Last Call For Mrs. Graham

Larry Wilmore is doing a pretty solid job of following Jon Stewart in Colbert's slot on The Nightly Show and Wilmore laid into the political media this week for worrying more about how Sen. Lindsey Graham's bachelor status would affect him as President than his completely awful foreign policy.

“Democracy works, just as long as we have a free press that doesn’t shy away from the important questions,” Wilmore said.

He showed a video clip Thursday on “The Nightly Show” of Fox News host Andrea Tantaros saying “one of the big questions being asked of Lindsey Graham is who would be his First Lady.”

“Why is that a question?” Wilmore said. “This is a dude who wants a war with Iran so bad he put it on his Amazon wish list. We’re asking him about his non-existent First Lady?”

Wilmore said Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator, had a creative solution to filling the role without a wife.

The GOP candidate told reporters he had a sister, so perhaps she could fill the role.

“Is Lindsey Graham trying to Duggar his way into the White House?” Wilmore said. “I’m guessing he’s got at least 19 votes and counting.”

Graham also said, chuckling, that he had lots of friends, so maybe there could be a “rotating First Lady.”

“Incest and orgies?” Wilmore said. “Bill Clinton’s probably thinking, ‘Wow, this guy’s taking it to the next level. I may not vote for Hillary at this point.’”

Wilmore is correct.  Huckleberry Graham is the GOP candidate openly pushing for a huge American ground war in the Middle East.  He's been absolutely wrong about everything remotely involved in the arena of international relations. On domestic issues, he's all about cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, deporting DREAMers, and nationwide restrictions on abortion access.

The guy is a complete disaster even by 2016 GOP candidate standards, and we're worried about his marital status?

No.

A Long Way Across Texas

The Fifth Circuit has upheld Texas's abortion clinic regulation regime, legislation that has already closed most of the clinics in the state and now will leave at least a million women a hundred miles away or more from any abortion services.

Federal judges upheld a sweeping anti-abortion law on Tuesday in a decision that will shutter most abortion clinics in Texas.

The ruling held that the law, HB 2, which requires abortion facilities to comply with hospital-like standards, does not pose an undue burden for the majority of women seeking abortion in Texas, millions of whom will now have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion.

The law calls for clinics to follow the state's rules for ambulatory surgical centers, facilities that are very costly to operate. In 2013, Planned Parenthood opened a brand-new ASC in Forth Worth at a cost of $6.5 million. Only seven abortion clinics in Texas comply with ASC standards; 13 other clinics face imminent closure.

Whole Woman's Health, the plaintiff in the case, vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and to ask the justices to put the ruling on hold immediately. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, the clinics will be forced to close in 22 days. The case, if it goes before the high court, could result in a definitive ruling on when an abortion restriction is too restrictive and constitutes an "undue burden."

"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Whole Woman's Health in the lawsuit.

The ruling is a broad victory for Texas on what most consider the most restrictive abortion law in the country: Other provisions of HB 2, which were not a part of Tuesday's ruling, have already closed more than 20 abortion providers across the state. Judges were drawn from the most conservative appeals court in the country, US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

A few years ago Teas had more than 40 clinics.  Now that number will be reduced to seven.  This is what happens when "small government Republicans" decide that government can indeed be used to regulate clinics out of business and trap women in pregnancies, all while screaming about "liberal fascism" and "regulatory burdens".

Expect more Republican states to take up Texas-style clinic regulations, designed specifically to put clinics out of business and to take choices away from women.

The GOP's Not Even Trying Anymore On The Obamacare Fix

If you believe the stories out of the GOP this week, Mitch the Turtle has a double secret probation plan for fixing Obamacare should the Supreme Court wreck subsidies to federal exchange states.

No, stop laughing you guys, they are totally serious!

Congressional Republican leaders say they have a fallback plan ready to go if the Supreme Court cripples a core component of Obamacare this month. 

But the details of the plan are being kept secret. 

"We'll have a plan that makes sense for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday in a radio interview with The Joe Elliott Show. 

But what's in the plan? 

"We'll let you know depending on the outcome of the decision," the Kentucky Republican said, referring to the case King v. Burwell, which is expected to be decided this month. 

Bloomberg tried to get answers Tuesday from the senior Republicans who work on health policy. Their fallback plan might interest millions of Americans who stand to lose their insurance subsidies, as well as the insurance industry, which would likely lose many customers and be compelled raise premiums. Details to come, the planners say. 

"Yeah, we are" ready to act, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in an interview. But what will the action be? "We'll let you know if we have to do it," he said.

Oh, well then.  I can't wait for your super secret plan, boys. I'm sure it'll work just as well as the last 50 billion ones.

Seriously, are Republicans this disdainful of everyone's intelligence level? Is anyone in America buying this nonsense?

StupidiNews!

• A Cleveland judge has found probable cause to charge Office Timothy Loehmann with the murder of 12-year old Tamir Rice in a fatal police shooting last November.
• A Virginia teenager has plead guilty to aiding Islamic State by supplying them information over his Twitter account, a crime that could see him get 15 years in federal prison.
• North Carolina Republicans have overridden a veto by GOP Gov. Pat McCrory to pass a law allowing government officials to refuse to perform marriages.
• Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is stepping down July 1 and ousted co-founder Jack Dorsey will take over as interim CEO, returning to the position he was booted from in 2008.
• A federal judge has denied a stay of FCC net neutrality rules requested by the broadband industry, clearing the way for the new regulations to take effect today.

Last Call For Decidedly Un-Neutral

House Republicans aren't about to allow the FCC to do its job, not when it means being mean to the corporations that make sure America has some of the most overpriced broadband internet access on Earth because of forced lack of competition.  

And Republicans are perfectly OK with Americans paying two to five times what users do in Asian and European countries for the same broadband access speed, which would explain why US broadband giants like Time Warner Cable happily make a 97% profit margin on the service.

So when the Obama administration and the FCC released net neutrality rules and agreed that in 2015, broadband internet is as vital a service as water and power and should be regulated as a public utility and made more affordable, Republicans flipped out.

Now their latest attack is to back the broadband internet industry 100% by defunding the FCC's ability to implement any net neutrality rules.

A House appropriations bill released Wednesday would block the Federal Communication Commission from implementing its net neutrality rules until the courts weigh in on the issue.

The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill for the 2016 fiscal year includes funding for the communications regulator that falls $73 million below what the agency requested. In total, the bill grants the agency $315 million. It was introduced by the House Appropriations Committee and includes $20.2 billion in total funding for a number of agencies. 

Included in the bill is a provision designed to stop implementation of the net neutrality rules until the issue has finished winding its way through the courts. It says that none of the funds in the bill can be used to “implement, administer, or enforce” the rules until three legal challenges are resolves.

The cases in question are brought by Alamo Broadband, CenturyLink and trade group U.S. Telecom.

Unless the courts rule otherwise, the net neutrality order will take effect on Friday.

The bill includes a line specifically banning rate regulation by the FCC for either standard broadband service or wireless service. Conservatives say that the net neutrality order will open the door to rate regulation by the agency.

The funding bill also includes a provision specifying that the Commission cannot use funds to implement rules unless they post the text of the regulation online within 21 days.

So not only does the FCC take a whopping $73 million cut if the GOP gets its way, but net neutrality rules that go into effect this week never will, as the FCC would be blocked from implementing the rules until years of future court battles are resolved.  Effectively, the rules would never be implemented.

Why are Republicans so scared of the FCC?  One has to wonder just how much money GOP lawmakers are taking from these internet giants in order to make sure they remain allowed to reap massive profits off American consumers.

Kansas Tornado, Meet North Carolina

Tax cuts for coporations and for the rich can never fail to magically create new revenue, they can only be failed by not cutting taxes enough.  Given all of the problems in Kansas with GOP Gov. Sam Brownback's ridiculous Laffer Curve lunacy that left that the state in a massive budget hole, you'd think other Republican states would back off.

Not North Carolina, no sir.

N.C. Senate Republicans have stuffed a House economic development bill with 46 pages of their own proposals – including lower personal income tax rates, a change in corporate taxes, a new formula for distributing sales tax revenues among counties, and a retooled jobs incentives program. 

The Senate substitute for House Bill 117 – the “N.C. Competes” bill favored by Gov. Pat McCrory – looks far different than the proposal that passed the House in March with bipartisan support. But Senate leader Phil Berger says it represents a compromise between varying proposals for growing the state’s economy. 

“I think there was a lot of give and take in putting this together,” Berger said during a rare appearance at the Senate Commerce Committee, where the new bill was rolled out. “A proposal such as this takes a great deal of compromises, a great deal of working together.” 

The new bill drew immediate praise from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which said senators “demonstrated bold leadership today by maintaining this proven path to prosperity with a tax cut proposal.” But the liberal N.C. Justice Center criticized the plan, saying further tax cuts “will hinder the state’s progress” with “a strategy that has failed in many other states.”

So what's in this mess of a bill from the GOP-controlled NC Senate? Check the first two "features":

New sales tax on services: To help pay for new income tax cuts, the bill would broaden the sales tax base. Among the purchases that would face sales taxes: Advertising, veterinary and pet care services, and repairs and maintenance work on personal property such as cars. Large nonprofits, such as hospitals, would lose a sales tax exemption. Collectively, the changes would create $171.3 million each year in new revenue, senators said. A news release from Berger said additional sales tax would “continue the goal of moving away from unfair and burdensome taxes on property and income.” 

Personal income tax cuts: The personal income tax rate would be cut from from 5.75 percent to 5.5 percent beginning in 2016. The standard deduction would increase gradually over a four-year period, meaning a married couple filing jointly wouldn’t owe income taxes on the first $18,500 of income by 2020. A single person wouldn’t owe taxes on his or her first $9,250 in income. “People will have more disposable income in their pockets,” said Sen. Bob Rucho, a Mecklenburg County Republican. “That is a great way to lower the tax burden on working families and small businesses.”

So a $171 million dollar tax increase on service industries, like auto repair, veterinarians, and hospital care, but a big tax cut for those who earn a lot.  It's as regressive as a tax system can be. What this happens to be?  Good old tax cuts for the rich paid for by taxing the poor, period.  It failed in Kansas and unfortunately if this passes it will fail in NC as well.

And a lot of good people back in my home state will be hurt as a result.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article23717854.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article23717854.html#storylink=cpy

From Shakespeare To Saruman

Legendary actor Christopher Lee has passed away at the age of 93 on Sunday after a nearly seventy year career.  Best known to my generation as Saruman the White from the Lord of the Rings movies, Lee started out as the heart and soul of the now famous Hammer Studios horror films.

Sir Christopher Lee has died at the age of 93 after being hospitalised for respiratory problems and heart failure.

The veteran actor, best known for a variety of films from Dracula to The Wicker Man through to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, passed away on Sunday morning at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, according to sources.

The decision to release the news days after was based on his wife’s desire to inform family members first. The couple had been married for over 50 years.

As well as his career in film, Lee also released a series of heavy metal albums, including Charlemagne: The Omens of Death. He was knighted in 2009 for services to drama and charity and was awarded the Bafta fellowship in 2011.

His film career started in 1947 with a role in gothic romance Corridor of Mirrors but it wasn’t until the late 50s, when Lee worked with Hammer, that he started gaining fame. His first role with the studio was The Curse of Frankenstein and it was the first of 20 films that he made with Peter Cushing, who also became a close friend. “Hammer was an important part of my life, and generally speaking, we all had a lot of fun,” he said in a 2001 interview.

Lee had no problem poking fun at his status as a schlock movie icon either, as his turn as wacky mad scientist Doctor Catheter in the 1990 film Gremlins 2 attests.



But prolific doesn't even begin to describe his many roles, from Dracula to Space 1999's Captain Zandor (no relation) to Bond villain Francisco Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun to Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels to all kids of voice work in games like the Kingdom Hearts series and more.

And that's not counting his massive stage presence, his service in WW II or his career as an opera and heavy metal singer.

He did it all folks, and he was amazing at it.  We'll not see his like again.

StupidiNews!

And I'm back, more or less.  Thanks to Bon for filling in!

• The hunt for two convicted killers who escaped earlier this month from a maximum security prison in upstate NY now moves to Vermont as police continue the search.
• Michigan lawmakers have passed a bill allowing adoption agencies to deny adoptions to same-sex couples.
• Pope Francis is asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a "sincere effort" to broker a lasting peace in Ukraine.
• Embattled FIFA President Sepp Blatter says he will remain in his position until reform measures are passed by the soccer governing body.
• San Francisco's school board has unanimously voted to teach computer science at all levels of K-12 education.

Last Call For A Graham Of Decency

Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, has pulled his accounts from Wells Fargo in response to an LGBT friendly ad campaign.  He is also going to boycott Tiffany in response to an ad that shows two men in a proposal.

While the accounts won't be felt by Wells Fargo, it's a good sign to watch them finally cut off their own noses for a change.  Boycott, and as acceptance grows let's see you uphold those principles.  Yeah. That's what I thought.

Also, does every homophobic rant have to include the gay agenda being rammed down their throat?  I'm no therapist, but even six year old Catholic schoolgirls can see the snicker from a mile away.

So go ahead.  Show your ass and make a power play.  Feel that net tighten.  Feel the burn as the accountability brings shame.  Shame on him.  Shame on those who would do the same.

From The "About Damn Time" Department

(CNN)Just days after a video that went viral online showed him yanking a 14-year-old bikini-clad girl to the ground and kneeling on her back, Eric Casebolt has resigned from his post as a corporal for the Police Department in McKinney, Texas.

There are disagreements as to whether race played a role in the incident. Of course it did, because I cannot imagine a white teenage girl being handled like that.

However, what it is beyond question is police brutality.  His entire reaction from start to finish was not justified, and I am glad to see the Police Chief rebuke his actions, flat out stating their policies do not support his behavior.

This may not seem like much, but for the simple fact that YouTube is overwhelmed with these videos, the tide must eventually turn.  How many more innocent people will be hurt while we wait?

That's largely up to the police to decide, unfortunately.  

Last Call For K-Mart

I wish the headline was being clever, but that's pretty much it.

CNN Money tells what we've known for a long time, K-Mart is circling the drain.  The number of stores have fallen dramatically and revenue is down.  After its "rescue" some fifteen years ago, K-Mart has hovered in an uncomfortable shrinking state.  Experts are calling out CEO Eddie Lampert, some going to far as to call his management an "asset strip" and saying he has run the business into the ground.

Whether intentional or from gross negligence, in either case K-Mart cannot hold out for much longer. Which begs the question, as brands fall and are born in incredibly rapid pace, what will become of the next retail generation?  Will there be a Macy's or a Sears or even an Old Navy for our kids to buy bad t-shirts in an attempt to reclaim their childhood?  What will it be like when brands come and go in 5 year cycles, and 20 years of those have passed?

Target is growing as K-Mart is shrinking.  Any not-Wal-Mart choice is going to attract a huge shopping base and bring the direct wrath of the #1 retailer in the world.  When the Wal-Mart legacy finally finds a competitor who is willing to limp along and play second banana for some concessions, the American loser stands to lose mightily.

It's a sad day to see K-Mart go and Sears wheeze and struggle.  Not just because of warm and fuzzy feelings, but because once upon a time they were major players in the game, back when the game was good.

A Swing And A Miss, Fox News Style

[Note from Bon: Hey kids, have you missed me? Zandar took a day off and left me with the keys to the office.  You got me now and all day tomorrow, so let's have some fun!  Now on to your normally scheduled blog post.]

The step up to the plate, full of promise and hope.  

But when it comes to the hazards of sex, our approach falls somewhere between passivity and paralysis.

True.  Fox News and its audience are not famous for using science or education to steer their attitudes towards sex.  Is this someone trying to say something different for a chance?  Is this person actually going to confront a longstanding problem in the conservative community: acknowledging that people have S-E-X?

No. I mean, c'mon.  It's Fox News.

 They wiggle the bat and settle their hips.  They go into position and become a solid mass, and dig in.

We make sure our kids know about condoms and the Pill, and tell them we’re always there if they want to talk.  Which is the equivalent of shutting our eyes, crossing our fingers, and hoping.  Hoping that our kids won’t get pregnant, or get someone else pregnant.  Hoping that they won’t catch that STD that causes infertility or cancer.

Ah, there you are, the oldest chestnut of them all.  Telling your kids about birth control is akin to just instructing them hump like bunnies. Despite evidence that supports talking to kids is helpful and should happen more, this can't possibly be the answer.  Quit your crazy talk, scientists!  Your numbers and peer reviewed material is from the devil!

The other team throws a solid pitch!  Straight across the plate, a thing of beauty!

Instead, the conversations should focus on what the child is capable of absorbing, and what the child asks about. Parents should also take advantage of every excuse to broach the difficult subject — a mention of sex or sexuality on a TV show, a pregnancy in the family, sex-education classes in school or a visit to the doctor around the time of puberty. "If you just get over the hurdle of starting, then once the conversation gets going, you often find it's easier than expected," says Schuster. "So use any excuse you want, but just get over the initial hurdle and start talking to your kids, because it's really important." - TIME 

Yes, this is what a straight pitch of common sense looks like. Thoughtful, ongoing, and factual dialogue that informs and educates the child.

The swing and the miss.

As parents we spend our lives trying to protect our kids.  So here’s a radical thought.  How about urging them to wait till they’re married before having sex?  If we really want what’s best and safest and healthiest for our kids, let’s start a sexual revolution.  Hey, it’s been done before. 

"Tell them not to do it, that'll fix it."  Because that's their revolutionary answer.  The same thing that's been done since the first surprise pregnancy.  This gasbag just got published on one of the biggest fake news websites on the Internet for acting as though "don't have sex and you won't have to worry about it" is a newfangled approach to sex education.  The limbo champions at Fox just keep dropping the bar and playing the same old tired songs for anyone who will listen.

Damn, I've missed you kids.  I feel some epic length rants coming on here.

StupidiVacation!

As you probably surmised from the missing StupidiNews this morning, something's different today.  Me, I'm taking a vacation for a few days.  Bon will be by with some stuff this week.  I should be back end of the week or so.

Have fun without me for a bit.

Last Call For Village Idiocy 101

You guys, Red State Dems are really concerned that Hillary is running as a Democrat and not a Republican, and that's making a lot of people very, very nervous.

Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be dispensing with the nationwide electoral strategy that won her husband two terms in the White House and brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats.

Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama’s far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters in the Great Lakes states and in parts of the West and South than on persuading undecided voters.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides say it is the only way to win in an era of heightened polarization, when a declining pool of voters is truly up for grabs. Her liberal policy positions, they say, will fire up Democrats, a less difficult task than trying to win over independents in more hostile territory — even though a broader strategy could help lift the party with her.

OK, right off the bat, Bubba won 20 years ago through triangulation because the electorate was different.  His reward was impeachment by "moderate" Republicans  Two, describing Obama's path to victory as "narrow" is also stupid as both times he won by huge electoral vote margins, 192 in 2008 and 126 in 2012.

And as usual, Hillary's biggest detractors are Red State Dems who want her to be the moderate Republican in the race.

So to Democrats in states where Mrs. Clinton is unlikely to compete, her relying on Mr. Obama’s map would be worrisome. It would not only further diminish beleaguered state parties, but also leave Mrs. Clinton with a narrower margin for error.

“Go ask Al Gore,” Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said about the risk of writing off states such as his, where Democratic presidential candidates prospered until 2000. “He’d be president with five electoral votes from West Virginia. So it is big, and it can make a difference.”

Centrist Democrats also worry that focusing on liberal voters could lead to a continuation of the problems Mr. Obama has faced with a Congress elected by a vastly different subset of the nation.

“That’s not good for the country,” Mr. Manchin said, adding that he hoped Mrs. Clinton would “come to the middle” if she became president.

Of her campaign, he said, “If they get her too far over, it’s going to be more difficult to govern, it truly is.”

Other rural-state Democrats are sending not-so-subtle messages.

“I think that we always appreciate when people want to kind of talk to the whole country and listen to concerns, and I think farm country is critically important,” said Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota.

Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp are worried that Hillary's not conservative enough.  That right there should tell you she's doing the right thing.

A Student Of The Debtor Economy

Over the last several years I've detailed the fight with America's mortgage giants and how they wrecked America, and one of the big issues they hit us all with was "robosigning", the practice of using MERS, the federal bank mortgage record system, as a dumping ground for broken securities and mortgages so tied up in lost records and smoke and mirrors that nobody knows who really owns the mortgage on millions of homes. 

It's still a major issue, and now we're finding out that this practice -- securitizing loans and then chopping up the debt for sale as the Next Great Investment Vehicle -- is rampant in the student loan industry as well.

Student loans have eclipsed credit cards to become the second-largest source of outstanding debt in the U.S., after mortgages. Since 2007 the federal student loan balance has more than doubled, to almost $1.2 trillion from $516 billion. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates that students, former students, and their parents owe an additional $150 billion in loans from banks and other private lenders.

With defaults climbing, lenders have turned to the courts to collect. Many of their suits are marred by missing documents and procedural errors, say consumer advocates and lawyers defending debtors. “Our office is seeing an uptick in abusive loan debt-collection tactics that leave no room for relief,” wrote Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in an e-mail.

The paperwork problems echo the “robosigning” scandals that followed the housing bust. Like mortgages, student loans were bundled into packages and sold to investors. “This is robosigning 2.0 with student loans,” says Robyn Smith, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group. “You have securitized loans in these large pools; you have the sloppy record keeping,” as in the mortgage crisis.

The banks learned nothing.  Well, I take that back: they learned they can get away with this because Congress won't punish them.  And just like in 2008-2011, collections agencies are relying on shock and awe tactics to scare people in paying up more than they owe. And when they can't prove they own the mortgage to collect on, judges are siding with the American people.

The National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts are investment vehicles created by a Boston company called First Marblehead that concentrates on education lending. From 1996 through 2007, First Marblehead bought student loans from lenders including Bank of America, JPMorgan, and a bank now owned by Citizens Bank. It transferred batches of loans to trusts it created—more than two dozen in all. The trusts sold bonds backed by the loans. The trusts are responsible for collecting loan payments from borrowers and paying out interest to bondholders. In 2013 bond rater Moody’s Investors Service said it expected losses to reach as high as 50 percent in 15 National Collegiate trusts it examined.

National Collegiate trusts have been among the most active in suing borrowers, consumer advocates say. Since 2011, National Collegiate has filed more than 1,900 civil cases in Missouri, or an average of more than one lawsuit a day. The company has filed a total of more than 2,100 suits in Connecticut, Indiana, Arizona, and Oklahoma, according to state legal databases. Representatives for National Collegiate didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. “We don’t comment on the trusts,” First Marblehead Chief Financial Officer Alan Breitman says.

Student debtors are challenging National Collegiate in court, and judges in Ohio, Florida, and Kentucky have found that the trusts haven’t proved they own the debt. In California, 13 people are seeking class-action status for a suit against National Collegiate for suing them to collect on student loans without identifying the original lender—which violates California debt-collection law. National Collegiate has denied the allegations in court filings.

This is the next big crisis in the economy, and it's going to be a brutal mess to work through.  Don't expect the economy to get too much better than it is now until this problem goes away.