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Fresh off his defense of Kim Davis, Kentucky’s well-known bigoted county clerk, attorney Matthew Staver set his sights on a solution to a nonexistent problem—enabling bigotry in the name of religion:

"It is only about being free to pursue your faith," said Mathew Staver. "We have no interest in discriminating against anyone."

Staver is the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has affiliated attorneys in all 50 states -- drafting bills, advising lawmakers and defending clients in what they believe to be the great cultural clash of our time.

Matthew Staver doesn’t push back against the notion that these bills are a response to the Supreme Court legalizing marriage for all:

"The Supreme Court in the 5-4 opinion on marriage in 2015 lit the house on fire," Staver said. "All we're trying to do is control the fire at this point in time."

Why are so many lawmakers willing to pick up the bigoted ball and run with the bills Staver’s Liberty Counsel have written for them? Are they lazy? Are they bigots? Are they lazy bigots? Either way, this troubling trend of ultra-conservative organizations writing state laws has to end. Conservatives do well recruiting and fostering candidates at the state level and it’s time for the Democratic machine to do the same. Otherwise these never-ending bigoted bills are going to keep chugging their way through our state legislatures. 

Thank Freaking God we have Sarah Palin around to teach us all what science iz.

Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, said the man known for his show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" is using his position of authority to harm children by teaching them that climate change is real and man-made.

“Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am,” Palin said at a Capitol Hill event held to roll out a film that aims to discredit climate scientists. “He’s a kids’ show actor; he’s not a scientist.

At some point conservatives decided, as coordinated effort, that Bill Nye was the worst person in the world. This is because Nye talks about climate change, and conservatives don't like it when people talk about climate change, ergo Bill Nye Is Bad. Note that Palin is speaking here at an event premised on the notion that Bill Nye Is Bad, introducing a film declaring that Bill Nye Is Bad—well, him and everyone else who mentions the climate—sponsored by climate deniers for that purpose.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late Night Snark: The Circus Continues

"House Speaker Paul Ryan this afternoon issued a formal statement ruling himself out as a potential replacement candidate if there is a contested Republican convention. You know things are bad in the Republican Party when people who aren’t even running are dropping out of the race."

---Seth Meyers

"After losing in Wisconsin, there has been a big shakeup in the Trump campaign staff. The guy in charge of racist comments is now in charge of sexist comments."

---Conan O'Brien

"[Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump] are both on medications. Hillary is on blood thinners and Trump is on skin thinners."

---Bill Maher

"In 2004 Ted Cruz fought to preserve a law that banned the sale of dildos in Texas. This really gets me. It's such a shame to see dildos persecuted and marginalized by one of their own."

---Larry Wilmore

"Bernie Sanders said on Friday that his goal for financial reform is to ‘make banking boring again.’ I think I speak for all Americans when I say, let’s just make elections boring again."

---Jimmy Fallon

And one year ago:

"Rand Paul announced that he's running for president, and his slogan will be, 'Defeat the Washington machine, unleash the American dream.' Which is a lot better than Jeb Bush's slogan: 'Buy two Bushes, get one free.'"

---Michael Che, SNL

Please clap.

Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

The Federal Communications Commission has a proposed rule to save cable subscribers an average of $231 a year. It's a pretty straightforward idea: break the monopoly cable companies have on how you watch their content by making them make the content you subscribe to available on devices other than the one they now force you to rent and pay for every month. President Obama likes the idea so much, he's promoting it, and proposing it as a model for expanding competition in all kinds of areas.

"The potential here is for cheaper, more effective services that are provided," Obama said in an interview with Yahoo. "Across the board, if we have more players that can potentially participate, fewer barriers to entry, the rules aren't rigged, then you get more people trying to get your business and you get better products at cheaper prices."

Jason Furman, who advises the president on economic policy, said the administration sparingly weighs in on FCC rulemaking. When the president gets involved, Furman said, the issue is of "real great importance in his mind to consumers, to competition and to the economy more broadly." […]

Obama also signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to explore areas in which they could promote more competition. The agencies will be required to report back with their findings in 60 days. The White House called the cable box issue a "mascot" for the broader initiative.

Of course there's industry opposition, because that's what this industry does—oppose anything that could cut into their profit margins, regardless of whether it's good for the consumer. They threaten the typical stuff, that "the FCC's proposal could lead to higher prices, 'eliminates security protections, and provides no reassurance on privacy rights.'" Because, don't you know, your privacy is their highest priority.

March temperature smashes 100-year global record

and

We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year

Under that first headline at The Guardian, Damian Carrington reports:

The global temperature in March has shattered a century-long record and by the greatest margin yet seen for any month.

February was far above the long-term average globally, driven largely by climate change, and was described by scientists as a “shocker” and signalling “a kind of climate emergency”. But data released by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) shows that March was even hotter.

Compared to the 20th-century average, March was 1.07C hotter across the globe, according to the JMA figures, while February was 1.04C higher. The JMA measurements go back to 1891 and show that every one of the last 11 months has been the hottest ever recorded for that month.

Under the second headline at ClimateProgress, Joe Romm writes:

NASA reports that this was the hottest three-month start (January to March) of any year on record. It beat the previous record — just set in 2015 — by a stunning 0.7°F (0.39°C). Normally, such multi-month records are measured in the hundredths of a degree

Last month was the hottest February on record by far. It followed the hottest January on record by far, which followed the hottest December by far, which followed the hottest November on record by far, which followed the hottest October on record by far. Some may detect a pattern here.

New York's primary matters for the first time in decades, and all of the remaining candidates are doing some campaign pandering in the Big Apple. Events are scheduled in the rest of the state of course, but with 8 million people, and the headquarters of the media, there's been substantially more emphasis on NYC.

I couldn't resist including a little Easter egg for my fellow Red Sox fans. I'm thankful baseball season's back, where even the Yankees-Sox rivalry is more civil than electoral politics.

Republican presidential also-ran John Kasich continues to have issues when speaking to the womenfolks. Here he is capping off a response to a college student's question about campus sexual assault.

“This ought to be done in the country,” Kasich said. “That our coeds know exactly what the rules are, what the opportunities are, what the confidential policies are, so that you are not vulnerable, at risk, and can be preyed upon. I have two 16-year-old daughters, and I don’t even like to think about it.”

"It’s sad, but it’s something that I have to worry about," the female student replied, according to ABC News.

"Well, I would give you—I’d also give you one bit of advice," Kasich added. "Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol."

To critics, there's more than a touch of well if you didn't want to be raped you shouldn'ta been drinking that in that response.

On the other hand, Gov. John Kasich giving bad answers to audience questions is pretty much the only press he gets these days, so his handlers are probably just telling him to go nuts. It's not like it'll make any difference at this point.

Funding actual research costs money, but making up lies? That comes cheap. Still, you have to get those lies out there and repeated, keep the pundits well supplied with catchy phrases, make sure your anti-facts are packaged neatly for the press, and deliver them (folded around fat contributions) to legislators. It all adds up.

So how much gets spent to keep government from taking any action on climate change? Based on a report from InfluenceMap, quite a lot.

We find, estimating conservatively, that these five entities spent almost $115m per year combined on obstructive climate influencing activites, with the bulk by the American Petroleum Institute ($65m), ExxonMobil ($27m) and Shell ($22m).

That’s just the information that has become visible, mostly through shareholder initiatives. And it’s only a fraction of the total climate BS factory.

Extrapolated over the entire fossil fuel and other industrial sectors beyond, it is not hard to consider that this obstructive climate policy lobbying spending may be in the order of $500m annually.

I'm sorry, but if you can't point and laugh at this you have no joy in life.

The Republican National Committee is expected to debate a proposal next week that would dramatically shift the balance of power at this summer’s convention — and impose a new rulebook for selecting the party's nominee.

That's right, the committee will be debating whether to ditch the existing decades-old rules of how to run the convention in favor of a less centralized Robert's Rules of Order system. For those of you who can't imagine what this might mean, this is what it means:

While arcane, the change would have a profound effect on the convention. Under Robert’s Rules of Order, any of the 2,472 delegates would have the opportunity to raise objections, or points of order, and interrupt the proceedings.

Glorious. Outstanding. Ingenious. I can't imagine a better way to handle what's expected to be the most contentious and chair-throwing Republican convention in memory than to give every last individual attending crackpot power to interrupt the proceedings at will. Merely teaching 2,472 people Robert's Rules of Order—on live television, in the middle of a rancorous nomination battle—with the expectation that not one of them would then misuse or abuse their newly discovered powers would be entertainment in and of itself.

What's motivating this proposal is, of course, the expectation of a contested convention. The proposing RNC member believes moving to this new system would make the process of electing an eventual Somebody more "transparent"; what's less clear is whether that transparency would suit the Serious Republican Dream Plan of ditching all three of the remaining candidates and nominating somebody less likely to humiliate them all in the general election. On the contrary, it seems like throwing more power toward angry Trump and Cruz delegates would not do that.

The likelihood of this particular plan going anywhere seems slim. It does point, however, to the difficulty facing the committee as they try and work out just how this election season can be salvaged. A new rule barring the candidacies of anyone with a “T” in their name? A lottery system, in which anyone who chips in $10 has a shot at being the new nominee? Nominating a summer squash that looks a bit like Paul Ryan? By the time the convention rolls around they will have considered them all.

Yesterday, old-school Latino groups got upset when a new-school Latino group tried to get shit done. Today, they’re still at it. 

[Latino Victory Project] president Cristobal Alex ... called the initial Castro comments a “direct, personal and political attack badly disguised as policy, and meant to sink one of our top Latino leaders as a potential Vice Presidential pick.”

“These attacks are unacceptable and we’re not going to take them any longer,” he said.

The Latino Victory Project is dedicated to electing Latinos to office, and if we measure their effectiveness by results, they suck at their job. Luckily, I don’t measure their effectiveness by results, since the lack of a deep Latino officeholder bench is caused by systemic reasons far too numerous and complex than any one organization to fix or address. When the only Latino Democrat in the Senate is a crook, we have a problem. When we lack a single Democratic Latino governor, we have a problem. When few Latinos are elected to the House outside of explicitly drawn majority-Latino districts, we have a problem. 

The fact that someone with a resume as thin as Julian Castro is supposedly “one of our top Latino leaders” is a problem. 

But here’s the thing—if we want a Latino on the presidential ticket, we have to establish that bench first. We can’t glom on to the first half-assed Latino politician as though he’s our only hope, because Castro is a lightweight currently unsuited for a presidential ticket. He was major of San Antonio? Big deal, particularly since the city has a weak mayor, and is actually run by the city manager. That’s why the mayor only gets a salary of $4,000. Because really, there’s not much to do. And whatever the merits of HUD, it ain’t no springboard to a presidential ticket. Given time and more seasoning, that will hopefully change. But we can’t create experience out of thin air. 

The HB2 debacle that has roiled North Carolina's GOP lawmakers is now spilling over into the re-election campaign of Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and he doesn't like it one bit. Burr initially claimed that the anti-LGBT law "does not discriminate" and later dismissed the economic meltdown brought on by its enactment. But the longer North Carolina's woes continue, the less he wants to talk about it, reports Politico:

Asked about the attempt by [GOP Sen. Mark] Kirk and the Democrats to take the All-Star Game away from Charlotte, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) responded: “Oh, I’m not getting into that crap. Thanks.”

Testy, testy. That re-election campaign is just getting tougher by the day with news that Burr's Democratic challenger, Deborah Ross, outraised him in this year’s first fundraising quarter—$1.3 million to $1.1 million. It's a solid start for the Ross campaign, but Burr still has the cushion of a $5.8 million war chest. 

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