Last Call

But racism is dead, they told me.  It's all "reverse racism" now.  Old racism simply doesn't ha...errm, uh-oh.

 

A Mexican restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina is being criticized for its racist T-shirts showing a wooden trap using tacos as bait with the caption “HOW TO CATCH AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT”.

As the Palmetto Public Record notes, a South Carolina reporter tweeted a photo yesterday of someone who appears to be a Taco Cid restaurant employee wearing the offensive shirt.

ThinkProgress spoke with an employee at Taco Cid who confirmed that restaurant workers indeed wear the shirt. He also noted that patrons can purchase it as well.

Taco Cid, a one-star restaurant that has shuttered franchises in recent years, appears to have cribbed the design from the “Offensive Obscene & Sex Related Tees” section of an online apparel designer.

Keep it classy, South Carolina.  Home to a bunch of racist jagoffs who can't even come up with an original racist idea and steal it off a website because they're lazy on top of being clueless bigots.

Nice work, clowns.

Reading The Hagel-ography

Fred Kaplan over at Slate thinks he has the reasons why Republicans hate Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary:

The real question is what kind of job Obama wants his next secretary of defense to do. I have no inside knowledge on this, but judging from some of his actions and remarks on matters of national defense, Hagel seems to be the right choice. And that’s what disturbs the most outspoken Hagel-resisters.

These resisters have four main concerns. They fear that Hagel will cut the military budget. They fear that he’ll roll over if Iran builds a nuclear weapon. They fear that he’s too reluctant to use military force generally. And they fear he doesn’t much like Israel; the extremists on this point claim he’s anti-Semitic.

Kaplan then discusses these points, and finds they're all nonsense.

Let’s look at the real issues. Hagel is a former two-term Republican senator. He won two Purple Hearts as an infantry squad leader in Vietnam. No one could possibly dispute his devotion to the country, its security, or its armed forces. But he is a pragmatist, and there may be the rub. What Republicans seem to fear most is that by appointing Hagel as secretary of defense, Obama can claim a false bipartisanship in his national-security team. In fact, these critics say Hagel does not reflect the values or positions of the Republican Party; his presence in Cabinet meetings would not constitute real bipartisanship.

If that is true, the real problem is with the present-day Republican Party. It’s often said that today’s GOP wouldn’t nominate Ronald Reagan for president. By the same token, much of its leadership would rail against Robert Gates for secretary of defense.

For once, Kaplan is right.  Also, let's not forget that the real reason the Republican party will fight Chuck Hagel as Pentagon head is the fact that Barack Obama is the one nominating him.  President Obama could nominate anyone -- even a Republican, mind you -- and they would be shot down.

Republicans are going to block anything the President tries to do, and then cry "DICTATORSHIP!" when the President is forced to use executive orders and recess appointments to do anything at all.  That certainly didn't change just because the President, you know, won the election.

Drunk With Power

Sen. Rand Paul, call your office please.

The son of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, and the grandson of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, was arrested Saturday morning at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

Police said William Hilton Paul, 19, was traveling early Saturday from Lexington, Ky., to Charlotte.

When the plane landed about 10:49 a.m., Paul was charged with consuming beer/wine underage, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive.

“He was possibly served alcohol on the flight,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Lt. Blake Hollar said.

Rand Paul’s office issued a brief statement: “Sen. Paul is a national public figure and subject to scrutiny in the public arena. However, as many parents with teenagers would understand, his family should be afforded the privacy and respect they deserve in a situation such as this.” 

Really?  He's legally over 18 and doing a drunk and disorderly in an airport at ten in the morning.   That's 60 to 120 days in jail and a suspended license for a year on just the underage charge, plus the D&D.  Now, nobody expects a US senator's son to end up in the Mecklenburg County jail for two months, but you know, isn't that a states' rights issue, as both Rand and Ron Paul have said?

Should get interesting if the charges aren't dismissed outright.  He's still the son of a senator.  Not exactly subject to the laws their parents write, you know.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/06/3768359/man-idd-as-rand-pauls-son-arrested.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• President Obama is expected to formally nominate former Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to the post of Secretary of Defense.
• Scientists studying dark matter have managed to break the absolute zero temperature barrier, creating readings below zero degrees kelvin.
• Construction is finally complete on a new hybrid airship that combines a zeppelin and an airplane for large cargo lifting, with the airship's first flight soon.
• As Chinese flat screen TV makers are getting into the US market, analysts say competition could sharply lower prices of new TV sets in 2013.
• The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas gets underway this week as tech companies show off the latest and greatest for 2013.

Mitch's Chainsaw Massacre

To recap, Republicans like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell still haven't figured out the difference between playing your hand, and badly overplaying your hand.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said Republicans will demand steep spending cuts during the next round of budget negotiations.

McConnell, in an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” said President Obama had won all he’s going to get on taxes in last week’s agreement to extend the Bush-era tax rates for most taxpayers.

“The tax issue is, finished, over, completed. That’s behind us now. The question is: what are we going to do about the biggest problem confronting us and our future,” McConnell said.

McConnell said next round of negotiations over a deal to raise the debt-ceiling would need to include Democratic concessions on spending.

Mitchy here believes steep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are going to make him popular here in Kentucky (one of the poorest states in the nation) in 2014.  Sure, Mitch.  Even the Village is calling you out on this fantasy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me just interrupt you there. In the last year in the Budget Control Act, the Congress actually cut $1.5 trillion in spending. That’s more than was raised in revenue in this last fiscal cliff deal. So are you saying that any discussion of revenue is completely off the table going forward? You will not accept any new revenues in any new deal?

McCONNELL: Yeah, absolutely. The tax issue is behind us. Now the question is, what are we going to do about the real problem?

The "real problem" is that Mitch McConnell, a guy who has seen his personal wealth jump nearly 800% to $27 million dollars since 2004, feels the poor and the elderly of Kentucky and the nation have to suffer even more.  Mitch is going to be able to retire quite comfortably.

What about you, fellow Kentucky voters?  Do you feel that your retirement money is the "real problem" in America like Mitch does?

One Heck Of A Hat Trick

And I woke up this morning to a nice surprise: a new tenative deal between NHL players and management could mean that what's left of this year's NHL season may be saved after all.

The National Hockey League and the NHL Players' Association struck a tentative agreement early Sunday that may end a more-than-100-day lockout of unionized players, the league said in a statement posted on its website.

The new agreement reached in New York still must be approved by both the players and owners, the NHL said. 

"After a marathon 16-plus hour negotiating session at the Sofitel Hotel that began Saturday afternoon, the sides announced an agreement in principle shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday," the league said.

Some players had a "crucial role in the final stages" of reaching the agreement, the union said. "Players in the room early Sunday for the announcement were: Craig Adams, Chris Campoli, Mathieu Darche, Shane Doan, Andrew Ference, Ron Hainsey, Jamal Mayers and George Parros," the players association said.

A shortened season would at least mean we'd get to see hockey this year, but as I said earlier, two crippling lockouts in eight years means I've got no real incentive to go to any games and make the drive to Columbus, let alone Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis or Chicago...and remember, it's still not even a done deal.

NHL has a lot of work to do to make it up to the fans.

Last Call

We leave tonight with an interesting and disturbing point from Steve M. on "crisis pregnancy centers" and the right's virtual nullification of abortion in a growing number of states spreading to other things they don't like:

It makes me wonder what will happen if, someday, the Supreme Court decides that there's a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Will couples seeking marriage licenses (straight and gay, or maybe just gay) be required to undergo counseling that warns of the evils of homosexuality and the describes heterosexual marriage as the bedrock of civilization? Will some state actually try to compel gay couples seeking marriage licenses to at least undergo one session of gay-conversion therapy? And will conservative federal judges conclude that these are "reasonable" hoops to jump through in order to get married? 

Conservatives are doing this with voting laws that make voting as difficult and as time-consuming as they can to lower the number of people voting,  laws to make programs to help the poor as shameful and as onerous to qualify as possible, and everything having to do with women's health as awful as possible. Why wouldn't they make gay marriage as difficult as possible too?

Like A Five Alarm Fire(arm)

President Obama and the Democrats see an opportunity here with the GOP still reeling from the fiscal cliff foolishness and the new 113th Congress just seated to pivot to new gun control laws.

While the fiscal cliff has dominated Washington’s attention in recent weeks, lawmakers and activists are laying the groundwork for their big push. Vice President Joe Biden, tasked with heading a commission to investigate gun violence, has been quietly meeting with experts, interest groups, and public officials and is expected to release a set of recommendations within weeks. Boston mayor Thomas Menino, co-chair of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told the Boston Herald this week that an optimistic Biden had assured him that Obama would sign legislation “by the end of January.”

“We had been led to believe their report would come by end of January, but we’re hearing they may want to have something out by January 15, even quicker than expected,” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told TPM.

House Democrats are moving ahead with their own plans as well. On Friday, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), chair of the newly created Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, announced the appointment of 12 vice chairs, including Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), the body’s leading voice on gun control. According to a Democratic aide, the group plans to release its recommendations in early February and is already organizing public hearings on the issue.

Obama has personally identified an assault weapons ban and limits on ammunition magazine size as top priorities. Other possible reforms could include background check requirements for purchases at gun shows, a loophole that’s helped create a huge market of off-record arms purchases. 

In addition to public hearings and new legislation, Vice President Biden's task force and a big push from gun control groups, the United States Conference of Mayors in DC later this month is expected to be a pretty big platform for the country's mayors to have a say in the matter.

We'll see what becomes of this blitz, but I'm betting this will dominate the news starting next week, especially given today's latest shooting tragedy in Aurora, Colorado.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Alaska, but tsunami warnings have been canceled as the quake only created swells of less than a foot.
• Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords met with several families of victims of the Newtown massacre on Friday.
• Idaho GOP Sen. Mike Crapo has plead guilty to a DUI charge in Virginia from December, earning a $250 fine, a suspended license for a year, and a 180-day suspended jail sentence.
• Hulu TV service CEO Jason Pilar is stepping down only months after receiving a multimillion dollar payout from the company.
• A California teenager and her friend have been arrested for drugging her parents' drinks in order to stop a wi-fi curfew.

Last Call

Well now America, I think I've found your problem here.  It's called "Republicans in Congress".  Here's GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn's op-ed today in the Houston Chronicle:

Over the next few months, we will reach deadlines related to the debt ceiling, the sequester and the continuing appropriations resolution that has funded federal operations since October. If history is any guide, President Obama won't see fit to engage congressional Republicans until the 11th hour. In fact, he has already signaled an unwillingness to negotiate over the debt ceiling. This is unacceptable. The president should immediately put forward a plan that addresses these deadlines, and he should launch serious, transparent budget negotiations.

The biggest fiscal problem in Washington is excessive spending, not insufficient taxation. Tax cuts didn't cause this problem, so tax increases won't solve it. If we don't reduce spending and reform our three biggest entitlement programs - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - then we will strangle economic growth, destroy jobs and reduce our standard of living. With the national debt above $16 trillion, and with more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities hanging over us, our toughest fiscal decisions cannot be postponed any longer.

Republicans are more determined than ever to implement the spending cuts and structural entitlement reforms that are needed to secure the long-term fiscal integrity of our country.

The coming deadlines will be the next flashpoints in our ongoing fight to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain. President Obama needs to take note of this reality and put forward a plan to avoid it immediately.

Republicans in the Senate at least are signalling three things:  One, Republicans expect to get trillions in SS/Medicare/Medicaid cuts, period.  Two, they are willing to shut down the government and crash the economy to get these cuts.  Three, they want president Obama to provide the specific cuts, so the cuts become his fault.

Such expectations are ridiculous, and Cornyn should be drummed out of the Senate along with the rest of these idiot for trying to accomplish this nonsense.   But he's treated as a Serious Beltway Player for this notion.

Lunacy.

The Kroog Versus The Grand Bargain

Paul Krugman reminds us that the notion of any sort of major compromise with the Republican party is impossible, because the only legacy they want to see is President Obama burn for "destroying" Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and that the plan is for the GOP to then step in and "save" these programs.

According to the normal rules of politics, Republicans should have very little bargaining power at this point. With Democrats holding the White House and the Senate, the G.O.P. can’t pass legislation; and since the biggest progressive policy priority of recent years, health reform, is already law, Republicans wouldn’t seem to have many bargaining chips. 

But the G.O.P. retains the power to destroy, in particular by refusing to raise the debt limit — which could cause a financial crisis. And Republicans have made it clear that they plan to use their destructive power to extract major policy concessions. 

Now, the president has said that he won’t negotiate on that basis, and rightly so. Threatening to hurt tens of millions of innocent victims unless you get your way — which is what the G.O.P. strategy boils down to — shouldn’t be treated as a legitimate political tactic. 

But will Mr. Obama stick to his anti-blackmail position as the moment of truth approaches? He blinked during the 2011 debt limit confrontation. And the last few days of the fiscal cliff negotiations were also marked by a clear unwillingness on his part to let the deadline expire. Since the consequences of a missed deadline on the debt limit would potentially be much worse, this bodes ill for administration resolve in the clinch. 

So, as I said, in a tactical sense the fiscal cliff ended in a modest victory for the White House. But that victory could all too easily turn into defeat in just a few weeks. 

And it was Obama's "blinking" that set up this victory in the first place, of course, but Krugman won't say that.  We'll see where the debt fight goes, but with Republicans saying "We'll wreck the economy unless we get to wreck X and blame Obama for it" and President Obama replying with "the hell you will" I'm betting on the guy with the winning streak for the last 4 years.

Stunned In Steubenville

The big news in Ohio this morning is a pretty disturbing case involving two Steubenville, Ohio high school football players and a video with the two of them having a frankly awful discussion about sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl.  WKYC in Cleveland:

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department is being flooded with calls from concerned citizens about an alleged rape case back in August.

Two Steubenville football players are accused of raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl at a party.

Evidence is now coming forward, like this picture that was posted on social media, showing two students carrying the alleged victim.

And now, another video is leaked, showing a former Steubenville athlete, not charged in the crime, but talking about the incident as if it did happen.  He keeps referring to the unconscious victim as being dead.

The words from this former student are very disturbing.

The sheriff has seen the video and called it disgusting.

Police say they have interviewed the former student seen and heard on this latest videotape, but would not comment any further.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says the case is moving forward and the two students arrested on rape charges have a hearing in February.

This is a pretty terrible case, and the way these boys are talking about this young woman is just completely unacceptable.  I'm not sure what other evidence is there that may prove one way or another what happened, but this video alone is enough to remind us that American rape culture is very much alive and a real problem for all of us.

StupidNews!

• Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is fighting respiratory failure due to a lung infection brought on as a complication from his cancer treatment, according to the country's Information Minister.
• New documents confirm the National Security Agency is conducting a program to protect the nation's power grid from cyberattack.
• Starbucks is rolling out its recyclable cup initiative nationally in an effort to reduce paper cup waste and to save customers money.
• Wall Street's top titans got a lot of calls about 2012's economic situation wrong, according to Bloomberg News analysis.
• France's second largest ISP, Free, has updated router firmware to include ad blocking for internet access.

Last Call

Joe Biden being Joe Biden at today's swearing in ceremony for the Senate of the new 113th Congress.  Which is also being awesome.



ALL OF THE BIDEN.

Turtle Talks Tough On Taxes

My senator, Mitch "Turtle Boy" McConnell, takes to Yahoo News today in an op-ed designed to...I think, at least...assure the American people that they're going to suffer nasty spending cuts pretty soon, so they might as well get used to the pain of austerity, declaring another hostage situation on the debt ceiling is imminent.

Yeah, that's what I said when I read it, too.

Predictably, the President is already claiming that his tax hike on the “rich” isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion. 

We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt. 

The only way to achieve the balance the President claims to want is by cutting spending. As he himself has admitted, no amount of tax hikes or revenue could possibly keep up with the amount of money Washington is projected to spend in the coming years. At some point, high taxes become such a drag on the economy that the revenue stalls. 

While most Washington Democrats may want to deny it, the truth is, the only thing we can do to solve the nation’s fiscal problem is to tackle government spending head on — and particularly, spending on health care programs, which appear to take off like a fighter jet on every chart available that details current trends in federal spending. 

The President may not want to have a fight about government spending over the next few months, but it’s the fight he is going to have, because it’s a debate the country needs. For the sake of our future, the President must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now. Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour. 

In other words, Mitch is all but promising massive Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid cuts, and once again is threatening no new revenue.  Should be just about as effective as the last time the GOP tried this, leading directly to the spanking they got at the polls in November.  It's a pretty clear signal that Republicans expect to cut trillions from these programs and get away with it.

They've got another thing coming.