That's A Funny Way Of "Protecting People", Rand

So tell me, we still standing with Rand after statements like this?

The link between American interests and Syria is not clear, Sen. Rand Paul said on Sunday.

"I think the war may escalate out of control, and then we have to ask ourselves, 'Who is on America's side over there?'" host the Kentucky Republican asked David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I don't see American interests involved on either side of this Syrian war. I see [Bashar] Assad, who has protected Christians for a number of decades, and Islamic rebels on the other side who have been attacking Christians," Paul said.

In other words, A) Assad is the good guy here because he's killing Muslims, B) why would we want to stop him from killing Muslims?

Oh it gets better.

“I think the failure of the Obama administration has been we haven’t engaged the Russians enough or the Chinese enough on this,” the Kentucky Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The Russians have every reason to want to keep their influence in Syria, and I think the only way they do is if there’s a change in government where Assad is gone” but other current members remain, Paul said. “That would also be good for the Christians.” He noted earlier that Assad has protected Christians “for decades.”

The senator went on to say that a failure to do so could result in an Islamic state that could persecute Christians in the country. And Russia, he said, could have an influence on the country if they told the government “no more weapons.”

To recap, Captain Isolationist here is upset we haven't given the Russians and Chinese enough swag, and really as long as Christians in Syria are protected, the savage brown miasma of Muslim scum can all just eat sarin and die.

Scratch Rand Paul's surface and you'll always find an Islamophobic racist warmonger Republican.  Period.

StupidiNews, Labor Day Edition!

• Egyptian state TV is reporting that former President Morsi will stand trial for the deaths of protesters in clashes with police last December.
• Casts of artwork taken at Angkor Wat in Cambodia in the early 20th century has been rediscovered and will be put on display in Paris.
• Yemeni PM Mohammed Basindowa escaped an assassination attempt Saturday evening as his armored car came under gunfire in the streets of the capital, Sanaa.
• Nelson Mandela has been released from a Pretoria hospital to receive care in his own home, but is still listed in critical condition.
• With Samsung releasing details of a smartwatch this week, and a rumored Apple "iWatch" later this month, Google has been working on their own model for over a year now.

Last Call For Rising Core Temperature

Meanwhile, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site, things aren't going real well with the whole "containment" thing two years later.

Radiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.

Last week the plant's operator reported radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank into the ground.

It now says readings taken near the leaking tank on Saturday showed radiation was high enough to prove lethal within four hours of exposure.

The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour.

However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts.

The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1,800 millisieverts an hour.

The new reading will have direct implications for radiation doses received by workers who spent several days trying to stop the leak last week, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tokyo.

In addition, Tepco says it has discovered a leak on another pipe emitting radiation levels of 230 millisieverts an hour.

Yeah, this seems like a bad thing.  Fukushima is leaking, containment has completely failed, and radioactive material has been getting into the ocean for two years now.  There doesn't seem to be any way to slow it down. either.  This stuff could burn for decades, guys.  By then, the damage to the Pacific rim is going to be devastating, not to mention to Japan itself.

The plant is just as lethal now as it was in 2011.  That's horrifying, but not shocking.  We'll keep up with this story as we have for the last 30 months.

Podcast Vs. The Stupid: Syria-s As A Heart Attack

Bon and I get back into the swing of things with a 30-minute PVTS show on Syria, President Obama, the GOP "response" and the passing of Sir David Frost.

Listen To Politics Progressive Internet Radio Stations with Zandar Versus The Stupid on BlogTalkRadio

You can download the episode here or look for it on iTunes.

A Necessary Touch Of Frost

British broadcasting legend Sir David Frost has died this weekend at the age of 74, according to his long-time home, BBC News.

Veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74 after a suspected heart attack while on board a cruise ship. 

A family statement said he had been giving a speech aboard the Queen Elizabeth on Saturday night. 

Sir David's career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including The Frost Report. 

Internationally, he will be remembered for his revealing interviews with former US President Richard Nixon. 

A statement said: "His family are devastated and ask for privacy at this difficult time. A family funeral will be held in the near future and details of a memorial service will be announced in due course."

Best remembered for his interviews 35 years ago with Nixon, Frost had a huge career with the BBC spanning five decades, a giant in his field, and a true gentleman.  Those interviews in 1977 were turned into a very good Ron Howard movie, Frost/Nixon.



Also, here's a clip of the first part of Frost's actual interview with Nixon.



It was television that gripped the world then, and is still fascinating to watch now.  Godspeed, Sir David.

President Obama Calls The GOP's Bluff On Syria

Republicans were all set to have the best of both worlds:  still getting a bloody-minded attack on Syria, and having 100% of the fallout be on President Obama's shoulders, while claiming everything up to and including an "impeachable offense" by his attacking Syria without the approval of Congress.

So this afternoon, President Obama called their bluff and said he will do what the American people and Congress want:  debate and vote on the measure on Capitol Hill.

In an afternoon appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town until Sept. 9. Mr. Obama said he believed he had the authority to act on his own, but he did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan. 

“I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interest, I’m also mindful that I’m president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.” 

Going to war with the support of the people’s representatives, he added, “I know the country will be stronger.” 

The president’s announcement effectively dared Congress to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children. By asking lawmakers to weigh in, he is trying to break out of his box of isolation of the last week, in the face of deep skepticism at home and around the world about the strike. His decision indicates he does not want to go forward without Congress and the American public. 

So now  this becomes Congress's problem, more specifically the GOP's problem.  They will have to go on record on Syria and bear responsibility for its future, which is exactly what they were attempting to avoid.

President Obama has outsmarted them yet again...and he's listening to the American people, who want debate before any military action.  Now he looks like the reasonable grown-up in the room.

Your move, Republicans.

London Calling (Out Obama)

The inestimable Juan Cole handily sums up yesterday's UK House of Commons disaster as MPs voted down PM David Cameron's preliminary plan to use military force against Syria, and what it means for President Obama, the United States, Syria, and force as a tool.

The British members of parliament who debated whether to take action against Syria were obviously haunted by the mistakes of the Iraq War and determined not to repeat them.

The case of Obama and Cameron against the Syrian government has some holes, but it isn’t a bad case. But it involves murky allegations of weapons of mass destruction use by an Arab regime, and a unilateral Anglo-American shock and awe aerial attack. It looks way too much like Iraq, and there is no telling where it might lead. Britain is not very far from Syria and the repercussions of an attack could be significant. Britain also has a significant Muslim minority population that is die hard set against an attack on Syria.

The vote puts President Obama between a rock and a hard place. The formerly solid Anglo-American solidarity has been broken. Obama does not have the Arab League and he does not have the UN Security Council. He does not even have a consensus on the European continent.

Obama should pivot now and choose vigorous diplomacy over a military strike. The latter will now have no legitimacy in international law, and would not be supported even by the British parliament.

The duplicity of Bush and Blair has deeply injured faith in government, even on the part of members of government. Their use of the high-flown rhetoric of protecting helpless populations from tyrants and deflecting dire threats of WMD cheapened those endeavors and trivialized them They bent the sword of state and rendered it useless in any similar situation.

In a very real sense, the blown vote in the UK is the perfect excuse for the United States to reconsider action in Syria.  And yes, Bush and Blair made it now very difficult for future Presidents to deliver more than token military assistance, such as in Libya.  Here's hoping that President Obama considers the opportunity here to bring both sides to the table and end this war.

Last Call For The Black (And/Or Jewish) List

It's okay everyone, outdated concepts like racism and anti-Semitic hatred are over and stuff according to the Supreme Court and we don't need archaic relics like the Voting Rights Act and equal protection for those of different races or religions, so everything's fine, don't worry about things.

 Federal agents were tracking Ohio resident Richard Schmidt’s imports of counterfeit sports jerseys when they stumbled upon his arsenal of 18 guns, more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition, and bulletproof body armor. Besides the arsenal, he had lists of Jewish and black leaders in Detroit, MI. He is also an ex-felon who killed a Hispanic man and wounded two others 24 years ago.

Yet before December, no one even noticed that Schmidt, 47, was amassing weapons illegally, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead, federal investigators zeroed in on his sports memorabilia shop around September 2011, tracking his shipments of knock-off jerseys from China for over a year before they discovered the cache of firearms.

Schmidt plead guilty to federal gun charges and the counterfeit racket last month, and will be sentenced in October. But many connected to the crime are still scratching their heads over how an ex-felon with ties to white supremacist groups was able to get his hands on so many guns.

“I can’t tell you how he got all those guns and ammunition,” U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach told the Plain Dealer. “It’s not that I won’t tell you; it’s that I can’t. This is somebody who should never have had one gun, one bullet. But he had an entire arsenal.”

We don't need gun control either, apparently.  Can't stop a convicted killer from amassing a huge arsenal of firearms and ammunition, because it's just too hard, so why bother?  America!

Schmidt is technically banned from possessing a gun for the rest of his life. In 1989, he pulled a gun on three men during a traffic argument, killing one man and wounding the other two. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served 12 years in prison.

Scott Kaufman, the head of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, was spooked after discovering he was on Schmidt’s list. “For a convicted violent felon to amass an arsenal with 40,000 rounds of ammunition with no red flags popping up is problematic,” he told the Plain Dealer. “No matter where you stand on the gun issue, it makes you wonder. The moment I saw my name in this guy’s notebook, I freaked out.”

Why would anyone be freaking out?  He was just exercising his constitutional right to have multiple firearms and tens of thousands of rounds.  While being a convicted killer and felon.  And a white supremacist.  And an anti-Semite.  And a guy with a list of black and Jewish targets.  Just leave the guy alone already!

Pot Holder: DOJ Flips On State Marijuana Laws

In a huge shift on federal drug policy, Eric Holder and the Justice Department have issued new prosecutorial guidelines for marijuana-related offenses, which boil down to "as long as the states that have legalized pot keep it under control, we're good."

More than six months after Washington and Colorado passed ballot initiatives to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today he would not sue to block the implementation of the laws — at least not until he sees how the laws operate in effect. This announcement came as little surprise, after reports from earlier communication between DOJ and the governor.

More significantly, the Department of Justice also issued new guidance to prosecutors today calling for scaled back prosecution not just of users of marijuana, but also of distributors and growers complying with state law.

The guidance includes this passage:

Accordingly, in exercising prosecutorial discretion, prosecutors should not consider the size or commercial nature of a marijuana operation alone as a proxy for assessing whether marijuana trafficking implicates the Department’s enforcement priorities listed above. Rather, prosecutors should continue to review marijuana cases and on a case-by-case basis and weigh all available information and evidence, including, but not limited to, whether the operation is demonstrably in compliance with a strong and effective regulatory system.

So yes, big change from raiding large pot growers just because they are large pot growers.  This is a big step in the right direction for the Justice Department, and the second major signal this month that the US has al but admitted to losing the War on Drugs.

And it's about damn time.

Well, If Wingers Didn't Hate The IRS Before...

...they'll SUPER ULTRA HATE the IRS after today.

All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.

The federal rules change is one of many stemming from the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That ruling found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits, but left open the question of how the federal government would actually administer those benefits.

“Imagine a pair of women who marry in Albany and then move to Alabama,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote at the time of the decision. “May they file a joint federal income tax return? Does the answer turn on where they were married or where they live?”

As of the 2013 tax year, same-sex spouses cannot file federal tax returns as if they were single. Instead, they will have to opt for filing as “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately.” The location of their marriage — as long as it is legal — or residence does not matter: a same-sex couple who marry in Albany and move to Alabama will be treated the same as a same-sex couple who marry and live in Massachusetts.

“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a statement. “This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.”

Three reasons why homophobic jackasses in the GOP are furious over this: One, well, the whole homophobia thing. Two, hey look, in one stroke, Obama's IRS are the good guys now! Reason number three comes from my friend Jeff Fecke:

The beauty of the IRS ruling is that a future GOP administration can't undo it without raising taxes.
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) August 29, 2013

Checkmate.

StupidiNews!

• With the UK Parliament rejecting PM David Cameron's preliminary request for military action in Syria, President Obama is facing increasing pressure from Congress for a similar vote.
• A Swedish firm is claiming to have invented a "hydro-nano" gas that traps airborne carbon, and could radically affect environmental efforts to lower the world's carbon output if true.
• President Obama has issued executive orders closing a background check loophole for guns issued to corporations rather than individuals and guns purchased from overseas.
• With the departure of CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft shareholders are proposing that the software giant spin off its Xbox division as a separate company in order to increase the value of shares.
• France is the latest EU country to look into NSA spying by the US in Europe as two French civil rights groups are suing the agency in court.

Last Call For The Principled Opposition

Republicans keep trying to break Obamacare on purpose, putting their own constituents at risk because they dislike President Obama.  The media is beginning to notice, too.  The Washington Post:

Several Republican-led states at the forefront of the campaign to undermine President Obama’s health-care law have come up with new ways to try to thwart it, refusing to enforce consumer protections, for example, and restricting federally funded workers hired to help people enroll in coverage.

And in at least one state, Missouri, local officials have been barred from doing anything to help put the law into place.

The actions have drawn less attention than congressional efforts to cut off funding for the law, or earlier state decisions to refuse to set up online insurance marketplaces or reject an expansion of Medicaid, which sharply limited the law’s reach.

But the moves could impede Obama’s most significant domestic accomplishment, which, despite having withstood a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election, still faces doubts about its viability. And they could affect implementation at a crucial time, just as some of the major provisions of the law, also known as Obamacare, are set to go into effect.

Now understand these are real people behind these numbers, millions of them, as McClatchy points out in the 21 states where Republicans are actively trying to shut down Obamacare.  They're calling it the "coverage gap"

With limited access to preventative care, many in the coverage gap with manageable chronic illnesses could end up seeking primary care services in hospital emergency rooms, where medical aid is costly and fleeting.

“If they fail to get an insurance card and don’t have ongoing adequate coverage, that’s how they’re going to continue to get care, in the most expensive, least efficient, least helpful way that they can,” said Ellen Kugler, executive director of the National Association of Urban Hospitals.

Gerald Friedman, a health care economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, summarized the options for those caught in the coverage gap.

“There’s no way they can afford individual coverage at that income level, so they’ll do what they do now, which is they go to the free care pools in the hospitals, they go to public health clinics, they borrow from friends, they go to free clinics,” Friedman said, “and they just get sicker and sicker.”

These are real consequences, and real people who will be hurt here, not some nebulous collection of stats and charts.  It's going to do real damage to people, not to mention hospitals, providers, emergency rooms, families, you name it.

Republicans are willing to cause serious damage to the health of millions just because they hate Obama.  That's everything you need to know about the GOP in 2013.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/28/200676/medicaid-coverage-gap-looming.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Dayton Stands Up To Stand Your Ground

Dayton proves once again that while Ohio's GOP may have the reins now, those in opposition still get to make their voices heard.

City Commissioners have unanimously voted for a resolution opposing House Bill 203, which would expand Ohio law from the Castle Doctrine to the Stand Your Ground law. Ever since Ohio Legislators introduce house Bill 203 to bring the stand Your Ground Law to Ohio, City Leaders began speaking out against it.

"We have to take a stance when you look at the work we've put him in the city in an effort to try and reduce gun violence this kind of flies in the face of it," said City Commissioner Joey Williams.

"You're working as hard as you can Commissioner Williams as we all are here on commission to reduce gun violence why give people a legal way to kill," said Commissioner Matt Joseph.

Of all the citizens who spoke out at today's public hearing no one showed support of the Stand Your Ground proposal.

"All of the block parties that we have engaged in the last five years, all of the town-hall forums denouncing gun violence this proposed HB 203 would do nothing more than further separate alienate and increase the violence and not bring about peace," said Rev. Jerome McCorry of the Adam Project.

Wednesday's unanimous vote by the city commission fulfilled one purpose. It sent a message to the state that the city of Dayton will not stand for the stand your ground law.

"This is a dangerous law," said Bishop Richard Cox of the S.C.L.C. "It's a law that will affect every African-American male in this city and I'm glad you're sending a message to Gov. Kasich and the legislators."

A pretty strong coalition is building against SYG laws in Ohio, and it's a coalition that has beaten back the GOP before.  If there's one thing Gov. Kasich hates, it's bad press, and SYG is nothing but a nightmare for him.  Ohio voters will remember come 2014, and Kasich knows it.

Upper Class Twit Of The Year Awards

A new study shows some pretty interesting links between wealth, entitlement, and narcissism:  the more wealthy and educated you are, the more you think of yourself rather than others.

The fact that rich people often think they're better than poor people is one of those unspoken truths of society. We all know it happens, even if no one likes to admit it.

Luckily, we've got the research to prove it. In a series of studies, University of California at Berkley Psychologist Paul K. Piff tested the links between social class, entitlement, and narcissism.

"Americans may be more narcissistic now than ever, but narcissism is not evenly distributed across social strata," Piff wrote.

Piff and his team completed a number of studies, and every time found a significant link between wealth and narcissism.  The one shining spot:

Piff wanted to see whether simply reminding people of egalitarian values could change their levels of narcissism. He asked one group of people to list three benefits of regarding others as equals. He asked another group to list three activities they did during an average day. Afterward, both groups took a questionnaire meant to show their sense of entitlement.

Findings: People who thought about egalitarian things showed much lower entitlement than those in the control condition.

Injecting a bit of a reminder about the rest of us into the lives of those who think daily about themselves all the time seems like a good idea to me.  On the other hand, does self-absorption to the point of narcissism create wealth the way wealth creates narcissism?

That would be an interesting study.  When all you care about is getting ahead for your own benefit, do you actually benefit?

StupidiNews!

• The British government plans to publish evidence today linking last week's deadly attack in Syria to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons.
• An explosive Associated Press report on NYPD surveillance of NYC's Muslim community after 9/11 finds that the department treated all mosques in the city as "terrorist organizations".
• Penn State University has agreed to a $60 million settlement with 25 victims of convicted former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
• Verizon Wireless says it's nearing a $130 billion deal to purchase the 45% stake in the company back from British wireless giant Vodaphone.
• Climate scientists say an abundance of "La Nina" conditions in the Pacific has slowed the rise of global temperatures slightly, but eventual reversal would mean rapid global temperature gains.