StupidiNews!

• Hugo Chavez's political heir, Victor Maduro, has apparently won a narrow victory in yesterday's presidential elections, beating Henrique Capriles Radonski 50.7%-49.1%.
• North Korea is celebrating the national holiday marking the birthday of the country's founder, Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un.
• The immigration bill before Congress would boost legal immigration into the US by nearly 50%.
• The future of Europe's carbon cap and trade plan could be at the mercy of economic reality in a EU parliamentary decision expected this week.
• The US Supreme Court will today hear oral arguments on ending the 30-year practice of patenting human genes.

Last Call

Class is in session as Melissa Harris-Perry rings up Sen. Rand Paul's visit to Howard University this week as what it was:  a self-serving stunt where Paul thought he would get a pass for just showing up.

After Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act–which were passed by the Democrats in Congress–and after those acts established the framework for black citizens to exercise the franchise and enjoy equal protection. After those Democratic actions, it was white Dixiecrats who left the party and found refuge among Republicans. Those who refused to support civil rights gains were clear that the best party for them in the modern era was the Republican Party.

So folks like Strom Thurmond and large majorities of white voters in Southern states became reliable Republican voters. Because they opposed civil rights. And Sen. Paul, you know a little about opposition to the Civil Rights Act, don’t you?

Even though you told a [Howard] questioner, “I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever,” Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer correctly reminded us that in 2010, during an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, you said that even though you “abhor racism”, you do not support bans on discrimination by privately-owned businesses. And that, Sen. Paul, would mean those students from another historically black college, North Carolina A&T, would have just had to live with the private decision to deny them a place to sit at that Woolworth’s lunch counter. Maybe Republicans like you don’t count that as opposition to the Civil Rights Act, but I bet many Howard students do.

And as you said: “Yes. Alright. Alright. You know more than I know… And I don’t mean that to be insulting. I don’t know what you know… you know, I mean I’m trying to find out what the connection is.”

The connection is that Sen. Paul continues to embarrass myself and Kentuckians everywhere with the notion that students from one of the most prestigious historically black institutions of higher learning in the country wouldn't be able to completely see through his transparent nonsense, and challenge him on it in public.

You got called out, Rand:  by myself, by authors and pundits, by commentators and historians, and by the students present at the speech.   Paul came to Howard and gave his usual glibertarian spiel about how government is awful and destroying African-Americans and other minorities, all while distorting your own record. 

Your problem Rand is that you believe the federal government has a place in enforcing the patriarchy and privilege you enjoy so much by telling others that don't have those advantages that it's not fair that the government has its thumb on the scale trying to rectify the situation, which is an argument decades old and just as self-serving and mealy-mouthed now as it was then.

I don't buy it.  The students at Howard U didn't buy it.  Nobody really should.  And if your road to greater political office is going to go over the backs of women and minorities as you lecture how white men are the real victims in this country and that the rest of us should feel shamed into supporting you because "the antidote to racism is worse than the cure" while you're running a very real race hustle yourself?  I don't want any part of it.

Please remove yourself from the political spotlight.  You're giving the Bluegrass State and constituents like myself a bad name.

Ashley, Alison And The Turtle, Part 8

And the Progress KY story keeps getting worse.  Yesterday I pointed out how completely suspect Jacob Conway's word is.  He's the Dem party official who ratted out Progress KY as the folks behind the recording sent to Mother Jones.  Wouldn't you know it, he's now all but recanted a major part of his story...

Kentucky Democratic official Jacob Conway appears to be changing his story. After initially claiming that two members of the liberal group Progress Kentucky bragged to him about recording a private meeting of Mitch McConnell campaign aides, he has now said it's possible he spoke to only one of the activists about the tape.

The Courier-Journal reported Saturday:

In an interview with The Courier-Journal, Jacob Conway, a member of the Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee, said he is certain he talked with Curtis Morrison about the recording — but he may not have spoken with Shawn Reilly as he told members of the media Thursday.

“I had a lot of conversations with both of them during that time period, and maybe I was just confused, and maybe Shawn never said anything,” he said.

Reilly's attorney had already refuted Conway's version of events. In a press conference posted by the Courier-Journal, Reilly's lawyer, Ted Shouse, said his client is innocent of criminal behavior and is "at most a witness to potential criminal activity."

Conway told the paper that he reached out to Shouse to say his recollection of the events may be incorrect.

This just keeps getting more and more insane, across the board.  Nobody involved in this fiasco is on the level, and the deeper this rabbit hole goes, the more I'm thinking this is a massive con job to assure the vulnerable McConnell another six years.

And so far it's working massively well for Mitch.

The Big Gun Down

I still think that gun legislation won't clear the GOP House, but there are now Republicans senators openly supporting it in the upper chamber (especially now that the bill has been stripped of 90% of its teeth or so), starting with The Lady From Maine, Susan Collins.

Speaking exclusively to NBC News, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is the first GOP senator to say publicly she will vote for the bipartisan compromise on expanded background checks for the sale of guns online and at gun shows.

Collins said "I do intend to support it" now that she has reviewed the actual text of the Manchin-Toomey bill and calls it a "reasonable" approach. Collins described the Manchin-Toomey effort as "a responsible break through from two people who have far better NRA rankings than I have." Both Sens. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, hold "A" ratings from the National Rifle Association. Collins added she knows her yes vote and support is "not a popular thing in my state."

Again, the private sale loophole is definitely far short of universal background checks, and the federal enforcement increases of existing laws are all in another bill.  So the bill that started out with universal background checks, magazine size limits, limits on the sale of military-style weapons and increased enforcement has become some background check expansion on commercial sales only, and if Collins is backing it, there's a very good chance it'll make it out of the Senate.

That's it.

And it took 19 years for that.  It's an accomplishment, but it comes with the baggage.  And again, I put the odds of this making it out of the House at near single digits.  I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see enough Republicans -- and Democrats -- risking their NRA ratings for this.

Operation Reciprocity

Debate may have begun on the Senate's firearm regulatory bill, but the GOP still has plenty of ways to kill the bill.  The next challenge:  poison pill amendments like concealed carry reciprocity.

“Concealed carry reciprocity” would require all states to recognize out-of-state permits for concealed handguns, essentially eliminating tough state gun standards and establishing a low federal floor of regulation. State laws that deny permits to people who have been convicted of certain violent misdemeanors or require gun safety training could be ignored, as states with tighter gun regulations would have to accept permit holders from states with looser standards — even if those permit holders would have been prevented from carrying guns in the state where they are traveling. 

Federal law only prohibits felons and a few other categories of people from possessing guns, leading many states to enact more restrictions. “If Wyoming has a concealed carry law, somebody could come from Wyoming to the big cities of New York or New Haven or Bridgeport and carry a concealed weapon, which is so against our way of life and the needs here in New York,” Schumer warned earlier this week. 

Gun safety advocates also argue that the provision undermines the GOP’s commitment to state sovereignty by stripping states “of their ability to decide who can — and more importantly, who can’t — legally carry a hidden, loaded gun inside their borders.” The NRA contends that “Congress should recognize that the right to self-defense does not end at state lines” and allow “an individual who has met the requirements for a carry permit” in one state, to carry the weapon in all states. State laws governing where concealed firearms may be carried would still “apply within each state’s borders,” the group says. 

But in a letter to Congress during the 2009 debate on a concealed carry reciprocity amendment offered by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Mayors Against Illegal Guns warned that the effort could empower illegal gun traffickers by allowing them to purchase guns in one state and then drive them across state lines with impunity — so long as they hold an out-of-state permit. Law enforcement would be required to honor concealed carry permits from all 50 states but without properly verifying their authenticity. A letter from the Major Chiefs Association to Congress in 2009 expressed concern that the measure could endanger law enforcement and public safety.

Not to mention the fact that this would mean Democrats would be the one "killing" the bill.  There's a lot left to go for the bill, and so many ways for it to die...

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle, Part 7

The Progress Kentucky implosion story continues to be completely awesome, and by "completely awesome" I mean the more information I find out, the more it looks like this couldn't have been a better operation to assure McConnell's re-election than if McConnell was behind all of it.  Today we've got more goodies from Page One Kentucky on the state Democratic party official who gave up Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison:  meet Jacob Conway.

Something tells me you’ll want to read this backgrounder on Jacob Conway, the guy who fingered Progress Kentucky SuperPAC folks Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison for responsibility of recording Mitch McConnell’s secret strategy session (Part 1 & Part 2). It’s only fitting that Conway’s history get a quick examination.

It’s a disjointed tale involving bench warrants, an Attorney General appointing a Special Prosecutor and claims of mental illness from Conway’s own attorney. Along with a little something involving a prominent gay Republican leader in Washington, D.C. and a well-known Republican-turned-Democrat in Frankfort.

It get weird, and involves a side job with the Log Cabin Republicans (Jacob wasn't always a Democrat, you see), a fake political claim of being a teacher,  $3,000 turning up mysteriously missing from a safe, and Conway's own attorney basically agreeing that the guy is nuts.  Read the whole thing.



Did I mention Conway (left) and Reilly (white tux) know each other pretty well?   No?

This entire story is starting to smell like month-old halibut, folks.  There's a lot more to this than just a recording of a meeting passed to David Corn.  The why, the how, the players, all of it?  This is a symphony of crazy, and we've just gotten to the opening stanzas.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Legendary comedian and actor Jonathan Winters has died at the age of 87.
• Two Georgia Department of Agriculture officials have resigned after reports surfaced about a "drunken fraternity party" atmosphere at a state-owned resort.
• The Obamas and Bidens have released their 2012 tax returns, with the President and first Lady having an effective tax rate of 18.4%.
• Tens of millions in endorsements could be waiting for the first openly gay pro team sports superstar to come out publicly.
• A massive coordinated cyberattack on Wordpress blog sites could be an attempt to build the largest botnet in existence.

Last Call

Same Republican anti-minority, anti-immigrant crap, different state.

Four North Carolina House Republicans filed a bill on Wednesday that notably introduces the “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s anti-immigration law. Under the bill, H.B. 786, police can check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest and detain them for “reasonable suspicion.” The bill also makes it easier for police to seize immigrants’ vehicles. Furthermore, it would require a detained undocumented immigrant to pay the costs of his or her arrest, while making bail more difficult.

The bill does provide driver’s permits to undocumented immigrants if they lived in the state for one year. However, these licenses follow the controversial design North Carolina attempted to issue to DREAMers, which mark them from the rest of the state’s population: Undocumented immigrants would receive a vertical license, instead of the standard horizontal one, and they would carry a thumbprint.

Yeah.  Round up time, yeehaa.   If you're wondering when North Carolina became insane, it was the second the GOP got control of the legislature and the Governor's mansion, so welcome to having a bunch of regressive bigots run your state like the rest of racist assholes in the South, guys.

Increasingly glad I left, when Kentucky is more progressive...

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle Part 6

As I covered in last night's Last Call, Progress Kentucky has shaped up to be just about Mitch McConnell's best weapon in defusing the primary charge against him from the right, and completely disarming Kentucky Democrats on the left.  I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who thinks these clowns need to exit the stage as quickly as possible.  Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ruby Cramer bring us the epitaph:

It's probably possible for a political group to be worse at accomplishing its core mission than Progress Kentucky is, but it's difficult to imagine how.

In its short lifespan, the super PAC focused solely on defeating Sen. Mitch McConnell has instead helped the Republican incumbent deflect his low approval rating and conservative critics by subjecting McConnell to comically incompetent political attacks.

"They've managed to become McConnell's favorite whipping boy," said Jimmy Cauley, a longtime Kentucky Democratic strategist. "It's kind of laughable because they didn't exist four months ago. And yet they've gotten wrapped up in a string of four or five controversies."

Kentucky Democrats aren't ready to say Progress Kentucky has helped McConnell, but national Democratic observers have their jaws on the floor as they watch the group turn McConnell into a sympathetic figure, generating good headlines for him time and again. 

And that's the real damage done, these idiots have managed to make one of the most personally vile and villainous scumbags in Congress into the aggrieved victim, despite McConnell's awful, misogynist attacks on Ashley Judd and his atrocious voting record, all while he's managed to use his office to enrich himself by tens of millions of dollars.  The story should be how vulnerable, ineffective, and terrible McConnell is.  Instead, these two pudknockers have collapsed the circus tent and are running around setting bits of it on fire.

If the leakers of the tape wanted it to hurt McConnell, their plan backfired. McConnell raised money off his claim that he had been the victim of "Nixonian" tactics, and generally fomented conservative support with his outrage-based spin strategy after the tape came to light. Now that it looks like McConnell might be proven right about the origins of the tape, it's likely he'll get even more mileage out of Progress Kentucky.

The longer Progress Kentucky is in the news, the less McConnell's record is.  Kentucky Democrats are already a lost cause for most Americans.  If the rest of the Dems across the nation throw in the towel on beating Mitch because Heckle and Jeckle here have made the KY Dem brand too toxic to help...

McConnell has real political problems, including low approval ratings and Tea Party types in the GOP who are less than thrilled with his leadership in the Senate. National Democrats fear that the repeated Progress Kentucky faceplants are letting McConnell coast along.

"If it was them, this is an idiotic move and something that could jeopardize the larger push against McConnell in '14," one senior Democratic strategist in D.C. said of the tape. "If this is true, you ask yourself, why anybody would risk such a maneuver, especially on a tape was damning but not a game changer?"

In fact, Progress Kentucky is so bad at its stated task that some Democrats whisper behind the scenes (a better word is "hope") that it must to be a front set up by McConnell to make him look good and Democrats look terrible. Jennings had a message for those Democrats: no such luck.

"That's wishful thinking on the part of Democrats, I am sure, who seriously want to be as far away from these people as possible," he said.

Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Food For Thought

Stephen Hawking, one of the most intelligent people our generation will ever see, recently spoke to students about more than just science.  He talked to them about life in general.

Hawking rattled off nuggets of advice: Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious.

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at," he said.

A mind so powerful that he is the bar by which genius is measured shows  us the way to success.  Never stop trying, be curious, be creative, and look for your talents and how to use them.  His words are empowering when you consider the GOP attacks on education and the attitude that wanting to study is an entitlement that the common folks don't deserve.

So let's see.  Someone so smart his name is synonymous with genius wants you to think and learn and reach,  learn to relish challenge and apply your given talents, because without those attributes the human race is doomed.  When one of the smartest people alive says this, anyone who disagrees had better pack (or reference) some serious academic weight.  That's all I'm saying.



 

StupidiNews!

• Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Seoul, South Korea in order to try to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.
• Fossil research in South Africa has discovered another early ancestor of man, Australopithecus sediba, who roamed the African plains 2 million years ago.
• In the Senate, gun violence legislation has passed the first of many hurdles to open debate, but it still has a long way to go.
• President Obama has released $10 million in non-military food aid to Syrian rebels as the humanitarian crisis there worsens amid civil war.
• A two-year malware ring designed to target MMORPG players and manipulate in-game currency to steal real money has been uncovered by security experts.

Last Call: Roll The Tape

And the strange tale of Who Recorded Mitch The Turtle's Meeting continues...and takes a right turn straight into Insaneoville.

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative.

Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2.

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting.

Oh yes lawd, the same Wonder Twins who took a big flying crap on everything "progressive" in Kentucky (making my job ever so much harder) by tweeting at best stupid and at worst racist crap about Mitch McConnell's wife are apparently the braintrust behind giving McConnell everything he needs to assume the air of aggrieved victim for the entire rest of the campaign.

Oh, and it gets worse.

Shortly after WFPL broke the story on Thursday afternoon, Conway told Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly that he didn't want the actions by Reilly and Morrison to inflict damage on Democrats in Kentucky.

"The only reason that I came forward with what I knew was I was trying to protect the Democratic Party," Conway said. "I believe in our party's values, and I was doing what I thought was best for the party because I did not want their bad behavior, their poor mistakes — I shouldn't say "bad behavior" — their mistakes, their lack of judgment to hurt our party's efforts here in the state Kentucky and in Jefferson County, here in Louisville."

And worse...

The county Democratic Party official who outed two Democratic super PAC operatives in the Mitch McConnell secret tape case has been contacted by the FBI.

Jacob Conway, who sits on the executive committee of the Jefferson County, Ky. Democratic Party, told TPM on Thursday that he was going in to be interviewed at the bureau's Louisville, Ky. office.

And even worse...

The treasurer of Progress Kentucky, a liberal group accused of recording a private campaign strategy session held by aides of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, resigned soon after Mother Jones published the audio on Tuesday.

"At this time based on advice of both friends and counsel, I will be not be making a public statement available until everything has been reviewed by an attorney at this time," Douglas L. Davis told NBC News on Thursday. "I have resigned my position as treasurer and did not and do not condone any allegations of illegal activity that might have taken place."

And if possible, even worse.

In October 2003, Louisville was shaken to its core when 20-year-old Zachary Scarpellini was gunned down outside his Highlands apartment. The tony and quiet neighborhood of victorian mansions – home to residents like Ambassador Matthew Barzun and prominent businessman-turned-politician Bruce Lunsford – was rattled awake by gunfire, left terrified and in shock over such a violent crime.

The only witness at the scene other than the alleged gunman was Scarpellini’s roommate, Shawn Reilly, now Executive Director of Progress Kentucky. Reilly’s claim at the time of the crime was that he and Scarpellini were merely following someone they thought was breaking into cars. According to a report in the Bellarmine University (where Scarpellini was a student) newspaper, The Concord, investigators believed the shooting was random and the victim did not know his killer.

And even worse than that...

Thru atty, @progressky Shawn Reilly denies taping McConnell meeting, at most a witness, says if anyone's responsible it's Curtis Morrison
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

And God help me, even worse.

Atty for @progressky's Shawn Reilly: Reilly went to US attorney when Mother Jones broke tape & has been cooperating in federal investigation
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

It's...crazy.  Shaw Reilly is now throwing his friend and Progress KY co-founder directly to the Feds at near light speed.  More tomorrow...

Air Farce, Or Into The Wild Blue Slander

The USAF general who unilaterally overturned a lieutenant's conviction for sexual assault last year is speaking out about the case, and frankly, yeah he's just as awful as you could imagine.

Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin drew headlines and outrage in March for overturning Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction, nullifying his remaining prison sentence and returning him to service in the Air Force. In his letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley defending his decision, Franklin explained that he was acting fully in compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that he would be “entirely remiss in [his] sworn military duty and responsibility” if he had not overturned the jury’s findings.

Franklin’s memo listed 18 points of contention he saw in the evidence presented during Wilkerson’s court-martial, including several points that either were ruled inadmissible in court or specifically shifted the blame of any assault on the victim.

Yeah, because the victim deserved it, so he had to overturn a conviction by jury.  Among the general's reasons:

• The victim turned down three offers of a ride and seemed to have differing reasons why she wanted to stay.
• The victim had trouble identifying and describing parts of the house, didn’t remember the attacker’s mustache and didn’t correctly describe her path out of the house.
• Wilkerson’s wife’s account of the events differed in some details from her husband’s, but Franklin said the conflicts suggested that the two didn’t collude on a manufactured story.


• Testimony from the friend who took the alleged victim to the hospital the next day was not admissible in court, but Franklin said it indicated there could be a reason the woman might be less than candid.

Yeah.  His mustache.  That must be totally exculpatory evidence.  Luckily, Chuck Hagel is fixing this idiocy:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Tuesday proposed a change in the current law that would strip the convening authority of their ability to overturn verdicts in most cases as the first step in correcting the military’s sexual assault problem. Currently an estimated 19,000 instances of military sexual trauma take place in the U.S. armed services every year, the vast majority of which go unreported for fear of reprisal or scorn. 

US Air Farce strikes again, but all the armed services need a long, hard serious look at sexual harassment policies.

Death By A Thousand Budget Cuts

Let me point out the obvious:  Republicans plan to make sure Obamacare can't work by cutting funding for it, and then blaming the President.  Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans will find themselves in limbo with no health insurance, and at the tender of mercies of GOP governors slashing Medicare.

Don't get sick, America.  It could kill you.

The landmark health law may have survived the Supreme Court, countless repeal efforts and a presidential election — but none of that required Republicans to shower money on Obamacare. And with at least 33 states refusing to build the critical health insurance exchanges, the federal government is unexpectedly on the hook to set them up — and short of money to do so.

The White House requested $1.5 billion more for the health law implementation in its budget Wednesday, but health officials know they’re not likely to get it.

As past funding requests have been spurned, Health and Human Services officials contend they’ve been able to cobble together the funds and won’t miss the Oct. 1 start of open enrollment in exchanges. Any big delay, or major hitches would be a huge blow to Obamacare and reopen the law to political warfare before the 2014 mid-term elections.

“The Supreme Court has ruled, there has been an election, we intend to implement the law,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Wednesday. She acknowledged that without an infusion of new money, she’s probably going to have to keep juggling and scrambling to keep it all on track.

HHS to date hadn’t been very specific about how it’s been moving ahead — even when lawmakers asked. But Sebelius told reporters that the department hadn’t yet spent the full $1 billion that was initially allocated for implementation — a figure that was decided on long before the states balked at exchange-building. Sebelius said the department had been “judicious” in spending it, and officials said approximately $235 million is left in that fund.

Nice.  Meanwhile, let's keep giving $4 billion a year to oil companies who are making tens of billions in profit and keep screaming how we can't afford to make government work.

Assholes.

StupidiNews!

• Japanese automakers, led by Toyota and Honda, are recalling 3.4 million cars due to airbag inflation problems.
• A gunman in Atlanta who held four firefighters hostage was shot and killed by police late Wednesday afternoon.
• New government figures show as much as $5 billion are stolen yearly by identity thieves through false tax returns.
• The Boston Red Sox's record of consecutive sell-outs at Fenway Park came to an end this week at 794 games.
• Microsoft is working on a new 7-inch version of its Surface tablet to compete with the Google Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini.