More GOP Minority Outreach, Post-McDaniel Edition

Conservatives are fuming over the loss of Mississippi Tea Party darling Chris McDaniel to GOP Sen. Thad Cochran in Tuesday's GOP primary runoff, and really all they know about why McDaniel lost is that black people were allowed to vote and that kind of thing clearly has to be stopped.  El Rushbo led the charge...

Some conservatives aren't happy that their preferred candidate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) lost to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the runoff of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Many tea party types are openly speculating foul play and that Democrats and black voters were involved. Take Rush Limbaugh who wondered if Cochran's campaign slogan in Mississippi over the last few days was "Uncle Toms for Thad."

"I wonder what the campaign slogan was in Mississippi the past few days, 'Uncle Toms for Thad'? Because I thought it was the worst thing you could do as an African American, vote for a Republican. The worst thing you could do," Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "But somehow they were made to believe that voting for old Thad would be fine and dandy. And why? Because they were told Thad's done a lot for black people in Mississippi. Must be the first time they were told that."

 As a result, neighboring Alabama is calling for immediate laws to close that state's primaries.

The chairman of Alabama's Republican Party fears that Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran's (R) triumph Tuesday over a tea party primary challenger could have a ripple effect on runoff elections in his state unless party registration is implemented.

"I think what happened in Mississippi last night definitely sends a strong signal to us in Alabama that until we have party registration that same kind of thing could happen here in our state," Chairman Bill Armistead said, as quoted by AL.com.

And Moose Lady offered some more Authentic Frontier Gibberish.

"When an election is questionable, with potential legal violations, politics MUST be put aside and the irregularities MUST be fully investigated," Palin wrote on Facebook. "Regardless of party, we owe it to voters and to democracy within our Republic. The integrity of the vote speaks directly to the integrity of those who serve and the trust we ask the American public to put in our institutions."

To recap, the "irregularities" that Sarah Palin and others are screaming about being illegal is "black voters voting in an open primary to defeat a Tea Party candidate."  This is apparently against some sort of law somewhere that we just made up, and dammit, we have to be collectively punished by Republicans.

The fact that Mississippi is 38% African-American, nearly three times the national average, simply didn't occur to conservatives when it came to a state with an open primary system.  The real problem Republicans have with black voters is apparently when we are actually are allowed to vote.  Republicans want to resolve that little problem, and fast.

Just a reminder too that a year ago this week, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.  You're insane if you think today's Republican party will ever lift a finger to restore it. Because remember, Chief Justice Roberts assured us that racism is over in America when it came to voting, as evidenced by the reaction in Mississippi this week.

Clearly.

This Week In "What Domestic Terrorism Problem?"

I can't imagine why the state of New York would want to keep an eye on a group of law enforcement officers and military personnel, trained in the use of deadly force, who openly advocate ignoring state and federal laws they don't like.

An official with New York’s Oath Keepers organization denied the group held “far-right, anti-government views,” and then called on law enforcement officers to disobey orders and join them in their fight against socialist tyranny. 

John Wallace, vice president of the state’s Oath Keepers group, cited an alleged New York State Intelligence Center counterterrorism bulletin reportedly leaked to InfoWars that linked the organization and similar groups to the recent shootings of law enforcement officers by extremists. 

Wallace complains that the document, which has not been confirmed as legitimate, based its conclusions on news reports by “left-wing” and “communist” organizations such as the New York Times, Huffington Post, and CNN.

“What the state of New York has done, used left wing publications, organizations to identify the targets that they want to eliminate and put pressure on so that we stop doing what we’re doing,” Wallace said. “How can you be in favor of the Constitution, how can you take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and be a patriot, and be somehow put on a terrorist list made up and manufactured by basically communist organizations?”

I dunno, I'm gonna go with "openly advocating the direct disobeying of orders and state and federal laws while being an law enforcement officer."  No, this guy is totally stable, and we should reward him with extra points on his frequent gun and ammo loyalty card when making purchases for the Second Civil War.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, our friends at Bundy Ranch are still hanging out and being jerkbags, and they've discovered that since we don't actually have a domestic terrorism problem in the US, nobody's really going to care if they just choose to ignore laws they don't like, either.

Videos posted online show the scofflaw rancher’s supporters explaining their ideologies in lengthy lectures, such as one posted earlier this month that shows “private attorney general” Jeff Ball explaining that laws don’t apply to individuals if they understand how to rebut them. 

“I want to give you guys the basic chain of command, all right?” said Ball, of the Citizens Action Network. “Up at the top of this tree is the creator, whoever your creator is, that’s where the creator’s at. The one below that is you, okay? So your original contract was with the creator.”

Seems totally legit.

Ball argued that Americans had loaned out their sovereignty to public servants, but they reserve the right to take it back. 

“So when that governor, that sheriff, doesn’t do his job, we can go take them out of office,” he said. “We don’t have to wait for an election.”

Maybe these Bundy Ranch guys should hook up with the New York Oath Keepers.  Is it just me, or is this totally a situation where the Gatekeeper is looking for the Keymaster so they can open up Gozer the Gozerian's World O' Guns Emporium and Shooting Range?

StupidiNews!

• Facebook is the latest tech company to reveal that it has workplace diversity issues, with a workforce that's 69% white and 85% male.
• France leveled more attacks against internet governing body ICANN this week, accusing it of being "not the appropriate forum" anymore for controlling domain names.
• ISIS militarnts in Iraq continue to gain territory in the country, this time attacking the Iraqi air base near the Ajeel oil fields, while PM Nuri al-Malaki considers forming a new cabinet of ministers.
• Hospitals are using your purchasing data to flag high-risk patient behaviors in order to contact consumers about unhealthy choices, but critics say it's another privacy violation by Big Data.
• One scientist's solution to deadly Midwest tornadoes is simple enough: a series of 300 meter high walls to block tornado-forming airflows.

Last Call For Downward Revision Collisions

The latest adjustments by the Commerce Department to the first quarter numbers for the US economy were disheartening to say the least.

The beginning of the year was not just bad for the United States economy: It was, on paper at least, the worst quarter since the last recession ended five years ago. 

The Commerce Department revised its estimates of first-quarter gross domestic product Wednesday to show that the economy contracted at a 2.9 percent annual rate. A combination of shrinking business inventories, terrible winter weather and a surprise contraction in health care spending drove the first-quarter decline, which is the worst since the first quarter of 2009, when the economy shrank at a 5.4 percent rate. 

So what about the very real possibility that we're back in a recession thanks to these factors, and oh yeah, Republicans blocking any and every possible plan to help the economy along for the last five years?

What makes the sharply negative number all the more stunning is that it didn’t feel like an economic contraction at all in the first quarter. Employers kept adding jobs. Many measures of business activity and consumer confidence were stable. And forecasters are expecting a healthy pop of growth in the second quarter, which ends next week. 

But the economy was hit by an unlikely combination of negative forces that conspired to turn what seemed set to be another quarter of so-so growth into a considerably more gloomy experience.

Ironically the reduced spending in health care by the Affordable Care Act contributed to these numbers.  A 1% GDP increase in the healthcare sector turned into a 0.16% contraction instead, a huge chunk of the latest downward adjustment.

But there are reasons not to freak out, thankfully.

Economists described the number as "horrid" and "dreadful," but then shrugged it off. So did investors. In fact, stocks rose.

"Despite the awful start to the year, the U.S. economy is nowhere close to recession," said Sal Guatieri, senior economist for BMO Capital Markets.

Something to keep in mind.  It looks bad on paper, but it's not the end of the world, or the beginning of another recession.

GOP Islamic Outreach Continues

Republicans are apparently trying to expand their voter base to non-Christian religions like Islam.  And by "apparently trying to expand" I mean "denouncing Islam as a terrorist philosophy and not a religion, therefore it doesn't qualify for protections under the First Amendment."

Jody Hice, a Republican candidate for a U.S. House seat from Georgia, does not believe that Islam is truly a religion and doesn't think it should be protected under the First Amendment.

In his book published in 2012, "It's Now Or Never," Hice made some anti-Islamic statements, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Although Islam has a religious component, it is much more than a simple religious ideology,” he wrote. “It is a complete geo-political structure and, as such, does not deserve First Amendment protection.”

Hice is running in GA-10 for Paul Broun's old seat (as Broun is now running for Senate to replace Saxby Chambliss) and will be in a runoff primary on July 22.  Paul Broun is basically nuts, but Hice makes him look sane by comparison.

"Most people think Islam is a religion, It’s not. It’s a totalitarian way of life with a religious component. But it’s much larger. It’s a geo-political system that has governmental, financial, military, legal and religious components. And it’s a totalitarian system that encompasses every aspect of life and it should not be protected [under U.S. law]," he said.

"This is not a tolerant, peaceful religion even though some Muslims are peaceful. Radical Muslims believe that Sharia is required by God and must be imposed worldwide. It’s a movement to take over the world by force. A global caliphate is the objective," Hice continued.

So odds a pretty good that Georgia will send a bonkers right-wing nut job with his own radio show to Congress who is a full-on avowed bigot.  And because people in Broun's district are apparently also bigots, they'll gladly choose to be represented by him.  In fact, openly being an Islamophobic conspiracy theory spouting jackass makes it more likely in 2014 that Jody Hice will be elected to Congress.

Because America.

McDaniel's Last Stand

As I said earlier today, Mississippi GOP Sen. Thad Cochran barely survived his primary runoff against Tea Party challenger, Republican state Sen. Chris McDaniel.  Only one problem:  McDaniel refuses to concede and his Tea Party allies are looking to see what legal recourse they have in order to challenge the validity of the runoff.

The lawyer leading the tea party effort to ensure there is no improper voting in the race for U.S. Senate in Mississippi said he would review reports of poll watchers before announcing the next steps in support of state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-MS), who was narrowly defeated in the runoff election Tuesday night by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS).

"After I read the hundreds of pages of observer reports, I will have more information for you," the attorney, J. Christian Adams, said when asked whether they would challenge election results, according to MSNBC.

The real problem is the state's ridiculous primary laws, which state that while Mississippi has open primaries, you can't vote in a party primary runoff unless you "plan to support the party in the general election."  How the state has any power to enforce this law involving mind-reading and time travel, I have no clue.  That's what lawyers are for, apparently.

Earlier on Tuesday McDaniel refused to concede after various news outlets called the race for Cochran. Instead he suggested that his campaign would take new steps to fight the election results.

"Now it's our job to make sure that sanctity of the vote is upheld. Before this race ends we have to be absolutely certain that the Republican primary was won by Republican voters," McDaniel said.

All I do know is that it's looking like the Tea Party is going to bitch and whine about losing until someone does something about it.  Mississippi has no party registration, you see.  Will these clowns try to push this to the Supreme Court or something?  Who knows?

But let's waste some taxpayer money while we're at it, says the party of small government.

StupidiNews!

• Both NY House Democrat Charlie Rangel and MS GOP Senator Thad Cochran appear to have won their respective primaries last night by very slim margins.
• Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Stivers has accepted the resignation of his chief of staff, Adam Kuhn, after Kuhn's former girlfriend posted a picture of his penis on Twitter yesterday.
• Russia's upper chamber of parliament has agreed to revoke President Vladimir Putin's authorization to use military force to intervene in Ukraine as a gesture of goodwill.
• Meanwhile, White House officials are preparing a new round of sanctions against Russian energy and technology firms, sanctions that EU lawmakers may be very reluctant to agree to.
• A federal judge has found the process to challenge America's "no-fly list" unconstitutional, saying that DHS officials must disclose why a person was placed on the list in the first place.

Last Call For Ammo-merica The Beautiful

Welcome to the United States of Gun Fetishization, where our completely logical response to deadly firearm violence in our schools is training teachers to kill in self-defense.

In the heartland of a nation worn raw by school shootings, these teachers are now students, learning how to kill an armed intruder.

Most of their bullets find the intended pings; a few kick up red dirt of a berm. It’s a process.

In the year and a half since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, as America has struggled to find the answer to its epidemic of school shootings, some districts have decided that teachers are the ultimate first responders and need to learn to shoot back.

Four Missouri school districts recently sent staffers to this hilltop range for five days of firearms training. The instructors, all current law enforcement officers, refer to the teachers’ “unique situation” — essentially close-quarters combat while youngsters scream and run about.

“You have to pick your environment apart,” Jason Long, a lieutenant with the Howell County sheriff’s office, stresses to the class.

So, are these teachers ready to pull the trigger on a shooter? How about if it’s a kid they’ve had in class?

“None of us would be here if we haven’t already answered that question,” one man said.

There now.  Don't you feel better? 

Instead of the problem being guns in schools, the answer is more guns in schools.  That makes perfect sense, like saying "the problem with arson is we need to train people to burn down more buildings in order to try to kill arsonists before they can start fires."  I mean fire just a tool, fires don't kill people, people kill people.  Your local disposable lighter factory thanks you.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article595097.html#storylink=cp

Like A Kansas Tornado

Kansas Republicans, led by Gov. Sam Brownback, have all but destroyed the state's revenues with massive tax cuts for the state's wealthiest citizens and obliterated corporate taxes.  The stated goal was pure supply-side Laffer-curve madness: cut taxes enough and the resulting skyrocketing growth will create more revenues than lost through lowered taxes.  The reality has been a complete disaster, as predicted.

Kansas is the poster child for cutting taxes sharply in line with recommendations of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Its calls for deep tax cuts and limits on revenues and spending reflect extreme "supply side" and anti-tax arguments that mainstream economic research discredited long ago, as my Center on Budget and Policy Priroties colleagues explain here. 

Now, we see that these policies have been a budgetary disaster for Kansas. So much so, my CBPP colleague Nick Johnson reports, “that leaders in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and other states are expressing concern about the Kansas results and distancing themselves — at least rhetorically — from the Kansas failures.”

Cut taxes so steeply that government cannot do its job, then complain that the fix is to cut more government to make room for more tax cuts.  That part is working as intended.

How badly is Kansas faring? State revenues have plummeted, employment growth continues to lag the national average, and the state’s credit rating has been downgraded. Kansas’ tax cuts this year are costing the state about 8 percent of the revenue it uses to fund schools, health care and other public services, a hit comparable to a mid-sized recession, according to this CBPP report. The revenue loss, state data show, will rise to 16 percent in five years if Kansas doesn’t reverse the tax cuts.

While most states are restoring school funding after years of significant cuts due to the recession, Kansas continues to cut (see chart). Funding for colleges and universities, libraries, local health departments and other services, which also were cut sharply, continues to fall. 

The largest tax cuts went to those at the top, and Kansas actually raised taxes on the lowest-income families. Nothing in the Kansas economy’s subpar performance since these tax cuts were enacted suggests the benefits have “trickled down” to ordinary Kansans.

In other words, Kansas was ground zero for Republican economic policies at the state level, and surprise! They failed totally.

But Kansans will continue to vote for the GOP because government is bad.

Mississippi (Voter Card) Burning

Today's GOP Senate primary runoff in Mississippi is going to get ugly as incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran faces a strong primary challenge from Tea Party darling Chris McDaniel.  Cochran is trying to recruit anyone he can get to vote to keep McDaniel out, particularly black Democrats.  And McDaniel is doing everything he can to intimidate black Democrats from even showing up, saying he'll have "election observers" on hand to make sure these Democrats aren't allowed to vote.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars backing Mr. Cochran’s Tea Party opponent, State Senator Chris McDaniel, said in an interview on Sunday that his group was joining with Freedom Works and the Tea Party Patriots in a “voter integrity project” in Mississippi.

By the way that's the same Ken Cuccinelli who lost the Virginia governor's race to Terry McAullife last November.  You thought he wasn't going to immediately get a wingnut welfare job?  Oh, and by "voter integrity project" he means "voter suppression through active harassment of black voters".

The groups will deploy observers in areas where Mr. Cochran is recruiting Democrats, Mr. Cuccinelli said. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department official and conservative commentator who said he was advising the effort, described the watchers as “election observers,” mostly Mississippi residents, who will be trained to “observe whether the law is being followed.” 

After nearly 42 years in Washington, Mr. Cochran is facing a dire political threat from Mr. McDaniel, a former radio talk show host. Under state elections law, Democrats may vote in the runoff if they did not vote in the Democratic primary on June 3. 

“The laws in Mississippi are unusually open to poll watching from the outside,” said Mr. Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general. “We’re going to take full advantage of that and we’re going to lay eyes on Cochran’s effort to bring Democrats in,” he added. “And of course, if they voted in primaries, that’s illegal.”

So expect every black voter to have their eligibility to vote questioned by angry poll workers.  Things haven't changed much in 50 years, have they?  Rick Hasen at TPM:

The idea here appears to be that because poll workers cannot discourage Democrats from voting in the election (based upon an unenforceable Mississippi law which says that only those who intend to support the nominee of the party in the primary can vote in the primary), these outside election observers led by Adams may make such encouragement. That is what Adams must mean about “the law” “being followed.” That’s very troubling and I hope DOJ has some observers now heading down there too.

I hope so.  Not that Thad Cochran hasn't been a complete pain in the ass for the last three decades or so, but McDaniel is certifiable, and if he's willing to pull this crap to win a primary, imagine what he'll do in order to win a general election.

Luckily the Justice Department is very aware of this and is keeping an eye on the situation today.

The U.S. Justice Department says it’s keeping a close eye on a plan by conservatives to send poll-watchers to Mississippi for the state’s U.S. Senate race Tuesday—a “voter integrity” project that’s sparking fears of intimidation and racial profiling. And now, Mississippi’s attorney general and secretary of state are chiming in, too.

“The department is aware of concerns about voter intimidation and is monitoring the situation,” a Justice Department spokesperson told msnbc. “Voters that experience problems are encouraged to call 1-800-253-3931.”

Here's hoping that this number won't have to be used.  I'm betting it will be used, and often today.

StupidiNews!

• Relief workers in West Africa fighting the continent's largest outbreak of the Ebola virus in three countries say the situation is "out of control" with at least 350 deaths and rising.
• A new bipartisan report by the business community finds that failure to address climate change will cost America more than $50 billion by 2040 and as much as $700 billion by 2100.
• US Secretary of State John Kerry is recruiting assistance from Iraqi Kurds in order to try to stabilize the country against Sunni ISIS militants.
• Analysts see good news for Millennials when it comes to home ownership as the generation with the highest percentage of college graduates ever will enter the mortgage market in the next 2 to 5 years.
• A bipartisan Senate effort to extend legislation allowing consumers to unlock their cell phones and use them across networks is gaining steam.

Last Call For McCarthy Populism

The hard right of the McCarthy era in the House GOP begins with -- surprise! -- billions for the banksters.

In an interview with Fox News, incoming House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) revealed leadership's first significant policy shift: opposition to reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank when its current charter expires on Sept. 30, a move that would shutter the credit agency. 

"One of the problems with government is it's going to take hard earned money so others do things that the private sector can do. That's what Ex-Im Bank does," he said. "I think Ex-Im Bank is one that government does not have to be involved in. The private sector can do it."

You've just read the entire raison d'etre of the GOP.  The private sector can do it.  It doesn't mean the private sector can do it well, can do it better than the public sector, or even should do it, but at every turn the GOP wants their private sector corporate donors involved in every step of the process, making them more and more profit at our expense.

The private sector certainly can teach our children, police our communities, put out fires, build and maintain our roads, and more.  But should they?  Should the driving mission of any of those be profit margins instead of providing for the common good?

It is in McCarthy's world.  And those profits go to his friends.  That's the real crony capitalism that Republicans are looking to create.

Infrastructure Rupture

When I repeatedly say that the Republican party in this country refuses to govern the country, this is exactly what I mean.

No state is needier than West Virginia when it comes to fixing crumbling highways, airports and water works, with annual repair needs of $1,035 per resident that’s three times the national average. 

Yet even with borrowing costs hovering close to four-decade lows, lawmakers rejected a January proposal to sell $1 billion of bonds to repair roads that run through the Appalachian Mountains. Budget cuts were a more immediate concern, they said. 

Across the U.S., localities are refraining from raising new funds in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression left them with unprecedented deficits. Rather than take advantage of Federal Reserve (FDTR) policy that’s held benchmark interest rates at historic lows since December 2008, they’re repaying obligations by the most on record.

At a time when spending is needed the most and rates are at the lowest levels in 50 years, Republicans (and more than a few red state Democrats) are saying we need more cuts in bridges and highways.

State and local spending on roads, railways and other infrastructure crested as a share of the economy during the post-war population boom. In the first quarter, the expenditures accounted for 1.4 percent of the economy, less than a third of the 1967 level, according to data compiled by Moody’s Analytics. 

America’s governments would need to spend about $3.6 trillion through 2020 to put everything from roads and water to sewers and electricity networks into adequate shape, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, based in Reston, Virginia. That’s about $1.6 trillion more than governments are expected to dispense. 

“We are not investing adequately in maintaining our infrastructure,” said Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington. “We are missing an opportunity to borrow at lower rates in order to do it.”

But we can't.  Spending on roads and bridges is now "wasteful extravagance" while traffic jams and delays cost American companies billions in lost productivity every year.   States won't spend the money, the federal government is blocked from spending the money, so who exactly is going to fix our highways?

Why, you are.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has signed legislation to allow tolls on a new bridge over the Ohio River into Kentucky that will replace an overpass deemed "functionally obsolete." 

Kasich signed the bill Wednesday at Cincinnati's Paul Brown Stadium. That's adjacent to the 51-year-old Brent Spence Bridge, which spans the river to northern Kentucky. 

The bridge carries about 172,000 vehicles a day. The reconstructed bridge would more than double its capacity and address safety and traffic concerns that have caused the National Bridge Inventory to label the Brent Spence as "functionally obsolete." 

The new bridge isn't yet built, and despite Kasich's approval, tolling is still far down the road. Kentucky also would have to approve legislation for tolling, and lawmakers in the commonwealth are vehemently opposed.

It would be Kentucky voters who would be paying the bulk of the tolls on this bridge, and that will cost people like Rep. Tom Massie their jobs.  Of course, a private toll collecting company would be contracted for the deal.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Republicans want to "maintain roads and bridges".

Keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, In Egypt...

For all the loud complaints by the right about Obama the "dictator" and from the left that the administration is "chilling free speech" here's a story out of Egypt that puts both of those ridiculous accusations into perspective as three Al Jazeera journalists were each sentenced to seven years in prison by the new Sisi government for "terrorism" charges.

Three Al Jazeera journalists were jailed for seven years in Egypt on Monday after a court convicted them of helping a "terrorist organisation" by spreading lies, in a case that has raised questions about the country's respect for media freedom. 

The three, who all deny the charge, include Australian Peter Greste, Al Jazeera's Kenya-based correspondent, and Canadian-Egyptian national Mohamed Fahmy, Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English. 

The third defendant, Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, received an additional three-year jail sentence on a separate charge involving possession of ammunition.

There was a loud gasp in the courtroom as the verdicts were read out. Shaken and near tears, Greste's brother Michael said: "This is terribly devastating. I am stunned, dumbstruck. I've no other words."

This is what real suppression of freedom of speech by the government looks like.  This is what dictatorships do in order to maintain power over the people.  None of these are present in this administration, and comparing this administration to the regimes that are making free speech and adversarial journalism a crime is both insipid and a disservice.

The ruling came a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met newly elected Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo and discussed the political transition the country. 

"This is a deeply disappointing result. The Egyptian people have expressed over the past three years their wish for Egypt to be a democracy. Without freedom of the press there is no foundation for democracy" Britain's ambassador to Egypt, James Watt, told Reuters after the verdict. 

Australia's ambassador Ralph King also said his prime minister would make his disappointment clear after entreaties made by his government in recent days appeared to make little difference.

Egyptian officials have said the case is not linked to freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation. The trial began on Feb. 20. The journalists, known in the Egyptian media as "The Marriott Cell" because they worked from a hotel of the U.S.-based chain, appeared in metal court cages.

This is a terrible verdict and I hope that Sisi will get his head out of his ass and fix this.  I wouldn't hold my breath however.

StupidiNews!

• US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Baghdad, Iraq to meet with embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as ISIS militants attacked and killed 76 in an ambush of a police prisoner transfer.
• Israeli jets launched air strikes against Syrian positions in the Golan Heights in retaliation for the death of an Israeli teenager on the Israel side of the border in a Syrian attack.
• Portugal scored a last-second goal in stoppage time to force a 2-2 draw with the US, staying alive in the FIFA World Cup Group G and making Thursday's US-Germany match vital for US advancement.
• GE has clinched a $17 billion acquisition of the energy division of French manufacturing giant Alstom, giving GE a base in renewable energy and turbines in Europe.
• Connecting to free WiFi while traveling can be dangerous as the newest hacker trick is to impersonate hotspots in AT&T and Comcast's networks in order to steal information.