A Mess Of Carolina Barbecue

That's the funny thing about red state Republicans telling the federal government to go screw itself and making legislation that enshrines unconstitutional discrimination into state law.  The federal government might be inclined to actually do something about it, as North Carolina is about to find out the hard way.

The Obama administration is considering whether North Carolina’s new law on gay and transgender rights makes the state ineligible for billions of dollars in federal aid for schools, highways and housing, officials said Friday.

Cutting off any federal money — or even simply threatening to do so — would put major new pressure on North Carolina to repeal the law, which eliminated local protections for gay and transgender people and restricted which bathrooms transgender people can use. A loss of federal money could send the state into a budget crisis and jeopardize services that are central to daily life.

Although experts said such a drastic step was unlikely, at least immediately, the administration’s review puts North Carolina on notice that the new law could have financial consequences. Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina had assured residents that the law would not jeopardize federal money for education.

But the law also represents a test for the Obama administration, which has declared that the fight for gay and transgender rights is a continuation of the civil rights era. The North Carolina dispute forces the administration to decide how aggressively to fight on that principle.

The North Carolina law created a mandatory statewide anti-discrimination policy, but it did not include specific protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The law prohibits transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not match the sexes on their birth certificates.

Anthony Foxx, the secretary of transportation, first raised the prospect of a review of federal funding in public remarks on Tuesday in North Carolina. The Department of Transportation provides roughly $1 billion a year to North Carolina. The New York Times then asked other federal agencies whether they were conducting similar reviews.

Billions in dollars of federal funding losses I'm sure will make NC GOP lawmakers very, very popular heading into November.  The Tarheel State painted a big ol' target on the place and dared Obama to do something about it.

Allow the White House to take you up on that, boys.

Flipping The Script On SCOTUS, Con't

Meanwhile, President Obama's strategy of getting Republicans stuck in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" territory is working wonderfully. Simon Maloy details the atrocities:

The trick to making blanket obstructionism work as a political tool is to make it a team effort. The Republicans in Congress understand this well – their strategy for the Obama administration from day one was to oppose everything and enforce unanimity among their members. They understood that any Republican defections would feed political ammunition to the Democrats and the White House, who would claim bipartisan backing for their initiatives and paint the Republicans in opposition as unreasonable. For a while, that strategy worked: the president’s biggest legislative items were passed without any Republican backing, and Republicans ran hard against those laws to make gains in Congress. The key to it all was putting up a united front.

That’s what Senate Republicans tried to accomplish when news broke that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had passed away. Their immediate reaction was to clamp down hard: no hearings, no meetings, not even a mote of consideration for any nominee President Obama would put forward. They came up with a number of reasons justifying this position, but they’re all bullshit – the real reason is that they’re holding out hope that a Republican president will restore the court’s conservative majority next year. But the key to making this obstructionist strategy have at least some political viability was unanimity of opposition.

Well, say goodbye to that plan. The wall of obstruction put up by GOP leaders is showing a number of cracks as Senate Republicans – from blue and red states alike – defy their leadership and actually show minimum levels of professional courtesy to President Obama’s nominee, judge Merrick Garland. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois (who happens to be facing a tough reelection fight) has already met with Garland and is actively pushing his colleagues to hold hearings and “man up and cast a vote.” Garland has more meetings lined up with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas. According to NBC News, one-quarter of Republican senators have expressed openness to at least meeting with Obama’s nominee.

None of this means that Garland is any closer to actually having hearings or receiving a vote, but the fact that so many Republicans are deviating from the official line is bad news for the GOP politically. Republican leaders have invested a good deal of time building up a case for why Garland’s nomination doesn’t even merit cursory attention, and it’s being ripped down by their own colleagues. Orrin Hatch insists that Republicans are doing their jobs by blocking Garland, while Jerry Moran says they’re actually abdicating their responsibilities. Chuck Grassley insists Republicans are standing on principle by pushing hearings off until after the election, while Mark Kirk says they’re actually being cowards. The obstructionist plan was never popular to begin with, and internal fractures like these make it supremely difficult to convince anyone that Republicans are on the right side of this issue.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have successfully gotten Garland’s foot in the door, so now they have an opening to push things even further: If meetings are okay, why not hearings? And every Republican senator Garland meets with is another opportunity for the White House to pit Republicans against one another. The Senate GOP leadership wanted nothing more than to make this nomination process a referendum on Obama, but now they have to explain why their own colleagues are wrong for meeting with Garland.

It's easy to demonize President Obama, they've had nearly a decade to do it.  But Garland?  No, it's backfiring completely, and eventually it'll all fall down.

Last Call For Less Money, More Problems

While it's great that America added 215K new jobs last month, and that we've had a record six years of private sector job growth under President Obama, we've still got a lot of inequality problems especially when it comes to affordable housing and living wages.

Low-income Americans are experiencing a staggering price hike in housing costs — a change that makes it sometimes impossible to afford basic necessities. 

A new Pew Charitable Trusts analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2013, low-income Americans spent a median of $6,897 on housing. In 2014, that rose to $9,178 — the biggest jump in housing spending for the 19-year period of data that Pew studied. 

The cost of other necessities, like transportation and food, also rose, albeit not as dramatically. 2014 was the first year that Pew studied in which median spending on these three categories was higher than the median income for those in the lower third of income groups.

The chart makes it pretty stark:



As you can see, in 2014 for the lowest third of Americans, median income dropped below the cost of rent, food, and transportation combined.

Rent for low-income Americans has never been higher because the supply of affordable housing has cratered with the return of the high-end housing market, and Americans are going back to work, but for less pay.  Millennials can't afford starter homes, and Gen X'ers got wiped out in the Great Recession.  They're barely holding on.  Finally, look at how many states are cutting low-income housing programs across the board.

So yeah, the housing market in most places is still completely broken and will remain that way for some time.

Race To The Bottom Of Bigotry

I've already talked about how North Carolina's bigot bill passed in a 12-hour emergency session of the state's General Assembly and was signed into law by GOP Gov. Pat McCrory, and how LGBTQ groups are already taking the new law to court.  But as bad as the NC GOP's law is stripping local equality protections, Mississippi is about to pass an even worse law.

The Republican-dominated Mississippi Senate voted 31-17 on Wednesday night for a religious freedom bill that critics believe is the the most sweeping anti-LGBT legislation in the United States, allowing denial of products and services in a wide range of venues.
Immediately after the vote, a Democrat proposed a motion to reconsider — thereby requiring another vote later this week, which many consider a procedural formality, but could buy critics time to build opposition. 

The bill already passed the House 80-39 in February. However, the Senate’s version was amended slightly, and the House must concur before the legislation can go to the governor. 

Republicans, who hold a majority in both chambers, have argued the bill fixes problems created for people of faith by the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling. 

“It gives protection to those in the state who cannot in a good conscience provide services for a same-sex marriage,” Sen. Jennifer Branning said in an address to her colleagues. 

“I don’t think this bill is discriminatory,” she continued, saying the bill instead protects the rights of Christians from government retribution if they oppose same-sex couples getting married “It takes no rights away from anyone.” 

But Democrats fiercely contend the bill is overly broad, specifically targeting LGBT people for discrimination in numerous settings, thereby inviting backlash that other states, including North Carolina, have faced for passing laws targeting LGBT people.
“This is probably the worst religious freedom bill to date,” Ben Needham, director of Project One America, an LGBT advocacy project in the Deep South run by the Human Rights Campaign, told BuzzFeed News. 

Critics widely argue the bill would explicitly allow the denial of services, goods, wedding products, medical treatment, housing, and employment to LGBT people. 

Specifically, House Bill 1523 would protect individuals, religious organizations, and certain businesses who take actions due to their religious objections to same-sex marriage. It would also protect those who object to transgender people. The bill says they could not face government retribution if they were acting based on “sincerely held” religious beliefs. 

Further, it covers those who decline for reasons of faith to provide counseling services, foster care, and adoption services — even, apparently, those receiving government funding. Clerks who issue marriage licenses could also recuse themselves.

Again, as bad as NC's law is, removing specific protections at the local level for a statewide law that offers no protections at all for equality, Mississippi takes that and makes active discrimination state law enshrined and bring the power of the state to protect those who actively discriminate against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

It's what both Indiana and Georgia tried to do.  We'll see how far Mississippi gets with it.

Historical Details And All That Jazz

Yesterday I referenced Larry Sabato's political prognostications showing that a Clinton-Trump matchup would be a relatively easy win for the Democrats.  Sabato's analysis does have some important caveats that need to be addressed, however.

Every now and then, one of the major parties goes off the track and forfeits an election, as in 1964 and 1972. This time, it is possible that the Republicans are the new Whigs, headed for a crackup, an oft-made comparison that historian Michael Holt recently examined in the Crystal Ball. 

However, it’s just as possible, maybe probable, that the party would repair itself by 2020. Four years after the Goldwater debacle, the Republicans elected a president. Four years after the McGovern disaster, the Democrats elected a president. Odds are, there will be no need for a bugler playing taps for the GOP this time either. Somehow, though, Republicans will have to find ways to heal the deep rifts in their party, while becoming more mainstream and accommodating to this century’s American electorate. It will take far more than another “autopsy report” like the one in 2013 to accomplish this.

I think that view is strengthened incredibly by a 2018 midterm election that I expect will go just as badly for the Democrats as 2010 and 2014 did. Whatever gains the Dems make in 2016, say, six or seven Senate seats and 20 or so House seats will almost certainly be given right back and then some in 2018.

In the Senate, Democrats Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Jon Tester (MT), Bill Nelson (FL), Joe Donnelly (IN), Sherrod Brown (OH), Tim Kaine (VA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI) would all have tough races, and that's before any retirements factor in.

The House, without Trump weighing them down, would probably end up back where it is now, with Republicans having close to or at the largest margin since the Hoover era, if not more.  You thought Dems mailed it in and gave up on Obama in midterms, wait until 2018 and Clinton.

The counter to that is the GOP will somehow have to get their crap together in time to make a run at 2018, and I'm not 100% sure they'll be ready to go by then.  The damage from Trump may be too deep to repair in two years.

But that's just back of the napkin stuff at this point.  A lot could happen, and will, before the 2016 and 2018 elections that will change everything.

StupidiNews!

• A new study in the British medical journal Lancet finds that obesity is a global problem, with about 20% of the world's population expected to be clinically obese by 2025.
• A Virginia state trooper was shot and killed at a Richmond bus station on Thursday after a man opened fire, injuring two more before being killed by police.
• Tesla Motors has unveiled its long awaited electric Model 3 sedan, with production set to start next year and already more than 100,000 vehicles pre-ordered by drivers.
• Saudi Arabia is planning to create a $2 trillion sovereign investment fund to help the country deal with the global decline in oil production.
• A presidential council on dealing with drug-resistant "superbugs" that sicken millions each year is recommending the creation of a White House "czar" position to coordinate agencies.

Last Call For We'll See, Bernie

Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared on Rachel Maddow's show last night and when asked about raising money and campaigning for downticket Dems in Congress, Sanders just shrugged the question off.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wouldn't say if he will turn his fundraising juggernaut toward the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees and down-ballot Democratic candidates in a Wednesday night interview on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."

"Right now, our job is to, what I'm trying to do is win the Democratic nomination," Sanders said. 

He said he is "blown away" by his campaign's small-dollar fundraising. 

"Without that type of support, we would not be where we are right now," he said. 

Host Rachel Maddow said rival Hillary Clinton has been fundraising for her campaign as well as the Democratic Party. Will the Sanders campaign begin this type of fundraising as well, Maddow asked. 

"We'll see," Sanders said. "Right now, our focus is on winning the nomination."

Wrong answer, Bernie.  But thanks for letting everyone know that you really aren't in it for anyone but yourself.

Will I vote for him in Kentucky's primary in May?

We'll see, I guess.

Trump's Punishment Detail

The anti-choice industry is furious with Donald Trump's comments on MSNBC yesterday that women deserve "some sort of punishment" for getting abortions once the procedure is criminalized by the GOP.

After saying on Wednesday that he believes there should be punishment for women who undergo abortions if the procedure was outlawed, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walked back the comment hours later.

In an exclusive interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, the GOP front-runner described himself multiple times as "pro-life" but struggled to define what the legal ramifications of that position should be. When continually pressed for what the answer is regarding punishing women who would break any theoretical ban, Trump said the "answer is that there has to be some form of punishment, yeah."

Later in the day, his campaign released a statement refocusing who would be punished should abortion become illegal. "If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman," the statement said. "The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions."

But the damage has been done, and Trump has given away the endgame of the anti-choice people. Of course the goal is to punish women for seeking abortion, and it always has been. Red states make trying to get an abortion as crushing and as difficult as possible to restrict access to it while the anti-choice advocates sadly cluck their tongues and say women and the unborn have to be helped.  Actually providing that help doesn't happen, these "loose hussies" are on their own unless they repent and the nation's churches take pity on them, for surely child and family services are being dismantled across the country by Republicans seeking to trap women in squalor.

Trump coming along and reminding everyone that the real goal has always been to criminalize abortion and women having sex for anything other than procreation blows a hole in the whole facade, and the anti-choice forces know it.  You can't say you're worried about protecting the mother and unborn child if you're willing to admit the goal is to have women so scared of going to prison over miscarriages that they are afraid to have sex. The tacit understanding is that only those women get punished for wanting an abortion, the rest quietly have the procedure because they're "responsible people" who don't abuse the "availability" of it.  The notion that all women get punished, that there's not exceptions made for the right women to have one, well that gives away the game.

If it was somehow possible before for Trump to get zero percent of the women's vote in 2016, it's even more possible now. Trump has single-handedly destroyed the Republican defense of "we're not leading a War on Women!"

And they're furious at him for it for good reason.

We’re now at the point in the nominating process where it is, er, crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will end up being the Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, while not at all the certain winner, is the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee. So it’s time to adjust our 2016 electoral map for the first time since we rolled out our initial ratings last May. That map, shown below as Map 1, reflected a generic Democrat versus Republican matchup, and it depicted a close, competitive general election.

The new map, as you will see, does not show a close and competitive general election. The Republicans now find themselves in a deep hole.

Imagine Trump screwing up so badly that Clinton actually outperforms either of Obama's presidential wins.  Not hard to imagine if he keeps giving the game away like this.  After all, he's now unpopular even with a majority of white men.



Trump is going to wreck the party before he's done.  Get the popcorn and watch it burn.

In The (Septic) Tank

So while Donald Trump's campaign manager is being charged with battery for physically grabbing a member of the press and searching for blame as to how Trump rose to GOP frontrunner status amid billions in nonstop free press coverage and call-in interviews, it turns out that what the Village really can't stand is that Barack Obama guy daring to call them out on the mess. Politico's Jack Shafer:

The last person in the world who should be lecturing journalists on how to do journalism is President Barack Obama. Yet there Obama was Monday night at a journalism award ceremony, yodeling banalities about the role of a press in a free society, moaning over the dangers posed by “he said/she said” reporting, and—to the delight of the assembled audience—attacking Donald Trump in every way but name. The press-heavy crowd, convened by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications to give the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting to Alec MacGillis, clapped at Obama’s 30-minute address, encouraging his best Trump-baiting lines about “free media” and the dangers of “false equivalence.” 

What they should have done is bombard Obama with rotten fruit or ripped him with raspberries for his hypocrisy.

How do we hate Obama’s treatment of the press? Let me count the ways. Under his administration, the U.S. government has set a new record for withholding Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a recent Associated Press investigation. FOIA gives the public and press an irreplaceable view into the workings of the executive branch. Without timely release of government documents and data, vital questions can’t be answered and stories can’t be written. 

Obama’s “Insider Threat Program” has turned employees across the government—from the Peace Corps to the Social Security Administration to the Department of Agriculture—into information-squelching snitches. If this isn’t Trumpian behavior, I don’t know what is. 

“Obama hates the press,” New York Times national security reporter James Risen said not long ago, “and he hates leaks.” AP Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee has decried the “day-to-day intimidation of sources” by the Obama administration, judging it worse than the Bush administration on that score. And in a 2013 piece, POLITICO’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen documented Obama’s mastery of “limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.” 

As ProPublica has reported, at the same time the Obama administration has been paying lip service to protecting whistleblowers, it has pursued national security leaks to the press with a vehemence unmatched by any previous administration, using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers who leak to journalists more times than all previous administrations combined. Obama holds infrequent news conferences, and he wastes reporters’ time by refraining from answering questions with any candor. He claims to helm “the most transparent administration in history,” while bending government policies and practices toward secrecy. 

“The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” wrote Leonard Downie Jr. in a Committee to Protect Journalists report. And it’s not just Downie complaining. You could break Google by asking it to list all the top journalists who regard the Obama administration as Press Enemy No. 1. 

The deeper you study Obama’s relationship with the press, the more you want to ask what business he has giving out a press award. Was Trump himself busy that night?

What really bothers the Village about all this "secrecy" and "manipulation" is the Obama administration realizing pretty early on that this whole internet thing is pretty useful for getting out the information the White House wants to get out, and doing so without the Village pearl-clutchers getting in the way.

Particularly since the massive damage caused to American national security by Edward Snowden and friends, you'd be forgiven for thinking the White House might want to be more careful with leaks and information in general, which it is.

What the Obama administration is not doing is physically battering journalists, insulting them by name on Twitter, citing them to rally angry campaign crowds, and making public enemies lists of them like Trump (for starters).

Considering how complicit the media is with Trump and his other enablers, it's a wonder Shafer doesn't fall over from the weight of his own hypocrisy.

StupidiNews!

• A bridge collapse in Kolkata, India has killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more as police are struggling to account for missing people on the bridge at the time.
• A collection of work from street artist Banksy is expected to fetch more than $500,000 at an auction in Los Angeles this week.
• Moscow is denying a report that Russia and the US have reached an agreement on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Asaad's role in the country.
• US oil production and China's appetite for crude means Beijing is expected to pass Washington as the world's largest oil importer in 2016. 
• New climate change models show that melting Antarctic ice by itself could be responsible for up to a meter's rise in sea level by 2100.

Last Call For The Bribes Heard Round The World

The Huffington Post has published the results of a major international bribery investigation into a company called Unaoil, which is apparently something of a global bribery fixer outfit responsible for helping multinational corporations do business with unsavory failed state types and paving the way for terrorist organizations.

Hundreds of major international corporations — including Halliburton, its former subsidiary KBR, Rolls-Royce and Samsung — counted on Unaoil to secure lucrative contracts in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and other countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, tens of thousands of internal emails and documents reveal. It’s common for large multinational corporations to partner with smaller firms with local expertise to win contracts. But in many cases, Unaoil wasn’t winning contracts because of its expertise — it was winning them by paying millions of dollars in bribes to corrupt officials. 

Most of the companies that worked with Unaoil denied involvement in corrupt activities. “KBR is committed to conducting its business honestly, with integrity, and in compliance with all applicable laws,” a spokeswoman said. “We do not tolerate illegal or unethical practices by our employees or others working on behalf of the Company.” Samsung “has always complied with the laws and regulations when performing business,” the company said. Rolls-Royce, which sent a Unaoil subsidiary a letter in 2013 suspending the relationship, citing corruption allegations, said that it is “co-operating with the authorities and do not comment on ongoing investigations. We have made it clear that Rolls-Royce will not tolerate business misconduct of any kind.” 

By aiding the corruption of already-distrusted regimes and accelerating the flow of money and resources out of poor countries, Unaoil and its partners were risking far more than fines and criminal penalties. They were creating political instability, turning citizens against their governments, and fueling the rage that would erupt during the Arab Spring — and be exploited by terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Companies and individuals pay at least $1 trillion in bribes to public sector officials annually, according to an estimate by Daniel Kaufman, a governance expert with the World Bank Institute.

The Unaoil emails don’t show corrupt third-world kleptocracies shaking down helpless western corporations. They show the opposite: Unaoil, working for western companies, is seen slowly corrupting foreign officials, starting off with small gifts and shopping sprees and eventually hooking them on major graft. 

“There is always somebody who pays,” the billionaire hedge fund magnate George Soros has said, “and international business is generally the main source of corruption.” That’s part of the story that terrorists have long told local populations to justify jihadist insurgency. In many of the cases uncovered here, it happens to be true.

I'm not surprised that international corporations are involved in blood money in order to move products and resources through other companies to hide that involvement.  I'm more that a bit concerned however at the number of companies that all used Unaoil to grease the skids over the last decade or so and basically nobody noticed.

Based in Monaco but incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, Unaoil says it provides “industrial solutions to the energy sector in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.” It was founded in 1991 by Ata Ahsani, an Iranian-born millionaire who left the country after the 1979 revolution. The company’s work, Ahsani told HuffPost and Fairfax Media, is “very basic. What we do is integrate western technology with local capability.” Two of Ata Ahsani’s sons, Cyrus and Saman, are deeply involved in the company’s day-to-day operations. 

Here’s how Unaoil’s schemes often worked. During the time frame covered by the documents — most of which date from the end of 2003 to the middle of 2011 — Unaoil’s practice was to ask its partners for a percentage of the revenue from any contracts Unaoil helped them win. Once Unaoil made sure it had a stake in its client’s business, it would sometimes use a portion of its cut to bribe government officials — and keep the rest for itself.

They say the simplest schemes are the most tried and true methods, I guess.  All we need is a fabulous desert casino, a car chase in Abu Dhabi or Tunis, some Russian mobsters, and an exotic assassin or three and James Bond would be damn proud.  Throw in the angle that these bribes are going to everyone from tinpot dictators to terror groups like AQ and IS and you wonder just how much blowback we've avoided here in the US that we're more than due.

Because insurgents thrive when Western-friendly governments become corrupt and weak, they are especially pleased when the U.S. and Western corporations undermine governance by enabling corruption. As Soros said, somebody has to pay the bribes. Corruption in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, has only gotten worse since the U.S. invaded, bringing western corporations and money with it. Between 2003 and 2015, Iraq fell from 113th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index to 161st. “We’ve learned our lesson kind of the hard way,” said Keith Henderson, who evaluated Iraqi anti-corruption efforts for the State Department in 2008 and now teaches at American University’s law school. “If you don’t do something to abate or address corruption in state institutions, one of the very probable outcomes is civil unrest and possible insurgency.”

We'll see where this all goes.  The US government is definitely looking into bribery fueling terrorism, but how far are they going to get when the major players paying up have bought the same governments investigating them?

More Tortured Logic, Con't

The recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and mass shooting spree in San Bernardino hasn't made Americans any less bloodthirsty when it comes to justification of torture of terror suspects.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common. 

The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium. 

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign. 

Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama's ban on waterboarding - an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if elected. 

Trump's stance has drawn broad criticism from human rights organizations, world bodies, and political rivals. But the poll findings suggest that many Americans are aligned with Trump on the issue, although the survey did not ask respondents to define what they consider torture. 

"The public right now is coping with a host of negative emotions," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, a Vanderbilt University professor who has studied the link between terrorist threats and public opinion. "Fear, anger, general anxiety: (Trump) gives a certain credibility to these feelings," she said. 

The March 22-28 online poll asked respondents if torture can be justified "against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism." About 25 percent said it is "often" justified while another 38 percent it is "sometimes" justified. Only 15 percent said torture should never be used.

Republicans were more accepting of torture to elicit information than Democrats: 82 percent of Republicans said torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

About two-thirds of respondents also said they expected a terrorist attack on U.S. soil within the next six months.

So more than half of Dems and more than 80% of Republicans think torture is justified in some way, including a quarter of folks saying it's often justified.  Two-thirds expect some kind of terror attack before the election as well.  Americans are frightened out of their wits, frankly.

The effect this will have on the election?  Politicians have been playing the fear card for a long time, and it works time and time again.

We've learned very little since 9/11, and I don't see any reason why we'd start learning now.

The Budget For Bevinstan

With time running out on a March 31 deadline for Kentucky's 2017-2018 budget, GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and the Republican-led Kentucky Senate are starting up the blame game on Kentucky Democrats in the House for daring to resist Bevin's across the board austerity cuts.

The Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate appear to have made no progress in conference committee negotiations that began Thursday on a 2016-18 state government spending plan. 

A press release from Bevin's office early Tuesday said, "Gov. Matt Bevin and House and Senate GOP leadership will hold a media availability to discuss the status of budget conference negotiations." 

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, on Monday blamed the deadlock on Bevin, saying the governor was interfering with the talks. 

Between negotiation sessions of the conference committee on Monday the governor visited Senate Republicans behind closed doors. And later he blamed Stumbo. "We are willing to negotiate with anyone who is willing to sit down at the table," Bevin said. "Greg Stumbo is not such a person, unfortunately."

The sticking point is who will have to bear the billions of shoring up Kentucky's critically underfunded state pension system.

Over two years the Senate budget would add nearly $1.48 billion to the state's ailing pension funds. The House also adds a lot for pensions - about $1.4 billion. The House provides a bit more for the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System than the Senate but significantly less than the Senate to Kentucky Employees Retirement Systems. And the Senate also leaves $250 million in a reserve fund - called the 'permanent fund" - to be used in the future for pension funding. 

The House leaves no money in the permanent fund. Instead, the House uses that money to restore deep cuts Bevin and the Senate have proposed to universities and scores of programs that support public schools. 

Also apparently still part of the discussions is the judicial branch budget.- which has been passed by both chambers in a form that chief Justice John Minton said is $76 million short of funding the court system in the next two years. 

Minton has said if that budget becomes law it would require him to cut 600 employees in the judicial branch, shut down successful drug courts and likely result in 17,000 people awaiting trial on criminal charges being sent back to jail because of a lack of staff to supervise them while on release.

It's those school and university cuts that are the dealbreaker so far, especially since Bevin wants to use those massive austerity cuts to make a half-billion dollar slush fund to spend on his budget priorities, a non-starter for KY Dems.  It's not quite Kansas's level of austerity cuts.  Yet.

We'll see where this goes, but the clock is almost up, and without a budget, all of Kentucky will suffer.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama has announced new initiatives to fight opoid abuse, including making anti-addiction drugs easier to prescribe by doctors.
• Dutch officials say they passed on an FBI warning to Belgium about potential suicide bomber activity a week before Brussels was attacked earlier this month.
• Reuters analysis of Russian materiel movements in Syria indicates Moscow may have moved more equipment into the area under cover of a partial withdrawal.
• Apple iPhone supplier Foxconn has made a controlling bid for Japanese tech manufacturer Sharp, giving the Taiwanese company a $3.5 billion foothold in Tokyo.
• The Federal Trade Commission is suing Volkswagen for deceptive advertising over the company's "Clean Diesel" campaign related to emissions test cheating in millions of US cars.

Last Call For Counting Diversity In The Counties

A new look at US Census data by Randy Olson for The Atlantic shows the five most racially diverse counties in the US, and the five least diverse.  I was surprised by the former:

The 5 most diverse counties in the U.S., according to Olson's calculations, are:

1. Aleutians West Census Area, Alaska (31.4% white/non-Latino, 5.7% African American, 15.1% Native American, 28.3% Asian American, 13.1% Latino, and 6.4% other)
2. Aleutians East Borough, Alaska (13.5% white/non-Latino), 6.7% African American, 27.7% Native American, 35.4% Asian American, 12.3% Latino, and 4.4% other)
3. Queens County, New York (27.6% white/non-Latino, 17.7% African American, 0.3% Native American, 22.8% Asian American, 27.5% Latino, and 4% other)
4. Alameda County, California (34.1% white/non-Latino, 12.2% African American, 0.3% Native American, 25.9% Asian American, 22.5% Latino, and 5.1% other)
5. Solano County, California (40.8% white/non-Latino, 14.2% African American, 0.5% Native American, 14.3% Asian American, 24% Latino, and 6.2% other)

Alaska's a tough place, where you have to count on your neighbors.  It takes a special kind of person to live and work there, and I guess you don't really have too much time for worrying about race and culture.  Queens in New York and Alameda and Solano in California make a lot of sense, Queens is the heart of the Big Apple's melting pot and Alameda contains most of San Francisco bay's east side. Solano County covers the suburbs north of the SF bay towards Sacramento. Definitely areas with a lot of different cultures and people with major cities in and around.

On the other side of that coin are the Appalachians and plains states:

And the 5 least diverse: 

• Tucker County, West Virginia (100% white/non-Latino)
• Robertson County, Kentucky (100% white/non-Latino)
• Hooker County, Nebraska (100% white/non-Latino)
• Hand County, South Dakota (99% white/non-Latino and 1% Latino)
• Owsley County, Kentucky (98% white/non-Latino and 2% Latino)

As to what surprised Olson the most? "As a Michigander," he writes, "I’m the most surprised to see how diverse the Upper Peninsula is. I thought only crazy white people lived up that far in Michigan."

Two Kentucky counties among the five least diverse in the nation is arguably the least surprising fact I've read all week.

Anyway, why is this important?  Those diverse Alaska counties are being used as part of an argument that Sanders's big wins in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state over the weekend are proof that Sanders has large support from non-white voters. Raw Story's Katie Halper:

Leslie Lee III is a writer and English teacher from Baton Rouge, LA, who lives in Yokahama, Japan with his wife Kelly and their dog Taco. His writing ranges from essays and articles on politics and Japanese wrestling, to the novel he is working on with his father about Kentucky’s Black coal miners. But according to some sources, Lee does not actually exist. He’s a figment of the imagination. Because he’s both Black and a supporter of Bernie Sanders.

The nice thing about the notion of the unbearable whiteness of being a Sanders supporter is that it doesn’t need to be based in reality. On Saturday, for example, CNN attributed Sanders’ landslide victories in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington primaries to the whitey-mcwhiteyness of the states:

These caucus states — largely white and rural — are the type of places Sanders traditionally does well. In order to win the nomination, he must replicate this success in other, more ethnically diverse states that hold primaries, as he did in Michigan last month. In theory, it’s possible. But the reality is tough.

Likewise, in theory, it’s possible to portray these states as white. But the reality is tough. Because they’re not. Washington state is literally the seventh most diverse state in the Nation. Two (if not three) of the five most diverse counties in the country are found in Alaska, which CNN itself described as “the most diverse place in America,” in an article in January. And Hawaii, according the Pew Research Center,

stands out… more than any other state… when it comes to its racial and ethnic diversity… The Rainbow State has never had a white majority. In fact, non-Hispanic whites, the largest group in most states, account for only 23% of the population, according to 2013 census figures.
But you know the old adage, necessity (to correct irresponsible journalism and media bias) is the mother of (viral) invention. And So, Mr. Lee launched his epic #BernieMadeMeWhite hashtag, mocking the idea that all supporters of Sanders are white.

Well, basic math could tell you that of course Sanders has some women and non-white voters backing him, simply because he's managed to close within 10 points of Clinton in the very diverse Democratic party.  But the argument once again from Sanders supporters is that the votes of Southern red state Democrats don't really count and shouldn't count in a Democratic primary, and that Bernie's winning the "real" states, making him somehow...I don't know, more magical or something?  It's coming across as a massive dismissal of a lot of voters that the Sanders folks believe should not have a say at all in the process, support that Sanders would need in a general election.

Whether it will be enough support going into the final primaries this spring, we'll see.