis fear the idea of tangible territorial concessions; the Palestinian Authority is weaker than ever; the two territories that would make up the future state of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza) are divided between the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas and the more moderate Fatah; and the Israeli Cabinet is under the de facto control of the settlement movement, which continues to expand its holdings on the West Bank.

But maybe I’m just a cynic. I called Ari Shavit, Israel’s leading columnist and a man who very much wants to see a Palestinian state created on the West Bank, to ask him if my bleakness was unjustified. “I’m just this moment putting the Champagne bottles in the fridge,” he said. “I expect to open them shortly. We’re all going to have special permission from the Muslim Brotherhood to drink Champagne.”

Shavit’s withering sarcasm wasn’t matched by contempt for Kerry, though. Like many Israelis, Shavit has a strange kind of respect for Kerry’s quixotic efforts. “Kerry is a decent, noble American trying to bring peace to a tormented land and a troubled region, and I salute him for his benign intentions and commitment and energy,” Shavit said. “But that said, I think this good will and energy and political capital is being invested in a course of action that resembles too much the previous attempts that have failed. I think the right approach is to learn from the failures of the past and to do something practical that relates to the realities on the ground rather than reach for something that is totally unrealistic. There is no serious Israeli or Palestinian who thinks that the Kerry approach would work.” 

Even I've got to say that with Egypt's government collapsing into a possible military coup in real time, that John Kerry has much, much bigger problems on his hands than another useless attempt at shuttle diplomacy right now.

The good news is he's basically next door to Egypt right now as the deadline for Morsi's resignation quickly approaches, so perhaps the most obvious benefit is that American diplomacy is on the ground where it actually might be able to do some good.

We'll see.

The Reality In Ohio Now

Gov. Kasich's budget and abortion bill is now law, and here's what Ohio women now face from "small government conservatives".

The Republican Party continues to hack away at reproductive rights around the country--and Ohio is the latest place to be targeted by anti-abortion forces. Governor John Kasich signed the state budget Sunday night--and included in the budget are a number of measures that would restrict abortion rights in the state. It was signed over the objections of protesters who descended on the state legislature.

“Wait until the first women dies; wait until the first doctor leaves Ohio,”warned one protester.

But the anti-abortion group Ohio Right to Life praised the legislation. “It took great compassion and courage for our governor and pro-life legislature to stand up to the abortion industry that blatantly pressured them,” said Mike Gonidakis, the president of the group.

Compassion?  Here's your "compassion", courtesy of the anti-choice movement:

• Gag orders on rape clinics counseling abortion options.
• Forced trans-abdominal ultrasounds.
• Planned Parenthood loses all state funding, $1.4 million, and that's being given to religious "crisis pregnancy centers" instead, who often provide false medical information about abortions.
• Clinics cannot transfer patients post-abortion to public hospitals.
• Doctors are forced to reveal how much money they make from providing abortion services, and must counsel women on adoption and crisis pregnancy options.

The virtual (and in some cases, actual) criminalization of failure to birth a child after pregnancy continues in the US.  And let's not forget that the bill redefines the legal status of "pregnancy" and "fetus" to mean that IUDs are now technically abortions, meaning any woman who wants to get or keep an IUD now has to face all these restrictions, including the waiting period, counseling, and an ultrasound because they are "pregnant" under state law.   

It's entirely conceivable that the morning after pill (Plan B) and even birth control medication could qualify as "ending a pregnancy" under these legal definitions, meaning -- you guessed it -- you'd be required to go through all the ridiculous hoops for abortions just to get Plan B or the pill.

And Ohio Republicans tacked all this on to the budget without a single minute of debate.  And "moderate" Gov. John Kasich, who could have line-item vetoed any or all of these provisions, let the entire raft of them through without comment.

This is your modern GOP, folks.  They despise women to the point of criminalizing them.

This is the reality in Ohio right now.

StupidiNews!

• Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi faces a Wednesday deadline from the Egyptian military to meet protester's demands and step down or face "intervention".
• Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp and 28 other House GOP members are introducing legislation to create a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
• Lawyers representing four Gitmo detainees want a federal court to end the practice of force-feeding those held at the facility and refusing to eat out of protest.
• Apple is moving to trademark the term "iWatch", leading to speculation the company has a smart wristwatch on the way.
• Former Facebook partners Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss are now leading a $20 million effort to sell shares in their Bitcoin holdings.

Last Call For Unopposed Turtles

Mitch The Turtle finally has a challenger:  Democrat and current Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced her candidacy this afternoon for the US Senate.

Lundergan Grimes, 34, said she's "no stranger" to being an underdog and took a shot at McConnell over recent ads mocking her for taking her time to decide on a campaign bid. She said the five-term Republican's ads are "based out of fear" of losing his power in Washington.

She also drew a generational and gender distinction between herself and McConnell, 71, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984.

Lundergan Grimes stressed that she was Kentucky's "only female constitutional officer" and "the youngest secretary of state across the nation that is a female."

"Kentucky is tired of a senior senator who has lost touch with Kentucky issues, voters and their values," she said. 

If you're wondering about the date, it's July 1:  the beginning of a new political campaign fundraising quarter.   Very pragmatic, our Alison.  Very much the daughter of former KY Dem party boss Jerry Lundergan:  it's all about the big checks with the zeroes at the end.

On the other hand, Grimes is right about Mitch the Turtle:  he's been in the Senate for going on 30 years now, and it's time for him to go home.

"I am no stranger to being an underdog. His ads are based out of fear of losing his 30-year grip on power," Lundergan said when asked about McConnell's skills as a candidate. "This Kentucky woman does not believe that the voters of Kentucky will be fooled that easily."

Democrats believe McConnell to be vulnerable, citing polling that shows him to be unpopular in his home state. Facing a difficult Senate map for 2014, with few opportunities for offense, Democrats are touting Kentucky as a possible pickup.

It's going to be a long, ugly battle, but we need this seat.  I said months ago if Lundergan Grimes ran, she'd have my support, and so that point has been reached.  She's going to need the help:  corrupt Mitch the Turtle has $13 million in the bank ready to smear her.

New tag: Alison Lundergan Grimes.

The Company Store Of The 21st Century

Welcome to life as a wage slave in America, folks:  the newest indignity of wringing every buck out of those making the federal minimum wage is companies passing payroll costs for their own paychecks to the employee, by forcing them to get paid through bank-issued debit cards with expensive transaction fees.

For these largely hourly workers, paper paychecks and even direct deposit have been replaced by prepaid cards issued by their employers. Employees can use these cards, which work like debit cards, at an A.T.M. to withdraw their pay. 

But in the overwhelming majority of cases, using the card involves a fee. And those fees can quickly add up: one provider, for example, charges $1.75 to make a withdrawal from most A.T.M.’s, $2.95 for a paper statement and $6 to replace a card. Some users even have to pay $7 inactivity fees for not using their cards. 

These fees can take such a big bite out of paychecks that some employees end up making less than the minimum wage once the charges are taken into account, according to interviews with consumer lawyers, employees, and state and federal regulators. 

Devonte Yates, 21, who earns $7.25 an hour working a drive-through station at a McDonald’s in Milwaukee, says he spends $40 to $50 a month on fees associated with his JPMorgan Chase payroll card. 

“It’s pretty bad,” he said. “There’s a fee for literally everything you do.” 

Certain transactions with the Chase pay card are free, according to a fee schedule. 

Many employees say they have no choice but to use the cards: some companies no longer offer common payroll options like ordinary checks or direct deposit. 

So after taxes we're talking about people making $200 a week and then having to fork over about 5% to the bank for fees.   Even if you have a bank account, forcing employees to only be paid through these cards is an outright scam, and all it does is enrich the banks at the employee's expense.  Making these cards optional is one thing, but required?  That's awful.

Yet another way we rip off the Americans least able to afford it.  But let's cut taxes on the rich, i'm sure that will fix the problem, right?

The Kroog Versus The Dickensians

Paul Krugman reminds us that North Carolina dropping itself out of federal employment benefits because cuts to unemployment benefits were too steep to meet federal rules is just the latest example of the GOP theory that flogging the unemployed will magically create jobs.

So what’s going on here? Is it just cruelty? Well, the G.O.P., which believes that 47 percent of Americans are “takers” mooching off the job creators, which in many states is denying health care to the poor simply to spite President Obama, isn’t exactly overflowing with compassion. But the war on the unemployed isn’t motivated solely by cruelty; rather, it’s a case of meanspiritedness converging with bad economic analysis. 

In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, “turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs. 

Is there anything to this belief? The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax; some hammock. So anyone who imagines that unemployed workers are deliberately choosing to live a life of leisure has no idea what the experience of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, is really like. Still, there is some evidence that unemployment benefits make workers a bit more choosy in their job search. When the economy is booming, this extra choosiness may raise the “non-accelerating-inflation” unemployment rate — the unemployment rate at which inflation starts to rise, inducing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and choke off economic expansion. 

All of this is, however, irrelevant to our current situation, in which inflation is not a concern and the Fed’s problem is that it can’t get interest rates low enough. While cutting unemployment benefits will make the unemployed even more desperate, it will do nothing to create more jobs — which means that even if some of those currently unemployed do manage to find work, they will do so only by taking jobs away from those currently employed. 

Ding ding ding!   Without actual job creation to make additional jobs for the unemployed to fill, it becomes a zero-sum game.  Republicans are well aware of this, for example, North Carolina's new unemployment laws means that until you are employed making at least the same income you were making when you initially received benefits before you are eligible again.  If you find a lower-paying job and then get laid off (even years later) you're screwed.

Republicans are basically making being poor such an impossible burden that people leave the state and become somebody else's problem.  It's a race to the bottom in the Austerity 500 and nobody wins.

StupidiNews!

• In Arizona, 19 firefighters were killed on Sunday near Phoenix when a wind-driven blaze left them trapped in a canyon, it's the largest loss of firefighter lives since 9/11.
• Thousands of Texans are expected to protest the opening of the state's third special legislative session to try to stop Republicans from passing strict anti-abortion laws.
• Millions of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and other cities to demand the resignation of President Mohammed Morsi on the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.
• An EU crackdown on Swiss banking secrecy is resulting in private banks submitting to mergers or even leaving the country altogether.
• Yahoo is pulling the plug on it Axis browser app, and retiring the 20-year old Altavista search engine.