Hyper Active Business

Fresh off its successful working concept test run in the Vegas desert on Wednesday, transportation tech startup Hyperloop One announced it has achieved its funding goal for the next stage of product testing and will complete the project before the end of the year.

Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles company working to develop the futuristic transportation technology, on Tuesday announced the closing of $80 million in financing and said it plans to conduct a full system test before the end of the year.

A hyperloop would whisk passengers and cargo in pods through a low pressure tube at speeds of up to 750 miles per hour (1,207 km per hour).

Maglev technology would levitate the pods to reduce friction in the city-to-city system, which would be fully autonomous and electric powered.

Hyperloop One builds off a design by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has suggested it would be cheaper, faster and more efficient than high speed rail projects, including the one currently being built in California.

Speaking on the eve of the first demonstration test of the propulsion in the Las Vegas desert, Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd tried to dispel criticism that the technology is unproven and better suited for science fiction than practical use.

"It's real, it's happening now, and we're going to demonstrate how this company is making it happen," he said at a press conference.

He likened hyperloop technology to the emergence of the U.S. railroad system and the era of prosperity it ushered in.

Lloyd also announced a competition to determine where the first Hyperloop One system should be built, with an announcement expected next year.

If you'll excuse the obvious pun, I thought the project was a pipe dream (or very large tube dream, anyway).  Securing the technology was never the real challenge, the challenge was building the tracks on what would become the most ambitious transportation project in human history, but it looks like for now that Hyperloop will be limited to short cargo runs for now.

The dream of a national hyperloop system is still decades out in the future, and given that America is already tens of billions behind in working infrastructure like water, bridges, roads and power grids, a giant series of tubes really can't be that high on the list right now.

Besides, by the time this gets built, a whole lot of coastal land is going to be underwater.  We have bigger projects to be worrying about.

Texas-Sized Disaster, Criminal Edition

So remember the fertilizer plant in Texas that exploded three years ago, killed 15 people, and injured scores more?  The one that hadn't been inspected in years, and should have been flagged to the Department of Homeland Security as a potential threat because of tons of stored fertilizer that could detonate?  Where the plant owner deliberately avoided telling the feds about the stored and possibly deadly fertilizer that could explode?

Turns out that, after a multiple-year investigation into the plant accident, that it wasn't an accident at all.  The BATFE announced on Wednesday that this is being treated as a deliberate, criminal act.

A 2013 fertilizer plant blast in Texas that killed 15 people and injured 160 others was caused by a "criminal act," federal officials said Wednesday. 

The findings were revealed in a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation into the origin of the deadly fire and explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. on April 17, 2013, in the town of West. 

The explosion flattened the rural farming community of 2,800 people, just north of Waco, turning some 500 homes into rubble as people tried desperately to flee the horrific scene. The force felt was equivalent to that of a magnitude-2.1 earthquake, and a 93-foot-wide crater scarred the site of the fertilizer plant, where dangerous chemicals, including ammonium nitrate, were stored. 

ATF Special Agent Robert Elder said the agency is offering a $50,000 reward to help find the person who committed the crime, which was determined to be deliberate after "we ruled out all accidental and natural causes." But he could not say why someone would have set the fire. 

"I think it's too early to speculate on murder charges," Elder added. 

No arrests have been made, but more than 400 interviews have been conducted amid the investigation, Elder said.

If the plant's stored fertilizer was set on fire on purpose, this isn't an accident, it's an act of domestic terrorism that killed 15 people and nearly destroyed an entire town.

It's bad enough that all the safety precautions that should have prevented the explosion were ignored or never in place due to Texas ignoring the issue of worker safety.  But for this to be a deliberate fire to cause the explosion?  That's hideous.

After 3 years, who knows where the suspects may be?

StupidiNews!

• In a 55-22 vote, Brazil's Senate has voted to proceed with the impeachment trial of President Dilma Rouseff, meaning she will have to step aside as president while the trial proceeds.
• Louisiana will become the sixth state to pass a 72-hour waiting period before an abortion, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards says he will sign the bill into law.
• The US will go ahead with activating a missile defense site in Poland, a move that the Kremlin says amounts to NATO military provocation.
• Italy will recognize same-sex unions after a multi-year battle in the country's parliament, as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi scores a major victory. 
• A new report finds the Centers for Disease Control has been sanctioned multiple times for mishandling dangerous bioterror pathogens in labs.

Last Call For Trumping The Long Con

Greg Sargent notes the Democratic strategy for hitting Trump: they will go after the obvious racist misogyny yes, but they also plan on going after his business record.

And so what we may now see is a two tiered attack. First there may be a relentless focus on the stuff about Trump that voters are currently prepared to accept: His sexism, xenophobia, bigotry, and unfitness to serve as president. This could energize core Dem voting groups (nonwhites, young voters, socially liberal college-educated whites), and perhaps sow further doubts about his temperament with swing voting constituencies (particularly suburban, independent, blue collar, and moderate college-educated women). There may also be an all out assault on the seamy underside of his business record, as is reportedly being worked up. 

The question will then be whether all of this — particularly the attack on his business dealings — will lay the groundwork for a successful prosecution of Trump’s economic agenda and worldview. Trump has a very simple economic message: The elites have screwed you with trade deals that have sucked jobs out of the country. He’d bring them roaring back by kicking the asses of other countries, international bureaucrats and elites, CEOs who ship jobs overseas, and immigrants who are eating out of American workers’ lunch buckets. 

If this focus grouping is right, the challenge for Democrats, in addition to cranking up core Dem groups, will be to persuade swing voters not just that Trump is wholly unfit for the job, but that he’s also running a massive economic con. Will savaging his temperament and business dealings successfully prime those voters to accept this argument? 

Maybe. If that isn’t enough, the Clinton campaign might have to do better at making a broad, affirmative argument on behalf ofher economic agenda, one that tries to directly rebut the appeal of the story Trump is telling about the economy. Fortunately, all signs are Democrats are already thinking hard about how to do that, too.

It's a good plan.  There are a lot of folks that say that Trump's obvious and obnoxious racism/misogyny designed as "nationalism" should easily break him in the general, but frankly there are millions of people who will delude themselves into thinking Trump is putting on an act, and that the real deal is "sticking it to that Clinton bitch."  It's those folks that the Dems want to go after by saying the Don Man is a con man.  "You don't like her, fine...but this guy is playing you for a fool."

It's that last part, making that "broad, affirmative argument" on the Clinton economic plan that will be needed to turn those folks from "Why bother voting" into "I guess I'll give her a chance."   That's going to be a lot, lot harder.

I am glad however that the Dems are taking Trump's threat seriously.  He's not going to win, but it doesn't mean that the people who voted for him are going to magically go away and start loving the Dems, either. Trump, as I've said multiple times here, may be the largest boil needing a good lancing on the ass of the body politic, but the infection itself is what needs to be treated.

That starts with giving people reasons to vote for progressive policies and not just against the GOP con game.

The Rules Lawyer Versus The White Nationalist

In the great Republican reality show/LARP session from hell that will be the Cleveland convention in July, there may be one final chance to stop Donald Trump from getting the nomination and losing in November in a landslide and taking the Senate (and possibly the House!) with him, and that's through the power of "Well, actually..."

Curly Haugland loves the rules. The stubborn 69-year-old pool-supply magnate is North Dakota’s top Republican gadfly, its rule-mongering crank, its official state pain in the ass. On the national GOP’s standing rules committee, he’s been the pedantic curmudgeon, the stubborn speed bump who for years has raised points of order only to watch establishment Republicans stampede over him. 

Yet now, as his party teeters on the edge of civil war, Haugland has become one of the most dangerous men in politics: He’s the mainstream GOP’s last hope to deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination in Cleveland. It would take a miracle—and almost certainly lead to a historic split in the party—but there is still a way, buried in the labyrinthine rulebook, that the party could free delegates from their obligation to vote for Trump. To get there, the convention’s rules committee would need to travel a perilous road. But nobody knows the terrain better than Haugland, a self-taught maverick expert on the Republican convention rules, who has spent a decade pushing schemes to take power away from Republican primary voters and give it back to party insiders. 

There is one article of faith in the Republican Party: On the convention’s first ballot, bound delegates are required to vote for the candidate to whom they’re bound. What you need to know about Haugland’s radical vision is this: He insists that’s not the case. Haugland has been trumpeting this nuclear option for months. In March, he blasted out a letter to fellow Republican National Committee members with the subject line: “NEWS FLASH: All Republican Delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention are Unbound!” He’s on a mission to let all the delegates at the convention in Cleveland to vote however they’d like on the first ballot, no matter whom their state’s voters chose.
This has long seemed like a crazy cause—who doesn’t want voters to decide? Back when Haugland was advocating the party assert its independence from a sitting Republican president, George W. Bush, Curlyism was viewed as a kind of benign, obscure heresy. 

But could this be the year Haugland’s strange view of the primary—that the party, not voters, chooses the nominee, as he often insists—finds its moment? In April, Eric O’Keefe, a Cruz supporter and Club for Growth activist, told the Wall Street Journal that he would lobby Republican delegates to assert their right to reject Trump at the convention. (O’Keefe did not return an email seeking comment.) Trump’s old pal Roger Stone has predicted for months that the Republican establishment would try to snatch the nomination from Trump at the convention, even if he won a pledged-delegate majority. Now that Trump’s opposition has dropped out, “the whole scenario is far, far less likely,” Stone says—but, he admits, it could still happen. “The Republican convention can do whatever it wants,” he says. “You can’t bring a lawsuit. There’s no jurisdiction.” 

Now, as #NeverTrump conservatives begin to turn their attention to the possibility of a third-party candidate, it’s clear many GOP leaders are still deeply opposed to Trump as the nominee. The question is: How unhappy are they? And how far are they willing to go to stop him on the floor in Cleveland? Haugland knows the weird contours, obscure clauses and contradictory history of the party’s governing rules—so he knows the last, desperate hand the #NeverTrump crowd could play. He says he’s not taking sides in the presidential race—and, oddly enough, he even praises Trump. Still, now that Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, all that stands in the way of the Trump Train is the idea Haugland champions: that the party can rewrite the convention rules to undo the voters’ choice.

As amusing as this would be to see Three Stooges style physical violence on the GOP convention floor instigated by the machinations of a man named Curly, there's a real problem with the people Trump will have at the convention in the form of some of his more...odious...delegates.

On Monday evening, California's secretary of state published a list of delegates chosen by the Trump campaign for the upcoming Republican presidential primary in the state. Trump's slate includes William Johnson, one of the country's most prominent white nationalists. 

Johnson applied to the Trump campaign to be a delegate. He was accepted on Monday. In order to be approved he had to sign this pledge sent to him by the campaign: "I, William Johnson, endorse Donald J. Trump for the office of President of the United States. I pledge to cast ALL of my ballots to elect Donald J. Trump on every round of balloting at the 2016 Republican National Convention so that we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" After he signed, the Trump campaign added his name to the list of 169 delegates it forwarded to the secretary of state. 

Johnson leads the American Freedom Party, a group that "exists to represent the political interests of White Americans" and aims to preserve "the customs and heritage of the European American people." The AFP has never elected a candidate of its own and possesses at most a few thousand members, but it is "arguably the most important white nationalist group in the country," according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate groups. 

Johnson got the news that he had been selected by Trump in a congratulatory email sent to him by the campaign's California Delegate Coordinator, Katie Lagomarsino. "I just hope to show how I can be mainstream and have these views," Johnson tells Mother Jones. "I can be a white nationalist and be a strong supporter of Donald Trump and be a good example to everybody."

And guess what, Republican party?

You own this.

They're Finally Starting To Get It

It's amazing how many pundits are finally coming around to the true driver of Donald Trump's popularity among Republican dead-enders.  It's depressing that it only took them years to figure out what was obvious to most voters in seconds, but hey, at least folks like Matthew Yglesias are admitting it.

Well, as much as Yglesias can, anyway.

It's taboo in the United States to throw around accusations of racism. And obviously nobody can be sure what's in the heart of Donald Trump or his voters. 

But we do know that the unusual geographic pattern of Trumpism — stronger in the South and Northeast than in the Midwest or West — corresponds to the geography of white racial resentment in the United States. We also know that Trump rose to political prominence based on the allegation that America's first black president wasn't a real American at all, and launched his 2016 campaign with the allegation that Mexican immigrants to the United States are largely rapists and murders. 

We know that this kind of rhetoric does not resonate with nonwhite Americans but has appealed to white voters in the kinds of places — some poor, others affluent — where the level of racism among the white population is unusually high.

Which, if you're familiar with Yglesias, is about as close as he's going to get to saying that racism is helping Trump.

Leaving this racial element out of the story not only paints a false portrait of Trump's rise, it makes it impossible to understand the resistance to Trump in some segments of the GOP elite. It's true that Trump has been less than entirely orthodox on some important policy issues. But that was also true of George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. 

Part of the difference is that Trump simply hasn't kissed the right rings in an effort to have his past deviations expunged. But a big part of the difference is that over the past 15 years the Republican Party has been trying to respond to the shrinking white share of the population by broadening its demographic appeal. There have been plenty of disagreements about exactly how to do that, but building bridges to black and Latino voters has been a common goal. 

Trump represents, in effect, abandonment of that goal in favor of a very different idea of responding to the shrinking white share of the population by politicizing and mobilizing white identity while downplaying free market doctrines. That, in turn, reflects a broader trend in right-of-center politics that is also manifesting itself in different ways everywhere — from the UK and France to Sweden and Finland, a trend that threatens the ideals many American conservative leaders are deeply committed to. 

It's polite to both Trump and his supporters to sweep this all under the rug with hazy talk of "anti-establishment" feeling. But to do so completely misses a huge part of what the conflict between pro- and anti-Trump forces is actually about — is the Republican Party going to be an ideological party or an ethnic one?

With Trump as your candidate for president, the answer to that question is obviously the latter. Republicans have not only abandoned outreach efforts to black and Latino voters, they are now looking to actively punish them, and to promote the idea that the GOP is fully the party of white resentment the way the Dixiecrats were 60 years ago.

Combine that with the same misogyny that we're seen out of the GOP and especially in Trump's virulent strain of Republicanism, and you've got a recipe for a cocktail of White Guy Rage.

It could have won 60 years ago, and even 20 years ago if Ross Perot hasn't managed to screw things up for the GOP with his third party runs, handing the country to Clinton twice.

But the demographics of 2016 are markedly different.  The numbers would require Trump getting upwards of 75% of the white male vote, something that's simply not going to happen, and he's alienating everyone else to the point where there simply won't be enough voters for him to win.

But years after Donald Trump started all this by becoming the highest profile "birther", it amazes me that people are still pretending like his campaign isn't based solely on racism and hatred.

And the GOP is now 100% on board.

StupidiNews!

• As expected, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won their respective West Virginia primaries, with Trump winning Nebraska as well.
• Bars and restaurants refusing to serve alcohol to pregnant women in New York City "is discrimination based on gender" according to the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
• Islamic State is claiming responsibility for a car bomb blast in a crowded Baghdad marketplace in Iraq Wednesday killing at least 50 and injuring scores of people.
• Brazil's Senate will vote today on whether or not to hold a trial for President Dilma Rouseff on impeachment charges, a yes vote would force her to step down until the trial concludes.
• Astronomers using statistical research have validated hundreds of exoplanets in our galaxy, more than doubling the known number of exoplanets.

Last Call For The Real Bathroom Fight

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch's statement on Monday about transgender rights as the government sued North Carolina over HB2 is a major change from previous administrations and even a massive about face for this administration.  For the first time the federal government's stated position on transgender rights is that the administration not only acknowledges that those rights inherently exist, but that the DoJ will fight for them as vigorously as any other instances of civil rights.

At the heart of the showdown is whether the bill’s bathroom provision -- which prohibits trans people from using the bathrooms in government buildings and public schools that match their gender identity -- is a violation of civil rights laws that bar discrimination based on one’s sex. 

The dueling lawsuits could prove to be a history-making moment. Since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, the next frontier in LGBT law is the rights of transgender people, and the North Carolina ruling sets the stage for what could be a landmark ruling. 

The Justice Department is suing the state in its capacity as an employer, alleging that implementing HB2 will discriminate against transgender state employees. The Justice Department specifically targeted the University of North Carolina and the state Department of Public Safety. Its continued threats to withhold federal funding from the university and law enforcement suggest the Obama administration is pulling no punches when it comes to blocking the law. 

In press conference Monday announcing the DOJ lawsuit, Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the legislation "state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals, who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security – a right taken for granted by most of us." 

“We see you. We stand with you. We will do everything we can to protect you going forward,” Lynch vowed in her press conference, speaking directly to transgender Americans. 

HB2 was rushed through the North Carolina state house in March as other state legislatures mulled and ultimately abandoned similar bills, for fears of legal sanctions and/or public relations nightmare. At the time, it was called one of the most anti-LGBT laws passed by a state legislature, and the feds have now made clear they don't intend to sit on the sidelines. 

“So long as there’s a Democrat in the White House, you can expect this case to continue on until there’s a final ruling on the merits, likely by the court of the appeals, possibly by even the Supreme Court,” Winkler said.

And that raises yet another difference between Clinton/Sanders and Trump this November, one that is vital to remember.

It's outstanding to see the Obama administration finally stop treating open trans discrimination like it's merely a workplace disagreement or something that needs a paragraph from HR in the employee handbook, and start regarding it for what it truly is: a fundamental curtailing of civil rights that requires the full resources of the Justice Department to remedy, complete with significant punitive damages for states that do not comply.

The billions at stake in federal funding is definitely the hammer the government is using here to get North Carolina to drop the law, and as far as I'm concerned, AG Lynch and her team needs to swing away until NC Republicans are bloodied and bowed. Remember, NC Republicans are arguing that they not only believe transgender folks are not a "protected class" but that the state should be able to legally discriminate against anyone who isn't specifically a member of a "protected class".

That's abhorrently stupid and depressing on a number of levels, and it can't be allowed to stand.

The Hill In The Mountains

EJ Dionne notes that Hillary Clinton understands where she's hurting vote-wise, and that's in Rust Belt counties that went for Dubya, McCain, and Romney.  She thinks she can win them back to the blue side, and given how awful Trump is, maybe she has a shot.

The first rule in elections is: Go for the votes you can get. By that measure, Hillary Clinton is right to try to put the old Obama coalition on steroids. 

Donald Trump will expand the Democrats’ opportunities among nonwhite Americans and produce Clinton landslides among Latinos. These groups have good reason to fear and despise the man who has demeaned them. 

And watch Republicans for Clinton become a major force in American politics, an alliance of mostly well-off, well-educated voters — plus women of all classes. The members of the party of Lincoln who support Clinton will see that against Trump she is the safe and even, by the non-ideological definition of the term, conservative choice. 

But Clinton also has to challenge Trump for at least a share among angry and struggling white, working-class voters with real economic grievances. Their votes matter if she wants to keep Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the Democratic column. 

Clinton’s visit to Appalachia last week reflected this realism, but it was about more than electoral calculation, because she is highly unlikely to carry either West Virginia (most Democrats think she’ll lose its primary on Tuesday to Bernie Sanders) or Kentucky this fall. Believe it or not, there are moral obligations in electoral politics. This is why her Appalachian outreach represented one of the admirable moments of her campaign. A progressivism that writes off the white working class is not worthy of being called progressive.

Technically that's right.  But if President Obama has taught the Democrats one thing, it's that the white working class is no longer necessary for a Democrat to win the White House, either.  On the other hand, if the Democrats want to break the GOP grip on these states at the local and state level, the white working class votes in these states are needed, and besides as Dionne says, it's a moral obligation as well.

It's a good long-term strategy unless you think it's a good idea for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and WV to be under or near total Republican control.  And as someone living in Kentucky, having Democrats at a national level pay attention to Democrats at the state level here instead of the usual condescending "why the hell don't you just move to a blue state already since you're surrounded by hicks and racists" is a good idea.

There are people who can be won over by the Democrats again, and unlike Republicans trying to "win over" black and Latino voters, Democrats are honest about trying to do so.

Brazil Nuts

OK, things just got seriously complicated in the ongoing impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, as the new acting Speaker of Brazil's House has suddenly trashed last month's impeachment vote as invalid.

The acting speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress annulled the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff on Monday and called for a new vote in the chamber. 

Waldir Maranhao, who took over as acting speaker last week, said there were procedural flaws in the April 17 vote in the chamber that accepted impeachment charges against Rousseff. 

After last month's lower house vote, the impeachment process was passed to the Senate, where a Senate committee recommended on Friday that the leftist president be put on trial by the full chamber for breaking budget laws. 

In a news release, Maranhao said the impeachment process should be returned by the Senate so that the lower house can vote again. 

It remained unclear whether his decision could be overruled by the Supreme Court, the Senate or a majority in the house. 

Brazilian markets fell sharply after the surprising decision was announced. 

Rousseff, who denies wrongdoing, has been fighting for her political survival for several months as opposition congressmen push aggressively for her ouster.

The full Senate had been expected to vote to put Rousseff on trial on Wednesday, which would immediately suspend her for the duration of a trial that could last six months. During that period, Vice President Michel Temer would replace her as acting president.

Umm...so...this is kinda looking like a "major constitutional crisis" brewing here, or am I overreacting here to what would be another vote that would still end up with impeachment and a Senate trial?

But that was yesterday.  Today is a different story.

The drive to oust President Dilma Rousseff is back on track after the head of the lower house reversed a decision that had earlier threatened to throw the entire impeachment process into chaos. 

Lawmaker Waldir Maranhao released a statement in the dead of night revoking his own call to annul impeachment sessions in the lower house. That puts the Senate back in the spotlight, with a vote on whether to put the unpopular president on trial still slated for Wednesday. If successful, it would temporarily remove her from office. Rousseff is charged with illegally using state banks to plug a hole in the budget. 

Yesterday’s wrangling jolted investors and underscored the intensity of a power struggle that is sure to heat up even further in coming days. Since proceedings began in Congress late last year, legislators have engaged in shoving matches over procedural debates and Rousseff has accused her vice president of plotting a coup against her. The Supreme Court has also been forced to step in on several occasions to clarify legal questions and further involvement by the highest court can’t be ruled out.

TV footage showed anti-impeachment protesters burning tires to stop the traffic in some of Sao Paulo’s main roads, including that leading to the international airport. Government supporters have scheduled more protests for the next few days. 

"Even the best laws aren’t good enough for the scale of this battle," said Carlos Pio, a professor of politics at the University of Brasilia. "The impeachment process will continue and with it the noise, challenges and uncertainty that we’ve been seeing."

I don't know enough about Brazilian politics to know the answer to what's going on here, but I want to.  Things are getting crazy in Brazil and the Rio Summer Games are just weeks away.  Hell, the country may not have a government by then.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• West Virginia goes to the polls today for primaries for both parties, Nebraska Republicans will also vote with Trump the only candidate left in the GOP race.
• A whistleblower in Flint, Michigan has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for looking into allegations that Mayor Karen Weaver tried to redirect charity donations as campaign funding.
• The trial of the second of six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray gets underway today, the case is likely to be decided by the judge and not a jury.
• The world's major oil companies are giving up billions in Arctic drilling rights as low oil prices simply can't justify the cost of exploration.
• Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has licensed a magnetic transportation technology created in the 90's that may be the key to making "Hyperloop" a reality.

Last Call For Just (San) Juan More Time

Now that Puerto Rico has defaulted on its debt repayments, the scramble by the Obama administration is on to try to fix the problem before it gets out of control.  The problem is, Republicans in Congress don't actually want to fix the problem at all, as it would require a bailout that would hurt our Precious Job Creators(tm) who bet wrong on the island's finances, and the thought of making them actually pay up is giving the one-percenters a heart attack.

Lawmakers have missed one deadline to prevent Puerto Rico from defaulting on its debt, and they’re trying to figure out how to build support for legislation that could prevent a second missed payment. 

Republicans are seeking to produce a revised bill as early as Wednesday, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew is heading to the commonwealth Monday to keep up the pressure for Congress to act. 

All sides are under pressure after a week-long congressional recess, punctuated by Puerto Rico’s default a week ago on most of a $422 million debt payment. Puerto Rico is in an economic recession that’s poised to worsen as residents continue to leave, threatening to deepen the fiscal crisis that’s pushing the island to default on a growing share of its $70 billion of debt.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah plans to craft the Republican legislation that would create a federal oversight board to help manage the island and supervise a debt restructuring, according to a committee aide who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. It will be similar to an earlier version that ran into snags, the aide said, adding that the measure could be advanced by the panel as early as next week. 

The top Democrat on the panel, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, said he’s not sure Republicans will be able to agree on legislation by Wednesday. He and other Democrats have begun to link the impact of the debt crunch to the strain on public services for an island grappling with a health crisis brought on by the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Lew, in his one-day visit, intends to highlight “how the debt crisis has already harmed the health, safety and welfare” on the island, according to a statement. 

The next deadline in Puerto Rico’s $70 billion debt crisis is July 1, when a $2 billion payment is due, including $805 million for the island’s general-obligation bonds, which are seen as its most sacrosanct debt.

It's that "federal oversight board" that's the problem, effectively ceding control of the island directly over to Congress, controlled by the GOP. The other problem is of course making the people of Puerto Rico cough up $74 billion that they don't have in order to full pay off the creditors, because no Republican up for re-election in November is going to want to "bail out" Puerto Rico, not when they're all lining up behind Trump and his mass deportation scheme.

The problem is a municipal bond default that size is going to hurt other states, counties and cities in the US if bond market gurus think that the US Treasury might stiff them, too.  That's kinda bad for things all over, and the GOP knows it.

If that July 1 deadline goes by without a payment, it could seriously hurt the economy in an election year, and not even the GOP wants that albatross around its neck (they have too many large and heavy metal birds to deal with already).

We'll see what happens but I'm tending to think the GOP will get off their ass and take whatever deal Jack Lew can work out.

North Carolina Goes Into The Crapper, Con't

NC GOP Gov. Pat McCrory isn't waiting around for the Justice Department to make good on its implied threat (deadline today) to withhold Title IX federal funding over civil rights violations in the state's HB2 "Bathroom Bill".  Rather, it seems the state's Republicans are going to sue the Obama administration for the right to discriminate against transgender people instead.

Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina on Monday escalated the nation’s clash about transgender rights and sued the Justice Department, which said last week that the state had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it passed a law that prohibited people from using public restrooms that do not correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates. 

In the suit, the governor accused the Justice Department of a “radical reinterpretation” of the law. 

“The department contends that North Carolina’s common sense privacy policy constitutes a pattern or practice of discriminating against transgender employees in the terms and conditions of their employment because it does not give employees an unfettered right to use the bathroom or changing facility of their choice based on gender identity,” said Mr. McCrory’s lawsuit, which was filed in a Federal District Court in North Carolina. “The department’s position is a baseless and blatant overreach.” 

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a message.

McCrory is betting that he can run out the clock on the Justice Department taking any actions while the suit is pending, and clearly he's hoping for both a a friendlier administration in 2017 who will drop the case completely, and a banner issue for NC Republicans to rally around for his re-election campaign in November. By saying that the law "needs to be resolved at a federal level" and that he's "taking the initiative to protect federal funding" for the state, he's framing the left as the bullies here, rather than "suing for the right to tell trans folks where to pee."

It's not an entirely stupid move, that is if you're going to stick with the entirely stupid move of HB2.

We'll see how far he gets, but he's clearly fishing for an injunction preventing any DoJ action pending a Supreme Court ruling, and that could take years.

As a countermove, the Justice Department sued NC right back.

The Department of Justice sued North Carolina on Monday, saying the state’s recently-passed “bathroom law” violates federal civil rights laws. 

The move comes hours after North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory sued the Department of Justice over its interpretation of the law. 

Last week, the Department of Justice sent a letter to McCrory saying the controversial law — which bans transgender people access to restrooms that match their gender identity in government buildings and schools — violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

“The state is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees,” U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta wrote in the letter to McCrory. 

Gupta gave McCrory until Monday, May 9, to respond with a solution to “remedy the situation.”

So now the battle begins.

He Can't Help Himself

My distaste for the King Of False Equivalency, Ron Fournier, and his both-siderism has long been evident, but he may have finally gone off into the abyss with this one.

The GOP is unraveling. Once the American people realize the power of their pull, the Dem Party also will unspool https://t.co/jkzh1YoHBH

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

Now, let's take a look at this.  Fournier is taking an NY Times piece detailing the crack-up of the GOP and because everything must be "Democrats are as bad the Republicans" to him, it's the "Dem Party will also unspool."

He presents no evidence of this, nor is any evidence of this cited in the article he links.  It's just "because both sides."  He goes on.

.@mnhttnstvn there are no good Dem approval ratings. Better than GOP doesn't mean good. Just means a bit less loathed. Congrats

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

2/ Like every other social institution, the GOP & Democratic parties face choice: Reinvent, reform (even cannibalize yourself) or perish

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) May 8, 2016

It's just going to happen. People hate the parties so they will collapse. It will happen to the Dems too, simoply because it has to happen. You see, if it doesn't, then it was never "Both sides are bad." Just one side, the GOP, crushed by demographics and intolerance. Fournier would be wrong. He can't abide that.

The Democrats are always one election away from extermination.  That won't change in the Village zeitgeist after 2016.

StupidiNews!

• North Korea has expelled a BBC correspondent and his reporting team for filing "disrespectful" reports from inside the country last week.
• As the premier of Alberta is expected to survey the damage from wildfires in Fort McMurray, Canadian environmental officials say the blaze could rage for months.
• Voters in the Philippines go to the polls to elect a new President on Monday, with outsider Rodrigo "The Punisher" Duterte leading the polls for taking a lethal stance against crime.
• A single winning Powerball lottery ticket worth $429 million was sold over the weekend in New Jersey, the sixth-largest lottery prize in US history.
• A California judge has given the go-ahead for a class-action suit from Illinois residents suing social network site Facebook over using facial recognition software to tag people in photos.