StupidiNews!

• Senate Republicans admit that they are at least four votes short of overriding a promised Obama veto on forcing approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
• In a meth bust gone wrong, an Albuquerque police officer shot and almost killed an undercover narcotics officer during a sting operation.
• Movies "Boyhood", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and "Birdman" all walked away with multiple Golden Globes last night, while "The Affair" and "Transparent" had big night in television.
• The flight recorder from doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been located by divers, as Indonesian officials hope the data will provide answers as to the deaths of 162 on board.
• SpaceX's Dragon rocket launch was a success for the commercial space transport company, but the ship's planned landing on a flat barge in the Atlantic was too rough for the rocket to survive.

Last Call For Off The Plan

And the Republican assault on Obamacare in the 114th Congress begins in earnest.

On Thursday, House Republicans will vote on an anti-Obamacare bill that could toss up to 1.5 million Americans off their employer-sponsored health plans. To make the case that this is a good idea, top GOPers are misrepresenting what the legislation would do. They claim the measure would help prevent companies from reducing worker hours in order to cut employees' health insurance benefits. Yet the legislation would likely encourage businesses to decrease hours so the firms could avoid providing health insurance to workers. "While political leaders often stretch the truth to make their case, they usually don't claim the opposite of the truth," Robert Greenstein, the president of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), noted Wednesday. "That, however, is essentially what Republican congressional leaders are doing."

The bill House Republicans introduced Wednesday would change the way the Affordable Care Act defines full-time work and, thus, who is eligible for employer-sponsored health care. Currently, the ACA requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide affordable health coverage to 95 percent of their full-time workers or pay a penalty. This measure, called the employer mandate, begins to go into effect this year. Under the 2010 health care law, full-time work is defined as 30 or more hours per week. The GOP bill would change the law's definition of full time to 40 hours per week.

The bottom line?  1.5 million Americans would lose their employer-sponsored health insurance, and because of the 40 hour line, they'd lose a host of other benefits too, like paid vacation, medical leave, and of course, hours.

In other words, employers could cut people to 39.5 hours a week and save a lot of money, rather than having to cut people to 29.5 hours a week just to keep them off insurance (and having to hire more people, which doesn't really save them money).

But that's what Republicans are fighting for, to cut benefits to millions.

As always.

Meawhile at Dick's House

America may love torturing brown people, but there are still some of us who remember that Dick Cheney and his buddies should be in prison on war crimes charges about now.

Two protesters were arrested at the McLean, Virginia, home of former Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday after 20 demonstrators, some in orange prison jumpsuits, walked onto his property to mark the 14th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay prison.

The protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink walked up to the house before police arrived and asked them to leave, said Fairfax County police spokesman Roger Henriquez. Two members who refused to go were arrested on trespassing charges, he said.

Police identified the two as Tighe Barry, 57, and Eve Tetaz, 83, both of Washington DC. The pair face misdemeanor charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct, police said.

Another Code Pink group demonstrated without incident outside the home of CIA Director John Brennan, also in the Washington, D.C. suburb of McLean, as part of its "Guantanamo Anniversary Weekend Torturers Tour."

I don't agree with everything Code Pink does, but harassing the hell out of Cheney?  Go right ahead, ladies.  In a fair and just world he'd be in prison anyhow.

The French Connection

As many as a million marchers and several European heads of state attended a rally in Paris today showing solidarity with France and the victims of this week's attacks.

President Francois Hollande and leaders from Germany, Italy, Israel, Turkey, Britain and the Palestinian territories among others, moved off from the central Place de la Republique ahead of a sea of French and other flags. Giant letters attached to a statue in the square spelt out the word Pourquoi?" (Why?) and small groups sang the "La Marseillaise" national anthem.

Some 2,200 police and soldiers patrolled Paris streets to protect marchers from would-be attackers, with police snipers on rooftops and plain-clothes detectives mingling with the crowd. City sewers were searched ahead of the vigil and underground train stations around the march route are due to be closed down.

The silent march - which may prove the largest seen in modern times through Paris - reflected shock over the worst militant Islamist assault on a European city in nine years. For France, it raised questions of free speech, religion and security, and beyond French frontiers it exposed the vulnerability of states to urban attacks.

"Paris is today the capital of the world. Our entire country will rise up and show its best side," said Hollande in a statement.

We sent Eric Holder over, and the irony of course is that Bibi Netanyahu is there, along with Turkish PM Erdogan, which really, really puts the concept of free speech into perspective.  Angela Merkeal and David Cameron, too.  These folks don't believe in freedom of speech any more than the guys who shot up Charlie Hebdo did.

A very different reaction than America's some thirteen years ago, but America has its own immigration fight now after Republicans politicized the Department of Homeland Security, and the stakes just got a lot higher in their quest to shut down the DHS over President Obama's immigration orders.

Senate and House Republicans are warning against a standoff with President Obama and Senate Democrats that could shut down the department tasked with protecting the homeland within weeks of terrorist attacks against Western targets. They worry the GOP could wind up taking the blame, which is what happened when a dispute over implementation of the Affordable Care Act shuttered the federal government for 16 days.

While Republicans are unified in their desire to reverse the executive order Obama issued after Election Day shielding an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, some are warning Tea Party colleagues such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) not to take the fight too far.

“Defunding that part of the bill that deals with enforcing the executive order makes sense but we can’t go too far here because look what happened in Paris. The Department of Homeland Security needs to be up and running,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Former Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) on Friday called it “absolutely essential” that counterterrorism be funded given the spate of attacks around the world.

A Senate GOP aide warned that Democrats would pounce on a departmental shutdown to accuse Republicans of prioritizing the desires of their conservative base over national security.

“There’s no question that if the DHS shuts down in some way, Democrats will do everything to take full advantage of the situation,” the aide said.

It's the Republicans who set up this shutdown showdown.  Now they're complaining that it's a terrible idea?  It always was.   Now the plan is to put a bill on the table defunding immigration or risk shutting down Homeland Security completely anyway?

Amazing.

Last Call For Slow Going In Fast City

To the surprise of exactly zero people, NYPD Comimssioner Bill Bratton today confirmed that New York's Finest are New York's Not Workingest.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is confirming a work slowdown, following reports that criminal summonses have declined by 90 percent. 

In an interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Bratton said the department has taken a close look at the numbers. 

"We're coming out of what was a pretty widespread stoppage of certain types of activity, the discretionary type of activity by and large," he said. He added that despite the slowdown is prosecuting smaller, quality-of-life criminal offenses, major crimes in the city are down overall. 

Bratton also said he's aware of how difficult the past few weeks have been for officers. Late last year, police responded to widespread protests in the city, following a grand jury's decision not to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner. And just last month, two police officers were shot and killed in Beford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. 

"I'm very conscious of the impact of all of those on my personnel," Bratton said, adding that the department is taking a measured approach as it returns to normal policing.

Bratton appears to be saying that the NYPD is now returning to whatever normal is, i.e. harassing the hell out of any non-white resident of the five boroughs that they can find.  Not sure if the NYPD is actually doing so, but we'll see over the next month what the numbers are.

I wonder what Bratton promised the unions and the rank-and-file.  They wouldn't be ending the slowdown unless they got something out of it.  My guess is major, major concessions from City Hall about police union contracts...and the knowledge that they can successfully push around Mayor de Blasio in the future.

Very interesting to see where this goes.  On the other hand, it's possible that the NYPD isn't "coming out of the slowdown" at all, and that Bratton's going to be hung out like a beef carcass. Either situation is a win for the NYPD.  It's just a matter of how much they run up the score at this point.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the NYPD are in fact angels protecting New York from icky brown people, so what do I know?

Slaughter In Nigeria

Last weekend's attack on an African Union military base in Nigeria by Islamist group Boko Haram may have turned out to be far worse a massacre than anyone imagined.  Reports now say the nearby town of Baga in Nigeria where the base was has all been wiped off the map, along with as many as 2,000 people.

Gunshots punctured the early morning quiet. “They came through the north, the west and from the southern part of the town because the eastern part is only water,” one resident told the BBC. “So, when we [went] toward the western part, we saw heavily armed Boko Haram men coming toward us.” At the sight of the incoming insurgents, the soldiers put up a scant fight before abandoning their base and leaving residents defenseless. 

“There is definitely something wrong that makes our military abandon their posts each time there is an attack from Boko Haram,” local state senator Maina Maaji Lawan told the BBC, adding that residents’ frustration knew “no bounds.” Frustration, however, soon gave way to something substantially worse. 

It’s not clear how many people were killed in Baga. Early reports on Thursday said hundreds. Others said it was many more. Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in Borno, said Boko Haram killed more than 2,000 people which, if true, would mean the group equaled its total kill count last year in one attack. More were said to have drowned in Lake Chad while attempting to swim to a nearby island. Some estimatessaid more than 20,000 people are now displaced as result of what one reporter called Boko Haram’s “most horrific act of terrorism yet.” 

Baga, local government officials say, is simply no more. It’s “virtually non-existent,” Bukar told the BBC. One man who escaped with his family toldAgence France-Presse he had to navigate through “many dead bodies on the ground” and that the “whole town was on fire.” Another man told Reuters he “escaped with my family in the car after seeing how Boko Haram was killing people … I saw bodies in the street. Children and women, some were crying for help.” He added: Bodies were “littered on the streets and surrounding bushes.” 

“The indiscriminate killing went on and on and on,” Lawan told BBC.

And of course Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is powerless to do anything, as Nigeria's government is so utterly corrupt that any attempts to combat Boko Haram end in abject failure. Northeastern Nigeria along Lake Chad now completely belongs to Boko Haram, and now they are pushing into neighboring Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

It doesn't look like anyone is going to be able to stop them.

Orange Julius Gives Them The Gas Face

With gas prices down to around $2 a gallon from $3.50, the notion to raise the federal gas tax by a bit in order to pay for the Federal Highway Trust Fund to keep America's interstates running seems pretty reasonable.

But let's remember you're dealing with 2015 Republicans like John Boehner, who are never reasonable. Steve Benen:

The Highway Trust Fund, which plays a central role in financing U.S. infrastructure projects, is financed through a federal gas tax. It’s been a pretty effective system, at least up until recently – the current tax hasn’t changed in more than two decades, and as a result, American investment in infrastructure has fallen to its lowest point since 1947. Making matters slightly worse, the Highway Trust Fund is on track to run out of money in May. 

The simple, efficient, and painfully obvious solution is to approve an overdue increase to the gas tax – with prices at the pump already having plummeted, this is an ideal time – which would bolster the fund, boost investments, and help both the economy and our infrastructure, which even Republicans concede is currently “on life support.” 

Indeed, while Democratic support for an overdue gas-tax increase comes as no surprise, some conservative GOP lawmakers also agree that we don’t have much of a choice.

But oh well, John Boehner won't even allow that up for a vote in the House.

Asked for further clarification, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told Greg Sargent, “The Speaker doesn’t support a gas tax hike. Period.”

Now Orange Julius does concede that somebody has to pay for the Highway Trust Fund, or thousands of construction jobs will be lost this summer and our interstate highways won't get repaired.  The obvious and easy way is to bump up the gas tax.

But that won't happen.  What will happen?  We don't know, that's up to Republicans.

Good luck with that whole "governance" thing, boys.

Last Call For General "Betrayed By His Little Soldier", You Mean

Remember Gen. David Petraeus and his career-ending affair with a mistress while CIA chief back in 2012?  The DoJ and FBI sure as hell remember, and he's about to get fried up like catfish.

The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against retired Gen. David H. Petraeus for providing classified information to his former mistress while he was director of theC.I.A., officials said, leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison.

The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other highly classified information. F.B.I. agents discovered classified documents on her computer after Mr. Petraeus resigned from the C.I.A. in 2012 when the affair became public.

Mr. Petraeus, a retired four star-general who served as commander of American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has said he never provided classified information to Ms. Broadwell, and has indicated to the Justice Department that he has no interest in a plea deal that would spare him an embarrassing trial. A lawyer for Mr. Petraeus, Robert B. Barnett, said Friday he had no comment.

Mr. Holder was expected to decide by the end of last year whether to bring charges against Mr. Petraeus, but he has not indicated how he plans to proceed. The delay has frustrated some Justice Department and F.B.I officials and investigators who have questioned whether Mr. Petraeus has received special treatment at a time Mr. Holder has led an unprecedented crackdown on government officials who reveal secrets to journalists.

Needless to say, Eric Holder's going to be under a lot of pressure to prosecute, but it may not be his decision at all as Loretta Lynch, his replacement, has her confirmation hearings staring as early as the end of the month.

Things just got real interesting.

Manchin On The Hill, Con't

Sen. Joe Manchin has two jobs these days, representing West Virginia in the Senate, and repeating weak Republican attacks against the leader of his own party.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Thursday he was disappointed that the White House threatened to veto his legislation approving the Keystone XL pipeline, arguing the president’s move was “not the way a democracy works.” 

The West Virginia lawmaker said he was upset Obama did not reserve judgment on the bill until it went through the committee and amendment process in an interview with Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

“I just couldn't believe that out of the gate, two hours after [Sen.] John Hoeven [R-N.D.] and I announced that were introducing the bill, that they would come out from the White House and the president would make a statement that he's going to veto it,” Manchin said. 

The Democrat said he had been hopeful the president’s history serving in the Senate would have led him to hold off on a veto threat. 

“I would have thought the president would say, ‘Listen, being a former legislator, I'm going to wait until this process unfolds. And at the end of the day, I'll tell you, do I like what they came up with, or do I not like what they came out with, and this is my reason for veto,’ ” Manchin said. “[He] never even gave it a chance, never even gave it a chance. Now, that's just not the way you do legislation. It's not the way a democracy works. And it's not the way the ... three branches of government should work.”

Reread your Constitution, chuckles.  The President vetoing a bill is precisely how American democracy works.  The redress to this, also in said Constitution, is for the Congress to override the President's veto, which it can do with a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate.  If you can do that, you can pass anything you like no matter what the President says.

Get to making those phone calls, Joe.  Your energy company masters are waiting.

Rich Man, Poor Man

If you want to know how the GOP is going to get away with massive Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid cuts, it's because the majority of Americans feel that the poor in America have it too easy. And the richer you are, the more you despise America's lower class.

Most of America's richest think poor people have it easy in this country,according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country's most financially secure citizens (54 percent at the very top, and 57 percent just below) believe the "poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return." America's least financially secure, meanwhile, vehemently disagree — nearly 70 percent say the poor have hard lives because the benefits "don't go far enough." Nationally, the population is almost evenly split.

Why the surprising lack of compassion? It's hard to say. At the very top, the sentiment is likely tied to conservatism, which traditionally bemoans government programs that redistribute wealth, calling them safety nets. Some 40 percent of the financially secure are politically conservative, according to Pew. And conservatives are even more likely to say the "poor have it easy" than the rich — a recent Pew survey found that more than three quarters of conservatives feel that way.

More broadly, the prevalence of the view might reflect an inability to understand the plight of those who have no choice but to seek help from the government. A quarter of the country, after all, feels that the leading reason for inequality in America is that the poor don't work hard enough.

35 years of Reagan's "welfare queens", Bush 41's "war on drugs",  Clinton's welfare reform and financial sector remake, Bush 43's "soft bigotry of low expectations" and crashing the economy and yeah, even six years of the "Obama recovery" and it's still not enough wealth for the 1%.

The people with the tens of billions of dollars are paying the people with hundreds of millions of dollars to convince the people with hundreds of thousands of dollars that the people with a couple of hundred bucks left over at the end of the month are making too much money.

These are also the people who believe "most corporations make a fair and reasonable profit" (51%), believe "government is almost always wasteful and inefficient" (61%) and then there's this:



Pretty much across the board, if you're black and poor, it's your own goddamn fault.

Combine the two and as Lyndon Johnson said, if you can convince the poorest white man that he's better than the highest black man, then he won't mind you picking his pocket.

StupidiNews!

• The manhunt by French police for the two suspects in Wednesday's deadly shooting in Paris has led to a hostage situation in a storage complex near Charles de Gaulle Airport.
• The US Olympic Committee has chosen Boston as the site of the US bid for the 2024 Summer Games, beating out LA, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
• Cuba has freed eight more political prisoners as part of a continuing deal with the United States in order to normalize relations between the two countries.
• The US Supreme Court could decide as early as today whether or not to review same-sex marriage laws in the US, which could lead to a national ruling on the matter.
• Intel is showing off a new "stick computer" that is an entire Windows 8.1 or Linux machine on a palm-sized unit with USB and HDMI connections.

Last Call For Boxing Day

California Dem Sen. Barbara Boxer is "retiring" in 2016, leaving the door open for a number of Dems looking to move up in the ranks in the Golden State.

According to CNN, the long-serving Boxer said that she is stepping down from the Senate, but has no plans to retire. 

“I am never going to retire,” Boxer said. “The work is too important.” 

She intends to channel her energy into her PAC for Change group and to ensure that the White House and her Senate seat stay in Democratic hands in the next election cycle.
Boxer, 74, said that her age has nothing to do with her decision. 

“Some people are old at 40, some people are young at 80. I feel as young as I did when I got elected. I was in my 50s,” Boxer said. 

Boxer closed an interview with CNN with a series of rhymes, saying, “The Senate is the place where I’ve always made my case. For families, for the planet and the human race. More than 20 years in a job I love, thanks to California and the Lord above. So although I wont be working from my senate space and I wont’ be running in that next tough race. As long as there are issues and challenges and strife, I will never retire because that’s the meaning of my life.”

After 24 years, Boxer is moving on.  Who will replace her?

The smart money is on Attorney General Kamala Harris, or Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.  LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has already said that he's not looking to replace Boxer.  Any of the three could take a crack at it I guess but with Gov. Jerry Brown term limited in 2018, that leaves the Governor's Mansion in an open race too. It's also very possible that California's other senator Dianne Feinstein will retire in 2018 as well and not seek a fifth term, meaning if 2016 doesn't work out, 2018 will provide opportunities.

Of course, Scott Brown could show up and lose a Senate race in a third state too.

The Unkindest Cuts Begin

So a GOP Congress means a lot of things for America, and pretty much none of them good.  One of those "not good" things is the return of the Catfood Commission, as House Republicans are going to force a fight on Social Security disability benefits.

Buried in new rules that will govern the House for the next two years is a provision that could force an explosive battle over Social Security's finances on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. 

Social Security's disability program has been swamped by aging baby boomers, and unless Congress acts, the trust fund that supports it is projected to run dry in late 2016. At that point, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 81 percent of benefits, according to the trustees who oversee Social Security. 

To shore up the disability program, Congress could redirect payroll taxes from Social Security's much larger retirement fund — as it has done in the past. However, the House adopted a rule Tuesday blocking such a move, unless it is part of a larger plan to improve Social Security's finances, by either cutting benefits or raising taxes. 

Long the third rail of American politics, tinkering with Social Security has never been easy. Throw in election-year politics and finding votes in Congress to cut benefits or raise taxes could be especially difficult. 

But if Congress doesn't act, benefits for 11 million disabled workers, spouses and children would be automatically cut by 19 percent. The average monthly payment for a disabled worker is $1,146, or a little less than $14,000 a year.

And yes, disability benefits are different from old age benefits.  Technically, those are two separate funds, and the disability fund is definitely running out of money.  But House Republicans are blocking the usual move to tap old age benefits to fund the disability account (and the old age account is doing just fine, thanks.)

That means the fight over Social Security cuts is now one of the big issues in 2016, and Republicans are going to try to find a way to force President Obama to accept them, then blame Democrats for the cuts in perpetuity.

We'll see how this fight plays out this year and next, but keep an eye on the news.  Republicans have been waiting to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for years now, and this is the best chance they've got.  (What, did you think they were going to wait until a Republican president was in the White House to do it?  Can't blame the Democrats then, can they?)

Shifty bastards.

Seeing Stars Late At Night

Well here's what I call smart television: Neil DeGrasse Tyson is bringing his Star Talk radio/podcast show to TV.

On Wednesday, the National Geographic channel announced that Tyson would be hosting the network's first ever late-night talk show, Variety reported. It will be loosely based on Tyson's popular podcast, Star Talk, and feature the cosmologist in the starring role. Few other details have so far been announced, but if it is anything like the podcast, you can expect a slew of comics, celebrities and fellow scientists to join Tyson to discuss "astronomy, physics and everything else about life in the universe." 

"Cosmos allowed us to share the awesome power of the universe with a global audience in ways that we never thought possible," Tyson reportedly said. "To be able to continue to spread wonder and excitement through Star Talk, which is a true passion project for me, is beyond exciting." 

Star Talk will also mark NatGeo's continuing expansion into such original programming (they're also planning an upcoming comedy from the creators of HBO's Silicon Valley). And as an educational channel that actually still has educational programming (unlike some other guys) hopefully they'll make this expansion carefully and deliver something good.

"We continue to bolster our programming with series and event specials that are brand definitional, andStar Talk is the perfect opportunity to offer our audience an edgy, late-night alternative with the credibility and authenticity that are the hallmarks of our network," National Geographic Channels CEO Courteney Monroe reportedly said.

I enjoy watching The Nerdist on BBC America, and SyFy's The Wil Wheaton Project is also a good time, so I know there's room out there in the vast cable spectrum for smart late-night hosts and talk shows. Hell, Craig Ferguson was brilliant on The Late Late Show.

Looking forward to watching this, as the Star Talk podcasts I've listened to have been pretty good. Neil is a natural and here's hoping it's even better.

StupidiNews!

• French police continue to hunt for two of the three gunmen responsible for the deadly attack at Paris' Charlie Hebdo weekly, the third suspect has surrendered.
• Comedian Bill Cosby will go ahead with three Canadian shows this week despite growing allegations of widespread sexual assault of women over many years.
• Billionaire investor George Soros is urging the world's banks to put together a $50 billion aid package to Ukraine to shore the country up against further Russian incursion.
• President Obama will announce lower mortgage insurance premiums backed by the FHA in order to spur new home ownership and refinancing of home loans to new lower rates.
• The Los Angeles Police Department will outfit 3,000 officers with Tasers that will automatically activate body cameras when fired.