Last Call For The Necessity Of Denial

The key component to being a conservative think tank pundit is denial, particularly when it comes to denial of bigotry.  It's the fundamental principle, the foundation, of conservative intellectualism.  America must be an absolutely equally fair and equitable society in every way, where there are no structural barriers of any kind to success and happiness.  The only problems in America come when government interferes in the glorious free markets, and that a perfect society would be free of these fetters.  Modern conservatism absolutely depends on this structure.

The millisecond a conservative admits there's any sort of structural problem in society:  racism, misogyny, bigotry based on sexual orientation or religious creed, or anything endemic to the American system, the game ends, and all their logic crumbles to "conservatism cannot be failed, this isn't real conservatism!"

So when presented with evidence that Atlanta's recent crippling by two inches of snow may have been exacerbated by the city's long and uncomfortable history with the city's black population, or that Minneapolis's low percentage of black home ownership meant there were additional structural problems educating black people about the dangers of radon poisoning, the conservative pundit must find a way to bring up another possible cause -- no matter how outlandish -- in order to prove that racism is dead in America.

Case in point:  John Hinderaker.

These are just two examples plucked from the constant stream of news stories that allege racism where none exists. Why is this effort so insistent? Why are we constantly bombarded with allegations of racism, at the very time when actual racism has dwindled to insignificance? The motive, it seems obvious, is political. The Democratic Party desperately needs to keep African-American voters on its plantation if it is to have any hope of maintaining power. (Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 20 points among white voters in 2012, according to some estimates.) Because Americans in their daily lives rarely see evidence of racism, but are often reminded of the ubiquity of affirmative action, liberals in the news media must keep up a constant stream of tales about purported racism in order to create an alternative reality. Sowing racial division is a core strategy of the Democratic Party, and newspapers and magazines are its agents in executing that strategy.

In just one paragraph, Hinderaker encapsulates the seething rage conservatism has towards the minority experience (and not just the black one), erasing the personal experiences of millions of Americans of color, and simply believes any instances of racism to be a political plot orchestrated by Democrats in order to keep minorities ignorant and trapped voting for them.

In Hinderaker's world, minority voters, especially black ones like myself, are simply too stupid to see the the truth.  We're easily bamboozled by the liberal media and trapped like sheep anyway, so why would anyone want to give our experiences with racism any credence whatsoever?  Hinderaker hasn't experienced it, so it can't have any validity.  We're allllllll just making it up.

Bonus points for the real racism is his world being affirmative action, which actually is dwindling in American society thanks to a number of conservative lawsuits and court decisions.

If you're a minority and experience structural racism, you're in an alternate world, not America.  But I guess the incarceration and education and salary and home ownership numbers are all made up too.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

See if you can guess the source of this drivel (emphasis mine):

Americans heard President Barack Obama declare this week that he intends to bypass the gridlocked Hill to get things done on his own. What they didn't hear: just how far he’s actually pushing his executive authority. 

An in-depth examination of the administration’s actions and plans, agency by agency, regulation by regulation, reveals an executive power play that’s broad and bold — and intensely ambitious. Far more than he let on in the State of the Union, the president has marshaled the tools of his office to advance policies, many unabashedly liberal, that push deep into everyday life for tens of millions of Americans. 

He wants to change how power plants operate. And what we buy for lunch. How we travel to work. And how our kids learn math. How our gasoline is formulated. How we light our aquariums. 

Already, the president’s team has enacted 300 economically significant regulations, far more than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan did in comparable periods. Some of those rules are driven by the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank banking reform, the two big laws Obama pushed through Congress early in his first term, when he had Democratic majorities in both houses. But there is far more.

Answer after the jump.

The Proles Are Required To Consume More Confectioneries

Ann Romney feels sorry for you, America.  You didn't elect her husband, after all, and now, well....

Ann Romney isn't sad her husband lost the presidency for her sake — she's sad on behalf of America. And she still regularly runs into people who are sad Romney lost in 2012, probably at the country club. 

The coulda-been-First Lady appeared on Fox News Friday morning to talk Mitt the movie (which is good) and, of course, Mitt the man who, his wife says, is "a pretty independent, wonderful guy." 

Romney ("Best-selling author," per the chyron) "always believed [Mitt] was going to be the president of the United States," she tells Fox's Bill Hemmer. When he didn't: "We lost, but truly the country lost, by not having Mitt as president." Then she decides that she'll "be polite and nice and not comment" on how she actually thinks Obama's second term is going. We tried to guess her opinion on the topic and were unable to do so. 

Responding to reports that Mitt leads in a early 2016 New Hampshire poll (despite his not running), Ann said she wasn't surprised. "I run across people all the time and they're still really upset about the election," Romney says. "They're still really sad." Then she left the studio, perhaps destined for one of the Romney family's various houses scattered around the country.

Marie Antoin-nutjob here doesn't understand why you unwashed troglodytes didn't crown her husband as our new glorious master of America, Inc. and stuff.  She feels only sadness of the one percent who matter, and confusion that the grunting, pissing yokels we so graciously allow to vote didn't discharge their duty and toss the Mulatto-In-Chief from the aptly named abode he resided in.

Which makes sense.  The "conservative intellectual" chattering class likes to entertain themselves by pretending they are super-intelligent and that anyone who pulls the level for a Democrat is a "low-information voter".  After all, if we were all as smart as Ann Romney, not only would we have elected Mitt in a landslide, but we'd all be fabulously wealthy, too, like the Romneys.  Which obviously makes them smarter than all of us.

Just not smart enough to think down to our poop-throwing level in order to convince us to vote for the guy.

I'm betting one of the most sad people she's met is this guy.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The FAA has grounded plans for a Minnesota brewery to deliver beer by drone to ice-fishers until the agency can work out detailed flight rules for commercial drones sometime in 2015.
• President Obama says it's up to Congress to legislate marijuana, despite calls for him to direct the DEA to reclassify pot as no longer a dangerous drug.
• The FBI says suspicious letters containing a powdery substance mailed to locations near the site of this year's Super Bowl are not dangerous, and they are investigating the source.
• GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, says he sees enough Republican votes for a clean debt ceiling increase in the Senate, but the House may be a completely different story.
• South Dakota is the latest state to offer legislation that would "protect" science teachers whose lessons include intelligent design in the classroom.

Last Call To Replace "Repeal And Replace"

If you're wondering where this month's Senate GOP's plan to replace Obamacare went, and why nobody is talking about it on the conservative side, it's because it took all of a couple days to figure out Senate Republicans were about to hit tens of millions of middle-class Americans with a substantial tax increase to pay for their overpriced high-risk pool scheme.

The apparent change centers on the plan's tax treatment of health insurance. Right now, health insurance contributions by employees and their employers are not taxed; the GOP wanted to include a cap on how much of those contributions can remain untaxed. 

But the devil is in the details. The original eight-page proposal released by the Senate Republicans -- Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Orrin Hatch of Utah -- said that the new cap would be "65 percent of an average plan's costs." Health policy experts told TPM that this would likely result in a big tax increase on most Americans and some would probably lose their insurance. 

"It's obviously a substantial increase on people who get employer-sponsored insurance," Gary Claxton, vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told TPM of the original proposal. "This would be a meaningful hit on people. It's a big radical change. This is not an incremental thing, and it affects most people under 65." 

The Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed a similar, though not identical, proposal and estimated that it would raise $613 billion in revenue over nine years, while six million people would lose their employer coverage in the five years after it took effect. 

The initial reporting on the GOP's new proposal, by the Washington Post and National Journalas well as TPM, highlighted that the plan would likely lead to many Americans paying more for their insurance. National Journal observed that, under the GOP's plan as originally proposed, if you had an average health plan, you'd pay taxes on 35 percent of its costs.

So, say you earn $60,000 a year and have an employer-sponsored health plan for your family of four.  Let's say that plan is worth $10,000.  Under the GOP plan, you're responsible for taxes on 35% of that plan as additional income, and the marginal federal tax rate at $60k is 25%.  So 25% of $3,500 is an extra $875 in federal taxes you pay.  Gosh, that seems so much better than Obamacare, right?

No wonder they're scrambling to "fix" their plan:



So they're only going to tax the highest earners with the "most generous" insurance plans?  Oh, I'm sure THAT will go over well with the one percenters.

Christie's Bridge Now Sinking In Radioactive Lava

And the aide GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fired for being "responsible" for the lane closures last year on the George Washington Bridge is now publicly saying Christie knew everything and lied to pretty much everyone in his rambling press conference last month.

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening, and that he had the evidence to prove it. 

In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago. 

“Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” the letter added.

If this is true, he's done.  Good night, Chris.  Shut off the lights on the way out of Trenton.

[UPDATE]  The Newark Star-Ledger calls for Christie's resignation if Wildstein's allegations are true.  Fecal matter just became empirical.

Republicans Have A Bigger Problem

Republicans are hoping that Americans will only care about the problems with Obamacare and vote solely based on that in November.  Unfortunately, the GOP has one glaring, massive problem that is threatening to split the party again, and it's once again immigration reform.

For more than a year House Republican leaders have insisted the chamber would act on new immigration laws. And for more than a year, Republicans have done virtually nothing on the issue — despite intense pressure from activists, business groups, and the nation’s changing demographics.

And although there are a variety of reasons for inaction, one Republican lawmaker recently offered a frank acknowledgement that for many House Republicans, there’s one issue at play that’s not often discussed: race.

“Part of it, I think — and I hate to say this, because these are my people — but I hate to say it, but it’s racial,” said the Southern Republican lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you go to town halls people say things like, ‘These people have different cultural customs than we do.’ And that’s code for race.”

Republicans know that Latino voters will make up an increasingly larger share of the voting population, and while immigration reform is far from the top priority of most Latino voters, the absolute bigotry many Republican lawmakers display towards Latinos is going to keep them from ever winning the White House anytime soon, and they know it.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday said that a House push for "any bill perceived as an amnesty bill" would hinder the attempt by Republicans to gain control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Cruz's statement comes on the same day as the House GOP retreat, at which party leaders were set propose the conference's immigration principles for the legislative session.

"Amnesty is wrong in any circumstance, and if we are going to fix our broken immigration system--and we should--it makes much more sense to do so next year, so that we are negotiating a responsible solution with a Republican Senate majority rather than with Chuck Schumer," Cruz said in a statement to Breitbart.

In other words, Republicans figure they can force President Obama to sign a ridiculous bill rather than a real, long-term solution.  Because Republicans don't want to fix the problem.  They need to keep the issue alive to rally the Tea Party.

Last Call For Henry Waxman

40-year House veteran Democrat Heney Waxman of California is calling it quits after serving 20 terms, and he's blaming the Tea Party.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a diminutive Democratic giant whose 40 years in the House produced some of the most important legislation of the era, announced Thursday that he would retire at the end of the year.

Mr. Waxman, 74, joins a growing list of House members who are calling it quits, many in disappointment over the partisanship and ineffectiveness of a Congress that may end up as the least productive in history.

“It’s been frustrating because of the extremism of Tea Party Republicans,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview on Wednesday. “Nothing seems to be happening.”

The frustration is felt on both sides. More than 30 House members have announced they will retire, resign or run for other offices this year, including stalwarts like George Miller, Democrat of California; Tom Latham, Republican of Iowa; Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia; and Howard P. McKeon of California, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Waxman knows things aren't going to get any better in 2014, and with the Republicans still not having anyone who can win in 2016, they'll be just as insane then, too in the House.

Why would you want to stick around in this funhouse of stupid?

The Illigitimate Presidency

After five years and two elections, you'd think Republicans would accept the fact that Barack Obama is President of the United States.  But of course, you'd be wrong.

Congressional Republicans are taking President Obama to court over his use of executive power to sidestep Congress.

The executive actions that Obama touted during the State of the Union speech are adding fresh urgency to the legal efforts of Republicans, who say he is using the authority of his office in unprecedented ways.“We can go to court,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “We haven’t got many more options except [to] tell the American people that we’re seeing an abuse of the intent of the Constitution.”

Republicans have launched a salvo of legal actions to challenge the president on issues ranging from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance programs.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans would not sit idly by as Obama takes unilateral actions like raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour.

“We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans,” Boehner said.

Remember, these are the same guys who said when Bush was President that not only could the "plenary executive" regularly override the other two executive branches, but absolutely had to in order to win the Warren Terrah.

Now, the President with the fewest number of executive orders in modern history somehow must be reined in by a nearly all-powerful Congress who must resort to the judicial branch to stop any constitutional actions they don't like.  They've all but killed the recess appointment, now they're looking to destroy executive actions in the courts.

The real goal of course is impeachment...

The Jersey Takedown

GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continues to drown in bad news, and the latest is a brutal NY Times piece on Christie's inner circle, portraying a man (that despite his protestations that he had no idea what his aides were up to) was in total control of every aspect of his influence machine.  Christie knew exactly what his inner circle was up to.

His campaign called them “the Top 100,” the swing towns that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey wanted to win as he prepared for a re-election campaign. Capturing these towns, sometimes referred to as mini-Ohios or mini-Floridas, would validate the governor’s argument that he would be the most broadly appealing Republican choice for president in 2016.

Staff members in the governor’s office created tabbed and color-coded dossiers on the mayors of each town — who their friends and enemies were, the policies and projects that were dear to them — that were bound in notebooks for the governor to review in his S.U.V. between events.

Long after most of the State House had been shuttered for the night, Mr. Christie’s aides worked on spreadsheets, documenting calls and meetings with key players in the towns — one Republican called it “political Moneyball” — as the governor tried to win endorsements and friends.

New Jersey's mayors were the key to Christie's bi-partisan credibility -- and thus, the key to his 2016 ambitions.  Christie and his aides played hardball with them every step of the way.

Officially known as “intergovernmental affairs,” the operation was a key element of the permanent campaign that allowed Mr. Christie to win twice in a largely Democratic state. It was led by Bill Stepien, his two-time campaign manager and deputy chief of staff, and then by Bridget Anne Kelly, who succeeded him in his role in the governor’s office.

They were part of what one high-ranking Republican called “the crew” around Mr. Christie: friends who strategized at Mr. Christie’s kitchen table in Mendham and socialized with him in the governor’s box at MetLife Stadium.

Now this operation is at the heart of the growing scandal over the closing of lanes at the George Washington Bridge in an act of political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J.

Mr. Christie has said that he had not been aware of his office’s involvement in the maneuver, and nothing has directly tied to him to it. But a close look at his operation and how intimately he was involved in it, described in interviews with dozens of people — Republican and Democrat, including current and former Christie administration officials, elected leaders and legislative aides — gives credence to the puzzlement expressed by some Republicans and many Democrats in the state, who question how a detail-obsessed governor could have been unaware of the closings or the effort over months to cover up the political motive.

In other words, the notion that Christie didn't know what was going on is patently absurd.  Absolutely everything was a political calculation to the man, and everything had a political motive.  Christie's political machine ran roughshod over New Jersey, and those that crossed him found out the hard way that there was a lot of political damage Christie's office could do if they didn't play ball.

Everything that the Republican party has attributed to the Obama administration for last five years was really happening in Trenton, in Chris Christie's inner circle.

And it's all crashing to earth around them.

StupidiNews!

• A New York man has plead guilty to charges of smuggling nearly 40,000 live piranha into NYC through a Hong Kong supplier over 2011 and 2012.
• Research published this week in the journal Nature describes a process used to "rewind" any adult cell into an embryonic stem cell state, which could be a major medical breakthrough.
• The Obama administration is preparing financial sanctions against Ukraine unless violence from both government police and protest groups is toned down.
• The final phase in Detroit's $18 billion municipal bankruptcy will begin as soon as emergency manager Kevin Orr files his plan with creditors.
• Sci-fi staple super-food Soylent not only exists now in real life, but it now has a company, a formula, and a nutritional label.

Last Call For Louisiana Cookin'

Louisiana is the latest state to attempt to regulate all of the state's abortion clinics out of existence, something that's working very well so far in places like Ohio.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) is currently in process of finalizing new regulations on abortion clinics. The complicated rules, which are more than 20 pages long, could end up closing all five of Louisiana’s abortion clinics — effectively banning the procedure in the state. 

DHH first enacted the rules at the end of November, and has scheduled a public hearing for the beginning of February to finalize them. State officials, who likely intended to slip the new regulations under the radar, have already attempted to diffuse media attention. After media outlets began reporting on one provision in the new regulations that would require a 30-day waiting period before women could proceed with an abortion, DHH officials said they would rescind that particular rule. 

Even without the proposed waiting period, however, the new regulations still represent an alarming threat to abortion access in Louisiana.

So yes, they were about to be caught throwing in a thirty day waiting period for abortion, which would have effectively ended all abortions.  Now they'll have to sneak other things in:

For instance, one of the most concerning aspects of the new rules involves a new licensing procedure for clinics. Each abortion clinic will need to apply for a “certificate of need” in order to renovate its facility, to build a new clinic, or even to transfer ownership of a clinic. The state’s health department has complete power over accepting or denying these certificates. Meanwhile, providers will lose the right to appeal potential citations to outside parties. Essentially, DHH is endowed with the ultimate authority over clinics, and could choose to close facilities at whim. 

Another new requirement stipulates that an abortion can’t be performed until 24 hours after a woman’s blood work has been processed and entered into her chart. For the clinics that don’t have the capacity to do blood work, and typically send out samples to be analyzed elsewhere, that will ultimately require them to delay abortion procedures.

Just run all the clinics out of business, and you win.  You win reducing women to chattel with no control over their own reproductive systems.

Rep. Mike Grimm In "Breaking Bad"

New York City cable news station NY1 caught up with Staten Island GOP Rep. Michael Grimm at the Capitol Rotunda after the State of the Union address to ask him a few questions.  Reporter Michael Scotto apparently touched a nerve when he asked Grimm about the federal investigation into his 2010 campaign spending.  After happily bashing President Obama, Grimm gave a terse "This is only about the President" in response to Scotto, and the interview was over.

Until, with the camera rolling, Grimm stomped back over to Scotto and basically threatened to hurt him.

So Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances," Scotto said before tossing back to the station. But as the camera continued to roll, Grimm walked back up to Scotto and began speaking to him in a low voice. 

"What?" Scotto responded. "I just wanted to ask you..." 

Grimm: "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this f-----g balcony." 

Scotto: "Why? I just wanted to ask you..." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "If you ever do that to me again..." 

Scotto: "Why? Why? It’s a valid question." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

The best part:  Grimm's office released arguably the worst possible statement ever explaining the incident.

"I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other requests. The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a favor. I doubt that I am the first Member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won’t be the last."

Keep in mind this all happened after Grimm went on NY1 to call President Obama divisive.  This is the same guy who screamed about the IMPERIAL OBAMA PRESIDENCY when Richard Cordray was appointed to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling the President arrogant and a sham.

But don't you dare ask the great and powerful Michael Grimm a question, because he really is the most important guy ever.

The State Of The Union

President Obama commenced with his 5th SOTU address, and the theme was both very powerful and very obvious:  He's going around Congress.

Obama said he will order the U.S. Treasury to create a new federal retirement savings account called MyRA, a savings bond that he added would guarantee "a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." It will be available to those whose jobs don't offer traditional retirement savings programs, he said. 

Additionally, Obama called for: 

-- Eliminating $4 billion in tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industries "that don't need it" and instead "invest more in fuels of the future that do. 

-- Women who make 77 cents for each dollar a man earns to get equal pay for equal work, adding "that is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment." 

-- Setting new fuel standards for American trucks to help reduce U.S. oil imports "and what we pay at the pump." 

-- Reworking the corporate tax code. He urged Congress to work with him to close "wasteful, complicated loopholes that punish businesses investing here" and instead "lower tax rates for businesses that create jobs right here at home." 

-- Congress to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2014. 

Obama also reiterated that he will veto any new sanctions bill from Congress that would derail talks on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, adding that "for the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed."

 Republicans aren't happy about it.  Of course, they haven't been happy since November 2008, so frankly, who gives a damn about them anymore?

StupidiNews

• University of North Carolina Chancellor Carol Folt has admitted that the Chapel Hill school had failed students "for years" with false classes designed to boost grades of student athletes. 
• Scientists studying the brain have discovered a region that could be responsible for determining when a decision made is a bad one and when a different course of action is needed.
• Yemen's UN envoy is calling on the UN Security Council to draft a resolution backing Yemen's transitional government plan.
• Brazilian Olympic officials say the 2016 Rio Summer Games will directly cost $2.3 billion, but that they expect costs to rise in the years ahead.
• Google has released plans for prescription frames to use with its Glass product, but the titanium frames will run you $225 extra.