StupidiNews!

• Russia has officially been kicked out of the G8 group of nations in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
• The White House is preparing new guidelines to curb much of the NSA's mass collection of metadata information.
• China is disputing and demanding evidence backing Malaysia's findings that lost Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people aboard.
• Jurors in the trial of five Bernie Madoff aides reached guilty verdicts on all 31 counts of assisting the convicted fraudster in his $17.5 billion scam.
• Microsoft's purchase of phone maker Nokia won't be finalized until the end of next month as regulators in Asia are still inspecting the deal.

Last Call For Detective Christie

Good news everyone!  The hand-picked team of lawyers working for Chris Christie's office have found that Chris Christie is 100%, totally innocent of any wrongdoing in an incident stemming from Chris Christie having less than honest people in his office!

An internal review of the George Washington Bridge lane closures is reportedly set to be released, and the news on its face is good for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

The New York Times got advance word of the results of the review, which was conducted by high-priced lawyers at Christie's behest. The final tally: 70 interviews, at least $1 million in legal fees to be paid by taxpayers, and no evidence that the Republican governor was involved in the plotting or orchestrating of the lane closures.

I'm sure New Jersey taxpayers are thrilled!

The Times pointed out two caveats. For one, the firm that conducted the investigation, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, has known ties to the Christie administration. Second, the lawyers that conducted the investigation were unable to interview the three key players at the heart of the scandal: former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly, former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien, and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive David Wildstein.

So after not asking the people who would actually know if Christie did anything wrong, Christie spent a million in taxpayer bucks to find out that he didn't do anything wrong.

Gosh, that should put an end to this entire circus, yes?

Even Cap'n Ed at Hot Air doesn't buy this crap (but he takes time to scream about Benghazi like the knee-jerk goon he is.)  Still, Christie seems to be getting increasingly bad at handling this scandal by the week.  How's he supposed to handle this at the White House level?

Meanwhile, In Ukraine...

After getting rolled all last week by Russian troops and losing several military bases, Ukraine announced that it is pulling military forces out of Crimea.

Ukraine announced the evacuation of its troops and their families from Crimea on Monday, effectively acknowledging defeat in the face of Russian forces, who stormed one of the last remaining Ukrainian bases on the peninsula.

Thousands of Ukrainian troops have been besieged on bases in Crimea, offering no armed resistance but refusing to surrender, since President Vladimir Putin declared Moscow's right to intervene at the start of the month.

Moscow formally annexed the region last week and its forces have been seizing the last Ukrainian bases in recent days.

"The National Defence and Security Council has instructed the Defence Ministry to carry out a re-deployment of military units in Crimea and evacuate their families," acting president Oleksander Turchinov told parliament in Kiev.

The move, he said, had been made following threats by Russian forces on the lives and health of Ukrainian service staff and their families.

Russian forces, using stun grenades and machine guns and backed by two helicopters, swept into a marine base in the port of Feodosia early on Monday, overrunning one of Ukraine's last symbols of resistance. Ukrainian officers were taken away for questioning, Ukrainian officials said.

An official withdrawal from the base was due to start at 3 p.m., Ukrainian military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said.

Effectively the military phase of this is now over.  The question is will more military phases come with more captured territory?  Ukraine's forces are routed, and Putin now has Crimea in name as well as in deed.

So what's next, and does anyone think Putin will stop here?

Classless Warfare

Check out this goofy ass NY Times op-ed on why people born in wealthy counties with high median incomes end up being notable.

Why do some parts of the country appear to be so much better at churning out American movers and shakers? I closely examined the top counties. It turns out that nearly all of them fit into one of two categories.

First, and this surprised me, many of these counties consisted largely of a sizable college town. Just about every time I saw a county that I had not heard of near the top of the list, like Washtenaw, Mich., I found out that it was dominated by a classic college town, in this case Ann Arbor, Mich. The counties graced by Madison, Wis.; Athens, Ga.; Columbia, Mo.; Berkeley, Calif.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Gainesville, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; and Ithaca, N.Y., are all in the top 3 percent.

Why is this? Some of it is probably the gene pool: Sons and daughters of professors and graduate students tend to be smart. And, indeed, having more college graduates in an area is a strong predictor of the success of the people born there.

But there is most likely something more going on: early exposure to innovation. One of the fields where college towns are most successful in producing top dogs is music. A kid in a college town will be exposed to unique concerts, unusual radio stations and even record stores. College towns also incubate more than their expected share of notable businesspeople.

Could you tell this guy graduated from Harvard?  His name is Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, and apparently his degree is in Missing the Effing Obvious. Over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Erik Loomis takes about 15 seconds to deconstruct this nonsense.

Or, it’s because you are born rich or you are born poor and that fact goes a very long ways in determining your future in this nation. Even his discussion of African-Americans and immigrants shows this–his examples are people born into the elites of these groups. It’s remarkable how obvious this is and how he totally misses this in a 21st century America where class-based analysis is unfashionable.

 It's not remarkable at all, he's a Harvard man!

All college jokes aside, it's still not remarkable for any recent college doctoral graduate to miss the forest for the trees like this, but rather rare for them to get NY Times op-eds while doing it.

StupidiNews!

• At least four are dead and 18 missing in a series of landslides in Washington State north of Seattle over the weekend.
• France's far right National Front party made major gains against the country's Socialist coalition in Sunday's local elections.
• NATO's top commander in Europe is warning that Russian aggression in Crimea may spread into neighboring Moldova.
• Chinese investors are calling for transparency in the country's trust and investment products as the government cracks down on "shadow banking".
• Apple wants to cut a deal with Comcast for preferential treatment for its new streaming service, but the deal faces regulatory hurdles until at least 2018.

Last Call For Rand 2016

Elias Isquith (who I don't always agree with) does get it right on why Rand Paul has no shot in 2016.

To recap, here’s the case for Rand Paul, millennial hero: He’s against surveillance and drone strikes, two issues on which the millennial vote is divided; he’s against comprehensive immigration reform and same-sex marriage, two things that millennial voters strongly support; he’s against big government and universal health care, two more things a majority of millennial voters back; and he likes to talk about getting people of color to vote for him, despite supporting voter suppression and the right of businesses to engage in race-based discrimination. Oh, and he’s comfortable telling the first black president, the one who “surrounds himself with Martin Luther King memorabilia in [the] Oval Office,” how he’s failing to live up to King’s legacy.

So can we stop with this nonsense now? Please?

It's very true that the youth vote won 2012 for President Obama, particularly in Virginia, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  It's also true that voting restrictions have been toughened in all four of these states.  President Obama won the under 30 vote in all four states by getting at least 60% or more, and that if Romney had split the youth vote 50-50 in those four states, he'd be President right now.

But in order to believe that Rand Paul has a legitimate shot of winning in 2016, you have to believe that there's a large enough Dudebro contingent to abandon the Dems entirely and that this group is  large enough to somehow erase Hillary's lead with women, and that Hillary will somehow manage to alienate voters of color more than Rand Paul.

The first is wishful thinking at best, but the second is patently ridiculous.

Hillary, Super Frenemy

Expect to see a lot of this over the next few years from Hillary Clinton:

During a forum at the Clinton Global Initiative University, Clinton fielded a question from Vrinda Agrawal, a student at the University of California, Berkeley who asked, "If you don't represent women in politics in America as a future president, who will?"

More than 1,000 students roared with approval and applauded while former President Bill Clinton smiled, whispered into TV host Jimmy Kimmel's ear and clapped along.

The former first lady said she appreciated the sentiment but was still deciding.

"I am very much concerned about the direction of our country and it's not just who runs for office but what they do when they get there and how we bring people together and particularly empower young people so we can tackle these hard decisions," Clinton said.

She worked for the guy in charge of that for four years as Secretary of State, but now she's "very much concerned about the direction of the country" and stuff.

Some quality shade throwing there.  As a professional politician and diplomat, she knows exactly how to walk that line between being an ally of our President (and the people who voted twice for him) and open "I told you so back in 2008" disrespect, running against him.

She's only getting started.  As such, new tag: With Frenemies Like This...

Nate Silver On The Senate

Nate Silver's first Senate forecast at his new digs is pretty sobering:  he sees easy GOP pickups of Democratic open seats in West Virginia and South Dakota (90%),  John Walsh losing badly in Montana (80%), Mitch McConnell easily keeping his seat here in Kentucky (75%) and the GOP keeping Georgia's open seat vacated by Saxby Chambliss (70%), Mark Pryor losing in Arkansas (70%) and at best, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Mark Begich and the open seat in Michigan as toss-ups.

That's four solid pickups for the GOP and four Dem seats that are tossups, plus Mark Udall in Colorado having only a 60% chance of winning.  That puts nine Dem seats in play where the GOP essentially has two outright, most likely has four and a very good shot at getting the six they need.

Martin Longman disagrees about Nate's West Virginia 90% GOP probability call:

Jay Rockefeller's seat in the Senate has been in Democratic hands for all but eight years since FDR's 1933 inauguration and was last held by a Republican in 1958, when John D. Hoblitzell, Jr. was appointed as a temporary replacement for Sen. Matthew Neely.

Joe Manchin's seat in the Senate was held by Robert Byrd for 51 years. Republican Henry Hatfield lost the seat in 1934, and the GOP has only controlled it briefly (November 7, 1956 – January 3, 1959) since that time.

What this says is that West Virginian's are simply not in the habit of electing Republicans to state-wide office, especially for high-profile races.

Yes, the state has changed over the last two decades, and it is remarkably hostile to our multiracial president. But, the same day that Obama was elected president, Joe Manchin was reelected as governor with 70% of the vote. Manchin was then elected to serve in the Senate twice, the second time earning over 60% of the vote on a ballot he shared with Obama. West Virginians also elected Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin to replace Manchin as governor that same election day.

To which I reply that here in Kentucky, we elected and then re-elected Democrat Steve Beshear to succeed Ernie Fletcher, the first Republican governor we had since 1971.  Fletcher's administration crashed and burned in scandal.

But we haven't had a Democratic senator since 1998 and Nate puts better odds of that happening than West Virginia.  Very similar states, Kentucky's registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1, and yet Mitch will probably win by 15 points.  They hate Obama in West Virginia.  They hate him even more here in Kentucky.

Having said that, Nate's warning on that "enthusiasm gap" is real.

A tie on the generic ballot might not sound so bad for Democrats. But it’s a misleading signal, for two reasons. First, most of the generic ballot polls were conducted among registered voters. Those do not reflect the turnout advantage the GOP is likely to have in November. Especially in recent years, Democrats have come to rely on groups such as racial minorities and young voters that turn out much more reliably in presidential years than for the midterms. In 2010, the Republican turnout advantage amounted to the equivalent of 6 percentage points, meaning a tie on the generic ballot among registered voters translated into a six-point Republican lead among likely voters. The GOP’s edge hadn’t been quite that large in past years. But if the “enthusiasm gap” is as large this year as it was in 2010, Democrats will have a difficult time keeping the Senate.

If Dems don't show up in November, Republicans will control the Senate.

California Sleazin'

If you're wondering how and why the GOP has effectively walked completely away from California, the biggest electoral prize in the nation and home to one in seven US voters, it probably has something to do with the candidates they have.

One of four gubernatorial candidates introduced to California Republicans recently is a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade in state prison, convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape.

Glenn Champ, 48, addressed hundreds of GOP delegates and supporters Sunday at the site of the state party's semi-annual convention. Introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte and allotted 10 minutes, Champ spoke in between the main GOP candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.

Champ, a little-known political neophyte from the Fresno County community of Tollhouse, did not directly mention his criminal past during his speech but said, "In my life, I've been held accountable because of my stupidity. I do not want anyone else to be enslaved because of their lack of knowledge."

But he's a serious candidate.

Champ's rap sheet is lengthy. Court records show that in 1992, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed firearm. In 1993, he was convicted of two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and as a result was placed on the state's sex-offender registry.

In March 1998, he accepted a plea deal on a charge of loitering to solicit a prostitute; later that year, he pleaded no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge after hitting a man with his vehicle, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in state prison, according to court records.

This guy is a violent criminal.  I understand he's served his time, but check out his version of remorse:

Champ said his life experience could help him deal with politicians in Sacramento. He calls them criminals, saying, for example, that they routinely infringe upon constitutionally protected gun rights.

"I know what the criminal mind thinks, and I know how it works and I know how to stop it, and that's something [other politicians] don't get," Champ said.

The convicted violent sex offender and rapist is the real victim here, because anyone who wants reasonable gun safety laws is the real criminal.  Please, Republicans, why would you not want to nominate this awesome human being for governor of California?  He stands for everything the Republican Party stands for, after all.

Our Liberal Media Strikes Again

Cry not for professional news martyr Sharyl Attkisson (who quit CBS news because she wasn't allowed to scream BENGHAZI loudly enough.)  She's doing fine as the new conservative talk show darling, railing against the liberal bias that pervades our news media (although strangely not the large block of coordinated conservative media sources in America.)  She was railing again today in Philly about the debunked and retracted story that the White House gives interviewers questions to ask in interviews with the President.

Another conservative media personality isn't quite ready to let go of the Arizona news anchor's retracted claim that White House reporters give press secretary Jay Carney their questions in advance.

Philadelphia talk radio host Chris Stigall spoke Friday with former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, a favorite journalist of conservatives who resigned from the network earlier this month, reportedly because she thought it had a liberal bias.

Naturally, Stigall asked for Attkisson's thoughts about Catherine Anaya, the Phoenix television anchor who made the claim about the White House reporters earlier this week on-air during a visit to Washington before quickly retracting it and apologizing.

On his show on Friday, the day after the retraction, Stigall provided credulous coverage of the story reminiscent of other conservative sources. He perfunctorily noted that the anchor "retracted" the story, right before he read the original claim and asked Attkisson for her take on Anaya's "off-handed observation."

"So, is this woman just misunderstanding what she saw or is it true?" he asked.

Attkisson made clear that she hadn't actually heard Anaya's comments and said that she never saw questions provided in advance during her occasional stints at White House press briefings. But she said she "wouldn't be surprised if sometimes there is that sort of level of cooperation with some questions that want to be asked."

"I didn't actually see that going on, but that's because LIBERAL BIAS ARGLE BARGLE."

Frankly, FOX just needs to hire her so she can go on her daily hate rant against the President.  She'll be very happy.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Mt. Gox CEO Mark Kapales says some 200,000 Bitcoins have been recovered in a digital wallet previously thought to be lost.
• Creationists upset with Fox's "Cosmos" are demanding the network give equal time to present their views.
• A federal judge gave final approval to a $218 million settlement for a class action suit against JPMorgan Chase relating to losses from convicted con man Bernie Madoff.
• President Obama will kick off a week-long trip to Europe in the Netherlands to consult with NATO allies over Russia's aggression towards Ukraine.
• The government of Turkish PM Recp Tayyip Erdogan has declared war on Twitter after users promoted a recorded conversation between him and his son.

Last Call For Another One Falls

Another state constitution banning same-sex marriage, another federal judge strikes it down on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.  This time, the state is Michigan:

Federal Judge Bernard Friedman gave his decision Friday, two weeks after the couple's trial against the ban. Friedman's ruling says the state's ban is "unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Doesn't get much more clear cut than that.

In 2004, the state of Michigan enacted the Defense of Marriage Act after it was passed by 59 percent of voters. The act argues that children benefit from living in homes of heterosexual couples.

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse sued the state of Michigan's federal court in an effort to overturn the state's ban on joint adoptions by same-sex couples. Friedman invited them to challenge the state's ban on same-sex marriage. They refiled the lawsuit and went to trial against the state's ban on gay marriage.

 The ruling is here.  Judge Friedman's conclusion:

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.

 Boom.  Won't be long now before SCOTUS is forced to act.

There's Christian, And Then There's "Christian"

Chase Martinson was a student at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Missouri, a Christian place of learning.  Emphasis on was, because after being readmitted and asked to join the school's honors program in January after taking a break from school, Chase's admission on Facebook that he is gay just got him kicked out of school.

In the words of Gandhi,  “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

In the letter, the Admissions’ Committee indicated that “[a]dmittance is open to academically and morally qualified students,” and that “[s]tudents at Hannibal-LaGrange should be in agreement with the student life guidelines set forth by the University.” The letter told him to review page 27 of the Hannibal-LaGrange student handbook, which defines “sexual impropriety” as “participation in, or appearance of, engaging in premarital sex, extramarital sex, homosexual activities, or cohabitations on or off campus.”

These guys know how to party.

Moreover, “[t]he promotion, and advocacy of, or ongoing practice of a homosexual lifestyle is contrary to institution expectations and is therefore prohibited.”

When Martinson spoke to head of admissions, he was again told to review the guidelines “because it was brought to his attention (surprise!) that I was outside of them[.]” He does not indicate who informed the admissions administration about his sexual preference.

In a Facebook update that he encouraged people to share, Martinson wrote that he was told that he didn’t represent “Christian values.”

“Well good thing Jesus Christ was never associated with sinners, thieves, prostitutes, cheats, the lame, etc.” he continued. “Hannibal-LaGrange University should be ashamed of itself, it’s repugnant.”

 I wonder if any students attend the school while receiving any federal student loans or grants. I would very much like to know the answer to that question.

Second of all, I'm betting the same "get government out of my face" people have little problem with this.  It's okay if the government is a Christian theocracy?

Chase meanwhile is going to attend University of Missouri - St. Louis this fall.  Good for him.

More Food Stamps For Thought

House Republicans were confident that cuts in food stamps this year (specifically punishing Democrats in northern blue states that took advantage of heating assistance to access additional SNAP money) would help turn voters against Obama in the midterms.  Only one problem:  Democrats in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states aren't playing along.

At issue is a provision in the farm bill, known as “heat and eat,” that allows people who receive benefits through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to also receive more nutrition assistance.

The idea behind the link was that low-income families should not have to choose between buying food and heating their home. But Congress has chafed at states that have sought to obtain more food stamp money by sending $1 LIHEAP checks to households that would not otherwise receive help.

To close what some lawmakers called a loophole, Congress increased the LIHEAP subsidy threshold to $20. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the change would save $8.6 billion over a decade, representing a majority of the spending cuts in the nearly $1 trillion farm bill.

Yet in the weeks since President Obama signed the law in February, seven of the 17 states that currently send nominal LIHEAP checks have announced plans to increase that aid to $20, so they can continue to access additional funding from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those states include Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Oregon, Montana, Massachusetts and New York. All of them, with the exception of Pennsylvania, have Democratic governors.

Orange Julius and the House GOP are furious and are promising yet more food stamp cuts to crack down on "cheating states", but the harder the House Republicans push on this, the meaner they look to voters.

And they know it.

StupidiNews!

Sorry about the last couple of days, StupidiNews is back and ready...

• The IRS is warning that a fake phone scam where crooks pretending to be IRS agents have stolen at least $1 million from thousands with demands for fake tax payments.
• Fred Phelps, the founder of the controversial and often reviled Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas has died at age 84 according to family members.
• The Treasury Department reports 29 of 30 major US banks have passed this year's capital stress tests, with the only exception being Zions Bancorp.
• Sanctions both against and by Russia continue to fly back and forth across the Atlantic, with Russian oil billionaire Gennady Timchenko the latest target.
• Bitcoin's software has gotten an upgrade to help plug the security flaw that brought down the Mt. Gox exchange.