Category: Politics

What a Bunch of Hypocritical Pearl Clutching

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Over at the former Kaplan Test Prep company, now a division of Amazon, Dana Milbank is having the vapors over Donald Trump’s sometimes salty language.

This from the guy who joked about Hillary Clinton drinking Mad Bitch Beer.

Seriously? If there is anyone in the Washington commentariat who is less well qualified to talk about misogyny and profanity, I haven’t read them yet:

Here’s a serious question for Republican officeholders: WTF?

Now that Trump has a lock on the presidential nomination, many top Republicans — too many — are moving to embrace this vulgar man for the sake of party unity. It is a real [expletive] show.

The man who would be the Grand Old Party’s standard-bearer has said the following things (among many others) in front of thousands of men, women and children (and millions more via the media):

On U.S. companies relocating overseas: “You can tell them to go f— themselves.”

On China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea: “They’re ripping the sh– out of the sea.”

On the Islamic State? “I would bomb the sh– out of ISIS.”

Earlier, on dealing with China: “Listen, you motherf—ers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent.”

And on climate change: “This very expensive global warming bullsh– has got to stop.”

Republicans: This vulgarian speaks for you?

Seriously Dana, go Cheney yourself.

And Jeff (Bezos) make Dana do some useful work for his paycheck.

Another Bag Full of Cats on the World Stage

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This time, it’s Brazil:

The Brazilian Senate has vowed to vote on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff despite a ruling that a vote in the lower house was flawed.

Senate Speaker Renan Calheiros rejected the attempt by Waldir Maranhao, the lower house’s acting speaker, to halt the process.

Mr Maranhao had called for a new vote in the lower house.

But to boos and cheers in the Senate, Speaker Renan Calheiros called that decision illegal.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on Wednesday on whether to start an impeachment trial.

The president of the Senate impeachment commission also said the vote would take place as scheduled.

If Ms Rousseff loses, she will be suspended from office, pending a trial that could last six months. She faces allegations that her government violated fiscal rules.

In his decision, Mr Maranhao said there had been irregularities during the lower house session in which its members overwhelmingly voted in favour of the impeachment process going ahead.

He said members of the lower house should not have publicly announced what their position was prior to the vote, and that it had been wrong of party leaders to instruct their members how to vote.

Mr Maranhao called for a new vote in the lower house.

………


Mr Maranhao, who opposed the impeachment process in the 17 April vote, only took over as the speaker of the lower house last week, after the previous speaker, Eduardo Cunha, was suspended.

Mr Cunha, an outspoken critic of President Rousseff, led the impeachment drive against her.

The level of dysfunction here makes makes the Lewinski affair look like a Schoolhouse Rock episode.

They Finally Lost One

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The City Council of Austin passed regulations on ride sharing services, and Uber and Lyft spent millions in an attempt to override the vote through a plebiscite, and lost:

Uber and Lyft spent nearly $9 million on a May 7 special election in Austin, Texas. They offered free rides to the polls, and texted users asking for their support. They pulled out all the stops in a political playbook that has worked in almost every other city in the US.

For once, it wasn’t enough.

Voters in the Texan capital came out against Proposition 1, upholding ride-hailing regulations that the city council passed in December. The rules are stricter than ones that Uber and Lyft face in other jurisdictions: They require drivers for the services to pass fingerprint-based background checks, to identify their cars with company emblems, and to avoid picking up and dropping off passengers in certain lanes.

That is to say, exactly the same requirements as exist for the taxis.

………

Uber, I think decided, they were going to make Austin an example to the nation,” said David Butts, a local political consultant who helped coordinate the campaign against Proposition 1, according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman. “And Austin made Uber an example to the nation.”

Ahead of the vote, both Uber and Lyft had threatened to leave Austin should the proposition fail. Austin mayor Steve Adler invited them to stay despite the election results.

………

The nay vote on Proposition 1 is all the more crushing for Uber and Lyft considering the lopsided amount of money they spent in favor of it. The companies invested a combined $8.7 million to support the proposition via their lobbying committee, Ridesharing Works for Austin, an unprecedented sum in Austin local politics. That dwarfed the $132,000 that Proposition 1’s opponents strung together from about 500 individual contributions, according to campaign finance filings.

………

Uber and Lyft have cultivated the impression that their services are indispensable to cities. But Uber in particular has also spun itself as politically unbeatable. It has the money; it has the policy talent; it has the app that makes reaching potential voters as simple as sending a text or push notification to their phones.

………

That’s a potent narrative. With the loss in Austin, it’s starting to come undone.

The myth of inevitability and invincibility is central to Uber’s and Lyft’ssuccess.

It is what allows them to move into new markets, break the law, cheat their employees, place their customers at risk, and create a multi-billion dollar stock valuation.

It may not be the beginning of the end for the lawless players in the “sharing economy”, but it might be the end of the beginning.

Donald Trump at Least Recognizes That Our Nomenklatura Is Incompetent

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Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he recognizes that our foreign policy establishment is incompetent and corrupt: (And Yes, the source is suspect, but it’s a “Stopped Clock Being Right Twice a Day” thing.)

The National Interest, which is a (Possibly THE) seriously Neocon organization, is trying to explain why it hosted a Trump foreign policy speech, and is not endorsing Trump’s analysis:

………

As the hosts, we are ill suited to evaluate Mr. Trump’s speech; some may find criticism ungracious or, conversely, see praise as unpersuasive. That said, we heard enough from Mr. Trump to feel that while his approach to foreign and security policy is not yet fully developed and remains a work in progress, it is quite different from the existing semi-consensus among America’s foreign-policy elites. His remarks outlined a fundamental break with post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy and offered an alternative vision with considerable appeal to a frustrated public, if less to the elites who have defined, articulated and implemented policy through three administrations run by both major political parties.

I, however, do agree with Trump’s assessment regarding the general uselessness of our foreign establishment, even while eschewing his nonsensical solutions

………

For much of the post–Cold War era, experts both inside and outside the government have faced informal but powerful pressure to share in existing interventionist orthodoxies if they seek top positions requiring Senate confirmation or even regular appearances in mainstream media. From this perspective, it is predictable that an avowedly antiestablishment candidate should provoke ferocious rhetoric from not only the political establishment, but also the foreign-policy establishment (perhaps even more bitterly).

Pledging that he would not surround himself “with those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war” has surely fueled establishment fear of Mr. Trump. This statement—the functional equivalent of his signature line “you’re fired” directed at a number of former senior and mid-level officials—ensured that not only many Democrats, but also a number of Republicans in Washington’s foreign-policy community would race to the barricades. Some self-serving Trump-haters may well see this as the greatest danger he poses; ending the dominance of today’s foreign policy nomenklatura could directly threaten their careers. He provokes similar reactions among the transnational Davos elites by insisting “the nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.”

In America, this Soviet-style foreign-policy nomenklatura system has helped the post–Cold War foreign-policy elites in the Republican and Democratic parties to develop a sense of entitlement wholly disproportionate to their accomplishments. How difficult was it to run America’s foreign policy during an era of virtually unquestioned dominance? Why—with so many advantages—have our elites produced so many failed policies? And why do they feel no shame? No matter how many individual positions he changes, Mr. Trump will never satisfy the architects of these massive mistakes or, for that matter, their ardent supporters on editorial boards and television screens. To be clear, it is entirely appropriate to criticize Mr. Trump’s views or, for that matter, his temper. Both have long been important components in our electoral politics. What is not appropriate is to attempt to shut down public discussion of critical national issues.

Our current foreign policy establishment, what I refer to as the Council on Foreign Relations crowd, has squandered blood and treasure, all while making us less secure and insuring that our influence will be diminished in the future.

Heck of a job, Brownie.

How Evocative

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Last night said that he had mixed emotions about Ted Cruz leaving the race, because it cleared the decks for Trump:

Is this a yay? I’m so conflicted. I mean, Ted Cruz lost, but it’s because Donald Trump won. It’s like finding out your herpes is gone but it’s because your dick fell off.

This is an almost perfect metaphor for the campaign season.

The Only Opinion that Matters ……… Except Maybe his Own

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Stephen Colbert just gave major props to Larry Wilmore for his White House Correspondents Dinner speech:

………

 Last night Stephen Colbert opened his monologue with that ‘phone call.’

 “Now personally, I thought Larry gave a great speech, that did not let the President or the press off the hook, And I am confident that Larry will receive the ultimate recognition for his work — never being invited back.”

 He also addressed the end of Larry’s speech, which if you have ever watched The Nightly Show you know was not a racial slur or insult. But leave it to Colbert to put it in perspective.

 “There was a little controversy, a moment at the end where Larry said the n-word. It was shocking, but it did lay the groundwork for President Trump to say it next year.”

That sound you hear is a mic dropping.

I Hate it When the Donald Says Something Sane

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He just continued low interest rates and a weak dollar.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday positioned himself on the far left of the political spectrum on fiscal issues, coming out for low interest rates, against a strong dollar and a more aggressive managing of U.S. debt.

 ………
 “She [Fed Chair Yellen] is a low interest rate person, she’s always been a low-interest-rate person, and let’s be honest, I’m a low-interest-rate person,” Trump added.

 Trump shifted to a discussion of the impact that higher rates has on the dollar, and on the impact a rising dollar has on U.S. business.

 “If we raise interest rates and if the dollar starts getting too strong, we’ll have some very major problems.”

 “I love the concept of a strong dollar, but when you look at the havoc that a strong dollar causes … it sounds better to have a strong dollar than it actually is.”

 ………

 One thing Trump advocated that the U.S. Treasury has resisted is a more active management of the debt. The U.S. Treasury hasn’t taken advantage of current low interest rates to issue more longer-term debt.

“I think there are times for us to refinance debt with longer term, we owe so much money,” Trump said.

While at times Trump seemed to link a conversation of refinancing with a situation where “the bubble popped” — at one point even suggesting a buyback of U.S. debt — he also made clear that he wanted to refinance now, to rebuild infrastructure.

This is a coherent and thoughtful, if someone iconoclastic, view of the economy, budget, and monetary policy.

It is also a refreshing departure from the conventional fetish about deficits that tends to promulgate austerity.

The economy remains depressed, interest rates are at historical lows, and it’s time borrow cheap and long term and spend on decaying infrastructure and create jobs.

I’ve said before that Donald Trump was the best Republican in the race,* and this reinforces my initial impression.

*Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play.

Quote of the Day

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There is one aspect, however, in which Game of Thrones has a claim to being the most realistic show on television. Despite the wizards, the wights and the way every character manages to maintain perfect hair even when they’re being pointlessly tortured to death, there is something horribly relatable about Martin’s world of Westeros, whose characters have now become part of public myth. What sets it apart is not the monsters, the nudity or the festering gallons of gratuitous gore, but the overwhelming sense that the plot got run off the rails three books ago and is being steered towards a terrible precipice by a bunch of bickering, power-mad maniacs. This, coincidentally, happens to be the plot of the entire 21st century so far.

—Laurie Penny

As an aside, I probably should to watch a few episodes this show eventually, if just to understand the Obama/Anger Translator Luther “Khaleesi is coming to Westeros” reference.

This Makes it Even Better

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In news unrelated to the Presidential election, former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption:


Sheldon Silver was sentenced to 12 years in prison Tuesday, making the former New York Assembly speaker one of the most powerful politicians in the state to be given time behind bars.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, who also ordered Mr. Silver to pay a fine of $1.75 million and forfeit about $5.3 million he reaped from the criminal schemes of which he was convicted, said she hoped the punishment would serve as a deterrent.

“I hope the sentence I impose on you will make other politicians think twice, until their better angels take over,” said Judge Caproni. “Or, if there are no better angels, perhaps the fear of living out ones golden years in an orange jumpsuit will keep them on the straight and narrow.”

In a brief statement before the sentence was announced, Mr. Silver, 72 years old, said he had let down his family, colleagues and constituents.

“I’m truly, truly sorry for that,” said Mr. Silver, who was found guilty in November of honest-services fraud, extortion, and money laundering.

………

Two of his former Albany colleagues are expected to be sentenced later this month.

Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who in December was found guilty of public-corruption charges including conspiracy, bribery and extortion, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 12. Former state Sen. John Sampson, who was found guilty in July of obstruction of justice and making false statements to investigators, is scheduled to be sentenced in Brooklyn federal court May 19.

I’m hoping that this puts enough of a fear of God into Skelos that he flips on Cuomo, because 14 years has gotta be scaring the hell out of him.

Buh Bye Teddie………

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The Results are in from the Hoosier state, and Bernie won, and Cruz got beat so badly that he dropped out of the race:

Businessman and reality-TV star Donald Trump became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential nominee on Tuesday night, after Trump’s closest rival – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) – withdrew from the race, following a crushing victory by Trump in the Indiana primary.

The GOP’s chairman, Reince Priebus, called Trump the “presumtive [sic] GOP nominee” in a Twitter message about 9 p.m., and added a plea that “we all need to unite and focus on defeating” Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In the Democratic race in Indiana, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) was projected as the winner, taking an upset victory over Clinton. That victory will not allow Sanders to make up much ground in the race for Democratic delegates, but it will ensure that their race continues on — creating a scenario few would have seen coming last summer, with Trump gaining a head start on the Democratic nominee.

Sanders won by about 5 points, and Trump by about 17 points.

This makes it a pretty good night.

Corruption, Baby, Corruption

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And the Clinton Crime Family™ continues apace.
You may recall that Hillary Clinton criticized Bernie Sanders for not raising money for the state parties while she did.

Not so much. It was money laundering:

In the days before Hillary Clinton launched an unprecedented big-money fundraising vehicle with state parties last summer, she vowed “to rebuild our party from the ground up,” proclaiming “when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”

But less than 1 percent of the $61 million raised by that effort has stayed in the state parties’ coffers, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

The venture, the Hillary Victory Fund, is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The setup allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers including a dinner at George Clooney’s house and a concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Katy Perry and Elton John.

The victory fund has transferred $3.8 million to the state parties, but almost all of that cash ($3.3 million, or 88 percent) was quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two, by the Clinton staffer who controls the committee, POLITICO’s analysis of the FEC records found.

………

But it is perhaps more notable that the arrangement has prompted concerns among some participating state party officials and their allies. They grumble privately that Clinton is merely using them to subsidize her own operation, while her allies overstate her support for their parties and knock Sanders for not doing enough to help the party.

“It’s a one-sided benefit,” said an official with one participating state party. The official, like those with several other state parties, declined to talk about the arrangement on the record for fear of drawing the ire of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

In fact, the DNC, which has pushed back aggressively on charges that it is boosting Clinton at the expense of other Democrats, has advised state party officials on how to answer media inquiries about the arrangement, multiple sources familiar with the interactions told POLITICO.

“The DNC has given us some guidance on what they’re saying, but it’s not clear what we should be saying,” said the official. “I don’t think anyone wants to get crosswise with the national party because we do need their resources. But everyone who entered into these agreements was doing it because they were asked to, not because there are immediately clear benefits.”

Some fundraisers who work for state parties predict that the arrangement could actually hurt participating state parties. They worry that participating states that aren’t presidential battlegrounds and lack competitive Senate races could see very little return investment from the DNC or Clinton’s campaign, and are essentially acting as money laundering conduits for them. And for party committees in contested states, there’s another risk: They might find themselves unable to accept cash from rich donors whose checks to the victory fund counted toward their $10,000 donation limit to the state party in question — even if that party never got to spend the cash because it was transferred to the DNC.

But it gets even better: It turns out that The Clinton Foundation set up a dummy corporation in Canada to conceal its finances:

Aides to former President Bill Clinton helped start a Canadian charity that effectively shielded the identities of donors who gave more than $33 million that went to his foundation, despite a pledge of transparency when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

 The nonprofit, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), operates in parallel to a Clinton Foundation project called the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is expressly covered by an agreement Mrs. Clinton signed to make all donors public while she led the State Department. However, the foundation maintains that the Canadian partnership is not bound by that agreement and that under Canadian law contributors’ names cannot be made public.

 The foundation cited that restriction last weekend in explaining why it did not disclose $2.35 million in donations from the chairman of Uranium One, the subject of an article in The New York Times last week. The article examined how company executives and shareholders had sold a majority stake in the company — and with it a significant portion of American uranium reserves — to an arm of the Russian government in a deal that required the approval of the United States government.

 “This is hardly an effort on our part to avoid transparency,” said Maura Pally, acting chief executive of the Clinton Foundation.

 Instead, the foundation said that the partnership was created by the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra to allow Canadian donors to get a tax benefit for supporting his work with Mr. Clinton — a benefit that came with the price of respecting Canada’s privacy laws. On Wednesday, the partnership issued a statement citing a legal opinion that “charitable donors have an expectation and right of privacy.”

 However, interviews with tax lawyers and officials in Canada cast doubt on assertions that the partnership was necessary to confer a tax benefit; an examination shows that for many donors it was not needed, and in any event, since 2010, Canadians could have donated to the foundation directly and received the same tax break. Also, it is not at all clear that privacy laws prohibit the partnership from disclosing its donors, the tax lawyers and officials in Canada said.

 The partnership, established in 2007, effectively shielded the identities of its donors — and the amount they gave — by allowing them to bundle their money together in the offshoot Canadian partnership before it was passed along to Clinton Foundation programs. The foundation, in turn, names only the partnership as the source of those funds.

BTW, one of the things that this appears to have covered up is donations associated with a rather smelly deal involving Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, taking over a large Canadian uranium concern.

In addition to donations to the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton got paid a lot to give a talk to Russia bankers as well.

OK, so they are money laundering. I get it. You could do this in Delaware, or Nevada, or Wyoming, or Panama, or the Seychelles, or the Bahamas, but Canada? Laundering money through Canada?

Seriously?

That is just perverse, or as Eric Oram said so famously, “Seriously, I don’t even like working here. They are so weird.”

If These Guys Hate Him, Trump Might Be Right

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Over at FT, Edward Luce makes the obvious observation, that the foreign policy establishment who is having the vapors of Trump’s foreign policy, Luce ironically calls them the. “best and brightest, have been wrong about everything all the time for decades:

Intellectuals crave doctrines. The tidier the formula, the easier it is to make sense of that messy world out there.

In the view of the US’s strategic elites, Donald Trump’s mind is recklessly untidy. Last week they poured scorn on his much-awaited foreign policy speech. Not only was it self-negating — Mr Trump vowed both to be predictable and unpredictable — but he has yet to hire an intellectually respected adviser. It is doubtful he has read a book on foreign policy. Is further proof needed? Mr Trump is not only a loose cannon. He is also ignorant of the canon. The man could not even pronounce Tanzania (his version rhymed with Romania).

All of which is true. But the critique suffers from two weaknesses. First, the people making it, which includes almost everyone, are throwing stones from glass houses. These include form­er Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and their galaxy of advisers — 121 of whom signed a letter condemning Mr Trump’s platform. It also includes the Democratic elites led by Hillary Clinton. They may differ in degree but they share a basic worldview. The US must uphold universal values with force if necessary. That is how things are done. In the words of Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, the US sees further than other nations because “it stands taller”.

All of which adds up. Yet, with one or two exceptions, these were the same people who brought you the US-led invasion of Iraq. Mr Trump plays loose with detail when he claims to have opposed the 2003 war (he said very little until the scale of the disaster had become obvious). But few outside Washington bother with such timelines. What they grasp is that Mr Trump has united the same elites against him who were so collectively wrong on Iraq. This is no minor detail. Washington’s biggest brains have a record of miscuing in unison on the biggest questions.

Think of the Vietnam war, which competes with Iraq as the largest foreign policy disaster in US history. That was famously orchestrated by “the best and the brightest”. Their doctrine was the domino theory — if one state fell to communism, its neighbours would follow. It was simple, logical and disastrous. George W Bush’s doctrine was that pre-emptive war would stave off bigger threats down the line. It was also easy to grasp and catastrophic. The Iraq war spawned the monster child of Isis. On a smaller scale, the same could be said of the 2011 US-backed overthrow of Libya’s Muammer Gaddafi. Libya is now a second base for Isis. Given the chance, might these same elites drag the US into a Syrian quagmire, or a military clash with Russian president Vladimir Putin over Ukraine? Could we rule out a conflict with China in the South China Sea?

I think that it is highly likely that Trump’s foreign policy will batsh%$ insane.

It will be completely nuts.

That being said, there is a substantial possibility that this foreign policy will be saner and less destructive than the Council on Foreign Relations/Washington foreign policy consensus.

Larry Willmore Slayed at the White House Correspondents Dinner

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Made Even Better by the Crowd Reaction

It is pretty clear that he looked at Colbert’s now famous talk 10 years ago, and decided give me some more of that:

Comedian Larry Wilmore held no punches at the 2016 White House correspondents’ dinner, taking aim at presidential candidates, reporters and Bill Cosby. (Erin Patrick O’Connor/The Washington Post)

It’s always the big question after the White House correspondents’ dinner: Did the comedian flop?

Opinions vary wildly, but there’s no question some of Larry Wilmore’s jokes received a very frosty reaction inside the Washington Hilton on Saturday night.

………

But that was nothing compared to when he tried out his jokes about the media — to a crowd filled to the brim with journalists.

………

On TV, the reaction sounded like hushed murmurs. Our colleagues inside the dinner reported the line bombed. “Boo!” someone yelled. “Hiss!” yelled another.

Wilmore laughed nervously. “No — alright, fine, I like Wolf.” He was booed again when he took another shot at Wolf’s network: “I don’t know about you guys, but I cannot get enough of that CNN countdown clock. Now we can see exactly when they hit zero in the ratings.”

Another joke that didn’t go over so well? “A little bit about me, I am a black man who replaced a white man who pretended to be a TV newscaster,” Wilmore said. “So yeah, in that way Lester Holt and I have a lot in common.”

There were audible, very loud gasps at that joke that obviously called out Brian Williams, replaced by Holt on “NBC Nightly News” after it was discovered he exaggerated or misrepresented stories over the years.

………

Melissa Harris-Perry, whose messy departure with MSNBC was specifically referenced in the routine (Wilmore says MSNBC now stands for “Missing a Significant Number of Black Correspondents”), tweeted support for Wilmore, which is unsurprising:

It was a good talk, made even better by the frosty reception of the room, who are still as thin skinned as they always were.

The best line was not a dig at Fox, but by a line about MSNBC, “MSNBC got rid of so many black people I thought Boko Haram was running that network,” though the best moment when Don Lemon flipped the bird in response to a dig at him.

He also dropped the N-bomb.

It was good, and he had to know that he would piss off most of the guys in the room.

Well played Mr. Wilmore.

Here is the complete transcript .

F%$# Me, I Agree with the Orange One ……… Not Trump, the Other Orange One

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I mean John Boehner, who is most assuredly not a fan of Ted Cruz:

“Lucifer in the flesh,” the former Speaker said. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

That’s my sense of Ted Cruz as well.

I have never in my life seen someone as widely loathed as Ted Cruz in public life.

Not Long Enough

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Child rapist and money launderer Dennis Hastert has been sentenced to 15 months in prison:

Mr. Hastert, whose date to report to prison has yet to be set, was ordered to pay $250,000 in fines, never to contact his victims and to receive sex-offender treatment.

“If there’s a public shaming of the defendant because of the conduct he’s engaged in, so be it,” Judge Durkin said.

Hopefully, given the nature of the crime and the length of sentence, he spends his time in a at least a medium security prison.

Well, there was some Good Primary News Yesterday

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As I noted a few months ago, Chris Matthews’ wife, Kathleen, was running for Congress, and that Chris Matthews was pimping his show to her campaign donors.

Running against her was a wine mogul who spent over $1o million dollars, and the winner was the people of Maryland’s 8th district, because very liberal constitutioal law professor Jamie Raskin beat them both:

State Sen. Jamie Raskin defeated self-funded businessman David Trone and former television news anchor Kathleen Matthews in the most expensive congressional primary race in the nation — a crowded contest in Maryland’s Montgomery County-based 8th District.

………

The campaign to succeed Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen in the district was competitive and costly. Van Hollen’s decision to run for the Senate created a rare open seat.

Candidates competing for the seat spent more than $14 million since last year – more than $10 million of it by Trone, who finished second.

Trone, founder of the Total Wine & More retail stores, blanketed the district – which stretches from Montgomery County north into Frederick and Carroll counties – with television and radio ads and mailings. “We don’t take money from PACs, lobbyists or corporations,” was a prominent campaign message. His strategy included a push to win over voters who are using absentee ballots.

………

Raskin won by about 7,000 votes, holding a 34 percent to 27 percent advantage over Trone. Matthews took third at 24 percent.

If Raskin wins the general, and it is a very safe district, then Raskin will be the only out atheist in Congress.

It’s a little thing, and I am still stuck with Dutch Ruppersberger in my district, but I’ll take it.

A Feature, Not a Bug

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In Kansas, Secretary of State Kris Korbach has managed to so hamstring voter registrations that ⅔ of voter registrations in Kansas are not being processed:

Voting rolls in Kansas are in “chaos” because of the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirements, the American Civil Liberties Union has argued in a court document, noting that about two-thirds of new voter registration applications submitted during a three-week period in February are on hold.

Kansas is fending off multiple legal challenges from voting rights activists, and just months before the state’s August primary, the status of the “dual registration” system remains unclear. Federal judges in separate voter-registration lawsuits unfolding in Kansas and Washington, D.C., could rule at any time. There’s also greater urgency because registrations typically surge during an election year.

Kansas is one of four states, along with Georgia, Alabama and Arizona, to require documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers — to register to vote. Under Kansas’ challenged system, voters who registered using a federal form, which hadn’t required proof of U.S. citizenship, could only vote in federal races and not in state or local races. Kansas says it will keep the dual voting system in place for upcoming elections if the courts allow its residents to register to vote either with a federal form or at motor vehicle offices without providing proof of citizenship.

This guy has been engaging in a felony concpiracy to deprive people of their rights for years.

When do we throw his sorry racist ass into a PMITA prison ?

OBama Really Wants His Poodle to Stay in the EU

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Obama is now saying that if Britain votes to leave the EU, there won’t be a free trade deal with Britain for over 10 years.

This is, of course, a shameless attempt to threaten the British voters into staying in the EU, so that US influence on this body is not diminished.

The US (IMNSHO correctly) that the UK will blindly promulgate US policies and US interests within the European Union:

The UK could take up to 10 years to negotiate trade deals with the US if it leaves the EU, Barack Obama has said.

In a BBC interview, the US president said: “It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done.”

Britain would also have less influence globally if it left, he added.

His warning over trade has angered UK campaigners for leaving the EU – with UKIP leader Nigel Farage dismissing Mr Obama’s comments as “utter tosh”.

As much as it pains me to agree with him, Nigel Farage is right.

Obamacare in a Nutshell

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Marcy Wheeler sees the elephant in the room about Obamacare, and by elephant in the room, I mean Republican thinking:

Partly, though, Obamacare is designed to underinsure people, because there’s a belief that unless people feel the sting of obtaining care, they’ll get too much of it. “Bending the cost curve” under Obamacare is largely driven by increasing the costs of actually using insurance to the end user as opposed to, say, eliminating the many layers of private profit that doesn’t actually improve health care but makes it expensive.

This is the problem at the core of Obamacare, and it is why allowing a Medicare buy in or a public option would have been so helpful.

It would have created an alternative to the contemptible greedheads who Obama shovels money at, and an infrastructure to move onto real publicly funded healthcare.