Last Call For The Laughed-At Curve

Art Laffer, "conservatism's foremost economist", explains the minimum wage to FOX News viewers.

 

"Honestly the minimum wage makes no sense to me, it's just the teenage -- black teenage unemployment act..."

Because in FOXland, only those people make minimum wage.  So why raise it?  Laffer goes on to say we should abolish the minimum wage for black teenagers so they don't have to actually be paid or anything while learning "the skills they need to become productive members of society."  After all, if we could pay those people less, we could hire a lot more of them.  Heck, if we made them work for no money, we could hire infinite black teenagers. Voila!  Job creation!

I understand we tried that 400 years ago, too.

Snark aside, convincing FOX News viewers that the minimum wage only helps minorities makes it a lot easier to sell abolishing it as a political plank for the GOP, yes?

Chris Christie In 2016? Fah-Bridgegate-aboudit

New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie officially has a scandal and cover-up on his hands as new evidence from a NJ newspaper directly links his office to an effort to use the state's port authority to cause massive traffic headaches for an entire town in order to punish a mayor who wouldn't back Christie's re-election bid last year.

A cache of private messages between Governor’s Christie’s deputy chief of staff and his two top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create “traffic problems in Fort Lee,” apparent pleasure at the resulting gridlock, and insults used to refer to the borough’s mayor, who had failed to endorse Christie for re-election. 

The documents obtained by The Record also raise serious doubts about months of claims by the Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor’s top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough’s access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta – a notion that Christie has publicly denied.

He can't deny it any more.

In mid-August, just a few weeks before the lane closures, Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, emailed David Wildstein, the top Christie executive at the Port Authority who ordered the closures. 

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she told him. “Got it,” he replied. 

Though the governor publicly ridiculed the very idea that his office was involved, we now know with certainty that what Christie said wasn’t true. Christie’s deputy chief of staff was directly involved in planning the incident and even received updates from Wildstein before their plan was set in motion.

For all the projection by screaming wingnuts involving President Obama and the "victimization" of Republicans, when Republicans actually get the power of government, they use it to exact revenge on people who didn't vote for them.  That's par for the course, but Christie lied to New Jersey voters and the country about not being involved in this mess when he clearly was.

Christie just got caught.  Now the George Washington Bridge is tied around his neck.  Going to make it hard for him in 2016, and it should have made it hard for him to get re-elected n 2013 as Governor.

The same article highlights text messages between Wildstein and an unnamed official in which they mocked the traffic paralysis they imposed on Fort Lee and ridiculed the local mayor, Mark Sokolich. In reference to school buses that couldn’t help children get to school on time, Wildstein specifically wrote, “They are the children of [Christie's 2013 opponent for Governor Barbara] Buono voters.”

So no, Christie wasn't above screwing with the kids of people in heavily Democratic areas of the state and would have been more likely to vote for his political opponent.  What say you, Barbara Buono?

“When I heard about it when it initially surfaced in September, I knew it was an act of political retribution,” Buono told the Daily Beast. “And to suggest that Christie wasn’t aware and didn’t direct it, I thought was ludicrous at the time.” 

“This is a guy who runs a paramilitary operation,” she added. “His people don’t sneeze without checking with him first. But I think what really was the most damning [revelation] was the cavalier attitude that these folks had about subjecting children and the public to public safety hazards. These are terrible people, and the ringleader is Chris Christie.”

Your move, Chris.

Kingmaker Of Wishful Thinking

If you thought FOX News chairman Roger Ailes's job was to run a news channel, well, somebody forgot to tell Roger Ailes as a new biography by Gabriel Sherman tells all:

Roger Ailes was so eager to influence national politics that in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, he told fellow Fox News executives point-blank: “I want to elect the next president.”

Imagine the endless winger uproar, multiple GOP House hearings, and constant screaming about "biased liberal media" if anyone at MSNBC, CNN, or the other three news networks said the same.  FOX News is the propaganda arm of the GOP.  Period.

The book describes in detail Mr. Ailes’s professional ambition, his desire to influence American politics through a conservative prism, and his status as a visionary who possessed an intuitive understanding of the power of television to shape public opinion. Before entering the corporate world, Mr. Ailes was a political consultant, and Mr. Sherman’s book credits him with being a pioneer in using television during election campaigns.

Again, FOX News is not a news agency.  It is a propaganda mill for the Republican Party, and that is Ailes's stated goal, to use the network to promote Republicans and trash Democrats.

So why is it treated as a serious news outlet and not a political entity?

Despite being unsatisfied with many of the Republican candidates for president in 2012, Mr. Ailes endeavored to promote Mitt Romney on Fox News programs, the book says. Before the Wisconsin congressman Paul D. Ryan was chosen as Mr. Romney’s running mate, Mr. Ailes advised Mr. Ryan that his television skills needed work and recommended a speech coach.

You can thank Roger Ailes for Mitt Romney.  Ailes thought his network could make him your President and tried to do so.  Nobody should be surprised by this, but now that the biggest non-secret in political journalism has been broken wide open, what now?

Maybe somebody in Congress should be asking Roger Ailes why he's working for the GOP, yes?

StupidiNews!

• Spain's Princess Cristinia faces a second round of corruption charges as a judge investigates her husband over possible diversion of public funds.
• A new biography of FOX News chief Roger Ailes claims, among other things, that Ailes offered an employee an extra $100 a week for sexual favors.
• With a bill extending federal jobless benefits passing the Senate 60-27, President Obama is putting pressure on the GOP-led House for a vote.
• US Olympic skiing champion Lindsay Vonn is out of next month's Sochi Winter Games due to an injury, leaving Olympic broadcast network NBC without a flagship athlete to promote the games.
• California state lawmakers are after the NSA's collection of metadata, introducing a bill that would mandate companies doing business with the state to not cooperate with the agency in any way.

Last Call For GOP Latino Outreach In Georgia

GOP Congressman Paul Broun continues the Republican tradition of outreach to Latinos in America.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has a warning for the GOP: Democrats' only path to victory in the 2014 elections is through legalizing immigrants living in the country illegally. 

"It only helps the Democrats if we legalize all these illegal aliens in this country who the Democrats want to put on federal welfare programs – and actually, they are on federal welfare programs today," Broun said in an interview with Georgia Public Radio. "The Democrats want to make them all basically dependent on the federal government so they can continue their radical, big government agenda…." 

Democrats are hoping that Michelle Nunn, who is running for Senate, and state Sen. Jason Carter (D-GA), running for governor, will act as a vanguard to help shift the state from a Republican stronghold to a friendlier state for Democrats. Indeed, there's a case to be made that that's a possibility (albeit hardly a sure thing) that Democrats could shift the political makeup of the state. Broun went on to say though that Democrats only chance of wrenching the state from GOP hands is in legalizing immigrants living in the state illegally. 

"The only way Georgia is going to change is if we have all these illegal aliens in here in Georgia, [and] give them the right to vote," Broun continued. "It would be morally wrong, it would be illegal to do so, under our current law. Actually, all these illegal aliens are getting federal largesse and taking taxpayer’s dollars."

The notion that "all these illegal aliens" might actually be employed, working for often less than minimum wage and exploited as cheap labor without benefits or rights to redress grievances apparently hasn't occurred to Rep. Broun.  Like everyone else who doesn't look like him, to Paul Broun, they're just more inhuman parasites to be pushed aside.  And he's running for Senator to represent the people, you know.

"The only way that a Democrat has any possibility of winning this race—and frankly, I think it is very minor at that—is if we nominate a mamby-pamby, big-spender, big-government, big-earmarking Republican who is nothing but somebody who wants to build a bigger government, just like we’ve seen both parties build in Washington," Broun said. "That may give a Democrat the chance to win. But otherwise, when I’m nominated, I’ll be the most-electable candidate out of the whole Republican field that’s out there now in this race."

Well, white conservative people, anyway.  The rest of Georgia can apparently go to hell.

All Dried Up And No Place To Go

The once mighty Colorado River is nothing more than a muddy stream these days as millions of folks in southwestern states depend on it for drinking water.  But climate change and population growth have put a critical strain on the river, and water rights are turning into the next great battleground between the states.

The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle. Reservoirs have shrunk to less than half their capacities, the canyon walls around them ringed with white mineral deposits where water once lapped. Seeking to stretch their allotments of the river, regional water agencies are recycling sewage effluent, offering rebates to tear up grass lawns and subsidizing less thirsty appliances from dishwashers to shower heads. 

But many experts believe the current drought is only the harbinger of a new, drier era in which the Colorado’s flow will be substantially and permanently diminished. 

Faced with the shortage, federal authorities this year will for the first time decrease the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, from Lake Powell 180 miles upstream. That will reduce even more the level of Lake Mead, a crucial source of water for cities from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and for millions of acres of farmland.

Permanent water rationing by the end of the decade in states like California, Nevada, and Arizona seems inevitable.  That would affect tens of millions of Americans, and require millions, if not billions in new water infrastructure.  Think climate change might be expensive?

Reclamation officials say there is a 50-50 chance that by 2015, Lake Mead’s water will be rationed to states downstream. That, too, has never happened before.

“If Lake Mead goes below elevation 1,000” — 1,000 feet above sea level — “we lose any capacity to pump water to serve the municipal needs of seven in 10 people in the state of Nevada,” said John Entsminger, the senior deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

That seems like a problem, don't you think?  Water rights fights will be the interstate commerce of the future:

The labyrinthine rules by which the seven Colorado states share the river’s water are rife with potential points of conflict. And while some states have made huge strides in conserving water — and even reducing the amount they consume — they have yet to chart a united path through shortages that could last years or even decades.

“There is no planning for a continuation of the drought we’ve had,” said one expert on the Colorado’s woes, who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with state officials. “There’s always been within the current planning an embedded hope that somehow, things would return to something more like normal.”

Massive drought fueled by climate change is the new "normal".  Maybe when enough red states in the Mountain West and Midwest are suffering from crippling drought, the GOP legislatures that run them will do something, especially when food prices shoot up across the country as farmland bakes in the sun with no irrigation.

Of course by then, it will probably be far too late.

Should We Stay Or Should We Go

SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston explains yesterday's Supreme Court decision to stop same-sex marriages in Utah pending the state's appeal in federal court.

The Supreme Court on Monday morning put on hold a federal judge’s decision striking down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, thus stopping a wave of such marriages across the state. The Court’s order reinstates the state ban and will keep it intact until after a federal appeals court has ruled on it.

The order appeared to have the support of the full Court, since there were no noted dissents. The ruling can be interpreted as an indication that the Court wants to have further exploration in lower courts of the basic constitutional question of state power to limit marriage to a man and a woman. Had it refused the state’s request for delay, that would have left at least the impression that the Court was comfortable allowing same-sex marriages to go forward in the thirty-three states where they are still not permitted by state law.

The order, however, cannot be interpreted as a dependable indication of how the Court will rule on the issue when it finally decides to do so directly.

Several stays and holds were present in California, all the way up until the SCOTUS decision clearing the way for same-sex marriages in the state.  In other words, given the decision last June only pertaining to California, and then the DOMA decision,  the question of a right to same-sex marriage at the federal level covering all states still has to be answered.

As a result of the new order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, based in Denver, will go forward with an expedited review of Judge Shelby’s decision. The appeals court has ordered briefing to begin on January 27 and to be completed by February 25. It has indicated it is not likely to grant any extensions of time to file those documents. It has not yet set a hearing date. 

With the Justices’ order in the case, it now appears almost certain that the question of state power to bar same-sex marriages will not be before the Justices during the current Term. A case on that issue would have to be granted this month to be reviewed before the Court is expected to finish this Term in late June. 

With the postponement in Utah, the total of states where gays and lesbians are now allowed to marry stands at seventeen. A variety of lawsuits are proceeding across the country, attempting to advance that cause in other states. There will also be efforts in some state legislatures to clear the way for such marriages.

In other words, it will be at least 2015 before we get an answer from SCOTUS.

StupidiNews!

• With several Senators away from the Capitol due to winter weather, Janet Yellen was confirmed by the Senate in a 56-26 vote as the first female Fed chief.
• Toyota plans to release a hydrogen fuel cell-powered "zero-emissions" vehicle in 2015, making the car available in California initially.
• Al Qaeda in Iraq forces abandoned a base in Syria's Hama province, leaving behind evidence of at least a dozen bodies buried in a mass grave.
• Florida State engineered a second-half comeback as the Seminoles beat the Auburn Tigers 34-31 in the college football national championship game.
• World of Warcraft players have been hit by a powerful trojan that can defeat two-factor identification and steal accounts.

Last Call For Burning Down The House

Ladies and gentlemen, Obama Derangement Syndrome example case #186948.

A Minnesota man is in custody on charges of arson after police say that he set fire to his house and then blamed President Barack Obama and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

Patch reported that fire was reported coming from the Minnetonka home of 49-year-old Ronald Gary Bailey after 9 p.m. on Dec. 1. 

According to court records, Bailey asked firefighters responding to the call when they would be finished putting out the blaze so that he could “start the rest of my house on fire.” 

But by the time that firefighters had extinguished the fire, the home had been destroyed. 

Standing at the end of his driveway, Bailey explained to them: “You should know, you did this, the CIA implanted a computer in my brain and body.” 

“What do I have to do, how big of a bomb do I have to build before the police respect me?” Bailey said, according to court documents. 

Officers who were transporting Bailey to Hennepin County Medical Center’s behavioral Crisis Intervention Center discovered that he had a loaded .380 caliber pistol concealed in his pocket. 

At some point, Bailey told officers that he was the “first half-man/half-robot created by the government.” He said that the CIA and FBI had bugged his house, and blamed “Obama” and the “CIA” for causing the fire that burned down his home.

Emphasis on the Derangement part.  Here's hoping that Mr. Bailey here gets the mental health assistance he clearly needs.

Through provisions in the Affordable Care Act.

Getting Something Out Of The Koch Machine

A new Washington Post analysis finds the network of GOP-backed campaign groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers has now surpassed the entire Democratic fundraising machine, and all of it is 100% anonymous, unlimited donations to the tune of $400 million.

The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations. 

Key players in the Koch-backed network have already begun engaging in the 2014 midterm elections, hiring new staff members to expand operations and strafing House and Senate Democrats with hard-hitting ads over their support for the Affordable Care Act. 

Its funders remain largely unknown; the coalition was carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors. 

But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. 

A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports. 

The coalition’s revenue surpassed that of the Crossroads organizations, a super PAC and non­profit group co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove that together brought in$325 million in the last cycle. 

The left has its own financial muscle, of course; unions plowed roughly $400 million into national, state and local elections in 2012. A network of wealthy liberal donors organized by the group Democracy Alliance mustered about $100 million for progressive groups and super PACs in the last election cycle, according to a source familiar with the totals.

But that means the Right outspent the Left by several hundred million in 2012, and will do so again during the midterms.  What was a solid victory for President Obama resulted in only a few pickups for the Democrats in Congress, and the goal now is to finish what they started in 2010:  buying out the rest of the competitive state-level races that will give the GOP unprecedented power in state legislatures and Governor's mansions.

Should they gain control of the Senate as well as expand their power in states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, President Obama would be the only person standing between them and complete control of the country.  The reality is they are trying to relegate the Democrats to a West Coast + New England regional party.

2014 is the battleground.  If they take control after November, 2016 will merely be postponing the inevitable.

And they have the billions to do it.

Better vote.

Don't Care How, I Want It Now!

Liz Cheney is apparently not going to get that Senate seat in Wyoming after all.

Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday.

Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Cheney's surprising decision to jump into the race, an announcement made in a YouTube video last summer, roiled Republican politics in the Wyoming, a state Dick Cheney represented in Congress for five terms before moving up the Republican food chain in Washington.

Enzi was a low-key presence in Washington who was elected in 1996 and, with few blemishes, amassed a conservative voting record in the Senate. He expressed public annoyance at Cheney's decision to mount a primary challenge. A number of his Senate colleagues quickly rallied to his side and pledged support for his re-election bid.

There was little public polling of the race, but two partisan polls released last year showed Enzi with a wide lead, an assessment mostly shared by GOP insiders watching the race.

Pretty sure this call has nothing to do with the Tea Party vs. GOP leadership scuffle, and everything to do with Liz Cheney being a horrible person, even by Republican standards.  She's so bad in fact that all indications are she would have lost her primary by something like 50 points.  She stomped in and demanded Daddy buy her a Senate seat, and this is what happened:

She was a bad egg, as the man says.  And not even Daddy is going to throw good money after bad rubbish.

Bye-bye, Liz!

StupidiNews!

• A small plane flying from Tuscon crashed on a landing attempt in Aspen, killing one and badly injuring two others, according to Colorado law enforcement officials.
• Doctors in Spain will be attempting the world's most extensive full face transplant to date in order to replace a man's malformed jaw and nose.
• Al Qaeda forces along the Iraq-Syria border are claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing in Beirut that killed four and injured dozens.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is planning to revive a 1980 state medical marijuana law to allow prescriptions of the drug.
• AT&T is offering up to $450 to T-Mobile customers who drop their current carrier as the communications giant looks for new revenue.

Last Call For Utah's Posse Bigot-tatus

Seems that Utah's anti-LGBT bigots aren't going to let same-sex marriage continue in the state without a fight.  Or possible intimidation.  Or maybe actual bloodshed.  Or, well, who knows what might happen...

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association on Saturday organized a meeting in Highland, Utah to call for an uprising and to express their opposition to same-sex marriage in Utah, Fox 13 Now News Salt Lake City reported. 

"The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats," Former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack said at the meeting.

You see, LGBT Utahans don't count as people, so whatever may happen to them as a result of this group is going to be unfortunate, but it'll be their fault anyway, the awful perverts.

Mack said that Gov. Gary Herbert (R) failed the people of Utah.

"State sovereignty supercedes what this judge did," Mack said. "The Governor needs to get some courage and grip."

Cherilyn Eager, one of the event organizers, said that people need to speak out.

"We need people to stand up and speak out. We need to get noisy. We need some outrage," she said. "It is about the sheriffs now coming out to protect the people."

Federal law doesn't matter apparently since Utah is no longer part of the United States or subject to the Constitution, and since we've established above that LGBT Utahans aren't people according to these lovely folks, well, "the people" will need these armed officers of the law to "protect" them.

If you catch my drift.

Mack and Eager asked meeting attendees to call their local representatives and ask them to urge clerks to stop issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

"The way you take back freedom in America is one county at a time. The sheriffs need to defend the county clerks in saying, 'No, we're not going to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals,'" Mack said at the meeting.

While we're breaking the law and everything, let's "ask" county clerks to do so as well.  If they don't, well then, maybe the "people" will need "protection" from them, too...

The GOP Unemployment Ploy

Republicans are beginning to realize their position that the long-term unemployed are "just too lazy to find work and don't need benefits" is going to get them killed in November.  All of a sudden, Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner are all for extending benefits.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) remains open to an extension of emergency unemployment benefits even in the face of growing conservative opposition to such a move.

The Ohio Republican maintains the position he expressed last month that Republicans would “clearly consider” an extension of federal help for the long-term unemployed “as long as it’s paid for and as long as there are other efforts that will help get our economy moving once again,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Friday.

And surprise, surprise:  Sen. Rand Paul got the memo that Kentucky's unemployment picture is pretty lousy, so now he's for extending benefits too:

"Well, what I have always said is that it needs to be paid for, but we also need to do something for long-term unemployed people, and that is, we need to create something new that creates jobs. So, what I would like to do, when we get back, is one, if we extend it, we pay for it. But, two, we add something to it that would create jobs. And so what I have been promoting are economic freedom zones, which any area that has unemployment one-and-a-half times the national average, we would dramatically lower taxes to try to spur and stimulate the economy there and create jobs."

Of course, this is the part where Republicans all add on demands for these benefits in order to support the bill.  Both Boehner and Paul want to cut the budget elsewhere to "pay for" these extended benefits.  My suggestion is that Democrats take them up on the offer and start with eliminating big oil company subsidies and tax breaks.

Why, we'd even come out ahead I'm betting.

The Plan For 2014

President Obama will come out swinging on Monday when he's back from Hawaii and ready to take on the GOP over some big issues that they continue to block against the will of the people:  immigration reform, federal unemployment benefits, and helping the working poor by boosting the minimum wage, all issues that have broad approval across a majority of Americans.

The president's advisers hope comprehensive immigration reform, perhaps Obama’s number one goal of his second term, can still be in play in 2014. 

“It remains a top, top, top priority,” a White House official said. 

And Obama’s most pressing concern is to retain the Senate. Republicans believe they can win the six seats they’d need to take over the upper chamber, something that would force Obama to play defense in his remaining years in office. 

To bolster the chances for Democratic Senate candidates and Obama’s agenda, White House aides are looking to tap into the themes of fairness and equality—which they believe helped Obama win the presidency twice. 

Part and parcel of that effort is the immediate push on extending unemployment benefits, an efffot that started before Obama flew to Honolulu. Obama is expected to hold an event to push the issue early this week. 

In the same vein, they plan to aggressively push to hike the minimum wage to $10.10, backing a recent proposal by Congressional Democrats. 

Both issues are intended to telegraph a message about the inequality gap in the country, underlining differences with Republicans that the White House and Democrats think can be exploited in an election year. 

“It’s a fight we’re happy to have,” said the White House official. 

In short, the Republicans are about to remind everybody why a Democrat was elected President...and then re-elected President.