StupidiNews!

• Saudi Arabia is reporting a large jump in cases of the MERS virus this week, now saying that 282 deaths since 2012 have occurred.
• Federal prosecutors have dropped bomb threat charges against the man who allegedly carried a hoax device through April's Boston Marathon bombing memorial.
• Chinese law enforcement and military are on high alert for the 25th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square this week, and dozens of arrests have already been made.
• Infamous biochemist, drug advocate, and "godfather of ecstasy" Alexander Shulgin has died at the age of 88 from complications due to liver cancer.
• Gamemaker Electronic Arts has reached a $40 million settlement agreement with lawyers for collegiate athletes over use of their likenesses in the company's NCAA Football video games.

Last Call For More Of The I-Word

Republicans are going insane on the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl release, to the point that talk of impeachment is showing up after less than 72 hours, with several examples of Republican pundits now calling for the President's head:

Andrew McCarthy, who's written an entire book that builds a case for impeachment against Obama, said in an interview published Monday he would include the Bergdahl release as part of his "larger indictment" against the President.

McCarthy told the MailOnline that the release of "senior terrorists to the Taliban" represents a "high crime and misdemeanor."

Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs liked the sound of that. On Monday, he cited McCarthy's impeachment talk in blasting Obama's "extraordinary knack for doing the utterly wrong thing in the wrong way at seemingly the worst moment."

Judge Andrew Napolitano took it from there on Tuesday, telling the gang on "Fox & Friends" that Obama "may very well have committed a federal crime by giving material assistance to a terrorist organization."

Napolitano said impeaching Obama over the prisoner swap is a "very valid argument that people are going to start talking about."

If it were up to at least one Republican running for office, the House of Representatives would have already started impeachment proceedings.

Randy Brogdon, a candidate for Oklahoma's open U.S. Senate seat, said this week that he's waiting on a Republican member of the House to hold Obama accountable for a "blatant violation of the law."

Unfortunately for Brogdon, Allen West is no longer in the lower chamber. The former Florida congressman, one of many conservatives to go after Bergdahl's father on Monday, also believesthere's a strong case for impeachment against Obama.

According to West, the case would be built around Obama's failure to consult Congress within 30 days of the prisoner release from Guantanamo as he is required to under federal statute.

How long will it take for sitting Republicans in Congress to start bringing this up?  Surely before the end of the week, one would think.

Please proceed, gentlemen.

Hippie Punching In South Dakota

Several primary contests are taking place today in states across the nation, and in one of them, South Dakota, National Journal's Josh Kraushaar is furious at Democrats for running a liberal candidate to replace retiring Dem Sen. Tim Johnson, all but ensuring Republican Mike Rounds is the next Senator from the Mount Rushmore State, a move that could, in Kraushaar's eyes, cost the Dems the Senate.

If Democrats fall a seat short of holding the Senate, there will be a lot of second-guessing on the one race that never materialized but should have held a lot more promise: South Dakota.

The state is holding its primaries Tuesday, and they're an afterthought. Former Gov. Mike Rounds is the Republican now on a glide path to the Senate, facing weak opposition in the GOP primary. In the general election, he'll face Rick Weiland, a former state director for Tom Daschle who (even the most optimistic Democrats will acknowledge) faces near-impossible odds in the solidly red state.

But it didn't have to be that way. The Senate race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson could have been one of the most consequential contests in the country, if Democrats had a little more luck. Just over a year ago, the political talk in South Dakota centered on which of their up-and-coming prospects would run—former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, one of the most popular figures in the state after representing it for three full terms in the House, or Tim Johnson's son Brendan Johnson, who's serving as a U.S. attorney. Despite the state's Republican moorings, now-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's surprising 2012 victory in neighboring North Dakota served as a fresh reminder that strong candidates running in conservative-minded states can overcome disadvantages.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin walked away from the race, leaving Rick Weiland.  But Weiland isn't done yet, and if this May PPP poll is any indication, he can win.

Public Policy Polling’s newest South Dakota survey continues to find Mike Rounds stuck under 40%. Right now 38% of voters say they intend to vote for him to 28% for Rick Weiland, 15% for Larry Pressler, and 4% for Gordon Howie. There are several encouraging findings for Weiland within the poll results:

-Most of Rounds’ early lead is based on having higher name recognition than Weiland, and Weiland actually has the advantage among voters who have heard of him. 82% of voters are familiar with Rounds compared to 67% for Weiland, but among the group that has heard of Weiland he leads 38/36. That bodes well for his prospects as he becomes better known.

-Weiland (+6) has a higher net favorability rating than Rounds (even). 36% of voters see him favorably to only 30% who have a negative opinion of him. Meanwhile voters are evenly divided on Rounds with 41% rating him positively and 41% with an unfavorable view.

-On several issues that will be key in this race, voters side with Weiland’s view over Rounds’ by a wide margin. After being read a description of each candidate’s views on Medicare, South Dakotans say they agree more with Weiland’s position by a 15 point margin, 45/30. And when it comes to the Ryan budget 53% of voters say they side more with Weiland’s point of view, compared to only 29% who go with Rounds.

On both of the issues the independent voters who will be key to Weiland’s campaign overwhelmingly side with his perspective- 53/26 on the Medicare issue and 62/20 on the Ryan budget one.

Nearly 20% of the vote is going to independent candidates.  Larry Pressler, the Republican Tim Johnson beat in 1996 to become Senator, is running a strong third party campaign and it's hurting Rounds big time.  If Pressler's splitting off that much of the vote (15%) from Rounds, there's an opening for Weiland.

Everyone's written Weiland off as doomed.  I just don't think that's the case yet.

Yes Folks, They Really Are This Dumb

Republicans are demanding Congressional hearings on the decision by President Obama to cut a deal to release Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Several Republican lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees say that Congress should examine whether President Obama acted within the bounds of the law by exchanging five former Taliban leaders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in a prisoner swap without consulting Congress.

At issue is the law that requires the defense secretary to notify Congress 30 days before transferring any detainees out of the prison and explain why they will not be in a position to harm the U.S. again.

"I think in the eyes of many, he broke the law by not informing Congress 30 days before that," California Rep. Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC Monday.

"You just had Ambassador Rice, she said they'd been working on this for three years. She said Congress has been informed of this along the way. I don't know who they were talking to. I have not been a part of this, and I'm the chairman of the committee."

McKeon said his committee plans to hold hearings into the issue, and said it should not be viewed as a partisan move.

Oh, of course it's not a partisan move.  And I'm Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt.

So are Republicans really going to spend all summer trying to work the country into impeaching Obama over this?  Sure looks like it.  And just in time for midterm elections, too!

Start up the clown car and get the confetti.  It's going to be a party in here all summer long as Republicans openly trash a POW coming home on national TV.

You do that, guys.

StupidiNews!

• The Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government "grossly overstepped" its authority in charging a woman accused of poisoning a romantic rival under chemical weapons laws.
• Seattle's city council has unanimously voted to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021.
• Spain's controversial King Juan Carlos II has abdicated the throne in favor of his heir Prince Felipe as the country continues to treat the monarchy as a symbol of excess among Spanish austerity.
• The issue of putting a toilet in every home is increasingly becoming an issue to many Indians, as new PM Narendra Modi seeks broader populist measures.
• Hollywood is pushing the FAA to speed up approval of commercial drones used for filming movies and TV shows from the air, saving money on helicopters and other aircraft.

Last Call For King Coal

Thought Alison Lundergan Grimes was going to be happy out the EPA coal plant regulations?  Forget it Jake, it's Coal Country.

The Obama administration’s proposal for sharp cuts to emissions from power plants complicates the midterm elections this fall for Democrats, especially since some of the battleground states for control of the Senate are tied to the coal economy.

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democrat who is challenging Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, here in the most high-profile Senate race this year, has already been portraying herself as a friend of coal and a sharp critic of Mr. Obama.

On Monday, Ms. Grimes pledged to “fiercely oppose the president’s attack on Kentucky’s coal industry” if elected.

Oh this, there's no difference from Mitch the Turtle.  But you knew that going in.  And folks, if you thought for a microsecond that Grimes wouldn't attack President Obama over the EPA, you just have no clue how Kentucky politics works.  You don't have to like it.

She's still better than Mitch.

The Long Hot Summer Begins

And really, it wouldn't be summer in America without somebody lynching President Obama in effigy.

Crews are investigating after a dummy bearing a President Obama face mask was found hanging from the Lesholz Bridge over I-70 near Grain Valley, Mo. Police received the report around 5:30 a.m. Monday.

Authorities rerouted traffic due to the distraction it caused Monday. Traffic across the bridge has since been allowed to cross.

Crews, using a robot, removed the dummy and took it into a nearby field where it was x-rayed for possible explosives.

So yes, it's officially summer now!  Hooray!

Breathe A Little Easier

Advanced info on today's EPA clean air rules for power plant emissions indicate what could be a massive cut:  the EPA is reportedly looking to impose 30% cut in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a draft proposal on Monday to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plan.

The proposed rule amounts to the strongest action ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet.

The rule could trigger a fundamental transformation of the nation’s energy systems – if it withstands an expected onslaught of legal and legislative attacks.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Congress did indeed grant the power to the EPA to regulate power plant emissions in the Clean Air Act.  But at this point, you would have to expect that red states are simply going to refuse and wait for the next Republican in the White House to eliminate the rules.

What can the federal government really do to states that refuse that won't harm regular citizens?  Me, I expect the regulations to be tied up, or for the EPA to simply be defunded or barred by legislation from enacting any emissions standards in another round of shutdown chicken.

We'll see what happens, but don't expect Big Energy to actually make emissions cuts.  They've got too many billions to take from you.

StupidiNews!

• Washington State law enforcement officials believe that six mountain climbers attempting to scale Mount Rainer fell to their deaths sometime Saturday.
• Cadbury chocolate has been pulled from the shelves in Saudi Arabia after possible traces of pig DNA were discovered in products in Malaysia.
• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is warning against international recognition of a Palestinian unity government due to be unveiled this week.
• Thailand's military junta has deployed troops into Bangkok to put down protesters, blocking roads and shutting down the city's train service.
• Hacker site Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has been arrested in Southern Sweden on Saturday in connection with a 2009 copyright conviction.

Last Call For A Qatar-ized Wound To FIFA

The current and growing scandal in the world's most popular sport this time?  Qatar's winning 2022 FIFA World Cup hosting bid got a boost from the outright bribery perpetrated by ex-FIFA official Mohamed bin Hammam, a guy so crooked he was banned from FIFA for -- now get this -- bribery.  Qatari officials have maintained bin Hammam was acting on his own accord.  New documents unearthed by the London Sunday Times says not only did Qatar's World Cup bid committee know what bin Hammam was up to, they're the ones who fronted him the $5 million he used for the bribes in the first place.

Deadspin's Sean Newell:

Bin Hammam, Qatar's top soccer official, was banned from world soccer in 2011 when he was caught trying to bribe his way into the FIFA presidency. The ban was later lifted on appeal, but he was not cleared of the charges. Qatar football has always maintained that he was not a member of the bid committee and was merely a rogue agent who, it turns out, just happened to be very helpful to the bid. The documents the Times received—which includes emails, faxes, bank statements—show a close tie between bin Hammam and the Qatar bid committee.

Following the money trail, it's easy to see how he hoped to gain favor for the 2022 bid.

Buying support across Africa was central to Bin Hammam's strategy because the members of CAF exerted collective influence over how its block of four Exco members should vote. Several of the officials he paid held seats on CAF's ruling executive committee and another nine currently sit on standing committees of the Fifa executive.
Bin Hammam was able to secure votes with "lavish junkets" and straight-up cash. According to the Times at least one of these junkets with money goodie-bags was actually paid for by the Qatar bid. In 2009 bin Hammam hosted three key voters, and 35 other soccer officials in Doha, all on Qatar's dime.

In addition to these junkets, Hammam also made payments totalling up to $200,000 to accounts "controlled by the presidents of 30 African football associations" who were key to securing a pro-Qatar vote. Payments were made from 10 slush funds and bin Hammam's daughter's account.

Needless to say, FIFA's got a massive problem on its hands now.  There's already talk of holding a re-vote if the allegations against bin Hammam and Qatar's World Cup bid committee are true, and that's completely beside the point that migrant workers building Qatar's World Cup facilities are dying by the hundreds in construction accidents and heat-related casualties.

Remember, the country Qatar beat out for the 2022 World Cup?

The United States.  Things just got real.

The Cost To Breathe

This week President Obama is expected to announce new EPA rules to regulate coal plants under EPA authority, and it's going to be the next war between Big Energy and those of us with lungs.  The GOP, bought and paid by these interests will stop at nothing to destroy the EPA totally.  But it turns out that the Clean Air Act, which gives the EPA authority over regulating the air we breathe, is actually saving America trillions of dollars -- yes, trillions with a "t" -- in health care expenses.

As a part of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, Congress required the EPA to conduct "periodic, scientifically reviewed studies to assess the benefits and the costs of the Clean Air Act." In other words, Congress wanted to know whether the Act "was worth it." The initial report in what is now a series was released in October 1997. The evaluation provided a detailed retrospective analysis of costs and benefits from the years 1970 to 1990 and showed that the overwhelming benefits obtained from compliance with the Act far outweighed the costs of implementation.

How much?

The EPA concluded that the total monetized health benefits from the Act during the 20-year period ranged between $5.6 and $49.4 trillion. The central estimate for benefits was $22.2 trillion. During that period, the costs to comply with the act were estimated to be approximately $0.5 trillion. Thus the net direct benefits were between $5.1 and $48.9 trillion, with a central estimate of $21.7 trillion. The benefit-cost rations were 43.4:1 for the central estimate and 11:1 and 97.8:1 for the extreme estimates. Who among us has an investment that has performed this well?

The second prospective EPA cost-benefit analysis was released in March 2011. The results of this study reflect the vast improvements in our understanding of the effects of particulate matter on the risk of premature death. These improvements are a direct result of the publication of large epidemiological studies and emphasize the importance of continuing research in this area. In addition the second prospective report adds several endpoints such as changes in visibility due to improved air quality, a better understanding of the relationship between peaks in fine particle concentrations and acute myocardial infarcts, and better mathematical modeling of air quality. Any way one may choose to interpret these data, benefits consistently outweigh costs by very large margins.

The projected benefits are attributed primarily to reductions in the concentrations of ground-level ozone and fine particles. The EPA estimates that in 2020 the Clean Air Act amendments will result in a 17 percent reduction in the direct emissions of small particles, or a reduction from 6,368 to 5,297 tons. While reductions in the emission of these primary particulates are a positive development, the most significant reductions in the total concentration of fine particles are attributed to reducing sulfur dioxide emissions.

Reductions in premature deaths are the most important source of the monetized benefits associated with the Clean Air Act amendments. By the year 2020 the scenario predicted by the amended Act avoids 230,000 premature deaths among adults age 30 and above each year. The model also predicts avoiding the deaths of 280 infants each year. The monetary value of these two causes was set at $1.7 trillion for adults and $2.5 billion for infants. Reductions in the number of cases of bronchitis, asthma, myocardial infarction, and other health effects contribute to the predicted $2 trillion in annual benefits by the end of this decade.

Yeah.  Trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives each year,  Thanks to the government.

Now think about what Republicans want to do to the Clean Air Act and the EPA.

Complain About Everything And Anything

So yesterday we found out that President Obama worked to bring home one of our soldiers, captured as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan for five years.  But because Obama did it, he must be attacked by Republicans.

“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), said in a joint statement.

Lawmakers were not notified of the Guantanamo detainees’ transfer until after it occurred.

The law requires the defense secretary to notify relevant congressional committees at least 30 days before making any transfers of prisoners, to explain the reason and to provide assurances that those released would not be in a position to reengage in activities that could threaten the United States or its interests.

Before the current law was enacted at the end of last year, the conditions were even more stringent. However, the administration and some Democrats had pressed for them to be loosened, in part to give them more flexibility to negotiate for Bergdahl’s release.

A senior administration official, agreeing to speak on the condition of anonymity to explain the timing of the congressional notification, acknowledged that the law was not followed. When he signed the law last year, Obama issued a signing statement contending that the notification requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on his powers as commander in chief and that he therefore could override it.

That's right, Republicans are now lining up to accuse the President of being weak and encouraging more soldiers to be captured, and I guess they're now willing to start treating this as a Constitutional crisis or impeachment proceeding or something.

To recap Republicans care about our troops or something, but EVERYTHING IS ABOUT OBAMA.

But you know what?  The reason President Obama didn't inform Congress is that they would have blocked the deal and prevented Bergdahl's release, like they did in 2012, as Steve M. explains:

In July 2012, Rolling Stone published a story about Bergdahl by Michael Hastings. Hastings noted that negotiations for a prisoner exchange were taking place, but were meeting resistance, particularly from Republicans, who planned to demagogue the issue if the released happened before the November election: 

According to White House sources, Marc Grossman, who replaced Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was given a direct warning by the president's opponents in Congress about trading Bowe for five Taliban prisoners during an election year. "They keep telling me it's going to be Obama's Willie Horton moment," Grossman warned the White House. The threat was as ugly as it was clear: The president's political enemies were prepared to use the release of violent prisoners to paint Obama as a Dukakis-­like appeaser, just as Republicans did to the former Massachusetts governor during the 1988 campaign....

The tensions came to a boil in January, when administration officials went to Capitol Hill to brief a handful of senators on the possibility of a prisoner exchange....

So yeah.   Republicans are going to spend all summer attacking President Obama for this.

Please proceed, gentlemen.

Last Call For One Of Ours Coming Home

US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years, is being released in exchange for five Taliban prisoners being held in Gitmo, to be delivered to the government of Qatar.

The lone American prisoner of war from the Afghan conflict, captured by insurgents nearly five years ago, has been released to American forces in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Obama administration officials said Saturday.

The soldier, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, was handed over to American Special Operations troops inside Afghanistan near the Pakistan border about 10:30 a.m. Saturday in a tense but uneventful exchange with 18 Taliban officials, American officials said. Moments later, Sergeant Bergdahl was whisked away by the helicopter-borne commandos, American officials said. He was found in good condition and able to walk.

The five Taliban detainees at Guantánamo, including two senior militant commanders said to be implicated in murdering thousands of Shiites in Afghanistan, were being transferred to the custody of officials from Qatar, who will accompany them back to that Persian Gulf state, where they will be subject to security restrictions, including a one-year travel ban.

President Obama spoke this evening at the White House Rose Garden to address the release, along with Bergdahl's parents, saying that Sgt. Bergdahl was "never forgotten" by the US.  Bowe's father Robert had this to say on Twitter:

To every single person who worked so hard to make this recovery possible, WE LOVE YOU! GOD IS GREAT AND HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER!
— Robert Bergdahl (@bobbergdahl) May 31, 2014

It's a good day for the Bergdahl family.  A very good day indeed.

"Not Sure" If Thousands Should Lose Health Coverage

That's our Sen. Rand Paul, showing leadership for Kentuckians with authentic frontier gibberish.

A reporter asked Paul if he thought Kynect should be dismantled. Paul responded that he was "not sure."

"You know I'm not sure — there's going to be … how we unravel or how we change things. I would rather —I always tell people there's a fork in the road. I was in healthcare for 20 years so we had problems in healthcare so we had problems in healthcare but we could have gone one of two directions," Paul said. "One was towards more competition and more marketplace and one was toward more government control. The people who think that the government can efficiently distribute medicine need to explain why the VA's been struggling for decade after decade in a much smaller system. And they also need to explain, even though I think we all want Medicare to work better, why Medicare is $35 trillion short. There's a lot of questions that are big questions that are beyond the exchange and the Kynect and things like that. It's whether or not how we're going to fund these things."

What happened to "It has to be repealed" Rand?   Suddenly Republicans like Rand and Mitch can't say if they want to get rid of Kynect or not.  They certainly hated it before and promised us it would surely fail.

Except for the fact Kynect has been a model for the entire country, and everything.  Suddenly it's the Palin-speak above.  Suddenly it's not a yes or no answer anymore.

Funny how that works.

We Ain't Got Time For Questions

Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald puts together a list of 16 questions that Brian Williams didn't ask Edward Snowden, but should have.  Most of them are very good, good enough that they deserve to be posed to the major players on both sides of this issue.  For example, question number 7:

Technologically, the world has changed dramatically since the original adoption of FISA. With wireless and disposable phones and devices that communicate directly over the Internet, old-style wiretapping is no longer possible. The NSA maintains that, because terrorists often use phones for a single call and an email account for a single message before disposing of them, it would be impossible to identify their numbers and emails without the collection of metadata that allows for retrospective searches. Is the agency lying? And if so, what methods are you aware of that would allow for the discovery of those numbers and email addresses that do not entail the retrospective analysis of metadata?

That's actually the kind of question we need to be focused on.  What roles should the NSA be allowed to fill in 2014, and what boundaries should be placed on those roles?  This is a perfect example of the real debate over the NSA and the duties it should be allowed to pursue.  But there are some other issues involving Snowden that should have been asked.

Question number 10 is short, but very important:

Do you believe that surveillance in foreign nations is intrinsically wrong?

There are a number of people who would answer yes to that question, and of those I'm betting 99.5% are backing Snowden and his actions as necessary.

That leads into 11:

You say that you do not believe your actions damaged United States security and that the government has failed to reveal instances where it did. Two questions: What kind of analysis did you conduct to be sure that the information you were taking did not compromise security? And, secondly, given that journalists do not have security clearances, why did you think they were the best placed to determine what would compromise national security and what didn’t?

Is America allowed to even have a foreign intelligence service?  Because the distinct impression I'm getting is that singularly so, the United States is not.  The fact we have one is the root cause, many would argue, of our foreign entanglements.

And then there's 13:

Your passport was revoked while you were in Hong Kong. How did you get out and manage to fly to Russia?

Nobody seems to have an answer to this that I've heard.  I'd like to know.

Hell, there are a lot of things I'd like to know.  Maybe some enterprising journalist types should get on that.