StupidiNews!

• A Purdue University student has surrendered himself to police after allegedly shooting another engineering student on campus.
• Over 30 retired US Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps generals have signed a letter urging President Obama to close the detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay
• A US cybersecurity firm says it has evidence that the Russian government hacked several Asian, European, and US companies for financial reasons.
• Japan's Ocean Minister says that China's air defense zone over the East China Sea violates international law.
• Federal law enforcement officials in Manhattan have charged 13 with skimming $2 million from credit card readers at gas stations.

Last Call For More GOP Rebranding

Republicans making more friends on MLK Day, this time in Florida.  From the Tampa Bay Times:

As Americans honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a Republican candidate for Florida House District 68 said President Barack Obama should be hanged for war crimes.

"I'm past impeachment," Joshua Black wrote on Twitter. "It's time to arrest and hang him high."

Yes, because a Republican candidate calling for the hanging of the nation's first black President on MLK Day is an excellent way to make African-Americans think Republicans aren't a bunch of racist assholes.  Good job, Josh!

Hours after the tweet, Black defended his comment. Obama should be held responsible for ordering a drone strike that killed a U.S. citizen overseas, he said.

"He should be executed for treason," Black said. "I think the appropriate punishment is death. They killed Benedict Arnold. (Obama) shouldn't be allowed to kill Americans without a trial."

The political newcomer said he doesn't fear U.S. Secret Service agents showing up on his doorstep. Many voters might agree with his position, he said, adding: "I guess they're going to call me a racist now."

Well, yes.  You're right, I am going to call you a racist.  So that makes Mr. Black here the victim.  And the part where "many voters might agree" with him?  That's the problem with the GOP right there.  By the way, Joshua Black is actually, well, black.  A gentle reminder that black folk can be awful, racist bigots too.

Judge, Jury, And Exclusionists

It seems like a complete no-brainer, but today's 9th Circuit ruling is a major victory for equality, and the court found that potential jurors in a case cannot be dismissed based on sexual orientation or preference.  BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, held that discrimination based on sexual orientation is subject to heightened scrutiny — a decision the court concluded has been made in action, though not in word, by the Supreme Court itself.

In describing the reason for applying the new standard, Judge Stephen Reinhardt examined the Supreme Court’s June decision in Edith Windsor’s case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. Although equal protection claims brought based on sexual orientation have previously been judged under the lowest level of review, called rational basis, the 9th Circuit held that a higher standard now applies.

Writing for the three-judge panel, Reinhardt wrote:

Windsor review is not rational basis review. In its words and its deed, Windsor established a level of scrutiny for classifications based on sexual orientation that is unquestionably higher than rational basis review. In other words, Windsor requires that heightened scrutiny be applied to equal protection claims involving sexual orientation.

Under that heightened scrutiny, in which equal protection claims are considered more carefully by courts reviewing challenged actions, the court concluded that Batson — a Supreme Court case barring juror strikes based on race — also applies to strikes based on sexual orientation.

As Geidner says, this is a very broad ruling.  By subjecting sexual orientation claims in general to heightened scrutiny, it means that a different and more strict legal set of legal protections must be applied to claims involving sexual orientation, the same level of protections extended to racial and gender discrimination claims.

That's a pretty big deal, because it means that in finding sexual orientation is subject to heightened scrutiny, it means that all kinds of discrimination claims must be given serious consideration, and that the official view of the courts must be that LGBTQ Americans are a protected class of litigants that the court admits society has discriminated against, the same as racial and religious minorities.

In other words, the ruling has major implications for equality far beyond that of just jury duty.  And that's a good thing.  It also means that the Supreme Court will have to now weigh in on heightened scrutiny as it applies to LGBTQ Americans, which could pave the way for true equality across the country and not just a patchwork of state laws.

Judge Reinhardt's reasoning is that the Supreme Court all but established the heightened scrutiny precedent by deed in last June's decision to strike down parts of DOMA, even if they punted on the question as far as a technical standpoint.  Therefore, the standard exists and should be applied to all federal laws, and by default, state and local laws as well.

It's a big one, folks.  A big one indeed.

Some Are Way More Equal Than Others

As the latest Davos conference of the super wealthy happens this month in Switzerland, here's a not-so-gentle reminder from OxFam that wealth inequality is a global problem, not just a US one.

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.

We're not even talking the one percenters here, but the richest .00001%.  The richest 1% globally have about 68 trillion pounds in collected wealth, or $110 trillion.

One hundred ten trillion dollars.

And guess which country has seen the largest growth in wealth for the top one percent since 1980?

 

But we can no longer afford social programs, and can't afford to raise minimum wages, and can't afford tax increases because the precious rich in this country are too burdened.

Think about that.

StupidiNews!

• In Sochi, Russia, police providing security for the Winter Games next month say they are on the lookout for a female terror suspect known as the Black Widow.
• Legislation under consideration in Arizona would make it legal to refuse service to or to refuse to do business with anyone based on religious freedom grounds.
• The UN has withdrawn Iran's invitation to Syrian peace talks based on the opposition by Syrian rebel groups to boycott the talks otherwise.
• Chinese PC maker Lenovo is said to be in talks to buy out IBM's low-end server division, while Big Blue focuses on higher-end servers and cloud computing services.
• The most popular password on the internet is no longer "password" but "123456" according to a new information security survey for 2013.

Last Call For MLK Day Slavery Comparisons

Dear Republicans:

Quit comparing things that you don't agree with to slavery.  In fact, quit comparing anything to slavery that isn't slavery.  Period.

The Multnomah County Republican Party in Oregon was mocked last week for its plans to auction off a rifle in honor of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

And in attempting to explain the raffle in a press release Monday, the Multnomah GOP drew an ill-timed parallel to slavery, according to the Oregonian.

First problem:  auctioning off a firearm in honor of Dr. King's multiple calls for, you know, non-violent civil disobedience, some 45 years after he was assassinated by a firearm.  That's bad enough to the point of being massively offensive, and I have to wonder if anyone in the Mutlnomah County GOP even thought to pause and think that this might not be the best way to get your point across. 

Second problem:  your statement to the people who thought the auction was offensive:

"The great political issue today is whether or not the American people of all creeds and races will live free or live as slaves - slaves to their own overreaching government," the release read, as quoted by the Oregonian. "50 years ago, Martin Luther King's great speech was an appeal for freedom for African Americans. Today, those same words he spoke 50 years ago are an appeal for freedom for all Americans."

This is just horrible on several levels, which brings us to Problem Number Three, your "apology" to people offended by Problems One and Two.

“In our enthusiasm for celebrating Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Constitution, our Multnomah Republican Party issued a press release that was unfortunately easily misunderstood," the release read, as quoted by the Oregonian. "The GOP stands for individual liberty, lower taxes, smaller government and individual responsibility. We apologize if people were hurt by the message being marred by insufficient wording and/or cynical misinterpretations by those who disagree with us politically. We will certainly endeavor to communicate more clearly in the future, and learn and grow from this experience."

"We're sorry you misunderstood us, and that's your problem, not ours" doesn't count as an apology by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, it makes you a bunch of colossal assholes.

So yes, keep up that GOP rebranding effort guys, and keep telling yourselves the only reason African-Americans voted for Obama was because he's black, and not because you're a bunch of jackasses who think we're simply too stupid to see your "great truths" about Dr. King.

Formula For Disaster

When the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act as antiquated and worthless in 2013, they put the burden on Congress to come up with a new formula for determining which states would be subject to pre-clearance.  The problem is, the formula Congress is looking at means Eric Cantor and the GOP House would have to admit that voting discrimination still exists, and in Republican-led states.  He's not about to do that.

The House majority leader has been a rare Republican voice urging assurances that last year's Supreme Court decision to nullify core provisions of the landmark voter protection bill won't foster discrimination at the polls. 

Yet he's given no indication how Congress should proceed or what he would support – a vague position that will be tested now that specific legislation has been introduced with the backing of several prominent Republicans. 

Cantor's office said he's still examining the proposal, would require states with five violations of federal voting laws over the last 15 years to get pre-clearance from Washington before altering their election procedures. All eyes will be on the majority leader's response, which could be the make-or-break moment for the proposal's chances this year. 

There are compelling reasons for Cantor to get on board. As the majority leader, Cantor is on the front lines of the fight to increase the GOP’s control over the lower chamber in November. Republican leaders won't want to be seen blocking a bill designed to protect voters – particularly one with bipartisan support – especially at a time where they’re trying to expand their party’s minority outreach.

The bill also includes a sweetener for Virginians. Under the old provisions shot down by the Supreme Court, the Old Dominion was one of nine states with histories of voter discrimination required to get federal approval before they changed their election procedures. Under the new proposal – which aims to update the formula dictating which states are subject to the extra scrutiny – only four states would be forced to seek such approval. Virginia is not among them.

The states that would remain are Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, all states that have actively tried to suppress the minority vote and have been called out as doing so.  There's zero way Republicans in those states will go along, so Cantor will have a revolt on his hands.  On the other hand, if he doesn't bring this up for a vote, Democrats will be able to say "Well, which party really cares about voting rights?  It's not the GOP."

The GOP rebranding continues.

Another Bad Day For Chris Christie

Apparently the US Attorney's office invesigating GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't want to wait until this morning to take Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer up on her offer to testify and provide evidence that Christie's office threatened to withhold Sandy relief funds from the city for political reasons.  Zimmer talked to the office on Sunday after coming forward on MSNBC Saturday morning, which means whatever evidence she does have is probably pretty explosive.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," Zimmer said she was told by a member of Christie's administration that Sandy relief funds hinged on her support for a real estate development project and that the directive was coming directly from Christie. 

"She said that to me -- is that this is a direct message from the Governor," Zimmer said, referring to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who Zimmer said approached her in a parking lot in May to deliver the message. 

It's "stunning" and "outrageous," but true, the Hoboken mayor told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I stand by my word." 

Later in the day, she released a statement saying that she had met with the U.S. Attorney's Office for several hours at its request and provided the office with her journal and other documents. 

"As they pursue this investigation, I will provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project," she said.

Yeah, for the office to take evidence from Zimmer on a Sunday means things just got very, very real for Christie. In other news, other mayors are coming forward saying other "pay to play" deals were set up for Democrats who backed Christie ahead of last November's election:

Long Branch, N.J. Mayor Adam Schneider (D) on Saturday said he got "enhanced" access to state officials after he endorsed Gov. Chris Christie (R) during his re-election campaign. 

Schneider told the Washington Post that a few months after he endorsed the governor, he contacted his office about an issue he couldn't get resolved by the state utility board.

"I'm not talking to any more underlings, and I'm not being delegated to," Schneider told Christie's aides, a strategy that proved successful. "I got what I needed."

Just a reminder that Republicans who endlessly bleated about "Obama's Chicago machine" politics and "Detroit's culture of corruption" now have their own very real problem, and it's an entire state.

StupidiNews!

• A video threatening terror attacks at the Sochi Winter Games next month has surfaced on a known jihadi website, prompting concern from US lawmakers over Russia's security precautions.
• A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck New Zealand near the capital of Wellington Sunday, with property damage and aftershocks affecting both the North and South islands.
• The Seattle Seahawks will face the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII in two weeks as both teams won their conference championship games Sunday.
• Two explosions rocked Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday, injuring 28, as anti-government protesters and political opposition groups stepped up their campaign to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
• Paramount's Anchorman 2 marked the end of a film era as the last film to be released by the studio to theaters in 35mm format, as the company goes all digital.

The Long Road Ahead For Obama

David Remnick of the New Yorker checks in with the President, who makes a number of very interesting "I don't have to run for election anymore, so here's my opinion" statements that he could have never made, say, 18 months ago during a campaign.

On the NFL's serious problem with concussions and brain injuries:

“I would not let my son play pro football,” he conceded. “But, I mean, you wrote a lot about boxing, right? We’re sort of in the same realm.”

The Miami defense was taking on a Keystone Kops quality, and Obama, who had lost hope on a Bears contest, was starting to lose interest in the Dolphins. “At this point, there’s a little bit of caveat emptor,” he went on. “These guys, they know what they’re doing. They know what they’re buying into. It is no longer a secret. It’s sort of the feeling I have about smokers, you know?”

On his second term:

“The conventional wisdom is that a President’s second term is a matter of minimizing the damage and playing defense rather than playing offense,” Obama said in one of our conversations on the trip and at the White House. “But, as I’ve reminded my team, the day after I was inaugurated for a second term, we’re in charge of the largest organization on earth, and our capacity to do some good, both domestically and around the world, is unsurpassed, even if nobody is paying attention.”

On pot legalization in Colorado and Washington state, he says that pot is less dangerous than alcohol but adds:

Less dangerous, he said, “in terms of its impact on the individual consumer. It’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy.” What clearly does trouble him is the radically disproportionate arrests and incarcerations for marijuana among minorities. “Middle-class kids don’t get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do,” he said. “And African-American kids and Latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties.” But, he said, “we should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing.” Accordingly, he said of the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington that “it’s important for it to go forward because it’s important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished.” 

And finally, on race and politics:

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.” The latter group has been less in evidence of late. 

“There is a historic connection between some of the arguments that we have politically and the history of race in our country, and sometimes it’s hard to disentangle those issues,” he went on. “You can be somebody who, for very legitimate reasons, worries about the power of the federal government—that it’s distant, that it’s bureaucratic, that it’s not accountable—and as a consequence you think that more power should reside in the hands of state governments. But what’s also true, obviously, is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of states’ rights in the context of the civil-rights movement and the Civil War and Calhoun. There’s a pretty long history there. And so I think it’s important for progressives not to dismiss out of hand arguments against my Presidency or the Democratic Party or Bill Clinton or anybody just because there’s some overlap between those criticisms and the criticisms that traditionally were directed against those who were trying to bring about greater equality for African-Americans. The flip side is I think it’s important for conservatives to recognize and answer some of the problems that are posed by that history, so that they understand if I am concerned about leaving it up to states to expand Medicaid that it may not simply be because I am this power-hungry guy in Washington who wants to crush states’ rights but, rather, because we are one country and I think it is going to be important for the entire country to make sure that poor folks in Mississippi and not just Massachusetts are healthy.”

The entire article is worthwhile, and gives serious, reasonable insight to the President and what he's trying to accomplish these days.   Do take a look.

We've Reached Maximum Rubin Con

Jennifer Rubin has long been the most embarrassing columnist at the Washington Post, but her take on this weekend's Chris Christie developments from MSNBC just utterly shatters the Irony Meter.

The test for the mainstream media and for medic “critics” (often merely on the prowl for Fox News bias) is whether they find the actual scandal: The MSNBC hit-squad that does not investigate, does not make any pretense of balance or fairness and is nevertheless given legitimacy by other media elites. 

This is also a lesson for conservatives in dealing with liberal media bias. You don’t whine. You present the facts, fully and fast. You present compelling evidence of bias. If the conservatives want politicians who show some backbone when under attack by phony news operations, they’d be wise to follow the Christie model. 

In the meantime, Christie, in an odd way, may be lucky here. MSNBC has turned a legitimate news story (the bridge) into a vivid display of media bias. That in turn will give conservatives who might otherwise see fit to pile on pause. Do they want to be the couriers of MSNBC smears?

This is a person who spent a year giving Mitt Romney free campaign columns as a shoo-in for President in 2012, going so far as to attack anyone who doubted him from the left or right, ignoring the Afghanistan war Bush got us into, declared the media had no business asking Romney/Ryan about details of their budget plan, accused MSNBC of "saving President Obama" from his "debate disaster" in 2012, accused President Obama of Nixonian paranoia, and who still lacks even basic competency on macroeconomics.

This is a person whose credibility would require several years of hagiographical rehabilitation to reach the lofty height of zero.  For her to accuse anyone of partisan media bias should have cause the spacetime continuum to collapse in a screeching 52-vehicle pileup of hubris.  The last paragraph should have ended with "And my computer has suddenly burst into black flames as I finish writing this.  I blame Obama."

Joe Gandleman makes a very good point since we're worrying about MSNBC's journalistic integrity and all.

I’m sure some may say “well that’s MSNBC,” but in fact it’s irrelevant if this came from MSNBC, or Fox or CNN. This is the mayor of a major city coming forward, and not acting as a blind source but making the allegation with her name attached to it.

Which already puts Kornacki's story light-years ahead of anything Rubin craps out of her awful little soul.

How is she still employed?

Last Call For Fahgeddabout The Bridge, This Is Worse

The GOP Gov. Chris Christie Trouble-O-Meter just kicked up another notch as MSNBC's Steve Kornacki leveled some brutal new accusations against the New Jersey governor.

Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with MSNBC. 

The mayor, Dawn Zimmer, hasn’t approved the project, but she did request $127 million in hurricane relief for her city of Hoboken – 80% of which was underwater after Sandy hit in October 2012. What she got was $142,000 to defray the cost of a single back-up generator plus an additional $200,000 in recovery grants. 

In an exclusive interview, Zimmer broke her silence and named Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, as the two officials who delivered messages on behalf of a governor she had long supported. 

“The bottom line is, it’s not fair for the governor to hold Sandy funds hostage for the City of Hoboken because he wants me to give back to one private developer,” she said Saturday on UP w/ Steve Kornacki. “… I know it’s very complicated for the public to really understand all of this, but I have a legal obligation to follow the law, to bring balanced development to Hoboken.”

This is no longer just about the George Washington Bridge, but about a long pattern of Christie abusing the powers of his office for the last several years.  Now that Mayor Zimmer has broken her silence, who else will come forward?  Likewise, the bridge investigation is continuing as well, and there's news now that David Wildstein one of the Christie aides at the center of that mess, now wants to tell his story to New Jersey state lawmakers under oath if he's granted immunity.

An attorney for David Wildstein, one of the men at the center of the investigation into last September's lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, said his client has a "story to tell" if granted immunity from state and federal prosecution. Alan Zegas told the Wall Street Journal Friday that Wildstein wants to testify before one of the legislative committees investigating the closures.

"There is a story to tell," Zegas said. "He would be happy to talk about all he knows."

Christie is in a heap of real trouble now, and it's falling apart fast and gaining speed.

The Obvious Solution

Republicans in Missouri are concerned that lethal injection is a barbaric and sickening practice, akin to torturing a person to death, after Ohio's latest death penalty execution last week with a new combination of drugs led to the inmate gasping for air and dying slowly over 25 minutes. But instead of the logical progression of "perhaps we should re-examine the awful practice of the death penalty", Missouri Republicans' response is "hey, let's bring back firing squads!"

Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin, a Republican representing Harrisonville, introduced legislation Friday that would add five-person firing squads as an alternative to the state's current method of capital punishment, lethal injection. 

Brattin cited the prolonged death Thursday of Dennis McGuire in Ohio as evidence that alternative methods were needed after manufacturers of pentobarbitol, the drug most commonly used in lethal injections, began withdrawing it from use in executions on ethical grounds. 

It took almost 25 minutes for McGuire, who was executed for raping and murdering a 22-year-old pregnant newlywed, to die gasping and choking Thursday from a new combination of drugs that had never before been used in a U.S. execution. McGuire's family said Friday it intends to sue Ohio prison officials for what they called McGuire's "torture." 

Missouri also allows execution by lethal gas, but its gas chamber hasn't been functional since 1965. With the state's next execution scheduled for Jan. 29, "we've been having all of these troubles getting the drugs to administer the lethal injection," Brattin told the statewide radio network Missourinet on Friday. 

"I was just looking at a second option, something we could do if we had to utilize the death penalty and we could not administer the lethal injection," Brattin said.

Besides being "quick and something we could do at a moment's notice," he said, an execution by firing squad would be more humane than McGuire's ordeal.

Sure.  Killing someone with a bunch of bullets is more humane than killing them with drugs.  Because ethics, and America!  It's what Jesus would have done, right?

Nerd Fights In The Land Of Epistemic Closure

Readers know I've had my problems with Ezra Klein from time to time on his analysis of everything from Dudebro Defector to Obamacare.  He's a good guy for the most part, but he thinks he's the second coming of Nate Silver or something, and it doesn't always work out that way for him and his Wonkblog crew at Washington Post.

Still, his skills are light-years beyond that of tired hacks like the WSJ's James Taranto or Daily Caller's Mickey Kaus, so when they decided to pick a fight with Ezra, hilarity ensued.  Taranto:

On Tuesday Klein himself proclaimed "The Death of ObamaCare's Death Spiral." He helpfully numbered his points, which go to 11 (lumbar puncture must be a mandated preventive procedure under ObamaCare). "The risk of a 'death spiral' is over," Klein proclaimed in point 4, citing the same Kaiser study. 

In his response, Kaus pointed out that in point 7 Klein had acknowledged Kaus's earlier point. Klein quotes a tweet from Kaiser's Larry Levitt: "The health mix of ACA enrollment is much more important than the age mix. Klein then elaborates: "So far, we're using age as a stand-in for health. But if all the young people signing up are sick, then the models break down." One might add that they don't all have to be sick. Nearly half of healthy young people are prone to a normal yet expensive medical condition, namely pregnancy.

That's Taranto's argument.  Obamacare will break down because all the ladies are gonna get knocked up and flood the system with expensive pre-natal and birthing procedures. Perhaps Obamacare should have something like, oh, I don't know, a contraception mandate to make birth control readily available to women so that doesn't happen.  Oh wait!  It does!  And conservatives are trying to do everything they can to destroy that mandate so that people covered under Obamacare plans don't have access to affordable birth control, thus causing the situation Taranto is concerned about!

There's an easy, built in solution to Taranto's concern, and he refuses to admit that the solution is already there.  But Ezra Klein is the hack?  Ho boy.

Although Wonkblog didn't respond to Kaus's argument, Levitt did, tweeting "that the 'shock absorbers' built into Obamacare--'risk corridors,' etc.--mean that the 'risk of a death spiral is overstated.' " Kaus conceded the point but noted that "those shock absorbers expire in three years," so that "insurers will start to raise rates in only two years if the risk pools are looking bad." To which Levitt replied that "I assume that enrollment will ramp up over the next 3 years." 

Which, Kaus answers, begs the question: "If you assume success then the risk of a death spiral is over!" We would add that it wouldn't surprise us if defenders try to keep ObamaCare on life support in the coming months and years by shifting the definitions of "success" and "death spiral." Never underestimate the power of equivocation.

Says the WSJ columnist.  This is comedy at its best here.  All indications are that more people will sign up, significantly more.  It's an assumption, yes...but a pretty safe one.  One, it's a government program, two, the mandates, three, increased Medicare eligibility, four, the "Woodwork effect".

Taranto goes on in the same vein for some time, but he ends with this:

But the advent of ObamaCare, with its corporatist means to a socialist end, has turned the Wonkbloggers into complete sellouts. Klein, Kliff and the whole klique are now acting like corporate shills too.

Well, you'd know, James.  You'd know.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Two students in Philadelphia are in critical condition after being shot in a high school gym by another student, one suspect is under arrest.
• A panel of federal judges investigating a jurist who sent racist emails about President Obama revealed the judge has a long histroy of racial comments.
• As many as 15 are presumed dead after a suicide bombing attack in Kabul outside a popular restaurant.
• Bond rating service Moody's has raised Ireland out of junk bond status as the country is exiting EU-imposed austerity.
• As sales of the Wii U are falling short of expectations, Nintendo is reportedly exploring getting into smartphone gaming.