Last Call For The Entire Universe

If you missed the premier of Cosmos, hosted by astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson tonight, you can catch it on NatGeo Monday at 10 PM.



 My first thought is "Everyone needs to see this."

My second thought is "A whole lot of future astrophysicists just did."

The Rage Of The Turtle

Mitch McConnell seems to be feeling pretty good about not only his primary chances, but the primary chances of all his GOP establishment buddies, because apparently screw the Tea Party wing 

"I think we are going to crush them everywhere," McConnell said about Tea Party challengers in a New York Times interview published Saturday. "I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country."

McConnell faces a primary challenge from the right. The Senate Conservatives Fund, which backs Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin, believes the candidate has a chance of defeating McConnell the the primary.

"Mitch McConnell is clearly in trouble in this primary or he wouldn’t be attacking Matt Bevin and declaring war on conservatives," Matt Hoskins, the head of the SCF, told the New York Times.

Unless time and space have become unhinged, the last time I checked, Bevin was losing by 26 points.  So, the Turtle may actually be right about Bevin not having a shot in hell.  It would be too bad if the rest of Bevin's drooling maniacs also lost their primaries, because it would make it far easier for the Dems to keep the Senate if they won.

On the other hand, Mitch isn't exactly making friends with this interview among the Tea Party set, either...

Meanwhile, In Crimea...

Seems ol' Vlad here doesn't buy the idea of standing down too much ahead of the "referendum" at the end of next week for Crimea to "join" the guys pointing all the very large weapons at them.

Or else.

 Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.

Street violence flared in Sevastopol, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, when pro-Russian activists and Cossacks beat and kicked a group of Ukrainians at a meeting.

Russian forces' seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia.

The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich's flight from the country last month. Yanukovich was toppled after three months of demonstrations against a decision to spurn a free trade deal with the European Union for closer ties with Russia.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk will visit Washington this week for talks, a White House official said.

 So things get real on March 15th, when the "referendum" is scheduled.  Of course the vote will be overwhelmingly to join Mother Russia.  Then this all becomes about "the Russian minority in Crimea needing protection from the West."

It's been relatively bloodless so far.  That could change any second...and I'm not sure if there's anything we can do to stop Putin at this point, anyway.

Last Call For Realpoli-Ticked Off

Condi Rice is mad about Crimea, you guys.

The notion that the United States could step back, lower its voice about democracy and human rights and let others lead assumed that the space we abandoned would be filled by democratic allies, friendly states and the amorphous “norms of the international community.” Instead, we have seen the vacuum being filled by extremists such as al-Qaeda reborn in Iraq and Syria; by dictators like Bashar al-Assad, who, with the support of Iran and Russia, murders his own people; by nationalist rhetoric and actions by Beijing that have prompted nationalist responses from our ally Japan; and by the likes of Vladimir Putin, who understands that hard power still matters.

These global developments have not happened in response to a muscular U.S. foreign policy: Countries are not trying to “balance” American power. They have come due to signals that we are exhausted and disinterested. The events in Ukraine should be a wake-up call to those on both sides of the aisle who believe that the United States should eschew the responsibilities of leadership. If it is not heeded, dictators and extremists across the globe will be emboldened. And we will pay a price as our interests and our values are trampled in their wake.

The funny part is the absolute entirety of Condoleezza Rice's credibility as a serious foreign policy expert is completely obliterated by the words "Iraq" or "Afghanistan", which ends up being about 2,498 words fewer words than she vomited out to the WaPo's opinion page.

Oh well.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

National Journal's Alex Seitz-Wald asks:

Is Ben Carson the Republican Who Can Defeat Hillary Clinton?

Before you laugh, consider this: The group that put Carson on the hotel keys has outraised Clinton's draft committee, Ready for Hillary; has been on the ground in Iowa; and is working from the playbook written by Howard Dean and Barack Obama.

It's all the work of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, which is trying to get the conservative neurosurgeon to run for president. It's part fan club, part savvy campaign.

The case for Carson is all about math and race. Carson is African-American and his supporters think that will be his path to victory. He's "a respected figure among black Americans," the video explains, and if he can win just 17 percent of the black vote, it is "mathematically impossible" for a Democrat to win the White House.

17% of the black vote is turns out to be about 2% of the voting public, but if the black vote really is that important, why do Republicans keep doing such a miserable job of attracting black voters?

Big problem for GOP. Most important #CPAC2014 panel. Topic: minority outreach. View: largely empty room. pic.twitter.com/LQKQ0QwwVc
— John Hudak (@JohnJHudak) March 6, 2014

Of course, Republicans could accomplish the same thing (reducing the African-American vote by 17%) with restrictive voting laws in swing states like Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia.

Which explains the empty room at the minority outreach panel.

Millennial Mish-Mash

The latest Pew Research study on Millennial voters finds a number of facts:  They are political independents (50% are), more likely to not have a religious affiliation than older Americans (29% do not), far less likely to be married (26% are), very cynical when it comes to trusting most people (19% do), much more likely to have a four-year college degree (33% of those 26-33 do) and support gay rights (51% do).

But there's a big gap in the political views of Millennials based on race, and it's larger than any other generation.

 

The political views of Millennials differ significantly across racial and ethnic lines. About half of white Millennials (51%) say they are political independents. The remainder divide between the Republican (24%) and Democratic (19%) parties. Among non-white Millennials, about as many (47%) say they are independent. But nearly twice as many (37%) identify as Democrats while just 9% identify as Republicans.

These partisan patterns are closely linked to views of Obama. While Millennials as a group are somewhat more approving of Obama than Gen Xers, Boomers or Silents, these differences are driven more by race and ethnicity than by age. White Millennials’ views of Obama are not substantially different from those of older whites. Some 34% of white Millennials approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared with 33% of Gen Xers, 37% of Boomers and 28% of Silents. By contrast 67% of non-white Millennials give Obama high marks for the job he’s doing as president.

So two huge things here:  first of all, age doesn't make any real difference among whites when it comes to Obama's job approval.  Younger whites have essentially the same low approval of President Obama as their Gen X parents, Boomer grandparents, and Silent great-grandparents do.

Second, the gap is actually largest between white and non-white Gen X'ers when it comes to the role of government in our lives. 

White and non-white Millennials have different views on the role of government as well. On balance, white Millennials say they would prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services (52%), rather than a bigger government that provides more services (39%). Non-white Millennials lean heavily toward a bigger government: 71% say they would prefer a bigger government that provides more services, while only 21% say they would prefer a smaller government. The racial gaps are about as wide among Gen Xers and Boomers. 

Majorities of white Millennials what smaller government and don't think healthcare is the government's business, but actually the racial gap here is much larger among my fellow Gen X'ers.  Two-thirds of whites in my generation want smaller government, 71% of non-whites want more. 61% say it's not the government's business to provide healthcare, 64% of non-whites find the opposite true.

In both cases, I would have easily guessed the gap would have been largest among the Boomers.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Malaysia Airline flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing has vanished, as search and rescue teams have now been deployed looking for the crew and 239 passengers.
• The US Border Patrol has issued new guidelines for use of deadly force in the wake of 28 migrants dead since 2010.
• US and EU cyber security officials say they have uncovered a sophisticated Russian spyware operation dubbed "Turla" targeting government networks.
• California under the most recent term of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is beating the national average in growth of millionaires...and growth in people on SNAP benefits.
• A judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has rejected the federal government's bid to keep exiting metadata records for longer than five years.

Last Call For Mr. Mom Jeans

Apparently the Winger War on Women now includes Washington Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti ("The Free Beacon: when it's not classy enough for the DC Examiner") assigning pretty much every conservative stereotype involving liberal women to one President Barack Obama.

“In terms of stereotypes, various psychological studies show that men gravitate to the hard power of command,” Joseph Nye wrote in 2012, “while women are collaborative and intuitively understand the soft power of attraction and persuasion.” He adds, “Recent leadership studies show increased success for what was once considered a ‘feminine style.’” Collaborate, intuitive, soft, attractive, persuasive—these attributes of the “feminine style” are perfect descriptors of Barack Obama’s relation to the world, or at least to those parts of the world that are not Republican or Israeli.

Nye describes the path women must travel to reach power: “Women are generally not well integrated into male networks that dominate organizations,” he writes, “and gender stereotypes still hamper women who try to overcome such barriers.” What he writes about women could also be written about Obama, who disdains glad-handing and networking, who “doesn’t really like people,” who in domestic politics has given up entirely negotiations with the “male networks that dominate organizations” such as the House of Representatives, who every day is hampered by the stereotype that he is brilliant, logical, debonair, pragmatic, witty, world-changing, deeply read, hip.

Yet Obama has overcome such barriers. He is one of a kind. Knowing their struggles, sharing their opinions, committed to abortion whenever and to contraception for all, supportive of equal pay for equal work, practicing the soft power diplomacy of defense cuts, of negotiations, of needling, of chiding, delivering geopolitical statements frompre-school classrooms, snapping selfies with the girls at state funerals, displaying almost every trope of womanhood outlined by the theoretician of soft power himself, Barack Obama has as much of a claim as the next girl to being the first woman president. Do not “other” him. Love him. Celebrate him. Open your mind, as I have. And Hillary: Take note. We already have a woman in the White House.

This is what passes for "witty humor" among the troglodyte set this month.  Because estrogen is funny, or something.   But hey, give Continetti some credit: he manages to be a completely unfunny misogynist dudebro prick at the same time that he's a mouth-breathing racist asshole, and that takes some effort.

Zombie-Eyed Kid Starver Paul Ryan

Attention poor people:  did you know that allowing your kids to eat free or reduced price lunches at school means you simply don't love your kids enough to work more hours to be able to afford meals?  (And why don't you love your children enough to make lunches for them, you horrible scum?)

Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the former Republican vice presidential nominee argued that conservatives should let Democrats be the “party of personality,” while “we will be the party of ideas.”

“I’m optimistic about our chances because the left, the left just isn’t out of ideas, they’re out of touch,” he explained. “Take Obamacare — not literally, but figuratively here, okay? We now know that this law will discourage millions of people from working. The left thinks this is a good thing.”

Ryan insisted that liberals were only offering people “a full stomach and an empty soul.”

He then told a story of a “young boy from a very poor family” who received free lunches at school “from a government program.”

“He didn’t want a free lunch,” Ryan insisted. “He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown paper bag, just like the other kids.”

“He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand.”

 Of course, what the right doesn't understand is that being poor doesn't mean you love your children any less, but that notion that whoever has the most stuff means you have the most love is pretty much the entire raison d'etre of modern conservative parenting:  If you were truly loving and deserving parents with good values and moral standards, you wouldn't be poor in the first place.

Oh, but here's the best part of the story:  It's 100% nonsense.  Even much-maligned WaPo "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler dropped the dreaded "Four Pinocchios" rating on Ryan's story in less than 24 hours.

It turns out that Ryan stole the story from Wisconsin's GOP Department of Children and Families head Eloise Anderson.  Oh but it gets worse:

But the story doesn’t end there. Wonkette, a satiric blog, wondered if Anderson’s story was actually derived from a 2011 book titled “The Invisible Thread,” by Laura Schroff, which is a book about a busy executive and her relationship with an 11-year-old homeless panhandler named Maurice Mazyck. His mother was a drug addict, in jail, who had stolen things and cashed in food stamps to pay for drugs. At one point, Schroff offers to bring Mazyck lunch every day so he won’t go hungry.

And worse:

This actually seemed a little strange. Could the tale told in congressional testimony really be drawn from a book? It did not make much sense in part because Schroff and Mazyck are partnering with a group called No Kid Hungry to help end childhood hunger in the United States. One key part of the program is connecting hungry kids with federal programs such as school lunches and food stamps. The group also opposed Ryan’s 2013 budget for its proposed reductions in the food stamp program.

And worse.

Here at The Fact Checker, we often deal with situations in which people misspeak. We certainly don’t try to play gotcha. But this is a different order of magnitude. Anderson, in congressional testimony, represented that she spoke to this child—and then ripped the tale out of its original context. That’s certainly worthy of Four Pinocchios.

But what about Ryan? Should he get a pass because he heard this from a witness before Congress? It really depends on the circumstances. In this case, he referenced the story in a major speech. The burden always falls on the speaker and we believe politicians need to check the facts in any prepared remarks.

In this case, apparently, the story was too good to check. We appreciate he is regretful now. But a simple inquiry would have determined that the person telling the story actually is an advocate for the federal programs that Ryan now claims leaves people with “a full stomach and an empty soul.” So he also earns Four Pinocchios.

And this guy will almost certainly be running for President.  The guy is such a scumbag that, in order to attack free school lunches for poor kids, he stole a story from another Republican who stole the story first from an author who was pointing out how badly poor kids need things like school lunches.

And the best part:

This story recounted an incident from more than 25 years ago. 

When Paul Ryan was still in high school.

Presumably eating a school lunch.

Think about that for a moment.

Out-FOX-ing FOX News

The Perpetual Right-Wing Outrage Machine has to always be running, and FOX News has apparently become too mainstream for some.  The fringe wants in on the billions, and that means a new cable network with maximum wingnut, headed by Newsmax's Chris Ruddy.

Newsmax, which had revenue of $104 million in 2013, up from $85 million the year before, is perhaps best known for its namesake, 200,000-circulation monthly magazine. A conservative reimagining of the traditional newsweekly, Newsmaxpublishes political stories such as “President Obama’s Outrageous Power Grab” and ads for gold coins and hearing aids. For conservative politicians, making aNewsmax cover is an important stamp of validation. Newsmax.com, launched in 1998, before the magazine, is the most trafficked conservative site on the Web, with more than 11.5 million visitors in January, according to ComScore (SCOR). On a recent morning, the featured posts on the home page were “Obama Intel Reforms Threaten US Security,” “GOP Poised to Retake Senate as Disillusioned Democrats Depart,” and “Bomb-Strapped Islamists Threaten ‘Present’ at Olympics.” Ruddy has amassed a 5 million-person e-mail list, one reason Republican presidential candidates stop in to see him.

What’s remarkable about Ruddy’s prominence in the Republican media establishment is that he isn’t even a Republican, and Newsmax isn’t a conventional media company. Ruddy has taken Newsmax’s boomer audience, average age 54.7, and figured out how to sell it far more than political news. Newsmax, the corporation, is a smorgasbord of political, health, and financial information, self-help books, and even vitamin supplements constantly pushed through the website and e-mail lists. This eclectic array of products—the company made $46 million in subscription revenue from its 17 newsletters and $6 million from vitamin supplements in 2013—makes Newsmax less of a news business and more of a strange hybrid of the Heritage Foundation and Amway. It was Amway founder Richard Devos who suggested to Ruddy that Newsmax could sell supplements to his middle-aged audience.

Here's the kicker:

Ruddy is registered as an Independent and is more moderate than the rhetoric typically espoused by his media properties. He has become friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton and won’t rule out supporting Hillary for president in 2016. All of which makes his latest ambition, to build a TV network that he believes will challenge the conservative news monopoly of Fox News, either a misguided fantasy or a cunningly disruptive business plan.

If you ever needed proof that politics is 100% about the money, Chris Ruddy is it.

And this guy is going to make a mint.

This June, Ruddy plans to launch NewsmaxTV, a 24-hour cable news channel that will be, he says, a kinder, gentler Fox. “Our goal is to be a little more boomer-oriented, more information-based rather than being vituperative and polarizing,” he says. Ruddy says he can make NewsmaxTV profitable entirely through advertising and selling Newsmax’s consumer products over the air. It’s the same business model that’s been successful for QVC, Home Shopping Network (HSNI), and numerous televangelists, but no one has tried it in cable news. He’s quick to add that he doesn’t need to beat Fox News, he just needs to shave off a little of its audience—particularly those conservatives who feel Fox has drifted too far to the right. “If we take 10 to 15 percent of the Fox audience,” he says, “and they are making $1 billion a year, then we are going to be hugely profitable.”

Yep.  And the suckers of the far left and far right will flock to these guys.

StupidiNews!

• Ukraine's government is rejecting a vote by lawmakers in the country's Crimea region to secede and join the Russian Federation.
• The FBI is investigating whether Senate Intelligence Committee staffers removed classified documents in order to release information critical of the CIA in a report.
• Cerberus Capital Group will buy California-based Safeway supermarkets in a deal worth $9.4 billion in order to merge the chain with Cerberus-owned Albertson's.
• In a 385-23 vote, the House passed a $1 billion aid package to the Ukrainian government in order to provide loan guarantees and financial stability.
• Sony PlayStation division head Jack Tretton will step down as CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America after 19 years helming the console's rise in the US.

Last Call For Doom And Gloom

If Charlie Cook and his team at the National Journal are right about the 2014 midterms, the question isn't "Will the GOP win the Senate back" but  "How close to a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority will they get?"

At this point, eight months before the Nov. 4 election, it’s hard to see a lot of good news for congressional Democrats.

No matter how you look at it, the House seems out of reach. Today, Republicans appear a bit more likely to gain than to lose seats; it would take a cataclysmic event for Democrats to score the net gain of the 17 seats they need to take the majority.

What’s changed is that Democrats’ chances of holding onto their majority in the Senate is looking increasingly tenuous. There are now at least 10, and potentially as many as 13, Democratic-held seats in jeopardy. By contrast, only two GOP seats are in any meaningful danger, and that number hasn’t changed in six months.

In other words, Cook is predicting the GOP getting 58 seats if everything breaks their way.  That would put them in range of 60, especially if such a crushing margin caused Maine Independent Angus King to flip from caucusing with the Dems.  That would be 59.  And if you believe that, well, remember 2012?

Things are starting to look grisly for Senate Democrats. President Obama’s approval ratings average 41 percent, basically where President George W. Bush’s poll numbers were at this point before his own disastrous 2006 second-term, midterm election. And the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative and policy achievement, is now even more unpopular than it was in October and November of 2010, when Democrats lost 63 seats, control of the House, and a half-dozen Senate seats. It doesn’t help that midterm electorates tend to be older and whiter than in presidential elections. Obama’s current job-approval ratings are also worse than they were in October and November of 2010.

The two most likely legislative land mines for Republicans to step on between now and Election Day have been defused: The government is now funded, and Congress won’t need to lift the debt ceiling between now and November. As a result, it is not clear where the kind of break that Democrats need could emerge.

On the other hand, Cook believes President Obama is "radioactive" and that the Democrats are doomed anyway.

Of course, they were doomed to lose the Senate in 2012, too.  And in 2016, it'll be the Republicans who have to defend their Senate Tea Party gains from 2010 in states like Ohio and Illinois.  If the Dems can hold out in November, 2016 is looking really good.

But in order to do that, we need people to vote in November.

Grayson's Got To Go If This Is True

If these allegations of domestic violence are true, then there's no place for Rep. Alan Grayson in the Democratic Party of 2014.

A judge has granted a temporary protective injunction against U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson after his wife filed paperwork accusing the Orlando congressman of shoving and injuring her during an incident this past weekend.

Lolita Grayson's petition for the injunction, dated Monday, says her husband pushed her against a door, causing her to fall to the ground, during a confrontation Saturday at their home on Oak Park Road near Windermere.

In a statement, Alan Grayson's press secretary, Lauren Doney, wrote that the allegations "are absolutely false, completely unfounded, and clearly designed to vilify and harm Congressman Grayson."

"Congressman Grayson firmly denies Ms. Grayson's frivolous accusations," the statement said.

The incident comes just less than two months after Lolita Grayson filed a divorce petition stating that their marriage of nearly 24 years was "irretrievably broken."

Grayson denies the allegations and says a staffer there was a witness.

Juan Lopez, the congressman's director of constituent services, told the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday that he was present at the Grayson home Saturday and watched the incident from about 15 feet away.

Lopez said Alan Grayson never shoved or struck his wife: "Absolutely not .... It's just unfortunate that this is happening and that she would say something like this."

I understand divorces are messy, emotional, and wrenching experiences.  That's no excuse.  If Grayson did this to his wife, he's lost the privilege of representing anyone in public office, period.  Grayson has every right to fight this in court, but he knows if this is true or not.

Either way, he owes his constituents an explanation, so let's hear it.

The Kroog Vs. The Poverty Trap

Paul Krugman on GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's austerity budget, 2014 edition being a load of crap:

How so? Well, Ryan et al — conservatives in general — claim to care deeply about opportunity, about giving those not born into affluence the ability to rise. And they claim that their hostility to welfare-state programs reflects their assessment that these programs actually reduce opportunity, creating a poverty trap. As Ryan once put it,

"we don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives."

OK, do you notice the assumption here? It is that reduced incentives to work mean reduced social mobility. Is there any reason to believe this as a general proposition?

The answer of course is "no".
 

In fact, the evidence suggests that welfare-state programs enhance social mobility, thanks to little things like children of the poor having adequate nutrition and medical care. And conversely,of course, when such programs are absent or inadequate, the poor find themselves in a trap they often can’t escape, not because they lack the incentive, but because they lack the resources.

I mean, think about it: Do you really believe that making conditions harsh enough that poor women must work while pregnant or while they still have young children actually makes it more likely that those children will succeed in life?

The answer to that is no as well, but that's why Republicans immediately jump from this national policy argument to individual shaming and blaming of the single mother in question and respond with some increasingly awful variation of "She's the one who doomed the child to a lack of social mobility.  Bitch should have either kept her legs closed or married the kid's father.  Why should the taxpayer pick up the tab for that bad decision?"

And then these moral beacons of caring nod and shrug and pat themselves on the back, because Tough Love.  We can never have a debate over the fallacy of "hard work = success" because we're too busy stuck in the fallacy of  "unmarried women having sex = cause of all social ills".

StupidiNews!

• Israeli Defense Forces have intercepted a cargo ship that contained an Iranian shipment of "advanced weaponry" for militants in Gaza.
• A new gene therapy that blocks the transmission of HIV by eliminating the immune system protein that the virus needs to enter healthy T-cells may be a breakthrough in fighting AIDS.
• High-level diplomatic talks between the US and Russia in Paris have not yet yielded any solutions to stabilizing Ukraine.
• A California jury has handed down a conviction on 22 counts of corporate espionage in the case of Walter Liew, a DuPont consultant who stole company secrets to sell to China.
• Scientists have measured the spin of a quasar six billion years old, marking the first time a super-massive black hole has been measured in a galaxy other than our own.