| 28 | The Roman Emperor Nerva names Trajan, an army general, as his successor. | |
| 1547 | Henry VIII of England dies and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Edward VI. | |
| 1757 | Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupies Delhi and annexes the Punjab. | |
| 1792 | Rebellious slaves in Santo Domingo launch an attack on the city of Cap. | |
| 1871 | Surrounded by Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris surrenders. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with the outside world. | |
| 1915 | The U.S. Coast Guard is founded to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea. | |
| 1915 | The German navy attacks the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for Britain. | |
| 1921 | Albert Einstein startles Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe. | |
| 1932 | The Japanese attack Shanghai, China, and declare martial law. | |
| 1936 | A fellow prison inmate slashes infamous kidnapper, Richard Loeb, to death. | |
| 1941 | French General Charles DeGaulle's Free French forces sack south Libya oasis. | |
| 1945 | Chiang Kai-shek renames the Ledo-Burma Road the Stilwell Road, in honor of General Joseph Stilwell. | |
| 1955 | The U.S. Congress passes a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan. | |
| 1964 | The Soviets down a U.S. jet over East Germany killing three. | |
| 1970 | Israeli fighter jets attack the suburbs of Cairo. | |
| 1986 | The space shuttle Challenger explodes just after liftoff. |
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Today in History
A 13-year-old filmmaker's documentary on NSA spying
Leaked US independent surveillance watchdog report concludes NSA program is illegal and recommends shut-down
The forthcoming report of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the arm's-length body established by the Congress to investigate NSA spying, has leaked, with details appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
From its pages, we learn that the board views the NSA's metadata
collection program -- which was revealed by Edward Snowden -- as
illegal, without "a viable legal foundation under Section 215,
implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth
Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a
policy matter, and has shown only limited value…As a result, the board
recommends that the government end the program."
The report goes farther than the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (whose recommendations Obama ignored) and even farther than the policies announced by the President himself.
The Board also found that NSA metadata collection didn't stop any terrorist attacks, and would not have been useful in preventing the 9/11 attacks.
The report goes farther than the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (whose recommendations Obama ignored) and even farther than the policies announced by the President himself.
The Board also found that NSA metadata collection didn't stop any terrorist attacks, and would not have been useful in preventing the 9/11 attacks.
The report, according to the Times, also acknowledges for the first time that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "produced no judicial opinion detailing its legal rationale for the program until last August, even though it had been issuing orders to phone companies for the records and to the N.S.A. for how it could handle them since May 2006."
"The Board believes that the Section 215 program has contributed only minimal value in combating terrorism beyond what the government already achieves through these and other alternative means," the report said, according to the Post. "Cessation of the program would eliminate the privacy and civil liberties concerns associated with bulk collection without unduly hampering the government’s efforts, while ensuring that any governmental requests for telephone calling records are tailored to the needs of specific investigations."
According to the Times, the report also agrees with outside analysis, concluding that "no instance in which the [metadata] program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack."
The Post also quoted from a section of the report that specifically rejected an argument frequently made by President Barack Obama and members of his administration, that the metadata program would have been useful had it available prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, as it may have ensnared Khalid al-Mihdhar, a known terrorism suspect. Mihdhar was calling a Yemen-based safehouse, but what the NSA did not realize at the time, was that he was doing so from San Diego, California.
Federal judge rules that a downloader's IP address is not proof of identity
Ruling on a motion to dismiss filed on behalf of one of the defendants, Judge Lasnik notes that part (b) is not a valid claim.
“[The movie studio] has actually alleged no more than that the named defendants purchased Internet access and failed to ensure that others did not use that access to download copyrighted material,” Lasnik states.
In other words, the complaint itself states that the account holder may not be the person who downloaded the movie, which isn’t enough to pursue the case.
“Simply identifying the account holder associated with an IP address tells us very little about who actually downloaded ‘Elf-Man’ using that IP address,” Judge Lasnik writes.
“While it is possible that the subscriber is the one who participated in the BitTorrent swarm, it is also possible that a family member, guest, or freeloader engaged in the infringing conduct,” he adds.
As a result, the defendant’s motion to dismiss was granted because the movie studio failed to state a claim for direct copyright infringement, contributory infringement and indirect infringement. The copyright holder is allowed to file an updated complaint, but doubts that the movie studio will be able to make a valid claim.
Britain's Careful Celebration of WWI
by Christoph Scheuermann
The Great War has long played a significant role in Britain's
historical memory. This year, the country is planning several events to
celebrate the 100th anniversary and several new books have already hit
the shelves. Jingoism, however, is to be avoided. More
Giving France Respect Where It Is Due
Europe's Sole Military Force
A Commentary by Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels
French troops are fighting in bloody conflicts around the world, most
recently in the Central African Republic. Other EU members, including
Germany, say they will now provide support for these deployments. It's
high time. More
Ukraine government sends text to protesters ...
The identification of protesters was almost certainly accomplished with a "Stingray," a fake cellphone tower pioneered by police in the USA, who routinely and secretly deploy them around cities and especially during protests. The Stingray tricks nearby phones into associating with it, giving police a census of who was where, with whom, and where they went. A federal judge found this to be legal, even without a warrant, because he believes you have no expectation of privacy when it comes to having your movements and associations tracked by the police in secret.
Which is to say that the thing that the Ukrainian police did to those protesters is something that US police forces do routinely to protesters, all the time. The only difference is that American cops don't brag about the fact that they are building dossiers on participants in peaceful, lawful protests by sending taunting and intimidating texts to protesters. Instead, they just build the databases in secret against the day that they're looking for a pretense to arrest someone.
The moral of the story is that when you build surveillance technology, you load a weapon that will be inherited by every government that is to come. Oakland PD's playful, murderous shenanigans -- aiming tear-gas cannisters at protesters' heads -- are on a continuum, and at the other end of it are governments like the Ukrainian state, where they've mobilized tanks against their citizens to crush a popular uprising, and further along, there's Syria, where they're operating modern death-camps.
The cause of freedom in the 21st century is inextricably linked to resistance of technological surveillance. It's in the development of technology that obeys its owners (for example, being able to root your phone in a way that is undetectable to apps and carriers); in the right to report bugs that expose people to surveillance by governments and creeps without being prosecuted.
It's in establishing the principle that technology should do what it is told by its owners, and that it shouldn't be designed to lie to its owners. This is why it's a Big Fucking Deal that the W3C has paved the way for DRM in every browser, which means that it will become impossible to use most of the Web unless you are running closed systems that enjoy special legal status that makes it illegal to report bugs in them, ensuring that everything that touches the Web will have code with long-lived, secret bugs in it that creeps and crooks and governments can use to pwn the devices' owners.
There are people who will sneeringly tell you that this is about whether "information wants to be free." This has nothing to do with the nonexistent desires of "information." This is about people wanting to be free, and the fact that freedom in an information society requires that a "freedom layer" be designed into the technology that handles information on our behalf.
UK Prime Minister's special adviser wants prison for people who watch TV programs the wrong way
In Weatherley's view, "piracy" is the same as "theft." He's saying that if you listen to a song the wrong way -- by torrenting it, rather than listening to it on Spotify -- you should go to jail. He's saying that if you watch a TV programme using Bittorrent instead of Iplayer, that the state should pay to imprison you and you should be deprived of your liberty; but if you watch that same program in the same window on the same screen in the same place, but you get it from Iplayer, you're in the clear.
Prison for watching TV the wrong way -- no wonder they're called the Nasty Party.
Weatherley, who we should not forget is the Prime Minister’s advisor on such matters, continued by revealing just how far he feels the government should go in dealing with the problem, starting with Internet disconnections and ending in a much darker place.
“Ultimately, we need to consider withdrawing internet rights from lawbreakers, along with imposing fines and, as a last resort, custodial sentences,” he told the debate.
Helen Goodman MP countered by stating that a line needs to be drawn between punishing the occasional downloader and those who run pirate sites.
“It is important that we distinguish between 14-year-olds in their bedrooms downloading two or three Justin Bieber tracks on to an iPod and people who make multi-billion pound businesses out of providing illegal material. It is not right to treat the two groups in the same way,” she said.
Clarifying his stance, Weatherley underlined that he did indeed mean prison should be an option not only for those running sites, but those who keep on downloading despite the warnings.
MPAA and ICE admit they yanked an innocent man out of a movie for wearing Google Glass
The MPAA's and ICE's statements are bland and anodyne (ICE says that the interview was "voluntary," though the man's account contradicts this). Neither of them explain how it is that a movie theater employee can call an MPAA hotline, and how the MPAA can then command ICE law-enforcement officials to drop everything and rush down to a multiplex to roust a potential camcorderer and treat him like a presumptive criminal.
The problem for the MPAA of camcordering is that they would like to stagger the release of their films -- first to the theatrical exhibition channel, then to airplanes and hotel rooms, then to pay-per-view and streaming services and DVD, etc. This makes them more profitable, but only if they can keep each channel discrete. Lots of businesses struggle with their profit-maximization strategies, but only the MPAA gets to command the forces of federal law-enforcement in the service of their business-model, putting the cost of that strategy onto the tax-payer.
Even so, it seemed incredible that ICE would take direction from the MPAA on something as small as a guy in a movie theater, rushing to the theater to help with the interrogation of someone there, but we underestimated the willingness of ICE to say "how high" when the MPAA says "jump." Yes, we should know better by now, but we thought we'd actually give the MPAA and DHS the benefit of the doubt here. Our mistake.MPAA & ICE Confirm They Interrogated A Guy For Wearing Google Glass During A Movie
We find it difficult to believe that there aren't more important things for ICE to be doing than hassling a guy out attending a movie with his wife. Hollywood has gotten ICE into trouble in the past with its over-aggressive claims about websites. You'd think that ICE would have learned by now that the RIAA and MPAA are not exactly trustworthy when they insist someone is a "filthy pirate" who needs to be investigated. There is simply no reason for federal investigators to be involved at all, let alone called in to interrogate some guy wearing a new piece of technology that the MPAA has overreacted to.
Woman escaped assault by stabbing blowtorch-wielding attacker in the eye with screwdriver
A woman stabbed her attacker in the eye with a screwdriver after she was
forced into a car and burned with a blowtorch on Detroit's west side on
Wednesday morning, according to police.
The woman was walking on Plymouth near Appoline, when a man pointed a
handgun at the back of her head and made her get into a small, beige,
four-door car. "Once inside the vehicle, he struck her several times in
the face," said Officer Adam Madera, Detroit Police Department
spokesman.
"And then he began ripping her clothes off." The woman, whose age and
hometown were not available, fought back. The suspect grabbed a
blowtorch and began burning her legs, Madera said. The victim said she
grabbed a screwdriver, stabbed her attacker in the eye and escaped from
the car naked.
She ran to a home in Appoline, and someone dialed 911 shortly before 7am. The woman is being treated at a hospital for first- and second-degree burns to her legs. Police are still looking for the suspect, described as a black man with a possible stab wound to the eye, about 23 years old, 6 foot 2, 180 pounds and armed with a blowtorch and handgun.
She ran to a home in Appoline, and someone dialed 911 shortly before 7am. The woman is being treated at a hospital for first- and second-degree burns to her legs. Police are still looking for the suspect, described as a black man with a possible stab wound to the eye, about 23 years old, 6 foot 2, 180 pounds and armed with a blowtorch and handgun.
Lady charged with false impersonation following car crash
A woman from Rochester, New York has been charged with false impersonation and DWI following a car crash.
Monroe County Sheriff's Deputies say 27-year-old Arena Arnold was involved in the crash on Monday in Penfield.
Investigators say Arnold portrayed herself as a passenger but claim she was in fact the driver.
She was arraigned and is currently being held in the Monroe County Jail.
She was arraigned and is currently being held in the Monroe County Jail.
How to season a cast-iron pan - with Science
The basic idea is this: Smear a food-grade drying oil onto a cast iron pan, and then bake it above the oil’s smoke point. This will initiate the release of free radicals and polymerization. The more drying the oil, the harder the polymer. So start with the right oil.
Go to your local health food store or organic grocery and buy a bottle of flaxseed oil. It’s sold as an omega-3 supplement and it’s in the refrigeration section because it goes rancid so easily. Check the expiration date to make sure it’s not already rancid. Buy an organic flaxseed oil. You don’t want to burn toxic chemicals into your cookware to leach out forever more. It’s a fairly expensive oil. I paid $17 for a 17 ounce bottle of cold-pressed, unrefined, organic flaxseed oil. As it says on the bottle, shake it before you use it.
Strip your pan down to the iron using the techniques I describe in my popover post. Heat the pan in a 200°F oven to be sure it’s bone dry and to open the pores of the iron a little. Then put it on a paper towel, pour a little flaxseed oil on it (don’t forget to shake the bottle), and rub the oil all over the pan with your hands, making sure to get into every nook and cranny. Your hands and the pan will be nice and oily.
Now rub it all off. Yup – all. All. Rub it off with paper towels or a cotton cloth until it looks like there is nothing left on the surface. There actually is oil left on the surface, it’s just very thin. The pan should look dry, not glistening with oil. Put the pan upside down in a cold oven. Most instructions say to put aluminum foil under it to catch any drips, but if your oil coating is as thin as it should be, there won’t be any drips.
Turn the oven to a baking temperature of 500°F (or as high as your oven goes – mine only goes to 450°F) and let the pan preheat with the oven. When it reaches temperature, set the timer for an hour. After an hour, turn off the oven but do not open the oven door. Let it cool off with the pan inside for two hours, at which point it’s cool enough to handle.
Black ice is caused by tailpipe exhaust
I'd always assumed the moisture for black ice just came from the weather — it rains a little, then it freezes, and voila. But that's not the case.
Black ice, in case this is a regional colloquialism that doesn't
translate everywhere, is actually transparent ice. It's a thin layer of
slippery stuff that forms on roads and is almost imperceptible to the
eye. You look and see a normal road. You don't see the ice.Technically, black ice can form from any source of moisture, but the big one turns out to be the droplets of water that condense out of vehicle tailpipe exhaust and dribble onto the roadway.
Video of Coke cans being devoured by lava
"X being devoured by lava" is the new "Will it blend?" (Until the authorities put an end to it.)
Medical Serial Killers
The bones reveal signs they were once used in medical schools -- as freshly murdered bodies.
Take a look at how two serial killers tapped into Edinburgh's most nefarious trade.
Fantasy maps are awesome
Writers love maps: collecting them, creating them, and describing them. Literary cartography includes not only the literal maps that authors commission or make themselves but also the geographies they describe. The visual display of quantitative information in the digital age has made charts and maps more popular than ever, though every graphic, like every story, has a point of view.Did you know that Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea was inspired by its own map? A favorite example of mine is Titan (from the UK's Fighting Fantasy series), which would be among the more forgettable fantasy worlds were it not for the wonderfully evocative maps that came with the literature. Above, Port Blacksand, the City of Thieves.
Ruins Near Pyramids Reveal Leopard Teeth, Calf Bones
From the ruins of an ancient mansion emerge clues about the fancy lifestyles of Egyptian high society.
Discovering the 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'
Imagine a cave filled with the oldest known human-painted
images, dating back over 32,000 years. Trace recaps the highlights of
Director Werner Herzog's trip into the ancient Chauvet Cave in "Cave of
Forgotten Dreams."
Science News
Texting makes you walk differently, a new study shows. So does reading from a phone, but to a lesser extent.
Your parents have probably told you 1,000 times: "If you
crack your knuckles, you'll get arthritis." Trace pops this common myth
and tells you what happens when you crack or pop your knuckles, and how
you can actually develop arthritis.
Over the past decade, researchers have been testing gene
therapy on blind dogs in attempt to restore vision. Six patients in
Oxford had this same treatment done, and they're reportedly cured! Trace
shines some light on the subject.
The mutation for milk-drinking evolved in different parts of
the world over the last 10,000 years as a result of strong natural
selection, but why was it so advantageous?
Global Warming Goes On
A report from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
shows 2013 was another ranking hot year for the planet -- with no
slowdown in sight.
Do Plants Feel Earth's Magnetic Field?
Plants have the same protein that allows birds to navigate
using Earth's magnetic field. But does that mean plants feel the
magnetic field too?
Pet python rescued after being stranded in coconut tree for five days
A pet python stranded in a coconut tree in Australia's Northern
Territory for five days has been rescued and returned to its family.
Shona Lauder had kept Monty the carpet python at her father-in-law's
Woodroffe home since moving to Darwin from Sydney. But somehow the
near-3m creature escaped on Saturday and found his way to higher ground.
"He was in an enclosure with a heavy lid but he must have managed to
squeeze out and go for a bit of a roam," Mrs Lauder said. "The coconut
tree's roots are next door, but the tree leans into my father-in-law's
yard." They called for assistance early, but wild weather around the
region had not helped the situation.
"The Palmerston fire brigade came but because he was too high and it was wet, they pulled out," Ms Lauder said. Evo Access came to the family's rescue - a team of three sent out to recover the family pet. The company usually works on oil rig and road access jobs, but Rob Evans said their techniques could apply to anything - including snake retrievals.
"I climbed up the tree and found it all wrapped around the crown," he
said. "I tried to grab it and it went over the other side. We ended up
just chopping the branch he was on and the others caught him." Mr Evans said the job was definitely not part of an average day,
but an interesting change from the norm. On getting Monty back, Mrs
Lauder was relieved the ordeal was over: "We've found a place so now
he's coming home with us."
"The Palmerston fire brigade came but because he was too high and it was wet, they pulled out," Ms Lauder said. Evo Access came to the family's rescue - a team of three sent out to recover the family pet. The company usually works on oil rig and road access jobs, but Rob Evans said their techniques could apply to anything - including snake retrievals.
Animal News
A canine cancer originated in a prehistoric inbred dog, which
led to the spread of the disease all around the globe.
An extremely elusive creature called a bay cat has been
photographed in stunning detail in its native Borneo in Southeast Asia.
The tiny creatures set up a chilly home in the ice and stick their tentacles out to feed.
Is an animal more likely to fight or make love? A new study
identifies the fighters, the lovers and those who are in between.
A quarter of the world's sharks and rays are at risk of extinction, according to a new assessment.
Monday, January 27, 2014
The Daily Drift
Carolina Naturally is read in 194 countries around the world daily.
You use his invention daily, don't you ... !
Today is - Thomas Crapper Day
Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Saint
John's, Pikangikum, Templeton, Thunder Bay, Britannia, Prince Albert,
Oakville, Vancouver, Ottawa, Henry Farm, Sioux Lookout and Vaughan,
Canada
Tijuana and Mexico City, Mexico
Hamilton, Bermuda
Panama, Panama
San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago
Caracas, Venezuela
Buenos Aires and Villa Maria, Argentina
New Ulm, Mars Hill, Pea Ridge and Rock Hill, United States
Medellin, Colombia
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Europe
Stockholm, Sweden
Madrid, Teo and Murcia, Spain
Bergen, Alesund and Oslo, Norway
Rouen, Reims and Paris, France
Gagliari, Ivrea and Pavia, Italy
Zurich, Switzerland
Funchal, Lisbon and Porto, Portugal
Dublin, Ireland
Zhovti Vody, Kiev and Yalta, Ukraine
Copenhagen, Denmark
Krosno, Katowice, Tarnobrzeg and Ozarow Mazowiecki, Poland
Sarajevo and Kobilja Glava, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ryazan, Chelyabinsk and Moscow, Russia
Minsk, Belarus
Bucharest, Romania
Sofia, Ruse and Varna, Bulgaria
Charleroi, Belgium
Ankara, Turkey
Novi Sad, Serbia
Nokia, Finland
Nuremberg, Germany
Asia
Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Cochin and Ranchi, India
Port Louis, Mauritius
Salaya and Bangkok, Thailand
Puchong, Shah Alam, Bandung and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Sialkot, Pakistan
Muscat, Oman
Doha, Qatar
Beijing, China
Esfahan, Tehran and Mashhad, Iran
Osaka, Japan
Colombo and Kandy, Sri Lanka
Amman, Jordan
Nabinagar, Bangladesh
Gaza, Palestine
Serpong, Depok and Jakarta, Indonesia
Umm As Sahik and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Kuwait, Kuwait
Africa
Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa
Casablanca, Morocco
Lusaka, Zambia
Dakar, Senegal
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Pacific
Makati and Manila, Philippines
Homebush, Australia
Today in History
| 1695 | Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II. | |
| 1825 | Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears." | |
| 1862 | President Abraham Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union armies. | |
| 1900 | Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demand that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels. | |
| 1905 | Russian General Kuropatkin takes the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under General Oyama suffer heavy casualties. | |
| 1916 | President Woodrow Wilson opens preparedness program. | |
| 1918 | Communists attempt to seize power in Finland. | |
| 1924 | Lenin's body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin. | |
| 1935 | A League of Nations majority favors depriving Japan of mandates. | |
| 1939 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves the sale of U.S. war planes to France. | |
| 1941 | The United States and Great Britain begin high-level military talks in Washington. | |
| 1943 | The first U.S. raids on the Reich blast Wilhelmshaven base and Emden. | |
| 1959 | NASA selects 110 candidates for the first U.S. space flight. | |
| 1965 | Military leaders oust the civilian government of Tran Van Huong in Saigon. | |
| 1967 | Three astronauts are killed in a flash fire that engulfed their Apollo 1 spacecraft. | |
| 1973 | A cease fire in Vietnam is called as the Paris peace accords are signed by the United States and North Vietnam. | |
| 1978 | The State Supreme Court rules that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie, Illinois. | |
China goofs up on censorship in the most awesome way
Human error likely caused a glitch in China’s Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing’s web censorship.
Hundreds of millions of people attempting to visit China’s most popular websites on Tuesday afternoon found themselves redirected to Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), a company that sells anti-censorship web services tailored for Chinese users.
Did you know ...
That half of black men and 38% of white men are arrested before age 23
That this DEA official freaks out at the thought of marijuana legalization
The 15 most common logical fallacies
You shouldn't be a dick to your childless friends
Polar Vortex Underscores Frozen Congressional Activity
Mother Nature is bitter and unforgiving all over. Maybe she's
taking her cues from the inert members of Congress …
Oh the weather outside is frightful this winter, and this year there
are very few places to hide. Last weekend as I boarded a flight to
Nashville, visions of 50-degree temperatures danced in my head. The
normal January range in the Music City is between 28 and 47 degrees,
infinitely more tolerable than the climate in my hometown of Chicago.
Alas, I deplaned in a disappointingly similar environment, where the
thermometer struggled to reach the freezing point. Mother Nature is
bitter and unforgiving all over.Maybe she’s taking her cues from the inert members of Congress, who at the close of 2013 dared to make us consider the possibility of action. Briefly scared straight by the public backlash over the fall’s disastrous and ill-reasoned government shutdown, intransigent repugicans in the Senate (and to a lesser degree, the House) suddenly seemed in the mood to get things done. This led to the production of a bipartisan budget agreement, followed by feckless House Speaker John Boehner’s better-late-than never repudiation of right wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation, which have egregiously encouraged repugican cabal games of chicken over the last six years. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally found the political courage to change the broken chamber’s filibuster rules so that an enormous backlog of Executive Branch appointments could begin to be cleared. It was a heady time when actual work once again seemed possible.
But the spirit of compromise didn’t last. Early into the New Year, thousands of long-term job seekers were cut off from sorely needed unemployment insurance benefits. No sooner did the holiday bills and winter’s cruelty roll in than the repugican cabal doubled down on the suffering of the jobless. Despite the fact that respondents to a Faux News poll (!!!!) overwhelmingly favor the extension of benefits, to the tune of 69 percent, Congressional repugicans have continued to ignore the will of the people. Washington Post writer Aaron Blake rather charitably reports that “Congress is deadlocked over whether and how to continue funding unemployment insurance beyond that 26-week period.”
I would offer that there’s no deadlock about it. Democrats maintain some human empathy for the Great Recession-ravaged unemployed while repugican cabal standard bearers like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul leverage pretzel logic to avoid helping that wretched 47 percent of “takers.” Paul famously said, “the longer you have it [unemployment insurance], that it provides some disincentive to work, and that there are many studies that indicate this.”
I am betting that these “many studies” were conducted by wingnut research groups. As someone who has been on the layoff dole more than once in the course of a relatively short career, I can safely say that six months of roughly 30 percent the usual take home pay did not result in leisurely champagne and caviar consumption.
Only the party that brought us two budget and deficit busting wars, tax cuts and an unpaid for Medicare prescription drug benefit under the shrub junta could have the absolute, unmitigated gall to demand fiscal responsibility when it comes to helping suffering workers. And naturally, the repugican cabal has brushed aside numerous credible reports that extending the benefits actually creates jobs and saves the government money in the long run.
But let me not consume the entire column railing against repugican opposition to helping hardworking Americans survive. As the great Gail Collins of The New York Times wrote today on her end of “The Conversation” with David Brooks: “to be honest, if the president told a reporter that he had great confidence this would be the year we’d see immigration reform, better gun control, tax reform and a hike in the minimum wage, I’d probably be less excited than worried about his mental health.”
Anyone who believed that late fall’s sudden flurry of activity would extend past the New Year, or counted upon the repugican obsession with opposition to die along with the party’s shutdown approval rating, is discovering that the polar vortex is both metaphorically and literally in charge.
House repugicans Kick Off 2014 By Ignoring Everything the American People Want
The repugicans began 2014 the same way they started the past
three years; working solely for their special interests' campaign
donations and against the American people.
When repugicans officially took control of the House in 2011, they
were still promising their entire focus was job creation, and yet they
began the 112th Congress attacking women’s rights, voting to
repeal the Affordable Care Act, and fighting to preserve tax cuts for
the richest Americans. Now, three years later House repugicans’ first
three actions were attacking women’s rights, launching a repeal effort
of another 2010 law, and passed legislation to enrich the dirty energy
industry. The repugicans are proving to be resistant to change and in less
than three weeks they have shown Americans that they have no intention
of changing and are on pace to waste another year pandering to their
special interests instead of working for all Americans.It is unquestionable that repugicans fully intend to waste taxpayer dollars doing nothing over the course of 2014 because none of the first three pieces of repugican legislation will get past the Senate or President Obama’s veto pen and they know it. However, they will make points with their campaign contributors and garner support against President Obama from two of their reliable voting blocs; fundamentalist christians and dirty energy advocates. Remember that last year House repugicans failed to take up immigration reform, pass a farm bill, create jobs, or raise the minimum wage, and it looks like they have no intention to address those important issues this year.
The latest sign repugicans are deliberately wasting time is the cabal’s first attempt to repeal a law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), approved in 2010 after a tax-avoidance scandal involving a Swiss bank. FATCA is an anti-tax dodging law targeting the filthy rich by requiring most foreign banks and investment funds to report to the IRS information about U.S. customers’ accounts worth $50,000 or more. According to Erin Donar, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, “FATCA continues to gain momentum and international support as we work with partners around the world to fight offshore tax evasion.”
Will repealing the law create even one job, contribute to GDP growth, or address the income inequality devastating the economy? Of course not, and repugicans admit the only reason for pushing the repeal effort is to “make overseas Americans far more sympathetic to repugicans and have an impact on fundraising” according to senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Daniel Mitchell. Rand Paul attempted to repeal FATCA last year under the guise of protecting rich tax dodgers’ privacy, but his phony “privacy issues” concern is cover for helping the rich hide their money off-shore. A repugican national cabal official from Oregon who is leading the repugican repeal effort said, “I see FATCA just like Obamacare, it will attract American overseas donors.” If the effort is successful, the only beneficiaries would be Americans in the top 1% of income earners like Willard Romney who hides their earnings offshore to avoid paying taxes. The repeal effort is another typical repugican waste of taxpayer time and money.
The first piece of legislation on the House repugican agenda was the so-called “rape audit” bill (H.R. 7) that is the ultimate expression of government overreach into business, individual Americans, and patient-doctor relationships. It is also a significant tax hike on businesses and any American with a healthcare insurance policy; it is also an assault on women. The bill taxes companies that offer health insurance plans that cover family planning, eliminates the tax deduction for health insurance if it covers family planning, redefines the term “healthcare insurance,” and forces the healthcare insurance industry to eliminate family planning coverage or pay a healthy fine. Rape audit refers to requiring a rape victim who sought an abortion to prove to an Internal Revenue Service auditor that they were “legitimately raped” to claim a deduction under healthcare expense on their tax return. The repugicans like Diane Black (r-TN) said last year that the IRS has “no business accessing or monitoring Americans’ personal health information,” and Michelle Bachmann warned against granting the IRS access to people’s health-care information, while Renee Ellmers (r-NC) said “we cannot allow the IRS to have any say over our health and wellbeing.” However where women’s rights and healthcare is concerned, the repugican religio-wingnuts will force, by legislation, the IRS to access, monitor, and audit women’s health and wellbeing. Will the “rape audit” bill create one job, boost GDP growth, or address income inequality decimating the economy? No, but it empowers the religious right to control when a woman starts a family and puts repugicans between a doctor and their patient.
Last Thursday repugicans passed three anti-environment bills consolidated into one to neuter the EPA’s ability to monitor, inspect, and enforce regulations that are already in place to keep the air and water clean. The repugican legislation eliminated requirements that the EPA review regulations under the Solid Waste Disposal Act, restricts the EPA from imposing regulations on states, and requires all federally owned facilities to comply with state requirements regarding dumping hazardous substances in the air and water in repugican-controlled states that have no regulations. It also requires the President to consult with repugican-controlled states for their permission to enforce federal environmental laws. The legislation will never get passed in the Senate and President Obama assured repugicans he will veto it if it did pass. The anti-environment legislation continues where the recently passed spending bill left off stripping the EPA’s power.
The repugicans attached riders to the budget that strips the salary of the White House’s climate adviser, stops the EPA from implementing carbon dioxide emissions limits, and slashes funding to fight global climate change. It also requires President Obama to report to Congress in detail what, if any, government spending will go to addressing global climate change within 120 days of his 2015 budget request, and eliminates the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emission permits covering emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, water vapor and methane emissions. Will stripping the EPA’s ability to monitor pollution and enforce regulations already in place create jobs, grow GDP, or address income inequality? No, but it sends a signal to the dirty energy industry that repugicans are working to give them free rein to dump toxic chemicals into the water supply and spew carcinogens into the air so the energy sector will increase repugican campaign donations.
This session of Congress began with a plethora of issues that demanded attention to get Americans back to work and address income inequality that is retarding economic growth. There has been no House action to reinstate unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans, pass a farm bill, address immigration reform, raise the minimum wage, or restore food stamps for 48 million Americans suffering because repugicans are too busy wasting time to create jobs. Instead of addressing the issues important to Americans, repugicans attacked women’s rights, environmental protections, and a law to prevent the rich from avoiding taxes all to waste taxpayer money and time and garner greater donations for the next election. None of the repugican legislation creates one job, grows the economy, or boosts GDP growth because that is not their focus; pandering to their special interests is.
The repugicans have no intention of working to help the people, or doing what the voters say is important such as immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, creating jobs through infrastructure repair, or allowing women to decide when they start their families. However, the religious right wants to control women, the dirty energy industry wants to destroy the environment for greater profits, and the richest one-percent want to avoid paying taxes, so repugicans began 2014 the same way they started the past three years; working solely for their special interests’ campaign donations and against the American people.
Obamacare Delivers Knockout Blow To The repugican cabal As Majority Of States Have Expanded Medicaid
The further we go along into the implementation of the Affordable
Care Act and more people see what it offers them, the less likely the repugican cabal is going to be able to do anything about the law and will have to
accept it. A new CBS Poll released on Thursday shows that the majority of people like what the ACA provides them, and only a small minority want the law to be repealed.While the approval ratings for the law are still in the net negative (-9%), when asked if they liked aspects of the law or wanted it repealed altogether, 56% of people stated they liked provisions in the law and would just like to see it improved, while only 34% wanted it repealed. That is a reduction of 9% from November’s poll. Basically, people are coming around on the law and seeing the benefits it offers, which is a bad thing for repugicans who have touted its complete repeal from day one.
It appears that the repugican cabal is slowly coming to the realization that their Obamacare repeal fantasy is now a thing of the past and that they need to start embracing it before it is too late. On Thursday, Utah Governor Gary Herbert announced that he will allow the state to expand Medicaid, which will cover an additional 60,000 residents of the state. This now means that the majority of US states have now expanded Medicaid coverage to its residents and will accept the additional federal funds.
If the reddest of red states (Utah) can come to the realization that it is better to provide additional help for its people, you have to wonder if and when the other red states will follow suit. It would seem like just a matter of time, right? For many of those states, sure. However, you do have certain governors who have national ambitions who will hold out as long as possible to keep their hardcore conservative cred. For instance, Texas won’t expand over the next several months, as outgoing Governor Rick Perry is going to put his hat in the ring for a Presidential nomination. Therefore, he can’t have that brought up in any of the repugican cabal debates or out on the campaign trail.
Same goes for Scott Walker in Wisconsin, despite the state being a more moderate one that supported President Obama in 2008 and 2012. However, Walker sees himself as a potential candidate, so he will hold off as long as possible. Louisiana and Bobby Jindal fall into this same category. Yet, you have a number of other solid red states where the governors don’t have Presidential ambitions, so how long will they hold out? Will they fall like dominoes now that Utah has jumped ship?
Currently, 26 states plus D.C. have expanded Medicaid. It appears that Missouri, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire will follow suit shortly, as they’ve been considering it for a while now. Virginia will almost certainly expand it very soon as Democrats recently swept the statewide elections and took control of one of the chambers of legislature. Other states with embattled repugican governors like Rick Scott in Florida and Paul LePage in Maine may also see an expansion sooner rather than later.
The thing is, once expansion of Medicaid takes effect in a state, there is no way the state is going to roll it back. That would be political suicide, as you would be placing tens of thousands of people in medical and financial peril by doing that. No repugican running is going to be able to win on a platform of taking away what is already in place. Therefore, it looks like you are only going to have a few stragglers who will hold out to the very end, mainly Deep South states like Alabama and Mississippi, and largely rural states like Wyoming and Idaho. Eventually, though, they will almost certainly have to come around, as residents will see that the majority of people in this country have access to something they don’t.
Regime Change in Virginia: New Attorney General Seeks to Overturn Gay Marriage Ban
AG Herring says Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage is
unconstitutional, and he has filed a legal brief asking a federal court
to end it. …
Elections have consequences. Virginia is a prime example, and nowhere
are the consequences of the 2013 elections more evident than inside the
Attorney General’s Office in Richmond. Less than two weeks into his
term as the new Attorney General, Mark Herring (D) is reversing course
from the legacy of his predecessor, repugican Ken Cuccinelli. Herring
announced today that he believes Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage is
unconstitutional, and he has filed a legal brief asking a federal court in Norfolk to strike down Virginia’s gay marriage ban.In the brief Herring argues:
Virginia’s laws denying the right to marry to same-sex couples violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Attorney General will not defend the constitutionality of those laws, will argue for their being declared unconstitutional, and will work to ensure that both sides of the issue are responsibly and vigorously briefed and argued before the courts to facilitate a decision on the merits, consistent with the rule of law.Herring’s position represents a radical departure from that held by Ken Cuccinelli, the man he replaced. Cuccinnelli was a staunch opponent of marriage equality and once filed a brief equating same-sex marriage with polygamy.
Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2006, but Herring, who himself voted for a ban eight years ago, now believes that state amendment violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Herring argues that he does not want Virginia to be on the wrong side of history this time stating:
There have been times in some key landmark cases where Virginia was on the wrong side, was on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the law,” he said. “And as attorney general, I’m going to make sure that the [people] presenting the state’s legal position on behalf of the people of Virginia are on the right side of history and on the right side of the law.Herring further added that he “cannot and will not defend a law that violates Virginians’ fundamental constitutional rights.” Brian Coy, a spokesperson for Governor Terry McAuliffe confirms that the Governor supports Herring’s decision. The reversal of the VA Attorney General’s office from actively fighting marriage equality to actively promoting it, underscores that on social issues, the two parties are not at all alike. Elections have consequences, and regime change in Richmond means that gay and lesbian couples may soon have the right to marry in one of the states of the Old Confederacy.
Special Election Victory By Democrat Jennifer Wexton Completes repugican cabal Collapse in Virginia
In a battle to determine party control of the VA Senate,
Jennifer Wexton (D) coasted to a resounding 53-37 victory over John
Whitbeck (r). …
A year ago the Virginia repugican cabal held the Governor’s office,
the Lieutenant Governor’s office and the Attorney General’s office. In
2012, Virginia repugican Governor Bob McDonnell was considered as a
strong potential running mate for Mitt Romney. He was also billed as a
possible presidential candidate for 2016. At the 2013 state repugican cabal
convention, delegates selected a slate of wingnut candidates to run
in the fall election that included Ken Cuccinelli for Governor, E.W.
Jackson for Lt. Governor and Mark Obenshain for Attorney General. All
three of them lost and their offices switched from red to blue.However, last night the repugican cabal had a chance for a small measure of redemption. In a special election to fill newly elected Attorney General Mark Herring’s old seat, and party control of the State Senate at stake, the repugicans at least had an opportunity to halt the bleeding. Although Virginia’s 33rd Senate District leans Democratic, repugicans were hopeful that a low turnout special election in the midst of a winter snowstorm, would give them a chance to win the race and secure a repugican majority in the State Senate.
Voters decided otherwise. Democrat Jennifer Wexton coasted to a resounding 53-37 victory over repugican John Whitbeck. Joe T. May, a former repugican, running as an Independent garnered the remaining ten percent. The repugicans still hold a majority in the state’s lower house (the House of Delegates), but Wexton’s victory gives Democrats control of the upper chamber, although the 6th District race won by Democrat Lynwood Lewis is still undergoing a recount.
With last night’s demoralizing defeat, the collapse of the Virginia repugican cabal is nearly complete. repugicans won Virginia in ten state Presidential elections from 1968 to 2004. Barack Obama swung the commonwealth into the blue column in 2008, but the repugican cabal regained their footing in 2009, sweeping the statewide races of Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. The revival proved short lived however. Now Bob McDonnell is more likely to find himself living in a prison cell than in the White House. Democrats not only control the state offices of Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General, but they also hold both US Senate seats. A recent poll shows Incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D) leading repugican challenger Ed Gillespie by a daunting 29 points, 50-21.
Yesterday’s special election merely underscored what has already become obvious to many political observers. The repugican message is falling flat on its face in Virginia. The state is turning blue and there is no evidence that it has any intentions of turning back.
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