Last Call For Executive, Now With Action

President Obama, after finally being informed by Orange Julius that there will be no immigration vote in the House in 2014 because Republicans hate his guts and want him to die or something, has decided that it's time for some good old fashioned executive orders.

A clearly angry President Obama announced Monday that he plans to move forward with administrative action by the end of the summer on steps he can take without Congress, but within his existing authorities, to “fix as much of our broken immigration system as we can” because of Republican inaction on an immigration overhaul.

The announcement comes a week after Speaker John Boehner and Obama spoke before the PGA golf event where Boehner told him the House will not take a vote on immigration reform this year.

Remember, Boehner not doing his job is Obama's fault.  Because everything is Obama's fault.

“Today I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of the immigration system as I can on my own without Congress,” he said, later adding that “it’s very rare that you get labor, business, evangelicals, law enforcement all agreeing on what needs to be done.”

The most important expected policy shift is “administrative relief,” which activists have been calling for for all of 2014, a plan that would reset enforcement priorities and lessen record deportations. The president previously directed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Jeh Johnson to look at its policies to make sure they are “humane.”

So, looks like border policy and immigration and detention policy will get a major rewrite.  House Republicans will snivel and choose to not vote on the bill and it will die, just like Republicans killed immigration reform seven years ago under a Republican President.

So nothing will get done.  Remember which side is choosing to do nothing.

SCOTUS-Palooza

The final two rulings of this Supreme Court term were 5-4 decisions written by Justice Samuel Alito, and they're just as terrible as you'd expect.  First, in Harris v. Quinn,  the decision came down that public unions cannot force non-union members in a union shop to pay dues.

In a 5-4 decision by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to public sector unions on Monday, although the opinion fell short of the claim made by the anti-union litigation shop that argued that case, which sought to undermine the finances of all public sector unions. The plaintiffs in this case, and their anti-union attorneys, argued that non-union members cannot be required to reimburse unions that bargain on their behalf for the costs it incurred during that bargaining. Without those reimbursements, the financial viability of the unions is in jeopardy. 

Alito’s opinion in Harris v. Quinn recognizes a category of “partial public employees” who cannot be required to contribute funds to the collective bargaining that they benefit from. This case involved Medicaid home health workers who are paid by the state but who work directly for individual patients. Nevertheless, the case hints that the Court will deal additional blows to public sector unions in the future. Alito labels a seminal Supreme Court opinion allowing unions to collect reimbursements from nonmembers “questionable on several grounds.”

That case is 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which upheld that public employees could unionize.  Alito dropped several hints in his decision that an open challenge to that ruling would find fertile ground (or at least five votes to sink it.)

Alito then went on to blow a hole in 120+ years of established legal precedent involving the religious rights of corporate entities in the Hobby Lobby case.

If you’re one of the estimated 14,000 individuals who work at Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood — the companies who represented the two plaintiffs in the case — then you’re most immediately affected by Monday’s decision. Your employers no longer have to cover several types of birth control that they’re opposed to. 

Both companies object to covering emergency contraception, which they falsely claim is a type of abortion despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. Hobby Lobby’s owners also take issue with two forms of intrauterine devices (IUDs), long lasting forms of birth control inserted in the uterus, for the same unscientific reason. So the workers employed by those businesses won’t be able to use their insurance coverage for those types of birth control anymore. They’ll presumably be able to continue using their health plans for other methods, like hormonal birth control pills, that their bosses don’t have a problem with.

But even if you don’t work at Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood, there’s a chance that your birth control coverage may be put into question. More than 70 other companies also sued for the right to stop following Obamacare’s contraceptive provision. According to the National Women’s Law Center, 48 of those cases are still pending. Now that the Court has sided with Hobby Lobby, it will be much easier for some of those companies to win their suits and opt out of covering certain types of contraception.

And now that this decision has opened the door to "closely-held" corporations having the same religious freedoms as the family that owns them,, and being able to subject their employees to those beliefs, a whole lot more douchebaggery is coming down the pike.

In her epic dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that the Senate blocked an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would have given Hobby Lobby the religious exemption they later sued for.  In other words, this is a perfect example of real judicial overreach, and litigating from the bench.

But that's how SCOTUS works these days, slowly rolling back laws passed by Democrats.

The Darkest Of Waters

Remember our old Iraq War military contractor friend Blackwater (now the cryptic "Xe") and founder Erik Prince?  Turns out this awful bunch of mercenaries weren't just immoral, they liked to push our government around too with death threats against anyone investigating them.  TPM's Josh Marshall recounts the NY Times investigation:

Over the course of the last decade, Blackwater became a notorious symbol of military contracting run amok, with price-gouging, reckless behavior and your occasional atrocity. So it's hard to imagine anything coming out that would genuinely shock anyone. Until this.

According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, State Department investigator had already begun probing Blackwater a short time before the infamous Nisour Square shooting in 2007. But the probe broke down when Blackwater's top guy in Iraq threatened to kill the lead investigator, suggesting, not improbably, that amid the anarchy of Iraq it could be easily covered up as just another moment of sectarian violence or a terrorist attack.

Nice guys, huh.  Would be a shame if anything happened to your State Department investigation team, right?

Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports. 

American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassy’s relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.

Nobody was going to mess with these guys, and they probably got away with all kids of truly horrific if not criminal acts for years in Iraq.  And the American people paid them billions to do it.   Who in the Bush administration would ever question Blackwater about a dead US civilian sent to a war zone to poke around where they shouldn't be?

It's not like anything happens to these guys even if people do ask questions.

StupidiNews!

• The Supreme Court is expected to hand down the final two decisions of its term today, one involving the future of public unions, the other, religious objections by corporations to birth control.
• Evacuations due to massive flooding in southern Brazil has forced 50,000 out of their homes already in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul states, a week of torrential rainfall has flooded towns.
• President Obama is expected to formally nominate former Proctor & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald to replace Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Monday.
• California grocers wanting to charge fees for paper bags are teaming up with environmental groups to lobby for a statewide ban on plastic grocery bags.
• Scientists have discovered a new species of elephant shrew in Namibia's Namib desert, the smallest of the family of shrews with long, trunk-like snouts.

Last Call For The Bufferless Zone

With the Supreme Court having struck down the Massachusetts "Buffer Zone" law around abortion clinics to prevent violence (indeed the ruling of SCOTUS was unanimous in that the law was an arbitrary violation of the free speech rights of anti-choice protesters) the first Saturday without the 35-foot distance between protestors and clinic workers and patients at a Boston-area clinic got ugly and fast.

At its height, the protest drew about 70 people — three times more than the average Saturday morning crowd, typically the largest gathering of the week — a turnout inspired by Thursday’s US Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Massachusetts law that since 2007 had kept them outside the yellow line.

“I have a friend that had an abortion 45 years ago. I saw what she suffered, and that’s why I come,” said Mary O’Donnell, 82, of Arlington, clutching a handful of pamphlets, rosaries, and medals. “To let them know there’s another option.”

The Supreme Court ruling, she said, “just gives us the chance to be a little bit closer, to let them know that we care.”

Yes, show them your caring and compassionate side by intimidating and berating them.

Many of the young women entering the clinic, however, appeared upset by the crowd, and hustled through with their heads down, some clutching the hands of their partners.

“You have to walk through this circle of people staring at you and talking to you and judging you,” a young woman named Julie said after leaving the clinic. “It’s very intimidating.”

Julie, who was not at the clinic for an abortion and asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her privacy, said that as she walked in, one person tried to hand her pamphlets and another shouted to her: “Fetuses have fingernails and a heartbeat.”

To her, the Supreme Court’s ruling felt hateful to women.

“Sitting in there today, I was thinking about all these protesters outside, and what if somebody just threw a bomb in?” she said. “That’s what was going through my mind when I was getting my blood pressure taken.”

Not like it hasn't happened before, folks.  But in this new era, pro-choice Americans are adapting.

Marty Walz, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said the clinic will now need escorts to shepherd patients through the crowd every day it is open, not just on Saturdays.

“We know there’s horror at the court’s ruling,” Walz said. In anticipation of that ruling, Planned Parenthood received about 100 applications from people volunteering to work as escorts, she said. In the first 24 hours since the ruling, they were overwhelmed with nearly 200 more.

Since the ruling, said Walz, Planned Parenthood has received many complaints from patients about the protests, and more patients than usual have canceled appointments.

“Our patients and staff are subjected to this extreme, aggressive behavior, but that’s what the Supreme Court thinks is appropriate for the women of this country,” Walz said.

You have a constitutional right to harass women at abortion clinics, you know.  Unanimously decided by the highest court in the land.

You know, until all the clinics are gone.

Psychological Logic Kill

Reminder for folks out there: big social media companies like Facebook and Twitter pretty much completely own any data you enter into the system, and they can do whatever they want with it.

The latest way that Facebook has been peeking into its users’ personal lives may be the most surprising yet: Facebook researches have published a scientific paper that reveals the company has been conducting psychological experiments on its users to manipulate their emotions.

The experiments sought to prove the phenomenon of “emotional contagion” — as in, whether you’ll be more happy if those in your Facebook news feed are. They took place over the week of January 11th-18th, 2012, and targeted 689,003 English-speaking Facebook users.

The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. was successful. It found that, indeed, manipulating the algorithm to show more “positive” posts in your news feed will actually inspire you to write more “positive” posts yourself. So, for example, if you see a lot of people happy about their jobs or excited to be seeing the concert of their favorite band, then you’re more likely to post that you are happy about something in your life, too.

While that little fact in itself may be interesting, there’s one disturbing aspect of the study: None of the people involved in the experiment were explicitly told that they would be a part of it.

Facebook does have terms of service — ones that every Facebook user has agreed to — thatspecify users’ data may be used “for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.” The researchers of this psychology experiment argue that their experiments fall under these terms of use because “no text was seen by the researchers.” Rather, a computer program scanned for words that were considered either “positive” or “negative.”

“As such,” the researchers write, “it was consistent with Facebook’s Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research.”

Something to remember when you're out there in the big world of social media.  Your data belongs to these companies 100% as far as they're concerned, and there's very few regulations for protecting your privacy from them, if any.

So,What Domestic Terrorism Problem Here In Cincy?

The best part about these open carry numbskulls in Texas is the copycat open carry guys hoping for their 15 minutes of YouTube fame by acting as terrible as possible while.  Turns out some of them live only a few miles away from me.

Police arrested one of four people who walked through a Cincinnati neighborhood while openly carrying AR-15 rifles and repeatedly using racial slurs and profanity. 

One of two men in the group, which included two women, filmed their open carry rally in the East Price Hill neighborhood, where they walked past District 3 police headquarters and marveled that they were exercising their constitutional rights. 

“Broad day, you see this? Walking down the street with a AR-15,” says the man filming the demonstration, who police later identified as Jesse Deboard.


The video, which was later posted on YouTube and shared on social media, shows the foursome encounter police officers, who question them on camera but let them go on their way, reported WKRC-TV. 

“Like you said, it’s your right to do that, it makes no sense to me I mean, unless you just want attention and us to stop you and ask you,” an officer says on camera. “I just don’t understand it, that’s all. I’ve seen enough of these YouTube videos where everybody just tries to get the cop to stop them.” 

The group then brags about openly carrying assault weapons on city streets. 

“Open carry in the state of Ohio, the cops can’t do nothing,” one of them men says on camera. 

Deboard can be heard asking if unidentified Facebook friends “still want that drama, though.” 

“This is going on YouTube, n*gga, world star,” Deboard says to a passing group of black men.

What a great bunch, walking through East Price Hill, with AR-15s, shouting the N-word at residents, daring them to do anything about it, and laughing that the cops can't do anything.

Only, the cops did something.

Police conducted a further investigation after the video was posted online, and the 23-year-old Deboard was arrested and charged with menacing by stalking and violation of a protection order. 

He remains jailed on $25,000 bond, and an April 16 Facebook post apparently announced his intention to buy the weapons seen in the video.

Was awfully nice of this assclown to post all that evidence on YouTube for the cops to analyze, wasn't it?

So, do we think open carry is a stupid idea yet?

Last Call For The Same Song And Dance

Republicans are getting sloppy.  It's taken then weeks to come up with this latest poutrage, that captured alleged Benghazi attack mastermind Ahmed Abu Khatallah can't possibly be tried in criminal court because, umm, superpowers or something.

“I have serious concerns that conducting a rushed interrogation onboard a ship and then turning Abu Khatallah over to our civilian courts risks losing critical intelligence that could lead us to other terrorists or prevent future attacks,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, said in a statement Saturday. "I've asked the Defense and Justice Departments for an update on his status-including whether he has been told he has the right to remain silent." 

Shortly after the White House announced Abu Khatallah’s capture on July 17, Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio began to criticize President Barack Obama’s administration because they believed the alleged terrorist should go through a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay instead of being tried in a federal court. 

“If they bring him to the United States, they're going to Mirandize this guy and it would be a mistake for the ages to read this guy his Miranda rights,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. 

But the White House has defended its decision, saying that they have successfully tried a number of terrorists domestically and that no new captives have gone to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in years. 

“We have not added a single person to the GITMO population since President Obama took office, and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system,” National Security Council Spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement the day the capture was announced.

In other words, Republicans are going to call President Obama weak and a traitor for not torturing "intelligence" out of Abu Khatallah, if you can believe that nonsense.  But, that's where we're going to be after the Sunday shows tomorrow, because our idiot media will somehow take this seriously.

Maximum Wingnut Achieved

Republicans are delightfully insane, almost charming, aren't they?

On Tuesday, Timothy Ray Murray challenged longtime incumbent Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) for the Republican nomination in Oklahoma's 3rd Congressional district. Murray lost, but he did manage to pull in 3,442 votes, good for 5.2 percent of the total. Now Murray says he will contest the outcome of the election. Because, he says, Lucas is dead and has been replaced by a "look alike."

Wait, what?

"The election for U.S. House for Oklahoma’s 3rd District will be contested by the Candidate, Timothy Ray Murray," Murray wrote in a press release posted on his campaign website. "I will be stating that his votes are switched with Rep. Lucas votes, because it is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike."

Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see an incumbent Congressman , Timothy. It's crawling toward you...

On the website, Murray claims that Lucas and "a few other Oklahoma and other States’ Congressional Members," were executed "on or about" Jan. 11, 2011 in southern Ukraine. 

"On television they were depicted as being executed by the hanging about the neck until death on a white stage and in front of witnesses," the website claims. "Other now current Members of Congress have shared those facts on television also. We know that it is possible to use look alike artificial or manmade replacements, however Rep. Lucas was not eligible to serve as a Congressional Member after that time."

Because he's a dead clone, or a replicant.  Or a pod person.

Rep Frank Lucas (R-Outer Space), apparently.

Remember when the worst thing about Republicans was that they would occasionally say something stupid or misspell "potato" or invade some crapass Central American country for a couple of weeks?  Those were good times.  Good time indeed.

Categorical Denial

The new Pew Research Center study on America's political ideology is a fascinating read, finding that the country is far from just a red/blue dynamic.  The Pew study finds eight different categories of American voters, ranging from Steadfast Conservatives to Solid Liberals to Bystanders who don't vote or care about politics at all (and a quiz to find out where you fit) based on responses to 23 questions.

Vox's Max Fisher discovered something rather depressing however.  One of those questions involves blacks and discrimination, and the numbers are pretty breathtaking: 63% of Americans believe that blacks who can't get ahead have only themselves to blame, including majorities of 6 of Pew's 7 categories of American voters.

A wide majority of Americans say that, if black people are struggling to advance in society, then it is primarily their fault and not because of discrimination. That's the majority view for some types of liberals but is far, far more common among conservatives. Over 80 percent of conservatives say they agree that "Blacks who can't get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition," while just some seven percent say that "Racial discrimination is the main reason why many black people can't get ahead these days." 

That's based on Pew pollsters asking Americans which of those two statements they agree with more. Nationally, 63 percent say "blacks who can't get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition" versus 27 percent who say "racial discrimination is the main reason why many black people can't get ahead these days." That's more than two-to-one.

 Here's the chart:

Only Solid Liberals, which make up 15% of Americans, believe discrimination is still the main reason why African-Americans who can't get ahead are unable to do so. When it comes to the two groups of Millennial voters (libertarian-leaning Young Outsiders and socially liberal Next Generation Left) who together account for 26% of America, only about one in seven believe discrimination is more of a factor than lack of hard work.

Solid Liberals on the other hand overwhelmingly believe that discrimination is still a problem.  That's because, as Fisher points out, it still is.

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his recent cover story "The Case for Reparations," wrote about the popular American fiction that the age of widespread discrimination against black people is over in American, as are its effects. Because, even though it is widely perceived as fact by American conservatives and even liberals, it is a fiction. 

In fact, not only does discrimination continue today, but the consequences of two centuries of slavery and one century of explicit white supremacy still directly impact and hold back black families.

The evidence is there, but of course talking about it remains taboo.

Last Call For Puckett, We'll Do It Live

The story of Democrat turned "What's in it for me?" douchebag Phil Puckett, the Virginia state Senator who resigned to take a cushy job with the GOP-led state tobacco regulatory commission, giving control of the state Senate to the Republicans as a result, just got a whole lot more interesting (and possibly very, very criminal).

The head of the state tobacco commission warned that the panel would create the appearance of “manipulating” power in the Virginia Senate if it announced that it was hiring Sen. Phillip P. Puckett on the same day he gave up his seat, according to e-mails released Thursday. 

Tim Pfohl, interim executive director of the commission, said in a June 5 e-mail to Puckett, a Democrat from rural Russell County, that he had begged Del. Terry G. Kilgore (R-Scott) to delay making it known that Puckett was getting a top staff job with the commission. Kilgore is chairman of the commission. 

“Phillip: Terry spoke to us today about announcing your role w/ the Commission in conjunction with what he said is your intention to announce your Senate plans tomorrow,” Pfohl wrote. “I implored him to ‘decouple’ those announcements for the sake of the appearance of the Commission manipulating the Senate balance of power and starting WW3 w/ the Governor’s administration.” 

Pfohl went on to say that the commission’s executive committee still planned to meet a few days later to give Puckett the job. 

“I mention all this so you know what’s being planned on our end to give this the most defensible appearance of due process,” Pfohl added.

In other words, this is clearly a case where Puckett was rewarded with the commissioner's job for resigning his state Senate seat and giving power to the GOP, so obvious that that the commission's interim head honcho emailed people to beg them to try to make the rotten deal not appear so bloody obvious.

These emails also prove that the deal was in the works before Puckett resigned, which is a huge problem.  In no way was this a spontaneous act, but a deliberate thumb, hand, arm, shoulder and body on holding down the scale to tip it in favor of the crooked Virginia GOP.

Oh, but it gets worse.

The e-mail messages indicated that the commission was creating the post especially for Puckett, who was asked to help come up with his own job description. The position was to come with state employee benefits, a cell phone and possibly a car, according to the e-mails. The salary was not specified.

And remember, all of this was done in order to give Virginia Republicans the window they needed in order to pass a budget that strips social programs and Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions from needy Virginians.  Puckett's ridiculously unethical and illegal deal was the price, and the ones paying it are thousands of Virginians who will not get health coverage as a result.

All this just to screw over poor people.  The American way, right?  Or at least, the Republican way.

Even More GOP Minority Outreach, Post-McDaniel Edition

Mississippi GOP Senate "candidate" Chris McDaniel will take his "graceful concession" to Sen. Thad Cochran in Tuesday's primary runoff and shove it right up America's ass. 

We haven’t conceded and we’re not going to concede right now. We’re going to investigate. 

Naturally sometimes it’s difficult to contest an election, obviously, but we do know that 35,000 Democrats crossed over. And we know many of those Democrats did vote in the Democratic primary just three weeks ago which makes it illegal. 

We likewise know that we have a statute, a law in our state that says you cannot participate in a primary unless you intend to support that candidate. And we know good and well that these 35,000 democrats have no intention to do that. They’ll be voting for Travis Childers in November. We know that. They know that. And so that makes their actions illegal. 

So we’re going to be fighting this.

It's illegal because McDaniel "knows" it was illegal.  He can't actually prove anything, but who gives a damn when there's lynching to be done?  Justin Baragona at PoliticusUSA:

A few points need to be made. First, the Mississippi law about voters needing to support the candidates they vote for in primaries has already been ruled unenforceable by a federal appeals court. Therefore, McDaniel doesn’t have a leg to stand on if he tries to file a lawsuit centered on that law. That particular law is impossibly vague, especially since Mississippi doesn’t have party registration. There is absolutely no way you can find out if a voter stuck with a candidate in the general election. This could hardly even be called a law. It is more of an honor system.

As far as voters participating in the Democratic Senate primary and then this Republican primary runoff, McDaniel may appear to have a somewhat valid argument. In this instance, voter rolls from the Democratic primary can be compared with log sheets from the runoff. It would seem possible that some votes could be tossed aside. However, I wouldn’t bet on a huge amount. The Democratic primary had a very low turnout, especially when compared to the Republican primary. In the initial Republican primary, 313,000+ votes were cast, compared to just 75,000+ votes in the Democratic primary. The runoff pulled in an even higher number, as over 372,000 votes were counted.

McDaniel is assuming that a very large portion of the Democratic voters that participated in the runoff also voted in their own primary a few weeks ago, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Democrats in the state did not take part in that primary. My feeling is, even if the state decides to check and compare the voter rolls between the Democratic primary and Republican runoff, they’ll find very little crossover. And, even if they did, they can’t simply make the assumption that every one of these votes was for Cochran. Once again, McDaniel is left with no recourse even if he tries to go down this road.

But go down that road McDaniel and his supporters will, and they don't care who gets hurt along the way.

The Mississippi Tea Party President says they've found evidence that nearly 800 voters crossed over in Tuesday's runoff election that should not have been allowed to vote Republican.

"We have some evidence that we are concerned about," explained president Laura Van Overschelde. "We're here to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. There's a great concern over a great many of the irregularities and enrolling of voters."

However, Hinds County GOP Chairman Pete Perry says there are some precincts where he knows workers marked the wrong column and corrected them the day of the election. He believes that could account for at least 200 of those being cited by the Tea Party.

I'm sure McDaniel has fevered glory dreams of the US Supreme Court magically declaring him the winner, right after declaring Democrats are no longer Americans, but hey, let's keep this guy on TV as long as possible blaming black people for his loss.

Ted Cruz's Latest Windmill Tilt-A-Whirl

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is back to threatening to impeach Attorney General Eric Holder if he doesn't appoint a special prosecutor over the IRS's missing emails.

Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate IRS targeting of conservative groups or expect to face impeachment proceedings, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on the chamber floor Thursday.

“When an Attorney General mocks the rule of law, when an Attorney General corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing that conduct by any reasonable measure constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Cruz. “Attorney General Eric Holder has the opportunity to do the right thing. He could appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who is not a major Obama donor.”

The donor Cruz is referring to is Justice Department prosecutor Barbara Bosserman, who has given $6,750 to the Democratic Party and President Obama over the past ten years, according to the Washington Post. Bosserman has been chosen to lead the Justice Department probe into the IRS.

Cruz and other conservatives are dismayed that the Justice Department has yet to indict anyone 13 months after the IRS admitted that it targeted nonprofit political advocacy groups with the terms “tea party” or “patriot” in their names from 2010 to 2012.

That's actually not true, as more liberal groups were targeted than conservative ones, because the IRS was going after a number of "advocacy groups" on both sides basically using unlimited anonymous funds to run unlimited political ads. 

"Republicans have yet to prove any laws were broken after 13 months" is the problem, after wasting taxpayer money with piles of investigations in the House.  Impeachment will fail of course, but the longer Ted Cruz is in the news reminding people about his nonsense with the shutdown, the better.

StupidiNews!

• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a trade agreement with the EU, the origins of which set off the military showdown with Russia earlier this year.
• Boston police will deploy additional officesr around the city's abortion clinics after yesterday's unanimous Supreme Court ruling that the state's 35-foot buffer zone law was unconstitutional.
• A federal judge has upheld Colorado's gun safety laws limiting the size of firearm magazines and requiring background checks for private sales.
• In a second Supreme Court ruling, the power of recess appointments by the President was limited to Senate breaks being at least ten days in length.
• With another Supreme Court ruling earlier this week going against his TV streaming startup Aereo, chief investor Barry Diller declared "it's over now."

Last Call For Don't Know Howitzer, Don't Know Whenitzer

This is either a completely ridiculous story about gun nuts treating a howitzer as a friggin' toy and lobbing a shell into somebody's house 3 miles away, or a case of custom critical courier delivery methods gone horribly wrong.

An Oklahoma home was damaged last weekend by a howitzer artillery shell fired from a gun range three miles away. 

The artillery shell – which is 14.5 inches long and 3.5 inches across – crashed through an exterior wall, hit the ceiling, and damaged another wall while homeowner Gene Kelley and his wife were in another room, reported KOAM-TV. 

“It’s unbelievable,” Kelley said. “Unless you were here to see it or see the pictures I’ve got, you would not believe how huge this thing is.”

No one was hurt, but Kelley said the damage could have been worse if the shell had not hit a tree limb and then the ground before striking his Wyandotte house.

Unless you're a Mythbuster and doing a myth on howitzers or something, why are you allowed to fire one of these when it can go, I dunno, three miles (and could have gone a lot further?)  Were people warned or anything beforehand?

The shell was fired from a 105mm howitzer at the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show, but the gun range owner insists the historic weapon was safely fired by professionals in a downward projection. 

“It was not on a level plane, but on a downward trend, pointed downhill in the bottom of a valley,” said Mike Friend, Owner of Fast Machine Gun Shoot. “For that thing to rise and go far northwest of the range, it’s just unheard of.”

Max range on a 105mm howitzer is what, 6-7 miles or thereabouts?  So yeah, did this guy warn anyone in the area?  This seems like totally reasonable behavior and not weapon fetishist stuff or anything, you know?

I appreciate the skill and training that it takes to operate a field gun like this, but if you put a shell in a dude's living room in a freak accident, there's a problem somewhere.  Get a bigger range or something next time, guys.  Or better yet, leave the 105mm boom-boom at home.