StupidiNews!

• After years of delay, Senate Democrats are releasing a highly controversial report today on Bush-era torture techniques used against detainees in the War on Terror.
• NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars has found evidence that the nearly 100 mile wide crater it is currently exploring was filled with water at one point billions of years ago.
• Trucks carrying the wreckage of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 have finally arrived in the Netherlands after numerous delays since the deadly July missile incident in the Ukraine.
• Lower oil prices also means lower prices for producing commodities as everything from corn and wheat to copper and gold are down due to the slump in energy prices.
• Tiny Estonia wants to bring digital ID cards to non-citizens in order to make everything from commerce to digital identification easier with its "e-resident" program.

Last Call For Paying Pelosi's Price

The raging incompetence of John Boehner as Speaker of the House means that even with the largest Republican majority in 70 years incoming and a 234-201 margin now, he still can't get 218 votes to pass the GOP's own bills.  And it means he'll have to deal with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats if he wants to avoid yet another government shutdown.

The government is on the precipice of a shutdown, and if Republicans can’t get to 218 votes on their side of the aisle, Pelosi will get to call in the cavalry once again. 

It would be the second time in a matter of weeks that she’s gotten to flex her muscle: She successfully squelched a pre-Thanksgiving deal on a tax extenders package negotiated exclusively by Senate Democrats and House Republicans — a deal that would have been a nonstarter for her caucus and President Barack Obama.

“The minute we got wind of what [it] would be and that it had a path, before it gained any respectability, I called our members and said, ‘This is what I think is happening … but I have to know that I can say to the president that this will sustain a veto,’” Pelosi recalled. 

With Obama still in the White House, Pelosi remains a player, as her impact on the tax extenders package showed. But how much leverage she retains in the 114th could come down to how she fits into the Republican-controlled Congress over the next two years. 

“I don’t think anyone is irrelevant. We have leverage if they don’t have the votes,” she said. “They have leverage because they know we will be responsible. And that allows them to be irresponsible to a certain extent.” 

Pelosi plays the long game better that Boehner ever could.  And that includes 2016 and beyond.

And 2016? Well, that’s a whole new ballgame. By then, the country could see its first female president, said the nation’s first female speaker. 

“Let me say this about Hillary [Rodham] Clinton: When she runs, she will win. And when she wins, she’ll go to the White House as one of the most prepared people in modern history to go there,” Pelosi said, stopping just short of an endorsement that would be significant for Clinton, the former first lady and ex-secretary of State.

That's got to hurt ol Orange Julius to know he's not even leader of 80% of his own party.

Seeing The World In Black And White

More polling on race, police brutality, and the stark differences between the white and black experiences in America, this time from Bloomberg News.

President Barack Obama had hoped his historic election would ease race relations, yet a majority of Americans, 53 percent, say the interactions between the white and black communities have deteriorated since he took office, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll. Those divisions are laid bare in the split reactions to the decisions by two grand juries not to indict white police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y.

Yes, we're sorry America's first black president has caused the racism you thought was a "barbaric relic of America's past", both overt and covert, to become more public.

Perhaps there is a silver lining, actually.  It means that people are more aware of racism in general over the last six years and aren't pretending that it doesn't exist anymore.  That's making a lot of people rather uncomfortable with America the Beautiful.  Here's a hint, guys: race relations in America have been like this for decades.  A black president just made you notice.

But that awareness only extends so far.

Both times, protesters responded with outrage and politicians called for federal investigations. Yet Americans don’t think of the cases as a matched set of injustices, the poll found. A majority agreed with the Ferguson decision, while most objected to the conclusion in the Staten Island death, which was captured on video. The divergent opinions—52 percent agreed on Ferguson compared with 25 percent who approved of the Staten Island outcome—add to an ongoing discussion that was inflamed when Officer Daniel Pantaleo was seen in the July video putting what appeared to be a chokehold on Eric Garner, a 43-year-old man suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” and died of a heart attack in what a medical examiner ruled a homicide. The grand jury decision not to charge Pantaleo came just 12 days after a similar panel in Ferguson declined to charge Officer Darren Wilson, who in August shot to death 18-year-old Michael Brown. That altercation was not captured on video, and the prosecutor presented evidence of a physical confrontation between the two men before the fatal shots were fired. 

To Dania Wilson, 49, a Northern Virginia white woman, the cases shouldn’t be lumped together. “I think sometimes the media likes to put upon people a theme that’s political in nature,” she said in an interview.

In other words, white America sees the Garner case as an aberration rather than part of a systemic series of abuses of power and civil rights by police.  To white America, the Rodney King riots were more than 20 years ago and now Obama is president.  Why would African-Americans possibly be out in the streets protesting? How could we possibly still be upset after all these advances that prove racism is dead and gone, as Chief Justice Roberts reminded us when rolling back the outdated Voting Rights Act?

“I am going to trust our grand juries until there’s proof that they’re not being honest,” said Dale Griessel, 80, a white retiree in Columbia, Mo., who agrees with both jury decisions. “None of us has seen the forensic evidence. They have.”

Delarno Wilson, 28, a black Georgia resident who objects to both jury outcomes, said he wasn’t surprised that there is division based on race. “Your background is what makes you,” he said. “If you don’t understand the struggle that a person went through, you never truly get it.” Wilson is in the U.S. Coast Guard and said many of his assignments are in overwhelmingly white towns. “I constantly have to worry about how to relate to people. That’s something white people don’t have to think about.”

But...America.  How can it still be different for black America with Obama as president?



Hell of a lot of answers to that question, it seems.

Environmental Power Plays

Reminder: America's energy giants are among the most profitable companies on earth, and they have billions to buy state legislatures in order to destroy environmental regulations.  But these energy companies also have state attorneys general in their pockets, and they are leading the charge in constantly suing the EPA with the goal of having the Supreme Court chip away until nobody is left protecting the environment.

The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”

Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”

The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented, secretive alliance that Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general have formed with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.

So yes, big energy is buying state attorneys general too.  Multiple states suing the government in multiple circuit court jurisdictions is the fastest way to get these cases before SCOTUS.  They just need one ruling in their favor that finds that the EPA has overstepped its authority, and the game (and our environmental health) is over.

The case on EPA mercury regulations under the Clean Air Act, which the Supreme Court will hear soon and issue a ruling on in June, could very well be the one Big Energy is looking for.

StupidiNews!

• Typhoon Hagupit, downgraded to Tropical Storm status as it has battered the Philippine islands, has already claimed 21 lives as the storm rages towards Manila.
• Britain's Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate Middleton have arrived in New York for a three-day trip in the US.
• Despite recent and deadly failures to rescue US hostages from ISIS militants, Pentagon officials say the US will continue to attempt rescues in the future when a viable opportunity arises.
• After rebounding some last week, oil prices have now dropped to five-year lows as financial analysts have cut global production forecasts and US production is increasing.
• Ride-share service Uber is taking on the city of Portland as the city plans to level heavy fines against drivers for what city officials are calling "unlicensed taxi activity".

Last Call For The System Is Working As Intended

Your Sunday long read is Albert Samaha's piece on Christopher Epps, Mississippi's state corrections commissioner, and prison reform advocate.  Long hailed as a miracle worker and "savior" he was as close to a rock star as a prison administrator could get, lauded by both parties in a deeply red Southern state, who improved Mississippi's prisons dramatically.  He was an African-American who had achieved immense national professional respect.

And then he was caught.

By the time he turned 53, Epps was America’s longest-serving prison commissioner, the first in Mississippi’s history to be appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors. His peers thought so highly of him that he was elected president of two prison administrator professional associations: the American Corrections Association and the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

In short, Chris Epps knew prisons. He’d spent four decades working in the system. Starting as a guard in Mississippi’s oldest prison in 1982, he worked his way to the top of Mississippi’s Department of Corrections in just two decades. Over the next 12 years he became a star.

Prisoner’s rights advocates liked him. Correctional officers liked him. Defense lawyers liked him. Prosecutors liked him. Reporters liked him. Politicians liked him. There might not have been a more universally respected and admired public official in all of Mississippi than Chris Epps.

Then on Nov. 5, he quit his job abruptly, without saying why.

The next day the news broke: allegations of kickbacks for nearly $1 billion worth of private prison contracts. More than $1 million in bribes. A federal investigation, a federal indictment, “a major blow to the systemic and evasive corruption in our state government,” U.S. Attorney Harold Britain said on the steps of the federal courthouse.

Chris Epps knew prisons. Now he faces up to 368 years in one.

Read his story, and never forget that you can't have corrupt cops without corrupt prisons.

Watching The Watchmen

If you want to know what cops really think about the Eric Garner case, New York Magazine took a look at PoliceOne.com, an internet community web site for law enforcement officers, and Thee Rant, a site for NYPD officers.  Both require registration as a law enforcement officer to post, and the comments are...well...

Anytime a person says "I'm tired of it. It stops today." That will almost always end with the use of force. He made that decision, not the Police. The Police must effect the arrest and rise above any resistance. That resistance or lack of resistance is determined by the suspect. This was a huge man and it appears to me they used minimal force. Sometimes people with pre-existing conditions die when they exert themselves. There are Police Officers that have heart attacks and die every year during physical altercations with subjects. You will not see main stream media featuring those in their headlines. This is nothing more than petty blame shifting and fuel for extremist with an agenda.

 And this:

You may say "f&ck the police" but you may not f&ck with the police. It's sad that he died, but that blame goes to he and he alone. The police generally don't show up ten deep at your door just to say hey. This pervasive mentality that these assholes seem to have about not listening to the lawful orders of the police is what leads to these deaths and injuries. All he had to do was comply and he would not be dead. Tough shit and too damn bad.

And this:

As they go down, one can clearly see the cop (Green Jersey) holding-on to his neck with his left arm ONLY while trying to grab perp's right hand with his. Within 1 second he lets go completely and twists to a seated position next to the perp. There was no continuous "Chokehold" of any kind. Though not surprised, I like how these rags try to portray/describe something that never happened.

 And this.

Yes, they'll pay off the "family"...
It's a lot cheaper than a riot...
And therein lies the problem...
The cities of America are held hostage by the strong-arm tactics of the savages

We're the enemy to these guys, not the people to protect and to serve.  Never forget that.

Help, Someone Called The Police

It shouldn't surprise anyone that there are major racial and political party differences in the way Americans view the events of the last two weeks with grand jurors refusing to indict police in Ferguson and NYC.

In the wake of the deaths of unarmed black men in police confrontations in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, 47 percent of Americans say that law enforcement applies different standards to blacks and whites, while 44 percent disagree.

But 82 percent of African Americans say that police have different standards based on race, while half of whites say the opposite.

And while 72 percent of the public and 79 percent of whites say that they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence that police in their community will not use excessive force on suspects, just 43 percent of black Americans say the same.

A broad majority of Americans - 93 percent - say they have heard about the recent grand jury decisions in Staten Island and Ferguson, in which police were not indicted for their role in the deaths of unarmed black men. Forty-three percent said that the decisions decreased their confidence in the legal system, versus just 17 percent who said the opposite. Among African Americans, seven in ten said the verdicts decreased their faith in the legal system; among whites, one in five said their confidence has increased.

Confidence in law enforcement is also divided on partisan lines. Just 35 percent of Democrats say they have "a great deal" of confidence in police in their community to do a good job enforcing the law, compared to 73 percent of Republicans. And 64 percent of Democrats say that police apply different standards based on race, while the same percentage of Republicans disagree.

Not shocking in the least, frankly.  But there is one thing all sides agree on: nobody likes President Obama's response.

Just a third of the public - 30 percent - said they approve of President Barack Obama's handling of the grand jury decisions, versus 46 percent who disapprove. More white, black and Latino respondents disapprove of how he has dealt with the situation than those who approve. (Whites disapprove by 49 percent to 27 percent, black disapprove 46 to 35 percent, and Latinos disapprove 38 to 36 percent.)

Drilling down I'm betting that people of color think President Obama hasn't done anywhere near enough to address the problem, and that white America thinks he's already said and done far too much.

Last Call For The "Taxes Killed Eric Garner" Argument

Over at Outside The Beltway, Steven Taylor makes this observation on the notion that New York's laws against selling loose cigarettes untaxed is what really killed chockhold victim Eric Garner, and not police brutality.

While I need to formulate (and am working on it, in fact) more well developed response to the discussion of the role played by the law on cigarettes in the death of Eric Garner, I do have a simple response I want to note (it is a thought that has occurred to me more than once as I have read and heard assertions about the situation)

Jonah Goldberg serves as most proximate inspiration:

But only unreasonable people can deny that those laws are partly to blame. Without laws making cigarettes more expensive, Eric Garner would be alive today, period.

In reading this (and similar assertions–i.e., that more laws equal more chances for law enforcement to go array, ergo, have so many laws is part of the problem) I have to wonder if the libertarian/anti-government types are willing to recognize that this is exactly the argument that many make about guns after a mass shooting (i.e., if guns weren’t so easy to access that event X would not have happened–both are vested in a basic assertion about probability). And, further, that libertarian/anti-government types always reject those probability arguments in that context.

It's an important point.  Glibertarian types are always stressing "personal responsibility" over law (the most obvious example of this being the infamous "Guns don't kill people, people do" riff) but in the Garner case it wasn't the police officer's fault, it was cigarette taxes.  I've pointed out the idiocy of this when Sen. Rand Paul said it, but the point is that you can't say taxes were part of why Eric Garner died without also admitting that availability of guns is why so many thousands of Americans die each year in firearm homicides and accidents.

That admission won't be coming soon from these guys, either.

The Last Days Of Southern Democrats

Mary Landrieu is fighting for her political career in Louisiana today in the state's Senate runoff, but the reality is Senate Democrats are done in the South for quite some time, and unlike House races, you can't blame Senate losses on gerrymandering. FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten sums up Landrieu's coming demise:

William Thompson of Kansas and Wesley Jones of Washington are former U.S. senators — you get a pass for not recognizing them, they’ve been dead for more than 80 years. But if you’ll be watching Saturday’s Senate runoff between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, remember their names.

These senators sustained the greatest margin of defeat for an elected incumbent (not running on a third-party ticket after a primary defeat) since the direct election of senators began in the early 1900s. Thompson lost by 30 percentage points in 1918, and Jones by 28 points in 1932.

Landrieu probably won’t overtake Thompson and Jones, but she could be headed toward a top 10 historic defeat.

The FiveThirtyEight model projects her losing the runoff 99.8 percent of the time, and by a 57.8 percent to 42.2 percent margin. That’s mostly based on polling, which can be unreliable in a low-turnout runoff.

What else do we know? The early voters in the Louisiana runoff have been vastly more Republican-leaning than early voters in last month’s election. And while whites were only 65 percent of early voters in November, they have been 70 percent for the runoff. Registered Republicans were only 34 percent of early voters in November, but they’ve been 39 percent of early voters for the runoff.

If this change in voter makeup holds on Saturday, it’s obviously very bad news for Landrieu. Assuming she wins the same percentage of white voters as Democratic candidates did in November, she’ll lose the runoff by roughly 60 percent to 40 percent, or about what the model forecasts.

Landrieu's loss will leave Florida's Bill Nelson as the last remaining Democratic Senator from a Southern state, and Mark Warner if you count purple state Virginia.  Both these senators are conservative as well.

Warner survived, and Bill Nelson is good until 2018, but outside of that in 2016 it's going to be a lot harder than liberals are willing to believe to gain seats in the South.

And yes, Landrieu is toast.  Let's be honest here.  She sold the party out for Keystone XL and will lose by an even larger margin as a result.  No sympathy for her, but definite sadness for the Democrats.  We've got a lot of work to do if we ever want to win either chamber of Congress back.

Start That Shutdown Clock

The right smells surrender on immigration policy and it's panic time for the Tea Party.  The Daily Caller is howling:

House Speaker John Boehner’s top committee chairman says he wants an immigration bill that would allow millions of foreign migrants to stay and work jobs sought by Americans. 

“I’m going to use my assets and resources in the new year to work with this Congress… to have a well-understood agreement about what the law should be, and how we as communities, and farm communities, and tech communities, create circumstances where we can have people be in this country and work, and where not one person is quote ‘thrown out’ or ‘deported,’” Rep. Pete Sessions,the chairman of the powerful House rules committee, told a group of Democratic legislators. 

The committee has the power to kill or boost members’ bills because it decides how each bill will be considered in floor votes. 

Sessions’ promise of de-facto amnesty to Democrats was welcomed by Chicago Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who frequently describes unauthorized migrants as members of his community. 

“My heart was filled with a lot of joy when you said that people who are working here, who don’t present a danger, basically should be set aside, that those aren’t the people we should be going after,” said Gutierrez, four hours and 16 minutes into the hearing. 

The Dec. 3 hearing took place the evening before Boehner announced he would not even try to defund Obama’s Nov. 21 amnesty.

And so is Angry Angryson at Red State.

It is more and more obvious the only way the GOP will stop Obama is if House conservatives hold the line and oppose both the rule on the continuing resolution and the continuing resolution itself.

Start the shutdown clock for Friday the 12th, kids.  It's about to get ugly.  I've been predicting a GOP civil war now for 4 years, and it looks like it's finally about to arrive.

Last Call For A Three-Time Loser

Republicans are continuing to arrange and rearrange the starting blocks for their clown car race for 2016, and at least one group of donors is convinced the secret weapon for the GOP is going to be the biggest non-secret, non-weapon ever.

Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney held meetings with donors in New York this week that left one attendee convinced he is running for president again in 2016.

A member of Romney's inner circle who spoke to Business Insider said the former governor of Massachusetts traveled to New York City on Monday where he met with key financial backers of his past campaigns to lay the groundwork for a 2016 White House bid.

The source, who was at one of the meetings, said other attendees included developer Stephen Ross, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, and hedge funders Julian Robertson and Paul Singer.

A representative for Romney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the meetings from Business Insider. 

Oh please, please let Mr. 47 Percent run again.  This is a guy who lost by six points to Barack Obama, supposedly "the worst President America has ever had".  Republicans despise him, and his presence in the 2016 contest will only help the Democrats.

Please remind everyone once again why the GOP platform is terrible and that Republicans only care about millionaires.  That's a great idea.

He's Still Smarter Than Louie Gohmert

House Democrats have decided that the best way to remind Republicans (and America) that the GOP used to be someone less insane is to use their own hero against them.  Introducing the most moderate Republican left in 2014:

Cardboard Ronnie Reagan!

Two House Democrats have stood proudly this week in front of a cardboard cut-out of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan during floor speeches, using his paper likeness as a prop to urge the GOP to join their cause on issues like immigration and increasing gasoline taxes. 

On Wednesday, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer set up the life-sized Reagan behind him to urge the GOP to support his bill to raise federal gasoline by 15 cents. (Gas taxes were increased under Reagan in 1982.) The next day, Reagan showed up again on the House floor next to Illinois Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, a staunch advocate for overhauling the nation's immigration laws. (Reagan passed a sweeping immigration reform bill in 1986.) 

How did all these Democrats get their hands on a cardboard Reagan? 

It all began when Patrick Malone, a Blumenauer communications aide, bought the thing online for $30, and started putting Reagan at his colleagues' desks while they were out. He's been popping up around the office ever since. 

"It's a little freaky," Malone told CNN. 

On Wednesday, Blumenauer carried it to a press conference and onto the House floor. 

"Reagan's held in such high esteem by conservatives and they need to be reminded of things he did when they turn away from him," Malone said.

 Now, Reagan did some truly awful things:  Iran-Contra, union-busting, wrecking the environment, nearly tripled the national debt and his record on AIDS alone earns him a place in history's dustbin. But the guy did pass immigration reform and raised the federal gas tax, two things that could never, ever, happen today.

It's amusing to remind the GOP where all of this trouble really started.

Jobapalooza

This morning's November jobs report? Jobzilla. Jobopotamus. Jobocerous. Brontojobus. Jobasaurus Rex. Deoxyjobonucleaic acid.

The US labor market is on fire. 

According to the latest report from the BLS, the nonfarm payrolls grew by 321,000 in November, crushing expectations for 230,000. 

This is the biggest single-month gain in payrolls since January 2012.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.8%.

This marks the 10th-straight month that the US economy saw payrolls grow by more than 200,000, the longest streak since 1995. 

October's report was also revised higher, from an initial reading of 214,000 job gains to 243,000. 

According to the BLS' release, "In November, job growth was widespread, led by gains in professional and business services, retail trade, health care, and manufacturing." 

Payrolls grew by 50,000 in the retail sector in November, with health care adding 29,000 jobs, manufacturing adding 28,000 jobs, and professional and business services jobs growing by 86,000.

The "U-6" unemployment rate, which also includes those who are working part time for economic reasons and those marginally attached to the labor force, fell to 11.4% from 11.5%.

The labor force participation rate also held steady at 62.8%.

These are some of the best jobs numbers since the heart of the Clinton boom years, and yet Obama is a terrible President, right?  And America decided to turn everything over to the damn GOP instead. That was a good call, huh?

StupidiNews!

• Protests over the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner continued across America last night, with protesters blocking traffic in cities ranging from NYC to Dallas to Chicago to Boston.
• A new study by Canadian doctors finds extreme obesity can cost people up to 19 years in life expectancy, particularly among those under the age of 40.
• President Obama is expected to name former deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter to the post of Secretary of Defense this morning, replacing the outgoing Chuck Hagel.
• Billionaire investor Warren Buffet gave the maximum donation to Hillary Clinton's PAC last quarter as Ready For Hillary reported $11 million in fundraising so far this year.
• New UT-Austin estimates of US shale gas production finds that output could peak as early as 2020, drastically sooner than the 2040 estimates by the government.