Shooting Stars Get Engaged

The WNBA's Brittney Griner has been one of the most dominant players on the court for the Phoenix Mercury over the last two seasons, and she made a lot of waves announcing she was gay when joining the league.

Now Griner and her girlfirend and fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson have announced their engagement, in a reminder that the world of sports has always been a catalyst for social change.

Griner, a star player for the Phoenix Mercury, wrote on the post: “Last Night was a Night to Remember I became the happiest person on this earth! (almost pass out but when that one word came out I came back to life) Me and my baby @missvol25 are in it for Life!”

Johnson, who plays for the Tulsa Shock, later posted a photo on her Instagram account showing Griner lying down with a ring resting on her shoulder.

Griner and Johnson haven't said publicly when or where they plan to get married. Arizona and Oklahoma have gay marriage bans that are being contested in court. Oklahoma's ban has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after anappeals court ruled in July it was unconstitutional.

The 6-foot-8 Griner announced she was gay in April 2013, shortly after finishing a stellar career at Baylor. At the time of her announcement, Griner told Sports Illustrated that going public with her sexuality was something she had to do.

Something tells me Griner and Johnson aren't going to have to wait long to have their marriage in either Arizona or Oklahoma as the Supreme Court will almost certainly take up the issue this fall, with a prospective ruling next June at the latest.

Congratulations are of course in order.

Sundown Town

Ferguson, Missouri is now under curfew as things are decidedly getting worse.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced an order declaring a state of emergency and a curfew to be in effect in Ferguson, Missouri in order to curtail looting in the wake of protests over the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, one week ago.

The curfew will be in effect from midnight to 5 a.m., said Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol.

"The eyes of the world are watching. This is the test of whether a community, this community, any community, can break the cycle of fear, distrust and violence, and replace them with peace, strength and, ultimately, justice," Nixon said in remarks made at a church near Ferguson.

After another night of racially charged protests and looting in Ferguson, the governor had said he was going to meet with local and state law enforcement on Saturday to craft a plan aimed at quelling further violence. 

That plan, apparently, resulted in the establishment of the curfew.

"It was a rough time last night. There was a lot of looting and there were a lot of people arming themselves in their storefront to guard their businesses," said Al Nothum, a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol earlier in the day.

That's nice.  Nixon's choices have been terrible at every turn in this situation, and he's only making things worse now.  Military hardware on the streets, a dead teenager, a refusal to defend the city from looters and now curfew?

Nixon's 2016 chances are laughable.

In Missouri, Nixon faces a Republican-dominated state legislature and said the key to success is personal relationships — fostered by walks on farms or watching college sports together, he said. Nixon, a term-limited governor, signaled that he’s aiming to stay in the political arena after his time in Jefferson City concludes.

“I enjoy being in public service,” he said. “I think I understand folks and think I have some skills and some ability to get things done. I don’t spend as much time in self-promotion as some. My shoulders have not been hurt from patting myself on the back as much as some politicians, but I gotta tell ya, we roll up the sleeves and get work done.”

Asked whether he could imagine himself coming to Washington, Nixon added, “I’m not going to rule things out,” but noted he’s still focused on a range of issues in the statehouse.

You're not going anywhere.

StupidiNews!

• The Somali terrorist group responsible for last month's deadly Nairobi mall siege is warning that more violence is on the way for Kenya and other African countries allied with the West.
• Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry again called the implementation of Obamacare a "felony" and a "criminal act" committed against America's young people.
• President Obama has canceled several stops on his planned Asian summit tour next week due to the government shutdown, but still plans to meet world leaders in Bali this weekend.
• A nearly 120-carat South African diamond is the highlight of the latest Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong, the total of the 40th anniversary 5-day auction of the group's Asian debut could fetch a half a billion dollars.
• An FAA panel has concluded that using wireless devices during takeoff and landing is safe for "nearly all" airliners and flights due to improved avionics in today's planes.

Last Call For Gov. Rick Perry's 2016 Hopes

Thanks for playing 2016 GOP Clown Car, Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry!  Last time we checked on the 2016 hopeful, he was having some serious problems with a grand jury convened in April over a veto that slashed funding for the state's anti-corruption office, the Public Integrity Unit, because it was headed by a Democrat.

Rick Perry—Republican Texas governor, failed 2012 presidential candidate, and potential 2016 retread contender—is battling legal trouble at home, thanks to his controversial veto that demolished the state office tasked with investigating political scandals. On Monday, a Texas judge convened a grand jury to probe Perry's decision last year to ax funding for the state's Public Integrity Unit. The special prosecutor investigating the case, Michael McCrum, has not filed any charges. But earlier this month he said, "I cannot elaborate on what exactly is concerning me, but I can tell you I am very concerned about certain aspects of what happened here."

Perry's troubles started when he attempted to to displace the government official in charge of the Public Integrity Unit, a state-funded watchdog agency that investigates charges of public corruption. The unit is led by whoever is serving as the Travis County district attorney, who is based in Austin. The current DA is Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat. Last April, she was arrested for drunk driving.

After Lehmberg's arrest, Perry called for her resignation, claiming that the public could no longer place its trust in an official who herself ran afoul of the law. But the governor has no direct control over her job, a locally elected position, and a grand jury rejected a former opponent's attempt to have Lehmberg removed from office. For her part, Lehmberg refused to resign, though she said she won't run for reelection in 2016. That wasn't enough for Perry. With Lehmberg holding on to her job, the governor decided to cut off the $7.5 million (over two years) in state funding for the watchdog unit with a line-item veto. "Despite the otherwise good work the Public Integrity Unit's employees," a Perry statement said after the veto, "I cannot in good conscience support continued State funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public's confidence."

 Well, four months later, the other shoe dropped.  On Rick Perry's head.

A Travis County grand jury today indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two charges related to his effort last year to force District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg to resign after her drunken driving arrest.

Grand jurors charged Perry, 63, with abuse of official capacity, a first-degree felony, and coercion of a public official.

The indictments stemmed from Perry’s threat last summer to withhold $7.2 million in state money from Lehmberg’s office unless she step down – a threat he later carried out by vetoing an appropriation in the state budget. The money was earmarked for the state’s Public Integrity Unit, which is housed in Lehmberg’s office. Perry’s veto forced Travis County taxpayers to partially fund the office, but several prosecutors and staff lost their jobs or had to be reassigned.

Lehmberg supporters said Perry’s actions constituted political retribution; Many Republicans have said the Public Integrity Unit has unfairly targeted their party for prosecutions. The Travis County District Attorney’s office has for decades been led by Democrats, including Lehmberg.

Had Lehmberg resigned, Perry would have named her replacement.

Travis County deputies arrested and charged Lehmberg with DWI in April 2013. She later pled guilty and was sentenced to 45 days in jail – an usually harsh sentence for a first-time drunken driving charge. She later prevailed in a civil lawsuit to remove her from office.

Remember, that's a first-degree felony if he's convicted.  And his 2016 career?  Done.

Bye, Rick.

The Bridges Just Got Burned In Ferguson

Thursday night the sense of relief in Ferguson, Missouri, the St. Louis suburb (where the police shooting of unarmed Michael Brown on Saturday unleashed a wave of community protests and police responded with massive overreaction with military gear and vehicles) was palpable.  President Obama called up Gov. Jay Nixon and they had a little chat.  The result was that the Ferguson PD and St. Louis County PD were taken off security for the city and it was turned over to Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol.

County police in riot gear and armored tanks gave way to state troopers walking side-by-side with thousands of protesters as the St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black teen was shot by a city police officer overwhelmingly avoided violence Thursday after nearly a week of unrest and mounting public tension. 

The dramatic shift came after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon assigned oversight of the protests to the state Highway Patrol, stripping local police from the St. Louis County Police Department of their authority after four days of clashes with furious crowds protesting the weekend death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. 

"All they did was look at us and shoot tear gas," said Pedro Smith, 41, who has participated in the nightly protests. "This is totally different. Now we're being treated with respect."

That was Thursday.  On Friday, that respect vanished as the Ferguson PD released the name of the officer responsible for the fatal shooting.

Police have announced the name of the officer who shot and killed an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri -- an incident that led to days of clashes in the streets of the St. Louis suburb. 

Darren Wilson was revealed today as the officer who shot Michael Brown, 18. Officials have moved the six-year police veteran and his family from the town as a safety precaution. 

Wilson does not have any history of disciplinary action, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said.

Which is what people expected.  Then the Ferguson cops played their trump card.

Jackson also noted that Wilson was "treated for an injury." When he announced Wilson's name, they handed out copies of a police report relating to a convenience store "strong arm" robbery that took place in the area shortly before Brown's fatal shooting, showing that the police see the two events as connected. 

"After viewing Brown and reviewing this video, I was able to confirm that Brown is the primary suspect in this incident," the police report about the convenience store robbery stated.

So suddenly, Mike Brown became a "primary robbery suspect".  Possibly dangerous, too.  Now he's not an "unarmed black man" but a "black criminal."  Instant justification for his murder.  No mention of the robbery was made in the last five days.  This is the first we're hearing of it.  It's such an egregious cover-up that it would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that Mike Brown is dead as a result, and the fact that the Ferguson PD has framed black men for crimes before.

But the usual narrative is now complete.  Mike Brown was just another "black thug", a "rabid animal" who deserved death by cop. Officer Darren Wilson is a hero, and he'll almost certainly be back on the job soon. I have no hope that he'll face justice.  Not in America.

We're all just animals who haven't been put down yet.

GOP Minority Outreach, Barmy Miller Edition

Republicans have finally gotten to the point where they just don't give a damn if anyone black or brown votes for them anymore.  Remember our old friend, Alaska GOP senate hopeful Joe Miller?  Turns out his fascist, reporter-arresting instincts are just as finely honed when it comes to Latino voters.

An inflammatory mailer sent to Anchorage, Alaska residents over the weekend by an anti-immigrant, Tea-party backed Republican primary Senate candidate features shirtless, tattooed men making gang signs with their hands, and a message that condemns the Democrat primary opponent for wanting “20 million illegals” to vote. Candidate Joe Miller’s mailer comes at a time when he’s a distant third in Republican primary polls and his state’s three Republican Senate candidates are emphasizing immigration to win their party’s nomination ahead of next week’s GOP primary election. 

Tying the issue of immigration reform and gun rights, the mailer quotes Miller as saying, “And if 20 million illegals vote, you can kiss the 2nd amendment goodbye. I am the only candidate who favors the Voter ID.” The back of the mailer features photos of “Miller firing a handgun and teaching shooting to a boy and girl identified as his children,” the Alaska Dispatch News stated.

During a heated televised debate over the weekend, Miller defended his mailer, stating, “There’s a clear correlation, and the clear correlation is this: If you end up granting amnesty to those who don’t value gun rights, who have not been raised in an environment where the Second Amendment is cherished — is considered to be a God-given right — the reality is over a generation or two, the likelihood is very strong that the Second Amendment will not be here.” The Alaska Dispatch News reported that Miller stated, “We have violent thugs coming across our border and doing violent things.”

To recap, the gun happy guy who had his private security goons beat a reporter who asked too many questions about Miller's nasty, secessionist past and compared our border to the good old days of East Germany, after declaring his election loss ax example of fraud thinks undocumented immigrants are "thugs".

Oh, and here's the mailer:



"Latinos are all criminals, and I'm going to shoot them because MURICA and EAGLE and FREEDOM.  Vote for me!  BANG BANG BANG BANG!"

Can't figure out why this guy's in distant third in the GOP primary polling, gosh.

StupidiNews!

• Ukrainian border guards have stopped and are carefully inspecting a convoy fleet of Russian trucks supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, but which officials say may contain supplies for rebels.
• Ferguson, Missouri remains calm after State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, an African-American, was placed in charge of the police presence there.
• Former Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki has finally stepped down as PM and will support his replacement, clearing the way for a new government in Baghdad.
• Islamic State's advances in Iraq and Syria are giving the group the clout to challenge al-Qaeda, according to US intelligence officials.
• Chinese PC giant Lenovo is setting its sights on the US smartphone market as it continues to dominate the Chinese one with its recent purchase of Motorola's mobile division from Google.

Last Call For Another Notable Miss For Brennan

Not only is John Brennan a terrible CIA chief, he was a terrible Counterterrorism Adviser to the President, as evidenced by this speech in 2011:

Our strategy is also shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qa’ida’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al-Qa’ida’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.

Yeah, about that whole "absurd" and "never going to happen" thing there, John...

Perhaps it sounds glib to talk about the branding of an extremist Islamist group responsible for the deaths and oppression of thousands. But the branding or, perhaps more accurately, the idea of the Islamic State is exactly what attracts recruits and funding to the group. And even if its techniques have sometimes been crude, the Islamic State has clearly gone out of its way to promote its brand. 

What's really worrying is that despite all the confusion over its name, the Islamic State "brand" actually seems pretty solid — and worryingly global. It's distinctive black-and-white flag was flown in London last week, and leaflets supporting it were handed out in the city's Oxford Street on Tuesday. An American was arrested at a New York City airport this month after authorities were tipped off by his pro-Islamic State Twitter rants. The group has began publishing videos in Hindi, Urdu and Tamil in a bid to reach Indian Muslims. There are credible reports that the group is hoping to target Asian countries — and Indonesia is so worried that it banned all support for the Islamic State. 

The list goes on and on. Whatever you call it — the Islamic State, ISIS, ISIL, or something else — its brand is potent.

They're taking over big chunks of land in Iraq and Syria as well.

Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria have taken control of several towns in the northern province of Aleppo, according to reports from activists. 

The group seized the town of Akhtarin, 50km (30 miles) northeast of Aleppo city, where Syrian rebels are holed up. 

The BBC's Rami Ruhayem says that if confirmed, it would be a significant expansion for IS fighters. 

The group holds large swathes of Syria and Iraq, declaring the creation of a caliphate, or Islamic state.

Now, let's be clear here:  this mess can all be laid at the foot of Bush and Cheney.  But Brennan is terrible and while he's not going anywhere because of politics, the guy really does deserve to be shitcanned.

The Really Silent Majority

Welcome to post Citizens United America, which is nowhere near a republic, or even a democratic government, but one ruled by corporations and the billionaires who profit from them.

The new study, with the jaw-clenching title of "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is forthcoming in the fall 2014 edition of Perspectives on Politics. Its authors, Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, examined survey data on 1,779 national policy issues for which they could gauge the preferences of average citizens, economic elites, mass-based interest groups and business-dominated interest groups. They used statistical methods to determine the influence of each of these four groups on policy outcomes, including both policies that are adopted and rejected. 

The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic elites and organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registers at a "non-significant, near-zero level." The analysts further discovered that rich individuals and business-dominated interest groups dominate the policymaking process. The mass-based interest groups had minimal influence compared to the business-based interest groups. 

For the corporate elite, by the corporate elite.

The study also debunks the notion that the policy preferences of business and the rich reflect the views of common citizens. They found to the contrary that such preferences often sharply diverge and when they do, the economic elites and business interests almost always win and the ordinary Americans lose. 

We're just inconveniences to the richest people on earth.  If you want to know why billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson are so callow and dismissive of Americans, it's that they really do see us as vermin to be exterminated.

The authors also say that given limitations to tapping into the full power elite in America and their policy preferences, "the real world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater" than their findings indicate.

Ultimately, Gilens and Page conclude from their work, "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

The best Congress money can buy.  Even when we do get a decent person in the Oval Office once in a while, the laws that make it through Congress are so awful that the rich always win.  But there's this:

Rich individuals and business interests have the capacity to hire the lobbyists that shadow legislators in Washington and to fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. Ordinary citizens are themselves partly to blame, however, because they do not choose to vote.

A thousand, million times this.  When we don't vote, the machine wins.

Every time.

The War In Our Backyard

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri is heartbreaking.  Michael Brown was shot and killed by police and left for dead in the street for hours.  When the black community protested his senseless murder, the cops used military grade hardware and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Wednesday, the fourth night of protests, got visibly ugly.  Jelani Cobb was on the scene and posted this recount in the New Yorker this morning:

Nothing that happened in Ferguson, Missouri, on the fourth night since Michael Brown died at the hands of a police officer there, dispelled the notion that this is a place where law enforcement is capable of gross overreaction. Just after sundown on Wednesday, local and state officers filled West Florissant Avenue, the main thoroughfare, with massive clouds of tear gas. They lobbed flash grenades at protesters who were gathered there to demand answers, and, at times, just propelled them down the street. That they ordered the crowd to disperse was not noteworthy. That the order was followed by successive waves of gas, hours after the protests ended, became an object lesson in the issues that brought people into the streets in the first place. Two journalists, Wesley Lowery, of the Washington Post, and Ryan Reilly, of the Huffington Post, and a St. Louis Alderman, Antonio French, were arrested. (The journalists were let go without charges; the alderman, as his wife told reporters, was released after being charged with unlawful assembly.) What transpired in the streets appeared to be a kind a municipal version of shock and awe; the first wave of flash grenades and tear gas had played as a prelude to the appearance of an unusually large armored vehicle, carrying a military-style rifle mounted on a tripod. The message of all of this was something beyond the mere maintenance of law and order: it’s difficult to imagine how armored officers with what looked like a mobile military sniper’s nest could quell the anxieties of a community outraged by allegations regarding the excessive use of force. It revealed itself as a raw matter of public intimidation.

Which was the point.  You give a police department military hardware and the authorization to use it, and American citizens, in this case the black population of Ferguson, looks like an insurgency that requires "counter-terrorist" measures to "contain".  The language the police have been using sounds like the kind of strategy deployed in Afghanistan:  "reaching out" to the population, working with "leaders" in order to identify "unethical actors in the theater" that may require a "rapid response".

The theater is suburban Missouri, not Anbar province or Fallujah or Balochistan.  The people there are not Kurds or Sunni or former Ba'athists.  They're Americans.

And this is war being waged upon us.

StupidiNews!

• Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says any mission to evacuate Iraqi Yazidis from the country's besieged Sinjar Mountains is now "far less likely" due to improving conditions.
• A fifth day of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri ended with heavily armed police arresting several reporters and dispersing peaceful protesters using tear gas and military grade weapons.
• Sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea has resulted in an exodus of capital and the people running it to Europe.
• The latest Israel-Hamas cease fire in Gaza has been extended for five days, prompting hope that a more lasting cease-fire agreement can be reached.
• The FBI says facial recognition software played a major part in finding a wanted fugitive on the run for 14 years who was arrested in Nepal.

Last Call For Boehner's Big Backfire

The logic here is that House Speaker John Boehner doesn't want to impeach President Obama, but that the 100% politically motivated lawsuit to stop President Obama from taking executive action will motivate his base to vote in November without all the messy impeachment bits.

Turns out that as with nearly everything else, Orange Julius has miscalculated badly on that front.  Greg Sargent:

As I reported the other day, Dem leaders are planning an aggressive effort during the August recess and beyond to draw attention to the House GOP lawsuit against President Obama and turn it into a positive in the 2014 elections. The idea is to cast the GOP as extreme and committed to destructive governing — and contrast that with Dems’ concrete economic policy agenda, to lure disaffected swing voters and get out Dem voter groups to offset that hideous “midterm dropoff problem” Dems face. 

The new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that the lawsuit may help Dems do just that. Aaron Blake finds a gem in the poll — the lawsuit motivates Dem voters more than GOP ones:

Americans say 58 percent to 34 percent that the GOP should not sue Obama, and moderates agree 67-22. Moderates also say by a 50-25 margin that the lawsuit makes them more likely to back Democrats in 2014. 

What’s even worse for Republicans when it comes to both impeachment and the lawsuit is that they don’t even have the effect you might think on the GOP base. They do, however, motivate liberals…on the lawsuit matter, liberals are 9 points more motivated to back Democrats (72 percent) than conservatives are to back Republicans (63 percent).

Oops.  Nobody could have guessed that Orange Julius's latest political plan would be a loser, right?

The poll also finds that 88 percent of Democrats say the lawsuit would make them more likely to vote for their side, while 78 percent of Republicans say the same. What’s more, only tea party-aligned Republicans support the lawsuit, while even non-tea party Republicans tilt against it. So this effort may scratch the hard-right GOP base’s impeachment itch, but it could end up motivating Democrats more.

Thanks, John.  We knew you could find a way to screw up yet again and in the Democrats' favor.  Keep up the bad work!

Like A Kansas Tornado, Con't

Kansas GOP Gov. Sam Brownback is trapped in a storm of his own making, and the forecast doesn't look good at all for his political career.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R), trails Democratic challenger state Rep. Paul Davis by 10 percentage points, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

The poll, released Tuesday, found Davis, the state House minority leader, leading Brownback 51 percent to 41 percent. Another 3 percent said they preferred another candidate and 5 percent said they were undecided. The poll, by the Republican-leaning Rasmussen, is the latest in a series of signs showing Brownback in serious trouble in his re-election campaign. 

Brownback's little-known primary challenger, Jennifer Winn, did surprisingly well in the primary against the governor, despite her long odds. 

Before this Rasmussen poll, the TPM Polltracker average gave Davis a 6 point lead over Brownback.

A Republican incumbent losing by ten in a Rasmussen poll probably translates closer to 12 or 13 in reality. Brownback is in brutal amounts of trouble politically.

Oh, but Brownback's legal troubles, well that's a whole new tornado.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said it would file charges against the state of Kansas, alleging that bond documents failed to disclose just how much of the state’s pension system was underfunded. 

The SEC said a series of bond offerings from 2009 and 2010, which raised $273 million for the state, did not disclose the unfunded liabilities owed by the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. The documents required by the SEC also failed to disclose the amount of debt service payments those unfunded liabilities would require. 

The commission blamed a lack of communication between the Kansas Development Finance Authority, which issues the bonds, and the Department of Administration, which provided the information required in the filings. 

“Kansas failed to adequately disclose its multibillion-dollar pension liability in bond offering documents, leaving investors with an incomplete picture of the state’s finances and its ability to repay the bonds amid competing strains on the state budget,” LeeAnn Ghazil Gaunt, who heads the SEC Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit,said in a statement.

Which means if all this is correct, Kansas's economy is way, way deeper in the hole than previously thought. Brownback's massive tax cuts, combined with the state's billions in pension liabilities, means the state is going to be hemorrhaging cash, and Kansas taxpayers are going to be on the hook for a whole hell of a lot of money.

Maybe Brownback should give California Gov. Jerry Brown a call, so he can see how to actually manage a state's finances.

Make no mistake though: if you thought Kansas austerity was bad before, just wait.  Meanwhile, Brownback's caught in the rain with no umbrella in sight.

PS:  this is what happens when Republicans run your economy:  they destroy it and blame the Democrats that get elected afterwards for not fixing it fast enough.

The Latest Poll Arising Position In Kentucky

Public Policy Polling's latest poll here of the Bluegrass State finds Mitch The Turtle up four points over Alison Grimes, 44-40%, with Libertarian gadfly David Patterson getting a non-trivial 7% of the vote. (Without Patterson, it's a 47-42% McConnell lead.)

In early April we found Grimes leading McConnell 45/44. The main thing that's changed since then is McConnell seeing some consolidation in his base. At that point, in the middle of his primary fight with Matt Bevin, he had only a 49 point advantage with Republican voters at 69/20. Now in the two way contest he is up 67 points with GOP voters at 78/11, and when you include the Libertarian his advantage is 63 points at 72/9. That unification of Republicans accounts for most of the change we've seen over the last four months. 

This is the first time PPP has looked at approval and favorability ratings for McConnell and Grimes since December, and although he remains unpopular McConnell's seen improvement on that front as well. Then he had a 31/61 approval spread, but now it's improved to 37/54. That shift is also largely a function of movement among Republican voters- he's gone from having just a 47/41 approval rating with them up to 58/30 now. Grimes has seen her name recognition increase from 68% to 86% over that period of time but there's been little shift in her net favorability- she's gone from -6 at 31/37 to -4 at 41/45. 

Barack Obama's unpopularity in Kentucky continues to make the landscape difficult for Democrats- only 32% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 63% who disapprove. 38% of the voters who disapprove of McConnell also disapprove of Obama, and among that group McConnell is receiving 20% of the vote, which is how you get to 44% of the vote with only a 37% approval rating. 

All said the race remains close and McConnell remains unpopular- and among the undecided voters McConnell has just a 10% approval rating to 66% of voters who disapprove of him. So Grimes should at least have a chance with those folks.

Looking ahead to 2015 and the race for governor, Democratic frontrunner and Secretary of State Jack Conway leads all polled Republican challengers anywhere from 3-12 points, which is good because if this state elects Matt Bevin to replace Dinosaur Steve, I'm moving over the river to Ohio.  I'm not even joking.

But here's the kicker:

Finally we asked voters their opinions both about Kynect and the Affordable Care Act. Each finds 34% support, but while 51% of voters say they're opposed to the Affordable Care Act only 27% say they're opposed to Kynect. Even the Affordable Care Act numbers are a little bit better than you would expect for Kentucky given the conservatism of the state, suggesting that Kynect's success has helped some with the overall image of the ACA.

I'm surprised the number of ignorant, "I hate this because I hate Obama" voters here is only 24%.

StupidiNews!

• Film leading lady Lauren Bacall passed away Tuesday at the age of 89, having married Humphrey Bogart in 1945 and having two children before Bogart's death in 1957.
• Archaeologists in Greece has unearthed a massive burial mound from the era of Alexander the Great, but are unsure as to who may be buried in it.
• Current Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki says the appointment by the Iraqi parliament of Haider al-Abadi to replace him "had no value" and is unconstitutional as he refuses to leave the position.
• New LA Clippers owner and Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer is among several large donors to Washington state's campaign for gun control.
• Sony's PlayStation 4 has reached the 10 million consoles sold mark in under 9 months, beating its predecessor PlayStation 3 by 4 months in reaching the milestone.