The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play

Spoilers for a 30-year old Matthew Broderick/Ally Sheedy movie:  In the end, the AI running the Pentagon's nuclear missile program realizes that 80's era nuclear war is bad with the above title quote.  Fast forward to Washington DC today and Democrats have again hit upon this same quote as the correct response to the GOP's ludicrous Benghazi idiocy.

Although the GOP bill creating the select committee passed the House on Thursday, the offices of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are in talks to define rules that will govern the panel in the face of Democratic allegations that Republicans simply want to embarrass the White House ahead of this year's elections.

With that in mind, Republicans proposed several overtures on Friday, which were soundly rejected by the Democrats.

"I consider it a slap in the face," Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said after a closed-door meeting with Democratic leaders in Pelosi's office in the Capitol. "It is actually worse than the current situation that we have in Oversight and Government Reform [Committee]. It's a step backwards."

In a Friday letter to Boehner, Pelosi echoed that message.

"Regrettably, the proposal does not prevent the unacceptable and repeated abuses committed by [Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)] in any meaningful way, and we find it fundamentally unfair," Pelosi wrote.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said, "The ball is in their court."

Hopefully Democrats will continue to remember this lesson.  For the GOP to get any traction on this mess, they require willing participation from the Democrats to give the circus any sort of legitimacy.  All the Democrats have to do is refuse to oblige them.

And We're Back To Dinosaur Steve Again

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has made me proud on several occasions with his vocal defense of Obamacare and our state's exchange, Kynect, continues to serve as an example to the rest of the nation.  Kentucky has reduced its uninsured by almost 40% under the program, by any measure an astonishing success.

But don't ask him any questions about same-sex marriage, because then he turns into a bigoted old Southern white guy.

In February, a federal judge ruled that Kentucky must recognize same-sex couples’ marriages from other states, a decision that was stayed pending appeal. Gov. Steve Beshear (D), who hired outside counsel because of Attorney General Jack Conway’s (D) unwillingness to defend the state’s ban, has filed his first brief in the appeal, presenting a novel economic argument against recognizing same-sex marriage.

Beshear’s argument to the Sixth Circuit echoes claims made by many other states defending marriage bans. Notably, because same-sex couples cannot “naturally procreate,” they are “not similarly situated to man-woman couples” and thus do not deserve the same benefits of marriage. Same-sex marriage, the brief argues, is a “new right,” so the state’s ban does not violate same-sex couples’ equal protection when it comes to marriage. But Beshear applies these assumptions in a new way: because same-sex couples do not contribute to the birth rate, it’s not economically beneficial for Kentucky to recognize their marriages.

“Though there is a cost to Kentucky by granting tax and other benefits to man-woman couples, a stable or growing birth rate offsets the cost,” the brief argues. “Only man-woman relationships can naturally procreate, and only those relationships, therefore, are afforded the state sponsored benefit.”

Which may be the most moronic statement I've ever read the man make, given all the time I'm lived here.  How many childless couples are married in Kentucky?  I'd like to know the percentage, because under Beshear's excruciatingly stupid logic, they don't deserve the benefits of marriage either.  What about infertile couples?  Are we now going to take marriage benefits away from them?

Is this clown serious?

I expect this kind of rank idiocy from Republicans, but not from Steve Beshear.  If there's any part of his record that is abysmal, it's his stance on LGBTQ folks in the Bluegrass State. Steve seems to think they don't exist.

Thankfully, Jack Conway has filed to run to succeed Dinosaur Steve as Governor in 2015, and I'm hoping that he can pull it off.

By the way, add Arkansas to the list of states where a federal judge has struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, his first visit to the region since it was annexed by Russian forces.
• South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has signed a cease fire with rebel forces on Friday to stop five months of bloodshed in the country.
• An Arkansas judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by shareholders against Wal-Mart over losses incurred when the company's Mexican division came under bribery scrutiny in 2012.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another record high on Friday as broader markets fell for the week.
• AT&T once again is telling the FCC not to reclassify broadband internet as a telecommunications service with common carrier rules, but critics are saying it's necessary to save net neutrality.

Last Call For The People's Republic Of Bundystan

The FBI is finally looking into the de facto state of citizen martial law that exists near the Bundy Ranch in Nevada.  Yes, those "sovereign citizen" domestic terrorist types are still there and Bundy as his supporters are still trying to do everything they can to precipitate a deadly showdown with law enforcement.  From Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS-TV:

The I-Team has confirmed that FBI agents have launched a formal investigation into alleged death threats, intimidation and possible weapons violations that culminated with a dangerous showdown on April 12, and the first people to be interviewed by FBI agents are Metro Police, starting with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillispie.

Federal employees suspended their roundup of Cliven Bundy's cattle, following a confrontation outside the BLM compound near Bunkerville. At the urging of Metro Police, Bundy's cattle were released, but BLM's new director announced the matter wasn't over and would be resolved, one way or another.

Last week, the I-Team talked with Metro officers who intervened to protect the lives of federal employees from the 400 or so Bundy supporters and armed militia members. Officers told the I-Team they feared for their lives that day because of the assembled firepower, and because many in the crowd had pointed weapons at officers, taunted them, told them they should be ready to die.

Assistant Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who was left in charge of the Metro contingent by Sheriff Doug Gillespie, told the I-Team that such alleged behavior would be the subject of a criminal investigation.

"The federal authorities are conducting an investigation and I am pretty confident it is going to go into the future," Lombardo said.

He added there would be consequences for someone caught on videotape pointing a gun at a Metro office or federal ranger.

"Yes, there is definitely going to be consequences, definitely. That is unacceptable behavior. If we let it go, it would continue into the future," Lombardo said.

The I-Team has learned that Lombardo was interviewed by FBI agents earlier this week. The first person to be questioned by the FBI team was Lombardo's boss, Sheriff Gillespie.

OK, so the investigation is coming at least.  That's good, I just hope nobody gets hurt in the process.  These guys really, really do want to kill some feds and frankly I'm surprised nobody's been hurt yet.  We'll see.

Mr. 47 Percent Meets The Minimum Wage

Mittens has decided that the unwashed masses who do that "work" thing might deserve a few extra of those "dollars" on the low end of things, just to make it up to them for the awful drudgery of their lives.

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Friday that he believes the Republican Party ought to get on board with raising the minimum wage.

"I part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage. I think we ought to raise it," Romney said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Because frankly our party is all about more jobs and better pay, and I think communicating that is important to us."

The former Massachusetts governor had waffled on the issue during the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. He first expressing support for indexing the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation before asserting there was no need to raise it. Romney didn't say on "Morning Joe" how much of a minimum wage increase he would support.

Romney also argued that income inequality has grown during the Obama administration, hitting black and Hispanic families particularly hard. That gives the GOP an opportunity to court those minority communities, he said.

"Key for our party is to be able to convince the people who are in the working population, particularly the Hispanic community, that our party will help them get better jobs and better wages," he said.

Why of course those people will be thanking Mitt and the GOP for raising the minimum wage and wouldn't credit President Obama and the Democrats at all.  Why, that's just the sharp thinking that got Mitt Romney elected as President in 2012, by gum.

Of course, Mitt's just opened up a huge can of worms for the rest of the GOP field of hopefuls, who now have to come up with a stance on the minimum wage (or flip flop on it like Mitt did).

Romney responded by noting that as governor, he had vetoed a bill to raise the minimum wage in Massachusetts. 

“I vetoed it and I said, look, the way to deal with minimum wage is this: On a regular basis, I said in the proposal I made, every two years, we should look at the minimum wage, we should see what’s happened to inflation, we should also look at the jobs level throughout the country, unemployment rate, competitive rates in other states or, in this case, other nations,” he said.

Now it's okay I guess.

Dear America:

"Benghazi is THE END of Obama, do you hear me?  THE END of Obama and THE END of the Democrat Party and THE END of liberalism and it will all come crashing down around and THEN WHAT, LIBTARDS?  THEN WHAT?!?!

Facts?  Umm...BENGHAZI! I WIN!"

--Ron Christie, Daily Beast

Bonus Verbatim Stupid:

The Obama administration has misled, dissembled, and otherwise given the finger to the families of those who lost their lives that night in service to their country. I’m willing to believe that the personnel on the ground in Benghazi were terrified, confused, and hoping the cavalry was on its way to save them from terrorists seeking to kill them. We need a Special Select Committee on Benghazi to ascertain these facts and ensure that such a disaster never occurs again. We need truth, not bullsh*t, from the president and his administration, but so far, that’s all they’ve been shoveling.

I'm willing to believe that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans were terrified, confused, and hoping the cavalry was on its way too during the Bush administration, but we were too busy murdering them for being brown..  But it sure is fun to pretend that there's some grand cover-up that resulted in four dead bodies when Bush's incompetence cost us a couple thousand times that.

I'm sure this will somehow cause real problems for President Obama's re-election campaign.

StupidiNews!

• Vermont Democrat Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed into law the nation's first measure to require labeling of genetically modified foods.
• The FEC has given the go-ahead for political donations of up to $100 in Bitcoins for political action committees.
• The $35 billion merger between US advertising giant Omnicom and French rival group Publicis has been scrapped as the companies have not been able to resolve issues with the deal.
• Apple is close to a deal to buy music streaming service provider and headphone maker Beats for $3.2 billion as the tech giant considers moving into the arena with Spotify and Pandora.
• A surveillance camera in Milwaukee has vindicated a woman arrested for drunk driving as the footage showed the arresting officer actually ran a stop sign and hit the woman's car.

Last Call For The Hagan Defense

Hey look, a Democrat who's smart enough to read the polls!

In a flipping of the proverbial script, a Senate Democrat facing a tough re-election race used a confirmation hearing of Sylvia Mathews Burwell, nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, to advocate forcefully in favor of Obamacare. 

While Republican senators mostly went through the motions with their anti-Obamacare talking points or outright endorsed Burwell as Kathleen Sebelius's replacement, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) used her time to trumpet the benefits of Medicaid expansion -- and emphasize the downside of not expanding. 

Left unsaid, but strongly implied, was that her opponent, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, who locked up the GOP nomination earlier this week, had been instrumental in stopping the state from expanding Medicaid under the law.

"Last year in North Carolina, our state legislature and governor decided against expanding the state's Medicaid program," Hagan said as she started her questioning, "and as a result, about 500,000 people who would have qualified for coverage through Medicaid are not now able to do so." 

"These are some of the most vulnerable in our society," she said, "who will continue to seek care in emergency rooms and then will leave chronic conditions unmanaged, which we know is detrimental to their health and the economy."

Thom Tillis cost 500,000 North Carolinians health insurance, but somehow Kay Hagan is going to lose by 20 points.  Okay, sure.  That makes sense.  You go with that, Republicans.

Time, Thom, And Toddlers

Meet Thom Tillis, former GOP Speaker of the NC House, who survived his US Senate primary and reached 45%, enough to stave off any runoff nonsense.  He's going after Sen. Kay Hagan's seat, and his first interview after winning the primary Tuesday was with Chuck Todd(ler).  The latest polls had Hagan up by 2 in a prospective race with Tillis.

Didn't go so well for Thom, as Chuck played a clip of Tillis's more ridiculous statements from 2011.



In fact, it went very poorly for him.

The newly-minted Republican contender in what could be one of November’s key Senate races says he regrets using the words “divide and conquer” in a 2011 speech while describing those who are dependent on government assistance.

“Yeah, I do,” North Carolina GOP candidate Thom Tillis said Wednesday on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown when asked by host Chuck Todd if he regrets the use of the word “conquer.”

But Tillis, who secured the GOP nomination in last night’s primary election, also said he was referring to the abuse of public assistance funds by those who do not “desperately need the safety net” – a position he believes is backed by voters in North Carolina.

Tillis's actual words are pretty typical of his Tea Party platform.

The GOP contender is under fire for comments he made in an unearthed 2011 video. “What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance,” he said at the time. “We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice, in her condition, that needs help and that we should help. And we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government and say at some point, ‘You’re on your own. We may end up taking care of those babies, but we’re not going to take care of you.’”

Democrats have compared the comments to Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remarks.

Let them eat cake, he says.  Oh but his pure contempt for the working class got much worse as you can see in the clip when the topic turned to the minimum wage.

On Wednesday, Tillis, who is the state House Speaker of North Carolina, also declined repeatedly to say whether he supports raising the minimum wage in the state.

Asked if he supports a federal hike, he responded that “minimum wage decisions need to be made by the state.”

But he would not say how his home state should address it, calling it “a decision that the legislature needs to make with businesses.”

“We’ve got a president and Kay Hagan that want to create a minimum wage economy,” he said. “What I want to do is create jobs that make minimum wage irrelevant."

That's the most stupid argument against raising the minimum wage I think I've ever heard, mainly because he's choosing to do nothing for the people working minimum wage jobs now.  Wanting to create jobs that pay more than the minimum wage is great, but how does that help the folks earning that today?

Secondly, as speaker of the NC House, Tillis had the ability to introduce and bring up for a vote legislation to create jobs or raise the minimum wage.  He chose instead to implement the most draconian unemployment insurance cuts in the nation, cuts so ridiculous that the state no longer qualifies for any federal unemployment assistance because if you lose your job in the state, your maximum benefit is $350 a week.

Below the poverty line, or about $8.75 a hour.  That'll feed a family, right?

Tillis fumbled for a good two minutes on if raising the minimum wage was something he could support.  And just like that, Tillis is now looking for the bunker to hide in.

Benghazi Forever And Ever, Amen

GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the newly installed Park Ranger at Orange Julius's Benghazi Land Fun-Time World, gives away that the game is to keep Benghazi-ing all the way through November 2016.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said the special committee he'll lead on Benghazi could continue into the 2016 campaign, when Hillary Clinton might be running for the White House. 

Asked about that possibility Wednesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Gowdy said the length of his work would depend on the administration’s level of cooperation.

“It would be shame on us if we intentionally dragged this out for political expediency,” said Gowdy, the special committee's chairman. “On the other hand, if an administration is slow-walking document production, I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.” 

Clinton is a core figure in the Benghazi story, since she was the secretary of State when terrorists attacked the U.S. diplomatic annex in Benghazi, Libya. The attack left four Americans dead, including Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

Some Democrats suspect Republicans want to keep Benghazi in the news to try to hurt Clinton if she runs for the White House in 2016, as expected.

Gowdy said a memo that came to light last week, in which deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes set out “goals” for the administration’s response, but which was not turned over by the administration earlier, was evidence of a cover-up.

Demand concrete evidence of cover-up from the Obama administration, and when it magically fails to appear because there's no cover-up, state that the lack of evidence is in fact proof the cover-up exists and demand concrete evidence of the cover-up. Repeat infinitely!  Sell tickets.

This is the GOP plan for the next 30 months, so get used to it.  Don't want to get used to it?  Vote the assholes out.  Real simple.

Oh, and this is the cover-up Congress should be investigating: Okahoma GOP Gov. Mary Fallin's role in last week's botched, bungled, cruel, unusual, immoral and unconstitutional execution of Clayton Lockett.

StupidiNews!

• House Republicans voted 231-187 to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, setting up a possible lengthy court battle over her prosecution by he Department of Justice.
• Scientists have successfully bred a bacteria that can carry artificial, man-made DNA sequences that function as a third set of DNA base pairs.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a postponement of any independence referendums in eastern Ukraine in a clear sign that Moscow is looking to de-escalate tensions.
• Meanwhile, tensions are rising in the South China Sea as the Philippines and Vietnam are pushing back against China's efforts to take over disputed maritime areas.
• London's police force will be testing 500 cameras to be worn by officers as they interact with citizens, something civil rights advocates is sorely needed to help prevent police brutality.

Last Call For Rise Of The Planet Of The Morons

How to be a Republican, by NY state Senate candidate Jim Coughlan:

1) Go after MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry with an obvious racial slur like "damned dirty ape" on Twitter.

2) Plead ignorance to the fact that Melissa Harris-Perry is black, state that you've never seen her show, and basically say you've never heard of her when you get called out on it.

3) Wonder what the big deal is when you were just quoting Charlton Heston from a movie.

4) Wonder why are liberals so obsessed with race all the time.

5) Ignore the fact that you got in trouble for retweeting insulting, racist, and misogynist tweets three weeks earlier and that you deleted your Twitter account because of it.

6) Accuse intolerant, politically correct liberals of trying to drive you out of politics and claim your aggrieved white guy status.

7) Repeat as necessary until you win your election, or end up getting a lucrative job offer from the Right-Wing Outrage Machine.

It's that easy!

Time To Thai One Off

I've noted the ongoing crisis in Thailand in StupidiNews involving the corruption charges against Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra and the months of sometimes violent protests there.  All that got taken to a new level today as Thailand's highest court has now found her guilty on those corruption charges, and has immediately ordered her to step aside.

A Thai court ordered Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down on Wednesday after finding her guilty of abusing her power, prolonging a political crisis that has led to violent protests and brought the economy close to recession.

The decision is bound to anger supporters of Yingluck, but the court did allow ministers not implicated in the case against her to stay in office, a decision that could take some of the sting out of any backlash on the streets.

After the ruling, the cabinet said Commerce Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan, who is also a deputy prime minister, would replace Yingluck, and the caretaker government would press ahead with plans for a July 20 election.

"The caretaker government's responsibility now is to organize an election as soon as possible," said Niwatthamrong, a former executive in a company owned by Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother and himself a former prime minister who was ousted by the military in 2006.

"I hope the political situation will not heat up after this," Niwatthamrong said of the court ruling.

If all this seems very chummy and weird, that's because it is. Thailand desperately needs election and governmental reforms, but graft and favors are a way of life here (not that the legalized lobbyist version of this is any better here in America.)   But Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother, has basically been running the country in exile since 2001.  Forcing Yingluck out is certainly a step in the right direction, but the country has a long way to go.

She Blinded Science With Me

Sam Stein notes the latest effort by anti-science Republicans to strip funding from federal agencies that might actually conduct science rather than bow to the GOP corporate masters.  The bill is called the FIRST Act, and it would subject all projects for federal funding for the National Science Foundation to be reviewed by politicians, and not the scientific community for merit.

Titled the “Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act of 2014," the bill would put a variety of new restrictions on how funds are doled out by the National Science Foundation. The goal, per its Republican supporters on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, would be to weed out projects whose cost can't be justified or whose sociological purpose is not apparent.

For Democrats and advocates, however, the FIRST Act represents a dangerous injection of politics into science and a direct assault on the much-cherished peer-review process by which grants are awarded.

"We have a system of peer-review science that has served as a model for not only research in this country but in others," said Bill Andresen, the associate vice president of Federal Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania. "The question is, does Congress really think it has the better ability to determine the scientific merit of grant applications or should it be left up to the scientists and their peers?"

In recent weeks, the Obama administration and science agencies have -- in less-than-subtle terms -- offered up similar criticisms of the FIRST Act. At an American Association for the Advancement of Science forum on Thursday, presidential science adviser John Holdren said he was "concerned with a number of aspects" of the bill.

"It appears aimed at narrowing the focus of NSF-funded research to domains that are applied to various national interests other than simply advancing the progress of science," Holdren said.

And of course this bill designed to "combat waste and fraud" in federal science projects would really exist to allow Republicans to shut down things they don't like:  climate change research, green energy projects, and research into the social costs of things like firearms, pharmaceuticals, our food supply and anything else the GOP's corporate masters might be opposed to.  Republican politicians would be running America's science research.  If that sentence doesn't terrify you, nothing will.

Another part of the bill stipulates that if an investigator receives more than five years of funding from the NSF, he or she can only get additional funding by contributing "original creative, and transformative research under the grant." Ensuring that the government doesn't plow resources into stalled projects may be laudable. But scientists shudder at the idea that they, let alone politicians, can definitively tell whether research will pay dividends after half a decade.

These quips merely feed a larger problem that Democrats and the White House have with the bill. Rather than offering a single budget level for the NSF, the FIRST Actauthorizes levels for individual directorates, or sub-agencies, within the foundation. The big winners in this equation are the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering and the Directorate for Engineering. The loser is the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, which is poised to get a 22 percent budget cut from fiscal year 2014 levels.

So yes, the bill is designed to crush long-term projects like climate science, social science, and green energy and instead empower the stuff corporations can use to make big money fast.  That's what "science" means to Republicans.

StupidiNews!

• Under heavy criticism, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan continues to defend his country's response to the mass kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram.
• New Orleans FOX affiliate WVUE is apologizing to viewers for a "technical glitch" that interrupted Sunday's "Cosmos" episode explaining climate change and evolution.
• Chinese search engine giant Alibaba is set for a US stock market IPO that could surpass Facebook's $16 billion initial haul.
• In the first reported human case of H5N6 bird flu, a Chinese man in Sichuan province has died from the disease but officials say the risk of spreading the virus remains low.
• A House panel is expected to vote today on ending the NSA's phone metadata collection program and forcing the government to get information directly from telco providers under court order instead.