Last Call For The Eruption Of Mt. Gox

Live by the Bitcoin, die by the Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin-trading website Mt.Gox was taken offline late Monday, putting at risk millions of dollars put there by investors who gambled on the digital currency. The exchange alsodeleted all of its tweets, and Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpeles resigned from the Bitcoin Foundation's board of directors on Sunday.

The news frightened Bitcoin investors elsewhere, knocking the price down about 3% to $490 -- its lowest level since November.

For now, there's no telling what's behind the shutdown. Mt.Gox did not respond to requests for comment.

However, an unverified document called "Crisis Strategy Draft" that is being circulated online claims Mt.Gox has lost 744,408 of its users' bitcoins, worth nearly $367 million. It also claims Mt.Gox is planning to rebrand itself as Gox.

Good luck with that "rebranding" after possibly losing hundreds of millions to digital theft.  The safe, stateless currency of the future, right?  Oh I know, it was all the NSA's fault, right?

By the time trading at Mt.Gox was halted entirely late Monday, the price of a Bitcoin there had dropped significantly, to $130. Meanwhile it was trading for more than four times that on other exchanges.

Late on Monday, several other Bitcoin exchanges sought to reassure investors and took a harder line with Mt. Gox.

"This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company's abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry," the groups said in a statement.

Everything is fine in the tulip bulb factory.  Please continue to buy more tulip bulbs, and ignore the massive losses of millions!

At the corner of technology and economics is one of the oldest schemes in the book, folks.

A Host Of Lunatics

What's the thought process here, Virginia State GOP Sen. Steve Martin?

Martin, the former chairman of the Senate Education and Health Committee, wrote a lengthy post about his opinions on women's bodies on his Facebook wall last week in response to a critical Valentine's Day card he received from reproductive rights advocates.

"I don't expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive," Martin wrote. "However, once a child does exist in your womb, I'm not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child's host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn't want it." Martin then changed his post on Monday afternoon to refer to the woman as the "bearer of the child" instead of the "host."

Wait what, pregnant women are "hosts" now?  I mean sure, if you consider the kid a parasite or you're from the planet Zergon Prime, pregnant females are "hosts".

Actually, as Ed Kilgore points out, the alien thing does explain the Tea Party, doesn't it.

But this is the standard RTL position, and why most antichoicers oppose “rape and incest” exceptions other than as a matter of tactical flexibility. Once a zygote exists, it’s a person and a baby and has rights equal to (if not superior to, because of its “innocent” nature) the mother, or the “bearer of the child,” or the “host,” or however you want to put it. No interest of the woman in terminating the pregnancy (or even preventing it, if that happens after fertilization) other than preservation of her own life can possibly trump that “right to life.”

And they legislate to that effect, and will keep doing so until it is the law of the entire country, hence the term "anti-choicers" being 100% applicable:  you have no choice but to have the baby.  The "host" is just that, for the term of pregnancy only the baby matters.  The woman becomes merely a vessel and effectively loses rights over her reproductive system from the instant of conception.

Or possible conception, depending on the law.  In other words, if a woman has sex or if it is forced upon her unwillingly (again depending on the law) she loses her rights to her own body because she may from that point on be a "host".

Seems pretty alien to me.

Shutdown Writ Small Could Be A Huge Headache

Will Republicans in Virginia and Arkansas actually pull the government shutdown play to try to trash their state's respective Democratic governors over Medicaid expansion?  Sure looks that way.

Talking to reporters Monday in Washington, where he's been attending the National Governors Association's annual meeting, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D) acknowledged that a shutdown in Little Rock was a possibility. He conceded that the House, where the funding bill is currently stuck, is two votes short of the supermajority needed to approve the federal funding.

But he said he hoped that conservatives in the Arkansas House had learned a lesson from their colleagues in Congress and wouldn't shut down the government over the health care reform law. For now, the state government is funded through June, but according to the Associated Press, lawmakers have warned that the impasse over Medicaid could stop the entire next year's budget from passing.

"There's no telling what kind of hardball somebody could play," Beebe said. "I think last year the Republicans in Congress figured out they didn't want to do that anymore."

"I think the voting public would be very irritated with everybody. It'd be hard to figure out who they're going to blame."

If Republicans shut down Arkansas's state government over Medicaid, they're done.  It'll be a nightmare for them, and they know it.  Same goes for Virginia, where the previous GOP governor Bob McDonnell is now facing corruption charges.  You thought Virginia was turning blue quickly before?  Wait until you mess up a state that already has a lot of government workers.

In Virginia, the Senate has approved a form of Medicaid expansion similar to Arkansas's and Gov. Terry McAuliffe has endorsed it. But conservatives in the House don't want any part of it, taking a symbolic vote last week to voice their opposition.

Now the two chambers are going into a conference to resolve their budget differences, and, unless they break the deadlock over Medicaid, a shutdown is possible there as well, according to the Washington Post. The current session is supposed to end on March 8 and, as in Arkansas, June 30 marks the deadline for approving a new budget to fund the Virginia state government.

Already, Senate Democrats are warning that House conservatives could feel the heat -- as the congressional GOP did during the federal shutdown -- if they close the government's doors over Obamacare.

Multiple state shutdowns four months before midterms?  I bet that's exactly what national Republicans want to see in the news for weeks and weeks.  Please proceed, Republicans.

StupidiNews!

• "Ghostbusters" and "Stripes" star Harold Ramis has died at the age of 69 from complications from an autoimmune disease.
• Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will face at least two conservative challengers for re-election who filed paperwork to run in October.
• Ukraine's interim government has indicted ousted President Viktor Yanukovich on charges of "mass murder" over the protest of Russian diplomats.
• Venezuelan opposition leaders have pulled out of talks with President Nicolas Maduro after the death toll from this weekend's protests rose to 13.
• New analysis of what is believed to be the Earth's oldest rock dates the piece of zircon at nearly 4.4 billion years old.

Last Call For Bobby's World

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal made a national embarrassment out of himself yet again at the National Governor's Association meeting at the White House today.  At a bipartisan meeting of the nation's governors, Jindal threw all pretense of giving a damn about protocol out the window and displayed his Obama Derangement Syndrome, full force.

A group of governors emerged midday Monday from a meeting with President Barack Obama that stressed bipartisan cooperation — but that sentiment didn’t last as far as the White House driveway, as a Republican who’s had bigger political aspirations offered a tough assessment of what he’d heard.

“This president and the White House seems to be waving the white flag of surrender” by focusing on a limited set of executive actions, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told reporters outside the White House, breaking from the comity of the first dozen minutes of a press conference led by National Governors Association chair Mary Fallin (R-Okla.) and vice-chair John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) — and from typically more innocuous readouts describing nearly all meetings as “productive.”

The president spoke repeatedly about raising the minimum wage during his meetings with more than 40 of the nation’s governors, Jindal said — but, argued the Louisiana governor, that’s the wrong place for the White House to be focusing its energies. “The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that, I think America can do better than that,” said the potential 2016 presidential candidate, suggesting that the president approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, rein in regulations and expand drilling on federal lands to boost economic growth.

Of course Jindal has his own problems, as the guys at Public Policy Polling can attest to.

Bobby Jindal continues to be one of the most unpopular Governors in the country, with only 35% of voters approving of him to 53% who disapprove. Even among Republican primary voters in his home state only 37% want him to run for President, compared to 51%  who think he should sit it out. Mike Huckabee is the top choice of GOP primary voters in the state at 20% to 13% for Jindal, 12% for Ted Cruz, 10% for Rand Paul, 9% for Jeb Bush, 8% each for Chris Christie and Paul Ryan, 7% for Marco Rubio, and 2% for Scott Walker.

Gosh, that 35% approval rating would put him, you know, in a worse spot than President Obama.  Even Rasmussen has the President above the 50% mark here for several days in February 2014.

Perhaps Jindal should keep his mouth shut, since he's no longer relevant by his own logic.

The Dean Of The House Retires

After a staggering 58 years in the House of Representatives, an amazing 29 terms in office, Michigan Democrat John Dingell is retiring at the age of 88 and will not seek a 30th term.

Rep. John Dingell is leaving the Congress he’s served for longer than anyone else in United States history.

At a luncheon Monday in his beloved Downriver, the Dearborn representative says he will announce he won’t seek re-election this fall to the seat he’s held since 1955.

“I’m not going to be carried out feet first,” says Dingell, who will be 88 in July. “I don’t want people to say I stayed too long.”

Dingell says his health “is good enough that I could have done it again. My doctor says I’m OK. And I’m still as smart and capable as anyone on the Hill.

“But I’m not certain I would have been able to serve out the two-year term.”

More than health concerns, Dingell says a disillusionment with the institution drove his decision to retire.

“I find serving in the House to be obnoxious,” he says. “It’s become very hard because of the acrimony and bitterness, both in Congress and in the streets.”

The Tea Party is too much even for the "Dean of the House" Dingell.  Here's your fact of the day:

The question now becomes who will succeed Dingell. He won the seat at age 29 after the death of his father, a Depression-era New Dealer who served the district for 20 years.

So the Dingell family has represented the Dearborn, Michigan region in the House since the 30's.  Some 78 years.  That will never happen again in US history.

I'm frankly not sure that it should, either.  Dingell is certainly the last piece of a bygone era, with the passing of Sens. Robert Byrd and Daniel Akaka, and Ted Kennedy.  Dingell's House colleague and fellow Democrat Henry Waxman is also retiring this year.  The old Democrats are soon to be gone.

In their place, the House That Boehner Built.  Do nothing, blame Obama.  Four years from now it will be Do nothing, blame Hillary.  A government that doesn't work.  And increasingly, we're okay with that.

Wishing Hard For The Second Civil War

With bloody protests against the governments of Ukraine, Venezuela, and Thailand happening this month, it was only a matter of time before the sad Tea Party kids started complaining there's not enough revolution here stateside to overthrow Emperor LeBarack Shabazz The Blackness XIV, and our old buddy Instadoofus wonders out loud in USA Today if the "American Spring" is already here.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut a massive new gun-registration scheme is also facing civil disobedience. As J.D. Tuccille reports: "Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as 'assault weapons,' and 2 million plus high-capacity magazines. ... But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for 'assault weapon' registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines."

This is more "Irish Democracy," passive resistance to government overreach. The Hartford (Conn.) Courant is demanding that the state use background-check records to prosecute those who haven't registered, but the state doesn't have the resources and it's doubtful juries would convict ordinary, law-abiding people for failure to file some paperwork.

Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela toThailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they've begun.

Now you're probably thinking "Self, Glenn Reynolds comparing A) sharing license plate data across state computer systems, B) the FCC asking newsroom reporters about how news decisions are made, and C) Connecticut's assault rifle registration law all seems really moronic even for him as these events are not anywhere close to the revolutions in Ukraine this last week" and you, well, you'd be right on the money.  But that's where the law professor turned blogger turned USA Today columnist is, that all of this is in fact prima facie evidence that America is on the verge of rising up against our government.

Reynolds is at least mildly subtle about this fever dream.  Donald Douglas over at American Power is not, as he drops the pretense and calls for open, armed insurrection against the US government.

This is our world in America today, a grim totalitarian world of Democrat Party repression and inhuman leftist indifference and demonization. God willing the people will rise up against the Obama tyranny soon enough, at the ballot box in November, and by the bullet if that's what it takes in the end. A free people will not long tolerate the jackboot of dictatorship. Americans proved that to the world once over 200 years ago. Perhaps will see the Spirit of '76 rekindled here again soon, not unlike the protesters in Venezuela and Ukraine are doing at this very moment.

Yes, because it's so unreasonable to think the guys calling for a Second American Civil War might not be such awesome people.  That's "demonization", apparently.  Heaven forbid we share license plate data, that's so much worse.

And yes, these assholes hate Obama and the Democrats enough to all but call for their murder of them and their supporters.

StupidiNews!

• Maria von Trapp, the last of the singing von Trapp family siblings made famous by the movie "The Sound of Music", has passed away at age 99.
• Veteran "Star Trek" actor George Takei has stepped into Arizona's battle over legalizing business's refusal of services to LGBTQ patrons based on "religious beliefs" with a letter directed to lawmakers.
• Seventeen are dead and dozens injured after an outbreak of violence in Iraq Sunday, with a car bomb killing five and several shootouts with Iraqi police injuring many more.
• Netflix will agree to a multi-year deal with Comcast in order for the cable and internet giant to deliver Netflix's streaming video more efficiently.
• Web developer Mozilla will be bringing its Firefox OS to a line of $25 smartphones, designed to conquer the low-cost market in developing nations.

Last Call For Ukraine Migraine

In Kiev, opposition forces have now put President Viktor Yanukovich into the "ousted, former leader" category, but the headache in the Crimea region is just starting.

Ukraine's interim leadership pledged to put the country back on course for European integration now Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich had been ousted from the presidency, while the United States warned Russia against sending in its forces.

As rival neighbors east and west of the former Soviet republic said a power vacuum in Kiev must not lead to the country breaking apart, acting president Oleksander Turchinov said late on Sunday that Ukraine's new leaders wanted relations with Russia on a "new, equal and good-neighborly footing that recognizes and takes into account Ukraine's European choice".

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel to Ukraine on Monday, where she is expected to discuss measures to shore up the ailing economy.

Russia said late on Sunday it had recalled to Moscow its ambassador in Ukraine for consultations on the "deteriorating situation" in Kiev.

A day after Yanukovich fled to the Russian-speaking east following dozens of deaths during street protests aimed at toppling him, parliament named new speaker Turchinov as interim head of state. An ally of the ousted leader's long-jailed rival Yulia Tymoshenko, he aims to swear in a government by Tuesday that can provide authority until a presidential election on May 25.

The last thing Vlad Putin wants is for Ukraine to join the EU, and by extension, NATO.  This whole mess started because Yanukovich basically ignored the will of the people to join the EU in order to keep Putin happy.  All that has now fallen apart, but it doesn't mean sunshine and roses in Kiev just yet, either.  Ukraine's economy is in shambles right now.

In addition to any economic assistance the EU might offer, the U.S. has also promised help. Budgets are tight on both sides of the Atlantic, and international creditors may be wary of Yanukovich's opponents, whose previous spell in government was no economic success, but a desire to avoid instability and back what looks to Western voters like a democratic movement menaced by Russian diktat may loosen purse strings, at least to tide Ukraine over until elections.

In Russia, where Putin had wanted Ukraine as a key part in a union of ex-Soviet states, the finance minister said the next tranche of a $15-billion loan package agreed in December would not be paid, at least before a new government is formed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to his office, told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry the opposition had "seized power" by force by ignoring an EU-brokered truce that would have left Yanukovich in office for the time being.

So no, Russia's in no mood to help out.  The good news is the EU is in position to help, at least in the short run.  We'll see how this works out.

Imprisoned By Fear

Texas Republican Michael McCaul is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and wants everyone to know that American super-max prisons are the only solution to hold the world's most dangerous criminals.

The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security is encouraging Mexico's authorities to extradite drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (wah-KEEN' el chah-poh gooz-MAHN') to the United States to ensure he remains behind bars.

Guzman was arrested Saturday morning in the resort city of Mazatlan, Mexico.

Republican Michael McCaul calls Guzman the world's most notorious drug lord and says on ABC's "This Week" that his arrest is a significant victory for Mexico and the United States.

Guzman faces at least seven federal indictments.

McCaul said it's Mexico's call on where Guzman faces prosecution, but he noted that Guzman escaped from prison in 2001 and corruption continues to plague Mexico.

McCaul says Guzman would end up "in a super-max prison" in the U.S. from which he could not escape.

So Guzman, the Mexican drug kingpin, the "world's most notorious drug lord", well we would have to extradite him to the US in order to face our justice system so he can spend the rest of his life in a super-max cell.  Got it.  What about, you know, other criminals?

McCaul said efforts to close Gitmo were impractical and questioned where detainees suspected of terrorism could be housed.

“The president's position was let's just close it down and find a solution to this,” he said. “I think the reverse should be true and that is we ought to be trying to find how to deal with them before we close this facility down.

“Name me one American city that would like to host these guys -- these terrorists in their country?,” asked McCaul.

Oh, so absolutely we must put the world's most notorious drug lord in a US super-max, a man so dangerous he had his own personal army that viciously fought military troops and killed civilians (completely unlike a terrorist), a criminal so ruthless and rich he regularly made Forbes's list of World Billionaires and Most Powerful People, but we can never, ever put some angry former goat herder from Yemen in a US super-max because unlike El Chapo, there's too much of a risk of reprisal to the surrounding community.

Right.

A Case Of Sparkling Perry Error

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has apparently come up with the perfect GOP delusion on immigration:  reforming it magically no longer matters!

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, no stranger to the tough debate over the nation’s immigration laws, thinks recent legislation passed by Mexico’s Congress, a major priority of President Enrique Pena Nieto, may have set in motion a reversal of the flow of undocumented immigrants northward. In a short time, Perry said in an interview Saturday, undocumented immigrants may be streaming back over the U.S.-Mexico border, headed for lucrative energy sector jobs back home.

“The landscape on immigration is fast changing,” Perry said. “My instinct is that immigration and immigration reform are going to be substantially less of a flashpoint than they have been in the last several years.”

 So what miracle is this that will see undocumented workers flood back south to Mexico?  Drill baby drill!

The change, Perry predicted, will come as private investors begin taking stakes in Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly. In December, Mexico’s Senate ratified outlines of legislation that would allow private investment in the company, which could eventually lead to complete privatization. Outside analysts believe the new rules will eventually make Mexico one of the world’s largest oil producers.

The new jobs that result from the energy boom, Perry predicted, will attract immigrant labor that would otherwise come to the United States.

Well, if you're, say, Halliburton or Exxon/Mobil, getting in on the ground floor of Mexico's oil boom, with cheap labor and zero Environmental Protection Agency in the way, has got to be the economic equivalent of snorting Viagra off of supermodels.  America's energy giants will be stabbing each other in the back (and the front) to get the lion's share of this.

Bonus points:  dangerous and heavily armed Mexican drug cartels means private military contractors will be making fat cash too conducting "security operations" and "dealing with the locals" for the oil guys.

It's Iraq all over again.  Only a lot closer.  No wonder Rick Perry can barely contain himself.

Now whether or not this "reverses" the flow of undocumented immigrants from the south, Republicans can say it will and just ignore immigration reform.  In this scenario, Obama gets zero credit and the demographic changes in border states slow dramatically, so they think they can ignore it completely, anyway.

“At that point in time, this whole issue of immigration reform, I think loses a lot of steam. And then the immigration debate may become, how are we going to efficiently allow people into this country to fill the agricultural or hospitality or construction jobs that these people had historically been filling,” Perry said.

Perry said that takes the pressure off Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, where immigration reform legislation has stalled in recent months after passing the Senate.

“I would suggest [Congressional Republicans] continue to push for a federal solution to securing the border, working with the states,” Perry said.

I'm betting voters might not agree.

Obamacare Takes The Stage In Florida...Or Does It?

Next month's special election for the House seat of the late GOP Rep. Bill Young in Florida's 10th District is all about how the Sunshine State's senior citizens feel about Obamacare.  Democrat Alex Sink is backing the program 100%, and her GOP opponent, David Jolly, is attacking Sink over it.  But Republicans have bigger problems in Florida, namely Social Security.

No matter the winner, Democrats appear to have little chance to capture the 17 seats needed to win a House majority in November. Yet this race has drawn national attention also because Obamacare figures prominently already in races in the Senate, where enough seats appear competitive nine months before Election Day to give Republicans an opportunity at winning control.

The candidates took different paths to their March 11 matchup to serve out the term of the late Republican Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, who died last fall.

Sink, 65, had a career in banking before she was elected the state's chief financial officer in 2006. A longtime resident of Tampa in next-door Hillsborough County, she is attacked by Republicans and their allies as a carpetbagger for moving over the county line into the district in preparation for the campaign.

Jolly, 41, was born in the congressional district. Yet he has long experience in Washington, first as an aide to Young, whom he features in his advertising and public remarks, and then as a lobbyist. Democrats seized on his lobbying work, saying he was retained by a special interest that wants to privatize Social Security.

The Social Security privatization scheme card goes a long way in Florida, as both McCain and Romney found out.

The race to serve the balance of Young's term has attracted outside groups on
the left and the right even though evidence is spotty at best that so-called special elections can predict which party will win a nationwide fall campaign.

Each one "has its own particularly unique and hyperlocal dynamics," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, who heads the House Democratic campaign organization.

And for all the attention paid to Obamacare, Republicans betray concern that Sink's persistent attacks linking Jolly to efforts to privatize Social Security are paying dividends.

What's this?  Obamacare is not the noose around Democrats' necks that Republicans hoped it would be?

We'll see.

The Great Wall Of Orange

Just a reminder that GOP House Speaker John Boehner has spent his entire career in Congress opposing minimum wage hikes, and that if it were up to him, the federal minimum wage would still be where it was when he first arrived in Congress in 1991:  $4.25 an hour.

Speaker John Boehner is so against raising the minimum wage that he once said he would rather commit suicide than vote for a “clean” increase.

The Ohio Republican and son of a barkeep has repeatedly opposed federally mandated hike increases, which have been a constant in the Democrats’ election-year playbook.Boehner has “always believed that it's a job killer,” former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a labor-friendly Republican who is close to Boehner, told The Hill. He pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s recent report that found that increasing the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs.

Some Democrats are optimistic Boehner will cave and allow a vote this year, but the record shows there is little if any daylight between the pro-business Speaker and his conservative conference on this issue.

Boehner made the comments about suicide in an April 1996 interview with The Weekly Standard.

“I’ll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill,” Boehner, then the head of the House Republican Conference, said at the time.

Nice guy, John Boehner, right?  And let's keep in mind Ohio has a higher state minimum wage at $8 an hour.  How does he keep getting elected?  Oh that's right, his district is the blood red Butler County suburbs north of Cincy where the only people making minimum wage are the people who don't live there.

Four months later, President Clinton over Boehner’s objections signed a minimum wage hike into law that lifted the wage by 90 cents, from $4.25 per hour to $5.15.

It wasn’t a clean wage hike because it included some Republican sweeteners such as tax breaks aimed at small businesses. The bill passed the Senate, 76-22 and cleared the House, 354-72. Boehner voted no.

Boehner voted against the wage hike again in 2007, when Democrats took over the House majority and in one of their first actions voted to lift the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.

And he still did everything he could to block it.   But he cares about Ohio's working class.  Sure he does.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Apple co-founder Steve Jobs may appear on a US postage stamp as early as 2015, according to reports.
• President Obama has defied a protesting China and met with the Dalai Lama at the White House, while voicing strong support for the protection of Tibetans' human rights.
• A major peace breakthrough in Ukraine has halted violence as President Viktor Yanukovich has agreed to give up power and hold early elections for a national unity government.
• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has kicked CNN and its reporters out of the country saying the news network is part of a US effort to "demonize" his government.
• Harvard University is reviewing access procedures for the school's supercomputer cluster after it was illicitly used to mine Dogecoins.

Last Call For Going It Alone

President Obama's 2015 budget proposal happily omits the part where "compromise to the GOP in exchange for being called a fascist tyrant" happens, and the reality of leverage sets in.

On Wednesday, the White House released some early details of the president's 2015 budget proposal, which is due out next month. The biggest news is that the budget will propose $56 billion in new spending, while dropping a key compromise that would result in smaller Social Security benefits. The latter idea, known as "chained CPI," would alter how the government calculates benefits increases for social welfare programs, and it's generally opposed by liberals. (You can read our more thorough explainer on chained CPI here.)

That might sound like an insignificant bit of wonky gibberish, but it's actually a sharp reversal. Obama proposed chained CPI in his budget last year, hoping it would convince Republicans to compromise on revenue increases. It was an attempt at striking that mythical "grand bargain" Obama and congressional Republicans have been talking about for years. But Republicans vehemently opposed any new tax revenue, and now Obama is no longer even offering the chained CPI carrot.

"Unfortunately, Republicans refused to even consider the possibility of raising some revenue,"said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman. "That is an unfortunate policy choice that Republicans themselves have made."

To be sure, White House budget proposals are largely symbolic documents that outline a president's ideal budget, not the budget that will actually be passed by Congress. But by yanking a GOP-friendly proposal from the outset, Obama has made clear that negotiating with Republicans is a hopeless cause.

The good news is now President Obama doesn't have to offer anything to the GOP in order to be called a fascist tyrant, so it's a bit of a time-saver.

Bachmanniac's Audition For A FOX News Job

Michele Bachmann may be leaving the House GOP at the end of the year, but she's stumping hard for a job over in Rupert Murdoch's team starting in 2015, it seems.

In an interview published Wednesday, Bachmann said that Barack Obama won the presidency because white people felt too guilty about past racial injustices. "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt," she said in an interview with Cal Thomas, a syndicated conservative columnist.

Yes, because President Jesse Jackson won so overwhelmingly in 1992.  Why, America has a long line of African-American presidents preceding Mr. Obama.  They just all happen to live in Bachmann's empty, empty head.

Seriously, the "Obama only won because of white guilt" is the perfect meme for these idiots. It allows them to simultaneously pretend that evolution-rejecting, climate change-denying douchebags who think women's bodies naturally produce a substance that prevents pregnancy during rape are somehow not the "low-information voters" screwing up America, while also pretending that the party of "Hey there's nothing wrong with pictures of Obama with a bone through his nose and his wife Moochelle" aren't the racists, but the guilty white liberals, the "race-hustling" black Democrats, and the "illegal Mexicans" are.

Oh, but let's not forget the War on Women, which doesn't exist because Republican love women.

Bachmann didn't stop there. She thinks Hillary Clinton has poor odds of winning the presidency in 2016. "People don't hold guilt for a woman," she said, explaining that much of the country isn't prepared to elect a women as president. "I don’t think there is a pent-up desire."

Why if I didn't know better, I'd think Shelly here was trying to pit white Obama voters versus black ones.  Those eeeeevil black people and those race traitor liberals will be "responsible" for Obama's wins until the day she dies.

More Voter Suppression In Ohio

As expected, Ohio Republicans rammed through two late-night bills Wednesday to cut early voting and same-day registration, and to end mailing absentee ballots to all Ohioans.

Ohio lawmakers passed two restrictive Republican voting bills Wednesday night, raising the prospect that casting a ballot this fall could be much more difficult, especially for minority voters.

With Ohio remaining the key presidential swing state, the changes could also affect the 2016 election.

The state Democratic Party said immediately that it would sue in federal court to block the laws.

“In 2014, I never imagined that I would be in a statehouse trying to fight for the rights to vote,” said state Rep. Alicia Reece, a Democrat, on the floor.

On party lines, the House voted 59-37 to approve a GOP bill that would cut six days from the state’s early voting period. More importantly, it would end the so-called “Golden Week,” when Ohioans can register and vote on the same day. Same-day registration is among the most effective ways for bringing new voters into the process, election experts say.

The House also voted by 60-38 to approve a bill that would effectively end the state’s successful program of mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters. Under the bill, the secretary of state would need approval from lawmakers to mail absentee ballots, and individual counties could not do so at all. Nearly 1.3 million Ohioans voted absentee in 2012. The bill also would make it easier to reject absentee ballots for missing information.

When they say there's "no difference" between the two major political parties, remember that one party is trying to make voting as difficult as possible, and trying to limit who is allowed to vote.   That's because the Republicans don't want you to vote.  They know that the more difficult it is for the poor and working-class, college students, the elderly and urban minorities to vote, they more the GOP wins.

The only way the Republican party can win in 2014 is to disenfranchise or discourage as many Democrats as possible.

That's what they have to do.

StupidiNews!

• Several tornadoes touched down in Illinois and Tennessee and 24,000 lost power as a line of strong storms tackled the Midwest last night.
• Arizona Republicans have passed legislation that would allow people to refuse services to customers based on religious beliefs, but similar bills have failed in several other red states.
• As the death toll from brutal government clashes in Ukraine's capital of Kiev has reached 75, EU ministers are desperately trying to broker a cease fire.
• This year's strain of flu has taken a severe toll on young and middle-aged adults as US hospitalizations and deaths from influenza are on the rise.
• Islamic clerics in the UAE have issued a fatwa against proposed one-way trips to Mars, saying that without the possibility of return to Earth, the trip amounts to suicide, prohibited in the Qur'an.

Last Call For The War Of Southern Microaggressions

Why, I can't possibly imagine why putting the flag of a defeated, traitor group dedicated to the preservation of slavery as a basis of economic and social power on a Georgia license plate would piss anyone off.

The state of Georgia has released a new specialty license tag that features the Confederate battle flag, inflaming civil rights advocates and renewing a debate on what images should appear on state-issued materials.

The new specialty tag has stirred a clash between those who believe the battle flag honors Confederate heritage and those, particularly African-Americans, who view it as a racially charged symbol of oppression.

Because it is, thanks.

A spokesman for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said Tuesday that the state should not have sanctioned the battle emblem to appear on a Georgia tag.

“To display this is reprehensible,” said Maynard Eaton. “We don’t have license plates saying ‘Black Power.’”

Like that would ever be allowed on a license plate anywhere.

For their part, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said it meant no offense. People have a right to commemorate their heritage, and the state would be discriminating if it rejected the group’s application, said spokesman Ray McBerry.

“By sanctioning the plate, they are not saying they agree with our organization. They’re just saying it’s a level playing field,” he said.

Sure.  Because slavery was a level playing field.

Here's my question, "Heritage Not Hate" people.  You're celebrating a bunch of literal and actual traitors to the United States of America, a group that declared open warfare on the country and did so by engaging in a war that killed three-quarters of a million Americans, or about 2% of the entire population of the country, all over the fact that slavery was the economic powerhouse of the rural South.  Not that the rest of the Union was super awesome to Native Americans, Mexicans, Irish, Chinese and anyone else who wasn't Anglo-Saxon in general derivation, but you don't see people raising "Sons of the Veterans of the Mexican-American War" or "The Trail Of Tears Was Awesome And Stuff" license plates, right?

Why would you want to raise that battle flag?  At the very best, you're saying "I don't want to be part of the United Stated of America" while you're free to tool around in your big ass truck or whatever and can drive to any state in the lower 48, and look like an asshole doing it.  Can't stop you from being an asshole, but you can maybe not get a state-sanctioned license plate declaring it to all of Earth, maybe?

Jesus.

Meanwhile, In Wisconsin

Virginia, New Jersey, now in Wisconsin yet another Republican governor faces an investigation for wrongdoing in his office.  Scott Walker, come on down! 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has been eyeing a 2016 presidential run since his battles with labor unions made him a Republican star, is in the midst of dealing with the fallout of two criminal investigations at home that could complicate his move to the national stage.

One is ongoing, and while the other is now closed with no allegations of wrongdoing by Walker, it has the lingering potential to embarrass him.

That could begin as early as Wednesday with the release of more than 25,000 pages of e-mails from an ex-staffer that were gathered as part of the now-concluded investigation. The probe focused on Walker’s time as Milwaukee County executive before his 2010 election as governor and led to convictions of six former aides and allies.

Even if Walker escapes the e-mail release unscathed, he faces an additional inquiry from state prosecutors, who are believed to be looking into whether his successful 2012 recall campaign illegally coordinated with independent conservative groups.

 But ever the fair and balanced, the Washington Post ends thusly:

If conservative groups succeed in undermining the investigation’s legitimacy, the result could ironically convert the probe from a possible Walker weakness into an unexpected strength, rallying conservatives around a governor perceived to be holding firm against liberal bullies.

Course, they would need help from outlets like the Washington Post for that, right?

Dave Weigel has more on those 27k plus emails released yesterday:

Among the pile of emails, it was found that Walker also used his campaign email to conduct county executive business. In June 2010, Walker emailed the conservative radio host Charlie Sykes and encouraged him to get information on Democratic groups from his office. "Ask [my official office] and we would be happy to send over the info," Walker wrote.

Not illegal, just immoral.  Oh, and at least one of those emails appears to be pretty damning in the "illegal and immoral" department.

"Consider youself now in the 'inner circle,'" Walker's administration director, Cynthia Archer, wrote to Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch just after the two exchanged a test message.

"I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day," she wrote, referring to Walker by his initials and to Walker's chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.

Using state resources to coordinate his recall campaign is going to be a big problem for Scott Walker, no matter how the Wingers try to spin it.