StupidiNews!

• Protests against police brutality found tens of thousands marching in cities across America over the weekend in support of the families of victims.
• Former Vice-President Dick Cheney insisted in an interview with NBC that former President George W. Bush knew about torture of terrorist detainees and insisted it was done for medical reasons.
• Australian police are treating a hostage situation in a Sydney cafe as a terrorist attack, believing the gunman may have ties to Islamist extremists.
• New York is expected to issue the state's first Vegas-style casino licenses this week, eventually putting gambling facilities in the Catskills, only 50 miles away from the Big Apple.
• Ride-share service Uber charged four times the regular fare rate in Sydney during Monday's hostage crisis, only to turn around and begin offering free rides after being mauled in social media.

Last Call For Uber Uber Alles

Ride share bad boy Uber is flipping the country's taxi services upside down, proving that when you combine the ambush tactics of the Tea Party right and the pitiless analysis of Silicon Valley's left, there's very few local and state legislatures and regulators you can't curbstomp.

On a Thursday in June, bureaucrats from Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles made their move against Uber Technologies. The fast-growing ride-for-hire company was told that its popular service was, in fact, illegal and that the firm needed to immediately cease all operations in the state.

Far from being intimidated, Uber was ready to fight back. The company immediately called on one of its most potent weapons: its ­ever-growing list of smartphone-wielding customers. A notice sent to Uber users in Virginia included the e-mail address and phone number of the ordinarily low-profile official in charge of the decision. The notice instructed the company’s supporters to demand that the DMV “stand up for you.”

Hundreds of them did and, by Sunday, Commissioner Richard Holcomb’s inbox was flooded. Holcomb did his best to respond — working through the weekend, even crafting e-mails to irate Uber customers as he lay in bed at home.

The poor guy never had a chance.

Then, seeking a longer-term fix, Uber lobbyists submitted a draft of a proposed temporary operating permit. State officials granted a revised version several weeks later, permitting Uber as well as Lyft, a smaller company, to continue normal operations for the time being.

In an era of government dysfunction, the Virginia example shows how San Francisco-based Uber has pioneered not just a new sort of taxi service but also a new way to change long-standing local ordinances.

Uber’s approach is brash and, so far, highly effective: It launches in local markets regardless of existing laws or regulations. It aims to build a large customer base as quickly as possible. When challenged, Uber rallies its users to pressure government officials, while unleashing its well-connected lobbyists to influence lawmakers.

Why bother with lobbyist organizations like ALEC when you can cut out the middleman, aggressively leverage the internet and your own customers, and crush any and all regulatory opposition?  Just roll through and take over before anyone can react. Yes, the article does point out that Uber has screwed up so far on more than a few occasions, and maybe people are starting to wise up to what's going on.

But until that happens, it's the Wild West, and Uber is winning.

Sunday Long Read: History Is Written By The Winners

I grew up in North Carolina and went to public school there, eventually graduating from the state's residential magnet high school for science and math.  It was one of the best learning experiences of my life, which is why it saddens me to see 20 years later that the Koch brothers just bought North Carolina's high school history and civics classes to teach Tea Party doctrine to students.

Public high school students in North Carolina will be taught from a lesson plans and worksheets prepared by a organization closely tied to the billionaire Koch brothers, if the state’s Department of Public Instruction gets its way. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, the Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute received a “$100,000, sole-source contract with [North Carolina] to help develop materials for teachers to use in a course on founding principles that the state requires students to take.”

The N&O also notes that the organization receives funding directly from David Koch and from two Koch family foundations, although, if anything, this description understates the Institute’s ties to the conservative billionaires. Two of the Institutes four board members are employed by Koch entities — one is a senior vice president at Koch Industries and another is director of higher education programs at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation — and many of the Institute’s other top leaders also appear likely to push a political agenda in line with the Koch brothers’ anti-government views. Board member Todd Zywicki, is a George Mason law professor and a leading opponent of Wall Street reforms such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Institute’s president, David J. Bobb, founded two centers at Hillsdale College, a conservative institution of higher education that proclaims its opposition to “the dehumanizing, discriminatory trend of so called ‘social justice’ and ‘multicultural diversity.’”

At every turn the lesson plan is that America was formed by armed resistance to centralized, federal government and remains plagued to this day by high taxes and Washington DC interference.  The lesson plan also includes a call to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, instead allowing state legislatures to choose Senators to "avoid the corruption of federal elections" and holds the Commerce Clause as the source of many woes the country suffers from.

It's pretty subtle and nasty stuff, and worth a read.  Especially for those of you with kids in high school, understand that this lesson plan is coming to dozens of red states pushed by state legislatures controlled by Republican corporate interests.

Got to get them hating the federal government while they're young, you know.

Cruz Uncontrolled Con't

So Sen. Ted Cruz's plan to force the Senate to stay through the weekend and vote on every single nomination the Dems wanted in order to pass this year's spending bill to stop a shutdown was a disaster.

For Ted Cruz.

Democrats called his bluff.

While Republican senators were fuming at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for holding up a $1.1 trillion spending bill aimed at preventing a government shutdown, Democrats saw a silver lining: the move by Cruz and Lee gave Democrats an opening to move a number of President Barack Obama's nominees for federal judgeships and the executive branch.

What happened was that when Cruz and Lee scuttled a deal between Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that would have allowed lawmakers to leave Washington D.C. for the weekend and come back Monday they gave Democrats a chance to advance Obama's presidential appointees by having to stay in D.C. to deal with the spending bill.

The extra time over the weekend gave Reid the opportunity to, through the Senate's executive session, file cloture on the nominations and move them sooner than they would have under the deal Reid and McConnell had planned on and that Cruz and Lee blocked. Under the original deal Reid would have had to schedule votes on the nominees later in the upcoming week, when Democrats may not have wanted to stick around to vote.

"It allows us to speed up the time when we could get going on these noms, rather than waiting until next week," a top Senate Democratic aide told TPM on Saturday evening. "It gets harder to get them all done when you’re running up on the end of the Congress."

Cruz dragged out the clock in protest, lost his anti-immigration poison pill vote on the CR/Omnibus bill anyway, and bought the Democrats extra time to bring up all the nominations that the Republicans blocked for the last two years for a straight up or down vote on Monday.

And in the end, Ted Cruz loses again.  Get used to that headline, America.

Bill De Blasio, Persona Non Grata

New York City's Finest apparently don't think Hizzoner Mayor Bill de Blasio should be welcome anymore after siding with people who think the NYPD shouldn't be chokeholding people to death.

Cops are warning Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa ​Mark-​Viverito to stay away from their funerals should they be ​killed in the line of duty.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association distributed a flier to members, blaring: “DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” Cops were encouraged to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban the cop-bashing pols from their funerals.

“I, as a New York City police officer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attending my funeral services in the event that I am killed in the line of duty,” the waiver states.

“Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.”

Officers can download the form on the PBA’s Web site and drop off a signed copy to their PBA delegates.

The mayor traditionally attends funerals for fallen officers.

Not anymore, it seems.

Cruz Uncontrolled

The whole "not shutting the government down" plan the House worked out on Thursday has run into the reality of Grandstanding Sen. Ted Cruz, and no plan survives contact with the Enemy, as they say.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the firebrand conservative freshman from Texas, has blown up the Senate leadership’s plans to have a peaceful weekend by forcing round-the-clock votes on President Obama’s nominees and the $1.1 trillion omnibus.

Cruz took to the floor late Friday to castigate congressional leaders for trying to pass the 1,600-page spending bill after only a few hours of debate and questioned the resolve of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to fight Obama’s executive order protecting five million illegal immigrants from deportation. 

“Even though millions of voters rose up just one month ago to protest how President Obama and the Senate Democrats were running Washington, business as usual is continuing inside the marble halls of the United State Congress,” Cruz said in a fiery floor speech.

Because of objections from Cruz and his ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the Senate will begin slogging through procedural votes on nominees starting at noon Saturday and vote to end a filibuster of the omnibus spending package at 1 a.m. Sunday morning.

“It appears that we’re going to have to have a series of votes all day tomorrow starting as soon as we get here and perhaps into the morning,” Reid said shortly before temporarily adjourning the chamber Friday night.

A senior Senate Democratic aide said the Senate may hold up to 40 procedural votes on nominees this weekend due to what he called the “extreme pettiness on the part of Republicans.”

So we're all just playing Ted Cruz's game now.  Get used to that for the next two years, America.  It's what you voted for when you sat home in November.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Four are wounded, 3 hospitalized as police search for a gunman who opened fire near a high school in Portland, Oregon.
• US Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Justice Department will not compel NY Times reporter James Risen to reveal his source on a failed CIA plot to undermine Iran's nuclear program.
• The "CR/Omnibus" spending bill that passed the House yesterday must now pass the Senate before midnight Sunday to avoid a government shutdown.
• Meanwhile, the House passed unanimously tougher sanctions on Russia over the continuing Ukraine crisis, but the bill gives President Obama some leeway on action.
• British officials are blaming an air traffic control center software failure for dozens of cancelled flights on Friday.

Last Call For Back-Scratching 101

The Village is a small world after all as the Sony Pictures hack/leak is the gift that keeps on giving.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd promised to show Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal’s husband Bernard Weinraub — a former Times reporter — a version of a column featuring Pascal before publication. 

The end result was a column that painted Pascal in such a good light that she engaged in a round of mutual adulation with Dowd over email after its publication. It also scored Pascal points back at the studio, with Sony’s then-communications chief calling the column “impressive.” 

The exchanges were uncovered in a trove of Pascal’s emails released as part of a massive hack on Sony carried out by the group known as “Guardians of Peace.” 

The column, published after the Academy Awards earlier this year, lamented how “Oscar voters and industry top brass are still overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged.”

Of course.  It's ironic that the column found Hollywood to be an overly chummy boys club (which it is) while of course Dowd and Pascal using a close friendship to get the glowing column about Pascal written in the first place.

Can't be burned down fast enough.

Don't Get This Band Back Together, Please

One thing Hillary Clinton can attempt to do in order to address concerns of African-American voters like myself who did not vote for her in the 2008 primaries is to not surround herself with the people she had in 2007-2008. You know, back when her campaign braintrust decided that trashing Obama with good ol' Southern Strategy garbage was OH HELLO LANNY DAVIS.

Last week, on Dec. 4, I helped organize a Ready for Hillary fundraiser in Montgomery County, Md., in the immediate suburbs of Washington, D.C. The organization, an independent grassroots committee, has been at work for the past year gathering millions of names and small donations in support of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president — that is, just in case she decides to run in 2016.

Never the hell mind with that plan then.

By the way, Davis goes on to say Martin O'Malley's people are backing Hillary now, but the funny part is O'Malley is going after Hillary over her refusal to prosecute Bush/Cheney era torture.

Ark-itechcts Of Their Own Disaster

Joe Sonka gives us some good news:  Dinosaur Steve's Ark Park here in Kentucky will not be getting taxpayer money after all.

Kentucky’s Tourism Arts & Heritage Cabinet Secretary Bob Stewart informed representatives of the proposed Ark Encounter tourist attraction today that their project will not be eligible for up to $18 million in tax incentives from the state, due to their refusal to pledge not to discriminate in hiring based on religion. 

“As you know, since the filing of the original incentive application in 2010, we have strongly supported this project, believing it to be a tourism attraction based on biblical themes that would create significant jobs for the community,” wrote Stewart in a letter to Ark Encounter’s attorney. “However, based on various postings on the Answers in Genesis (AIG) and Ark Encounter websites, reports from Ark Encounter investor meetings and our correspondence, it is readily apparent that the project has evolved from a tourism attraction to an extension of AIG’s ministry that will no longer permit the Commonwealth to grant the project tourism development incentives.” 

Stewart explains that their application will not go forward because the state will not grant incentives to a company that openly intends to discriminate in hiring based on religion, saying it is a violation of the state constitution for these incentives to be used to advance religion. He detailed how Ark Encounter representatives had previously promised not to discriminate in hiring several times, but recently they have stated they have every right to do so, saying, “The Commonwealth’s position hasn’t changed. The applicant’s position has changed.” 

Stewart cited AiG CEO Ken Ham’s Nov. 19 fundraising letter that accused the Beshear administration of religious persecution and reaffirmed their desire to discriminate in hiring based on religion. He also cited other statements throughout the year from AiG officials claiming the purpose of the park is to evangelize and indoctrinate its visitors. 

“Certainly, Ark Encounter has every right to change the nature of the project from a tourism attraction to a ministry,” wrote Stewart. “However, state tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination or otherwise be used to advance religion. The use of state incentives in this way violates the Separation of Church and State provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible.” 

Stewart went on to wish the Ark Encounter project well, despite the fact that it will receive no money or incentives from the state.

Good.  I've been saying the Yabba Dabba D'oh here should never have gotten a dime, and it looks like finally that Ken Ham will have to fork over his own cash.  I'm not paying for a Christian indoctrination theme park with my tax dollars, especially when "Christian" here has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and everything to do with being a complete bigoted asshole to everyone.

Good riddance, and I hope the whole thing burns.

StupidiNews!

• The House narrowly avoided another shutdown fiasco with a 219-206 vote to pass a funding bill through next year, but the bill faces substantial Senate opposition.
• A time capsule from Boston's colonial era has been dug up from under the Massachusetts State House, originally buried by Samuel Adams and Paul Revere.
• Dozens of congressional staffers walked out of the Capitol on Thursday in a "hands up, don't shoot" posture to show solidarity with supporters of slain Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
• Crude oil prices have now dropped below $60 a barrel as the International Energy Agency has cut their demand forecast for the fourth time in just five months.
• The FCC may have folded on net neutrality, but has decreed that in order to receive subsidies for rural broadband development that carriers have to offer a minimum of 10Mbps speeds.

Last Call For The Hollywood Shuffle

So if you recall last week's Sony Pictures data heist, you know crooks have been leaking devastating internal data from Sony Pictures showing just how mindlessly stupid the company really is on a number of issues.  First, the company has a major, major gender gap and diversity problem:

Here are the stats: of the top 17 highest-paid executives at Sony, 88% are white and 94% are men. To put that into actual real-world numbers, 15 of these executives are white (including the list’s sole woman, Amy Pascal, who’s the co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group), one is Indian (Man Jit Singh, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), and one is black (Dwight R. Caines, marketing president at Sony Pictures Entertainment). 

And in case you were curious about whether or not the gender pay gap is also an issue over at Sony as well, Columbia Pictures co-president of production Hanna Minghella makes $800,000 less per year than co-president of production Michael De Luca, with whom she partners on many projects. Minghella got her title in October 2010 after working with the company for almost 10 years; De Luca’s only had his since December 2013.

Now we find out the company's executives are pretty clueless on race and President Obama, too.

Before Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal attended a breakfast of Hollywood bigwigs last November with Barack Obama, she emailed her friend Scott Rudin for suggestions on what she should ask the president. 

In what has become the latest embarrassing email uncovered in a trove of messages leaked by hackers who attacked Sony, Pascal wrote Rudin: “What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?” She was referring to a breakfast hosted by DreamWorks Animation head and major Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg. 

Rudin, a top film producer responsible for films like No Country for Old Men and Moneyball, responded, “Would he like to finance some movies.” Pascal replied, “I doubt it. Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” Rudin responded: “12 YEARS.” Pascal quickly continued down the path of guessing Obama preferred movies by or starring African Americans. “Or the butler. Or think like a man? [sic]” 

Rudin’s response: “Ride-along. I bet he likes Kevin Hart.”

Hahaha gosh that's hysterical, guys.  Look, like Chris Rock said, Hollywood is run by rich white people and they are entirely tone deaf to everything about race and culture across the board.

It's a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. It just is. And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there's nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, that's what I want for my daughters. But something tells me that the life my privileged daughters are leading right now might not make them the best candidates to run the black division of anything. And the person who runs the black division of a studio should probably have worked with black people at some point in their life. Clint Culpepper [a white studio chief who specializes in black movies] does a good job at Screen Gems because he's the kind of guy who would actually go see Best Man Holiday. But how many black men have you met working in Hollywood? They don't really hire black men. A black man with bass in his voice and maybe a little hint of facial hair? Not going to happen. It is what it is. I'm a guy who's accepted it all.

So no, not surprising at all that Sony's team assumed the President likes Kevin Hart movies.

Being Judge Mental On Immigration

Looks like the red states suing President Obama over his immigration action have gotten the judge they wanted for an injunction that could wreck the entire plan.

The lawsuit is led by Texas Attorney General (and Gov.-elect) Greg Abbott and joined by 17 other Republican states. They ask for an immediate injunction to stop administration officials from moving forward; if they succeed, the actions may be halted before they can begin taking applications, which the White House expects to start doing this spring. 

Legal experts say the lawsuit is flawed on questions of "standing," which requires proof of a tangible injury to the suing party; and on the merits, where longstanding legal precedent grants the executive branch a huge amount of discretion when it comes to enforcing immigration laws. 

But in a calculated move, the Republicans landed the case before their dream judge: Andrew S. Hanen of Texas, appointed by George H.W. Bush. Hanen has fiercely criticized the Obama administration where it has shown mercy on immigration enforcement. In a December 2013 order, he said the Department of Homeland Security "assisted" a criminal conspiracy by failing to prosecute or deport the smuggler of a 10-year-old girl brought into the United States illegally.

So what kind of damage can Judge Hanen do?  Plenty.  Despite the lack of standing issues with the case to begin with, if Hanen agrees with Texas and the 16 other states, Obama's immigration action would be blocked from going into effect.  The case would next go to the 5th Circuit, which would then be asked to lift such an injunction while the appeal was pending. Odds are real good the 5th Circuit would then tell Obama to go jump off a cliff and keep the injunction in place, and Obama's immigration plan would be in limbo until the 5th Circuit then got around to making a decision.

If the case goes to the Supreme Court, the Obama administration would have much better odds.

When it comes to the merits, the Republicans may have a tough time at the Supreme Court, should the case eventually reach there. Legomsky pointed to two Supreme Court cases — both cited in the Obama administration's legal memo justifying the actions — Chaney v. Heckler andArizona v. U.S. as examples of the "very broad prosecutorial discretion" that the executive branch has on the issue of immigration.

In 2012, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Arizona v. U.S., "Removal is a civil matter, and one of its principal features is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials, who must decide whether to pursue removal at all." His 5-3 majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts.

But the path to SCOTUS has land mines all over it.  We'll see how this shapes up.

Time's Person Of The Year Announced

Time's annual Person of the Year for 2014 is a pretty decent (and non-controversial) choice, the "Ebola Fighters" who risked their safety to battle the disease in Africa and the US.

For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure. 

But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one. 

Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams. 

Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. “If someone from America comes to help my people, and someone from Uganda,” says Iris Martor, a Liberian nurse, “then why can’t I?” Foday Gallah, an ambulance driver who survived infection, calls his immunity a holy gift. “I want to give my blood so a lot of people can be saved,” he says. “I am going to fight Ebola with all of my might.”

And while these medical professionals definitely deserve accolades for their selfless work, it's Time's list of far more controversial also-rans that are the most intriguing: the brave Ferguson protesters who told the world that even in the most powerful country on earth, black people are still second class citizens in many ways, the ruthless Vladimir Putin, who upended Europe's entire geopolitical structure only to get sandbagged by good old fashioned oil speculation capitalism, Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma, whose Alibaba IPO became the largest offering ever made to the Wall Street gods, and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who may be the US's only real ally in the ISIS mess we're now stuck in until further notice.

Personally, I wanted to see the Ferguson protesters win, especially now with Eric Garner's now notorious case gaining nationwide attention to police brutality against people of color in the US.

What say the assembled?

StupidiNews!

• After years of drought, California is being inundated with a massive storm that could dump as much as ten inches of rain in parts of the Golden State.
• The GOP-led House has passed measures to remove insurance companies from oversight in Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation as part of today's must pass spending bill.
• A US appeals court has thrown out two major hedge fund insider trading convictions, putting dozens of other convictions obtained in the last several years in jeopardy of also being reversed.
• British analysts are warning that drug-resistant infections may cost the global economy up to $100 trillion over the next 35 years, a threat they say is as great as climate change.
• The US Navy has approved the military's first ship-based laser weapon for use aboard the USS Ponce in the Persian Gulf.