Last Call For A Game Of Cops And Copters

Well, this is certainly one way to get attention to campaign finance reform: get a one-man gyrocopter and land it on the US Capitol west lawn.

Doug Hughes' close friend and co-worker, Mike Shanahan, said today that the Ruskin mailman is not a terrorist and did not mean any harm with his protest. 

And just hours before Hughes landed in Washington, Hughes' friend said he called a Secret Service agent to notify him of the possibility of the gyrocopter flight. 

"He's not a suicide bomber, he's a patriot," said Shanahan, 65, of Apollo Beach. The whole stunt centers around Hughes' effort to change campaign finance laws, "or the lack thereof," according to Shanahan. 

About a year ago, Shanahan said, Hughes told him of the idea to deliver letters to legislators by gyrocopter. Not long after, they were both questioned by a Secret Service official in Florida, he said. Wednesday morning, Shanahan said, Hughes called his friend and said he was in Washington, ready to take off. 

He passed along the website on which he would livestream his flight, but Shanahan, not adept with computers, could not find it. 

So, he said, he pulled out the phone number he had saved from the Secret Service agent he spoke to months ago. He dialed. No answer, but he said he left a message. No call back. He still was not certain if the protest was actually going to happen. 

"I didn't want to get all of D.C. in an uproar and it turn out he was just practicing or something or he was just pulling my leg," Shanahan said. 

Though Hughes was arrested, Shanahan said he was relieved his friend was alive. 

"I was scared to death they were going to kill him," Shanahan said. "My thanks goes out to whomever it was who decided not to pull the trigger."

The Capitol Police were there waiting for Hughes when he landed, arrested him without too much trouble, and took him and his gyrocopter into custody.

Your quote of the day from the Tampa Bay Times:

Richard Burns, 27, who said he works for a marijuana lobby group in Washington, stood in wonder and solidarity. 

"I don't know whatever it was he was doing but I support him."

Cops and 'copters.

National Ridiculous Association

Hey Second Amendment enthusiasts, your greatest advocacy group has a minor problem with its Islamophobia showing at the annual NRA convention:

Author Steve Tarani said during a presentation in Nashville on Sunday that he has witnessed the alleged “no-go zones” — areas where police cannot enter — while shadowing a friend who serves on the Detroit Metro SWAT Police on a drive in Dearborn, MI. He described pulling up to one of the alleged Muslim-controlled areas:

The street signs suddenly went from English to Arabic. There wasn’t a single English word on any shop or any street sign. And in fact, these little yellow signs were posted all along the edges. Jeremy said to me, ‘this is it. We don’t go past this line.’ And I said to Jeremy, ‘what do you mean? You guys are Detroit Metro. You’re the SWAT team. You can go anywhere you want. What if you get a call over there?’ He said ‘this is it, it’s hazardous for our team if we go past this line.’ 

I have seen it with my own eyes, witnessed it in the backseat of a car and it is for real. No-go zones exist in the United States. 

Dearborn, Michigan is not the only place that these settlements exist. They are spread out over the country in various cities. There’s an estimate of over 5,000 known terrorist cells in the United States. However our most persistent and significant threat, right now, to us here today this morning, is the homegrown violent extremists. 

Only one problem.  Tarani's a liar and a lunatic.

There is no factual basis to allegations that parts of the U.S. have turned into no-go zones that Muslim extremists had supposedly conquered — a myth that was spread by Fox News reports earlier this year.

Tarani’s comments were part of an hour-long seminar in which he discussed what he claims are the threats Americans face on a daily basis. The frequency and intensity of “mass murders, beheadings and suicide bombings” are increasing, he said. After detailing the events of a number of mass shootings and terrorist plots by an “endless supply” of militant groups around the world, Tarani told the audience they should be prepared to respond to all kinds of threats.

Threats.  You know, like people worshiping the wrong deity.  But that paranoia sells guns and ammo and books, yes?

Iran Right Over President Obama

When the freight train of Senate bull is barreling towards you and you can't stop it, you can either throw yourself in front of it or you can jump off the tracks and hope you land safely.

The White House relented on Tuesday and said President Obama would sign a compromise bill giving Congress a voice on the proposed nuclear accord with Iran as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in rare unanimous agreement, moved the legislation to the full Senate for a vote.

An unusual alliance of Republican opponents of the nuclear deal and some of President Obama’s strongest Democratic supporters demanded a congressional role as international negotiators work to turn this month’s nuclear framework into a final deal by June 30. White House officials insisted they extracted crucial last-minute concessions. Republicans — and many Democrats — said the president simply got overrun.

“We’re involved here. We have to be involved here,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, who served as a bridge between the White House and Republicans as they negotiated changes in the days before the committee’s vote on Tuesday. “Only Congress can change or permanently modify the sanctions regime.”

The essence of the legislation is that Congress will have a chance to vote on whatever deal emerges with Iran — if one is reached by June 30 — but in a way that would be extremely difficult for Mr. Obama to lose, allowing Secretary of State John Kerry to tell his Iranian counterpart that the risk that an agreement would be upended on Capitol Hill is limited.

As Congress considers any accord on a very short timetable, it would essentially be able to vote on an eventual end to sanctions, and then later take up the issue depending on whether Iran has met its own obligations. But if it rejected the agreement, Mr. Obama could veto that legislation — and it would take only 34 senators to sustain the veto, meaning that Mr. Obama could lose upward of a dozen Democratic senators and still prevail.

In other words, this is a deal that presumes there are at least 34 Senate Democrats with a spine.  He also doesn't have a choice as there are enough Democrats willing to throw him in front of said speeding train.

Considering that 19-0 committee vote, the odds of this getting 80 or more votes in the full Senate is a extremely high. President Obama will apparently choose to fight another day on this, and for now the Iran deal is still alive.

But basically at any point if there are enough Democrats willing to screw him over, the Iran deal comes crashing down.

And people wonder why Dems lose in races other than President.

StupidiNews!

• Iraqi officials say Ramadi , west of Baghdad, is in danger of falling into the hands of ISIS rebels as Iraqi PM Haider Al-Abadi met with President Obama this week asking for reinforcements.
• More than 30 protesters were arrested in New York City Tuesday after blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in order to demonstrate against police brutality against people of color.
• Guam will allow same-sex marriages based on a federal court of appeals ruling, but Governor Eddie Calvo says the issue must be put to a referendum.
• Finnish wireless firm Nokia will buy French networking company Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion in a deal that will create the world's largest mobile device networking equipment company.
• Texas Republicans are scrapping proposed legislation that would make it illegal to record police within 25 feet, citing responses to recent incidents of police brutality caught on film.

Last Call For The Mask Slips Again

The mask slips, and Republicans accidentally tell the truth about how they feel about people who look like me.  Today's contestant: GOP Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, up for re-election in 2016.

In a little-noticed interview last week, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) described African-American neighborhoods as areas that people in his state try to avoid. 

The comment, with its racial undertones, came during a sit-down interview with the Peoria Journal Star and followed a question about how to encourage business development in Kirk's home state. 

“I want to make sure we have elected people constantly looking at helping the African-American community,” Kirk said. “With this state and all of its resources, we could sponsor a whole new class of potential innovators like George Washington Carver and eventually have a class of African-American billionaires. That would really adjust income differentials and make the diversity and outcome of the state much better so that the black community is not the one we drive faster through." [emphasis added.] 

Wait, what?  So Sen. Kirk, you normally find yourself driving faster through black communities? Exactly why is that, especially since you represent a state with nearly 1.9 million African-American constituents?  Is it out of fear? Disgust? Anger?

"We" would like to know.

The notion that people hit the gas when driving through black neighborhoods is a common racial stereotype about urbanization and criminal behavior among African-Americans. The fact that an elected senator from a state with a sizable black population would make such a comment was deemed unfortunate by at least one African-American leader in Illinois. 

"I think what he was trying to say is, he was trying to relate that to crime. But boy, it was a poor choice of phraseology," said George Mitchell, president of the NAACP's Illinois State Conference.

No, Sen. Kirk was being honest about how he views the 15% of the state that is black.  He's afraid of them.

Perhaps he's afraid he'll be voted out of office in 2016.  I can't imagine his Tea Party antics are going over well back in Peoria, especially now that he has to go up against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.

Maybe Obamacare Has Something To Do With It?

Don't look now, but the percentage of American adults without health insurance just fell another full percentage point from last year.

The uninsured rate among U.S. adults declined to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2015 -- down one percentage point from the previous quarter and 5.2 points since the end of 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act went into effect. The uninsured rate is the lowest since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in 2008.


The percentage of uninsured Americans climbed from the 14% range in early 2008 to over 17% in 2011, and peaked at 18.0% in the third quarter of 2013. The uninsured rate has dropped sharply since the most significant change to the U.S. healthcare system in the Affordable Care Act -- the provision requiring most Americans to carry health insurance -- took effect at the beginning of 2014. An improving economy and a falling unemployment rate may also have accelerated the steep drop in the percentage of uninsured over the past year. However, the uninsured rate is significantly lower than it was in early 2008, before the depths of the economic recession, suggesting that the recent decline is due to more than just an improving economy.

Republicans can scream all they want to, but barring a complete disaster of a SCOTUS ruling in June (still possible, mind you) the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.  The percentage of uninsured adults in the US has dropped by a third, from 18% to under 12%, in just 18 months.  It will drop even more when red state voters finally get sick of picking up the tab for completely uninsured Americans and force Republicans to expand Medicaid in all 50 states

And I don't think that day will be that far off..

Other Side: Stopped Clock Is Right Alert

Today's Stopped Clock is pointing to Hot Air's Allahpundit, who sums up the Clinton campaign thusly (and is pretty much spot on).

Why would Hillary Clinton want to align herself with a guy whose average job approval rating hasn’t been above water in nearly two years? Lots of reasons. For one, the media’s going to wet itself every time she breaks with one of O’s policies. The juicy drama of Team Barack and Team Hillary feuding behind the scenes will be irresistible, notwithstanding the press’s rooting interest in her candidacy. The more stories there are like that, the more time Hillary will spend smoothing Democratic feathers instead of attacking the GOP. Not optimal. Relatedly, the big mystery of her campaign is whether she can turn out Obama’s base in the same numbers O himself did. Philip Klein has a nice piece about that today noting that, when it comes to black voters and young voters especially, Obama has set the bar awfully high. Every high-profile disagreement between him and her on policy raises the risk that O’s base will stay home, forcing Clinton to scramble to make up those votes elsewhere. I think she can do it: It won’t surprise anyone if the First! Woman! President! does better with women than even Obama did, and Bill has always done well with working-class whites and Latinos. Losing the “Obama coalition” doesn’t mean Hillary will lose, but it’ll make the race tougher for her. Better for her to hug O as much as possible and keep a stiff upper lip while the GOP accuses her of running for Obama’s third term, which they’re going to do regardless, than to run away from him and alienate Obama fans on her own side. 

Most importantly, though, embracing Obama’s record won’t hurt her as much as it would an average candidate running for a third consecutive term for his or her party in the White House. If, say, Martin O’Malley were the Democratic nominee, he’d be such an unknown quantity that his candidacy would end up as a referendum on four more years of Obama. If Joe Biden were the nominee, he’d be so closely identified with O already that he couldn’t distinguish himself if he tried. That too would be a de facto referendum on another term for the current president. The novelty of Hillary is that not only can she plausibly turn to Bill Clinton’s record instead of O’s as needed, but she herself is such a well known quantity to voters that she already enjoys quasi-presidential notoriety herself. This election won’t be a referendum on Obama, no matter how closely she hews to his agenda. If it ends up as a referendum, it’ll be a referendum on Hillary. And since she has no signature accomplishments as senator or secretary of state to tout, since her deepest political beliefs are largely a mystery to this day, any referendum on Hillary the politician inevitably becomes a referendum on Hillary the person. Viewed that way, endorsing Obama’s agenda is actually a shrewd and efficient way for her to check the box on having a policy platform. She’ll borrow a bunch from O, some from Bill, and of course some from Elizabeth Warren to make sure that the hard left doesn’t stay home next November. But the policies are largely beside the point: Anyone voting for Hillary will know that she’s to the left of the Republican nominee and probably a bit to the right of Obama on foreign policy. For most of the country that’ll be all they need to know and then they can proceed to the more important question of whether “it’s time” for a woman president and whether electing Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio would, as Team Hillary will insist, mean that birth control will disappear from American convenience stores overnight.

I have to admit this is the by far the most level-headed assessment of Team Hillary and the challenges that are before her that I've seen from the right.  It's brutally pragmatic and it's the advice I'd give her if asked (which thankfully I will never be, and should that ever happen I would be far more worried about the people running her show).

In fact, brutal pragmatism is exactly what I expect out of the Clinton campaign and a Hillary Clinton presidency.  Will anyone produce a better alternative?  Not on the GOP side.  The real question is whether any Democrats will.

StupidiNews!

• Tokyo Electric Power Company officials are abandoning attempts to recover a robotic probe stranded inside one of the damaged Fukushima reactors that melted down four years ago.
• A US federal judge has sentenced four former Blackwater guards to lengthy prison sentences for their roles in the 2007 civilian massacre in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
• President Obama will meet today with new Iraqi PM Haidar al-Abadi at the White House to discuss aid, the Islamic State, Iran, and other issues.
• UK PM David Cameron is turning to a Margaret Thatcher-era policy of selling homes owned by local councils to prospective homeowners at a large discount ahead of next month's general elections.
• With the FCC officially publishing its rules for net neutrality on Monday, internet providers have immediately filed suit against the FCC and are demanding a permanent injunction stopping them.

Last Call For Solving Rubio's Cube

As Ed Kilgore points out, GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is taking something of a chance running for the White House, as he can't run for Senate at the same time (and unlike Kentucky, the state GOP isn't going to change the rules for him.)  However, it may still work out for the guy.

The reason it might not be as risky as one might imagine is buried in an otherwise insufferably puffy Grunwald/Caputo piece at Politico: 

Rubio and his team do not like to talk about strategy, but in any case, the political calculus of giving up a Senate seat to seek the brass ring was not as painful as it sounds. Even if Rubio doesn’t win the nomination, he could well end up on the Republican ticket. Even if he ends up unemployed in 2017, he can run for governor in 2018 with a Republican-friendly mid-term electorate. 

So why not get the requisite training-wheels run for the top spot out of the way? If his campaign never really takes off, it will be attributed to Bush’s strength rather than Rubio’s weakness. And for a dark horse, he’s very well positioned, with surprisingly strong approval/disapproval ratios in the early states—a sign the “base” is ready to accept his backtracking on immigration reform—and the possibility of replacing either Bush—whose own numbers remain questionable—or Scott Walker—one big gaffe or indictment away from Palookaville—in the first tier of candidates.

On top of all that, he’s the candidate Republican Establishment elites are almost certain to drool over if Jebbie blows up or fades. He’s the symbol of change in the GOP, without really making many concessions that strain conservative orthodoxy. A relatively young guy with a Latino background who is (it appears) the closest thing to a Reformicon champion (though again, what Reform Conservatives offer is more an add-on to conservative fiscal policy making it even more fiscally irresponsible than any sea change), and also a favorite of Neocons, is going to get massive positive media attention if and when he becomes more viable.

In other words, should Jeb Bush crash and burn, Rubio is the establishment GOP's plan B.  That's not really a great fallback plan given Rubio's dismal polling numbers, but worst-case scenario Rubio succeeds Batboy as governor in the next midterm election, he figures.

Could be worse for him.  Marco will land on his feet after he lands on his face.

The Man Without Fear, The Show Without Peer

Absolutely devoured Marvel's Daredevil series on Netflix over the weekend, and I cannot recommend it enough as a complete redemption of the Ben Affleck/Jon Favreau 2003 film that all but wrecked the character and put Marvel in the dumpster in early 2003 (before X2 2 months later and Spider-Man 2 the next summer started the company's revival).  Is it any good?

Short answer: it's the best super hero show on TV right now, DC or Marvel (Sorry Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, and The Flash...) and it's worth a month of Netflix just to watch this.

Long answer, after the jump (mild spoilers ahead.)

The Running Woman

"Hillary Clinton running for president" is the least surprising headline of 2015 so far, but at least her announcement video is pretty well done and contains a couple of nice messages.




So a couple of same-sex couples in the video, and Hillary pledging to "get out there and earn your vote".  A far cry from 2008, and differences that move her campaign in the right direction.

Because earning my vote in the primaries is what she has to do.  If she is the nominee then I'll support her certainly.  The DNC convention in Cleveland is 14 months off however.  A lot could happen between now and then, and a lot needs to happen before I mark her square here in the primary.

We'll see.  As for now, she's in.

StupidiNews!

• 21-year-old golf phenom Jordan Spieth has finally claimed his green jacket from The Masters, setting new 36- and 54-hole record scores on the way to another record 28 birdies.
• Republican presidential candidates wasted no time in attacking Hillary Clinton within minutes of announcing her own candidacy for president on Sunday afternoon.
• Iran is calling for a new government in Yemen and implying it can assist in setting one up as Saudi airstrikes against Houthi rebels continues.
• A new Virginia Commonwealth University study finds that the higher your income, the healthier you are overall as incidences of diseases are less in those of incomes above $100,000.
• At least one of California's public utilities commissioners says that the Comcast/Time-Warner merger should be scrapped due to monopoly concerns in the state.

Last Call For Yes, It's About Race

The NY Times editorial board drops a brutal piece on the GOP's effort to try to bury President Obama's legacy under racist demonization.

It is a peculiar, but unmistakable, phenomenon: As Barack Obama’s presidency heads into its twilight, the rage of the Republican establishment toward him is growing louder, angrier and more destructive.

Republican lawmakers in Washington and around the country have been focused on blocking Mr. Obama’s agenda and denigrating him personally since the day he took office in 2009. But even against that backdrop, and even by the dismal standards of political discourse today, the tone of the current attacks is disturbing. So is their evident intent — to undermine not just Mr. Obama’s policies, but his very legitimacy as president.

It is a line of attack that echoes Republicans’ earlier questioning of Mr. Obama’s American citizenship. Those attacks were blatantly racist in their message — reminding people that Mr. Obama was black, suggesting he was African, and planting the equally false idea that he was secretly Muslim. The current offensive is slightly more subtle, but it is impossible to dismiss the notion that race plays a role in it.

And Republicans, those bastions of liberty and freedom, will certainly call for the destruction of the NY Times and the arrest or worse of its editorial board.

But it's about damned time that somebody with a press megaphone called Republicans out for their actions in 2015.  The country needs to be constantly reminded of this. And until voters choose to punish the GOP for this behavior, they will keep doing it with every Democrat they can find.

And It Happens Yet Again

Another black man running from the cops.

Another white cop shooting and killing him.

Another murder caught on tape.

Deputies wanted evidence on camera.

But when they recorded a sting against an alleged illegal weapons dealer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earlier this month, cameras also rolled as Eric Courtney Harris ran, and when he was fatally shot.

The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office released the video on Friday. The shooting was an apparent accident, it has said.

The reserve deputy thought he had his Taser in hand, not his firearm, and shot Harris "inadvertently," according to the sheriff's office.

In the last minutes of the video, Harris, a convicted felon, lies on the pavement with police on top of him. An officer calls for a Taser. But in place of an electric clicking sound, a gunshot rings out.

Then a voice can be heard saying, "Oh! I shot him! I'm sorry!" Another officer screams out, "He shot him! He shot him!"

Harris, who is bleeding, calls out, too. He's losing his breath, he says. An officer yells back at him. "You f---ing ran! Shut the f--- up!" he yells. "F--- your breath."

The group of officers begin tugging Harris' hands behind his back as the video ends.

Another name on the list of the dead, Eric Harris. 

Another time where a black suspect ends up dead, without due process, without a court of law, but executed by police.

Another raft of excuses as why next time it won't happen.

Another time where the black community won't believe it.

And it will happen again, and again, and again.

Sunday Long Read: Do Work, Hil

Your Sunday long read this week is from NY Magazine's Jason Zengerle, as he reminds us that Hillary is going to have to work to win in 2016, and she's not very good at it.

For much of the Obama presidency, there has been a general sense of calm among Democrats about their chances to retain the White House. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State was distinguished, if not especially consequential. Her favorability ratings hovered around all-time highs. It wasn’t just that her nomination seemed a foregone conclusion; given the dysfunction of the Republican Party and the demographic changes in the American electorate, the race seemed hers to lose. It was hard to find a Democratic operative not in fairly high spirits.

Then, over the past few weeks, the country watched as Clinton dealt with the fallout from the revelation that she used a personal email server while heading up the State Department. Her fiercest critics have charged that she employed the private email system to skirt government transparency laws and, in the process, endangered national security. Her supporters worry that, even if Clinton’s private email was legal and innocent, it was a self-inflicted error that has needlessly handed her enemies yet another cudgel to wield against her. But the glee and regret among Republicans and Democrats have been most pronounced over the disastrous press conference Clinton held at the United Nations to try to put the matter to rest, which served to remind them of something many had forgotten: what an abominable candidate she can be.

Standing in front of a tapestry replica of Picasso’s Guernica, she was testy, brittle, and, above all, unpersuasive — failing to demonstrate the most elementary political skills, much less those learned at Toastmasters or Dale Carnegie. “She read her prepared remarks like a high-school student,” marvels Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster who’s been a close observer of Clinton for more than two decades. “She looked down at her notes, then she looked up to the left, down at her notes, then up to the right. Almost the entire time, she avoided making eye contact with anyone.” A prominent Democratic operative is still horrified by the spectacle. “She came off as defensive and artificially put-off,” he says. Another Democratic operative says, “I’m a huge Hillary Clinton fan. I hope desperately she’s the next president of the United States, because I think she’d be a great president. But after that press conference, I do have major concerns about her ability as a campaigner and to get elected.”

The performance made a host of other recent Clinton missteps — seemingly minor at the time — suddenly loom larger in the minds of anxious Democrats. There was her strangely vapid Foggy Bottom memoir,Hard Choices, which racked up middling sales, and her obvious rust in the interviews she did to promote it. There was her continued buck-raking on the paid-speaking circuit, which seemed tone-deaf, if not downright greedy, for someone about to embark on a presidential campaign. And there was her hard-to-figure delay in assembling a staff for the campaign, so that, when news of the hidden emails broke, she had no infrastructure to defend her and instead had to rely on a hodgepodge of veteran freelancers like James Carville and Lanny Davis, whose reappearance made the latest Clinton scandal feel exhaustingly familiar. Democrats may be constitutionally prone to hysteria, but even so, the whiplash of these few weeks has been notable. Now, days before Clinton’s official announcement that she is, once again, in it to win it, some in her party are on edge.

Bill Clinton could run as a populist and pull it off.  Hillary is utterly terrible at it and it's how Barack Obama beat her in 2008.  So unless Hillary starts running the kind of campaign that people badly want Elizabeth Warren to run, she's in real trouble.  Yes, she has better people now (having ditched the odious and racist corporate scuzzbag Mark Penn as her 2008 manager), but she has to be a better candidate too, and so far she's nowhere near where she's going to have to be.

"Vote for me because I'm Hillary Clinton" failed in 2008, and it definitely won't work in the age of Snapchat.