StupidiNews!

• California's record four-year drought means that this year's wildfire season is particularly brutal, with 134,000 acres burning in the Golden State and more expected this summer.
• Federal and state investigators are looking for suspects in explosions outside two churches in Las Cruces, NM on Sunday, no injuries and minimal damage to the buildings were reported.
• The sports world is in turmoil after data leaked from world athletics governing body IAAF indicated that as much as a third of track and field wins in the last 12 years involved possible doping.
• Greece's stock market is open again for the first time in five weeks, and values on the Athens Stock Exchange plummeted nearly 20% in the opening hours.
• Actress Nichelle Nichols,Star Trek series' Lt. Uhura, will be continuing her 50-year NASA relationship by taking a ride in NASA's airborne observatory at age 82.

Last Call For Climate Of Change

The White House will reveal President Obama's finalized slate of executive actions on climate change and the nation's power plants, and they are big, big news.

The rules are the final, tougher versions of proposed regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2012 and 2014. If they withstand the expected legal challenges, the regulations will set in motion sweeping policy changes that could shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants, freeze construction of new coal plants and create a boom in the production of wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources.

As the president came to see the fight against climate change as central to his legacy, as important as the Affordable Care Act, he moved to strengthen the energy proposals, advisers said. The health law became the dominant political issue of the 2010 congressional elections and faced dozens of legislative assaults before surviving two Supreme Court challenges largely intact.

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Mr. Obama said in a video posted on Facebook at midnight Saturday. He called the new rules “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

The most aggressive of the regulations requires the nation’s existing power plants to cut emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation.

That new rule also demands that power plants use more renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power. While the proposed rule would have allowed states to lower emissions by transitioning from plants fired by coal to plants fired by natural gas, which produces about half the carbon pollution of coal, the final rule is intended to push electric utilities to invest more quickly in renewable sources, raising to 28 percent from 22 percent the share of generating capacity that would come from such sources.

In its final version, the rule retains the same basic structure as the draft proposal: It assigns each state a target for reducing its carbon pollution from power plants, but allows states to create their own custom plans for doing so. States have to submit an initial version of their plans by 2016 and final versions by 2018.

But over all, the final rule is even stronger than earlier drafts and can be seen as an effort by Mr. Obama to stake out an uncompromising position on the issue during his final months in office.

The GOP plan here is simple: tie up the rules in court until a Republican president can simply unmake them. 

Closer to home here, these new rules are now Jack Conway's nightmare.  No matter what he does, he'll be attacked as "Obama's stooge in Kentucky" and if he runs away from Obama and sides with the GOP on this, he'll lose by double digits like Alison Grimes did last year.

And frankly, Conway doesn't have the charisma or the intestinal fortitude to defend these rules.

I really don't want Matt Bevin as my governor.  I don't want to have to depend on Bevin being too crazy to elect in order to stop him.

I may not have a choice.

The Adventures Of K-PAX

At the beginning of last month I mentioned that Texas Republican AG Ken Paxton was facing possible securities fraud indictment over abusing the power of his office.  Turns out that those grand jury charges are officially being unsealed against Paxton on Monday, according to Dallas TV station WFAA.

A grand jury has indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on multiple felony charges, according to several sources who are familiar with the complaints.

The charges will be unsealed in McKinney on Monday about noon, and a Tarrant County judge has already been appointed to preside over the case, sources told News 8.

After the indictments are unsealed, Paxton can surrender to be photographed, fingerprinted and booked at any of the state's 254 county jails.

It's unclear exactly what Paxton will be indicted for, although a grand jury here has heard evidence that Paxton, 52, violated securities laws.

Special prosecutors in the Paxton case told News 8 they planned to present a third-degree charge of failing to register with the state securities board, as the law requires. They also said they planned to present a first degree felony charge against Paxton accusing him of securities fraud. All indications are that charge is related to Servergy, a McKinney-based company that has been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Paxton does not have to resign or step down from statewide office as he prepares to face a criminal trial. He can continue to work, just as Gov. Rick Perry did after his two felony indictments in August 2014.

Paxton's case, legal experts predict, will go to trial since his law license and statewide office are now on the line.

The charges are pretty serious, expected to include at least three felony counts.  Paxton has already paid a $1,000 fine for failing to register management fees for helping his friend and campaign donor, Fritz Mowery, as a consultant.  But the special investigation apparently has found new evidence, turned up by the Texas Rangers, that goes far beyond a simple "administrative error" as Paxton called it.

The NY Times has more.

Sunday Long Read: The Fight To Vote

Jim Rutenberg's piece in the NY Times on the history of Republican party's assault on the Voting Rights Act is indispensable reading this week, as he talks to Henry Frye, the first black State Supreme Court Justice in North Carolina, about the lawsuit against the state's harsh new voting restrictions that will affect mostly minority voters.

What changed this state of affairs was the passage, 50 years ago this month, of the Voting Rights Act. Signed on Aug. 6, 1965, it was meant to correct “a clear and simple wrong,” as Lyndon Johnson said. “Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote.” It eliminated literacy tests and other Jim Crow tactics, and — in a key provision called Section 5 — required North Carolina and six other states with histories of black disenfranchisement to submit any future change in statewide voting law, no matter how small, for approval by federal authorities in Washington. No longer would the states be able to invent clever new ways to suppress the vote. Johnson called the legislation “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom,” and not without justification. By 1968, just three years after the Voting Rights Act became law, black registration had increased substantially across the South, to 62 percent. Frye himself became a beneficiary of the act that same year when, after a close election, he became the first black state representative to serve in the North Carolina General Assembly since Reconstruction.

In the decades that followed, Frye and hundreds of other new black legislators built on the promise of the Voting Rights Act, not just easing access to the ballot but finding ways to actively encourage voting, with new state laws allowing people to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles and public-assistance offices; to register and vote on the same day; to have ballots count even when filed in the wrong precinct; to vote by mail; and, perhaps most significant, to vote weeks before Election Day. All of those advances were protected by the Voting Rights Act, and they helped black registration increase steadily. In 2008, for the first time, black turnout was nearly equal to white turnout, and Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first black president.

Since then, however, the legal trend has abruptly reversed. In 2010, Republicans flipped control of 11 state legislatures and, raising the specter of voter fraud, began undoing much of the work of Frye and subsequent generations of state legislators. They rolled back early voting, eliminated same-day registration, disqualified ballots filed outside home precincts and created new demands for photo ID at polling places. In 2013, the Supreme Court, in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, directly countermanded the Section 5 authority of the Justice Department to dispute any of these changes in the states Section 5 covered. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, declared that the Voting Rights Act had done its job, and it was time to move on. Republican state legislators proceeded with a new round of even more restrictive voting laws.

All of these seemingly sudden changes were a result of a little-known part of the American civil rights story. It involves a largely Republican countermovement of ideologues and partisan operatives who, from the moment the Voting Rights Act became law, methodically set out to undercut or dismantle its most important requirements. The story of that decades-long battle over the iconic law’s tenets and effects has rarely been told, but in July many of its veteran warriors met in a North Carolina courthouse to argue the legality of a new state voting law that the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School has called one of the “most restrictive since the Jim Crow era.” The decision, which is expected later this year, could determine whether the civil rights movement’s signature achievement is still justified 50 years after its signing, or if the movement itself is finished.

Republicans have been trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act for generations.  They are scared of black voters and absolutely terrified of Asian and Latino voters.  Making it harder to vote in order to lower turnout to the right kind of people is all they care about.

Last Call For In The Clear

It's weird how given the manufactured controversy that Planned Parenthood is crushing babies into parts for mad scientists that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, one of the first Republicans in the nation to order an IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION WITH CAPITAL LETTERS into the organization has found exactly nothing incriminating and has dropped the case.

The state of Indiana on Thursday cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing in the handling of fetal tissue. 

A July 16 investigation ordered by Indiana Governor Mike Pence found no evidence of any laws being broken and no evidence that Planned Parenthood facilities in Indianapolis, Bloomington and Merrillville had sold tissue from aborted fetuses, the Associated Press reported. 

At least 12 other states have launched investigations into Planned Parenthood after videos surfaced earlier this month in which Planned Parenthood executives appeared to suggest that the organization was selling the tissues of aborted fetuses. Legislators in other states have also called for investigations.

Many presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, have also waded into the debate since the videos were made public. Some Republicans have called for Planned Parenthood to lose its federal funding.

How strange that this isn't national news.

Anger Mismanagement

It's nice to see somebody in the press finally talking about the uniting feature of the Republican base: like Dr. Bruce Banner in the Avengers, the secret is Republican voters are always angry.

But Republicans’ identification as the antigovernment party leaves its followers more prone to alienation. In a Pew Research Center poll before the 2006 midterm election under Mr. Bush, 28 percent of Democrats described themselves as “angry” at the federal government. In a similar poll four years later under Mr. Obama, 33 percent of Republicans called themselves angry. 

When Pew examined public trust in government during recent presidencies, it found trust among Republicans in the Obama era lower than among either party for the past half-century; just 12 percent said they trusted government to “do what’s right” always or most of the time. And 52 percent of Republicans said Mr. Obama made them angry.

Imagine that.  After years of Republican politicians and pundits describing Barack Obama as everything from Hitler to the Antichrist to a monster, a majority of Republicans are angry at him. Go figure.

In 2011, Mr. Trump fanned those sentiments with skepticism about Mr. Obama’s birth certificate. The next year, Mitt Romney touted Mr. Trump’s endorsement of his presidential campaign. 

Mr. Trump rallies supporters by accusing rival Republicans of incompetence and railing against illegal immigrants. The immigration issue holds special potency because it arouses the anger of older, white conservatives over America’s changing demography. 

In a Mississippi primary last year, one Republican Senate candidate, Chris McDaniel, encapsulated that angst: “An older America passes away, a new America rises to take its place,” he said. “We recoil from that culture. It’s foreign to us. It’s offensive to us.”

Understand that this is white anger against a black president and growing Latino population. And Republicans have embraced being the party of white anger fully.

Such sentiments endanger Republicans nationally as Latinos, for example, of that “new America” swell as a proportion of the electorate. Even so, some Republican candidates were slow to denounce Mr. Trump for decrying many Mexican immigrants as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists.” 

Other 2016 Republican candidates have matched Mr. Trump’s rhetoric. Senator Ted Cruz accused Mr. McConnell of lying in a legislative dispute; Mike Huckabee accused Mr. Obama of marching Israel “to the door of the oven” with the Iran nuclear deal. 

Jeb Bush felt compelled to distance himself from that sort of heat. “I don't have anger in my heart,” he told an audience in Florida. “I’m not a grievance candidate.”

There's no room for you in the GOP today, Jeb.

His hopeful tone may yet prevail. But days before the first televised debate, Mr. Bush trails Mr. Trump in polls of Republicans nationally and in the crucial states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

The GOP is the party of Trump, white anger, racism, and resentment of an America where white privilege doesn't go as far as it used to.  And today's Republicans are scared, pissed off, and looking for revenge.

The Key To The City Of Cleveland

Republicans need to win Ohio to win the presidency in 2016.  They've never been able to win the White House without carrying the Buckeye State, and Obama won it twice.  The RNC's summer meeting this week in Cleveland and next year's Republican National Convention are a pretty big investment in winning the state, and Republicans think they can sell the party to Cuyahoga County black voters without Obama in the picture.

“What I have seen and what I have heard tells me that we’re at a moment in time when the black community is receptive,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, the first black man to hold that job. “As we transition from the Obama administration and the Obama leadership, they are looking. They have not sold themselves on Hillary. They have not bought into the Bernie Sanders socialist view of the world. They are suspicious of Martin O’Malley.”

It would not take that many black votes to complicate the Democrats’ electoral map. Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster working for a super PAC supporting Bush, said in an e-mail that the “demographic challenges” facing whomever the GOP nominates are “real and significant” but fixable. 

“The payoff can be significant,” Newhouse said. “It doesn’t take much of a swing in minority votes to make a difference. Winning even 10 to 14 percent of African-American votes in states like Ohio, Florida or Virginia could put those states in the GOP column in ’16.” 

Cuyahoga County and Cleveland, which will host the first Republican primary debate next week, have been laboratories for that theory. Obama had won the county by a 256,613-vote margin, which boosted him to a 166,272-vote statewide win. In some Cleveland precincts, Romney won no votes at all. Just two years later, Ohio Gov. John Kasich won the county by 22,333 ballots, in a landslide that has become part of his story to Republican primary voters. 

Frost spread around the credit for that. Kasich himself aggressively pitched black voters, and the local party started a conversation with some open-door debates. In October, for example, black Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley came to midtown Cleveland as the conservative voice in a GOP-hosted debate. The party collected the names of about 200 skeptical voters who showed up, then stayed in touch with them. It was a soft sell — one of many — and it seemed to work. 

“We really believe that every vote in every neighborhood of Cuyahoga County is winnable for Republicans,” Frost said. “We are in a fight where we want to win every vote.”

That's a nice fantasy.

Here's the cold, hard reality.

Romney won just 17 percent of the nonwhite vote in 2012, down a bit from the 19 percent John McCain won in 2008 and a steeper drop from the 26 percent George W. Bush won in 2004. Had Romney performed as well as Bush among nonwhite voters, he too would have won Ohio.

He still would have lost in 2012, just by a smaller margin.

Pretty sure the black community in Cleveland and in other Ohio cities are going to remember Ohio Republicans limiting early voting in the state at every opportunity in an effort to lower black turnout. The state was sued by the ACLU and settled but not before voter turnout in 2014 was sharply limited by the plan put in place by Gov. Kasich and Secretary of State Jon Husted, which helped Kasich get his "landslide" win.

This plan also presumes that Democrats won't set foot in the state or something and won't campaign here.

Sure.  After years of trying to keep black voters from voting in Ohio and other swing states, we're just going to be "receptive" to the GOP now?

Keep on believing that, guys.

Last Call For Bevin's Ballast

Looks like Republican Matt Bevin's comments on destroying Medicare expansion and Kynect here in Kentucky if elected as governor in last week's farm bureau forum with AG Jack Conway hurt him somewhat, as he's now down three points in the latest Bluegrass Poll after a four point lead in June.

Despite a summer of social change and subsequent conservative backlash, Attorney General Jack Conway holds a slim advantage over Republican Matt Bevin in this year's race for Kentucky governor, according to a new Bluegrass Poll.

Conway, the Democratic nominee, leads Bevin 45 percent to 42 percent, with 13 percent of voters undecided.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points, which means the two candidates are locked in a toss-up race with large numbers of voters up for grabs just before Saturday's Fancy Farm picnic, the annual event in Western Kentucky that serves as the unofficial kick-off for the fall campaigns.

The survey of 685 likely voters was conducted July 22-28 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Herald-Leader and WKYT-TV in Lexington and The Courier-Journal and WHAS-TV in Louisville. Seventy-two percent of respondents were surveyed on their home telephone and 28 percent were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, tablet or other electronic device.

The wild card remains independent candidate Drew Curtis (we're famous for those here.)

When potential independent candidate Drew Curtis, the founder of alternative news website Fark.com, is added to the mix, he takes support from both candidates. Curtis polled at 8 percent, leaving Conway with 43 percent and Bevin with 38 percent.

Bevin, a party outsider who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in last year's GOP Senate primary, has picked up support among Republicans since winning the gubernatorial primary in May, when he trailed Conway 37 percent to 48 percent, but there are signs that he continues to have problems uniting his party.

Among registered Republicans, 15 percent said they plan to vote for Conway. More than 1 in 4 of those who consider themselves "conservative" said they plan to vote for Conway, as did 15 percent of those who described themselves as "very conservative."

Likewise, a substantial number of Democrats — 20 percent — support Bevin over Conway, though that number is less surprising given that many conservative Kentucky Democrats routinely vote for Republican candidates.

And yes, as much as it enrages me to say this, it turns out that Conway running against Obama isn't hurting him as much as I thought, and may actually be a net benefit to him as Republicans see Bevin as too much of a nutbar and may vote for Conway. They remember Bevin's attack on Mitch the Turtle last year, and they also remember that Bevin barely got a third of the GOP vote in the primary this year.  The guy just isn't that popular.

Jim Chappell, 64, of Louisville, said he would vote for Conway because Conway is not a Republican.

"I think Republicans have a disgusting philosophy," Chappell said. "If Donald Duck was running against them, I would vote for Donald Duck."

Jessica Whitedove, 67, of Perry County, said Conway is the lesser of two evils, but there are no good options in the governor's race.

"We don't have much to choose from. We really don't, and that is sad, but you've got to pick somebody," Whitedove said. "We can not let the Republicans rule. I'm going to watch another debate, then I'll make my final decision, I guess."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/30/3966980_bluegrass-poll-jack-conway-holds.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Of course, neither is Jack Conway.

Jim Weaks, 50, of Louisville, said he'll likely vote for Bevin because Conway does not follow through on his promises.

"Jack Conway is a guy that stands and says all kinds of stuff, but he doesn't do anything," Weaks said. "He's a good talker, he's a good spokesman, but I don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/30/3966980_bluegrass-poll-jack-conway-holds.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

We'll see how much support bleeds to Drew Curtis.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/30/3966980_bluegrass-poll-jack-conway-holds.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Always Overplaying Their Hand

You can always count on Republicans to take an issue that's gaining traction and starting to scare Democrats in Washington (like, say, the manufactured outrage over Planned Parenthood) and find a way to seriously screw it up.

Calling next week’s Senate roll call to defund Planned Parenthood a “legislative show vote,” GOP firebrand Ted Cruz said Republicans should do everything they can to eliminate federal money for the group — even if it means a government shutdown fight this fall. 

He’s not alone. On Wednesday afternoon, 18 House Republicans told leadership that they “cannot and will not support any funding resolution … that contains any funding for Planned Parenthood.” Meanwhile, GOP social conservatives like Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jeff Sessions of Alabama said they’d consider supporting an effort to attach a spending rider that would eliminate Planned Parenthood’s $528 million in annual government funding to must-pass spending legislation this fall.

It’s a potentially ominous sign for GOP leaders desperate to avoid another shutdown debacle. While Cruz may be radioactive in the Senate GOP conference after calling his leader a liar, his analysis of next week’s vote has merit: With Democrats vowing to block the measure, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t be able to get the 60 votes he needs to advance the bill next week, a result that likely won’t satisfy a conservative base itching for confrontation over abortion. 

In a Wednesday interview, Cruz said the GOP should go as hard as it can to block funding for Planned Parenthood, including the same strategy he tried to use to defund Obamacare in 2013: force the issue by blocking funding in a government spending bill that must pass by Sept. 30. 

Asked whether he would support such a maneuver again, Cruz replied: “I would support any and all legislative efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. We do not need a legislative show-vote.”

Cruz may have made an idiot out of himself and shut the government down in 2013, but Republicans didn't pay anything close to an actual price, gaining the Senate and a bunch of House seats in the 2014 midterms.

But the 2016 presidential election is a different animal, and if Ted Cruz shuts down the government over Planned Parenthood, he's playing right into Hillary Clinton's hands.

So go for it, Republicans!  Make headlines for all those campaign commercials for the rest of the election cycle.

Hell, we might even win because of him.

A History Of Surrender

After a year of bullying by Republicans, the College Board has released this year's revisions to AP US History courses, and of course the conservative viewpoint of America, Greatest Country Of Ever, is now center stage.

The revisions consolidate learning objectives -- 19 are listed this year, down from 50 last year -- and seek to make sure "statements are clearer and more historically precise, and less open to misinterpretation or perceptions of imbalance." 

The revisions broaden how the curriculum explores American national identity and unity and how it looks at ideals of liberty, citizenship and self-governance. This includes considering American exceptionalism, which was not explicitly mentioned in last year's curriculum -- an absence that became a rallying point for conservative critics.

This year's changes highlight the nation's founding documents and founding political leaders, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. The curriculum includes considering the productive role of free enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovation in shaping U.S. history. It explores America's role and sacrifices during World War I and II and U.S. leadership in ending the Cold War.

When last year's framework was released, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning the course, decrying it as a "radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation's history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects." 

The RNC resolution urged Congress to withhold any federal funding to the College Board, the private company that designs AP curriculums and the SAT and AP exams, until the course was rewritten. It called for a congressional investigation and at least a one-year delay in implementing the course so a committee of lawmakers, educators and parents could come up with a new version that would tell "the true history" of the country.

Looks like the College Board folks did the RNC's work for them.  In fact, conservatives seem pretty darn happy about the changes where the College Board faced the loss of millions in funding unless they literally rewrote the history books to favor the Republican viewpoints on WW II:

In the 2015 version, the first bullet now reads: “Americans viewed the war as a fight for the survival of freedom and democracy against fascist and militarist ideologies. This perspective was later reinforced by revelations about Japanese wartime atrocities, Nazi concentration camps, and the Holocaust.” The framework still notes the internment of Japanese Americans and the moral complexities of dropping the atomic bomb, but these are now situated in a broader, more textured tale. Teachers have plenty of room to emphasize moral ambiguities and contemporary critiques, as they well should — but it’s no longer implied that those are the whole story.

Murca. Hell yeah.  Just like Reagan won the Cold War by himself:

Of Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War, the 2014 framework read (in its laughable entirety): “President Ronald Reagan, who initially rejected détente with increased defense spending, military action, and bellicose rhetoric, later developed a friendly relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.” The framework managed to depict Reagan as simultaneously a bully and a naif. That’s the view of left-wing history departments, of course, but it is cartoon history. The 2015 framework now reads, “Reagan asserted U.S. opposition to communism through speeches, diplomatic efforts, limited military interventions, and a buildup of nuclear and conventional weapons,” and notes that these actions “were important in ending the Cold War.”

What's not mentioned about Reagan?  How he sold weapons to Iran, stifled federal AIDS research, and tripled the national debt.

No, that treatment gets reserved for Democrats like FDR.

Whereas the 2014 framework gave hagiographic accounts of FDR’s and LBJ’s domestic initiatives, the 2015 version gives a much more tempered account. The 2014 framework explained, “The liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal drew on earlier progressive ideas and represented a multifaceted approach to both the causes and effects of the Great Depression.” The 2015 framework now reads, “Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted to end the Great Depression by using government power to provide relief to the poor, stimulate recovery, and reform the American economy.” This is both less starry-eyed and more accurate.

More accurate of course if your idea of accuracy involves "Democrats are evil."  But hey, history is written by the winners, right?

StupidiNews!

• The 2022 Winter Olympic games will be held in Beijing, China, as the home of the 2008 Summer Olympics beat out its only other competitor, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• Officer Ray Tensing is out of jail on a million-dollar bond in the Samuel DuBose murder case, he plead not guilty to the charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter.
• Tokyo Electric Power Company officials will be indicted on charges for failing to prepare for the 2011 Fukushima earthquake after a civilian panel elected to force prosecutor action.
• As a result of its recent merger with Heinz Co., foodmaker Kraft is ending its free snacks policy as part of a $1.5 billion cost-cutting initiative.
• After a disastrous consumer trial that ended abruptly last year, a revamped Google Glass program is now rolling out to commercial users.

Last Call For NCIS: Ukraine

I can't imagine why Vladimir Putin would want to stop a UN international tribunal investigation into who's responsible for shooting down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH12 over Ukriane last year.

Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution on Wednesday that would have set up an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of downing a Malaysia Airlines passenger airliner last year in eastern Ukraine. 

Eleven countries on the 15-member council voted in favor of the proposal by Malaysia, 

Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ukraine, while three countries abstained: China, Angola and Venezuela. A resolution needs nine votes in favor to pass and no veto by Russia, the United States, China, Britain or France. 

Flight MH17 was shot down in July 2014 with 298 passengers on board, two-thirds of them Dutch. It crashed in Ukrainian territory held by Russian-backed separatists. 

"Those responsible may believe that they can now hide behind the Russian Federation's veto. They will not be allowed to evade justice," Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the council. There were 39 Australians on board flight MH17.

She said Australia, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine would now seek an alternative prosecution mechanism.

Good luck with that.

Actually nailing Russia with evidence of an act of war? That won't be tolerated. And Putin continues to gain territory in Ukraine and laugh at the world.

Guess we'll have to crash the price of oil again.

The Donald's Last Laugh

Bloomberg News decided to actually talk to some of these GOP primary voters about why Donald Trump appeals to them, and their answers are exactly what you'd expect.

A Bloomberg Politics focus group of 12 Republican and independent voters who are supportive of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy shed light Wednesday night on the billionaire's swift rise to the top of the GOP field, and confirmed that his brash, “You're fired!” style and lack of experience in politics is more of an asset than a liability.

“He says it like it is,” said Jessica, a data analyst, during the focus group in the first-in-the-nation primary state, conducted by Purple Strategies at St. Anselm College in Manchester. “He speaks the truth.” 

He's willing to tell you his opinion,” Andrew, an educator, said. “So many other politicians won't take an opinion.” 

Many said Trump's success in the business world appealed to them.

“Business, we need business and I like his roughness,” said Danielle, a financial-planning consultant, adding, “He's just tough, we need someone tough.” 

“Donald Trump is strong,” Nick, a home inspector, said. “He carries a sentiment and frustrations that I think a lot of Americans are going through and feeling right now. He's the one that's able to articulate that, and bring those frustrations to light. I believe him when he talks.” 

Of course Trump would be successful.  He's a billionaire.  Billionaires aren't stupid or lazy, otherwise they wouldn't be billionaires, now would they?  He's as American as they come.  Wealth is morality here.

Even as the group praised Trump's directness, some worried it could be his undoing in the race.

“I think potentially, he could cross over with some inappropriate comments,” said Andy, adding, “And it would very much concern me if he was the nominee.” 

“I could see him being a hothead,” Fred, a tax preparer, said.

Trump's remarks about whether McCain, the Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, should be described as a war hero rubbed some in the group the wrong way.

“I thought that was disrespectful,” said Jean, a banker. “Regardless of whether he [McCain] was technically a war hero or not, it was disrespectful.” 

As for Trump's characterization of undocumented immigrants as “rapists,” however, many in the room said it didn't bother them.

Why should it?  Trump doesn't like those people, and neither do Republican primary voters.  Those people are poor, lazy, dirty criminals, not like GOP primary voters, who are real Americans.  And they're tired of candidates tiptoeing around nationalism and racism rather than just admitting that the prospect of becoming a majority minority nation scares the hell out of them.

The GOP is the party of white privilege, and there hasn't been anyone in American history better suited to representing the base than a rich, obnoxious, loudmouth billionaire who has marketed himself into a worldwide brand and can say and do what he wants, and only gets more popular for it.

Though Trump's considerable wealth—which the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates at $2.9 billion—resonated with those who participated in the focus group, many seemed to regard him as being on the same page as ordinary Americans.

“He's like one of us. He may be a millionaire, which separates him from everybody else, but besides the money issue, he's still in tune with what everybody is wanting,” Janet, a former dog breeder, said.

Trump is "like one of us".  They all want to be him.  And they will vote for him.  He's not going anywhere, folks.

The Kochs Go Shopping

Since the Koch Brothers effectively have their own Republican party apparatus now, when they command 2016 candidates to come running in order to whore themselves out, the candidates at this point are just haggling over the price.

Four leading GOP presidential candidates – Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker – are traveling to a Southern California luxury hotel in coming days to make their cases directly to the Koch brothers and hundreds of other wealthy conservatives planning to spend close to $1 billion in the run-up to the 2016 election. 

The gathering – which also will include former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, but notably not Sen. Rand Paul — is hosted by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the umbrella group in the Kochs’ increasingly influential network of political and public policy outfits. It represents a major opportunity for the candidates at a pivotal moment in the presidential primary.

The crowded field of GOP contenders is competing aggressively for the support of uncommitted mega-donors as the campaign hurtles towards its first debates in what’s expected to be a long and costly battle for the Republican nomination. 

Freedom Partners’ annual summer conference is set for August 1 through August 3, and is expected to draw 450 of the biggest financiers of the right for sessions about the fiscally conservative policies and politics that animate the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and many of the donors in their network. Most have the capability to write seven- or even eight-figure checks to the super PACs fueling the GOP presidential primary, and a significant proportion have yet to settle on a 2016 choice, or are considering supporting multiple candidates. That includes Charles and David Koch, as well as Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and hedge fund billionaires Paul Singer, both of whom will be represented at the conference by advisers, and a number of other attendees of past conferences whose 2016 leanings are being closely watched. 

The Koch operation is not expected to formally back any candidate in the GOP primary. But the Koch brothers and many of their donors can still play kingmaker roles. In addition to the massive checks many are expected to write to the super PACs aligned with specific candidates, they also serve as bellwethers for other donors.

These are the people that own the Republican party.  What the people in red states and caucus meetings and party conferences at the local and even state level want?  It doesn't matter in the least. These are the people who will buy the next GOP nominee and flood the airwaves with a billion dollars in ads to get you to vote.

And they expect a massive rate of return on their investment.  Most likely they will get it because they've already bought Congress.  But if they get the whole ball of wax, the Republic is done.

New Tag, and one long, long overdue:  The Powers That Be.

StupidiNews!

• Australian officials say wreckage from what is believed to be Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which vanished last year, may have washed ashore on Reunion Island.
• Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore has become the 16th Republican to enter the 2016 presidential race, moving his planned announcement up from the first week of August.
• Planned Parenthood reports a second series of denial-of-service attacks on its websites, blaming "extremists", while the hackers vow to release the organization's internal emails soon.
• As oil continues to fall after the Iranian nuclear deal, analysts say that $40 oil would cause serious damage to Russia's economy, possibly forcing Greek-style capital controls on banks.
• Late-night host Conan O'Brien has been accused of stealing jokes from a San Diego comedy writer off of Twitter and the man's blog in a new lawsuit brought in a California court.