NC Goes Straight Into The Crapper, Con't

With the Justice Department making good on their threat to sue the state over HB2's Title IX violations of the Civil Rights Act, NC GOP Gov. Pat McCrory wants Republicans in Congress to maybe, you know, get rid of that part of the law altogether.

Speaking to CNN host Jake Tapper on Wednesday, McCrory accused Democrats of starting a fight over transgender bathroom rights by passing an ordinance in the City of Charlotte that allowed transgender people to visit public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. 

“I think that this was an argument that we didn’t need to have,” McCrory opined. “But this is an agenda by the far left. And for some reason, the national media is saying the far right brought this up. I had no interest in this subject.” 

“But the Justice Department is basically making a civil rights claim that every private sector employer in the U.S. and every university in the United States must have gender expression or gender identity bathroom choices for individuals,” the governor complained. 

Tapper pointed out that transgender children “have a very difficult time fitting in, they have very high suicide rates.” 

“What are you telling the teachers at schools in North Carolina where, say, a 12-year-old who identifies as a girl, though her birth certificate says boy, what do you tell teachers about her if she’s using the girl’s bathroom?” the CNN host wondered. 

McCrory argued that the solution was to “make special circumstances” by allowing the transgender girl to use a segregated bathroom. 

“But now the Civil Right Division of the U.S. Justice Department has deemed those types of arrangements to be discriminatory,” McCrory remarked.

Right.  Charlotte's bathroom ordinance made it necessary for Republicans to pass a law in 12 hours that dealt with eliminating local minimum wage and ending the right to sue over labor discrimination in state courts.  Yeah,  Sure.  THEY picked that fight.

“But to have the Justice Department come out with a massive interpretation of the Civil Rights Act for every employer in the United States now is something that I think need clarification by the federal courts.” 

In fact, McCrory suggested that Congress should take a look at gutting the entire Civil Rights Act over the issue. 

“I think there’s a time where the Republicans and the Democrats in this Congress need to revisit the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and revisit all this issue,” the first-term governor opined. “Because these are complex issues and North Carolina for whatever reason politically has become the target by the left on this agenda.”

Gosh, we don't know why anyone would pick on us when all we did was make a state law enshrining discrimination against a certain minority class of people.  I can't imagine why the federal government would be upset at a Southern state doing that.

Meanwhile, let's talk about who are the bullies in this scenario.

While Republican state leaders have complained about being "bullied" by the federal government over House Bill 2, lobbyists in Raleigh tell WRAL News they and the businesses they represent are being bullied by state lawmakers seeking to silence business opposition to the new law.

Lobbyists say they've been told – either directly by legislative leaders or by lawmakers' staff – that, if they or the businesses they represent speak out publicly against House Bill 2, they can expect retribution from House and Senate leaders. 

Legislation they want won't move, and other bills could actually target them. 

WRAL News spoke with 11 lobbyists who have experienced or are aware of such actions, but none would speak on the record for fear they would lose business or be targeted for retribution. One has already lost business. 

One long-time lobbyist called the pressure a "gross abuse of power." Another veteran lobbyist labeled it "vicious," adding, "I've never seen anything like it." 

Rep. Chris Sgro, D-Guilford, an outspoken critic of House Bill 2, said he's heard about the problem. 

"It's really disturbing. It's a bullying tactic that potentially leadership is using," Sgro said. "If it’s true that businesses are being threatened that they need to ignore their bottom line in favor of terrible public policy, that’s just irresponsible. That needs to stop immediately.

It's one thing for a private business to say "we don't agree with this law."  It's another thing entirely for a government to punish private businesses for disagreeing with them, and that is literally the definition of the Freedom of Speech clause in the First Amendment.

So yeah, there's yet another civil rights violation that NC can look forward to being sued over.

The Curse Of Zimmerman

Am I the only person who thinks this story should be the start of a Steven King novel?

SALE: One .9-mm pistol — and whatever’s left of George Zimmerman’s bankrupt soul. 

The Florida neighborhood watchman who fatally shot unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012 is putting the killer handgun up for auction — and hoping to fetch at least $5,000.
“I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon,” 

Zimmerman wrote in his online description of the weapon. The perverted auction opens for bids at 11 a.m. Thursday. 

“The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012 ... Many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. This is a piece of American History,” Zimmerman wrote.

Understand that the person who purchases this weapon deserves all the bad karma in the universe for doing so, and like I said, that would make for a pretty gripping modern horror novel if you ask me.

Not as gripping however as the real-life horror of lives ended daily by guns in the US.  There's 32,000 or so stories there every year there, and David "KagroX" Waldman over at Daily Kos keeps the diary of those heart-breaking stories on a daily basis.

But to profit directly off your infamy like this?  A bankrupt soul indeed.  Steven King would have a field day.

StupidiNews!

• The Obama administration will issue a guidance letter to school districts across the nation on how to give transgender students access to bathroom facilities.
• Fragments of a 50,000-year-old axe have been dated and confirmed in Australia, showing one of the world's oldest examples of early human tool use.
• A senate hearing on Thursday turned into an opportunity for former Reagan Secretary of State James Baker to say that Donald Trump would make the world a far more dangerous place.
• The world's oldest person and the last remaining known American to have born in the 1800's, Susannah Mushatt Jones, has died at the age of 116.
• It's Walmart versus Visa as the retailer is suing the credit card company over fees and using PINs for using cards with embedded EMV security chips.

Last Call For Middle Of The Road

In a report that should surprise precisely no one, the Pew Research Center has found that America's middle class has shrunk so far this century in almost 90% of US metropolitan areas.

The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.

The shrinking of the middle class at the national level, to the point where it may no longer be the economic majority in the U.S., was documented in an earlier analysis by the Pew Research Center. The changes at the metropolitan level, the subject of this in-depth look at the American middle class, demonstrate that the national trend is the result of widespread declines in localities all around the country.

This report encompasses 229 of the 381 “metropolitan statistical areas” as defined by the federal government. That is the maximum number of areas that could be identified in the Census Bureau data used for the analysis and for which data are available for both 2000 and 2014 (an accompanying text box provides more detail). 1Together, these areas accounted for 76% of the nation’s population in 2014.

With relatively fewer Americans in the middle-income tier, the economic tiers above and below have grown in significance over time. The share of adults in upper-income households increased in 172 of the 229 metropolitan areas, even as the share of adults in lower-income households rose in 160 metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2014. The shifting economic fortunes of localities were not an either/or proposition: Some 108 metropolitan areas experienced growth in both the lower- and upper-income tiers.

In other words, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and income inequality continues to grow. But not all metro areas were affected equally:

In Goldsboro, NC—an old railroad junction town and home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base—the share of adults who are middle income fell from 60% in 2000 to 48% in 2014, or by 12 percentage points. This was one of the greatest decreases among the 229 metropolitan areas analyzed. It was also an unambiguous signal of economic loss as the share of adults in lower-income households in Goldsboro increased sharply, from 27% in 2000 to 41% in 2014.

But in Midland, TX—an energy-based economy that benefited from the rise in oil prices from 2000 to 2014—the shrinking middle class was a sign of financial gains. The share of adults in middle-income households in Midland decreased from 53% in 2000 to 43% in 2014, the fourth-largest drop in the nation. But this was accompanied by rapid growth in the share of adults in upper-income households in Midland, which doubled from 18% in 2000 to 37% in 2014. 2

The heart of this change: the Bush economic disaster.

The widespread erosion of the middle class took place against the backdrop of a decrease in household incomes in most U.S. metropolitan areas. Nationwide, the median income of U.S. households in 2014 stood at 8% less than in 1999, a reminder that the economy has yet to fully recover from the effects of the Great Recession of 2007-09. The decline was pervasive, with median incomes falling in 190 of 229 metropolitan areas examined. Goldsboro ranked near the bottom with a loss of 26% in median income. Midland bucked the prevailing trend with the median income there rising 37% from 1999 to 2014, the greatest increase among the areas examined. 4 

Things have gotten a smidge better in 2015 I expect (although I'm betting things are a bit different in Midland, TX with the oil crash) but I just don't see America getting back to 2000 income levels anytime soon.  There's been too much structural damage to the economy, and not enough done to try to fix it (thanks Republicans in Congress!)`

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.