StupidiNews!

• Syrian rebels are claiming more than 650 are dead after a chemical weapons attack by the al-Asaad regime on a rebel stronghold, charges vehemently denied by the Syrian government.
• The US Air Force says it can't keep up with demands for training new aerial drone pilots due to lack of volunteers.
• The 1972 Miami Dolphins got a 40th anniversary welcome to the White House that they never received for their perfect season initially due to Nixon and Watergate.
• Immigration legislation approved by the Senate would made H-1B work visas considerably more expensive, the bulk of which go to India.
• Google is launching Helpouts, a help-for-cash video chat service that matches people with qualifications in a variety of subjects to people looking to pay for assistance.

Last Call For Kentucky Fried Turtle

Mitch "The Turtle" McConnell apparently tastes like Mitch "The Chicken" McConnell according to his Senate primary challenger, Matt Bevin, and his growing list of Tea Party backers and donors.

As he battles a conservative primary challenger for his 2014 re-election bid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been getting hammered by the right for resisting the quixotic strategy to defund Obamacare or shut down the government.

The Brent Bozell-run conservative activist group ForAmerica and its allies in the movement are this week pushing a video comparing the Republican leader to a chicken, “or gallus gallus domesticus, a common domestic fowl.”

“The chicken is also representative of a new breed of Republicans in Washington,” the video says, showing footage of chickens. “They tend to say one thing … But when confronted with an opportunity to act, they often run, far away, without a sense of direction. … Take Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. On the issue of Obamacare, he says, ‘This law is a disaster. And I want you to know we’re not backing down from this fight.’ But when he has the chance to defund Obamacare, some say he’s chickening out.”

“Senator McConnell,” the video continues, “conservatives don’t need a chicken when it comes to Obamacare. Leaders lead. But if you fund it, you own it.”

Now, Bozell and his clowns may be, well, clowns, but they understand that Mitch the Turtle Chicken is an inherently political creature, and he'll do and say whatever is necessary in order to get elected.  Bozell is trying to make that level of necessary "stopping any Senate budget resolution that funds Obamacare" or even "refusing to raise the debt ceiling without full repeal".  The former is bad enough, but the latter would trigger a financial meltdown for sure.

And yet, these guys are literally calling McConnell chicken because they don't think he has the guts to follow through on these threats.

We'll see if he does or not.  But I guarantee you, if the GOP does go down this road, it won't be Mitch who is the only one getting Kentucky Fried in 2014.

The Ballot Of North Colorado, Or It's All Away From Boulder Dash

And the overwhelmingly conservative, rural, and (ahem) white population of Colorado's northern counties apparently have had enough of this "being attached to this Mork & Mindy driving a Subaru state crap" and are proceeding with Operation We're Leaving, Suckers.

To secede or not to secede from Colorado? That is the question that residents in Weld County will face in November after county commissioners voted unanimously Monday in favor of putting a 51st state initiative on the ballot, the Greeley Tribune reports.

The initiative, which calls for the creation of the state of North Colorado, has already made it onto the ballot in Cheyenne, Sedgwick and Yuma Counties. Logan, Phillips, Washington and Kit Carson Counties have also set dates to vote on the initiative.

“Si se puede -- yes, we can,” said Weld County Commission Chairman Bill Garcia, echoing one of President Barack Obama's campaign slogans, before commissioners voted on the initiative.

Several rural, predominantly Republican counties of north and and northeastern Colorado announced their plan to create a 51st state back in June. Supporters have cited a number of laws -- including gun control measures, an increase in renewable energy standards in rural areas, the curbing of perceived cruel treatment of livestock and expanded regulation of oil and gas production -- that the Democratically-controlled state legislature passed this year, as the impetus for the secession movement.

"Rural residents are now a disenfranchised minority of Colorado," Phillips County Administrator Randy Schafer told The Denver Post last month. "National and urban values and needs are trumping rural values and needs."

The argument is these counties, home to Colorado's fracking boom, are where all the money is, and if they leave, the rest of those people are just screwed.

Only one problem:  the same Colorado state legislature, Gov. John Hickenlooper, and the Congress these morons despise would all have to approve this little divorce beforehand.  And gosh, I don't see this happening.

But it sure is cool to vote petulantly to leave the government you're a part of just because you lost in a representative democracy, huh?  Nice to know that instead of working with Colorado, or working to even expand your party's power base, you guys are just going to cut and run in a symbolic waste of taxpayer money.

Clowns.

The Fetid Tang Of Desperation

Greg Sargent recaps the latest "grassroots" effort to go after "vulnerable Obamacare Democrats" during the congressional summer recess and finds it sorely lacking in both effectiveness and relevance:

Today Heritage Action for America is launching a nine-city tour designed to drum up support for the push for defunding. The White House-allied Americans United for Change is vowing to match Heritage’s events with its own, in an effort to demonstrate at least as much or more energy on the pro-Obamacare side. We’re already seeing little evidence to suggest that the great and fearsome conservative backlash to immigration reform is materializing. Will the same happen on the great defund-Obamacare crusade?

Those who want a shutdown confrontation are themselves framing the battle in these terms, arguing that the recess is the time for the grassroots to speak up and demand that the squishy GOP establishment stiffen its spine and do what it takes to halt Obamacare before it’s too late. Indeed, National Journal reports that the movement to defund Obamacare is falling “on hard times,” and even defund-Obamacare ringleader Ted Cruz seems uneasy.

Indeed, the big Republican plan is to somehow terrify Dems who voted for Obamacare to run away from the plan.  If there's any Dem who should be vulnerable to that tactic, it's Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas.  But Pryor isn't biting:

“It has been a success,” Pryor says of Obamacare, citing a number of health insurance reforms and other benefits taking effect. “Probably we did get 80 percent [right], we have to go in and work on the 20 percent.”

Seems somebody has learned the lessons of Blanche Lincoln's complete meltdown in 2010.

StupidiNews!

• The US is holding military aid to Egypt "under review" over hundreds being killed in a bloody crackdown by the country's military government.
• Scientists have discovered evidence of the earliest humans in Northern China that dates back 1.6 million years. 
• Tens of thousands of Kurdish Syrian refugees have fled the country into Iraq as heavy fighting in northern Syria between Kurdish militia and Arab rebels became open warfare.
• Tesla Motors says its Model S electric sedan has received the highest NHTSA crash-test scores in US history, with unprecedented across-the-board five star ratings in every category.
• Gamemaker Electronic Arts is offering a seven-day refund policy from its Origin online game purchase platform in an effort to compete with rival online game service Steam.

Last Call For Everybody Involved Being Wrong

After 24 hours of outrage over Glenn Greenwald's partner being detained at Heathrow Airport for 9 hours, BooMan sums it up best:

Can't we agree that it's way over the top to use a terrorism statute to detain someone who has no ties to terrorism and also fault Greenwald for senselessly telling everyone that his partner was working with him to secure stolen documents?  

Sure, but that would be, you know, both logical and correct.  Ain't nobody got time for dat!

Ray Of Total Destruction

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, the scuzzbag behind NYPD's now unconstitutional stop and frisk program, actually had the unmitigated gall to defend the program on Meet The Press Sunday, using the logic that if the program was stopped, well, black people are going to die.

“The stark reality is that violence is happening disproportionately in minority communities,” Kelly told NBC host David Gregory on Sunday. “We have record-low numbers of murders in New York City, record-low numbers of shootings. We’re doing something right to save lives. Last year, as I said, we had a record low in numbers of murders. This year, we’re running 30 percent below that.”

“I understand the sensitivity of it,” the commissioner added. “It — very important in the African-American community. I would also submit, though, that the Trayvon Martin case is a little bit different. These are two civilians. There clearly was a tragedy, but it didn’t involve sworn police officers.”

“If a program like stop-and-frisk is abandoned, will people die?” Gregory wondered. 

“No question about it, violent crime will go up,” Kelly agreed. 

Because, well, Trayvon Martin will happen again and again, and if you don't let the NYPD treat all minorities as pre-criminals, well, somebody's going to get shot when these savage, inhuman thugs escape their cages.

Ray Kelly just disqualified himself from ever holding a law enforcement job again, frankly.  I pray that whomever replaces Mike Bloomberg in NYC as Mayor takes their first day on the job to make a city-wide holiday of firing Ray Kelly's ass, complete with balloons for the kids.  I'm hoping that someone is Bill de Blasio, by the way.

And yes, If President Obama somehow nominates this racist assclown as Homeland Security head, I'll lose my stuff.  With the ruling against stop and frisk, it's not going to happen however.

And that's good thing.

Mooseiah Complex

Always Wrong Bill Kristol seems to think that in 2014 if Sarah Palin runs for and wins the Senate seat currently held by Alaska Democrat Mark Begich, all will be forgiven in his eyes.

“I was for taking the gamble of putting her on the ticket, I don’t think it hurt the ticket in 2008,” Kristol explained. “I think her stepping down as governor of Alaska was a big problem. People don’t like to see a candidate, a governor, an executive — absent some medical reason or whatever — just leave office early. And she had been a good governor — incidentally — of Alaska until then. So, I think that is something, I think, she has to recover from in terms of being a serious leader in the party. Still has a lot of loyalty, still can shape the debate, she still has a great political touch.”

“I think the way Palin would possibly resurrect herself — if that’s the right word or rehabilitate herself, I think is a better way of putting it — run for Senate in Alaska in 2014,” he continued. “I’m not urging that. I’m just saying, if I were her adviser, I would say, ‘Take on the incumbent, you have to win a primary, then you have to beat an incumbent Democrat, it’s not easy.’”

“But if she did that, suddenly — if you can imagine that,” Kristol added, smiling. “Sarah Palin, freshman senator, January 2015 in Washington having beaten an incumbent. That would be pretty interesting.”

Sure, in the same way bubonic plague, nuclear waste sites, and telemarketer conventions are "interesting".  Kristol's not completely moronic, he wants the GOP to win back the Senate and Begich's seat is a big part of getting to 51.  He also knows that Sarah Palin has a better chance of winning -- or at least drawing national attention and fundraising millions -- than our old friend Human Disaster Area Joe Miller:  terrible at math, even worse at campaigning, quick on the trigger to assault journalists and bloggers who ask too many questions, and a sore-ass loser.  Miller's 2010 campaign against Lisa Murkowski was legendarily bad, and he's somehow running against Begich in 2014.

Despite Palin's approval rating in Alaska somewhere around the level of Milwaukee's Best beer, and the fact she'd lose to Begich by double digits, Miller would find a way to lose by triple digits.  So yeah, Moose Lady is the GOP's best shot in Honey Caribou Boo land.

That's the hook Bill Kristol is hanging his hat on.  It'll fall off halfway through, of course.

StupidiNews!

• Two natural disasters this week: In Idaho, the Beaver Creek wildfire has burned more than 100,000 acres, and in the Southeast, heavy flooding from Mississippi to NC is possible.
• Al-Jazeera America launches tomorrow in 40 million US homes, attempting to win viewers with long-form reporting and hard news.
• A Sunday lull in violent clashes in Egypt still left dozens dead as the Egyptian military claimed 36 criminals were killed attempting a jailbreak.
• Some 30,000 auto parts workers in South Africa have gone on strike this weekend, walking off the job in order to demand higher pay, halting production at GM and Nissan plants.
• Charges against a California driver involved in a fatal bike accident have grown from manslaughter to murder after tweets he made bragging about his reckless driving.

Last Call For Sort Of Shutting Down The Government

Sen. Rand Paul has a great idea, mainly involving not shutting down the government by the House GOP forcing defunding Obamacare, just the House GOP permanently delaying the insurance mandate, the exchanges opening, the subsidies for working class families, and everything else from actually going into effect.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that Republicans should “stand up and fight” against ObamaCare, but warned that forcing a government shutdown over funding for the law is the wrong strategy.

"I don't think shutting down the government is a good idea, but I do think that we were elected, conservatives were elected, to try to stop this overreach, this government takeover of healthcare," Paul told "Fox News Sunday."

Paul said Republicans should use the desire to avoid a government shutdown to squeeze concessions out of Democrats, predicting that a spending bill that headed to conference committee could see a delay of the individual mandate or opening of the insurance exchanges.

"People want us to stand up and fight, I'm willing to stand up and fight," Paul said. "We should use the leverage of controlling one-third of the government. We don't control all of the government, but Republicans control the House of Representatives, they should stand up, use that power to at the very least make that law less bad, delay it, do something we can to protect the American public from the law."

So defunding the law and then threatening to shut down the government is unreasonable.  Defunding all the other stuff that makes the law possible and threatening to shut down the government, totally okay!

 

And so it goes with our principled Republican moderates.

Onward Christian Prophetic Minority

This WSJ profile of the Southern Baptist Convention's new political director, Russell Moore, is very interesting to me from a "know your opponent" standpoint.  I'm not a devout Christian by any means, or even religious, but the political strategy that Moore is pushing seems to be best described here as "pragmatic victimhood".  And if the notion seems odd to you that the Christian majority in the US is suddenly acting like an aggrieved minority, you've not been paying attention to the Religious Right's shell game in the age of Obama.

'The Bible Belt is collapsing," says Russell Moore. Oddly, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission doesn't seem upset. In a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Moore explains that he thinks the Bible Belt's decline may be "bad for America, but it's good for the church."

Why? Because "we are no longer the moral majority. We are a prophetic minority."

The phrase is arresting coming from such a prominent religious leader—akin to a general who says the Army has shrunk to the point it can no longer fight two wars. A youthful 41, Mr. Moore is among the leaders of a new generation who think that evangelicals need to recognize that their values no longer define mainstream American culture the way they did 50 or even 20 years ago.

On gay marriage, abortion, even on basic religious affiliation, the culture has moved away. So evangelicals need a new way of thinking—a new strategy, if you will—to attract and keep believers, as well as to influence American politics.

The easy days of mobilizing a ready-made majority are gone. By "prophetic minority," he means that Christians must return to the days when they were a moral example and vanguard—defenders of belief in a larger unbelieving culture. He views this less as a defeat than as an opportunity.

It's not like ascribing fever-bright martyrdom to a group of religious fanatics is new in the history of the planet or anything, or even American history.  But in a decade they've gone from "We're the moral majority because this will always be a Christian nation" to "If you are a true Christian, you will fight this battle with us because America has lost its way".

It's a call to arms against the rest of the country.  The prophetic minority strategy makes Christians morally correct because they are being "persecuted" for their beliefs by a country that increasingly doesn't buy into their intolerance towards LGBTQ Americans, racial minorities, women, other religions, secular Americans, and even more liberal, inclusive Christians (of which I come from a long line of.)  And those who don't meet the standards, well, it's time to go after them.

His cultural revival plan is also to focus more on local churches. When the Supreme Court's decisions on gay marriage came down in June, Mr. Moore sent a message to pastors to help them talk with their congregants about the Southern Baptist opposition to the law. "We don't hate our gay and lesbian neighbors," he says, but redefining marriage on their behalf is another matter.

There are a couple of reasons why Christians are losing the debate over gay marriage, Mr. Moore says. One is that even many Christians don't have a real understanding of what marriage is. "We have embraced certain aspects of the sexual revolution," he says, like the "divorce culture."

Another is that many people assume "my marriage is my business"—why should they care if their neighbors marry someone of the same sex? Mr. Moore says the part of the marriage ceremony when the pastor asks if anyone knows of a reason why the couple should not wed is like a "vestigial organ." No one ever objects "except in romantic comedies," but there was a time when a couple's marriage decision was thought to be of church concern. He would like it to be again.

As a "prophetic minority," Mr. Moore thinks his most profound political task will be defending religious liberty from the assaults of a secular government. The cause is at the heart of his plan to fight the contraception mandate in ObamaCare. President Obama may have thought that religious employers would accept being forced to pay for contraception, the morning-after abortion pill or sterilization under the law. "But we are not adjusting to the new normal," Mr. Moore avers. "We are not going to go away or back down."

So yes, from this standpoint, they are a minority.  They are hardly aggrieved, however.  But that's how they want to play it, and that's the new political strategy:  everything that the Obama administration is doing is an "assault on the religious liberty" on those who say they are unfairly being persecuted for their proud intolerance.  The government cannot tell them to do anything that they don't believe they should have to do.  Decades of jurisprudence would say otherwise, but the basic plan is everything they don't like now violates the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause, and they will act accordingly.

So stand tall, anti-choicers, homobigots, and Talibangelicals.  Your right to shame, persecute, and harass those who don't meet your standards will be fought for tooth and nail.

What a nice religion to be based on the right to hate, not love, others.

ZVTS Takes The Fifth (Birthday)

Fifth birthday, that is.  I completely missed the fact we turned 5 years old this month (August 6th).

 

 

Here's hoping we keep going, in one form or another.  It's been a hell of a ride though, and it's been because of you guys.   Thanks for being a reader!

Last Call For Shutdown Countdown

If House Republicans really are buying this narrative, I'm going to enjoy hearing the words "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi" sooner than I thought.

House conservatives say grassroots support is building for their effort to risk a government shutdown to defund ObamaCare.

Conservatives who back the strategy said their spines have been stiffened by support at town-hall meetings.

“I have not heard, 'Don’t shut down the government over ObamaCare,'” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) said, referring to meetings with his constituents over the recess. “I have heard, 'This law is not ready for primetime, and we need to do anything we can to stop it.'” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) has held six events in his north Texas district so far in August and is leaning toward backing the shutdown threat.

He also said the federal government’s move this month to subsidize health insurance for lawmakers and staff required to enter ObamaCare’s exchanges is acting as an “accelerant” and “driving people into a froth” about shutting the government down over ObamaCare funding. 



“I'm hearing a lot of anger that is right beneath the surface, ready to erupt,” Burgess said. At one town hall, Burgess said support for the defunding threat was "virtually unanimous" when he asked for a show of hands. 



"Grassroots anger" will occur when the House GOP follows through on this mess and Grandpa finds out he may not be getting his Social Security check on time, Grandma may not be getting her Medicare reimbursement for this visit to the doc, Uncle Ted's delayed in getting his VA benefits, and Aunt Molly's not able to take the cousins to Yellowstone because the park's closed indefinitely.

But go ahead, guys.  Obama's already been re-elected, but guess how many House Republicans are facing re-election in 2014?

Why, all of them.

Roll the bones, boys.  Roll the bones.

Romney Goes Through The Reince Cycle

RNC chairman and 35 MPG highway sedan Reince Priebus just ran over Mitt Romney's immigration position, and Benjy Sarlin wonders if the wily(ish) head of the GOP truly understands the 55-gallon drum of lombrices that he's opened.

“Using the word ‘self-deportation’ — it’s a horrific comment to make,” Priebus told reporters, according to Business Insider. “I don’t think it has anything to do with our party. When someone makes those comments, obviously, it’s racist.”

Priebus has been working hard to push the party to the center on immigration ever since President Obama dominated the Hispanic vote in November. But his latest comments put him on dangerous ground.

For one thing, there’s nothing obviously “racist” about the phrase “self-deportation” itself. It was actually a pretty accurate description of Romney’s preferred policy as championed by Republican officials like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Their position was that if you pass state and federal laws to make life difficult for undocumented immigrants, then hopefully they’ll leave. You might disagree with the policy, but there’s nothing explicitly racial in Romney’s description of it.

But here’s where Priebus really runs into trouble. If Romney was “racist” in 2012, so was practically the entire Republican party. Romney’s position was such standard fare at the time that it made it into the RNC’s party platform—you know, the platform Priebus oversaw as chairman.

Oops.

Of course, an even bigger is the actually racist immigration positions of Republicans like Iowa's Steve King, who seems to think undocumented Latino immigrants are all drug dealers with huge calves.  But hey, Drive The All New Reince Priebus seems bound and determined to make sure that everybody blames the GOP when the immigration bill dies screaming in the House.

I don't have a problem with that.

Your 2016 Worst Kasich Scenario

I have no idea what either Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich or the Columbus Dispatch has been smoking, but this isn't happening under any circumstances.

Gov. John Kasich awoke to a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that not only mentioned him as a possible White House contender for 2016, but as someone who could “rebrand the Republican Party.”

After that piece, Kasich’s press office announced by 11:30 a.m. that Kasich would lead a national push to produce a federal balanced-budget amendment.

And about an hour after that, in a speech to the Franklin County Republican Party, he said the Affordable Care Act is “not Obama’s plan; it’s Hillarycare.”

It was quite a sequence ... but for a governor seeking re-election next year or of someone thinking bigger?

Hillary vs Kasich?  So the Republican 50-state strategy is "give 50 states to Hillary?"  C'mon, guys.  First of all, Kasich has the charisma of a moldy couch.  Second, he just signed into law one of the most ridiculous abortion laws in the country.  Third, Ohio is completely controlled by the Tea Party, and fourth, the Tea Party is about to force an unconstitutional fetal heartbeat abortion ban bill that would end all abortions after just six weeks.  If Kasich signs that, he's done.  If he doesn't sign it, he's done.

And as the Plunderbund crew reminds us, there's a reason number 5.

[Friday] morning, the July jobs report came out. The good news? Ohio gained 5,300 more jobs as private sector gains (+9,100) but lost 3,300 in the public sector (losses employment in federal and local government outpaced gained in state government). 3,100 jobs were lost in construction last month which has seen 6,300 lost jobs since last July. Roughly half of the private sector gains last month came from the typically low pay/low benefits leisure and hospitality sector. Ohio’s job gains in July only erased less than 59% of the jobs lost in June.

That’s all the good news. The rest is bad news. Ohio’s unemployment rate stayed at 7.2% as the unemployment rate nationally dropped .2% last month. The only “miracle” in Ohio’s economic news last month is that Ohio’s unemployment rate didn’t go up. But over the past twelve months, Ohio’s unemployment rate hasn’t moved. Like, at all. And the trendlines over the past months strongly suggest there’s far greater pressure that will drive Ohio’s unemployment rate up than down.

For the THIRD consecutive month in a row, the number of unemployed Ohioans grew. In July, three thousand Ohioans joined the rank of the unemployed. That means there are 1,000 more Ohioans unemployed today than there were a year ago. Although the CES survey of employer’s payrolls showed a gain of 5,300 jobs, the LAUS survey of households (which actually determines the State’s unemployment rate) showed 14,000 fewer Ohioans reported being employed, so there is a disparity between what company payroll records are reporting to what Ohio households are saying.

So no, John Kasich is not going to be the 45th President of the United Anygoddamnthing.  Trust me on this.