Who needs to stop at "third-world level" services?...THIS IS 'MURICA we can make hellscapes like no other!

While everybody in America can have a gun, apparently having water is not so important.

It was six in the morning when city contractors showed up unannounced at Charity Hicks' house.

Since spring, up to 3000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut-off – for owing as little as $150 or two months in bills. Now it was the turn of Charity's block – and the contractor wouldn't stand to wait an hour for her pregnant neighbour to fill up some jugs.

"Where's your water termination notice?" Charity demanded, after staggering to the contractor's truck. A widely-respected African-American community leader, she has been at the forefront of campaigns to ensure Detroiters' right to public, accessible water.

The contractor's answer was to drive away, knocking Charity over and injuring her leg. Two white policemen soon arrived – not to take her report, but to arrest her. Mocking Charity for questioning the water shut-offs, they brought her to jail, where she spent two days before being released without charge.

At this point, a mere quarter-million or so folks have lost their ability to obtain clean water...meanwhile, GM, Chrysler and who knows how many banks are doing just fine on that government bail out money.

But hey, those corporations are people...and those people of Detroit are, uh, apparently not.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"Chemistry"

Sounds like a bit of it may be missing from the Ghanian national team (which is fortunate for the U.S. as a Ghana victory vs. Portugal could be very bad).

Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng have been expelled from Ghana's World Cup squad for alleged indiscipline. 

A statement on the Ghana Football Association website  said both players had "been suspended indefinitely".

It added Boateng had used "vulgar verbal insults targeted at coach Kwesi Appiah" and said Muntari was guilty of an "unprovoked physical attack on an executive committee member".

This comes just after the team literally made the Ghanian government fly in a plan with the $3 million plus in cash bonuses they thought they would not get otherwise.

Which, to be fair, is less money than FIFA officials are asking for from Uruguay's FA to pretend that Louis Suarez was just giving somebody a hickey.

With their squad in complete shambles, now a fresh backlash is expected to rain down on the Black Stars after defender John Boye, who plays in Ligue 1 with Rennes, was snapped kissing his share of the $3 million.

The image of a footballer literally kissing money whilst at the World Cup is possibly one of the best illustrations of the scourge of modern football.

See the image below, together with a second picture of a Ghanaian official counting the money.

So, cost of a soul then?

Next up, defending Chief Wahoo as a lovable scamp of a character not demeaning at all, no sirree Bob...after all the check cleared.

The Washington Redskins have hired longtime Virginia politico and liberal blogger Ben Tribbett to help guide the team's battle over their controversial nickname.

Tribbett, 34, is a native Northern Virginian and lifelong Redskins fan. He was a regular defender of the team's nickname long before the team recruited him to help aid their efforts to defend them.

Might as well be Larry Sabato.

And here I thought all the skits at this year's World Cup focused on the English Team and its fans...

I don't recall the last NFL player that tried to eat human flesh three times.

We usually save that behavior in 'Murica for Rick James, Marv Albert, or the latest teapartying hypocrite at the Twin Cities Airport.

You know it's bad

When your living your life like an actual "Game of Thrones" character (would he not make a good member of House Bolton) has this sponsor thinking about its reputation.

A personal sponsor of Luis Suarez, the betting firm 888poker, say they are "reviewing their relationship" with him and won't tolerate "unsporting behaviour" following allegations he bit Italy's Giorgio Chiellini.

That's right...too loathsome for an a gambling establishment.

"This would go so well with Phillip and a riding crop!"

"Safe word: Cromwell!"

(AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

So...when's the Chris Christie Toll Bridge opening?

Oh, that's right, they are all tolling for him.

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter. While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But we haven't had a chance to bomb anything yet!

The Ukraine, that place the usual suspects wanted to bomb to prove their manhood before returning to the usual shiny pile of rubble, has had the nerve to possibly end their fighting before we get a chance to kill people too.

Vladimir Putin has called on both sides in eastern Ukraine to lay down their arms and compromise, giving his strongest backing yet for the peace plan announced by Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko.

Ol' Soul Eyes is in, Separatists, are you also in?

Separatist leaders in two main areas of Ukraine's east have agreed to observe a ceasefire until Friday, one of the leaders has said. Alexander Borodai made the comments after meeting a "contact group" that included a former Ukrainian president, Moscow's envoy to Kiev and a representative of the OSCE security watchdog.

Okay, that sounds like a maybe, better lob a few warheads in case this thing gets official.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Shame sure to follow Stiff reprimand

Well, apparently Donald Rumsfeld was just as creepy when he compared "Old Europe" to the U.S.'s new allies of Eastern Europe as you may, or should, have imagined.

Just ask Poland's Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski:

According to a transcript of excerpts of the conversation that was published by Wprost on its Internet site, Sikorski told Rostowski: "You know that the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything." "It is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of security ... Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers."

According to the transcript, Sikorski described Warsaw's attitude towards the United States using the Polish word "murzynskosc." That derives from the word "murzyn," which denotes a dark-skinned person and someone who does the work for somebody else, according to the PWN Polish language dictionary.

Well, that is offensively accurate.

Hey, Poland emphasize your oil reserves and we'll be there for you.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Ineffective Clients are a "Diem" a dozen

Whether it's the Middle East or the Far East, it's good to know that the times may change, but America's abilities to out-bully others remains as unchanging as ever.

Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told a hearing on Wednesday that Maliki's government "has got to go if you want any reconciliation", and Republican John McCain called for the use of US air power but also urged Obama to "make very clear to Maliki that his time is up".

Because the greatest way to undermine the fiction of a democratic Iraq is for another country to tell 'em to ditch their leadership.

Especially when bombs and American soldiers have been involved. After all, this could get messy.

And what a look that is, after our other fiction, being the "good guys". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Another selection for the "You Stay (KKK)lassy files" of the modern GOP

Hard to believe, I know.

A Republican official in Arizona on Wednesday confirmed something that's long been suspected. State schools superintendent John Huppenthal has been a prolific and often incendiary anonymous commenter on local political blogs.

Under various pseudonyms, including Falcon9, Thucky and Thucydides, Huppenthal has authored hundreds of comments at the progressive Blog for Arizona since at least 2011. He engaged in self-promotion, writing in February that he's "sure" Huppenthal, who's up for re-election this year, "will be our next superintendent."

He once decried Barack Obama for "rewarding the lazy pigs with food stamps (44 million people), air-conditioning, free health care, flat-screen TV's (typical of 'poor' families)." and even went birther, claiming that the president wrote in his memoir that "he was born in Kenya!!!"

In one comment, he compared Margaret Sanger to Adolf Hitler, writing that the Planned Parenthood founder "fed 16 million African-Americans into the abortion mills. He also argued that Franklin D. Roosevelt's "disastrous economic policies drug down the whole world and directly led to the rise of a no-name hack named Adolph Hitler who was going nowhere until Germany's economy went into the tank."

That's your state "School Superintendent" Arizona.

They are just getting into this whole "smack talk" idea

You'd think China could learn a thing or two from North Korea, but trash talking from the late 1940s is I guess all they had left from the Chang-era.

Britain is an "old, declining empire" which resorts to "eccentric acts" to hide its embarrassment over its declining power, an official Chinese newspaper has claimed on the second day of a visit by the country's premier, Li Keqiang, to London.

Invalid on present-tense usage alone. Who's advising them, Karl Rove and his Sweden-slams?

British Prime Minister then replied in the most stereotypical way possible.

...if you're David Cameron, this is when you use the international hotbed of a card that is Downton Abbey... He gave Chinese premier Li Keqiang a copy of the script for the show's first episode signed by creator Julian Fellowes.

Yeah, that'll show 'em Britain's not an old, declining empire.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake] 

Life is easier if it is lived without a conscience

Sociopathy has its advantages...for example Dick and Dickette Cheney can say this...without the requisite shame...and this being America being shamed.

Cheney and his daughter penned an opinion piece that will be published in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, slamming Obama for being "so wrong about so much at the expense of so many."

When exactly did these things last exist there?

I believe the horse left that barn through the door and promptly entered the glue factory quite some time ago.

The leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and Sunni Usama al-Nujaifi, the last speaker of parliament which dissolved this month, stood apart and listened as Maliki's predecessor Ibrahim al-Jafaari called for "defending the state and protecting its sovereignty and dignity."

I.e. "Bring on the drones!" That will dignify this sucker right up!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Day ending in "Y" and all that

Funny how the only inroads the GOP is making with non-white voters is with those willing to cash a NewsCorp. paycheck.

"If you take a look, you mentioned the Hispanic population — the African American population, there's a number of things that our party stands for that they embrace," Tillis said. He went on to say that Republican need to do a better job reaching out to minority voters. Tillis then said that unlike the Hispanic or black populations, which have been growing, the "traditional population of North Carolina and the United States is more or less stable."

Yes, North Carolina, a tradition of not having black people in it, if you do not count the last four hundred years...or white people for that matter.

Exposure has a tendency to work...Anthony Weiner excepted

Well, imagine that.

It turns out that judges with daughters are more likely to vote in favor of women’s rights than ones with only sons. The effect, a new study found, is most pronounced among male judges appointed by Republican presidents, like Chief Justice Rehnquist.

Yes, actual real-world experiences with plaintiffs or criminal defendants that come before the court, has a tendency to open the eyes of your ivory-towered conservative jurist. Which is why soon, we'll have a new kind of exposure (well, an ancient one to be honest) encouraged by individuals at ironically labeled conservative think tanks. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Fred Garvin Hiatt...Male Prostitute

Hey, ol' Fred was sooooooooooooo very right in supporting the original Iraqi clusterfuck from the beginning, so obviously he's the guy to throw stones now (just like every other asshole)

Unfortunately, disengagement turns out not to work. A drones-first policy has stoked anti-American fervor from Pakistan to Yemen. Libya is on the brink of civil war. Syria has become “the most catastrophic humanitarian crisis any of us have seen in a generation,” as Mr. Obama’s U.N ambassador said. Now Iraq is disintegrating. Of course, as many commentators write, Iraq’s politicians are to blame. But if the United States had maintained a presence, it might have steered Iraqi politics in a more constructive direction.

And if only you weren't so effing gung ho to bomb the enemy de jour Freddie!

Obviously this was worth hurting the poor over

Water wet, death, taxes, and military programs being a huge waste.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. The Missile Defense Agency has conducted 16 tests of the system's ability to intercept a mock enemy warhead. It has failed in eight of them, government records show.

Oh well, maybe if we cut medicare some more? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Another Adventure goes about as rationally predicted

Another "solid" investment in the Saigon of the no-longer aughts:

After Iraq's armed forces were disbanded following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the United States and its allies committed more than $25bn to training and building a new military.

And now we know just how awesome that's working out.

...recent operations in the west on the Syrian border and around Falluja and Ramadi have suggested both serious political and operational shortcomings. The collapse of an estimated 30,000 forces in and around Mosul underlined a lack of morale and an apparently chaotic chain of command.

Good job 'Murica -- put it on the multi-trillion dollar tab!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hard to believe, based on their track record of accomplishment

American intelligence caught off guard on Iraq falling apart (well, further apart).

I mean that never happens, other than normally happening.

And to think of all those text and internet messages they've been hoovering up...somehow they still missed it.

But former girlfriends of their employees...THEY'VE GOT THAT NAILED!

So, Helicopters off the future Iranian Embassy then?

Amazing how Operation Clusterfuck, the ridiculously conceived, stupidly undertaken, poorly managed, and contemptuously defended, invasion and occupation of Iraq -- at a cost of probably hundred of thousands of lives and trillions in tax dollars is going the way of the last similar American gross foreign policy adventure (remember kids, Afghanistan is the best of the three--chew on that one!).


Naturally, this rotten piece of shit, undertaken by a band of war criminals is going to blame this all on Obama...or Obamacare -- take your pick.

The unfettered "Id"

Welcome to the newly emergent European right-wing -- the dormancy is over.

In an explosive political climate, where popular rage is at boiling point nearly five years into the country's worst crisis in living memory, the politics of hate so embodied by Golden Dawn is becoming increasingly pervasive. "Who cares if six million Jews were exterminated?" asked the businessman back at the cafe, in a shocking endorsement of that reality. "I don't care if they were turned into soap. What I care about is the salary I have lost, the never-ending taxes I am forced to pay, the criminals who rule this country, the anger I carry inside."

A little cutting, a little pasting (and some unfairness)...but not a lot...and this could be a Republican voter in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District voting against Cantor.

How's embracing crazy

Working out for you Eric Cantor?

Bread crumbs and you can't come to the Circus

Much is made of the old bromide "Bread and Circuses" as how elite of ancient Rome ("the I percent") placated the masses by giving them free grain and sporting events to make them forget the stratified social order.

True or not, times have certainly changed.

Brazil, home of the 2014 FIFA World Cup has the modern adaptation of that rule.

According to estimates from the federal government, the World Cup will cost the public treasury somewhere around 26 billion reais ($11.6 billion). 

Oh they'll get the stadiums built...but not much other promises will be kept.

So not much for bread.

How about those circuses?

The cheapest World Cup final ticket will cost the average Brazilian 25 hours of work

The circus is for other people.

Although FIFA the organization makes out well, hoovering up as much as they can out of Brazil as they can.   What they cannot carry, they'll leave for the International Olympic Committee in 2016.

And that's the unkindest Brazilian of them all.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"You lucky Bastards!"

That's essentially what George Will is saying about college sexual assault victims.

What a guy, huh?

Another day in America

Another mass shooting by two guys who love guns as much as they hate humanity.

Two Las Vegas police officers were killed Sunday in what appears to be a politically motivated ambush in a pizza restaurant that spilled over to a nearby Wal-Mart, where the two shooters committed suicide after killing a woman in the store. Details are sketchy, but Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that “this is the start of a revolution” before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists.

And I bet these two assholes had a much easier (ed. DERP!) harder time getting the license that allowed them to drive to the spot they started killing people than it took to get the guns they killed them with...before they offed themselves.

And in spite of the fact it's Vegas, nobody is going to take that bet.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

United States of A-holes.

Another day, another time to ponder "what the hell is wrong with you?!"

The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.

I mean, really?

U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior U.S. official said Sunday.

I guess, not even having a vestigial soul helps.

Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle said Friday that the POW was lucky he wasn't found by his fellow soldiers before the exchange. Otherwise, Guilfoyle said, Bergdahl may have been brought home "in a body bag."

Yes, cheering on Americans to one-up torture...USA, USA, USA! At least there's sanity on other stuff.

Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2012, says America is going the way of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Mourdock broke down the comparison in detail on Saturday, the day after the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.

Crazy has no sense of propriety.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Obviously this right-wing lunatic is actually a left-wing plant

His last name was MARX and "the left" is subtle that way.   Sincerely, faithful Sean Hannity apologist.

Hey, you -- middle-aged trender...

Stop watching "Orange is the New Black" and get to work!

You've got to save those "Hipster sick days" for the World Cup!

Rollback...

You go...

Working mothers at Walmart staged a series of strikes on Wednesday in protest over wages and conditions at the world's largest retailer, as a new report claims the company's top executives received $104m in taxpayer subsidies over a six-year period.

The majority of mothers working at Walmart, which drew a $16bn profit last year, earn less than $25,000 a year

 How dare these proles stand up against their betters, especially morally...uh, what?

 Since 2009, Walmart has ducked $104 million in taxes by exploiting a tax loophole around bonus payments to just eight top executives, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF).

The evidence is in

And apparently the world hates Slovenia.

Must be the Charlie Brown shirts.

Things to do in Denver now that you might as well be dead!

Maureen Dowd took pot in the name of channeling Peggy Noonan apparently.

...then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. [ed. 'THAT'S JUST REAGAN] I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. [ed. REAGAN AGAIN!] I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid [ed. REAGAN REAGAN REAGAN!!!], sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall [ed. OH RONNY!]. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

And then I realized FUCK somebody beat me to my obvious joke...obviously.

She'll fit in well

Well congrats there Iowa, you've managed to have your GOP nominate someone who actually aspires to be Sarah Palin (two girls, one drool cup).

Jodi Ernst.

Whose politics fit in well with the famous Ernsts from the past.

Ernst Rohm

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Stavro-Blofeld

Plus the famous German comedy from the late 30s... Ernst Goes to Kamp

Well, I suppose he's had practice

Francois Hollande a man who cheated on wife with a mistress and his mistress with another mistress is undoubtedly the world leader most prepared for this situation. 

Hollande will host President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin on Thursday after separate talks at the Elysée Palace before the 70th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings in Normandy the next day. But because of the tensions over Ukraine between the US and Russian leaders – who are not scheduled to hold talks – two consecutive dinners are to be held in order to keep the politically estranged leaders apart.

I guess it beats being with Vlad and peering into his soul.

Something Hollande is evidently quite good at...or at least claiming to be.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Like it's a day ending in "Y" or "even a stopped clock with no hands is wrong all the time"

I'm sensing a theme...a theme so prevalent it really isn't a theme -- more of a mantra, wrapped inside a cliche, frozen in concrete...made from endangered black-footed ferret tears.

Big GOP Talking Point Debunked

Oh, but he's no a creepy sociopath or anything

Bill O'Reilly sure does like "Killing" things.

Future books:

"Killing Gandhi" 

"Killing Franz Ferdinand" 

"Killing Caesar" 

"Killing McKinley, Garfield,  and probably Taylor and Harding" 

"Killing Tippecanoe and going after Tyler Too!" 

"Almost Killing Reagan"

"Digging Up Lincoln, just so I can kill 'em Again just for snorin'" 

"Killing Martin Luther King -- with a glass of Mothereffing Iced Tea" 

And, of course:

"Killing my audience...of natural causes"

Trickling down works best when you stand below the privy

Freedom for all you proles!

...the median pay package for a CEO rose above eight figures for the first time last year. The head of a typical large public company earned a record $10.5 million, an increase of 8.8 percent from $9.6 million in 2012, according to an Associated Press/Equilar pay study. Last year was the fourth straight that CEO compensation rose following a decline during the Great Recession. The median CEO pay package climbed more than 50 percent over that stretch. A chief executive now makes about 257 times the average worker's salary, up sharply from 181 times in 2009.

Green shoots are the result of the one-percent's great dropping of fertilizer upon you. And how is it working for those of the rest of us?

The 8.8 percent increase in total pay that CEOs got last year dwarfed the average raise U.S. workers received. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said average weekly wages for U.S. workers rose 1.3 percent in 2013.

Why it's almost as if they are calling the shots, isn't it? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hey, can we stop blaming Seth Rogan long enough

To focus on how craven and awful the gun-nutters are? Thanks.

Was he attending services at the Larry Craig shrine or something?

Oh FoxNews you never cease to entertain in a way "I Wanna Marry Harry" ever could.

Fox News anchor arrested at Minnesota airport

Could have been worse

When I saw that Jim Nabors was the top searched individual on Yahoo, I figured he was dead..

Nope...probably just wishes he was by now.

Our awful morons can only aspire to be this awful

Congrats, America, even our worst politicians (and they are near the bottom) can aspire to the disgusting machinations of France's asshole emeritus.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France's far-right Front National, has suggested the deadly virus Ebola could solve the global "population explosion" and by extension Europe's "immigration problem". At a cocktail party before an election rally in Marseille on Tuesday evening, days before the European elections in which the FN is leading the polls in France, Le Pen spoke of the "demographic explosion" in the world.

Let us pause to unpack one small blurb in that last sentence...

...before the European elections in which the FN is leading the polls in France

Ugh. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Lovely person I'm sure

Because...of course, this is National Review.

In a May 19 piece, National Review Online contributor A.J. Delgado claimed that women are being "brainwash[ed] into believing they were raped." 

Yeah...even though consciously and overtly you said "no" -- you really wanted it.

National Review...where a club is good enough for both baby seals and women.

Will the last person without a recalled GM Vehicle

Please get in their 1963 Corvair and head on down to the dealership? Some people are going to need a lift.

General Motors’ recall saga continued Tuesday with the beleaguered automaker recalling another 2.42 million vehicles for four separate issues. The move also means GM will take a $400-million charge against second-quarter earnings. None of the four recalls is related to GM’s faulty ignition switches. That issue, which has been linked to at least 13 deaths and recalls of 2.6 million vehicles, has prompted federal fines and several investigations into why GM neglected to issue the recalls for more than a decade. Tuesday’s recalls bring the total number of GM recalls in 2014 to 13.7 million vehicles.

If only GM could get its cars to run on dog treats imported from China -- or something with a better reputation. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

But if you try some time...you get what you need

As so often happens, the Glimmer Twins act as international relations prophets again. For example this happens:

Russia is close to signing a decades-long contract to supply natural gas to China at a price that would value the deal at about $400 billion, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev’s boss Vladimir Putin arrives in Shanghai today to try and complete an agreement after more than 10 years of talks. The stumbling block has been price, but with Putin facing trade and financial sanctions from the U.S. and European Union after he annexed Crimea from Ukraine, a deal is seen as probable.

At about the same time, this happens.

President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops near the Ukrainian border back to base, according to the Kremlin, signaling a possible easing of tensions six days before Ukraine’s presidential election.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Somebody should do...uh, nevermind

On story that sums up how modern 'Murica solves its problems (I mean "doesnt'").

If there's an image that starkly illustrates the threats of climate change, it's this photograph, which was included in the recent National Climate Assessment released by the White House. It is noteworthy because the flood is from exceptionally high spring tides – not heavy rains. Tidal flooding like that is relatively new. And scary. "People in Miami Beach are living climate change," said David Nolan, a meteorology and physical oceanography professor at the University of Miami. "They're on the frontline."

And the unfortunate subheading.

Politicians who refuse to acknowledge global warming should visit Florida where climate change is all too real

Yes, if only Florida Senator Marco Rubio would visit Florida. That'll learn him.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yeah, that's a good look for you...

Old and stupid is one way to get through life, I guess.

A police commissioner in a predominantly white New Hampshire town says he won't apologize for calling President Barack Obama the N-word, and he sat with his arms crossed while angry residents at a meeting called for his resignation on Thursday.

And isn't this a look straight out of the "Lester Maddux" collection --

Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland listens Thursday May 15, 2014 in Wolfeboro, N.H. as town residents ask for his resignation after being overheard calling President Barack Obama the N-word at a restaurant. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Careful what you wish for part infinity

Oh the shirtless strongman might be popular right now...but so was the Czar in the August of a century ago.

Volunteers are recruited from western Ukraine and Kiev, and more quietly, within the east itself. A self-published newspaper in Donetsk gives the phone number where "Ukrainian patriots" can sign up for the volunteer battalions; its editor has gone into hiding to avoid being kidnapped by the separatist fighters. Volunteers undergo training in neighbouring Dnepropetrovsk region, and their battalions can be brought under the command of the interior ministry, allowing them to operate legally. Nevertheless, the training period can be as little as 50 hours, before the volunteers are put into real combat situations.

And in great examples of British understatement I present:

Arming troops with almost no real training and sending them into extremely sensitive situations where they may be shot at with weapons from within crowds, largely made up of angry but unarmed civilians, sounds like a recipe for disaster.

It smells, looks and feels like one too. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well this is going to be interesting

So much embarrassment and hypocrisy coming down the pike. The New York Times for engaging in gender discrimination...and all the conservative publications (and competitors) who will pretend they do not do EXACTLY the same thing as they go after the paper because they are so used to calling it "liberal".

Humanity...always seemingly lacking in the "human" part

If there's anything worse than being made a refugee, it may be actually being a refugee. Behold the "civilization" at work.

As the poorest member of the 28-nation European Union, Bulgaria has struggled to provide even rudimentary shelter to Syrian refugees, who began surging into the country from Turkey last summer...

Bad right? But what could make it worse?

...after neighboring Greece, previously a popular entry point to Europe, built a fence along its border and beefed up controls.

We kind of suck. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Great Moments in Self-Immolation

Shorter Donald Sterling.

"I am not a racist, I just think all black men look like Magic Johnson, and I HATE Magic Johnson, and all people who look like Magic Johnson having black person sex. BUT I AM NOT A RACIST!"

At least there is a metaphor

I fully expect Presidential aspirant and "base" Uriah Heep impersonator Marco Rubio to appear in Key Biscayne to hold back the sea...although King Canute at least believed the tides actually occurred.

The collapse of the western Antarctic ice sheet is inevitable and is already underway, scientists said on Monday. The melt will cause up to four metres (13 feet) of additional sea-level rise over the coming centuries, devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world – from Bangladesh to New Jersey – that are already expected to be swamped by only a few feet of sea-level rise.

Oops, nevermind, still several centuries of lying ahead.

But the researchers said the sea-level rise – while unstoppable – was still several centuries off, potentially up to 1,000 years away.

Oh that will make consensus possible. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Says the guy who's parents were so crazy they wouldn't name him Ayn

Pot calling the Kettle...well, certainly not black:

"Everybody's gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing," Paul said yesterday.

The Senator's comments come after meeting with a group of black pastors at a Republican National Committee meeting in Memphis, where they discussed the inevitability of voter suppression, intended or otherwise.

Paul acknowledged that the debates surrounding the issue took on a racial tone, and said it behooves Republicans to be sensitive not to offend, again calling his GOP colleagues "crazy."

"I think it's wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it's offending people."

Well, we cannot have THAT kind of crazy. But this kind of crazy on the other hand...

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said, according to excerpts released by ABC "This Week," "and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy."

So says the soon to be Senator of the world's fastest shrinking peninsula.

That kind of crazy can help make you the Party nominee.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Less a "Death Panel" than a "Death Convention"

One wonders just how craven one has to be when trotting out the blatent lie about "death panels" when the result is this...

If anything close to these results apply, the ACA is saving many lives every year. The new law is projected to cover more than 20 million adults who would otherwise go uninsured. The Massachusetts estimates imply that the ACA will prevent something in the neighborhood of 24,096 deaths every year (simply: 20 million divided by 830). That’s more than twice the number of Americans killed in gun homicides. It’s considerably more than the number of Americans who die from HIV/AIDS.

Time for what, the 837th attempt to repeal this law, rather than expand it?

Now that's some number crunching

And to think, I settled on becoming a lawyer because when push-came to show I could at least divide by three.

Researchers have created the most detailed simulation of the history of the universe, complete with exploding gas clouds, swirling galaxies, ravenous black holes and countless stars – born to die in violent supernovae that blast the chemical elements for planets and life out into the cosmos. Described as one of the most complex computer models ever created, the simulation was crunched on supercomputers that took six months to complete calculations that would have taken an average desktop computer 2,000 years to process.

Cool. I guess the next step is to ask those computers about Benghazi then? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Get your Moias ready!

The evidence of Global Climate Change has been overwhelming for years, and a prominent subject of conversation since the late 20th Century before Al Gore grew obese for Limbaugh listeners taste from too many kale chips or something.

Meaning that this should probably not shock us.

The government’s newest national assessment of climate change, released early Tuesday, declares what a wide majority of scientists say is clear: Americans are already feeling the effects of global warming.

Yes...and apparently in the right-wing mind the effects were first felt in the "American" province of Benghazi!

Oh well, I guess that nuclear holocaust training we all ignored as a child will be just as handy now.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"The National Our Heads in Our Ass Act"

Yes America, by all means put these assholes in power.

Titled the “Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act of 2014," the bill would put a variety of new restrictions on how funds are doled out by the National Science Foundation. The goal, per its Republican supporters on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, would be to weed out projects whose cost can't be justified or whose sociological purpose is not apparent. For Democrats and advocates, however, the FIRST Act represents a dangerous injection of politics into science and a direct assault on the much-cherished peer-review process by which grants are awarded. "We have a system of peer-review science that has served as a model for not only research in this country but in others," said Bill Andresen, the associate vice president of Federal Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania. "The question is, does Congress really think it has the better ability to determine the scientific merit of grant applications or should it be left up to the scientists and their peers?"

Yeah, who needs Peer Review...let's leave science funding up to the typical FoxNews viewer. It will be all billions for boner pills and finding Noah's Ark.

Well...there's a story you do not read every day...

There's no good way to go I suppose, but there are some that are stranger than others.

Soccer riots in Brazil claimed the life of a man who was killed by a toilet bowl thrown from the stands at Arruda Stadium, the latest scene of fan violence that has plagued the country in the lead-up to next month's World Cup.

Well, that cannot be a good harbinger for this June and July.

Careful what you wish for...unless you just wish to stay out of it...

In the Ukraine I think it is becoming evident that no one is getting what they bargained for.

Two days of chaos and violence in east and south-east Ukraine appeared on Saturday to be pushing the country ever closer to civil war, as the death toll rose to 42 following a military counter-offensive launched by authorities in Kiev against pro-Russia rebels. An angry crowd confronted police outside the trade union building in Odessa where dozens of pro-Russia activists died on Friday night in a blaze started during clashes with pro-Ukraine protesters. Fighting continued in the east as the Ukrainian army continued to oust pro-Russia rebels.

It's clear that when Ukrainians toppled the Russia-supported government several weeks ago, they thought they could keep Russia from intervening too strongly. That did not happen.

Meanwhile against all recent experience the Putin government seemed to think they could manage an old-fashioned intervention with limited pain. That is not likely to happen.

And, of course, there are are usual round of geniuses in the American Right that thought a well-placed threat of carpet bombing would do..."Oh if only we could get involved in a foreign civil war?" Stand by on that one.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well, he seems like quite a guy

Great at parties...no rallies.

Arizona Pastor Steven Anderson warned his congregation recently that birth control was not only turn(ing) women into “whores,” it was also destroying the country.

Curse you and your unpatriotic sexy times.

Laugh all you want man!

But you'll all be sorry when Nino Scalia freaks out over that War of the Worlds broadcast over the ol' Admiral Radio (which was invented by a guy named Macaroni with a feather in his cap!).

Or maybe he's just hangin' out with Rob Ford?

"Oh yeah...totally!"

Why I understand it also ruined Easter and will soon ruin another Christmas too!

Allen West: Donald Sterling’s racist remarks a distraction from Benghazi

Allen West may just be Donald Sterling's "black friend".

And the conservatives just nod their head and think, "mmmmm....softshelled clams"

I sure am glad climate change is one of those Nazi-like hoaxes, right?

In a troubling new discovery, scientists studying ocean waters off California, Oregon and Washington have found the first evidence that increasing acidity in the ocean is dissolving the shells of a key species of tiny sea creature at the base of the food chain. The animals, a type of free-floating marine snail known as pteropods, are an important food source for salmon, herring, mackerel and other fish in the Pacific Ocean. Those fish are eaten not only by millions of people every year, but also by a wide variety of other sea creatures, from whales to dolphins to sea lions.

Eh, "who cares, it's just the ocean", said some corporate lobbyist over his sushi. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Fundamental Paradise

A few weeks ago Uganda passed and enacted one the the most repugnant laws of the 21st Century (so far!), it's neighbor Kenya is headed in the same direction, but first they are laying the ground work to a religious-right fantasy camp (emphasis on "camp") that Kentucky can only dream of.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law a controversial marriage bill legalising polygamy.

It brings civil law, where a man was only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners.

Controversy surrounded an amendment to the bill, supported by many male MPs, allowing men to take more wives without consulting existing spouses.

Looks like a season of Sister-Wives on vacation is in the offing.

Good job, once again, American Christian Right.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

What exactly are the standards

Of the California, or Los Angeles chapters of the NAACP give Donald Sterling one award, let alone almost give him two?

That's the way to handle it

There are way too many of these idiots in the stands at all sporting events, but no more so than at futbol fixtures.

Barcelona defender Dani Alves responded to a racist taunt Sunday in his side's 3-2 win at Villarreal by picking up a banana that landed at his feet, peeling and then eating it before proceeding to take a corner kick.

Alves said after the match that humour is the best way to combat racism in sports.
"We have suffered this in Spain for some time," Alves said. "You have to take it with a dose of humour. We aren't going to change things easily. If you don't give it importance, they don't achieve their objective."

Getting their talking points from Limbaugh

North Korea's "genetics-based" dictatorship of the proletariat has reached the last stage of political irrelevancy [no, not hosting Sean Hannity at his Nevada Ranch] its agitprop is starting to sound like Rush Limbaugh throwaway lines.

North Korea has launched a vitriolic attack on the South Korean president, comparing her to "crafty prostitute" in thrall to her "pimp" Barack Obama.

Wow sexist and racist in a but a clause...and its not a first time thing of course:

Earlier this month state media ran misogynist articles, including one headlined "We accuse Park the bitch", labelling her as a lunatic, idiot and "cold-blooded animal" and emphasising the fact that she has never married or had children.

When is Kim Jong-Il, noted basketball fan, making a bid for the Clippers?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And now in today's post with no need for additional irony -- but I'll add some anyway

Tragically, John Paul II's reign was-well versed with the inappropriate touching of young men.  Maybe this is a harbinger the guy shouldn't be on the fast-track to Sainthood?  (Or not, given your tolerance for bullshit depth).

Just two days before the canonization of Pope John Paul II, a giant crucifix erected in his honor collapsed in Italy, crushing a young man and killing him, according to ANSA.

But gay rights cause hurricanes?

At least when Big-Butter Jesus went up in flames, no one got hurt.

Takes one to know one

Oh, NOW Sean Hannity is disgusted by Ding Dong Bundy's statements about race.

He used to love that crap.

Like as recently as every day before yesterday.

Call Captain Renault

Because we are shocked...SHOCKED!! that there is racism going on in this guy's residence.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” the rancher began as he described a "government house" in Las Vegas where he recalled that all the people who sat outside seemed to "have nothing to do." “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he said, as quoted by the Times. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Who'd have guessed that a gun-crazed asshole, feted by right-wing assholes, would also turn out to be a racist asshole?

Other than pretty much everyone.

The Creeping National Security State...getting even creepier

Behold your benevolent dictated future (oh those hip California trend setters)

In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality. Compton residents weren't told about the spying, which happened in 2012. "We literally watched all of Compton during the times that we were flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and follow cars and see people," Ross McNutt of Persistence Surveillance Systems told the Center for Investigative Reporting, which unearthed and did the first reporting on this important story. The technology he's trying to sell to police departments all over America can stay aloft for up to six hours.

And I'm sure there's a profit to be made in undercutting a civil right. Sorry, soon there will be profit to be made in the essential governmental function of insuring no one has an expectation of privacy, which is no longer one of those important rights. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And forward them on to Giuliani and Hannity

Because this is probably the type of porn that gets them off.

New York police Tuesday were eating extra helpings of humble pie after asking people to post images of themselves and NYPD officers on Twitter -- only to face a deluge of pictures of alleged police brutality...

Images and tweets of many arrests of demonstrators went viral, including such presumed lowlights as an officer pulling the hair of a handcuffed young black woman and another of the bloodied face of an 84-year-old stopped for jaywalking.

Hey, the trick is to do this...without knowing you've done so

So when, leading up to their election someone in India says this:

At a dinner party in one of this city’s wealthy enclaves recently, the subject had turned to the Indian election, and the elegant, accomplished woman sitting beside me explained why she had decided to back Narendra Modi. “What India needs right now,” she said, “is a benevolent despot.”

Don't brag India, we've already done this -- and skipped the hypocrisy of benevolence:

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Of course...

Storming the ramparts...

Guns and badges were among the items stolen during a burglary in Boyle Heights that occurred amid a charity football game between two teams of public safety officers, authorities said Monday. Football-photo Multiple items were stolen from a locker room area in Boyle Heights during a football game between the LAPD’s Los Angeles Centurions and the San Diego Enforcers. 

The thief or thieves struck in the locker room area Saturday, during a game at Bishop Mora Salesian High School at 960 Soto St. (map) between an LAPD team and a San Diego-area team, according to Sgt. Gabriel Lara of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Station.

Kill them all, and let Exxon/Mobil sort them out

Shareholders should note that congealed blood isn't red, its the same color as sweet crude. When it comes to the real color of money, religion makes no difference.

Hundreds of people were killed because of their ethnicity after South Sudan rebels seized the oil hub of Bentiu last week, the UN has said. They were targeted at a mosque, a church and a hospital, the UN Mission in South Sudan said in a statement. It added that hate speech was broadcast on local radio stations, saying certain groups should leave the town and urging men to rape women. The Nuer community are seen as supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar.

South Sudan has some of the largest oil reserves on Earth.

 It also has a standard of living that is low, even for Africa, which has some of the most dire poverty on Earth.

All that oil theoretically could mean South Sudan's people are not so poor.

But, naturally, it only leads to even greater misery.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Pining for Rove?

I'm no mental health care professional, but where is Sycophancy on the DSM-V?
  

A new report from The Washington Post on Monday featured David Gregory discussing the "Meet the Press" ratings slide, and hinted at the kind of pressure the embattled host is facing. 

Is there ever a better day to question another person's "manhood" than Easter?

Especially when "manhood" is associated with "ready to tell others to lob bombs around on your behalf?"

 Maybe when it is on the Anniversary of the Tonkin Gulf resolution?

 Or just over a decade when you were amongst those who "manfully" demanded we bomb and occupy another country...and it went fabulously?

But, of course, if you are wrong about a War you cheered on, there will never be any consequence.

Just keep cashing that check.

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Sunday criticized President Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East and toward Russia. "Let's face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a (I'll say it crudely) but a manhood problem in the Middle East: Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad, somebody like Putin?" Brooks said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Deservedly or not" indeed.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

ZOMG!!!

ZOMG you guys...Chelsea Clinton and her husband...of child-bearing age are BOLDLY exploiting this fact to have a child.  OH THE FECUNDITY! 


THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS NOT INVOLVING BRITISH MONARCHICAL GENETICS EVAH!!!

HOW...

DARE...

THEY...

It's not a real Clinton-Baby until it survives forcible abortion being repeatedly butted with Vincent Foster's corpse!!!!

WHAT A GAME CHANGER....in the sense that it changes no game whatsoever.


Each successive day I keep thinking we've reached the bottom of right-wing floor -- but there is no floor, they just eat dirt and dig deeper.

Future Richard Cohen column!!!

Well, there doesn't seem to be a lot separating 1970s Roman Polanski and Bryan Singer other than talent and a horrible connection to Charles Manson.

On the other hand, he'll probably have Richard Cohen defending him...which seems like an Eighth Amendment issue, but so be it.

Wash these down with a few pints of Chunky-Monkey and "Chubby Hubby"

More rating slips go right to the hips.

Holland Cooke @HollandCooke Follow

NEW #radio ratings are in. Big-city #RushLimbaugh stations are cellar-dwellers: #22 @ NY, #37 @ LA, #27 @ SFO, #19 @ Chicago, #21 Dallas

6:51 PM - 14 Apr 2014

Next up, more studies finding puppies cute and cigarettes bad.

The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded... After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.

Who could have divined that one...other than everyone who isn't David Gregory?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Expanding tasteless analogies...tastelessly

I suppose this writer at National Review thought he'd avoid making a tasteless analogy to a victim of gun violence as a supporter of gun violence...by taking it international.

Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's armed stand against federal officials this weekend is reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi, the civil rights hero who championed civil disobedience through nonviolent means, according to one National Review correspondent.

Yeah...he'd have every reason to be pro-gun...he liked 'em so much, his last interaction was with one.

Plus Gandhi was TOTALLY famous for strategies like this...

“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” Mack said in a Fox News clip pulled by The Blaze. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”

Tolerance is the province of people, people you cannot stand

No matter the nationality, there is seemingly nothing too petty and dickish for the far right. It's always short-term bigotry in the name of long-term cultural war.

Following its significant gains in last month's local elections, the French Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, swiftly announced that school cafeterias would no longer serve non-pork substitution meals to children living in towns won by FN candidates. Targeting Muslims for another ritual round of public humiliation, while also excluding Jewish children, Le Pen declared: "There is no reason for religion to enter the public sphere."

Unless, of course, you are doing so...and incapable of identifying irony. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Community of Sports

I'm an "American" fan of the English Premier League -- meaning I enjoy it a great deal, but the sport isn't in my marrow the way baseball or American football are. Nonetheless, I am aware of its history -- including tragedies we've rarely encountered in this country.

In 1989, at an FA Cup Semifinal at a stadium known as Hillsborough in Sheffield, England Liverpool played Nottingham Forest (like the Super Bowl, the game was at a "neutral" venue).

At the time, many fans were stacked -- standing up -- into places known as terraces, kept off the field by fencing. Because of sloppy work by the authorities a crush of Liverpool fans was stacked haphazardly into one section, six minutes into the game, the action as stopped and 96 people were dead or destined to die from being crushed to death.

The police and the Thatcher Administration immediately, and wrongly blamed Liverpools fans for the deaths.

This was a lie -- they knew it to be a lie -- but they blamed them anyway.

It took more than two decades for the truth to come out. ESPN has what purportedly is an amazing documentary on the subject tonight at 7 p.m. Central.

Watch it, not for the sports, but the the too familiar story of negligence covered up and lies perpetuated the the government that is supposed to serve the interests of its people. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, at it's home stadium of Anfield, one of the most moving spectacles in sport occurred on Sunday.

Watch this...as their traditional song is cried out and the 96 victims are remembered. And be moved. Of all the traditions I have seen in sports that I would like to see just once in my life, it is this...and it never meant more than yesterday.

Remember when?

For the first few weeks of the Obama Administration when Republicans went all "Hulk-Smash" on the Homeland Security Report saying some right-wing extremists were too extreme? Yeah, good times.

The law center said the suspect has been involved in the white-supremacist movement for most of his life. He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said. He was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found him and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

And naturally, he most likely bought his latest armory without any impediment whatsoever. Of course, maybe if more than one-person at Homeland Security was still monitoring these things. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And I wonder what, if any laws, he could have possibly broken in amassing his undoubtedly HUGE stockpile of "final solution implements"?

To the shock of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE (except the assholes who bet it was an Islamic Extremist) the guy who shot up a Jewish Community Center and killed three people was a KKK Member and White Supremacist.

According to the law center, Miller has been involved in the white supremacist movement for most of his life. He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said. Miller was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found Miller and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Miller tried running for U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, espousing a white power platform each time.

I lived for a time in Overland Park when I was a kid -- one of the biggest suburbs I have heard of, it has a population the size of the City I know live in Des Moines. It also had a large and vibrant Jewish Community. In fact, it was the place where at the age of five I became aware of what Jewish people were.

They go together

Deliberate, harmful, ignorance.

The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.

Has always been paired with guys with two first names like...Jefferson Beauregard.

Another presidential nominee may have trouble getting confirmed, this time for believing science that shows a connection between climate change and extreme weather. At a confirmation hearing for Janet McCabe, President Obama’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air and Radiation office, Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said he could not support her because of her views on climate change.

Yeah how dare an EPA official believe in the overwhelming science on the environment. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Ruh Roh

This could be interesting.

Scientists who examined a controversial fragment of papyrus written in Egyptian Coptic in which Jesus speaks of his wife concluded in papers published on Thursday that the papyrus and ink are probably ancient and not a modern forgery.

Wait until they find the fragment that says it was a dude.

That will be an interesting day in the Huckabee household.

Never one to let a sad event be unexploited

America's greatest Americans (just ask them) always ready to put on the best possible lipstick on the face of human suffering.

The way to beat Vladimir Putin is to flood the European market with fracked-in-the-USA natural gas, or so the industry would have us believe. As part of escalating anti-Russian hysteria, two bills have been introduced into the US Congress – one in the House of Representatives (H.R. 6), one in the Senate (S. 2083) – that attempt to fast-track liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, all in the name of helping Europe to wean itself from Putin's fossil fuels, and enhancing US national security.

Yes, make Putin "pay" by making more Americans suffer (unless, of course they are Mobil or BP).

Excelsior!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tough day for Richard Cohen

That guy "knows funny" and was so very sure he was getting this gig.

He even had a "Stupid Human Trick" -- getting paid to be Richard Cohen.

We couldn't have done it without you!

Congratulations. 'Murica, congratulations world!

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that drives climate change, hit 402 parts per million this week — the highest level recorded in at least 800,000 years. The recordings came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which marked another ominous milestone last May when the 400 ppm threshold was crossed for the first time in recorded history.

So many of us have done our part...but some have done quite a bit more than others.

Now let's go have a nice glass of tap water...oops, sorry West Virginia.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sorry everybody

Been a really busy couple of weeks...very busy.

The true value of hard work is not earning enough

Well what a thorough surprise.

Democrats' push for pay equity between men and women is "condescending," one of the top women in the House Republican leadership argued Tuesday, suggesting that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women's contributions to the workforce. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), the GOP conference's vice chair, made her comments flanked by her fellow leaders in the House at their weekly news conference, and suggested that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women's contributions to the workforce.

Ms. Jenkins -- seriously -- went to on say she supports the concept of "equal pay for equal work" -- she just does not want to lift a finger for it to occur. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Bravery beyond all bounds

One thing that has been consistent about the Democratic Party since Reagan, if they can whatever they can do...

The White House has defended a four-fold increase in the deportation of undocumented immigrants for minor crimes such as driving offences, insisting it is simply complying with “administration priorities” by removing foreign law-breakers from the country.

They do to placate the Republicans...only to turn around and tell their base, "well we could be worse?"

Add another quasi-surrender to the list.

[Firedoglake]

Combining the worst of both worlds...in the third

I know that you all are comfortable with the thought that the international banking system is consistent in one thing...delivering quality services to the less privileged.

Oh right, this is not an alternative reality.

A flagship hospital built in Lesotho using public/private financing with advice from an arm of the World Bank threatens to bankrupt the impoverished African country's health budget. More than half the country's entire health budget (51%) is being spent on payments to the private consortium that built and runs the hospital in the capital, Maseru, led by South-Africa-based Netcare, the biggest private healthcare provider in the UK.

I'm sure this system works as well as America's though right?

Oxfam, whose report is published on Monday, says the healthcare of the poorest people is at risk, as the Queen Mamohato memorial hospital draws off money that is badly needed for clinics in rural areas.

It sure does!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Enabling higher profits

Shocking to believe...sort of.

Law enforcement officials told CNN that Wednesday's shooter, who has been identified in media reports as Ivan Lopez, passed a background check when he bought a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun at Guns Galore, a store in Killeen, Texas. In 2009, ABC News reported that Hasan purchased a FN Herstal Five-seveN tactical pistol from the same store in August of that year.

Yes, "Guns Galore" you cannot spell it without "G-o-r-e". And the thing about being go-to place for spree killers? In modern 'murica, the more spree-killing, the higher the profits.

As sure as summer follows spring, gun sales rise after a mass shooting. It happened after the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. It happened after the Tucson, Ariz., shootings last year that killed six. Now, after the killing of 12 people last week at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., gun sales are spiking again - not just in Colorado but around the country.

And yet they sleep at night. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

...just like you, only better

So to update things based on yesterday's events. Super rich people are just like you, except for the following. 1. They get to have ever more of the pie. 2. Their tender life-experiences help keep them from going to prison if they murder or rape someone because they might have to be within a few feet of a filthy peasant who tried to sell his nephew a joint. 3. They can now fully invest in the political candidate of their choice. And to think they got the first two before they got the last one? What have they not yet been given immunity from? Oh yeah.

Charles H. Keating Jr., the notorious financier who served prison time and was disgraced for his role in the costliest savings and loan failure of the 1980s, has died. He was 90.

Let 'em keep a few more GDP percentages and they no longer will have to worry about inheritance taxes either. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

They're on a Tiffany Roll

Well, at least they did not put small charges in gas tanks.

CBS News says an editor made an "audio error" in dubbing the sound of a loud traditional car engine over footage of the much quieter Tesla electric car in a "60 Minutes" story that aired Sunday.

Hey, at least it didn't involved Lara Logan going "vrrooom vrrooom". It hasn't exactly been a great period for the network of the now long dead Morrow and Cronkite.

It's been a rough year at television's most popular newsmagazine, with correspondent Lara Logan still on leave after an internal CBS report questioned her reporting and objectivity on a story about an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Critics also questioned the show's reporting on stories involving the National Security Agency and Amazon.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well obviously

Somebody's dad smelt of elderberries

It's no cheeto-based shape but....

Curators were forced to remove a precious cup from display in a Spanish church when crowds swarmed there after historians claimed it was the holy grail, staff said. Visitors flocked to the San Isidro basilica in the north-western city of León after two historians published a book saying the ancient goblet was the mythical chalice from which Christ sipped at the last supper.

Two ‘Muricas

On the day we discovered how the other hundredth live...

A judge has ruled that Robert H. Richards IV, an heir to the du Pont fortune, should not face jail time after raping his three-year-old daughter. The reason Judge Jan Jurden gave for sentencing Richards to probation was that he “would not fare well in prison.”

Not that it's a trend or anything. And let us compare our sympathies for how the rich are just like you...only better...with this.

Homeless people experienced a 23 percent surge in targeted attacks last year as compared to the number of assaults in 2012, according to preliminary figures released by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH).

But in America, the fact you may not fare well without money or mental health care can never be considered. Pity the rich pederast. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]