P.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "U.S. economy adds jobs but braces for cuts"

(The Hill): "Republicans blast Obama administration for New York trial of al Qaeda"

(Washington Post): "Rand Paul: My filibuster was just the beginning"

(New York Times): "China won't forsake North Korea despite vote for sanctions"

(Reuters): "Congress in a race with states to pass online gambling law"

Enjoy the global warming jobs report

By Frank Moraes

Have you noticed something about winter? Every year we have really good jobs reports. People start talking about an economic recovery. And it somehow always evaporates by the time spring is in full swing. That's what I thought when I saw that in February we created 236,000 net new jobs. Ain't that what we saw last year?

Alas, yes. As Dean Baker pointed out this morning, last year we created 271,000 net new jobs in February. The year before that it was just less than 200,000.

I think we are seeing global warming in our economic data. The reason that the BLS has to constantly revise its jobs reports is that they create seasonally adjusted numbers. There are, for example, more construction jobs in the summer when the weather is good. But our winters have been quite mild the last few years. And this year, over 20% of February's new jobs were in construction. If we remove these jobs (which isn't valid, but it gives an idea), the number would be 188,000 net new jobs—much closer to the 160,000 jobs that were expected.

Read more »

Enduring another Romney?

By Richard K. Barry

Roll Call is reporting that Scott Romney, Mitt's brother, is giving some thought to running for the senate seat that will be vacated by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). According to the piece, Romney is a "Harvard-educated corporate attorney at the Detroit-based law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, LLP."

Scott Romney is not exactly a political high flyer, having once run unsuccessfully for the Republican Party nomination to become Michigan Attorney General and having lost an election for a place on the Michigan State Board of Trustees.

Whatever. I guess if your last name is Romney you think you're are just naturally qualified to do anything.

As for the Democrats:

Rep. Gary Peters told The Detroit Free Press editorial board that he is “going to seriously consider” running. Peters, who ended 2012 with nearly $500,000 in cash on hand, is considered the Democrats’ top recruit.

Levin's recent announcement that he would not seek re-election in 2014 has set things in gear in Michigan on both sides of aisle.

This should be a hold for Democrats, but it's still a concern that so many are choosing not to run in 2014.

Quote of the day

By Mustang Bobby

Bill Clinton on the Defense of Marriage Act, which he signed into law:

When I signed the bill, I included a statement with the admonition that “enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.” Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.

BTYFO*, Mr. President. Nevertheless, welcome to the fight.

*’Bout Time You Found Out.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

A.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "Blast hits Afghan capital shortly after Hagel arrives"

(WNYC): "Muted response to trial of bin Laden's son-in-law"

(ABC News): "Political drama unfolding at Vatican"

(Paul Krugman): "The market speaks"

(Politico): "Obama's Israel visit to go as planned"

P.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "US adds 236K jobs in February, unemployment falls"

(Post Politics): "McCain calls Paul, Cruz, Amash 'wacko birds'"

(Politico): "How the GOP forced Obama's hand"

(New York Times): "South Dakota law will allow guns in classrooms"

(ABC News): "Conclave to elect next pope: Is political drama unfolding in Vatican City?"

Stompin' Tom Connors: 1936-2013

By Richard K. Barry

Canadian country music legend Stompin' Tom Connors has died at the age of 77. It's hard to explain the place of Mr. Connors in Canadian culture. I've lived here for over 30 years and I'm not sure I get it. Maybe I get it a little bit, especially when I visit smaller towns up north. 

One of his more famous songs, perhaps his most famous, is "The Hockey Song." The Globe and Mail called it a different kind of national anthem and a gift to Canada's national sport. One thing it certainly will always be is a great way to get a crowd going. 

If you're not from Canada and don't know the man's work, titles like "Sudbury Saturday Night," "Bud the Spud," and "Big Mufferaw Joe" might give you a sense. 

He was a strongly patriotic individual who once boycotted the Junos (Canada's national music awards) to protest artists who conducted most of their business in the United States being nominated for Junos in Canada. He called these sorts "border jumpers."

Canadians are sometimes embarrassed by their own patriotism, though not Stompin' Tom. 

Here is some American talk show host with an introduction. 

Rand Paul is a wuss

By Richard K. Barry

Thirteen hours? You call that a filibuster? Any politician worth his salt can do 13 hours on his head. That's just a slightly extended press conference. If you're not collapsing at the end or pissing in a jar at some point, I don't even want to know you. 

This is a filibuster. 

Voters more liberal than politicians think

By Frank Moraes

Does this drive you crazy too? You are watching C-SPAN or the news or something else and you see John Boehner's rusty mug saying, "The American people do not want higher taxes!" If you're like me, you scream at the TV machine, "What the fuck would you know about what the American people want?" Okay; you're not like me; you don't yell at the TV. But surly you think this (perhaps without the expletive). For one thing, the "American people" is not a monolithic thing. For another, we know what most American people think on this issue because we've asked them. They don't want their taxes increased, but overwhelmingly they think the rich do not pay enough in taxes and would like to see them pay more.

There are two ways to look at these kinds of statements from conservative politicians. It could be that they are just lying. They do combine politician (mendacity) and conservative (willfully ignorant) into one big deception singularity. Or it could be that they actually believe what they are saying. As it turns out, there are data that indicates that this is the case.

Dylan Matthews presented research by two economics graduate students that compares the opinions of legislator's constituencies to what the legislator thinks they are. You will be shocked by the results, I'm sure! It turns out that Democrats and Republicans alike think that their constituencies are a whole lot more conservative than they actually are. On average, Republicans overestimate how conservative their constituencies are by 20%. What does that mean specifically? It means that the average Republican state legislator thinks his constituency is more conservative than the most conservative district in the United States. Got that? Republicans think the people they represent are more conservative than the most conservative constituency in the country!

Read more »

Droning on

By Mustang Bobby

I watched the Very Serious People on Morning Joe discuss the filibuster led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and of course everyone pulled out the YouTube clip of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and made the comparison. It works only if you cast Adam Sandler as Mr. Smith.

Anyway, the basis of Mr. Paul’s filibuster was that he couldn’t get a yes or no answer out of Attorney General Eric Holder and the White House as to whether or not they would rule out using a drone against an American citizen here on American soil. Seeing as how that is a hypothetical of the highest order, seeing as how this or any administration would probably not like to make a hard and fast statement on something like that — what about Pearl Harbor or September 11 — and seeing as how no matter what Mr. Holder or the president said they wouldn’t believe them in the first place, the exercise Mr. Paul went through was an entertaining footnote to a pointless discussion. It chewed up time on C-SPAN, it was a shiny object for the cable guys, and since nothing much else is going on in Washington — it’s snowing, I hear — and there aren’t any missing white women to hunt for, it was better than watching Bruce Boxleitner sell hair replacement kits on cable.

Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "After sanctions vote, 2 Koreas ratchet up attack threats"

(Reuters): "Bin Laden son-in-law to face conspiracy charges in New York court"

(Daily Beast): "It's not just dinner for Obama"

(Fox News): "Sen. Rand Paul: Filibuster was victory and blow for freedom"

(Washington Post (Bill Clinton)): "It's time to overturn DOMA"

P.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "UN Security Council approves new sanctions against North Korea"

(Talking Points Memo): "Obama administration responds to Rand Paul on drones"

(New York Times): "Senate confirms Brennan as C.I.A. chief"

(Reuters): "Senate panel backs crackdown on clandestine gun sales"

(New York Times): "Veteran Michigan Senator says he won't run next year"

(ABC News): "Activists will challenge Arkansas' new abortion limit"

Handshakes, assholes, and idiots

By Frank Moraes

The Associated Press yesterday: "Senate Republicans block Caitlin Halligan, Nominee to DC Appeals Court for Second Time." She got enough votes, of course. It is just de rigueur that Republicans filibuster her.

So what was wrong with her? I know: we don't expect there to have been anything wrong with her other than that a Democratic president nominated her. The truth is that if you asked the Senators who filibustered why they were against her, they would not know. They were just told by their leadership that Halligan was one of them there lib'rals, and so it was a no go.

The official reason for the filibuster was simply that halligan was "too liberal." And what made her such a liberal firebrand?

Citing her work on lawsuits against gun manufacturers and on behalf of illegal immigrants, Republicans said Halligan is too liberal to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The National Rifle Association opposed her nomination.

This is the usual reason that Republicans are against judges. It has nothing to do with abortion or "judicial activism" (which is what conservative jurists do better today than liberals have ever). It all comes down to corporate profits. If the lobbying organization of gun manufacturers (that is: the NRA) is against her, well, we can't have that. We can't have someone on the court who might protect the rights of individuals; that might lead to democracy!

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Bill O'Reilly and the rise of hate groups

By Frank Moraes 

Yesterday, Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon wrote that "Radical-Right Wing Groups Reach All Time High." It is based upon a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that shows that militia and "patriot" groups are at an all-time high. According to the group, this is due to "the resurgence on the down economy (hate and radicalism always tick up when things seem desperate), along with the election and reelection of Barack Obama, a push on gun control, and racial tensions over immigration and the declining power of white America." I'm sure that's true, but I think there is something else going on here.

Look at the following graph and see if you don't perceive something a little more cyclical:

I see high levels of these groups when Clinton is president, followed by low levels when Bush is president, and then an explosion under Obama. The details make it look even worse. Note that 9/11 didn't cause the number of these groups to grow. Instead, there were actually fewer groups in 2002 than there had been in 2001, after one of the worst attacks on American soil in our history. Also, there was no spike at all in 2008; we had to wait until 2009 when you know who was president. Also, as the economy has gotten better, the numbers have only climbed since 2009, which was by far the worst year. Finally: the economy was even worse in the year 2002-2004 than it was 1995-1996, and yet: no spike in these groups during the Bush years.

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Craziest Republican of the Day: Lindsey Graham

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed back against efforts to limit the availability of assault weapons during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday by echoing the paranoia of the National Rifle Association and insisting that Americans would need access to AR-15s to protect themselves from "roaming gangs" during natural disasters.

Speaking to Attorney General Eric Holder, Graham argued that an AR-15 would have been "a better defense tool" than "a double-barrel shotgun" in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy.

Um, does Graham know anything about the damage an AR-15 can do? And he really thinks people would be better off if they, and a lot of other people, had these killing machines, these weapons of mass destruction, to defend themselves? 

Holder pointed out that it's unlikely that "New Orleans would have been better served with people with AR-15s in a post Katrina environment," which was marked by chaos, violence and looting. 

Read more »

Stupid and Evil, Inc.

By Mustang Bobby

I sometimes wonder if the racists and the bigots get their franchise like some Amway promotion: find one person, then get them to find another, and then that one finds another, and so on. That's about the only way I can explain how stupid spreads across the land. For example:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Monday openly admitted that she opposed the latest reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) because it included protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims of domestic violence.

In an appearance on MSNBC, Blackburn pointed out that the latest iteration of the law protects "different groups" and thus dilutes funding for straight, non-Native American women with the proper documentation.

Because of course if you're a lesbian or Native American or undocumented, you probably deserved whatever happens to you because, well, you're just not one of us.

Not just to pick on Ms. Blackburn — she regularly turns up on cable TV as a second-string Michele Bachmann and entertains with all sorts of harebrained stuff, including birtherism — because I'm pretty sure that she didn't come up with this justification for voting against VAWA on her own. She's not that creative. Someone had to hand this talking point to her, or there's some website where she downloaded it.

Read more »

TSA backs off

By Capt. Fogg

So you think the TSA has finally come to its senses and smartened up its ban on deadly weapons like nail clippers and pool cues? Most people, if they bother to think about it, aren't all that terrified that some 12 year old carrying his Little League bat or hockey stick is going to commandeer a 747, nor is the woman with that tiny Swiss Army knife on her keychain. The TSA has at least recognized that the hijackings of 9/11/01 were facilitated by cabin doors without locks, thanks to the refusal of our regulatory agencies to force that level of security on private business. Box cutters were secondary.

Your tiny knife with tweezers and nail file isn't really going to allow a terrorist incident or some adolescent to take over an airplane with a plastic hockey stick and so the TSA is going to acknowledge the laughter and relent -- in some cases. In customary ban-it writing style however, the descriptions of the newly permitted items seem to have been written by people being forced to relent at gunpoint or people from Mars who have never seen and are terrified of sharp objects.

So what can you take on the plane that you couldn't last week? Cigarette lighters, although you can't smoke, up to two golf clubs, ( three would somehow be too dangerous) toy bats or other sports sticks and small pocket knives with blades up to (wait for this) 2.36 inches. 2.37 is too scary to allow and a fixed blade is out for some reason known only to Martians and most mysteriously, if the handle has any curve to it, it's still a terrorist assault weapon and prohibited. My tiny mustache scissors? Sorry Osama, you and your beard don't get on the plane.

Box cutters? Even though the evidence from 9/11 really doesn't support the newspaper story, a 1" box cutter blade, half the length of Uncle Fogg's Victorinox is just too al Qaeda for the TSA.

You'll suspect that I'm going somewhere with this, but I don't need to, you already guessed that I think people who write and most passionately defend regulatory descriptions tend to be fond of tin foil haberdashery, or at least that's my opinion -- and I'm sticking with it.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices)

Stupidest Shithole in America: Nelson, Georgia

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Do I smell another series about to start? I mean, America's full of stupid shitholes, right? Well, maybe. Let's just start with this gem in the Peach State, a very small "city" 80 miles north of Atlanta:

Every homeowner in a local town could soon have to own a gun or break the law. It's a controversial new plan for the city of Nelson.

Leaders told Channel 2's John Bachman the reason they need the law is because the city straddles Cherokee county to the south and Pickens County to the north.

That, they said, can lead to slower response times.

One police officer patrols Nelson, Georgia for eight hours during the day. That leaves 16 hours overnight when the city is basically unguarded.

"When he's not here we rely on county sheriffs -- however it takes a while for them to get here," said Nelson City Councilman Duane Cronic.

That's why Cronic proposed the ordinance.

"Every head of household will own and maintain a firearm," he said. 

Yes! Armed rednecks "policing" themselves! What could possibly go wrong?

Behind the Ad: Giffords group airs new gun control ad in Iowa and Arizona

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive "Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: Americans for Responsible Solutions (founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly).

Where: Iowa and Arizona.

What's going on: Giffords' group is airing its first ad in the two states asking key senators to support gun control efforts. The ad features images of vigils at the sites of recent mass shootings in Oak Creek, Wis., Aurora, Colo., Newtown, Conn., and Tuscon, Ariz. 

The Arizona version urges Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and the Iowa ad presses Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to support background check legislation. Both senators are on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Americans for Responsible solutions is spending six figures to air the ad in the two states, according to the Associated Press.

Here's the Iowa ad:

A.M. Headlines

(NECN): "Republicans encouraged by President's dinner"

(USA): "Study: States with more gun laws have less gun violence"

(The Caucus): "Republicans, led by Rand Paul, finally end filibuster"

(New York Times): "Arkansas adopts strictest abortion law in the U.S."

(Washington Post): "Kerry finds old friends, new restrictions in his first trip as secretary of state"

Fox News at its finest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Jon Chait says that this clip "captures the essence of the network so perfectly that you need never watch anything on it again. It's all here. At the center, you have an old conservative white guy who is enraged about a fact that exists only in his addled brain [namely, that President Obama hasn't proposed any specific spending cuts]. At his side, there's a blonde sidekick who nods along with him but doesn't get in the way. And ready to absorb his anger is the network's Emmanuel Goldstein figure, feebly attempting a rebuttal that quickly devolves into a sniveling plea for civility."

He's right.

Everyone here is playing their appointed role. Colmes is pleading with O'Reilly to stop yelling at him and whimpering things like "we’ll just have to disagree." Crowley is affirming O’Reilly's correctness and cheerfully allowing him to interrupt after a couple of seconds of talking so as not to yammer on in a way that annoys him. And O'Reilly himself, after finally calming down, reaffirms his own white-is-black claim with such conviction that viewers have probably already forgotten that he is feverishly denying something that they witnessed with their own eyes. The segment has achieved such Fox News perfection that it can never be reached again. Roger Ailes should simply loop it endlessly for the rest of time.

Watch the clip and wallow in its greatness. (And then pour yourself a stiff drink when you remember that this asshole is one of the superstars of the most popular cable news network and that millions of Americans swallow Fox News's pro-Republican right-wing propaganda without so much as a speck of doubt.)

P.M. Headlines

(Fox News): "Paul mounts Senate filibuster of Obama's CIA nominee over drone concerns"

(New York Times): "Republicans again block confirmation of judicial nominee"

(CNBC): "Boehner wants budget deals 'out in the open'"

(Reuters): "New York State Assembly votes to block fracking until 2015"

(ABC News): "Chavez death creates anxiety among middle class Venezuelans"

There is no long-term budget problem

By Frank Moraes 

Alan Blinder is a economics and public affairs professor at Princeton. Recently, he got placed in the middle of the argument between Paul Krugman and Joe Scarborough when Scarborough claimed that Blinder was on his side. Blinder didn't like that much. Yesterday, he wrote a short article at Politico, "Morning Joe's Accuracy Deficit." He says that he and Krugman only disagree about some very minor details.

Blinder claims there are three issues regarding the budget. In the short term, we are already doing too much deficit reduction. In the medium term (ten years), we have already done about what we should do. And in the long term, things are going to be very bad indeed. He is right about all this. The problem is that, like most people (including Krugman at times), when it comes to the long term, he is being deceptive.

In his new book, After the Music Stopped, Blinder claims:

The government can cover no more than a small fraction of the projected deficits by raising taxes. Sorry, Democrats, but the Republicans are right on this one. Americans are used to federal taxes running about 18.5 percent of GDP; they will not allow them to rise to 32 percent of GDP. Never mind that a number of European countries do so; we won't.

Read more »

A sequestion for you

By Carl

What if they gave a budget and nobody came?:

As sequestration begins, Republicans have been overtaken with something close to giddiness, and Democrats seized with gloom. It appeared as recently as a few months ago that the threat of across-the-board cuts, disproportionately hurting defense, would force Republicans to negotiate a long-term debt reduction agreement. But Republicans are happily announcing their willingness –and, in many cases, outright eagerness -- to absorb a hit to spending of any kind whatsoever, and their total resistance to higher revenue in any form. And so the GOP is already celebrating its victory, even speaking of their great triumph in the past tense, as a done deal (“This was a necessary win for Republicans,” exults a GOP aide) while liberals are already bemoaning Obama’s miscalculation.

The great Republican budget victory may yet arrive. It certainly hasn’t happened yet, and it’s far from certain it ever will.

The first question is whether House Republicans can sustain their refusal to consider their no-revenue, no-negotiation stance. Public opinion may not be the thing that stops them. Americans oppose government spending in general and favor it in particular. An ABC poll today finds strong public support for an across-the-board cut in federal spending. That is the result you’d expect from a poll that only asks about “federal spending.”

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Off to a rough start in the Vatican

By Mustang Bobby

 
 The process for picking the next head of the Catholic Church is not exactly beginning well: 

The first day of discussion was rocked by revelations of scandal, with Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien admitting that he had engaged in sexual misconduct not befitting a priest, archbishop or cardinal.

I know I'm just a simple Quaker, but I thought that one of the rules of being a priest, archbishop, or cardinal was that there was no room for sexual conduct, let alone misconduct. Isn't sex of any kind on the permanent given-up-for-Lent list? (h/t Hawkeye Pierce) The only punishment for Cardinal O'Brien is that he can't come to Rome to pick the next guy; he gets to stay home and presumably spend the rest of his days updating his profile on Manhunt ("Semi-retired and now available on Sundays. Can't host.")

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Jeb Bush figures looking like a fool is preferable to taking a firm position on immigration

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Jeb Bush isn't so much flip-flopping over immigration as he is playing Twister with himself, contorting himself into sorts of different positions to avoid, you know, actually having to take a position:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants "if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn't an incentive for people to come illegally" -- a position that puts him at odds with his new book, out [yesterday] from Simon & Schuster.

In Immigration Wars, co-authored with immigration lawyer Clint Bolick, Bush agues that denying a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations is "absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences." Those who enter the country illegally, Bush contends, should "start the process to earn permanent legal residency" after pleading guilty to breaking the law and paying "applicable fines or perform community service." But they should not have access to "the cherished fruits of citizenship."

So he used to be a relatively reasonable voice for immigration reform in the Republican Party, backing what to most Republicans, even before the party's lurch to the far right, were liberal policies, and then he wrote this book taking a harder line, and then the same day the book comes out he says no, no, no, he's okay with a path to citizenship, if this, if that, saying he's not smart enough to figure it out, but really he's still on the fence, trying to walk that fine line between the old-school party establishment on one side and the extremist grassroots base and movement conservatism on the other.

And he's doing it with an eye on 2016, clearly, playing both sides, trying to seem reasonable while also pandering to the party's power bases, and otherwise looking like a shameless fool.

Obama Administration defecates on Constitution, then wipes its ass with Bill of Rights

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I like Obama. I really do. But increasingly his articulation of executive power with respect to the war on terror, and generally, and the expression of that power specifically in the ongoing drone campaign against enemies of the state, however defined, often with significant civilian collateral damage, is the stain the threatens to overwhelm the rest of his presidency. And it's getting worse:

Yes, the president does have the authority to use military force against American citizens on US soil -- but only in "an extraordinary circumstance," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday.

"The US Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening," Paul said Tuesday. "It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans."

This is rarely the case, but I'm with Paul on this one. Even if you think Obama would never do such a thing, and if you think that you should think it over, do you really trust any president to determine just what "an extraordinary circumstance" is? I'm no anti-government nut -- in fact, I'm generally in favor of an activist federal government. But this is appalling, and truly a threat to freedom.

Obama is a lousy socialist

By Mustang Bobby

Via The New York Times:

The Dow Jones industrial average, which measures the performance of 30 blue-chip companies, closed with a gain of more than 125 points Tuesday, surpassing its previous record close of 14,164.53, which it achieved nearly five and a half years ago, as well as its record intraday high, set around the same time, of 14,198.10.

[...]

Since a low point in March 2009, the Dow Jones index has more than doubled, stunning even the most seasoned stock market watchers. It closed at 14,253.77 Tuesday.

I blame Obama. He sucks as a socialist.

A.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "Putting rancor aside, Congress takes a crack at the budget"

(Washington Post): "Dow hits record high as markets are undaunted by tepid economic growth, political gridlock"

(Reuters): "Two veteran Los Angeles officials set for runoff in mayor's race"

(ThinkProgress): "Why Democrats shouldn't eulogize Hugo Chavez"

(Boston Globe): "Storm begins tonight and ends later Friday"

Hugo Chavez is dead. Long live something other than Hugo Chavez's tyranny.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So long, Hugo.

It's something of an understatement to say that I didn't much care for Hugo Chavez. Which isn't to say that I prefer the right-wing plutocratic opposition in Venezuela, which is no better, and possibly worse, than Chavez's left-wing authoritarianism. Suffice it to say that I would prefer a third way, something in between those two extremes.

And perhaps such a third way is possible now that Chavez, and the cult of personality that he brought to his authoritarian rule, is dead. Needless to say, this is a significant historical moment for Venezuela. Will it fully embrace constitutional democracy and individual liberty (if more along the lines of a social as opposed to liberal democracy)? Or will it collapse into strife, the populists and anti-populists fighting over which side deserves to oppress the Venezuelan people?

No, I didn't much care for Chavez, but I wish his country well.

Read more »

P.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "Chavez dies, leaving bitterly divided nation"

(Chicago Tribune): "Senate Intelligence panel approves Brennan's CIA nomination"

(National Journal): "Jeb Bush's poorly times flip-flop on immigration"

(Reuters): "Los Angeles mayoral candidates squares off in primary"

(Post Politics): "Bob McDonnell not invited to speak at CPAC"

All about nothing

By Carl

I really got nothing today, so I'm just going to whine.

I'm frustrated, because the world that should be shaping up by all rights and by all evidence seems to be taking forever to move forward even a little.

The obstructionist tactics of those who oppose this great evolution in thinking are desperate and silly, and will only delay the inevitable, costing any number of avoidable costs. These changes will come, to be sure, but in the meantime, people who could benefit from them are starving and homeless, jobless and helpless.

This saddens me. God gave us a world to protect, to steward, and we have dropped the ball badly.

Footprints on Mars. Cleaner skies and water. All people living the dream of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," just as our Founders demanded, pledging their lives, sacred honor, and fortunes to achieve. Freedom meant more to them than money.

We've lost that ideal. We've lost the American dream. It's been warped into the shabby British saying, "I got mine, Jack."

That's not freedom. That's slavery. That's what conservatives want us to hold onto, to be enslaved to our wallets and bank accounts.


Read more »

Could sequestration take down Dems?

By tmcbpatriot

It's here! Doomsday! Sequestration is upon us and its going to be BAD!!!! Or not.

This whole business of spending cuts, for what it's worth, may turn out to be a while lot of nothing, and that will not bode well for Democrats. Yesterday, for example, Janet Napolitano said that sequestration was causing airport delays. Oh no! The horror! But then "the Federal Aviation Administration reported Monday there were no significant flight delays in either Los Angeles or Chicago."

Okay, well, there must be something devastating happening as a result of the sequester because Republicans are running scared...

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers, says that lawmakers should be commended for doing nothing to prevent billions of dollars in across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration.

"With the sequester, Congress made a promise to the American people to cut spending. They deserve to be congratulated for actually keeping that promise... It definitely wasn't easy given the pressure from the White House."

D'oh!

Read more »

Misogynistic Republican smear machine targets Ashley Judd over on-screen nudity and sex

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's still early, and she's not even announced she's running in the Kentucky Senate race against Mitch McConnell, and of course there's still the Democratic primary to get through even then, but that isn't stopping the Republican smear machine from targeting Ashley Judd with some brutally offensive, and misogynistic, attacks. For example (via ThinkProgress), from one of the very worst of conservative media, The Daily Caller:

We are used to knowing just about everything there is to know about serious political candidates. But will Judd be the first potential senator who has — literally — nothing left to show us? The actress has bared her breasts in several films and has had some raunchy sex scenes in others. According to MrSkin.com, which bills itself as "the largest free nude celebrity movie archive," Judd has flashed just about everything on-screen. It seems like she was particularly liberal with nudity early on in her career... Judd did a lesbian sex scene in 2002's Oscar-nominated "Frida" and has nine other films categorized as "sexy" by Mr. Skin, meaning that there is at least one racy scene in those films.

Yes, that's right, she's shown us her tits and titillated us with some steamy sex scenes, so what more could she possibly offer us? I mean, like, other than a cum-splattered 3-way with Bill Clinton and Ron Jeremy, or whatever other fantasy gets these obsessive chauvinists off.

Anyway... this fucking idiot does some online "research," finds that Judd has done some nude and sex scenes, and then dismisses her as a piece of meat.

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Can't buy me love

By Mustang Bobby 

Via The Atlantic:

Former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey revealed that the Tea Party group paid Glenn Beck about $1 million to say "nice things" about the group on his radio show, and that it got a negative return on that investment, in an interview Friday — with the liberal group Media Matters, of all places. It's the latest strange revelation in the FreedomWorks civil war. Armey reportedly tried to stage an armed coup last fall, but his reign didn't last long, and donor Richard J. Stephenson agreed to pay Armey $400,000 a year for 20 years to go away. Apparently that didn't come with a non-disparagement clause.

After the liberal magazine Mother Jones posted a copy of a FreedomWorks document about its fundraising, Armey reached out to Media Matters to explain how the group wastes money by trying to raise money through radio hosts Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Armey said FreedomWorks paid Beck $1 million to say nice things about the group to raise more cash, but Beck’s appeals raised considerably less than that.

This is comical on two levels: first, that these folks thinking that buying off Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would help their cause with anyone outside of the wingnut base, and second, that they think they know how to fix the economy by cutting back on waste, fraud, and abuse... which basically describes both Mr. Beck and Mr. Limbaugh.

The fact that it didn't work is just the icing. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Remember when Jeb Bush was a sensible, relatively moderate establishment Republican?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In what is perhaps a sign of the Republicans' times, Jeb Bush has flip-flopped on one of his signature issues, immigration, arguing now that undocumented immigrants should not be granted a pathway to citizenship:

Bush, a Spanish-speaker who's wife is Mexican-born, has long-been viewed as one of the more liberal-minded GOP leaders when in comes to immigration policy, warning Republicans for years that they oppose significant reform at their own political peril.

But in a Monday interview with NBC's "Today," Bush advocated for a system in which the millions of immigrants living in the country illegally be given the option of attaining permanent residency, but not eventual citizenship.

It's a stunning reversal, in a way, but not really. He still isn't a right-wing hardliner on immigration, and he also said that he's "optimistic that there could be a consensus about going forward on immigration," but he's also eyeing 2016 and no doubt trying to straddle the line between the somewhat moderate (but still rabidly conservative) establishment on one side of the party and the grassroots, Tea Party radical right on the other, the party mainstream shifting from the former to the latter in recent years.

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A.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "Escort says Menendez prostitution claims were made up"

(Politico): "GOP sniping over 2012 still going strong"

(Reuters): "Napolitano: Airports feel impact from spending cuts"

(Politico): "Obama job approval tumbles"

(New York Times): "U.S. disavows two recent drone strikes over Pakistan"

P.M. Headlines

(Fox News): "New Pope: Beyond the conclave, secret politics"

(Seattle Post Intelligencer): "Colorado lawmakers advance gun control bill"

(Talking Points Memo): "Jeb Bush's immigration flip flop stuns reformers"

(New York Times): "A stealth tax subsidy for business faces new scrutiny"

(The Plum Line): "Pundits blowing it on sequester debate"

Mythical government waste

By Frank Moraes 

Conservatives have a special fondness for government waste. As I pointed out leading up to the Fiscal Cliff, John Boehner seemed to think there were wasteful government programs, he just needed Obama to tell him what they were. This goes along with polls that shows that the American people want to cut government spending. But when asked about specific programs, they always want to continue funding those -- in many cases they want to increase that funding.

There is one exception. Americans want to cut foreign aid. Of course, that wouldn't do much because foreign aid is generally a bit less than 1% of the federal budget. But Americans think it is much higher. An American Public Opinion poll from two years ago found that the median American thought that foreign aid was 25% of the budget. So there you have it! In the minds of most Americans, we could balance the budget and then some (Quite some!) if we just stopped handing money out to people who hate us.

This kind of thinking is pushed by the conservative movement without actively lying. It is the reason we have Republican politicians constantly talking about "waste" without mentioning what the waste is. It is just a given that the government wastes money. When they do, they present spending on projects that sound wasteful but almost never are.

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She gives a kick

By Carl

An historic event occured over the weekend, and I'm betting you didn't even hear about it.

The NFL allowed a woman to try out for the first time in professional football. By all accounts, it did not go well:

[Lauren] Silberman kicked only twice. They were two kickoffs for a total of 30 yards. Only one crossed the midfield stripe – by a yard. After that, her day was over because she said she aggravated a quad injury she suffered in practice last week.

In the NFL, the ball is placed on the defense's 35 yard line, which means it must make it 65 yards to the other team's defensive end zone for a kicker to be considered effective. Granted, with an injury to a quad, a kicker is going to be far from effective which begs the question why not take a miss on this tryout and find a way to latch onto a team's training camp as a walk-on?

Sadly, the perception from the NFL owners and general managers will probably be more sexist than that.

Naturally, women have a hard row to hoe in making it to the major league level in professional sports. Abuot the only woman I can recall actually being on a major league roster of any kind was Manon Rheaume, who signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL and played in a couple of exhibition games before being released. She then played for the Atlanta Knights in the International Hockey League where she became the first woman to ever appear in an American professional sports league.


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