Hasta La Gadget!

New York was pretty much a cesspool in the 19th century. “We were a laughingstock,” as anthropologist and trash historian Robin Nagle once put it. But in an odd way, New York owes its current success to its refuse—after all, it’s built on the stuff.

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NATO formally ended combat operations at the end of 2014, but the U.S. military couldn’t just…leave. No, pulling out of Afghanistan was a massive operation in itself, one that took three years of planning and cost an estimated $28 billion—just to get out.

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Nike’s endorsement of Tiger Woods, the most prominent face in golf, dates back to when he first began his professional career in 1996. Since then, shoe technology has evolved tremendously, thanks to the development of new design materials that have m…

In a column that ran in the Detroit Free Press on Monday morning, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette laid out a weak and hypocritical argument regarding his opposition to marriage equality in Michigan.

He also — most likely inadvertently — gave us a great hypothetical that only serves to riddle his own political narrative full of holes.

Schuette begins by asking people to “Imagine what would happen if the attorney general of a state ignored a federal court ruling, failed to uphold the state constitution and paid no attention to the results of an election supported by 59 percent of the people statewide.”

No need to “imagine” anything. Schuette has already done all three of those things since taking office.

In June of 2012, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was constitutional, and yet, Schuette continues to use his political capital and elected office to fight against the law. No need to imagine our AG ignoring a federal court ruling — he’s actively doing it.

When voters rejected Gov. Rick Snyder’s anti-democratic emergency manager law in November of 2012, it was viewed as a win for preserving the constitutional right of Michiganders to decide the fate of their state. Enter Bill Schuette, who used “pretzel logic” to skirt the state constitution and push the EM law on Michigan communities regardless.

In 2008, Michiganders overwhelmingly voted to approve medical marijuana use in Michigan (63 percent supported it), but that hasn’t stopped Schuette, who campaigned against the proposal and has been trying to gut it at every turn since it became law. Ignoring the will of the people? Check.

It’s no secret that Schuette has gubernatorial aspirations for 2018 and he’s spent his entire political career towing along the right-wing agenda that he thinks will lead him to the highest office in Michigan.

When defending his ill-fated fight against marriage equality in the opinion piece, Schuette begins to blur the lines between justification and juxtaposition: he compares marriage equality to the death penalty.

“Michigan law does not allow for the death penalty. Yet nationally, a majority of citizens support the death penalty for convicted murderers,” Schuette writes. “Under the theory advanced by some gay marriage defenders, the attorney general and other elected officials should ignore Michigan’s prohibition and apply the death penalty.”

Comparing state-sponsored execution to marriage between two loving people may seem like a bit of hyperbole, but for far-right conservatives like Schuette, they’ll grasp at any straws they can to maintain the status quo even if it means embarrassing Michigan, costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, and keeping loving families from experiencing justice and security.

Attorneys General are supposed to be defenders of the people and democracy, not backwards ideology. Schuette is not a defender of democracy or the people — he’s nothing but a right-wing crusader.

WASHINGTON — The first legislative act by Alaska’s new senator, Dan Sullivan (R), turns out to be a gun control measure — but one that will only affect federal agents.

Sullivan, who ousted Democratic Sen. Mark Begich last fall, is hoping to get a vote this week on an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that would ban police officers who work for the Environmental Protection Agency from carrying firearms.

“When the EPA initially was stood up, it didn’t have employees who were armed,” Sullivan said at a Monday news conference when asked about the measure.

The Alaska Republican is framing his amendment as a first step toward reducing the scope of the federal government. In particular, Sullivan said, members of the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division have shown a tendency to overstep their authority. He pointed to a clean water inspection at a remote Alaskan gold-mining settlement a year and a half ago, in which EPA agents angered a group of miners by showing up armed and wearing body armor.

“We had in Chicken, Alaska, summer of 2013, a raid — rifles, shotguns, body armor, helicopters — for a potential Clean Water Act violation in our state,” Sullivan said. “None were found. From our perspective, from my perspective, one of the things I got elected on was looking at the responsibilities of the federal government, and starting to limit those responsibilities.”

The freshman senator has decided to begin that effort with the EPA’s special agents.

“We think it’s an area, both from a strategic perspective, starting to limit the federal government in terms of some of its power and authority, but also in terms of oversight,” Sullivan said Monday. “If you have to get together with the local trooper to go execute a warrant, you might think twice. So I think that it’s something we’re looking at bipartisan support for.”

Alaskan state officials were apparently aware of the EPA’s actions in Chicken, although they did not participate in the operation. A report on the incident later found that employing criminal investigators was probably overkill, but that the agents had conducted themselves properly.

EPA officials have insisted armed investigators were needed in the remote Alaska area. In response to Sullivan’s Keystone amendment, the agency said its police officers should be armed just like any other law enforcement officers.

“These officials receive training and follow the same rules and regulations as other law enforcement officials,” said EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Colaizzi in a statement. “Their work involves the potential for confrontation, and to remove this basic law enforcement tool from the hands of EPA agents could put the safety of the officers — and the public — at risk.”

But Sullivan doesn’t seem inclined to keep his efforts confined to the EPA.

“There’s a lot of people who are concerned about certain agencies that have grown in terms of responsibilities, who are armed,” Sullivan said. “The Department of Education has a SWAT team. Do we really need that? We don’t think we need that with regard to EPA.”

The measure will require 60 votes to get added to the Keystone bill, and Sullivan believes the amendment has bipartisan support. But even if all Senate Republicans support him, he will still need six Democrats to cross the aisle, which at this time seems unlikely.

Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.