A Case Of Sparkling Perry Error

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has apparently come up with the perfect GOP delusion on immigration:  reforming it magically no longer matters!

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, no stranger to the tough debate over the nation’s immigration laws, thinks recent legislation passed by Mexico’s Congress, a major priority of President Enrique Pena Nieto, may have set in motion a reversal of the flow of undocumented immigrants northward. In a short time, Perry said in an interview Saturday, undocumented immigrants may be streaming back over the U.S.-Mexico border, headed for lucrative energy sector jobs back home.

“The landscape on immigration is fast changing,” Perry said. “My instinct is that immigration and immigration reform are going to be substantially less of a flashpoint than they have been in the last several years.”

 So what miracle is this that will see undocumented workers flood back south to Mexico?  Drill baby drill!

The change, Perry predicted, will come as private investors begin taking stakes in Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly. In December, Mexico’s Senate ratified outlines of legislation that would allow private investment in the company, which could eventually lead to complete privatization. Outside analysts believe the new rules will eventually make Mexico one of the world’s largest oil producers.

The new jobs that result from the energy boom, Perry predicted, will attract immigrant labor that would otherwise come to the United States.

Well, if you're, say, Halliburton or Exxon/Mobil, getting in on the ground floor of Mexico's oil boom, with cheap labor and zero Environmental Protection Agency in the way, has got to be the economic equivalent of snorting Viagra off of supermodels.  America's energy giants will be stabbing each other in the back (and the front) to get the lion's share of this.

Bonus points:  dangerous and heavily armed Mexican drug cartels means private military contractors will be making fat cash too conducting "security operations" and "dealing with the locals" for the oil guys.

It's Iraq all over again.  Only a lot closer.  No wonder Rick Perry can barely contain himself.

Now whether or not this "reverses" the flow of undocumented immigrants from the south, Republicans can say it will and just ignore immigration reform.  In this scenario, Obama gets zero credit and the demographic changes in border states slow dramatically, so they think they can ignore it completely, anyway.

“At that point in time, this whole issue of immigration reform, I think loses a lot of steam. And then the immigration debate may become, how are we going to efficiently allow people into this country to fill the agricultural or hospitality or construction jobs that these people had historically been filling,” Perry said.

Perry said that takes the pressure off Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, where immigration reform legislation has stalled in recent months after passing the Senate.

“I would suggest [Congressional Republicans] continue to push for a federal solution to securing the border, working with the states,” Perry said.

I'm betting voters might not agree.

Obamacare Takes The Stage In Florida...Or Does It?

Next month's special election for the House seat of the late GOP Rep. Bill Young in Florida's 10th District is all about how the Sunshine State's senior citizens feel about Obamacare.  Democrat Alex Sink is backing the program 100%, and her GOP opponent, David Jolly, is attacking Sink over it.  But Republicans have bigger problems in Florida, namely Social Security.

No matter the winner, Democrats appear to have little chance to capture the 17 seats needed to win a House majority in November. Yet this race has drawn national attention also because Obamacare figures prominently already in races in the Senate, where enough seats appear competitive nine months before Election Day to give Republicans an opportunity at winning control.

The candidates took different paths to their March 11 matchup to serve out the term of the late Republican Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, who died last fall.

Sink, 65, had a career in banking before she was elected the state's chief financial officer in 2006. A longtime resident of Tampa in next-door Hillsborough County, she is attacked by Republicans and their allies as a carpetbagger for moving over the county line into the district in preparation for the campaign.

Jolly, 41, was born in the congressional district. Yet he has long experience in Washington, first as an aide to Young, whom he features in his advertising and public remarks, and then as a lobbyist. Democrats seized on his lobbying work, saying he was retained by a special interest that wants to privatize Social Security.

The Social Security privatization scheme card goes a long way in Florida, as both McCain and Romney found out.

The race to serve the balance of Young's term has attracted outside groups on
the left and the right even though evidence is spotty at best that so-called special elections can predict which party will win a nationwide fall campaign.

Each one "has its own particularly unique and hyperlocal dynamics," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, who heads the House Democratic campaign organization.

And for all the attention paid to Obamacare, Republicans betray concern that Sink's persistent attacks linking Jolly to efforts to privatize Social Security are paying dividends.

What's this?  Obamacare is not the noose around Democrats' necks that Republicans hoped it would be?

We'll see.

The Great Wall Of Orange

Just a reminder that GOP House Speaker John Boehner has spent his entire career in Congress opposing minimum wage hikes, and that if it were up to him, the federal minimum wage would still be where it was when he first arrived in Congress in 1991:  $4.25 an hour.

Speaker John Boehner is so against raising the minimum wage that he once said he would rather commit suicide than vote for a “clean” increase.

The Ohio Republican and son of a barkeep has repeatedly opposed federally mandated hike increases, which have been a constant in the Democrats’ election-year playbook.Boehner has “always believed that it's a job killer,” former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a labor-friendly Republican who is close to Boehner, told The Hill. He pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s recent report that found that increasing the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs.

Some Democrats are optimistic Boehner will cave and allow a vote this year, but the record shows there is little if any daylight between the pro-business Speaker and his conservative conference on this issue.

Boehner made the comments about suicide in an April 1996 interview with The Weekly Standard.

“I’ll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill,” Boehner, then the head of the House Republican Conference, said at the time.

Nice guy, John Boehner, right?  And let's keep in mind Ohio has a higher state minimum wage at $8 an hour.  How does he keep getting elected?  Oh that's right, his district is the blood red Butler County suburbs north of Cincy where the only people making minimum wage are the people who don't live there.

Four months later, President Clinton over Boehner’s objections signed a minimum wage hike into law that lifted the wage by 90 cents, from $4.25 per hour to $5.15.

It wasn’t a clean wage hike because it included some Republican sweeteners such as tax breaks aimed at small businesses. The bill passed the Senate, 76-22 and cleared the House, 354-72. Boehner voted no.

Boehner voted against the wage hike again in 2007, when Democrats took over the House majority and in one of their first actions voted to lift the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.

And he still did everything he could to block it.   But he cares about Ohio's working class.  Sure he does.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Apple co-founder Steve Jobs may appear on a US postage stamp as early as 2015, according to reports.
• President Obama has defied a protesting China and met with the Dalai Lama at the White House, while voicing strong support for the protection of Tibetans' human rights.
• A major peace breakthrough in Ukraine has halted violence as President Viktor Yanukovich has agreed to give up power and hold early elections for a national unity government.
• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has kicked CNN and its reporters out of the country saying the news network is part of a US effort to "demonize" his government.
• Harvard University is reviewing access procedures for the school's supercomputer cluster after it was illicitly used to mine Dogecoins.

Last Call For Going It Alone

President Obama's 2015 budget proposal happily omits the part where "compromise to the GOP in exchange for being called a fascist tyrant" happens, and the reality of leverage sets in.

On Wednesday, the White House released some early details of the president's 2015 budget proposal, which is due out next month. The biggest news is that the budget will propose $56 billion in new spending, while dropping a key compromise that would result in smaller Social Security benefits. The latter idea, known as "chained CPI," would alter how the government calculates benefits increases for social welfare programs, and it's generally opposed by liberals. (You can read our more thorough explainer on chained CPI here.)

That might sound like an insignificant bit of wonky gibberish, but it's actually a sharp reversal. Obama proposed chained CPI in his budget last year, hoping it would convince Republicans to compromise on revenue increases. It was an attempt at striking that mythical "grand bargain" Obama and congressional Republicans have been talking about for years. But Republicans vehemently opposed any new tax revenue, and now Obama is no longer even offering the chained CPI carrot.

"Unfortunately, Republicans refused to even consider the possibility of raising some revenue,"said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman. "That is an unfortunate policy choice that Republicans themselves have made."

To be sure, White House budget proposals are largely symbolic documents that outline a president's ideal budget, not the budget that will actually be passed by Congress. But by yanking a GOP-friendly proposal from the outset, Obama has made clear that negotiating with Republicans is a hopeless cause.

The good news is now President Obama doesn't have to offer anything to the GOP in order to be called a fascist tyrant, so it's a bit of a time-saver.

Bachmanniac's Audition For A FOX News Job

Michele Bachmann may be leaving the House GOP at the end of the year, but she's stumping hard for a job over in Rupert Murdoch's team starting in 2015, it seems.

In an interview published Wednesday, Bachmann said that Barack Obama won the presidency because white people felt too guilty about past racial injustices. "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt," she said in an interview with Cal Thomas, a syndicated conservative columnist.

Yes, because President Jesse Jackson won so overwhelmingly in 1992.  Why, America has a long line of African-American presidents preceding Mr. Obama.  They just all happen to live in Bachmann's empty, empty head.

Seriously, the "Obama only won because of white guilt" is the perfect meme for these idiots. It allows them to simultaneously pretend that evolution-rejecting, climate change-denying douchebags who think women's bodies naturally produce a substance that prevents pregnancy during rape are somehow not the "low-information voters" screwing up America, while also pretending that the party of "Hey there's nothing wrong with pictures of Obama with a bone through his nose and his wife Moochelle" aren't the racists, but the guilty white liberals, the "race-hustling" black Democrats, and the "illegal Mexicans" are.

Oh, but let's not forget the War on Women, which doesn't exist because Republican love women.

Bachmann didn't stop there. She thinks Hillary Clinton has poor odds of winning the presidency in 2016. "People don't hold guilt for a woman," she said, explaining that much of the country isn't prepared to elect a women as president. "I don’t think there is a pent-up desire."

Why if I didn't know better, I'd think Shelly here was trying to pit white Obama voters versus black ones.  Those eeeeevil black people and those race traitor liberals will be "responsible" for Obama's wins until the day she dies.

More Voter Suppression In Ohio

As expected, Ohio Republicans rammed through two late-night bills Wednesday to cut early voting and same-day registration, and to end mailing absentee ballots to all Ohioans.

Ohio lawmakers passed two restrictive Republican voting bills Wednesday night, raising the prospect that casting a ballot this fall could be much more difficult, especially for minority voters.

With Ohio remaining the key presidential swing state, the changes could also affect the 2016 election.

The state Democratic Party said immediately that it would sue in federal court to block the laws.

“In 2014, I never imagined that I would be in a statehouse trying to fight for the rights to vote,” said state Rep. Alicia Reece, a Democrat, on the floor.

On party lines, the House voted 59-37 to approve a GOP bill that would cut six days from the state’s early voting period. More importantly, it would end the so-called “Golden Week,” when Ohioans can register and vote on the same day. Same-day registration is among the most effective ways for bringing new voters into the process, election experts say.

The House also voted by 60-38 to approve a bill that would effectively end the state’s successful program of mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. Under the bill, the secretary of state would need approval from lawmakers to mail absentee ballots, and individual counties could not do so at all. Nearly 1.3 million Ohioans voted absentee in 2012. The bill also would make it easier to reject absentee ballots for missing information.

When they say there's "no difference" between the two major political parties, remember that one party is trying to make voting as difficult as possible, and trying to limit who is allowed to vote.   That's because the Republicans don't want you to vote.  They know that the more difficult it is for the poor and working-class, college students, the elderly and urban minorities to vote, they more the GOP wins.

The only way the Republican party can win in 2014 is to disenfranchise or discourage as many Democrats as possible.

That's what they have to do.

StupidiNews!

• Several tornadoes touched down in Illinois and Tennessee and 24,000 lost power as a line of strong storms tackled the Midwest last night.
• Arizona Republicans have passed legislation that would allow people to refuse services to customers based on religious beliefs, but similar bills have failed in several other red states.
• As the death toll from brutal government clashes in Ukraine's capital of Kiev has reached 75, EU ministers are desperately trying to broker a cease fire.
• This year's strain of flu has taken a severe toll on young and middle-aged adults as US hospitalizations and deaths from influenza are on the rise.
• Islamic clerics in the UAE have issued a fatwa against proposed one-way trips to Mars, saying that without the possibility of return to Earth, the trip amounts to suicide, prohibited in the Qur'an.

Last Call For The War Of Southern Microaggressions

Why, I can't possibly imagine why putting the flag of a defeated, traitor group dedicated to the preservation of slavery as a basis of economic and social power on a Georgia license plate would piss anyone off.

The state of Georgia has released a new specialty license tag that features the Confederate battle flag, inflaming civil rights advocates and renewing a debate on what images should appear on state-issued materials.

The new specialty tag has stirred a clash between those who believe the battle flag honors Confederate heritage and those, particularly African-Americans, who view it as a racially charged symbol of oppression.

Because it is, thanks.

A spokesman for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said Tuesday that the state should not have sanctioned the battle emblem to appear on a Georgia tag.

“To display this is reprehensible,” said Maynard Eaton. “We don’t have license plates saying ‘Black Power.’”

Like that would ever be allowed on a license plate anywhere.

For their part, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said it meant no offense. People have a right to commemorate their heritage, and the state would be discriminating if it rejected the group’s application, said spokesman Ray McBerry.

“By sanctioning the plate, they are not saying they agree with our organization. They’re just saying it’s a level playing field,” he said.

Sure.  Because slavery was a level playing field.

Here's my question, "Heritage Not Hate" people.  You're celebrating a bunch of literal and actual traitors to the United States of America, a group that declared open warfare on the country and did so by engaging in a war that killed three-quarters of a million Americans, or about 2% of the entire population of the country, all over the fact that slavery was the economic powerhouse of the rural South.  Not that the rest of the Union was super awesome to Native Americans, Mexicans, Irish, Chinese and anyone else who wasn't Anglo-Saxon in general derivation, but you don't see people raising "Sons of the Veterans of the Mexican-American War" or "The Trail Of Tears Was Awesome And Stuff" license plates, right?

Why would you want to raise that battle flag?  At the very best, you're saying "I don't want to be part of the United Stated of America" while you're free to tool around in your big ass truck or whatever and can drive to any state in the lower 48, and look like an asshole doing it.  Can't stop you from being an asshole, but you can maybe not get a state-sanctioned license plate declaring it to all of Earth, maybe?

Jesus.

Meanwhile, In Wisconsin

Virginia, New Jersey, now in Wisconsin yet another Republican governor faces an investigation for wrongdoing in his office.  Scott Walker, come on down! 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has been eyeing a 2016 presidential run since his battles with labor unions made him a Republican star, is in the midst of dealing with the fallout of two criminal investigations at home that could complicate his move to the national stage.

One is ongoing, and while the other is now closed with no allegations of wrongdoing by Walker, it has the lingering potential to embarrass him.

That could begin as early as Wednesday with the release of more than 25,000 pages of e-mails from an ex-staffer that were gathered as part of the now-concluded investigation. The probe focused on Walker’s time as Milwaukee County executive before his 2010 election as governor and led to convictions of six former aides and allies.

Even if Walker escapes the e-mail release unscathed, he faces an additional inquiry from state prosecutors, who are believed to be looking into whether his successful 2012 recall campaign illegally coordinated with independent conservative groups.

 But ever the fair and balanced, the Washington Post ends thusly:

If conservative groups succeed in undermining the investigation’s legitimacy, the result could ironically convert the probe from a possible Walker weakness into an unexpected strength, rallying conservatives around a governor perceived to be holding firm against liberal bullies.

Course, they would need help from outlets like the Washington Post for that, right?

Dave Weigel has more on those 27k plus emails released yesterday:

Among the pile of emails, it was found that Walker also used his campaign email to conduct county executive business. In June 2010, Walker emailed the conservative radio host Charlie Sykes and encouraged him to get information on Democratic groups from his office. "Ask [my official office] and we would be happy to send over the info," Walker wrote.

Not illegal, just immoral.  Oh, and at least one of those emails appears to be pretty damning in the "illegal and immoral" department.

"Consider youself now in the 'inner circle,'" Walker's administration director, Cynthia Archer, wrote to Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch just after the two exchanged a test message.

"I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day," she wrote, referring to Walker by his initials and to Walker's chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.

Using state resources to coordinate his recall campaign is going to be a big problem for Scott Walker, no matter how the Wingers try to spin it.

Too Close To Home - Hailey Owens

By now, most of you have heard about what happened to Hailey Owens of Springfield, Missouri.  For those who have not, this timeline of events is helpful to fill in details.  They have stayed true with what all sources agree on without the extra speculation.

SPRINGFIELD, MO (KCTV/AP) -A body believed to be that of Hailey Owens was found Wednesday at a Springfield home owned by the suspect, Police Chief Paul Williams said at a news conference. Official confirmation won't occur until after an autopsy, but the chief said police "have a high degree of confidence" in the preliminary identification. 

Police say Craig Michael Wood, 45, is jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder but formal charges have not been filed. The Greene County prosecutor is reviewing the case. 

A grade school coach has been jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder in the abduction and death of a 10-year-old Springfield girl. 

The details of what happened after the abduction aren't clear and won't be for a long time.  It all happened so fast.  Violent crime always does. The people left behind can take a long time to put the pieces together.  A few press releases have been slowly letting pieces emerge, but this will take days, if not weeks, to unravel. What we know is that a little girl has died, and someone evil made the choice for it to happen.  The local response has been immediate and overwhelming.  It has been a rare and eye-opening thing to read about something major from both the local and national perspectives.  

So what do I have to add?  I can say with authority that Springfield citizens pulled together as fast as they could.  When the abduction occurred, one person tried to follow in their car, and another called and reported the license plate.  According to this timeline, I had something on my Facebook within thirty minutes (I didn't see anything until it was too late, but it was on there).  Pictures and information flowed and ad hoc pipelines did a fair job of stifling rumors.  The response was huge and incredibly personal.  Within an hour, my Facebook feed was a barrage of photos as people tried to help.  The Springfield Police Department was not able to save Hailey, but they were there within a few short hours.  Their effort was commendable, and they have been professional and solid so far.  From the moment of abduction until the suspect was in custody, not quite four hours elapsed. In that short time, a terrible crime was committed and a little girl was lost.

StupidiNews!

• Two security contractors, both former Navy SEALs, were found dead aboard the Maersk Alabama, the cargo ship made famous in the movie "Captain Philips".
• Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting suspect James Holmes has been ordered to undergo a new sanity examination as the judge has found the first test incomplete.
• Facebook's major purchases continue with the acquisition of global messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion in combined cash and stock.
• TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline route through Nebraska has been ruled illegal by a federal judge, which could delay the project, possibly permanently.
• Television "retransmission" service Aereo has been stopped with an injunction for all 10th Circuit states as the company's battle with network and cable giants heads to the Supreme Court.

Last Call For Houseplant Slash Muscle

Need to lighten things up around here, so we leave you tonight with the new Guardians of the Galaxy trailer that premiered last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live.



Ahh, Peter Quill, forever stuck in the 80's.  John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz in the Nova Corps, evil blue Karen Gilliam as Nebula, mostly evil green Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Djimon Hounsou as Korath The Pursuer (Marvel so does love to name their cosmic level badasses "X The Archetype") makes any movie better, and I get Rocket Raccoon and Groot shooting rooms full of things?  Definitely looking forward to this one in August, and looks totally faithful to the comic's bonkers style mix of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Chronicles of Riddick on the set of a Billy Idol video.  You know, Farscape with less introspection and more 10 foot tall tree guys.

It's looking to be glorious fun.  Can't wait.

Kansas's Discrimination Bill Gets The Business

A week ago, state legislation that Kansas Republicans sponsored that would allow businesses and state employees to refuse goods and services to same-sex couples under the guise of "religious freedom" looked like a sure bet as it sailed through the Kansas House.

Denying services to same-sex couples may soon become legal in Kansas.

House Bill 2453 explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.

It passed the state's Republican-dominated House on Wednesday with a vote of 72-49, and has gone to the Senate for a vote.

This week, it crashed and burned in the Kansas Senate.

A controversial religious freedom bill passed by the Kansas House will never make it to the Senate floor or even be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Tuesday, Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, officially closed the door on House Bill 2453, which gained international attention and inspired a Twitter hash tag.

“We’re not going to work the bill,” he said. “House Bill 2453 is kaput.”

Why the change in heart?  Oh, Kansas Republicans are still gay-hating bigots, but Kansas businesses stepped in and told the GOP to knock it off because the legislation (and the impending boycotts and lawsuits it would produce) would affect their bottom lines.

One of Kansas' largest employers is joining a myriad of other companies in opposing a bill some say would discriminate against gay couples.

Sprint Corp., which employs 7,600 people locally and ranks third on the Kansas City Business Journal's Top Area Private-Sector Employers list, said Monday that it disagrees with the "protecting religious freedom" measure. If passed, House Bill 2453 would allow businesses and government entities to deny same-sex couples goods and services on the basis of religious freedom.

"At Sprint, we have a commitment to inclusion and having a workplace that is supportive of all employees," Sprint spokesman John Taylor wrote in an email. "Inclusion and diversity serve as guiding principles for our company. They help us create an atmosphere fostering creativity and effectiveness, providing employees, suppliers, customers and members of the community an opportunity to feel included and valued."

The Overland Park-based telecom company joins AT&T Inc. and other Kansas businesses in protesting the bill. Among the organizations are Kansas City Power & Light Co. and theWichita Independent Business Association.

Bottom line:  any big national or international corporation doing business in Kansas under this legislation would have a host of legal, public relations, and ethical nightmares to deal with, all thanks to the idiots in the Kansas GOP,  so they stepped in and reminded the Republicans exactly who they work for. When bigotry affects the quarterly earnings reports, the people who really run the GOP get that culture war nonsense sorted out in record time.

Discrimination against customers is bad for business?  Who knew?  The only color on the rainbow flag that matters to the corporate wing of the GOP is green.  Interfere with that, and suddenly the Tea Party gets miraculously handled.

Funny how that works.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/02/18/3297322/kansas-senate-kills-controversial.html#storylink=cpy

Rush (Holt): A Farewell To Kings (Of Science)

New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt, the party's point man on science and technology legislation and former research physicist, is leaving the House after twelve years.

Mr. Holt is perhaps most popularly known as the five-time “Jeopardy!” champion who later won a celebrity round against Watson, the IBM supercomputer. In and around Princeton, where he had been assistant director of the Plasma Physics Laboratory, bumper stickers on Priuses proudly proclaim “My Congressman IS a Rocket Scientist.”

He has consistently pushed for more money for scientific research, and better science education, securing $22 billion for research in the stimulus bill, and grants of $16,000 for students who prepare to teach math, science or foreign languages.

“I’m not sure we have anyone in the Congress with his level of deep understanding of what it is going to take for the American scientific enterprise to thrive in the future,” said Shirley M. Tilghman, a molecular biologist and former president of Princeton.

Among his other accomplishments, Mr. Holt said he was proudest of getting “tens of millions” of dollars for suicide prevention among members of the military, and for securing state matching programs for land and water conservation. He also helped arrange citizenship for the family of a Pakistani man killed in a hate crime in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Particularly as Tea Party Republicans challenged the science of climate change in recent years, Mr. Holt argued vociferously for the importance of what he called “evidence based” debates.

Democrats will keep the seat pretty easily, I would expect, and I didn't always agree with him.  But the country will miss his intelligence, and he was one of the few NY/NJ politicians to admit that Palestinians actually qualify as human beings.  Go figure.