Cliven Bundy has become a Fox News folk hero thanks to his standoff with the feds over illegal cattle grazing, a real "patriot" lauded by the types of Republican leaders who like to see themselves on TV. He's also astonishingly racist. At one of his daily news conferences he held forth about "one more thing I know about the Negro."

“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.”

That should have everyone thinking twice, right? And yet, weirdly, it isn't. A few of his supporters in the GOP firmament are passing those views off as the babble of someone who isn't "media-trained" or who merely holds some unorthodox views.

Ukraine's military has finally launched strikes against the pro-Russia militias who've slowly taken control of several eastern cities, killing several people and, just as importantly, severely irritating Vladimir Putin. The 40,000 soldiers Russia's got piled up just outside Ukraine have begun training drills—and Putin is using the same bellicose language he invoked before invading Georgia in 2008.

The latest stab at Palestinian-Israeli peace is apparently dead. Palestine's two ruling groups, Fatah and Hamas, decided to set aside their own internal feud—and that means peace talks, according to Israel's foreign minister, are now "impossible."

A doctor tending severely ill women and children in an Afghanistan hospital was among three Americans who died in a surprise shooting attack by an Afghan police officer. These kinds of shootings are becoming more common.

The "top watchdog" for the Department of Homeland Security was really just an annoying lap cat. He shared cozy meals and drinks with the staffers he was regulating, according to a Senate investigation, and regularly changed investigatory findings at the behest of his betters in the White House.

Vermont will be first in the nation to defy powerful and insistent lobbyists and require the labeling of all genetically modified foods. They are decidedly pleased with themselves.

The smart person who coined the phrase "net neutrality" has written a damning piece in the New Yorker, condemning new changes sought by the FCC and arguing those changes will "make the Internet just like everything else in American society: unequal in a way that deeply threatens our long-term prosperity."

The government has finally come for your e-cigarettes. The FDA wants to ban e-cigarette sales to kids and require warning labels.

In case you missed it, we broke the news last night that a Portland police lieutenant has sued Chief Mike Reese and another senior officer—seeking $300,000 for claims she's endured retaliation over her work years ago as an internal affairs investigator.

In sports news, Northwestern University, my alma mater, is acting super oily in trying to persuade its football players (nicknamed the Wildcats) not to vote form a union. The vote is this Friday, a huge day for college sports.

SPEAKING OF WILDCATS, YOU'RE MAMA SAYS YOU'RE UGLY. UGLY.