Last Call: I, Robots

You knew this was coming. Having collected a few new titles for Free Comic Book Day today (If you're not reading Ms. Marvel, The Wicked + The Divine, or Saga, shame on you) it's now time for my review of Avengers: Age Of Ultron.




The bottom line: I'd put it a safe third in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films (behind Guardians of the Galaxy and the first Avengers, but definitely ahead of Captain America: Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3).  There's a lot in this film, you'll want to be paying attention, and you'll definitely want to see this movie with a nice big crowd cheering on your protagonists.

Joss Whedon isn't at the top of his game here, but he is pretty close, and it's a good time.

Don't worry, the spoilery parts are all safely below the jump.

We start with the Avengers doing what they do best: working together to tie up some loose ends from Captain America's (Chris Evans) last outing with HYDRA. Everyone's back, of course: Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Dr. Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and his big green alter-ego, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and they bring the fight beautifully in the opening sequences.

What they discover is a certain Asgardian artifact that played a large role in the first Avengers film, and how it was used to create some impressive technology, including human experimentation on twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olson). With the artifact safely in hand, the team kicks back and enjoys some time off while Stark and Banner go into Full Science Bros Mode in order to try to create the ultimate peacekeeping force against the kind of cosmic-level bad guys that have come knocking on Earth's door lately, a project they dub "Ultron" (the outstanding James Spader, who is as perfect a casting choice as Downey is for Stark).

Only with the technology they now have, Project Ultron turns out to be too successful.  And boy, does he have daddy issues.  What follows is a whirlwind, globe-hopping adventure that will test the Avengers friendships, teamwork, and strength to the maximum, and it's a great time.

Again, I highly recommend the film, as Marvel has done it again.

Now, about those spoiler below the jump...and you have been warned...

Kentucky's Master Debaters

With three weeks to go until the GOP primary for governor here in Kentucky, this week's debate was a race to see which Republican candidate would make things the worst for the Bluegrass state.

The event at WKU featured Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, Louisville businessman Matt Bevin, and former Louisville Metro Councilman Hal Heiner.

If elected, all three pledged to dismantle the state’s health insurance exchange known as Kynect.

Comer said the state took on a lot of responsibility that it can’t afford. 

"Eighty-two percent of the people who got on Kynect ended up on Medicaid," Comer explained. "What Kynect became for Governor Beshear was a way to greatly expand Medicaid to the point to where we have 25 percent of the state on Medicaid, one out of four people. That's not sustainable." 

As governor, Comer said he would get more Kentuckians into private health coverage while changing eligibility requirements for Medicaid.

Matt Bevin said he would transition those who signed up on Kentucky’s exchange to the federal exchange. 

"Frankly, it's a level of redundancy we can't afford. It's as simple as that," Bevin suggested. "We were lured into participation through the use of federal dollars." 

Starting in 2017, the state must begin bearing a share of the cost of expanding Medicaid. Currently, the federal government is picking up the entire tab. 

Hal Heiner suggested tying the Medicaid expansion to workforce training so people could get a job, get off of Medicaid, and obtain private insurance. He criticized the Medicaid expansion for lacking any level of personal responsibility. 

"It doesn't have what you're seeing conservative governors in other states adopt in their plans which build in incentives to use preventive care, to use primary care providers rather than emergency care, and to make healthy lifestyle choices to reduce the overall cost," Heiner stated.

And again, all three candidates vowed to destroy arguably the most effective state exchange in the country. Comer wants to effectively privatize the state's Medicaid expansion, Bevin wants to rip up Kynect and put us on a federal exchange (which depending on the Supreme Court would literally be a plan to make health care unaffordable again for half a million people), and Heiner wants to make Medicaid expansion impossible to qualify for.

All three want to take health insurance coverage away from half a million Kentuckians.

I'm not sure who will win, but man, if Jack Conway can't beat these clowns in November, we are royally screwed.

The Mask Slips Again

And conservatives accidentally tell the truth about what they really believe.  Today's contestant: Bill-O!

On Thursday’s edition of “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly opined that Baltimore rioters are out on the street because they are disrespectful, uneducated gangs of entitled victims. Not because Freddie Gray is dead and there is an oppressive system of justice that criminalizes blackness.

“The litany of excuse-making is excruciating,” O’Reilly said before mocking the excuses.”The rioters are angry because America is a country of mass incarceration. People who burn down buildings and loot are just misdirected folks who feel hopeless, and if you feel hopeless, it’s ok to riot. You see it’s really not the fault of those who commit crimes, it’s the fault of America because we don’t provide jobs for everyone.”

“Instead of pinpointing the real problem and then trying to solve it, you get crazy theories in an attempt to provide justification for Americans hurting other Americans,” he continued. “Here’s the truth: how can anyone provide a job that pays a decent salary to somebody who can barely read or write? To somebody who can’t speak English? To somebody that has tattoos all over their body? Who’s defiant, disrespectful, and who doesn’t even want to work because they have a sense of entitlement that says they’re victims and you owe me.”

We are nothing more than animals to people like Bill-O. Animals who should vote Republican in order to be put down at a faster clip, right?

Last Call For Taking A Deep Breath

The annual American Lung Association report on the country's dirtiest air is out, and it's not surprising that while several California cities rank in the top 7 for worst air pollution, spots 8, 9 and 10 are all Midwest cities, including Cincinnati being number 8.

Nearly 44 percent of Americans live in areas with dangerous levels of ozone or particle pollution, according to the American Lung Association's annual "State of the Air" report, published yesterday. 

The good news is that's actually an improvement over last year's report, which showed that 47 percent of the population lived in these highly polluted places. Overall, the air has been getting cleaner since Congress enacted stricter regulations in the 1970s, and the American Lung Association report, which looked at data from 2011 through 2013, showed a continuing drop in the air emissions that create the six most widespread pollutants. 

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet. Many cities experienced a record number of days with high levels of particle pollution, a mixture of solid and liquid droplets in the air that have been linked to serious health problems. Short-term particle pollution was especially bad in the West, in part due to the drought and heat, which may have increased the dust, grass fires and wildfires. Six cities—San Francisco; Phoenix; Visalia, California; Reno, Nevada.; Yakima, Washington; and Fairbanks, Alaska—recorded their highest weighted average number of unhealthy particle pollution days since the American Lung Association started covering this metric in 2004.

It's not all bad news.  We're the #1 cleanest metro area for 24-hour particle pollution, but 8th worst for year-round pollutants.  Kinda weird, but that describes this place with weather systems quickly moving in and out of here.  We clean out pollution in the air super fast, it just gets replaced almost immediately by new pollution.

Go figure.

The Baltimore Hammer

Marilyn Mosby, the State's Attorney in Baltimore responsible for state charges in the Freddie Gray case didn't just throw the book at the six officers involved, she hit them with the entire criminal code.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced on Friday that she had filed murder, manslaughter, and assault charges against city police officers following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.

Gray died on April 19 after being injured while in police custody. 

"The manner of death deemed a homicide by the Maryland state medical examiner is believed to be the result of a fatal injury that occurred while Mr. Gray was punrestrained by a seat belt in the custody of the Baltimore police department wagon," Mosby said at a morning news conference. 

Cheers could be heard in the crowd when Mosby announced that "we have probable cause to file criminal charges."

She said that six officers would face charges, including second-degree murder, manslaughter and assault, and that a warrant had been issued for their arrest at about 9:30 a.m. Friday.

The charges carry 20 years for four of the officers, 30 for the police lieutenant in charge of the scene, and 60 for the officer driving the van, including second-degree murder charges.  This is more than I could ever imagine being thrown at these bad cops, and no less than should be thrown at them.

Whether or not Mosby can prove her case?  We'll see about that.  But there will be a case.

Onward Christian Tin Soldiers

A group of far-right Republican "Christians" plan to martyr themselves by being mean to gay people.

No really, that's the plan.

“We will not obey.” 

That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage. 

“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.” 

“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states…. 

“Yes, I’m talking about civil disobedience,” Staver said. “I’m talking about resistance and I’m talking about peaceful resistance against unjust laws and unjust rulings.” 

That’s quite a shocking statement. So I asked Mr. Staver to clarify his remarks. 

“I’m calling for people to not recognize the legitimacy of that ruling because it’s not grounded in the Rule of Law,” he told me. “They need to resist that ruling in every way possible. In a peaceful way - they need to resist it as much as Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted unjust laws in his time.”

So I guess this means they're going to what, disobey a Supreme Court order?  We'll see how far that gets. 

In all seriousness however, there remain a number of states where firing someone for being gay is 100% legal, so I guess they'll encourage that, I guess?  That should look really good on TV, a national pogrom against the LGBT community.  I'm sure that will persuade Americans to join them, right?

Good luck with that, bigots.  Bonus points for completely co-opting Dr. King's message of tolerance.
 .

StupidiNews!

• NASA's Messenger space probe has ended its 11-year mission orbiting Mercury as the probe finally ran out of fuel and crashed on the planet's surface.
• Baltimore police have handed over the results of their investigation into the death of Freddie Gray over to prosecutors as the city entered a fourth night of curfew.
• House Republicans have passed the first joint budget plan in six years, calling for $5 trillion in cuts to social programs over nine years and earning veto threats from President Obama.
• Tesla Motors is adapting its electric car battery technology to home and small business use for Powerwall, its new series of products to store power created from renewable energy.
• Apple and IBM are teaming up with Japan's postal service to give millions of iPads to seniors for wide distribution of wellness and monitoring the country's aging population.

Last Call For Breaking The Curve

Everything you need to know about Jeb Bush and GOP outreach to black voters:

Jeb Bush on family breakdown: "My views on this were shaped a lot by Charles Murray's book." He means the more recent one, not Bell Curve

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) April 30, 2015

Oh, hmm.

That would be Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010, in which Murray explains how LBJ's Great Society and the Civil Rights movement didn't elevate black communities up to where white ones were, they just dragged white communities down (and dumped black ones into the abyss.)

Focusing on whites to avoid conflating race with class, Mr. Murray contends instead that a large swath of white America—poor and working-class whites, who make up approximately 30% of the white population—is turning away from the core values that have sustained the American experiment. At the same time, the top 20% of the white population has quietly been recovering its cultural moorings after a flirtation with the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, argues Mr. Murray in his elegiac book, the greatest source of inequality in America now is not economic; it is cultural. 

He is particularly concerned with the ways in which working-class whites are losing touch with what he calls the four "founding virtues"—industriousness, honesty (including abiding by the law), marriage and religion, all of which have played a vital role in the life of the republic.

He simply assumes that any communities of color are already lost, and that he's effectively writing a lifeboat manual for white America to try to save itself, very much at the expense of everyone else.

If George W Bush represented "compassionate conservatism"  where a rising tide lifts all boats, then Jebby represents "pragmatic conservatism" where the rising tide drowns the weak, so you'd better be willing to step on some heads to stay above water.

He perfectly represents the coming post-Obama GOP ideal of "Austerity will cull the weak". And a lot of poor white voters will correctly interpret that as "It's time to jettison anyone darker than ecru."

Operation Jade Moron

Things that are actually larger in Texas: cheeseburgers, state fairground mascots, and dangerous anti-government paranoia.

Gov. Greg Abbott is hoping to assure Texans that martial law will not be imposed during an upcoming military training exercise that has triggered a cascade of conspiracy theories. 

The Republican governor ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor the two-month-long Jade Helm 15 exercise that will take place in Bastrop County this summer, reported KUT-FM. 

A U.S. Army spokesman answered questions for about two hours Monday from concerned residents who voiced fears that the federal government would gather intelligence on them, confiscate their guns and other property, or conduct psychological operations on them. 

He also knocked down concerns that foreign fighters – such as Islamic State militants – would be brought in subdue the population. 

The spokesman tried to assure residents that the military has conducted similar exercises before without violating constitutional protections or U.S. law, but the overflow crowd remained highly suspicious. 

“I think historically, it’s much more common for governments to be tyrannical and infringe on other’s rights,” Daniel DuCloux, a Bastrop County resident, told the radio station. “So when you see a large military build-up like this, I think it’s our duty as citizens to question what’s going on and to find answers. I mean, if we don’t, then who will?”

Gotta love these guys. Because as we all know, when the New World Order UN mind-control invasion begins, it's going to start in Bastrop County, Texas, population 75,000.  On the other hand, if this is all true, that means the first major city they'll hit is Austin in neighboring Travis County. That should actually make these nutjobs happy, right?

If You Don't Love Yourself, I'll Make You See Your Own Heart

Notorious RBG vivisected the case against same-sex marriage during Tuesday's oral arguments, and it was amazing.

During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court, several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past. As Justice Antonin Scalia summed up this argument, “for millennia, not a single society” supported marriage equality, and that somehow exempted same-sex couples from the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of the law. 

Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences:

[Same-sex couples] wouldn’t be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. I mean, it wasn’t possible. Same-sex unions would not have opted into the pattern of marriage, which was a relationship, a dominant and a subordinate relationship. Yes, it was marriage between a man and a woman, but the man decided where the couple would be domiciled; it was her obligation to follow him.
There was a change in the institution of marriage to make it egalitarian when it wasn’t egalitarian. And same-sex unions wouldn’t — wouldn’t fit into what marriage was once.

Marriage has changed dramatically in the world over the last thousand years and even during America's relatively short history. Gender in marriage was all about financial arrangements: the man was the chief breadwinner, and the woman subservient.  That's complete changed in 2015.  The notion that marriage is about financial subservience, gender roles, or procreation is ludicrous, but that's the argument against same-sex marriage: "We've always done it this way."

Sure, and slavery, and women not being allowed to vote, used to be traditional law in America too. We got past that.  We'll get past this, as well.

StupidiNews!

• Nigerian Army officials say another 160 women have been rescued from Boko Haram captivity in the Sambisa forest region of the country.
• Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders confirms he will enter the 2016 presidential race as a Democrat, and that he's running to win.
• Relatively peaceful protests against police violence took place in Baltimore, New York City, Denver, and other US cities yesterday over the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody.
• Greece and the EU are targeting this weekend for a preliminary bailout deal to keep Greece in the eurozone with talks for a final deal set for a meeting of EU finance ministers on May11th.
• Streaming service Hulu has reportedly paid $700,000 an episode for exclusive rights to stream all nine seasons of Seinfeld starting in June.

Last Call For Pissed Christie

Guess which US governor has the lowest approval ratings in the country right now?

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a potential presidential candidate in 2016, on Monday placed blame on the media for his low approval ratings. 

During an interview with NJ101.5 radio's "Ask the Governor," Christie dismissed the hit he has taken in the polls since the Bridgegate scandal broke.

"If you're going to have relentlessly negative coverage from the media, it's going to affect your poll numbers," Christie said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Christie's approval ratings sunk to the lowest of any governor this year in an April Quinnipiac poll. Fifty-six percent of New Jersey voters said they disapproved of the job Christie is doing, while just 38 percent said they approved.

It's telling that Christie's usually reliable "blame the media for covering what I'm doing" plan is no longer working.  He's not even considered a serious 2016 candidate anymore, a long fall from where he was in 2014.  Bridgegate has finished the man, and at this point he's fighting not to become the next punchline of a GOP governor.

I'm betting he doesn't cross that bridge, because he may not be Governor for much longer.

David Wildstein, a former ally of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who ordered intentional traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge, is scheduled to plead guilty to criminal charges on Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. 

Wildstein is set to appear in federal court in Newark, where grand jurors have heard testimony in secret for months about gridlock over four mornings in Fort Lee, New Jersey, according to the person, who requested anonymity because the matter isn’t public. He would plead guilty to a charging document known as a criminal information, the person said. It was unclear what the specific charges would be. 

Wildstein lawyer Alan Zegas and Fishman spokesman Matthew Reilly didn’t immediately return e-mails and calls seeking comment on the scheduled plea. Zegas has said “evidence exists” that Christie knew of the traffic jams at the time.

Now, it's possible Wildstein is falling on his sword to take the blame for Christie, in which case, he might recover from this. But if this is a plea bargain for Wildstein to take a lesser charge in exchange for evidence against Christie, his 2016 run is done.

We'll see.

Never Bet Against The American People Being Dumb

Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza is shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to discover that Pew Research's annual reminder showing that Americans are a majority of low-information meatheads when it comes to politics is still showing Americans are low-information meatheads.

The Pew Research Center spent the last month collecting data on responses to its 12-question news quiz. And the results are, um, humbling for those of us who spend every day writing, talking and thinking about politics. 

The overriding message? People don't know so much about current affairs with political tinge. Here are two examples. 

1. The Senate 

Presented with four options about the current partisan makeup of the Senate, roughly half (52 percent) got the answer right. (It's option number 4 above. Duh.) 

Pretty good, right? Not so much. Consider that a straight-up guess would give you a 25 percent success rate since Pew provided four options for people to choose from. Given that, you'd (or maybe I'd) expect a lot more people to get it right. What did the 48 percent who got it wrong choose? One in five people (21 percent) said that Republicans controlled 61 seats while one in ten thought Democrats held the Senate majority (option #3). Six percent said the Senate was tied 50-50. 

2. Elizabeth Warren



Again, roughly half (51 percent) of those who participated in the news quiz knew that Warren was the woman pictured on the lower left above. Ok, so, yes, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin (top right) does look a little bit like Warren. But, Nancy Pelosi (bottom right but you already knew that) looks nothing like Warren. And, even if you have no idea who Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) is (top left), she still looks NOTHING like Warren.

Your average American got 8 out of 12 right (you can take the quiz here) with older Americans doing slightly better than Millennials.  But after a midterm where only a third of voters bothered to even show up, why is Cillizza in any way shocked at these numbers?  Americans have tuned out politics for the last several years, and the "both sides do it" and "view from nowhere" style of political reporting that carefully assigns blame and fault to all politicians rather than the ones who are actually responsible has achieved the desired effect of making Americans completely apathetic about political issues.

Cillizza wants to know why so many Americans are ignorant about basic politics?

They probably read The Fix.

National Fiduciary League

You may have heard that the NFL is voluntarily giving up its sweet, sweet tax-exempt status.  Why is it doing so?  There has to be a monster of a catch.  Travis Waldron explains:

Under tax law, the NFL and other professional sports leagues have been able to organize as 501(c)(6) non-profit trade organizations. The NFL has done so since 1942, largely without much fanfare or scrutiny. But in recent years, especially as NFL revenues have ballooned to nearly $10 billion annually, the league’s tax-exempt status has come under scrutiny from sports fans, tax groups, and lawmakers from both parties. It is now, Goodell said in the letter, “a distraction” that isn’t worth keeping. 

NFL types might be fond of throwing the “distraction” label on things that don’t deserve it, but in this instance, Goodell is probably right. Relinquishing the tax exemption will almost certainly have little, if any, cost for the league or benefit to taxpayers, since the NFL operates as a pass-through entity. That is, the majority of the money the league takes in is either made by or passed on to teams and taxed at that level, where 31 of the 32 franchises are organized as private, tax-paying businesses (the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers are a nonprofit). 

Because of that, the cost of the exemption to taxpayers (or the benefit to the NFL) is relatively small. According to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who featured tax-exempt status for sports leagues in his annual “Waste Book,” those exemptions cost taxpayers as much as $91 million a year. But the NFL is only a part of that, and Citizens for Tax Justice has estimated that the exemption saves the league just $10 million annually, roughly the same calculation the Joint Committee on Taxation made when it estimated that revoking the exemption would increase federal revenues by $109 million over a decade.

But those benefits may not exist at all. Major League Baseball gave up its tax exemption in 2007 and has maintained that doing so had no effect on its finances. The NFL, according to some experts, may have to pay a small amount of taxes based on some revenue it takes in and the structure of a stadium loan program it used to run. But even accounting for that, other experts have in the past guessed that the league might be able to find more than enough write-offs in the tax code to offset what it could have to pay.

So yes, the bottom line is that our corporate tax code is so generous to businesses as large as NFL franchises that it actually may benefit the NFL in the long run.

And the best part is they can keep hustling cities and local governments for fat tax exemptions and stadium sweetheart deals that will keep them making huge profits at the expense of crumbling cities.

Nice work if you can get it.

StupidiNews!

• In a major policy speech in New York today, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton will call for mandatory police body cameras nationwide.
• Saudi Arabia's King Salman has named his interior minister as heir to the throne and removed the King's youngest brother Moqren as heir and foreign minister in a government shakeup.
• Police and National Guard troops enforced a 10 PM curfew in Baltimore last night, breaking up a protest with pepper spray and rubber bullets.
• Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker is holding up a Republican budget proposal because the $5 trillion in spending cuts over ten years being called for isn't enough.
• A Russian resupply ship headed for the International Space Station has "suffered a critical malfunction" but astronauts have enough supplies aboard for now.