The Miseducation Of Juan Williams

Former FOX News contributor Juan Williams is shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- to discover that Republicans are trying to completely destroy the nation's public education system.

The House had planned a vote on the “Student Success Act” on the last Friday in February.

After years of difficult debate, Republicans seemed to be on their way to passing a bill that at least provided a basis for future negotiations with the Senate.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) enthused that it was a “good conservative bill that empowers America and does not empower the bureaucracy here in Washington.”

But with the largest GOP majority in memory, the Speaker still could not get the votes to pass the bill and Republicans cancelled the vote. The Associated Press described it as a “political embarrassment for Republicans.” 

It was a national embarrassment. 

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, managed to say only that he hoped to “finish this important work soon.”

But House Republican leaders have not scheduled another vote.

What was the "Student Success Act" anyway?  You'd be forgiven for not hearing anything about it.  It got zero coverage in the wake of the failures of No Child Left Behind and the dismantling of Race To The Top and the war over Common Core standards.  It was the latest batch of snake oil from the GOP on education, and it effectively dismantled the Department of Education.

That means years of work on school reform have gone up in smoke. Why? The answer is a purely ideological grandstand play in which Republicans demanded the bill completely eliminate the federal hand in dealing with failing schools.

That was never going to happen. The bill already included more discretion for local and state government when it came to dealing with failing schools. The idea of eliminating the federal role while federal dollars continue flowing is absurd.

Too many states have a history of ignoring disadvantaged or disabled students for the federal government to relinquish all control. Total removal of federal oversight is, at best, a talking point for outside groups, including Heritage Action and Club for Growth. 

But GOP hardliners abandoned the entire bill over this issue. They walked away from a decade of impassioned debate over fear of too much testing for students and too much pressure on teachers. There was too much political barking and too little focus on young Americans trapped in bad schools. 

To make the death of efforts to help school children even more certain, the House Republicans weighed down the already-controversial bill with requirements that no federal dollars go to any school district with a health program that offers information on abortion. 

That action betrayed the true priorities of several Republicans — to engage in political showboating while injecting a poisonous issue sure to kill the bill.

The GOP bill would have effectively allowed states to take federal education money with zero oversight, but no money would have gone to any school that taught sex education.  It's ridiculous, and the bill imploded under its own asinine contradictions.

But that of course was always the plan.  An uneducated population is much easier to control.

Killing The Climate Change Messenger

If there's any state that should be worried about rising oceans, it's Florida with its 1,350 miles of coastline.  Instead, Florida Republicans have apparently decided that if they simply prohibit people talking about climate change, then the problem will magically cease to exist.

The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years.

But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes. 

DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. 

The policy goes beyond semantics and has affected reports, educational efforts and public policy in a department that has about 3,200 employees and $1.4 billion budget. 

“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’ ” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.” 

Kristina Trotta, another former DEP employee who worked in Miami, said her supervisor told her not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in a 2014 staff meeting. 

“We were told that we were not allowed to discuss anything that was not a true fact,” she said.

Can't have anyone thinking climate change is real.  Next thing you know they'll want states and the federal government to start trying to do something about it, and we can't have corporations pay for something that would affect people 50 or 100 years from now.  Why, that would affect profits.

And we can't have fascism like that in America, you know.

The fascism where people aren't allowed to mention climate change, well, that's different.

StupidiNews!

• The national chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity has shut down the chapter on the University of Oklahoma campus after a racist video surfaced over the weekend.
• The first attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered plane starts today in Abu Dhabi as the Solar Impulse 2 plans a five-month journey without using any conventional fuel.
• Activists in Madison, Wisconsin protested for a third straight night over the death of an unarmed black teenager at the hands of a white police officer Friday evening.
• Eurozone officials say Greece's latest proposal for a deal on a bailout falls far short of what was rejected two weeks ago, meaning Greece will most likely miss a deadline for a March cash dispersal.
• Less than a year after the European Union adopted net neutrality laws, the proposal is now facing revisions that would allow carriers to set up "prioritized, specialized services".

Last Call For It's All Over, Kids

Mark Halperin has declared Hillary Clinton "done for" over this email thing. John Amato:

Bloomberg News' Mark Halperin has changed his mind over Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming president because of the news that Hillary used a private email while at the State Department and told ABC's This Week, that she's all but done as a candidate. That's a pretty big turnaround over a story that hasn't birthed any damning information about the former first lady at his time.

Charles Pierce calls the media reaction to the #E-MailWhateverYouCallIt a lightweight feeding frenzy.

Halperin is now the unofficial leader of #ItstheEndOfHillaryClintonAsPresidentHooah! club.

MARK HALPERIN, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I said a few weeks ago on this show that I thought she was easily the most likely president of the United States. I now think not only is she because of this as a symptom and a cause, I now think she's not only easily the most likely, I don't think she's any more the most likely.

I think it's important to hold all politicians accountable for their actions, but Halperin's breathless condemnation of Hillary Clinton is off the wall.

I agree, but let's not forget guys like Halperin thrive on this stuff.  I'm certainly not counting her out this early.

Rand's Taking Offense

And my senator embarrasses the state in front of the country yet again, this time on same-sex marriage.

In an interview with Bret Baier from Fox News, potential GOP presidential nominee Rand Paul came out in support of “traditional marriage,” before admitting that using the term ‘marriage’ for same sex couples offends him.

According to the Washington Blade, the Kentucky senator who describes himself as a “libertarian conservative’ has strong feelings when it comes to how marriage is defined.

“I think marriage is between a man and a woman. Ultimately, we could have fixed this a long time ago if we just allowed contracts between adults. We didn’t have to call it marriage, which offends myself and a lot of people,” he told Baier.

Paul went on to describe the bond between two adults as more of a business than a loving relationship, saying, “I think having competing contracts that would give them equivalency before the law would have solved a lot of these problems, and it may be where we’re still headed.”

Previously Paul said he didn’t think the government needs to be too involved in the same sex marriage debate, and shrugged off whether he might some day rethink his position.

So that's great.  Mr. Small Government now wants marriage redefined for all Americans as a business contract, but of course it can only be marriage for straight couples.  That seems like "freedom" to me, as long as ou fit Rand's narrow description of who deserves it.

Sunday Long Read: Reverberating Throughout The Ages

President Obama's speech on yesterday's 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma was amazing, and may have been one of his best speeches to date as he spoke of Selma in the context of that day being a pivotal moment in American history, along with such seminal locations as Appomattox Court House, Cape Canaveral, and Seneca Falls.

Selma is such a place. In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history -- the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preacher -- all that history met on this bridge.

It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the true meaning of America. And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others, the idea of a just America and a fair America, an inclusive America, and a generous America -- that idea ultimately triumphed.

As is true across the landscape of American history, we cannot examine this moment in isolation. The march on Selma was part of a broader campaign that spanned generations; the leaders that day part of a long line of heroes.

We gather here to celebrate them. We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod; tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep marching towards justice.

They did as Scripture instructed: "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." And in the days to come, they went back again and again. When the trumpet call sounded for more to join, the people came --- black and white, young and old, Christian and Jew, waving the American flag and singing the same anthems full of faith and hope. A white newsman, Bill Plante, who covered the marches then and who is with us here today, quipped that the growing number of white people lowered the quality of the singing. (Laughter.) To those who marched, though, those old gospel songs must have never sounded so sweet.

In time, their chorus would well up and reach President Johnson. And he would send them protection, and speak to the nation, echoing their call for America and the world to hear: "We shall overcome." (Applause.) What enormous faith these men and women had. Faith in God, but also faith in America.

The Americans who crossed this bridge, they were not physically imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had endured hundreds of years of brutal violence, countless daily indignities --- but they didn't seek special treatment, just the equal treatment promised to them almost a century before. (Applause.)

What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible, that love and hope can conquer hate.

And as President Obama pointed out, that battle against hatred is still being fought today.

We know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won. We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged, all of us, by the content of our character requires admitting as much, facing up to the truth. "We are capable of bearing a great burden," James Baldwin once wrote, "once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is."

There's nothing America can't handle if we actually look squarely at the problem. And this is work for all Americans, not just some. Not just whites. Not just blacks. If we want to honor the courage of those who marched that day, then all of us are called to possess their moral imagination. All of us will need to feel as they did the fierce urgency of now. All of us need to recognize as they did that change depends on our actions, on our attitudes, the things we teach our children. And if we make such an effort, no matter how hard it may sometimes seem, laws can be passed, and consciences can be stirred, and consensus can be built. (Applause.)

With such an effort, we can make sure our criminal justice system serves all and not just some. Together, we can raise the level of mutual trust that policing is built on --- the idea that police officers are members of the community they risk their lives to protect, and citizens in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland, they just want the same thing young people here marched for 50 years ago --- the protection of the law. (Applause.) Together, we can address unfair sentencing and overcrowded prisons, and the stunted circumstances that rob too many boys of the chance to become men, and rob the nation of too many men who could be good dads, and good workers, and good neighbors. (Applause.)

With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to opportunity. Americans don't accept a free ride for anybody, nor do we believe in equality of outcomes. But we do expect equal opportunity. And if we really mean it, if we're not just giving lip service to it, but if we really mean it and are willing to sacrifice for it, then, yes, we can make sure every child gets an education suitable to this new century, one that expands imaginations and lifts sights and gives those children the skills they need. We can make sure every person willing to work has the dignity of a job, and a fair wage, and a real voice, and sturdier rungs on that ladder into the middle class.

And with effort, we can protect the foundation stone of our democracy for which so many marched across this bridge --- and that is the right to vote. (Applause.) Right now, in 2015, 50 years after Selma, there are laws across this country designed to make it harder for people to vote. As we speak, more of such laws are being proposed. Meanwhile, the Voting Rights Act, the culmination of so much blood, so much sweat and tears, the product of so much sacrifice in the face of wanton violence, the Voting Rights Act stands weakened, its future subject to political rancor.

And so at this pivotal juncture, President Obama asked if Republicans will pick up the torch and as Dr. King once said, "always move forward".

Somehow, I think this generation of Republicans and the people who put them in office will not be up to the challenge.

A Bridge Too Far (To Visit)

Your Stopped Clock Is Right(tm) alert for the day, and possibly the year:  National Review's Charles CW Cooke tears into the GOP for not showing up at the 50th anniversary of Selma's Bloody Sunday.

This afternoon, in the hot center of the state of Alabama, a parade of Americans will pay homage to a historic march. Meeting on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on which hundreds of black Americans were beaten for the crime of standing up to their government, Barack Obama will remember a heroic feat of rebellion, and a brutal act of repression. The president, the White House has announced, will speak personally “about what it means to stand on the spot where police beat and gassed 600 unarmed protestors,” and he will explain what the moment means to him as an African American. 

And the Republican party’s current leadership will be nowhere to be seen.

By declining to join, Ohio representative Marsha Fudge told Politico, the GOP has “lost an opportunity to show the American people that they care.” Fudge is, of course, entirely correct. But the absence is far, far worse than that. By electing to skip the proceedings — and to send a former president and a handful of congressional representatives in lieu — the Republican leadership suggests that it does not recognize what Selma represents within America’s long history of public dissent.

The United States regards itself as a nation of revolutionaries and of rebels — of those radicals, renegades, and rabble-rousers who stood tall in the face of tyranny and shouted for all the world to hear that they would not go gentle into that good night. On the right, American disobedience is typically represented by a few, ancient images. It is Washington crossing the Delaware; Patrick Henry proclaiming that he would regard as acceptable options only liberty and death; and Thomas Jefferson and his band of seditionists pledging each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” It is the brutal winter in Valley Forge, and the inspiration of Philadelphia. It is Trumbull’s imaginative painting, and the reluctant voices that cried out from within the early colonial factions and conceded that there was no choice for Americans but to join or to die. When it comes time each year to remember these moments, Republicans rally as one.

On July Fourth, we read the Declaration of Independence, and in doing so we reaffirm that all men are created equal and that we will permit no “long train of abuses and usurpations” to reduce us “under absolute Despotism.” In our political disputes we thrill to the promises of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Often, our answer to what ails America is “James Madison.” Naturally, this is all well and good — deeply moving, even. And yet if we simultaneously forget for whom the country’s foundational “promissory note” has burned the brightest — and for whom it remained for so long an elusive source of “great deliverance” — our celebrations will run the risk of being distressingly incomplete, perhaps even hollow.

Of course it all rings hollow.  At the last minute, the GOP is sending House Majority Whip Kevin "Aptly Named" McCarthy to represent their "leadership", and in more than a dozen states, Republicans are actively trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act with legislation that makes it more difficult for all Americans to vote in red states, but particularly African Americans, including Alabama.

It's all well fine and good for Cooke to want the GOP to feel less guilty about its own horrible 60-plus year record of voter suppression and resistance, if not open hostility to civil rights and minorities in general, but the actions of Republicans reveal them as all liars and charlatans.

You have no further to look than South Carolina's black GOP Sen. Tim Scott for this proof:

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., an honorary co-chairman of the Selma trip and the only African-American Republican in the Senate, said voting rights and the commemoration of Selma should be “de-coupled.”

“The issue of voting rights legislation and the issue of Selma, we ought to have an experience that brings people together and not make it into a political conversation,” Scott said.

We have to "de-couple" civil rights from the struggle that necessitated it, because that's the only delusional way lawmakers like Scott can feel better about themselves when it comes to disenfranchising millions. Everything about Selma is political, Senator Scott.  You're a poor student of history to pretend otherwise.

But that's what the GOP wants us to do: pretend Selma never happened, because it was never necessary.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/03/05/258821/lawmakers-obama-civil-rights-leaders.html#storylink=cpy

Racing Against History

On the 50th anniversary of Selma's Bloody Sunday, there remain sharp differences in how race is perceived in America depending on if you're white or not.

As Barack Obama prepares to mark the march's anniversary in Selma, Alabama, 39% of Americans say relations between blacks and whites have worsened since he took office, including 45% of whites and 26% of blacks. Just 15% of Americans say race relations have improved under Obama, while 45% say they have stayed about the same.

When it comes to voting rights and criminal justice, about half of Americans think more work is needed. The poll finds 51% believe the Voting Rights Act, signed into law the summer after the march, remains necessary to make sure that blacks are allowed to vote, while 47% say it's no longer needed. Fifty percent say the nation's criminal justice system favors whites over blacks, while 42% think it treats both equally.

On employment, most see progress, with 72% saying blacks in their community have as good a chance as whites at getting jobs for which they are qualified, 28% say they do not.

But across all these measures, the overall results mask sharp divides between blacks and whites on perceptions of racial disparity in the U.S. While 76% of blacks say the Voting Rights Act is necessary in present day to ensure that blacks are able to vote, just 48% of whites agree. Likewise, 54% of African Americans say blacks do not have as good a chance as whites to get jobs for which they are qualified, just 19% of whites agree.

And blacks and whites are broadly divided in their assessment of the nation's criminal justice system. Three-quarters of African Americans (76%) say the system favors whites, compared with 42% of whites who hold that same opinion. The poll was completed before the Department of Justice released a report finding widespread racial discrimination by the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, where the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, by a white police officer sparked months of protests.

Oh and two-thirds of Republicans say race relations are worse under President Obama.   It's very easy to blame him, rather than ask yourself why that is.  I'm sure the Ferguson report will be dismissed the same way.  "Well, it's just one city with one bad police department.  That kind of thing doesn't happen where we live, and it's a waste of time and money looking for evidence otherwise."

The 42% of people who believe that blacks and whites are treated the same in the criminal justice system aren't delusional, frankly.  But then again, that's nothing new either.

Bobbing For Horse Apples

Looks like NJ Dem Sen. Bob Menendez is in serious legal trouble with the feds.

The Department of Justice is getting ready to bring corruption charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) over allegedly using his position to help a Democratic donor's business interests in exchange for gifts, CNN reported on Friday.

A formal announcement about the charges is expected to come "within weeks," according to CNN.

Citing anonymous sources who were "briefed on the case," CNN said Attorney General Eric Holder had approved prosecutors' request to charge Menendez.

The donor at the center of the charges, according to CNN, is Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist in Florida who's been a friend and supporter of Menendez for years.

As TPM has previously highlighted, Melgen's ties to Menendez have fallen under scrutiny over the past few years. CNN noted that federal investigators have been looking plane trips that Menendez took to the Dominican Republic as Melgen's guest about five years ago. When the investigation of the trips became public in 2013, Menendez reimbursed Melgen $58,000 for the flights, saying it was an "oversight" that he hadn't disclose the trips.

But it seems the Feds still think there's enough there for a criminal case, something pretty rare for a sitting Senator.  It's also important to note than Menendez has single-handedly been the thorn is President Obama's side on loosening up our Cuba policy, something he's said will never happen as long as he's in the Senate.

That may not be much longer.

Another Great Jobs Report

The February jobs numbers are in and it's another strong set of numbers: 295,000 jobs added for the month, and the jobless rate dropping to 5.5%.

Employers added 295,000 workers to their payrolls last month, more than forecast, and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent, the lowest in almost seven years, figures from the Labor Department showed Friday in Washington. Hourly earnings rose less than forecast.

The report underscores a lingering appetite among companies to boost headcounts as increased purchasing power from cheaper fuel supports consumer spending. While the jobless rate reached Federal Reserve policy makers’ range for what they consider full employment, a missing link continues to be faster wage growth that will be needed to ensure household purchases accelerate.

“These were solid job gains,” said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, whose forecast for a 280,000 gain was among the closest in the Bloomberg survey. “You’ve got a very strong economy.”

Stocks declined as the report fueled speculation the Fed is moving closer to raising interest rates. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.4 percent to 2,093.23 at 10:41 a.m. in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note jumped to 2.24 percent from 2.12 percent late on Thursday.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 235,000 increase in employment. Estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 150,000 to 370,000.

The jobless rate was projected to drop to 5.6 percent from January’s 5.7 percent.

The problem at this point is that hourly wages are continuing to stagnate.  The other issue: the numbers are looking like there may finally be an interest rate hike in the future.

A stronger-than-forecast U.S. payrolls report strengthens the argument for the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates in June, after the jobless rate reached the range that officials view as full employment.

The jobs report looks “unambiguously strong” said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research LLC. “June is still the base case” for rates to rise, he said. “The probability of September is falling rapidly.”

Fed Chair Janet Yellen last week began to prepare investors for an increase this year, without saying that a move was imminent. She signaled in testimony to Congress that the Fed may drop its pledge to be “patient,” which would mean that rates could be raised at any meeting.

That language is more likely to be dropped after Friday’s jobs report, said Aneta Markowska, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale SA in New York.

So we'll see where things go from here.  THe economy however is getting better, and one has to wonder how much better it would be if Republicans hadn't been blocking jobs bills for the last six year just to hurt President Obama.

StupidiNews!

• Actor Harrison Ford is in stable condition in a California hospital after the vintage WWII plane he was flying had to make an emergency landing at a Venice golf course.
• A train carrying thousands of barrels of crude oil derailed and caught fire in rural Illinois near the Mississippi River, the third oil train derailment incident in three weeks in the US.
• Central Kentucky is digging out from as much as 23 inches of snow after a storm blew through the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic, causing a Delta flight at LaGuardia to slide off the runway.
• Bank of America and Merrill Lynch are being sued by two former trainees who claim the bank never paid them for 10-hour a day overtime in a $5 million class action suit.
• Microsoft is admitting that Windows operating systems have been vulnerable to the so-called FREAK bug for more than a decade, meaning encrypted web traffic on secure servers is visible.

Last Call For The Erase Card

Kansas is sure trying to lock up "Worst Republicans In America" early this year, between Gov. Sam Brownback's austerity budget crash and Secretary of State Kris Kobach's inexcusable racist tirades.

As reported by Right Wing Watch, Kansas’ Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) told listeners of his radio show that President Obama could absolve black people of all crimes and refuse to prosecute them in the future. He also implied that Attorney General Eric Holder is a reverse racist for not applying civil rights laws to white people.

During the weekly show, a caller named Stu postulated that Obama may announce in the future that a “black person accused of a crime, charged with a crime, is not going to be prosecuted, regardless of the crime,” based on his recent immigration action. He also argued that the government is already in the process of doing so, since Holder did not prosecute Black Panthers.

Kobach didn’t dispute the claims, saying, “Well, it’s already happened more or less in the case of civil rights laws. I guess it’s not a huge jump. I think it’s unlikely, but you know I’ve learned to say with this president, never say never.” He also claimed that Holder “basically made it clear….that the civil rights laws were only to protect minority races, and he was not going to be enforcing them to the benefit of white people who were discriminated against on the basis of their race.”

Because throughout America's history, black people have been the real racists.  And this guy is the highest election official in the state.  Nice to know he thinks civil rights are reverse racism against white men like himself.

So why is this racist asshole still in office, Kansas?

Maryland Crab Bake

As I mentioned earlier this week, Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski is retiring after 5 terms in the Senate, and it was a thought at least that Martin O'Malley might put his Presidential aspirations on hold and take a shot at it.  Things move quickly in the Old Line State however, as Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen represents the Maryland suburbs north of DC, and he's immediately thinking of moving up in the world.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told supporters Wednesday that he will run for Sen. Barbara Mikulski's (D-MD) Senate seat.

"I am writing to let you know that I have decided to run for the United States Senate from our great State of Maryland," Van Hollen wrote in the email to supporters. "I am very grateful to the citizens of Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District for the opportunity to represent them and want to thank the many Marylanders who, over the last 48 hours, have called, sent text messages, or emailed to urge me to run for the United States Senate. A more formal announcement will come later, but I wanted to let you know of my plans."

Van Hollen's announcement comes just a few days after Mikulski announced that she would not seek a sixth term in the Senate. Van Hollen has long been mentioned in Democratic circles as a rising star in politics and is seen as a possible future leader of the Democratic party in the House or perhaps a United States senator.

That means Van Hollen's prime real estate is up for grabs in MD-8, and as I said, things move fast.

Less than 24 hours after Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced his candidacy for outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski's (D-MD) Senate seat, there's already a Democrat running to take Van Hollen's House seat: Marriott International executive vice president Kathleen Matthews.

The news that Matthews—who is married to MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews—is running was first announced in Politico's Playbook on Thursday. Before joining Marriott, Matthews was an anchor for local television station WJLA ABC7.

She's been hinting at plans to run for office for a while now and has been outspoken on gay rights and sustainability, according to Playbook.

Tweety's wife running for the House?  It's a safe Dem district for sure, but that brings me to Van Hollen's disastrous run as DCCC chair from 2007-2010.  He's the guy that ran on putting Blue Dogs in the House in 2008, only to lose 63 seats in 2010 when that strategy utterly backfired.  And now he's failing upwards?

And as far as Kathleen Matthews goes, well...she married Tweety.  I already question her judgment.

Look, I know these seats need to stay blue, but this is a real opportunity to put, you know, actual Democrats into office and not career politicians with dollar signs and fame in their eyes.

I suppose even that is asking too much.

The Next Benghazi

And it begins: House Republicans are already warming up subpoenas for Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as Secretary of State.  America's New Congress(tm).  Same old idiocy.

A House investigative committee issued subpoenas late Wednesday afternoon to the State Department, seeking a deeper look into former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nearly exclusive use of personal e-mails to do her official business during her tenure, the committee confirmed Wednesday.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which first discovered Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail based on a home server in its inquiry into a fatal 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, is asking for all e-mails related to the attack from all Clintonemail.com accounts and any other staff members’ personal accounts.

“The Select Committee on Benghazi today issued subpoenas for all communications of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton related to Libya and to the State Department for other individuals who have information pertinent to the investigation,” according to a statement by committee spokesman Jamal Ware. “The Committee also has issued preservation letters to internet firms informing them of their legal obligation to protect all relevant documents.”

The move escalates the panel’s conflict with Clinton and could complicate her expected run for president.

Which, of course, is the point.  But millions in taxpayer dollars will be spent and thousands of man hours wasted on nothing, just like that last two years.  We all knew there was going to be two more of this stuff.

But hey America, you voted for this in 2014.  Or didn't give a damn enough to vote for it to stop, didn't you?

StupidiNews!

• US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert was slashed on the cheek and hand by a knife-wielding assailant in Seoul, and is expected to fully recover.
• In response to a scathing DoJ report on Ferguson, Missouri's police and court system, Mayor James Knowles says that at least one police official has already been fired with two more on leave.
• The Supreme Court appeared to be split along ideological lines during Wednesday's oral arguments on the future of Obamacare subsidies in King v Burwell.
• Russia's Security Council is openly accusing the US of fomenting a plot to topple the Putin regime, less than a week after the death of opposition leader and Putin critic Boris Nemtsov.
• HBO will be offering its no cable necessary streaming service for $15 a month with Apple as its launch partner.