Just Do What The Officer Says

The NY Times takes a look at traffic stops in North Carolina and finds -- surprise! -- police pull over black drivers far more often even when the rates of finding something illegal are higher with white drivers.

Documenting racial profiling in police work is devilishly difficult, because a multitude of factors — including elevated violent crime rates in many black neighborhoods — makes it hard to tease out evidence of bias from other influences. But an analysis by The New York Times of tens of thousands of traffic stops and years of arrest data in this racially mixed city of 280,000 uncovered wide racial differences in measure after measure of police conduct.

Those same disparities were found across North Carolina, the state that collects the most detailed data on traffic stops. And at least some of them showed up in the six other states that collect comprehensive traffic-stop statistics.

Here in North Carolina’s third-largest city, officers pulled over African-American drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their share of the local driving population. They used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when the driver was white.

Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.

We know this happens, but finding evidence of this time and time again, in city after city, county after county, state after state, just makes it clear that this is systemic, national racism that will require a national fix to resolve.

In Greensboro, which is 41 percent black, traffic stops help feed the stream of minor charges that draw a mostly African-American crowd of defendants to the county courthouse on weekday mornings. National surveys show that blacks and whites use marijuana at virtually the same rate, but black residents here are charged with the sole offense of possession of minor amounts of marijuana five times as often as white residents are.

And more than four times as many blacks as whites are arrested on the sole charge of resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer, an offense so borderline that some North Carolina police chiefs discourage its use unless more serious crimes are also involved.

This has been a problem for years now, but now that it has national attention, it's starting to get noticed.  That's a start, and some cities and states are making changes, but again this is nationwide, any real solutions must also be national.

Failing The Test

In what has to be considered a staggering about-face, the Obama administration now admits the testing uber alles regime of Common Core has gone too far, and that schools need to take a step back and start to limit tests.

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.

Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to “reduce over-testing” as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools.

“I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, who has announced that he will leave office in December. “But I can’t tell you how many conversations I’m in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking from instruction.”

“It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.”

Teachers’ unions, which had led the opposition on the left to the amount of testing, declared the reversal of sorts a victory. “Parents, students, educators, your voice matters and was heard,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

And even some proponents of newer, tougher tests said they appreciated the administration’s acknowledgment that it had helped create the problem, saying it did particular damage by encouraging states to evaluate teachers in part on test scores.

But the administration’s so-called “testing action plan” — which guides school districts but does not have the force of law — also risks creating new uncertainty on the role of tests in America’s schools. Many teachers have felt whiplash as they rushed to rewrite curriculum based on new standards and new assessments, only to have politicians in many states pull back because of political pressure.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has for years promised that Common Core standards and rigorous testing were the keys to making American public schools more accountable and students more prepared to face the 21st century, and more importantly close the gap between successful exurban white schools and crumbling inner city black and Hispanic schools.

The admission that testing needs to be dialed back is all but indicating that the 20-year effort to fix our schools has all but failed completely.  Common Core has been the worst of both worlds: declaring that teachers and schools should be commercialized and profitized, and then purposefully abandoning the students who needed the most help in the poorest schools in the country.

We've decided over the last two decades that an education only goes to those who deserve it by dint of class, to lavishly fund those schools for the rich and leave the rest to fight over the scraps, to create winners and losers in school almost from birth.

Only now have we realized that we created a monster instead.

Sunday Long Read: Bad Romance

Very little good ever comes from a doctor-patient relationship that turns into something far more unethical.  But when the doctor is a renowned ethics professor at Rutgers and the patient is severely mentally disabled, the fallout can be catastrophic. The line between being the guiding light to help a man trapped by cerebral palsy and taking advantage to the point of sexual assault didn't just get crossed here, but shattered.

Anna didn’t want to keep her feelings secret. As far as she knew, neither did D.J. In recent weeks, their relationship had changed, and it wasn’t clear when or how to share the news. ‘‘It’s your call,’’ she said to him in the lead-up to a meeting with his mother and older brother. ‘‘It’s your family. It’s up to you.’’

When she arrived at the house on Memorial Day in 2011, Anna didn’t know what D.J. planned to do. His brother, Wesley, was working in the garden, so she went straight inside to speak with D.J. and his mother, P. They chatted for a while at the dining table about D.J.’s plans for school and for getting his own apartment. Then there was a lull in the conversation after Wesley came back in, and Anna took hold of D.J.’s hand. ‘‘We have something to tell you,’’ they announced at last. ‘‘We’re in love.’’

‘‘What do you mean, in love?’’ P. asked, the color draining from her face.

To Wesley, she looked pale and weak, like ‘‘Caesar when he found out that Brutus betrayed him.’’ He felt sick to his stomach. What made them so uncomfortable was not that Anna was 41 and D.J. was 30, or that Anna is white and D.J. is black, or even that Anna was married with two children while D.J. had never dated anyone. What made them so upset — what led to all the arguing that followed, and the criminal trial and million-­dollar civil suit — was the fact that Anna can speak and D.J. can’t; that she was a tenured professor of ethics at Rutgers University in Newark and D.J. has been declared by the state to have the mental capacity of a toddler.

Anna does not agree with this assessment. She does not deny (as no one could) that D.J. is impaired: His cerebral palsy leaves him prone to muscle spasms in his face, his neck, his torso and his arms and hands. She acknowledges that it’s hard for him to stay in one position, that muscle contractions sometimes twist his spine and clench his fingers in a useless ball. It’s clear to her, as it is to everyone, that he has trouble making eye contact and keeping objects fixed in view. She knows that he wears diapers and cannot dress himself; that he can walk only if someone steadies him; and that otherwise he gets around by scooting on the floor. She knows that D.J. screams when he’s unhappy and chirps when he’s excited, but that he can’t control his vocal cords. Anna understands that even now, at 35, D.J. has never said a word.

But she takes issue with the other half of D.J.’s diagnosis: that he’s not just spastic but has a very low I.Q. In 2004, five years before Anna met him, a clinical psychologist named Wayne Tillman, who consults for New Jersey’s Bureau of Guardianship Services, assessed D.J. and found that his impairments precluded any formal testing of intelligence, but that certain facts could be inferred: ‘‘His comprehension seemed to be quite limited,’’ ‘‘his attention span was very short’’ and he ‘‘lacks the cognitive capacity to understand and participate in decisions.’’ D.J. could not even carry out basic, preschool-­level tasks. A few months later, a court made P. and Wesley his legal guardians.

From the time she met D.J., Anna thought Tillman had it wrong. D.J. might be unable to speak or hold a pencil, but those are motor skills, not mental ones, and their absence didn’t mean his mind was blank. What if D.J. had a private chamber in his head, a place where grown-up thoughts were trapped behind his palsy? Then, of course, he would fail the standard tests of his I.Q. — tests made for people who can answer questions verbally or read and write. What D.J. needed was another way to share his deep intelligence.

At the request of D.J.’s family, Anna began to work with him, using a controversial method known as ‘‘facilitated communication.’’ Starting with her hand beneath his elbow, she helped him point at pictures, and then at letters, and eventually at the buttons of a Neo, a hand-held keyboard with a built-in screen. With his hand in hers, she helped him type out words after 30 years of silence.

Wesley and his mother had been thrilled with D.J.’s progress, but now, suddenly, they recoiled. (Neither D.J.’s family nor Anna agreed to be interviewed for this article; all their quotes and recollections are drawn from court records and testimony. P. and Wesley are referred to by a middle initial and a middle name to shield D.J.’s identity, which has not been publicly revealed.) When Wesley told Anna he thought she had taken advantage of his brother, she could not muster a response. At last, with her help, D.J. began typing: ‘‘No one’s been taken advantage of. I’ve been trying to seduce Anna for years, and she resisted valiantly.’’ Then he typed another message, meant for Anna: ‘‘Kiss me.’’ Wesley walked out.

Later, after he told Anna that she wasn’t to see his brother anymore, she tried to plead her case by phone: ‘‘I will put in writing, prick my finger and sign with blood — whatever makes you reassured that this is for real,’’ she promised in a voice mail message. ‘‘I will leave my husband, and I will make a permanent life and home with [D.J.].’’

This one is pretty long, and worth the read.  It's the most human of dramas to boot.  How far does someone go in order to try to heal someone that society has given up on, and when does that turn into shocking levels of abuse and manipulation?

When does love cause farm more harm than good?

Last Call For The Nothing

Over at Steve's place, Tom Hilton wonder aloud if the breakdown in GOP "governance" was the plan all along.

Less than two weeks before we hit the debt ceiling, there's no clear pathto raising it. And as hilarious as Paul Ryan's fail may be, it just makes things that much more difficult, since he'll be as much a hostage to the Freedom Caucus as Boehner was. Maybe someone can see how this plays out without a default, but I can't.

And if there is a default, it won't be the Republicans who get punished. Sure, they'll get some bad press for a while. There'll be scolding editorials, maybe even calls from constituents. And...not much more.

But the longer-term economic consequences--we know who'll pay for that. If default throws us into a recession, if we're in a recession a year from now, the weakest Republican will beat the strongest Democrat. The GOP will strengthen their hold on Congress, and finally take the White House. At which point it's game over. All Dark. Forever.

And the Republicans incompetence or deliberate sabotage (likely both) will end up achieving what a billion dollars of Koch money couldn't.

That's my recurring nightmare. Someone, anyone, tell me I'm wrong about this. Please.

I wish I could Tom, but right now the health of our economy is 100% dependent on Paul Ryan and the notion that not even the Republicans are willing to destroy the economy to win in 2016. And Tom's right: Obama is president, and the Democrats will be blamed for an economic meltdown next year brought on by a debt default the way Bush was in 2008.  I'm still convinced that Obama would have lost handily in 2008 if the economy had held on for McCain for just two more months rather than coming unraveled in September, six weeks before the election.  In 48 hours, McCain had lost the election he should have easily won.

So no Tom, I can't talk you down. I'd ask "Are you willing to be America on that?"  But that's a pointless question.

We already have.  Better hope Paul Ryan can control the lunatics, or America is done.

Jeb Comes To Jesus

It looks like Bush, Inc. is making some frank decisions about the candidacy of Jeb, and the big guns are coming out to try to save him.

Jeb Bush will attend a finance meeting this weekend in Houston convened by former President George H. W. Bush and attended by Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, CBS News has learned.

The session, designed to assess where Bush's candidacy stands in the face of large-scale staff cutbacks and underwhelming poll numbers, will also be attended by Bush's mother, Barbara Bush. The governor's campaign confirmed the meeting will be held Sunday and Monday.

CBS News has also learned George W. Bush will headline a fundraiser for Jeb Bush in Georgetown (Washington, DC) on Oct. 29. The fundraising email, which went out earlier this week, was sent by George W. Bush's two former chiefs of staff, Andy Card and Josh Bolten. Jeb Bush will not attend the fund-raiser.

The email, sent to Bush-Cheney alumni, praised Bush's "extraordinary record of accomplishment and conservative innovation" and said that George W. Bush "looks forward to seeing his old friends at this event and to sharing his enthusiasm for Jeb's candidacy." Bolten and Card suggested that for those who can't make the event, there would be "other opportunities around the country," and the email closed, "Your help today will help position Jeb for a successful outcome."

The event underscores the need for the former Florida governor to lean on his brother's fund-raising prowess to aid his struggling campaign.

Don Poppy, Barbara and Dubya are making it clear that playtime is over and the "real adults" are in charge of Jeb's campaign now.  He's blowing it, and the operatives are now taking over the reins. Their first act is getting the rabble back in line and that line is "Jeb will be the nominee and next President" and all the weight of the Bush network is being brought to bear.

We'll see just how much power the Bush crime family has left these days.  It's still considerable, but enough to counter the rage of the Tea Party and the rise of Trump/Carson as clear front-runners?

I don't know about that one.  But I'm still not convinced Jeb's done.  There's still tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and that will keep him in the race through at least the early primary states.

After that though, who knows.

Like A Kansas Tornado, Con't

The Great Brownback Austerity Regime rolls on in Kansas, crushing everyone in its path, and state Republicans are starting to get nervous about all the cuts.  After all, they'll still have to face voters in 2016, unlike Brownback.

A Republican state senator in Kansas has blasted a memo from a spokeswoman for Gov. Sam Brownback that claimed expanding Medicaid in the state would be “morally reprehensible.” 

The newsletter, from GOP state Sen. Jeff King, provides further evidence that at least some Kansas Republicans are stepping away from the governor’s office, on issues from tax reform to Medicaid expansion. 

King — the vice president of the state Senate — represents the district that includes the now-closed hospital in Independence, Kan. His release takes aim at a memo from Melika Willoughby, the governor’s deputy communications director, that sharply criticized the idea of expanding Medicaid in the state. 

Willoughby called that expansion “morally reprehensible.” 

King denounced her claim. “I refuse to make moral judgments based on a person’s view of Medicaid expansion,” he writes in the newsletter. “I wish Ms. Willoughby would have done the same. 

“Maybe if her hospital were closing. Maybe if her parents were wondering where to go for emergency care. Maybe if she faced uncertainty in her health care future, she would view those looking for health care answers in a little less judgmental light. I leave that for her to sleep on at night,” he added.

Don't feel too bad for state Sen. King here, because he doesn't actually want Medicaid expansion either. Rather, his solution of course is to replace Medicaid with a "private insurance" program, where Kansas takes the Feds' money and then does everything but provide health insurance with it.

King says he supports expanding Medicaid, but through a private insurer.

“Our health care system failed Independence and it is failing tens of thousands of hardworking Kansans,” the letter says. “I don’t have all of the answers, but saying no to everything isn’t an option. I look forward to exploring the benefits of a conservative, Kansas-focused Medicaid expansion based on private insurance.

“Maybe, after we weigh our options and the costs of doing nothing, Ms. Willoughby will be less hasty to morally condemn those trying to solve our state’s toughest problems.”

But then again, Brownback is so hated that this fake Medicaid expansion looks great in comparison. That's how the game works, kids.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article41200734.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article41200734.html#storylink=cpy

The Great Texas Uterus Roundup Of '15

Meanwhile, in "Republicans champion smaller, unobtrusive government that respects privacy rights" news, Texas Republicans are actually happy to use political power to target and destroy people who don't agree with them as the GOP War on Women becomes literal.

Texas sent agents to Planned Parenthood facilities on Thursday seeking documents, the group said, calling it a "politically motivated" move that comes on the heels of the state's Republican leaders barring it from receiving Medicaid money. 

Members of the Texas Office of the Inspector General made unannounced visits at Planned Parenthood health centers in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, staying in some cases for several hours and giving Planned Parenthood 24 hours to deliver thousands of pages of documents stored at its facilities across the state, the organization said. 

The Inspector General Office declined to comment, as did health officials. Inspector General agents were seen on local news reports entering a Planned Parenthood facility in San Antonio.

Texas, the most populous Republican-controlled U.S. state, said it would launch a probe of Planned Parenthood after the release of videos in July by anti-abortion activist group Center for Medical Progress in which a Planned Parenthood official is seen talking about transactions involving fetal tissue. 

“We believe this is a fishing expedition," Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region Chief Executive Officer Ken Lambrecht told a news conference in Austin, calling the request "politically motivated." 

Lambrecht said Texas had requested what Planned Parenthood sees as unnecessary information such as the home addresses of all its employees as well as their salaries and bonuses.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said this week: "The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed." But the state has so far released no evidence of illegal activity by the group.

If this had been a raid by California or New York state agencies on an NRA office, Republicans would be announcing congressional hearings and subpoenas before the end of the month.  But Texas going after Planned Parenthood and raiding their offices, taking personal information of employees to use against them later, to scare them out of business?  Those abuses of power are exactly why Republicans want to be in office.

They are exactly who we know they are to be.

Last Call For The Carson Show, Con't

I wonder how long Ben Carson will be leading in Iowa when the elderly FOX News crowd gets wind of the fact he wants to abolish their Medicare.

Carson, who now leads the GOP field in Iowa according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, would eliminate the program that provides health care to 49 million senior citizens, as well as Medicaid, and replace it with a system of cradle-to-grave savings accounts which would be funded with $2,000 a year in government contributions. While rivals have been pummeled for proposing less radical changes, Carson hasn't faced the same scrutiny -- and his continued traction in polls has left GOP strategists and conservative health care wonks scratching their heads.

"This isn’t a borderline issue. The politics of this are horrific," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum and health care adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Carson's stance on the third-rail issue of Medicare is especially risky given his strength among elderly voters. In Iowa, Carson draws a quarter of the senior vote -- more than double any other candidate except Donald Trump, with whom he’s statistically tied among seniors. Carson’s support is even higher among voters between the ages of 55 and 64, who are on the verge of Medicare eligibility. He draws 34 percent of that age group, double Trump’s level of support, according to the Quinnipiac poll.

Carson's GOP rivals are largely holding their fire so far. Trump's campaign declined to comment, as did the campaigns of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio. A spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal noted the Louisiana governor's support for reforming -- but preserving -- Medicare and Medicaid.

“Without change, they will go bankrupt,” said the spokeswoman, Shannon Dirmann. “Abolishing them is bad policy.”

The answer of course is a combination of our Village betters have been letting Carson get away with it, and that nobody took him seriously enough to read the fine print.  Carson doesn't call it Medicare or Medicaid, he calls it "traditional health care".  He's had this plan for more than a year now, but he's gotten very, very good at selling it while not talking about it.

Now that he's a serious threat in the GOP race, the Village has suddenly re-discovered his plan to replace Medicare and Medicaid with medical savings accounts that wouldn't cover the cost of a hospital visit and wouldn't keep up with medical cost inflation.

We'll see how much traction this gets, but I'm betting it's not going to hurt him as much as people think.  He's had this position for over a year now, folks.  Hasn't hurt him so far.

And if it's because "people didn't know" then maybe we should ask why that is.

It Could Lead To Dancing

It's funny how Republicans are always for "small government" and "less government intrusion" unless it's telling other people that their daughters are probably sluts.

An Omaha Public Schools parent meeting devolved into shouting and violence when abstinence-only advocates accused district officials of not being upfront about a new sex education curriculum. 

According to Jay Irwin, a University of Nebraska at Omaha professor in attendance who wrote a detailed description of what happened, there were about 1,000 people in attendance at the Tuesday night meeting and people opposed to the optional curriculum known as comprehensive sex education, or CSE, wore red stickers. Video from the meeting shows total chaos as parents stand and shout about purity. 

“Planned Parenthood has came in. There is a big ring here. We are fighting this on the state level as well,” Amber Parker told local WDAM. 

One woman, who some have dubbed “#puritymom,” can be seen standing and screaming, “It’s my daughter! My daughter! Who’s going to keep her pure? Nobody! I am! Not OPS! Not OPS!”

Keep in mind, this is a completely optional class.  Parents have long had the right to yank their kids out of sex-ed classes if they didn't agree with what was being taught.  But no, the lunatics will stop anything from being taught.

Parent Bernie Garcia stood outside waving a sign that read, “Say No to Comprehensive Sex Ed.” He was upset over a rumor he’d heard that the course will teach children different sex positions and how to masturbate. 

“That’s disgusting,” he told LiveWellNebraska. “That’s not right. Children should learn about sex when they become adults.” 

The heightened interest is relatively new, LiveWell reports. An April meeting drew only 150 attendees, but the large, vocal crowd was spurred by social media posts, churches and other community organizations, including Nebraskans for Founders’ Values, a conservative Christian group. OPS officials told LiveWell some of the people in attendance Tuesday weren’t necessarily even OPS parents or students.

And there are so many examples of these local groups starting trouble like this in places all across the country, and it leads to dangerous confrontations like this and kids not being taught the facts about things.

But that was the plan all along, you know.  The fact that kids in Omaha might be learning about sex education is enough to enrage these idiots to make sure that children other than their own are kept just as ignorant as they are.

The Batlle Over Ohio

Ohio Republicans are putting the finishing touches on legislation that would end public funding for Planned Parenthood in the state, legislation that "moderate Republican" Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign.

Anti-abortion advocates in Ohio have already banned Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds for family planning; the latest bill is a way to get at federal funds administered by the state government. The ultimate goal is to shut down Planned Parenthood entirely by cutting off public money,following Texas’s lead in gutting access to reproductive health care. In Ohio, Franklin says, “We’re trying to pursue a different kind of incremental approach."

Anti-abortion groups had been making the case for the bill since the beginning of the year, but the legislative push began in earnest in July, after anti-abortion activists first released undercover videos accusing Planned Parenthood of illegally profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. The measure is now going through hearings in both the state Senate and House of Representatives. Supporters and opponents alike expect it to be voted out of committee, pass the General Assembly, and hit Governor John Kasich's desk by Thanksgiving. A Kasich spokesman said the governor would not comment on pending legislation, but he’s widely expected to sign the bill if it passes. Despite pitching himself as a moderate in his presidential campaign, and slamming House Republicans for threatnening the shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, Kasich has green-lit every significant restriction on abortion and family planning since he took office in 2011.

Even Democratic opponents admit that the bill has been cannily packaged and presented. “The Republican Party did a good job with this," says state Representative Greta Johnson. "They came out strong with these horribly edited videos and scared even moderate Democrats into thinking, ‘I can’t be affiliated with them.' " Anti-abortion advocates have touted the bill as bipartisan, having scored the support of Democratic state Representative Bill Patmon, who is co-sponsoring the measure in the House. But the vast majority of Democrats are vocally opposing it.

The Ohio strategy is more piecemeal than what we're seeing in states like Arkansas and Louisiana, whose governors have tried to go big by cutting the organization’s contracts with Medicaid, which provides roughly 75 percent of its funding. Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week announced that his state was dropping Planned Parenthood from Medicaid (court challenges will follow), and Ohio anti-abortion groups have clamored for Kasich to do the same. But Ohio’s current legislative strategy could ultimately prove more lasting, as federal courts have temporarily halted Arkansas andLouisiana's attempts to cut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid funding. “In Ohio we’ve been careful to enshrine as much as we can in law," says Franklin. "It would stand longer and it would hold regardless of who is our state’s executive. That’s important to us for making long-term change."

Other states are taking a similarly incremental approach. North Carolina’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed a budget last month that bans Planned Parenthood from receiving state money for family planning and pregnancy prevention. Also last month, Wisconsin’s state Assembly passed a measure that aims to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal Title X funds by having the state's health department apply for the federal grant instead.

Supporters of the Ohio bill say that the funds will simply be redirected to other clinics, community health centers, and local health departments, without interrupting health services. But the state's community health centers are already under strain, and might not have the capacity to take on the additional clients. “You’re going to take a proven, effective program that’s making a difference—you’re going to disrupt that and try to find someone else to replicate it,” says Copeland, who points out that Planned Parenthood clinics were awarded the federal grants through a competitive process.

This is another battle that Republicans are winning easily.  Ohio's state government is 100% controlled by the GOP and has been since 2011.  Midterm elections in 2014 only gave Republicans more power (and re-elected Kasich in a landslide). Now Ohioans are reaping that particular whirlwind.

Ending abortion and making contraception available to only the few was always the goal, and Kasich is leading the charge.

StupidiNews!

• Hurricane Patricia, now a record-breaking Category 5 storm with winds topping 200 MPH, is set to make a "catastrophic" landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast Friday.
• Victims of former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle have received $100,000 a piece in restitution as part of his plea deal on child pornography and sexual assault charges.
• At least 42 people are dead in a bus crash near Bordeaux in western France as a head-on collision with a truck caused the bus to catch on fire.
• One American soldier was killed in a raid assisting Kurdish Peshmerga forces in rescuing more than 70 hostages from an Islamic State prison in Iraq on Thursday.
• A federal judge has struck down Indiana's law barring "ballot selfies", ruling that taking pictures of marked ballots and sharing them online is constitutionally protected free speech.

Last Call For The Neverending Boring

Hillary Clinton spent nearly nine hours having her time wasted by the clowns on the Benghazi Committee Committee to Derail Hillary Clinton's Presidential Bid and the GOP never looked worse.

The hearing became a tussle between Republicans who believe there are still serious questions to answer about what happened in Benghazi -- as well as those who appear to want to dent her presidential ambitions -- and Clinton as she tries to build on a resurgence in her campaign after a tough summer. 

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio submitted the former secretary of state to a dramatic period of questioning when he alleged that she and other Obama administration staff tried to blame the attack on the consulate on an anti-Muslim YouTube video to avoid undercutting President Barack Obama's claims that he had crushed Al-Qaeda. 

"You could live with a protest about a video, that won't hurt you, but a terror attack would," Jordan said, saying that Americans could accept, reluctantly, compatriots being killed abroad but "what they can't live with is when their government is not square with them." 

Clinton rejected the claim, saying in the desperate hours after the attack on September 11, 2012, that information on the true nature of the assault on the compound by a mob was unclear. 

"I am sorry that it doesn't fit your narrative congressman, I can only tell you what the facts are." 

Another Republican, Rep Mike Pompeo of Kansas, tried to rile Clinton by asking why her old friend and political operative Sidney Blumenthal had been able to send her personal emails, requests for more security from U.S. staff in Libya did not reach her desk. 

There were several occasions when Democrats teed up questions for Clinton that allowed her to speak at length and in personal terms about the events in Benghazi. 

At the prompting of Cummings, she spoke movingly about the deaths of Stevens and State Department Information management officer Sean Smith from smoke inhalation.
With an eye on the audience outside the Capitol Hill hearing room, Clinton said that she wanted members and "viewers in the public to understand this was the fog of war" in the confused hours after the attack. 

And she related how a security agent with Smith and Stevens had "turned back into that diesel smoke desperately trying to find Chris and Sean. He did find Sean and Sean had succumbed to smoke inhalation ... He could not find Chris Stevens."

 If this all sounds familier, that's because it's been three years of the same idiocy over and over again, and as long as the GOP holds the House, these ending will never, ever end.  They've already made that clear.

The witch hunt will continue for another, what, 9 years?  Count on it.

The Gun Control Debate Is Over

And gun control has lost.

A majority of Americans, 56%, believe that if more Americans carried concealed weapons after passing a criminal background check and training course, the country would be safer.



These results are from Gallup's annual Crime poll conducted Oct. 7-11. In the wake of mass shootings at schools and other public places, some have argued that the shootings could have been stopped if any of the victims had carried weapons. Others argue that having more citizens carrying weapons can lead to more violence and accidental shooting.

To recap, concealed carry is now the majority position of Americans.  Even women want concealed carry, 50-45%, and people who live in big cities approve, 50-47%.  Americans under 30 overwhelmingly believe concealed carry will make America safer by a 2-to-1 margin.  All other age groups agree with that by majority numbers.  Even half of people who don't own guns believe more concealed carry will make us safer.

The only groups that don't think this is a good idea?  Democrats and postgraduates. And even a third of those groups think more concealed carry will make us safer.

Americans also want background checks for all gun purchases, 86-12%...but that of course only serves to make sure that concealed carry licenses are given to those who qualify.

And that's where we're heading, a society where gun ownership is greatly increased.  The assumption is that guns will be even more prevalent, and that people need to be licensed and educated to own one in order to be considered a responsible citizen, the way we see ownership of a car today.

I often see the "If Guns were treated like Cars!" argument on the net.  It's a good one.

It also means that guns are going to become a lot more acceptable in society very quickly, the way same-sex marriage has come to be acceptable in the last ten years.  I foresee that kind of move happening, especially among younger Americans.

For better or worse.  I think it will be worse.

The Burning Question In Ferguson

So, I'm eager to hear from the "Christianity is under assault in America!" crowd about who is setting black churches on fire near Ferguson, Missouri.

In Missouri, a $2,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to the arrest of a suspected arsonist targeting churches in predominately black neighborhoods. Since October 8, six church fires have been set in the St. Louis area, near Ferguson, all within a three-mile radius. 

New Life Missionary Baptist Church was one of the hardest hit, with flames tearing through the entire entrance, reports CBS News' Adriana Diaz. The pastor said he believes the arsonist squirted some sort of chemical through the mail slot to help the fire spread even faster. 

"We are called today to address what is possibly the most dangerous onslaught that we've experienced in many, many years, which is an attack on God's house," said James Clark of Better Family Life. 

With a suspected arsonist still at large, church leaders in and around St. Louis urged community members to remain vigilant Tuesday. 

The New Life Missionary Baptist Church was so badly damaged, it held services outside Sunday. 

Authorities don't yet know who sparked the flames or why, but they believe the crimes are connected. In each case, an accelerant was used to light the front doors of the churches on fire. The buildings were all unoccupied at the times of the attacks. 

"There's a very alarming pattern to these fires so we don't want to get out of hand," St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.

And I'm betting the answers you will get from the "Christianity is under assault!" crowd is that the arsonists may be:

• A secret army of Syrian refugee Muslims in Ferguson
• Black Lives Matter activists
• Obama
• Saul Alinsky
• A secret army of Syrian refugee Muslims who are Black Lives Matter activists
• Obama's brownshirts in a false flag operation designed to take our flamethrowers
• Lightning strikes, probably
• Heatwave, who didn't have Captain Cold to keep him in line
• Obama, pretty sure it was Obama
• Aliens, man
• The sun
• COBRA, just being jerks again
• The Illuminati
• Evil fire elementals and/or efreeti, or other denizens of the Elemental Plane of Fire
• Maybe Obama
• Pyron from Darkstalkers (who is an evil alien fire elemental from the sun, see)
• Valerie Jarrett
• Big Boy Caprice
• Shaggy (wasn't him, he says)
• Can you prove Obama didn't set those fires?

What they will not answer:

• Right-wing racist domestic terrorists 

So yeah, who knows.  I'm sure the cops are real eager to solve this one.

StupidiNews!

• Vice President Joe Biden confirms he will not run for President in 2016, citing that the "window has closed" for running, but that he will not "remain silent" about the election.
• GOP Rep, Paul Ryan has won tentative support from right-wing members of the Republican House for Speaker, but not enough support to guarantee he can win next week's vote.  
• Hillary Clinton faces another grueling round of testimony before the House Benghazi committee, where Republicans are expected to publicly grill her for several hours.
• Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif will meet today with President Obama to discuss security options in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.
• Mythbusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman confirm that January's 14th season will be the show's last.