Last Call For The Fall Of David

And David Petraeus's military career and political ambitions end with a plea deal to keep him out of a lengthy prison sentence.

Mr. Petraeus will plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison. Mr. Petraeus has signed the agreement, said Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman.

The plea deal completes a spectacular fall for Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general who was once discussed as a possible candidate for vice president or even president. He led the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the architect of a counterinsurgency strategy that at one time seemed a model for future warfare.

The mistress, Paula Broadwell, is a former Army Reserve officer who had an affair with Mr. Petraeus in 2011, when she was interviewing him for a biography, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.”

Mr. Petraeus resigned as the director of the C.I.A. in 2012, three days after President Obama was re-elected. At the time, Mr. Petraeus acknowledged the affair. He has since denied any criminal wrongdoing.

The plea deal spares Mr. Petraeus a high-profile trial where embarrassing details about the affair would have been presented to the jury and made public. Mr. Petraeus is still married to Holly Petraeus.

And while his political ambitions are toast, don't feel bad for the guy.

Mr. Petraeus has also made a significant amount of money since leaving the C.I.A. He is a partner at one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and he has taught at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard.

Nice work if you can get it.

Please Get This Man Some Help

I'm beginning to think the former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, who resigned earlier this year in disgrace over ethics issue with his fiancee, is in serious need of a mental health assessment.

Police were called to an Oregon landfill on Feb. 20 after the state's former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) and his fiancee were spotted there dumping trash amid a federal investigation surrounding his time in office, The Oregonian newspaper reported on Friday.

Kitzhaber and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, had rarely been seen in public since his resignation on Feb. 18 when the couple left Salem, Ore., the paper reported.

Both Kitzhaber and Hayes have been the subjects of a federal investigation, the Oregonian reported.

On Feb. 20, the couple was seen at the Knott Landfill near Bend, Ore. throwing away trash, the director of the Deschutes County Solid Waste Department told the Oregonian.

Due to a credit card processing error, the landfill's system was reportedly locked and a supervisor was forced to reset it. However, during the incident, law enforcement officials were alerted and deputies from the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office arrived at the landfill, the paper reported.

You're under federal investigation...and you go to a landfill to dump trash in full view of everyone.  The guy needs help, in all seriousness, and I hope he gets what he needs.  If he really is this brazen, well, the law will certainly have a lot more questions for him now.

Giving In To Both Sides

Vox's Matthew Yglesias gives in the "both sides do it" narrative and takes it to the extreme, declaring America is simply done for.  Yggy's gone full emoprog:

Some day — not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies — there is going to be a collapse of the legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent. If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better, more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen.

Very few people agree with me about this, of course. When I say it, people generally think that I'm kidding. America is the richest, most successful country on earth. The basic structure of its government has survived contested elections and Great Depressions and civil rights movements and world wars and terrorist attacks and global pandemics. People figure that whatever political problems it might have will prove transient — just as happened before.

But voiced in another register, my outlandish thesis is actually the conventional wisdom in the United States. Back when George W. Bush was president and I was working at a liberal magazine, there was a very serious discussion in an editorial meeting about the fact that the United States was now exhibiting 11 of the 13 telltale signs of a fascist dictatorship. The idea that Bush was shredding the Constitution and trampling on congressional prerogatives was commonplace. When Obama took office, the partisan valence of the complaints shifted, but their basic tenor didn't. Conservative pundits — not the craziest, zaniest ones on talk radio, but the most serious and well-regarded —compare Obama's immigration moves to the actions of a Latin-American military dictator.

In the center, of course, it's an article of faith that when right and left talk like this they're simply both wrong. These are nothing but the overheated squeals of partisans and ideologues.

At the same time, when the center isn't complaining about the excessively vociferous complaints of the out-party of the day, it tends to be in full-blown panic about the state of American politics. And yet despite the popularity of alarmist rhetoric, few people act like they're actually alarmed. Accusations that Barack Obama or John Boehner or any other individual politician is failing as a leader are flung, and then abandoned when the next issue arises. In practice, the feeling seems to be that salvation is just one election away. Hillary Clinton even told Kara Swisher recently that her agenda if she runs for president is to end partisan gridlock.

It's not going to work.

The breakdown of American constitutional democracy is a contrarian view. But it's nothing more than the view that rather than everyone being wrong about the state of American politics, maybe everyone is right. Maybe Bush and Obama are dangerously exceeding norms of executive authority. Maybe legislative compromise really has broken down in an alarming way. And maybe the reason these complaints persist across different administrations and congresses led by members of different parties is that American politics is breaking down.

Obama really is as lawless as Bush, there's no discernible difference between the parties, partisans will make sure that ever-escalating Constitutional crises will eventually destroy America's government, and most of all, there's no reason to vote.

Your money shot:

The idea that America's constitutional system might be fundamentally flawed cuts deeply against the grain of our political culture. But the reality is that despite its durability, it has rarely functioned well by the standards of a modern democracy. The party system of the Gilded Age operated through systematic corruption. The less polarized era that followed was built on the systematic disenfranchisement of African-Americans. The newer system of more ideological politics has solved those problems and seems in many ways more attractive. But over the past 25 years, it's set America on a course of paralysis and crisis — government shutdowns, impeachment, debt ceiling crises, and constitutional hardball. Voters, understandably, are increasingly dissatisfied with the results and confidence in American institutions has been generally low and falling. But rather than leading to change, the dissatisfaction has tended to yield wild electoral swings that exacerbate the sense of permanent crisis.

We're all suckers apparently, but none more so than Yglesias.

The best we can hope for is that when the crisis does come, Americans will have the wisdom to do for ourselves what we did in the past for Germany and Japan and put a better system in place.

Because history of course shows us that when a democratic government collapses after being bled dry by the moneyed elite, its replacement is better.

Idiocy.

StupidiNews!

• A new federal government report finds that the FAAs cybersecurity is lacking and that the nation's air traffic control system is vulnerable to hackers.
• A White House task force report finds that the nation's police forces need more oversight and must do more to earn the trust of minority neighborhoods that they serve.
• President Obama says that part of any deal with Iran must include Tehran suspending any nuclear research for at least a full decade.
• Google is getting into the wireless service provider game, unveiling a plan to test limited mobile phone service in areas of the US where it already provides broadband internet.
• Seattle's police department is introducing a blurred, sound-free body cam channel on YouTube to show skeptics that police body cameras do work.

Last Call For Choosing Sides

AIPAC, for those of you playing at home, stands for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. You know, "American" is first in the name. Unfortunately, the group has decided that this now means precisely nothing.

The leadership of the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. publicly broke Sunday from the White House over the issue of Iran policy during the first of a three-day policy conference in Washington attended by 16,000 of its members. 

Leaders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, outlined a strategy moving forward of working through Congress to disrupt any nuclear agreement with Tehran that is deemed too weak in denying the country a nuclear weapons capability. 

This would be achieved, they said, both by seeking to impose new sanctions on Iran and to block the White House’s ability to lift standing U.S. sanctions, which would be required as part of any comprehensive agreement. 

“Congress has a critical role” in determining this deal, Howard Kohr, Aipac’s executive director, said in opening remarks aimed at rallying the group’s membership. “Congress’s role doesn’t end when there is a deal. Congress must review this deal.” 

Mr. Kohr and other Aipac leaders believe any final agreement with Iran must involve the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, something Obama administration officials have said is no longer on the negotiating table. 

Aipac also is seeking to impose new sanctions on Iran if there is no agreement by a late March deadline and to legislate an up-or-down vote in Congress. The White House is opposing both legislative actions. 

Aipac’s efforts to shape the Iran deal through the Congress are being driven by what the organization believes has been President Barack Obama’s wariness of using both financial pressure and the threat of military force to challenge Tehran.

So we have a foreign advocacy group, in country, publicly attacked our coutry's stated foreign policy and the president who made it.

There's a word for that.

There's a word for the members of Congress supporting AIPAC here too.

And certainly the conservative side believes it's time for some "strange fruit" for daring to be an American supporting America over Israel.

A Big Retirement In A Small State

The news today that Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland won't seek re-election in 2016 has both parties scrambling, and the list of her possible replacements includes former Gov. Martin O'Malley. He's now faced with the question of a very winnable Senate contest versus a long shot Oval Office bid in 2016.

Several of the seven Maryland Democrats in Congress are expected to consider jumping into the race, including Reps. Chris Van Hollen, Elijah Cummings, Donna Edwards, John Delaney and possibly Rep. John Sarbanes, whose father also served in the Senate.

Many in Maryland and on Capitol Hill have long viewed Van Hollen, a former aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who lives in Montgomery County, as a likely candidate for Senate once Mikulski stepped aside.

In the last six years, however, Van Hollen has become an increasingly loyal understudy of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has at times considered retiring herself. That means a Van Hollen bid for the Senate could also upend the eventual race to replace Pelosi.

The Senate seat could also be tempting for O’Malley (D), who left office because of term limits in January and is weighing a 2016 presidential bid that has yet to get any traction.

O’Malley has been close to Mikulski for decades. He worked as the field director on her 1986 campaign, and O’Malley’s 87-year-old mother continues to serve as Mikulski’s receptionist.

Mikulski has been cool to the idea of an O’Malley presidential bid, however, announcing she intends to support Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination if the former secretary of state runs.

At the same time, O’Malley has served in an executive role for the past 15 years — a stint that includes his tenure as Baltimore mayor — and advisers have previously said that he has limited appetite for legislative service.

Other names being talked about on the Democratic side include Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a former Montgomery County Council member and state-level Cabinet secretary; and former Montgomery County delegate Heather Mizeur, who ran unexpectedly strong in last year’s Democratic primary for governor on the strength of progressive support.

As with  Sen. Barbara Boxer's seat in California, this is a solid blue state where a lot of Dems have been waiting in the wings to claim the prize for a long time.  Mikulski has been serving for 29 years in the Senate and 12 in the House before that, making her the longest-serving woman in Congress, but the retirement wasn't entirely out of the question either as she will be 80 on Election Day in 2016.

We'll see where the Dems fall out and fall in there in Maryland, but remember, taking the eye off the ball is what cost the Dems the Governor's mansion in the state last year, and many (including myself) blame O'Malley for that screw up.

Schock And Flaw, Con't

More news organizations are taking a critical look at GOP Rep. Aaron Schock's hefty travel budget, often at taxpayer expense, as he continues to battle ethics and legal problems.  This time it's the Chicago Sun-Times with news that Schock took a private plane to a Chicago Bears game, among other "expenses".

Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., used taxpayer money to pay for a private plane to travel from Peoria to Chicago for the Bears-Vikings game on Nov. 16, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

And a Sun-Times examination of House disbursement records and campaign finance reports suggests that Schock used taxpayer money to help underwrite a September trip to New York, where a political action committee he controls spent $3,000 for Global Citizen Festival concert tickets.

The use of $20,855 in taxpayer money for the Chicago and New York trips will raise more legal and ethical issues for Schock.

These new Sun-Times revelations are part of a growing number of questions surrounding Schock’s use of campaign and government funds to support his extravagant jet-set lifestyle.

Schock hired two lawyers last week to conduct an internal audit of his operations. That action was triggered by the enormous scrutiny Schock is getting following his “Downton Abbey” office redecoration in Washington.

Pretty sure Schock's problem is that he needs to cook his books better.  But it's hard playing charte jet tag with the one percenters in Congress.  He has to look like he belongs if anyone's going to take him seriously.

Sadly, being crooked and not being able to lie about it very well pretty much disqualifies him from being a member of Congress, does it not?  We like our liars to at least be competent ones.

StupidiNews!

• North Korea has launched two short-range missiles into the East Sea as joint military exercises between the US and South Korea get underway.
• France has shut down the country's oldest nuclear power plant at Fessenheim after regular inspection found a defect in a water pipe.
• British authorities say the ISIS militant "Jihadi John" has been linked to a failed 2005 attempt to bomb London's Underground.
• Chinese Communist Party leaders are meeting this week to set economic goals for the country and have cut interest rates ahead of the yearly meeting.
• Ride share company Uber has admitted that a data breach last May could have exposed the names and driver's license numbers of as many as 50,000 drivers for the company.

Last Call For Wrong To Work

Kentucky's not exactly a union state, far from it.  But it's not a "right to work" state either, what Republicans gleefully should call "right to destroy what few unions are left here"  There's still not enough support for a statewide right to fire people law here, but several counties are trying to make it a local issue, including the counties that border Cincinnati on the Ohio, where I live.

The state legislature has debated the issue for years and remains sharply divided along party lines. Now, an increasing number of Kentucky counties are acting on their own: Half a dozen have enacted local right-to-work laws, and at least a dozen more are considering them.

Kenton County held a first reading of its ordinance last week and is expected to enact it March 10. Boone County's will come up for a vote on March 17. Campbell County Judge-executive Steve Pendery said the issue could come up "relatively soon" there.

The ordinances would not affect existing labor contracts, nor public employees' unions.

All three counties are controlled by Republicans, who generally view the right-to-work issue as an economic development one. Many Democrats, however, view it as a union-busting move, and local labor unions have vowed to oppose the ordinances.

"We've heard for some time through Tri-ED that not being a right-to-work state costs us opportunities," said Boone County Judge-executive Gary Moore. "Now that there appears to be the ability for passing right-to-work on county basis, we want to take a serious look at it."

Knochelmann said he isn't sure how many Kenton Countians are unionized, but "I don't know that it really matters – if it's one or if it's 50,000, we are not getting the opportunities for businesses to locate in Northern Kentucky in particular – or the state as whole – because we're not right-to-work."

Think about that.  The argument is that union busting, making sure that workers get paid as little as possible, low enough that they have to rely on federal aid, is good for Northern Kentucky.  This is the chief argument: a job that pays a lousy wage is better than no job at all.  Specific employers won't bring jobs here unless they have the right to bankrupt unions.  Are those employers you would want to work for?

But is it?  More importantly, do Kentucky counties have the right to enact these union-busting laws on a county-by-county basis?

We're going to see, and expect these laws to be tied up for years in the courts.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Republicans, particularly governors and senators of red states who refused to create state insurance exchanges in protest of Obama's "tyranny", are realizing far too late just who is getting screwed here should King v Burwell turn into the end of subsidies for federal exchanges.

The loss of subsidies for millions of people would also put the Obama administration on the offense for the first time to protect its signature healthcare law.

A White House crusade against the GOP would mean a firestorm of accusations that the party is taking away care and endangering lives – building up for the 2016 election.

To avoid that situation, some Republicans are floating a stopgap that would keep the subsidies in place temporarily.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) promised this week that he would introduce legislation extending the ObamaCare subsidies for 18 months after a court decision.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) hinted at a similar proposal earlier in the week, promising "a short-term solution” until a Republican can enter the White House.

The willingness to embrace the subsidies from two staunch ObamaCare foes is a major shift in tactics, signaling a growing sense of urgency within the party on the biggest court case of the year.

“I’m really, really shocked. We were all like, ‘whoa,’” one GOP Senate aide said of Hatch’s remarks about a short-term fix. “That is easily one of the most constructive things a Republican has said regarding King, ever.”

The problem, as always, the tea party hardliners in the GOP House who want to see their own constituent burn.

“There’s no reason for us to stretch out the funding for an unconstitutional extension. There’s no reason to do that. It just puts more pressure on us to adopt more ObamaCare,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told The Hill this week.

State lawmakers across the country, though, are seeking their own fallback plans. Nine states are in talks to keep subsidies by creating their own exchanges, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which would make the state’s ObamaCare customers eligible for subsidies under the current law.

Democrats argue that Congress should simply tweak any language in ObamaCare that the justices rule unconstitutional. And the White House maintains that it has no plans to prevent the massive disruption that would be caused by the ruling.

With just four months until the Supreme Court’s ruling, some Republicans are warning that time is running out for the party’s long-sought alternative.

There is no Republican alternative to Obamacare.  There never will be.  8 million red state voters are going to lose their subsidies, lose their health insurance, and lose their peace of mind.  And they will only have the Republicans to blame.

Sunday Long Read: Adventures In Journalimisim

This week's Sunday Long Read is Ken Silverstein's amazing expose' of Glenn Greenwald and the clowns at The Intercept, who got high on their own egos and hired a bunch of crack journalists...and nobody who actually knew how to run a investigative news website.

Back when I was hired, First Look and The Intercept were just getting started. It seemed like it was going to be a fantastic opportunity for journalists. I was told that I could basically create my own job and write investigative stories about anything I wanted. I knew at the time little about Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire who founded and funded First Look, but he wasn’t a big part of my decision-making.

I assumed Omidyar must be a decent guy if he was going to pour $250 million into a new journalism venture, as he promised. Given that the organization had been founded in the wake of the NSA surveillance scandal that Snowden had launched, it was clear from the start that First Look Media would be a muckracking, confrontational publication with a libertarian streak—distrustful of government power and moneyed interests. To start it, Omidyar promised $50 million to get it off the ground. With resources like that, it had tremendous promise.

Plus, I figured, it couldn’t be worse than my last job.

How wrong I was—on both counts.

During the summer of 2013 I had been offered a job at Al Jazeera’s investigative unit, where I’d been promised full independence. I took the job because I was worried about the future of journalism—and especially my future in it. It hadn’t worked out as promised; I only lasted two months, quitting after I came to believe that the network’s political agenda in the Middle East compromised my ability to do journalism.

First Look couldn’t be any worse than that, right?

The selling point to those who were recruited to First Look was tremendous resources and tremendous freedom to pursue “fearless, independent journalism.” An editor I’d worked with before, Eric Bates, recruited me—asking me to write up a memo describing my dream job, an investigative position that combined long-form work with quick hit pieces oriented to the news. Then First Look hired me and told me to do exactly what I’d laid out.

That much happened—I was able to pursue all sorts of great stories. Where First Look faltered, though, was actually publishing my work and the work of the other journalists it hired.

Over the next six months, First Look became a slowly unfolding disaster, not because of editorial meddling from the top, but because of what I came to believe was epic managerial incompetence. What I observed was that the Omidyar-led management could not complete the simplest tasks—approving budgets or hires—without months of internal debate and apparent anguish. The Intercept didn’t even begin publishing until last February. (We weren’t supposed to call it “Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept” because a lot of other people worked there, including me for a bit, but everyone knew Glenn was the anchor of the project.) After a pause ordered by editor in chief John Cook to address its internal dysfunction, the site relaunched in July with a good, complicated story about how the NSA and the FBI had been monitoring a few Muslim-Americans in the United States. Yet I saw how difficult the story was to birth for its chief editor, John Cook, and he didn’t end up lasting long—before quitting and returning to Gawker.

I was ready to start writing, too, but the day-to-day at First Look was anything but functional. I would find and begin researching stories that Eric approved, but there was no way to publish them—the organization’s editing structure was so lacking and insignificant, and on at least three occasions I saw stories that I had the inside track on get published in other outlets. (For example, this story about a New York hedge fund wrapped up with brutal African dictator Robert Mugabe. This was, as I recall, the first story approved by Eric—but we lost it many months later.) Not only did we produce virtually no work, but there was no real push to produce work from management. For all of the bean counting and expense account-approving that Omidyar’s organizational structure imposed on us, they were shockingly disinterested in the actual journalism.

But, as Silverstein goes on to point out, they were very, very interested in the cult of Pierre Omidyar and the massive egos of Glenn Greenwald and the fiercely anti-establishment, anti-government culture.  Everyone wanted to be the superstar that was going to somehow take down the "corrupt" US government.

Instead, these idiots took themselves down.  Read the whole thing.  At this point, Greenwald is a complete joke, more interested in petting Laura Poitras's documentary Oscar for their self-aggrandizing paean Citizen Four then real journalism.  And Silverstein is just the latest to come clean on the feast of ego where everyone leaves hungry.

Last Call For Freeloaders, Inc.

Karma can be a terrible, terrible bitch sometimes.

Former Arizona county sheriff Richard Mack, a fierce opponent of Obamacare and a leader in the "constitutional sheriff" movement, is struggling to pay his medical bills after he and his wife each faced serious illnesses. The former sheriff and his wife do not have health insurance and started a GoFundMe campaign to solicit donations from family and friends to cover the costs of their medical care.

"Because they are self-employed, they have no medical insurance and are in desperate need of our assistance," reads a note on Mack's personal website.

Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, suffered a heart attack in January and is in recovery. His wife fell ill late last year. Mack is on the board of Oath Keepers, a right-wing fringe group made up of police and military veterans, and is known forsupporting Cliven Bundy in his standoff against the federal government. He is also an ardent opponent of Obamacare.

"The States do not have to take or support or pay for Obamacare or anything else from Washington DC. The States are not subject to federal direction," he wrote on his website, outlining how state governments can block President Obama.

So now, you're supposed to give money to the Macks because they're exactly the kind of people Obamacare was supposed to help.  Instead of signing up for Affordable Care Act exchange plans in Arizona, they refused to get health insurance, and literally expect the rest of us to pay.

The irony would be rich except of course the Macks are trying to advocate for taking affordable ACA health insurance coverage from millions of Americans.  Do you think the Macks would donate one penny to someone who didn't sign up for health insurance and expected the rest of the country to pay for it instead?

Instead of doing the responsible thing, the Macks are depending on charity.  But guess what?  Now the Macks, even though they now have pre-existing conditions, can't be turned down for insurance should they buy it in the future.  And they are wanting to take that away from themselves rather than admit a black President ever did anything good for America.

This is how much they will hate President Obama.  They will hate him until they die.

Putin On Airs

Vladimir Putin is a barbarous Cold War relic, but he knows that there isn't anyone in Russia who can really oppose him, and he's out of damns to give to the point now where what little opposition he does have ends up getting murdered in front of the Kremlin.

Thousands of stunned Russians laid flowers and lit candles on Saturday on the bridge where opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin, a murder that showed the risks of speaking out against President Vladimir Putin.

Nemtsov, 55, was shot four times in the back by killers in a white car late on Friday as he walked across the bridge over the Moskva River in central Moscow with a Ukrainian woman, who was unhurt, police said.

Police sealed off the blood-stained bridge close to the red walls of the Kremlin and Red Square for two hours overnight, then hosed it down as people came to pay tribute to one of Putin's biggest opponents over Russia's role in Ukraine.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which answers to Putin, said it was following several lines of inquiry, including that the opposition may have committed the crime to rally support for a march against Kremlin policies on the economy and Ukraine.

Flowers were piled at least a meter (three feet) high, about two meters deep and two meters wide. A piece of white paper saying "We are all Nemtsov" stood among the flowers.

"People are afraid to support our movement. Opposition activists receive threats every day and Boris was no exception. But they won't stop us," said opposition activist Mark Galperin.

On the contrary, Mr. Galperin, Putin is doing an excellent job of stopping his opposition.

Leading international condemnation of the murder, U.S. President Barack Obama called for a prompt, impartial and transparent investigation to ensure those responsible were brought to justice for the "vicious killing".

Political murders often go unsolved in Russia. Police said they were investigating whether the murder was aimed at destabilizing the political situation in Russia or was committed by radical Islamists against Nemtsov, a Jew.

A car suspected of being used by the killers, and identified as coming from the mainly Muslim Ingushetia region, was found abandoned in central Moscow. Some Russian news outlets said surveillance footage showed two men leaving it.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned against jumping to conclusions but some opposition figures blamed Putin directly. Others said Russian society was in decline, describing an environment where Putin demands total loyalty and supporters go to great lengths to do what they think may please him.

"In Putin's atmosphere of hatred and violence, abroad and in Russia, bloodshed is the prerequisite to show loyalty, that you are on the team," another opposition leader, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, said on Twitter.

"If Putin gave (the) order to murder Boris Nemtsov is not the point. It is Putin's dictatorship. His 24/7 propaganda about enemies of the state."

This is what an actual tyrant looks like.  So odd that Republicans scream at Obama over tyranny, but worship Putin.

Oh wait, that makes perfect sense too.

Boehner's Week Hand

So late last night Democrats rescued the incompetent John Boehner with a one week extension of Homeland Security funding after Boehner's own three-week plan failed completely.

Republicans vowing to govern effectively as a congressional majority failed a fundamental test Friday, when House leaders only narrowly managed to avert a partial shutdown of theDepartment of Homeland Security after an embarrassing defeat earlier in the day.

The seven-day funding extension, approved by a vote of 357 to 60, came just hours before money for the department was to run out at midnight. The accord was reached after a stunning and humiliating setback for Speaker John A. Boehner and his leadership team earlier Friday, when the House voted against their original plan to extend funding for the department for three weeks — a position that Mr. Boehner had considered a fail-safe. More than 50 House Republicans defected, voting against the bill.

The speaker was rescued by Democrats, who supported his offer of a weeklong extension because they believed it would lead to a vote next week on full funding for the department through the fiscal year, without any provisions related to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration included in the House’s original legislation. A spokesman for Mr. Boehner said the speaker had made no promises or deals with House Democrats to guarantee such a vote.

And curiously, a one-week extension passed the Senate last night with no problem. Republicans are jumping ship as fast as possible.

“We should have never fought this battle,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk, Republican of Illinois. “In my view, in the long run, if you are blessed with the majority, you are blessed with the power to govern. If you’re going to govern, you have to act responsibly.”

Just two months into the new Congress, Republicans were sounding a grim note, far removed from their triumphant election victories in November. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Friday that “2015 is about us.”

“There’s nobody to blame but us now when it comes to the appropriations process,” Mr. Graham said. “If we can run the place more traditional, like a business, so to speak, I think we flourish. If we self-inflict on the budget, and the appropriations process, and we can’t get the government managed well, then I think we’re in trouble.”

 Now the question is will the tea party blow up the country again like the terrorists they are.  We'll find out in a week.

Last Call For He Lived Long And Prospered

The legendary Leonard Nimoy, Mr Spock, has passed at the age of 83.

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. 

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

Mr. Nimoy announced last year that he had the disease, which he attributed to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week. 

His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper” (from the Vulcan “Dif-tor heh smusma”).

This one legitimately left a hole in my heart.  He absolutely will be missed. As Mr. Spock, Nimoy was more than a cultural icon, he was a hero to outsiders and nerds and geeks everywhere. We related to him. One of the best birthday presents I ever got from Zandardad was his autobiography, "I Am Spock".

Think I'll read it again this week.  His final tweet, by the way, was this:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

A more perfect goodbye?  That would be...illogical.