Check Your Suit (And Ego) At The Door

As promised, I review Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man 3:



Tony Stark (Downey) is flying pretty high these days, he's saved the world from an extra-dimensional alien invasion in The Avengers and his girlfriend and current Stark Enterprises CEO Pepper Potts (Paltrow) has moved in with him to the World's Biggest Man Cave in Malibu.  His pal Col. Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) has upgraded his War Machine suit to become the Iron Patriot, and the world is happily running without the need for ol' Shellhead Stark to save it.

But Stark's nagging perfectionism, relentless drive, and boundless ego are always an armory full of double-edged swords, and without anything positive to focus on, he's latched on to his near-death experience in New York at the hands of the aliens and it's driving everyone around him nuts, most of all Pepper.

When his friend Happy Hogan (director Jon Favreau) is critically injured in a bombing attack (on Grumman's Chinese theater no less) by international terrorist The Mandarin (played by the totally awesome Ben Kingsley, devouring scenes wholesale), Stark has something new to obsess over and immediately calls out the criminal mastermind.  It's a check his ego writes that his technology can't cash, as The Mandarin's counterstrike leaves Tony presumed dead, without anything except his wits, a wrecked Mark 42 Iron Man suit, and a poncho.

From there the movie tries to answer the question:  Who is Tony Stark outside of his suit?  Without his toys and billions in resources, is he really a hero or just a fast-talking egomanaical jackass with a lot of money and weapons, more of a danger to humanity than an example of its best qualities?

Stark has to get his crap together pretty quickly, because The Mandarin actually has one of the best comic book supervillain master plans I've seen in a long time, and on top of all that Tony Stark's going to have to pay for a mistake he made 13 years earlier, involving a scientific genius named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and his super-tech think tank, Advanced Idea Mechanics...

I don't want blow the ending, but it's definitely the best movie in the Iron Man franchise and comes very, very close to the greatness of The Avengers to boot.  (Yes, it's good enough to make you forget all about the awful Iron Man 2.)  Go see this one folks, be sure to check out the trailer for Thor: The Dark World and as always with a Marvel film, be on the lookout for Stan Lee and stick around for the stinger at the end (especially you Science Bros. fans!)

Excelsior!

StupidiNews, Best Weekend Ever Edition!

First weekend in May is still the best weekend ever, with Star Wars Day today (May the Fourth be with you!) as well as Derby Day here in Kentucky on top of Free Comic Book Day (and Iron Man 3 is out!) as well as Cinco de Mayo tomorrow.

I'll have a review of the third film starring Robert Downey Jr. in the role the universe created him to play, Tony Stark, here later today.

Have a good one, folks!

Last Call: Worse Than You Know Who

Former Dubya-era White house press flack Ari Fleischer talking about the Gitmo hunger strikes, go home, you're drunk.

The events sparked a debate on CNN last night, prompting former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer to defend his former boss’s decision to open Gitmo to begin with. “We have it because these people did not even follow the law of war, let alone the rule of war,” he said, adding, “These people didn’t even wear a military uniform. They engaged in battle against America as terrorists, a violation of the laws of war. That’s why Guantanamo got invented.”

But most legal experts say detention practices at Gitmo violate international law.

“This country fought Adolf Hitler. And I don’t really believe that Osama bin Laden and his group are worse or more dangerous than Adolf Hitler,” CNN legal expert Jeffery Toobin countered Fleischer, adding, “We managed to defeat Adolf Hitler by following the rule of law.”

 Free advice:  He's a bad guy.

Backed in a corner, Fleischer then went a bit off the rail:

FLEISCHER: They [the Germans] followed the law of war. They wore uniforms and they fought us on battlefields. These people are fundamentally, totally by design different. And they need to be treated in a different extrajudicial system.

Oh sure, a snappy uniform makes all the difference, Ari.  Jesus wept.  Jackass.

Dispatches From The Green Lantern Pundit Corps

News that unprecedented GOP obstruction of President Obama’s executive appointments (not to mention sequestration) has left several cabinet departments and federal agencies simply unable to function has gotten the usually reasonable Jonathan Bernstein to pen an application to join the Green Lantern Pundit Corps over the glacial speed to which the GOP has reduced the President’s vetting process to.   Faster, President!  Vet!  Vet!

Their motto:  “In brightest day, in blackest night, if Obama just had the will to fight!”

The answer is to reduce, as much as possible, the vetting that goes into these choices. Yes, that probably increases the chances of a scandal down the road sometime. But that cost, visible as it is when it happens, just isn’t as important as the cost of leaving offices empty — and of disqualifying perfectly good men and women who want to give some of their abilities to the public.

I’ve talked before about getting cover for change on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue by putting a commission together dedicated to stopping the madness. But Obama can do most of this on his own. It just takes realizing that the cost of the current levels of vetting are in fact huge, and that it really isn’t that big a deal if a bad apple (or someone who can be portrayed as a bad apple) sneaks in every once in a while. Reduce vetting now!

The problem here remains the Republicans, Jon.  Accepting the framing here that Obama needs to be the one to change to accept the “new reality” of GOP blocking is exactly what the Republicans want, because then that becomes the acceptable norm for the next 44 months.

The far greater cost than the empty agency positions is the damage the Republicans are doing to the idea of good government itself, and the fact that we’re letting them get away with this petty crap only means that “a bureaucracy that can’t possibly function correctly because it’s been hamstrung” is the new normal, and what Americans will be conditioned to accept.  Furthermore, the next time Republicans are in charge, they’ll simply redefine the framing and move the goalposts to “We can fill these positions with whomever we want, plenary executive, suckas!”

Besides, if President Obama speeds up or eliminates the vetting process, A) Republicans will keep obstructing the process anyway, meaning that this isn’t a solution to the root cause of the problem, B) a scandal is exactly what the GOP will need in order to “prove” that Democrats can’t govern, and C) pretty sure President Obama thought of A and B and is going this route anyway.  The actual solution to the problem is to do exactly what the President is doing, carefully vetting and to continue to point out that the Republicans are making governance impossible.  That particular message is penetrating the public.

What this isn’t however is an issue of the sufficiency of the President’s willpower.  The.  Problem.  Is.  The.  Republicans.  Period.  Generate your own willpower to fight them and vote them out of power.

Even More Nullification Nonsense

Once again, South Carolina Republicans are trying to deliberately sabotage federal health care laws as the GOP-controlled state House has quit tinkering around the edges and has now passed legislation that would make any implementation of Obamacare a state felony.

The South Carolina state House on Wednesday passed a so-called “nullification” bill that declares President Barack Obama’s health care reform law to be “null and void,” and criminalizes its implementation.

The South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act was passed by a state House vote of 65 to 39. The bill intends to “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article.”

The measure would allow the state Attorney General “to restrain by temporary restraining order, temporary injunction, or permanent injunction” any person who is believed to be causing harm with the implementation of the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Any South Carolina taxpayer who is forced to pay a penalty due to the federal health care mandate would be able to deduct the full amount of the penalty from their state taxes.

Additionally, the measure would outlaw state and local government from creating or using non-profit health care exchanges a outlined by the health care reform law. 

Fort Sumter all over again.  The state's Senate is expected to pass the law and it could be on Gov. Nikki Haley's desk by the end of the month.  The question now becomes if Haley, who has sworn not to enforce or implement the bill, will subject the state to federal lawsuits by putting that stance into a clearly unconstitutional state law that will cost taxpayers millions to defend in court.

Meanwhile, I say Republicans should continue to overplay their hand on Obamacare, and throw ridiculous Gadsden Flag fits in public like this.  The people who will get hurt will be red state voters, and if they go to these lengths to make implementation impossible under state law, it's Republicans who then own the consequences, 100%.

We'll see where it goes.

StupidiNews!

• With the signature of Gov. Linc Chafee, Rhode Island becomes the tenth state to legalize same-sex marriage, with ceremonies approved to begin Aug. 1.
• Police in Austin, Texas are asking for help from the public for information about who planted an unexploded explosive device in the city's business district last week.
• Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly told law enforcement officials that the attack was originally planned for July 4th, and was moved up.
• Britain's UK Independent Party has won a quarter of the vote in local elections as the party's main plank, the movement to leave the EU, grows among voters.
• Researchers have gotten tiny robot insects to take flight, but there's a long way to go to make the robots commercially viable.

Last Call

For Bon, a giant rubber duck story.




Because GIANT RUBBER DUCK.

Chucking An Airball On Jason Collins, Race, And Homophobia

There's a distinct reason Esquire's Charles Pierce is in my blogroll.  He is, on a daily basis, one of the truly excellent and most unabashedly liberal voices out there in any medium.  But his take on Jason Collins's coming out over at Grantland contains a rather nasty paragraph that's frankly far beneath him.

To be sure, he's already couched his decision somewhat in the iconic; he says he chose to wear no. 98 in Boston and Washington in honor of Matthew Shepard, the young man who was tied to a fence and beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998, a hate crime so horrific that national hate-crimes legislation bears his name. (Collins also caught President Barack Obama's reference to Stonewall in his second inaugural address in January, a citation that caused a lot of heads to spin.) His explanation for his decision to come out is rich with the historical "dual identity" forced on black Americans under Jim Crow, and the similar dynamic within which he lived as a gay man. Homophobia in the black community — indeed, even among the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s — was some of the most virulent and stubborn of all, and there are still some who resent the equation of the gay rights movement with their struggle. In his announcement in Sports Illustrated, then, Collins gave every indication that he's fully aware of the historic and cultural dimensions of his decision, and of the sacrifices made elsewhere so that he would be free to make it now.

Adam Serwer rightly points out the glaring awfulness of that passage:

There was certainly homophobia in the civil rights movement—but in the 1950s and 60s, American society was homophobic, and Pierce offers no evidence that the civil rights movement was more homophobic than any other American institution during that period. Given that one of the architects of the civil rights movement's nonviolent strategy was Bayard Rustin, it was arguably less homophobic than much of society at the time. With a few notable exceptions, surviving leaders of the movement, from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), to Rev. James Lawson, to Jesse Jackson, to Julian Bond are all in favor of gay and lesbian rights.

There's also little evidence for the proposition that black homophobia is "the most virulent and stubborn of all." Black folks, who were disenfranchised for centuries, didn't put any of those old anti-sodomy laws on the books. The legal architecture of discrimination based on sexual orientation is one of the few things in America that dates back to colonial times that wasn't built by black people.

Serwer's point is extremely important.  I've written multiple times myself on the completely false notion that African-American voters were responsible for Prop 8 passing in 2008, to the point that it was being manufactured to try to specifically fracture the Obama coalition.  The fact that a writer of Pierce's caliber brings it up in passing is just further evidence of how pervasive this nonsense is.

And if you haven't noticed, our black President came out and said bluntly that full equality, not just tolerance, was the goal for LGBT Americans.  The jarring and visibly hypocritical message of intolerance by some black pastors and priests doesn't equate to "black folks are more homophobic" any more than it does among white pastors and priests, yes?

I'm not slagging on Pierce here, I'm not one tenth the writer he is and I've been wrong ten times as often.  But Adam Serwer is in the right, and the lesson here is that everyone needs to be more aware of this.

Haters Gonna Hate

Well, if this story is true, I hope this guy gets to cool his jets in prison for a very, very long time.

A 39-year-old Muslim cab driver who served in the Iraq war says that an executive from an aviation company accused him of being a jihadist and broke his jaw in what activists are calling a hate crime.

Mohamed A. Salim told The Washington Post that Emerald Aviation President Ed Dahlberg attacked him after he picked him up at Country Club of Fairfax in Northern Virginia at around 2 a.m. on Friday. Dahlberg had been drinking and was told that he would have to finish his open beer before getting into the cab.

Salim recorded audio of the encounter on his cell phone. 

Dahlberg's rant, as recorded on the phone, is pretty horrific.  It's just straight, raw, hate, bred by a decade plus of stupid, ignorant Islamophobia.

Dahlberg was charged with misdemeanor assault and police are determining if charges should be elevated to a felony hate crime. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday said that medical records and the 11-minute cell phone recording were being used as evidence in the case.

In a statement, Dahlberg’s attorney, Demetry Pikrallidas, admitted that his client “became rather emotional as the discussion turned to jihad and 9/11, and especially heated on the subject of jihadists who want to harm America.”

But Salim is an Iraq War veteran.  Unreal.  Just unreal.  And yet the haters on the right will now ruin Salim's life anyway.  It doesn't matter that he served his country in the military.  Muslims are nothing but subhuman animals to these morons and this is what they want to happen.

Keep openly backing these clowns, GOP.

StupidiNews!

• Three college friends of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsaenaev have been taken into custody by the FBI on charges of obstructing justice and allegedly removing evidence.
• A team of Smithsonian archaeologists have uncovered remains of a 14-year old girl from the lost Jamestown colony that show evidence starving colonists resorted to cannibalism.
• President Obama has picked Congressman Mel Watt of NC to head the agency that oversees federal mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• North Korea has sentenced an American tourist to 15 years of hard labor, accusing Pae Jun Ho of "committing hostile acts" against the DPRK.
• Cable and internet industry giants are reportedly very happy with President Obama's choice of former lobbyist Tom Wheeler to head the FCC.

Last Call From Mooseland

Apparently Alaska teabillies really, really want Democratic Sen. Mark Begich to win re-election in 2014, because guess who they're drafting to run against him?

A group of tea partiers is hoping Sarah Palin will challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Begich in 2014, when he is up for reelection. “We know that, with Sarah in the Senate, conservatives across America can rest a little easier at night knowing that she’s at the watch,” said Todd Cefaratti of the Tea Party Leadership Fund, in a fundraising email to supporters.

“You and I both know that Sarah Palin is a fighter who will stand up to Harry Reid and his pals in the Senate to protect our Constitution in issues like amnesty, gun control and our nation’s crushing debt,” Cefaratti wrote.

Only one little problem...

But the Los Angeles Times, which obtained the email, reports that Palin might not have the “clear path” to victory that the Tea Party Leadership Fund says she does. A February PPP poll had Begich’s approval rating at 49 percent, and winning in a potential match-up against Palin by a margin of 54-37 percent. 

Now Begich's approval numbers have taken a hit recently thanks to being one of the few Dems who ran away like a punkass coward (sorry Mark, it's true) from gun control legislation in the Senate last month.

But I'm willing to bet that Begich can still handily beat Gov. Quittina McHalfterm, and I'll back him all the way over her.  Of course, I'd back a jar of pickles over Moose Lady, so there's that.

In For One Hell Of A Rubio Awakening

Sen. Marco Rubio is finding out that hard truth about the bigots in his own party:  their votes on legislation count just as much as his.

Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged Tuesday on a conservative radio talk show that the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill won’t likely pass the Republican-led House.

The comments from Rubio, perhaps the most influential congressional Republican on immigration, illustrate the challenges facing the prospects for reform after months of private negotiations by a bipartisan coalition of senators produced a wide-ranging, 844-page bill.

“The bill that’s in place right now probably can’t pass the House,” Rubio told Mike Gallagher, a nationally syndicated talk show host. “It will have to be adjusted, because people are very suspicious about the willingness of the government to enforce the laws now.”

And what does Rubio mean by "have to be adjusted"?

Rubio was inviting conservatives to offer proposed changes to strengthen the bill instead of trying to sink it altogether. But of course, given all of the different interest groups with a stake in the debate, changes from the right are likely to cause some consternation on the left that could further complicate negotiations.

So what about efforts in the House? Well, if conservatives there get what they want, it’s unlikely the Democratic Senate would sign off. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said last week he plans chart a narrower path by introducing several small-scale proposals. Democrats hoping for a broad proposal were instantly alarmed over the idea.

House Republicans don't see any downside to sinking immigration reform and blaming Obama.  Given that 90% of House Republicans will be re-elected in 2014, why should they care?  We, the voters, aren't going to do anything.  You're not going to vote your GOP Congressperson out, frankly.  they've rigged it so you can't (thanks, 2010 voters!)

House Republicans realize they can hang Rubio out to dry here, along with Latino voters.  This was always going to be the case with immigration, but as with gun control, the real goal is to get Senate Republicans to kill the deal so that House Republicans don't have to take a vote.  That plan seems to be well underway now...

The Shine Has Flaked Off...For Now

Steve Benen reminds us that at least in the short term, Republicans who blocked Manchin-Toomey are actually paying a price for it.  The main question is if it will matter 18 months from now.

Yesterday, Public Policy Polling noted that Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), on the heels of his support for a Republican filibuster on gun reforms, has become the nation's least popular senator. The new figures point to Flake having a dismal 32% approval rating.

Asked about his poor standing, Flake initially blamed PPP, questioning the pollster's accuracy, despite its impressive track record. Today, the Arizona senator took a different line.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has an interesting take on a recent poll by Democratic Public Policy Polling that showed his approval rating imploding after his recent vote against expanded background checks for gun purchases: It's probably right.

"Nothing like waking up to a poll saying you're the nation's least popular senator," Flake wrote on his Facebook page late Monday night. "Given the public's dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum."

And yet Jeff Flake won't have to face voters until November 2018 at the earliest, five and half years from now.  You think Flake cares?  You think voters will remember?  Despite being a right-wing reactionary, he won by three points last year over Richard Carmona.  He may be in trouble now, but he's got a political lifetime to dig himself out of this hole, and the NRA will back him every step of the way.

He may be pond scum now, but in 2018, at least 45% of voters will say "Yeah, but he's our pond scum."

StupidiNews!

• The FDA has decided to approve "Plan B" emergency contraception for sale to girls 15 and older without a prescription.
• FBI sources say traces of ricin were found in the dojo of the man currently charged with trying to frame a Mississippi Elvis impersonator for sending poison-laced letters to politicians.
• President Obama's 100-day second term press conference included another vow to convince Congress to close Guantanamo Bay.
• CBS is the latest network to suggest it will stop broadcasting over the air and become a cable-only channel if "rebroadcaster" internet startup Aereo wins it court case to remain online.
• Apple took out $17 billion in bonds to raise cash in order to avoid having to repatriate offshore accounts that could cost them billions in taxes.

Last Call

The misleading, untruthful and generally stupid Obamacare DOOOOOOM articles are becoming a weekly occurrence now at FOX News the Wall Street Journal.

Start with people who have individual and small-group health insurance. These policies are most affected by ObamaCare's community-rating regulations, which require insurers to accept everyone but limit or ban them from varying premiums based on age or health. The law also mandates "essential" benefits that are far more generous than those currently offered.

According to consultants from Oliver Wyman (who wrote on the issue in the January issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries), around six million of the 19 million people with individual health policies are going to have to pay more—and this even after accounting for the government subsidies offered under the law. For example, single adults age 21-29 earning 300% to 400% of the federal poverty level will be hit with an increase of 46% even after premium assistance from tax credits.

"Insurance industry study finds that Obamacare will hurt insurance industry" is getting old, but now the nonsense is getting outright crazy.   By the way, if you're 21 and earning 300-400% of the federal poverty level, that's roughly $38-45k a year. That 46% premium increase means your insurance would go from about $60 a month to what, $85?  Somehow, if you're single and pulling down $45,000 at 21, you can afford it.  But we press on...

In total, it appears that there will be 30 million to 40 million people damaged in some fashion by the Affordable Care Act—more than one in 10 Americans. When that reality becomes clearer, the law is going to start losing its friends in the media, who are inclined to support the president and his initiatives. We'll hear about innocent victims who saw their premiums skyrocket, who were barred from seeing their usual doctor, who had their hours cut or lost their insurance entirely—all thanks to the faceless bureaucracy administering a federal law.

The allure of the David-versus-Goliath narrative is likely to prove irresistible to the media, raising the pressure on Washington to repeal or dramatically modify the law. With the implementation of ObamaCare beginning to take full force at the end of the year, there will be plenty of time before the 2014 midterm elections for Congress to consider its options.

Obamacare's not going anywhere.   When it starts working, people will accept it and move on.  Besides, Republicans have nothing to replace it with.