Last Call

If this National Review editorial board piece is indicative of the GOP position on immigration (and boy is it ever) then I think I might have discovered why Republicans are basically in an untenable and unwinnable position of their own making on Latino and Asian voters.

Republican immigration reformers with an eye to political reality should begin by appreciating that Latinos are a Democratic constituency. They did not vote for Mitt Romney. They did not vote for John McCain. They did not vote for George W. Bush, and in the election before that they did not vote for George W. Bush again. In 1998, George W. Bush was reelected to the governorship of Texas with 27 percent of the African-American vote — an astonishing number for an unabashed conservative. Bush won 68 percent of the overall vote in that election, carrying 240 out of Texas’s 254 counties. Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Gary Mauro.

And, if we are to take Hispanics at their word, conservative attitudes toward illegal immigration are a minor reason for their voting preferences. While many are in business for themselves, they express hostile attitudes toward free enterprise in polls. They are disproportionately low-income and disproportionately likely to receive some form of government support. More than half of Hispanic births are out of wedlock. Take away the Spanish surname and Latino voters look a great deal like many other Democratic constituencies. Low-income households headed by single mothers and dependent upon some form of welfare are not looking for an excuse to join forces with Paul Ryan and Pat Toomey. Given the growing size of the Hispanic vote, it would help Republicans significantly to lose it by smaller margins than they have recently. But the idea that an amnesty is going to put Latinos squarely in the GOP tent is a fantasy.

It simply hasn't occurred to the NRO folks or the GOP leadership or Republicans in general that comprehensive immigration reform that includes tough border security and a path to citizenship is the correct and humane thing to do.  Conservatives are too busy trying to figure out the calculus of pandering, and are having this conversation as loudly as possible, in earshot of Latino voters, Asian voters and you know, human beings with souls.

But AMNESTY, so there's that.

About that word. Call it “regularization,” call it a “path to citizenship,” it amounts to precisely the same thing: a decision to set aside the law and to ignore its violation. And therein lies a problem for so-called comprehensive reform: Normalizing the status of the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, either in toto or in part, would require the development and application of standards for doing so, whether those are relatively narrow (as in the DREAM Act and similar proposals) or broad. Unless we mean to legalize every illegal in the country — including violent felons, gang members, cartel henchmen, and the like — there will be of necessity a system for sorting them out. It is difficult to believe that the same government that failed to enforce the law in the first place will be very scrupulous about standards as it goes about dealing with the consequences of its own incompetence.

Because as you know,  we've only had an immigration problem since January 20, 2009.  Guess why you're losing the Latino vote, guys?  Maybe you know deciding that Latinos are nothing more than worthless moochers and looters is probably a bad idea, right?

GOP outreach for the win.

Huckleberry Hounding, Ho!

Sen. Lindsey Graham isn't giving up on finding a way to make President Obama burn for Benghazi, and now his increasingly desperate fishing expedition is focusing on outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, as he told FOX on Monday night:

VAN SUSTEREN: Is Secretary Panetta going to testify?

GRAHAM: Well, I’m not going to — I’m going to block Hagel from going forward until he does.

VAN SUSTEREN: So you’re going to block him.

GRAHAM: Absolutely. Why would we not want to understand what happened during the attack itself? How could our secretary — what happened for seven hours? Why were there no military assets available on September the 11th.

Let's keep in mind Huckleberry here has already sunk Susan Rice, and is threatening to sink John Brennan as new CIA chief  as well.  Now he's going to stop Hagel until he gets to the bottom of this "mystery".

Only one problem, of course.  All of the above have given their answers to Congress already.

Graham’s dogged pursuit of “the truth” is undercut by the fact that many of the questions he’s asking have already been answered. Panetta and other administrations officials have repeatedly stated that due to the attack coming in two waves, and the distance between Libya and Sigonella Air Base in Italy, the U.S. was unable to send military forces to respond. Likewise, the question of the editing of Susan Rice’s Sept. 16 Sunday show statements has been previously identified as the result of an interagency process, in which the CIA itself removed references to Al Qaeda.

It doesn't matter.  Obama has to be guilty of some crime, and Graham won't be satisfied until he makes one up that fits.   And now that recess appointments are impossible, who knows how long America won't have a full cabinet to deal with various issues?

But both sides do it, right?

The Banana Splits Get Dumped

The bananas GOP plan to split swing state electoral votes by congressional district has run into a massive backlash in several key states this week.  Michigan's GOP Gov. Rick Snyder is sinking the plan, saying it's not "the right time" for it.  Here in Ohio, GOP state leaders are against the plan entirely, even Secretary of State Jon Husted says it's a bad idea.  And in Virginia, the plan didn't even get out of legislative committee, getting killed 11-4:

ProgressVirginia reported Tuesday afternoon that the Virginia Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee killed Sen. Charles “Bill” Carrico Sr.’s electoral college-rigging bill, despite an offer by Carrico to amend the bill to award electors in proportion to the state’s popular vote. The vote was 11-4 against the bill, although it will not be official until the close of the committee meeting.

The bill, as written, would have awarded 11 of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes to the winner of each of the state’s 11 heavily gerrymandered Congressional Districts. The remaining two electors would have been awarded to whoever won the majority of Congressional Districts. Under this scheme, Mitt Romney would have received 9 Virginia electors to Obama’s 4, even though Barack Obama won the state by four points.

With 4 Republicans joining all 7 Democrats on the committee to kill the bill, it seems not even the GOP has the stomach for this plan.  There's simply no way to disguise the fact this is an attempt to steal the 2016 election, regardless of state election totals.  The GOP is passing on this for now, at least in some states.  We'll see how Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania react at this point, but for now it seems this plan has been blunted.

Key words:  "for now".  It'll be back before 2016, count on it.

StupidiNews!

• The Korean space race continues as South Korea successfully put its first satellite into orbit on Tuesday.
• The annual Reporters Without Borders index of press freedoms finds the United States dropping to 32nd in the world, with Finland number one.
• A new poll finds two-thirds of Americans support the Pentagon's recent decision to open direct ground combat jobs to women.
• The continuing austerity-driven Spanish recession was worse than expected, with 4th quarter 2012 numbers coming in at a larger than forecast 0.7% GDP contraction.
• Microsoft has launched its subscription-based Office 365 service, streaming familiar apps like Word and Outlook to consumers for $100 a year.

Last Call

In the end, Sen. John Kerry was confirmed Tuesday as the next Secretary of State in an overwhelming manner, 94-3.

The Senate on Tuesday easily confirmed Democratic Sen. John Kerry by a vote of 94 to 3 as the next secretary of state, ending a largely non-controversial confirmation process and kicking off what is expected to be a hotly contested race in Massachusetts for his seat in the Senate.

At a time when bipartisanship is often on display in Washington, all but three Republican senators voted to confirm Kerry as secretary of state: Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Kerry voted "present" on his confirmation. He is set to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is stepping down after four years of service.

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, has served on the Foreign Relations Committee since his arrival in the Senate in 1985. He began the hearing process with public backing from Democrats as well as Republicans who came together Tuesday to publicly laud both Kerry's personal background as well as his extensive experience and relationships with dignitaries around the world.

"Sen. Kerry is uniquely qualified to serve as the next secretary of state," Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said on the Senate floor prior to the vote, noting that Kerry's father served as a diplomat, Kerry's deep knowledge of international affairs as well as his relationships with diplomats.

Ted Cruz making an early claim as "most reactionary GOP Senate freshman" with this vote.  

Also, the special election for Kerry's seat will be June 25, so that should be one to watch, certainly.  It'll also mean Elizabeth Warren is senior Senator from Massachusetts.

Forward, then.

Turtle Soup Special

Mitch McConnell isn't that popular here in Kentucky.  The Tea Party hates him because as Senate leader, he's sold them out time and time again.  Democrats hate him because he's Mitch Freakin' McConnell.  The end result is he has a lot more enemies than friends.

With his re-election bid just a year away, those opposed to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell outnumber his supporters 2-1 among Kentucky voters, according to the latest Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll.

In the poll of 609 registered voters, 34 percent said they plan to vote against McConnell — while just 17 percent say they will vote to give him six more years. Forty-four percent said they will wait to see who is running against him before deciding, and 6 percent said they are not sure.

The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. It comes as groups on both McConnell’s right and left seek candidates to challenge him in the primary and general elections in 2014. McConnell, the most powerful Republican in the Senate as minority leader, is seeking his sixth term.

Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager, dismissed the poll as “nothing more than an irresponsible way to stir up cheap headlines.”

“Anyone with a kindergarten level of education in polling knows that asking voters to support an incumbent ‘no matter who runs against him’ is guaranteed to produce the most skewed number possible,” Benton said.

Sure, the polls are skewed guys. Just like back in November.  Here's what McConnell's people are really scared of:

Meanwhile, the United Kentucky Tea Party, a group of 17 tea parties from across the state, says it is recruiting someone to challenge McConnell in the primary. The group charges that McConnell has supported debt-ridden budgets and profligate spending throughout his career.

Which is true, and Mitch knows it.  Turtle soup is back on the menu, boys.

The Wages Of Moose Lady Are About $16 A Word

FOX has dropped Sarah Palin like a bad habit, meaning Governor Half-Term's wingnut welfare ride is officially at an end.  Don't feel bad for her however, she certainly cleaned out Rupert Murdoch's network.

With the three-year contract now expired between FOX News and Sarah Palin, there is a wealth of commentary made by the former Alaska Governor and GOP Vice-Presidential nominee to dissect.

Palin, who was paid a reported $1 million per year as a contributor to FOX since mid-January 2010 when FOX announced her signing, may not have made quite the splash her employers had hoped during this three-year period, and would, on occasion go weeks between appearances.

So, did the network get their money's worth?

A Smart Politics review of the more than 150 FOX broadcasts in which Sarah Palin appeared as a paid commentator from 2010 through 2012 finds that she spoke 189,221 words on air during this span, for an average pay rate of $15.85 per word. 

Palin appeared on the network in studio, by satellite, by telephone, or in a pre-taped interview an average of once every 7.2 days during this three-year period, with the vast majority of those coming on two particular programs.

Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren both interviewed Palin 55 times, combining for nearly three-quarters of her appearances on the network over the last 36 months. (Note: the latter total includes interviews by Griff Jenkins and guest host Martha McCallum on Van Susteren's On the Record program).

So laugh all you want to at her, she still made three million bucks being a moron on TV.   Hell of a lot more than you or I made last year for our political opinions, right?

Grifters gotta grift, and nobody grifts like the Moose Lady.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama will lay out his own plans for comprehensive immigration reform in a speech in Las Vegas on Tuesday afternoon.
• Drug legalization proponents are targeting Maine, California, and Oregon for recreational marijuana use laws after victories last November in Colorado and Washington State.
• On the second anniversary of Egypt's uprising that led to the end of the Mubarak regime, President Morsi faces his own uprising as citizens take to the streets.
• The European Union may relax budget requirements for Spain as austerity measures are triggering extended recessions across the Eurozone.
• A new transparency report from Twitter shows law enforcement dramatically increased requests for information from the social application in the second half of 2012.

Last Call

Republicans have to punish those awful poor people so they'll choose to stop being poor, you know.  The latest iteration of Shame The Poors:  Tennessee GOP's latest scheme to send kids to bed without any pudding.

State Sen. Stacey Campfield has proposed legislation that would cut welfare benefits to parents whose children fail to make "satisfactory academic progress" in school, a move he says should inspire parents to take a more active role in helping students learn.

While the Knoxville Republican says SB132 is a step toward "breaking the cycle of poverty," Linda O'Neal, executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, says it could make life more difficult for parents and children who are already struggling.

Campfield said in an interview that the best way to "break the cycle of poverty" is through education and a child's success in schooling rests on a "three-legged stool" - teachers, schools and parents.(Note: His blog post on the bill is HERE.)

He said Tennessee has already embarked on education reforms designed to improve the quality of teachers and the quality of schools. There should also be a focus on the "third leg," parents, he said.

"We've set the tone (through legislation) to push and improve teachers and schools," Campfield said. "Now is the time to push those parents. This bill is giving them motivation to do more to help their children learn in school."

"If the family doesn't care if the child goes to school or does well in school, the odds of that child getting out of poverty are pretty low," the senator said. 

See, if we just cut benefits to the stupid poor families, the parents (who must be poor because they choose to be poor and lazy) will simply stop being poor and lazy because otherwise they'll starve.  Problem solved! Hey, the problem is clearly poor parents on welfare don't work anyway, so they have all the time in the world to tutor their kids and make them get better grades.

So your kids are having problems learning because they are hungry all time time from being poor?  Better make sure Junior aces that test or the family gets cut off and goes hungry.  No pressure there, son.  Just choose to succeed, that's all!  After all, why should Tennessee taxpayers have to worry about schoolkids eating and stuff anyway.  Just punish them until they are motivated to stop being poor, and the problem resolves itself.  If the difference between the family having enough to get by and the family crashing and burning is the little guy's next math test, well by gosh you'd better make sure you poor people care enough about your kids to make them into honor students.

It's so simple, even a child can do it.

Johnny Volcano And The Lost City Of Voters

Sen. John McCain thinks he can be the reasonable voice of centrist Republicanism in America, and while he has the Village fooled, his own party has at this point all but thrown him out.  Exhibit A:  Immigration reform.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Sunday that losing the Hispanic vote in the last election will encourage Republicans to get on board with a comprehensive immigration bill that will provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States.

"I'll give you a little straight talk," McCain said on ABC's "This Week" when asked how Republicans could be convinced to include a path to citizenship in a reform package. "Look at the last election.  Look at the last election.  We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours, for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that."

If you think immigration reform is going to pass the House GOP and John Boehner will be able to deliver, I have some beachfront property in McCain's state of Arizona for sale to you.

In a speech that was closed to the press, Boehner told the Ripon Society, a Republican public policy organization, on Tuesday that it is “time to deal” with immigration changes. He said the House group, whose members he did not name, have been holding quiet conversations for three or four years and would be coming forward soon with proposals.

The Ripon Society released some excerpts on Wednesday but Boehner’s comments came in a question-and-answer period that has received less notice. They were first reported Saturday by the Hill newspaper.

The comments were significant because advocates of immigration changes have long assumed legislative action on the issue would need to begin in the Democratic-majority Senate.

Oh House Republicans want to get out in front of immigration reform, but it doesn't mean they'll pass it.  They want to come up with a bill on their terms, but frankly anything they will come up with will get trashed by their own side, and will be torpedoed.   If you thought there was a civil war in the GOP before, wait until any of the GOP proposals including the words "path to citizenship" come up for a vote in the House.

A bipartisan group of senators has agreed on a set of principles for a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system, including a pathway to American citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that would hinge on progress in securing the borders and ensuring that foreigners leave the country when their visas expire. 

The senators were able to reach a deal by incorporating the Democrats’ insistence on a single comprehensive bill that would not deny eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants, with Republican demands that strong border and interior enforcement had to be clearly in place before Congress could consider legal status for illegal immigrants. 

House Republicans are already steeling themselves for battle over this, and the split is going to be ugly.  90% of GOP districts may be blood red and safe, but primary challengers are always just around the corner, and these guys know it.  By the time it's over, even Johnny Volcano will find himself having to filibuster the bill or his political career will be over.  I guarantee it.

Immigration isn't going anywhere.  It'll be killed by the far right just like in 2007.   I'd like to be wrong, but betting on the GOP to take the sane, reasonable approach on something is for suckers.

Israel Getting Up In Syria's Business

And just when your thought it couldn't get too much worse in the Middle East, along comes Israeli hardliners to make me regret thinking we've reached a logical nadir.

Any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons is slipping as it battles an armed uprising could trigger Israeli military strikes, Israel's vice premier said on Sunday.

Silvan Shalom confirmed a media report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week convened a meeting of security chiefs to discuss the civil war in Syria and the state of its suspected chemical arsenal.

So yes, this was going on as the votes were being counted in Israeli election last week.  Charming, huh?

Should Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas or rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad obtain Syria's chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel's Army Radio: "It would dramatically change the capabilities of those organizations."

Such a development would be "a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations," he said, alluding to military intervention for which Israeli generals have said plans have been readied.

"The concept, in principle, is that this (chemical weapons transfer) must not happen," Shalom said. "The moment we begin to understand that such a thing is liable to happen, we will have to make decisions."

So yeah, in the chaos that is Syria right now,  if it looks like anybody's going for Syria's chemical arsenal, the Israelis are going to start a war, which of course will draw in the United States, Iran, and well...things get really bad from there.

Here's hoping cooler heads prevail.  I personally think this is a play to force the US hand to intervene in Syria before Israel "feels it has to."  Which of course, could lead to Iran following up.  All this is pretty awful, frankly.

Happy Monday, right?

StupidiNews!

• The death toll from a night club fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria has reached 233 people, as some 2,000 people packed into a building meant for 1,000.
• At the Davos World Economic Forum last week in Switzerland, British climate skeptic Lord Nick Stern admitted that he was wrong about climate change being "very real".
• Cuba confirms that fiber optic cable from Venezuela completed last year is now operational, but access to the internet on the island is still restricted.
• Japanese carmaker Toyota has retaken the global sales lead from GM and Volkswagen after recovering from 2011's Fukushima earthquake and tsunami.
• Online tech retailer Newegg has won its case in the "mother of all patent battles" over who owns the rights to the e-commerce "shopping cart", a fight that could have shut down shopping online.

Last Call

The biggest problem with the GOP remains that in a majority of states, they run the show.  At the local, county, and state level Republicans are politicizing every possible state government function and stacking the deck with like-minded Teabaggers with the goal of using "small government" to control as much as they can.

One big area where the GOP is causing lasting damage is in public education.  In Texas for example, the war over the state's school textbooks has been hard-fought and ugly.  That battle is the subject of a new PBS documentary, The Revisionaries:

The movie follows the testimony and actions of the board as it tears through—and in some cases, tears up—the science and history standards that were forwarded to them. It uses footage of hearings and votes, along with interviews of many of the participants, including a professor involved in writing the science standards, and Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization dedicated to limiting the impact of the board's more ideological members.

And they are seriously ideological. McLeroy is quoted as saying, "education is too important to not be politicized," while fellow board member Cynthia Dunbar claims that "education is inherently religious." And she apparently treats the board meetings the same way, as she's shown giving an opening prayer in which she calls for Jesus to help everyone recognize that the US is "a Christian land, governed by Christian principles."

The existing Texas science standards had language that called for the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution to be taught. That language has opened the door to the sorts of spurious criticisms that McLeroy is fond of (and apparently, subjects some of his dental patients to). So when the proposed new standards came to the board without any mention of strengths and weaknesses, McLeroy and others fought hard to put them back in. As a compromise, the board simply renamed them to "analyze and evaluate," creating awkward results like instructing students to "analyze all sides of scientific information" about evolution.

If anything, the history standards were worse. Dunbar claims she's a "big fan" of Thomas Jefferson, but thinks a "secular humanistic ideology" has clouded current interpretations of his work. So she cuts him out of the standards on the Enlightenment and its influence on the US' founding documents, instead substituting in pre-enlightenment figures like Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. Further revisions to history come rapid fire, as others try to add the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and NRA to a section on the '80s, and another person tries to make sure Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein) is added to the text where his name appears.

One board member, looking at the results, is seen saying, "I feel that I have let down the students in our state because all those kids in our schools right now, when they get to college, they're going to learn the real history."

The movie ends with McLeroy losing his reelection bid by a few hundred votes, but already thinking about running again at his next opportunity. But some of his many opponents note that the changes he helped make to the standards will be influencing entire generations of students before they're next revised in 2020.

And they will never give up until Americans are as stupid and as ignorant as they are.  A generation of talk radio and FOX News has given the reactionary right unprecedented power to eliminate critical thinking and turn us all into "Christians" who have only faith and no desire to learn anything but what they are told.

So get involved with your own school board, your own state textbook committee, your own city council, your own county commission.  The other side sure as hell is.

Priorities: Code Orange

It's nice to know that Republicans have America's top priorities in mind:  jobs, the economy, gun violence, the environm...what's that you say, House Speaker John Boehner?

In a special message to the annual anti-abortion protest March for Life, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) vowed that ending abortion would be one of the top priorities of Republicans this year.

“Defending life, of course, is about much more than voting the right way or saying the right things,” he said. “It’s about promoting a culture of life. It’s about understanding that abortion is a defining human rights issue of our time. Because human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on Earth has the right to treat it as such.”

“With all that’s at stake, it is becoming more and more important for us to share this truth with our young people, to encourage them to lock arms, speak out for life, and help make abortion a relic of the past,” Boehner continued. “Let that be one of our most fundamental goals this year.”

Boehner said the Republican-led House would again seek to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which sparked controversy in 2011 because of how it defined rape. The bill was approved by the House but died in the Senate.

Yay, we're back to the War on Women as their top goal: ending safe, legal abortions and forcing women to resort to unsafe, illegal abortion! Woohoo!

Let's just criminalize the vagina, shall we?

Out Of Ammo And Shooting Blanks

Anyone surprised at this turn of events on the assault weapons ban 2.0 in the Senate hasn't been paying any attention at all.  Bloomberg's analysis:

At least six of the 55 senators in the Democratic caucus have expressed skepticism or outright opposition to a ban, the review found. That means Democrats wouldn’t have a 51-vote majority to pass the measure, let alone the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster to bring it to a floor vote. 

Gosh, HOOCUDDANODE?  And guess what, they're all red state Dems:  Tester and Baucus of Montana, Begich of Alaska, Heitkamp of North Dakota, and of course, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

In other words, if you thought for a second that Blue Dogs like Heitkamp and Manchin were going to actually risk their pristine A ratings from the NRA over silly nonsense like "What the people want", you really are nuts.

This is why the Dems don't even have a majority in the Senate, frankly.

[UPDATE]  Greg Sargent makes the point that the AWB 2.0 was always doomed, but universal background checks may actually pass.