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• May 14, 2012
• 11:32

  Mitt Romney seeks 'incredibly boring white guy' for vice president

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  Aw, gee whiz, where will I ever find an incredibly boring white guy in the Republican Party? (Jim Young/Reuters)
    Remember how the whole world laughed and laughed (and laughed and then laughed some more) at just how bad John McCain's pick for vice president was? Like, if Saturday Night Live had created the character of Sarah Palin The Running Mate^TM, people would have switched off their TVs, saying, "Come on, now, that's just over the top."

  Well, here's some excellent news for John McCain: Mitt Romney is going to try like H-E-double-hockey-sticks to avoid making that historically (and comically, if you're a Democrat) bad decision. In fact, not choosing Dan Quayle in a skirt is one of the major keys to Romney's strategy, according to Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei at Politico:
  

  One Republican official familiar with the campaign’s thinking said it will be designed to produce a pick who is safe and, by design, unexciting – a deliberate anti-Palin. The prized pick, said this official: an “incredibly boring white guy.”

  It's too bad Mitt Romney can't put himself on the ticket, because he sure fits the bill perfectly. Oh well. They'll just have to find another incredibly boring white guy; in the Republican Party, this should be about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel. Some ideas so far:
  

  “If not [Sen. Rob] Portman [R-Ohio], [former Minnesota governor Tim] Pawlenty, [Indiana governor Mitch] Daniels — some other incredibly boring white guy,” the official said. “If there was a fourth name on the list, it’s [Virginia Gov.] Bob McDonnell.”

  But you lady Republicans need not apply, no matter how boring and white you are, because if there's one thing Republicans learned from the McCain debacle, it's that damn broads ruin everything. They tried the Republican Grrl Power thing once, and boy was that a disaster, so from now on, no ovaries allowed.

  Here's some more excellent news for John McCain. Team Mitt didn't just learn to avoid making McCain's mistakes when it comes to picking a vice president:
  

  Mitt Romney and his top aides are building a strategy, partly by design and partly because of circumstance, around what they consider John McCain’s disastrously run campaign in 2008.

  The strategy: whatever McCain did, do the opposite.

  Congratulations, John, you're now the the official poster child for how to fuck up a shit sandwich in the Republican Party. Romney—the guy you beat for the nomination in 2008 because he was even worse than you as a candidate—is studying you for how not to run for president. You were that bad, and Romney will be sure to be absolutely nothing like you in this election. Not that he won't gladly take your endorsement and your willingness to campaign for him, despite your quite noted disdain of him in 2008. He's not that dumb.  

  Of course, Team Mitt can try hard to not be like McCain in every way: be boring where he was spontaneous; raise a gazillion dollars, where he sucked at fundraising; try not to look like a flaming moron about the economy; try not to put a flaming moron on the ticket. But given that Mitt Romney's team is already a constant disaster machine, it seems there's one fate Romney is destined to share with McCain: losing the election to Barack Obama.

  
  

  
• 11:04

  Mitt Romney's campaign responds with unsubstantiated claims about jobs created by Bain Capital

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  Mitt Romney shows off some of the jobs cash created at Bain Capital Mitt Romney's campaign responds to the Obama campaign's new ad and website criticizing Romney's track record at Bain Capital:
  

  Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation.

  But while we can establish Romney's job creation record as governor (lackluster: jobs grew at one-quarter the national rate in Massachusetts under Romney), there's never been an authoritative accounting of his private sector record, largely because Bain fails to fully disclose all of its investments. But with Romney staking his presidential ambitions on the claim that he was a job creator at Bain, that needs to change. As Joe Conason suggests, "Let's audit that." (Mitt Romney may not welcome this audit, as he's offered wildly inconsistent estimates for the number of jobs he's created.)

  You could argue that the number of jobs created by Bain Capital isn't relevant to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. After all, Bain exists not to create jobs but to create profit. And that would be a valid point to make, but it's Mitt Romney himself who has pitched his Bain record as proof that he's a job creator. Romney hasn't staked his claim to the presidency on his record in Massachusetts: he's staked it on his record at Bain. So it's fair to hold Bain to a higher level of scrutiny than a typical company.

  But this isn't just about Mitt Romney, and as much as he wants us to forget this fact, you can't really assess President Obama's economic track record without taking into account that he took office in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The economy was literally falling off a cliff, but  we're now growing again. Since unemployment peaked at 10 percent, we've added more than 4 million private sector jobs. We've lost a half million public sector jobs during that time, but that's primarily a result of Republican obstruction of aid to state and local governments. Still, that's 3.5 million total jobs compared with less than 50,000 created in Massachusetts under Romney during a period of economic expansion.

  The bottom-line is that where numbers are available, Romney's pushback doesn't hold up. His claims about Bain are just that: claims. And we haven't even talked about the single worst aspect of Mitt Romney's economic plan: the fact that he represents a return to Bush's economic philosophy and the very same Republican trickle-down ideas that created our problems in the first place.

  
  

  
• 10:01

  Young people and Democrats continue to lead support for gay marriage in wake of Obama endorsement

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  A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds, in the wake of President Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage ... the same patterns we've seen in polling on the issue for quite some time. The overall proportion of people supporting and opposing marriage equality are consistent with polling prior to the president's announcement, and young people are considerably more supportive of marriage equality than older people, while Democrats and independents are more supportive than Republicans.

  The poll, the full details of which will be released Monday night, found that 38 percent of respondents favored legal marriage, 24 percent supported civil unions but not marriage, and around one in three were opposed to any legal recognition. The Times' Dalia Sussman notes the dramatic shift in recent years. For instance, the number supporting legal marriage is "similar to recent surveys, but up significantly from just 2 in 10 who said so in 2004."

  And, as always, the polling on this issue augurs well for the future:
  

  Age plays an important role, with younger Americans more apt to support same-sex marriage than older Americans. Political partisanship is a factor as well. A majority of Democrats and about 4 in 10 independents back same-sex marriage, while Republicans are far more likely to say there should be no legal recognition of the relationships, the poll found.

  The many states that have taken anti-marriage votes in the last several election cycles have left the younger generations with a lot to undo, but we can look at the shift in public opinion since 2004 and the age divides now and see clearly that it is going to happen eventually, and that "eventually" is a lot shorter than any of us imagined back in 2004. And while equality would come faster if Republicans would let go of their bigotry, as a partisan I can't help but be pleased to see them once again taking such a firm stand on the wrong side of history. Unless the Republican party makes a dramatic shift—one they show few signs of making—this is an issue that will be bad for them for years.

  
  

  
• 9:50

  The Austerions

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  Readers should imagine the Austerions speaking in full, booming voices, with the reverb cranked up high.

  (Click for larger image)

  Order a signed print of this cartoon from the artist

  
  

  
• 9:29

  Obama campaign hits Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital with ad, website

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  The Obama campaign's newest television ad: a two-minute spot set to air in five states highlighting Mitt Romney's record of vulture capitalism and job destruction at Bain Capital:
  

  Stylistically, the ad delivers a harsh attack with a soft touch. Gentle music plays throughout as former workers as GST Steel, an enterprise looted by Romney while he was at Bain Capital, talk about the impact his business tactics had on their lives and livelihood. The ad isn't anti-business, though critics will surely describe it as such. Rather, it argues that Romney's approach to business was uniquely destructive to the American economy, making the case that Romney sucked wealth from GST Steel until it was bone dry, lining his pockets at the expense of the workers who helped build the company.

  It is part of a larger push by the Obama campaign to focus attention on Romney's track record at Bain. Along with the ad, the campaign has launched a website, romneyeconomics.com, and a longer six-minute video featuring extended commentary from the former GST Steel workers in the ad.

  The website goes beyond the ad, highlighting Stage Stores and Dade Behring in addition to GST Steel, and places more emphasis on describing Romney's business model and track record of buying companies, loading them up with debt, and then quickly cashing out before they collapsed into bankruptcy. The website also talks about how Romney's model allowed him to make millions from taxpayers by effectively raiding funds which were subsequently bailed out by the federal government.

  Although it's early, this will be a big moment in the campaign. Romney has made his record at Bain the centerpiece of his presidential campaign—he almost never mentions his record as governor of Massachusetts. He didn't even mention it during his big speech after becoming the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, presumably because his job creation record there was abysmal. Given that Romney's entire rationale is rooted in his Bain record, it's hard to imagine him letting this attack go unchallenged. On the other hand, the last time he had to deal with Bain—when Newt Gingrich used it before the South Carolina primary—Romney's response was so hamfisted that he arguably made things worse, and Newt scored a blowout victory. So assuming Romney does respond, one thing's pretty clear: he needs a new story about Bain, and he needs it fast.

  
  

  
• 9:00

  This Week in Congress

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  Recapping Last Week in Congress

  The main events in the House last week all involved the same feat of parliamentary magic, that is, "deeming" a budget passed. We all remember how when Democrats deemed things passed, it was tantamount to treason, and derided as "Demon Pass." But hey, no biggie this time. It's just a federal budget. And a draconian one, at that, slashing things people need to live, and building more of the things that kill them. Neither of the things the House did last week were really permissible under the rules as written. Without a real budget in place—one actually adopted by both the House and the Senate—the House was technically prohibited from considering the Commerce, Justice, Space appropriations bill it passed last Thursday. Likewise, the House should not have been able to consider the reconciliation bill it passed on the same day. But in both cases, deeming a budget passed cleared the way, and the adoption of special rules waiving all points of order against the consideration of the two bills wiped out the ability of any members to point to the rules and raise an objection.

  That's just the way they roll in the House.

  On the other hand, there's the Senate, where they take the rules very seriously. Or at least gnash their teeth and rend their garments whenever they consider tinkering with them. And as a result, of course, we have weeks like this last one, during which only two votes were taken. One on a judicial nomination that was part of the 14 judge deal, and the other on a failed cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the student loan bill. Every single thing the Senate majority wanted to handle was delayed by filibusters, and the only business that moved was the non-controversial items agreed to by unanimous consent. Even the bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank that passed with over 300 votes in the House got filibustered. The entire week was wasted, leading Majority Leader Harry Reid to join the bathrobe-wearing Cheeto munchers in calling for filibuster reform, though he did so by referencing the appropriately-dressed Senators Merkley (D-OR) and Udall (D-NM), instead.

  This Week in Congress

  The House, after its usual slate of suspension bills, takes up the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization. But not the Senate-passed version. Oh, no! Can't have that! They're going to bring their own version. One that makes sure that undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse are properly screwed over, among other horrible ideas. Why do that? Believe it or not, the claim on this one is that it adds to the budget deficit, because it costs money to give abused immigrants protective visas. This sensible reform, it is hoped, will finally demonstrate that there is no Republican War on Women. How could that possibly do that, you may ask, since it would appear to demonstrate the exact opposite? Because Freedom, Liberty, America, that's how. U-S-A.

  So despite the fact that the Senate sent over a bill with strong bipartisan support (68 votes), the House will insist not only on its own version, but on sending a new bill entirely, meaning the Senate will have to go through the motions of amending it and then trying to get a conference in order to even begin negotiating a compromise bill. And that will give Senate Republicans the opportunity to... you guessed it, filibuster. But why would they do that, given the overwhelming support for their own bill? Because Freedom, Liberty, America, that's why. U-S-A. Even if they don't have the votes to actually block it, they can eat up weeks on end of Senate time making trouble.

  But back to the House for the moment, they'll also take up this year's defense authorization bill. This gives the same Republicans who just said there was no money to give abused immigrant women protective visas the opportunity to vote to increase  defense spending by nearly four billion dollars above the Pentagon's request. Why would they do that? Say it with me: Freedom, Liberty, America, that's why. U-S-A.

  What has the Senate got planned? Well, it's near impossible to plan in that body as it is, and with the constant threat of even nonsensical filibusters, it's even harder than usual. All we know for now is that Harry Reid intends to return to work on the motion to proceed to the Export-Import Bank bill, then take an afternoon detour for two judicial nominations and a cloture vote on that motion to proceed. If they can get cloture, great. Then the 30-hour clock starts counting down to a vote on the motion itself, unless they can suddenly get cooperation on a unanimous consent agreement to dispense with some or all of that time. Otherwise, it's run the clock until Wednesday, waiting to vote to end debate on whether to start debating the Export-Import Bank bill.

  Yes, the Senate needs filibuster reform. Has anyone mentioned that?

  Full floor and committee schedules are below the fold.

  
  

  
• 8:42

  Cheers and Jeers: Monday

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  From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

  A Reminder to Republicans

  As you're kickin' up your heels and dancin' in the aisles in celebration of your victory over the unwashed gay heathen last week in North Carolina, keep this in mind:

  Satan worshippers can still get married. Adulterers can still get married. Atheists can still get married. People who don't give a shit about their children's health, education or well-being can still get married. Communists can still get married. Muslims---yes, those ooogah Boogah scary MUSLIMS---can still get married.

  Ax murderers can still get married. Neo-Nazis can still get married. Crack addicts can still get married. Deadbeat dads can still get married. Americans who hate America can still get married. Americans secretly plotting terrorist acts can still get married. Child molesters can still get married. People who can't procreate can still get married. Americans and ferriners can still get married---even French and Arab ferriners!!!

  Porn addicts can still get married. Adults who chain-smoke in the car with the windows up while their children are sitting in the back seat can still get married. Prostitutes can still get married. Shoplifters can still get married. People who think the world is round can still get married. People who have married and divorced a hundred or even a thousand times can still get married. Gold Diggers can still get married. Tax cheats can still get married. Liberals can still get married and---gasp!---make BABY LIBERALS!

  And, get this: a gay man and a gay woman can still get married to each other. Which, of course, would make it a totally gay marriage. And totally legal.

  But thank God (but not Jesus, who said zilch about gay people) you've passed constitutional amendments in over 30 states designed to keep those tax-paying, time-volunteering, charity-giving, healthy-child-raising, law abiding, church-going, soccer-coaching, monogamous, committed, born-this-way gay couples from being able to go to City Hall and fill out a civil marriage form that requires no religious blessing or test what...so...ever.

  Cuz, y'know, if we let them in, who knows where it'll lead.

  Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

  
  

  
• 8:00

  Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: The DCCC takes aim at Linda Parks in CA-26

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  Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. Leading Off:

  • CA-26: The DCCC hasn't filed any independent expenditure reports in CA-26 yet, but Republican-turned-independent Linda "Rocky Road" Parks has posted copies of a flyer attacking her that lists the D-Trip as the payer. (Scroll down to no. 7 on that page. No. 8 is also allegedly from the DCCC.) This is an interesting development, because this would only be the second primary in the nation where the DCCC has openly stepped in (FL-22 being the other). (Other outside groups, though, like the House Majority PAC and EMILY's List, have already gotten involved here on behalf of Dem Assemblywoman Julia Brownley.)

  I welcome the move, though, because as you know, California no longer has proper party primaries; instead, the top-two vote-getters in June, regardless of party, advance to the November ballot. As we've mentioned repeatedly, Democrats are in danger of not having anyone to carry their banner forward in the general election because Parks and Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland could both make it to the second round, benefitting from a field that features four Dems potentially splitting the vote. That means Democrats need to tear town Parks—and bolster Brownley, unquestionably our strongest candidate. Interestingly, it looks like one of the mailers hits Parks from the left and another from the right, which seems like a clever squeeze play.

  By the way, before you decide that you could conceivably live with a Rep. Linda Parks, be aware that—just like Angus King—she's refused to say which party she'd caucus with if she's elected to Congress. Given that she was a registered Republican until just a few months ago, I don't doubt for a minute that she'd side with the GOP if it meant being in the majority. With Brownley, we know where her loyalties lie.

  
  

  
• 7:30

  Abbreviated pundit round-up: Marriage equality gets backed and shellacked

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  Visual source: Newseum

  Colbert I. King says the marriage equality isn't about what Obama said last week even though much of the media and almost everybody else has made it about him:

  Think about it this way: If school desegregation amendments had been placed on state ballots in the 1950s, “separate but equal” might still be the law of the land in the South. Fortunately, state-sponsored segregation was not put to a popular vote. That question went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The nine justices unanimously, and rightly, decided in 1954 that state laws creating separate schools for white children and black children were unconstitutional.

  The case for same-sex unions also belongs in the courts, not the polling place.

  Steve Chapman:

  President Barack Obama's critics have a point in criticizing his handling of the gay marriage issue as evasive, politically devious and lacking in principle. I hate to say it, but it's bad enough to qualify as Lincolnesque.

  Abraham Lincoln is remembered today for freeing the slaves. But he didn't start out with that policy, and he didn't get there quickly. He reached his ultimate position only by slowly and painfully "evolving" — while blacks waited and suffered in bondage.

  Michael Gerson:

  It is a group in which Obama still has broad support, but no longer inspires as he once did. "The Obama generation," says Brookings scholar William Galston, "lasted about five years." Those ages 18 to 24 are less enthusiastic about Obama than those ages 25 to 29. Since 2008, political engagement among millennials has weakened, cynicism toward government officials has increased and skepticism about the value of political involvement has gone up.

  Obama's gay-marriage shift is not likely to change this dramatically. In a recent survey by Harvard's Institute on Politics, 58 percent of millennials cited jobs and the economy as their issue of top concern. No other topic broke single digits, and cultural issues appeared hardly at all.

  But looking beyond a single election, it is undeniable that America is in the midst of a large, consequential shift in the attitudes of the rising generation.

  Surveying the wreckage from JPMorgan's announced losses of $2 billion, Paul Krugman thanks CEO Jamie Dimon for a reminder:

  Just to be clear, businessmen are human — although the lords of finance have a tendency to forget that — and they make money-losing mistakes all the time. That in itself is no reason for the government to get involved. But banks are special, because the risks they take are borne, in large part, by taxpayers and the economy as a whole. And what JPMorgan has just demonstrated is that even supposedly smart bankers must be sharply limited in the kinds of risk they’re allowed to take on.

  Why, exactly, are banks special? Because history tells us that banking is and always has been subject to occasional destructive “panics,” which can wreak havoc with the economy as a whole. Current right-wing mythology has it that bad banking is always the result of government intervention, whether from the Federal Reserve or meddling liberals in Congress. In fact, however, Gilded Age America — a land with minimal government and no Fed — was subject to panics roughly once every six years. And some of these panics inflicted major economic losses. [...]

  Just trust us, the JPMorgan chief has in effect been saying; everything’s under control.

  Apparently not.

  The New York Times editorial board weighs in on the city's policy that has cops stopping and frisking" young black and Latino men at rates far in excess of their numbers in the population:
  

  The data also show that the police are significantly more likely to use force when they stop blacks and Hispanics than when they stop whites. This means minority targets are more likely to be slammed against walls or spread-eagled while officers go through their belongings. Even when victims are unhurt, they are likely to develop a deep and abiding distrust of law enforcement.

  For all this, only about 6 percent of stops lead to arrests.

  Richard M. Daley and Bruce Katz:

  Perhaps the only silver lining to the Great Recession is that it triggered a new focus on manufacturing in the United States. After 25 years of being sold a shiny vision of a service-dominated post-industrial economy, the U.S. is rediscovering how important it is to actually make things in order to spur innovation, raise wages, drive exports and lower the trade deficit.

  Eli Hager:

  In our national conversation about race and other forms of inequality, presidential candidates and the media have fostered a consensus that the civil rights movement is finished. [...]

  I teach eighth grade in the Mississippi Delta — 20 minutes from the town where Emmett Till was murdered and an hour from where James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered a decade later — and I disagree. In fact, my students attend schools that are still fundamentally separate and unequal. The Delta is half black and half white, yet the public schools here that are “failing” and “at risk of failing” are 95 percent black, according to data compiled by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Its white academies are just that: purposely all-white, prestigious and successful.

  Rebecca Traister:

  The image of the feminist as a mirthless, hirsute, sex-averse succubus is a friendly-fire casualty of the Republican “war on women.” It’s a grave loss to conservatives, who have used this faithful foot soldier as a comfortably grotesque stand-in for the real people whose liberties they have sought to conscribe: women.
  

  Doyle McManus takes on campaign advertising from independent committees who don't have to disclose the names of their donors:

  ... when a candidate's campaign makes a spurious charge, voters can call him on it. When an independent committee makes a spurious charge, who you gonna call?

  Ken Blackwell really streeeeeeeetches when he stretches:

  Benjamin Netanyahu is not half American, as Churchill was. But he did graduate from an American high school. And he does speak English, they say, "with a Philadelphia accent." Americans understand that freedom is not free. We have always been willing to fight for our liberty. That's what the Liberty Bell stands for. If he strikes Iran's nuclear program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will strike a blow for our liberty, too.

  Robert Fisk has lost his patience with politicians' "codswallop" about "not standing idly by."

  
  

  
• May 13, 2012
• 23:30

  Open thread for night owls: Introducing the Toolitzers

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  All hail the arrival of the Toolitzer.  

  Over at Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell has announced a new writing award for book authors like Jonah Goldberg (who was just nailed for claiming he once part of that small, elite group of people who have been nominated for a Pulitzer prize — two in his case, he said — when, in fact, he was just one of thousands of applicants, and one can apply on his or her own). Farrell:
   

  A few weeks ago, I got an email from a publicist at Penguin Books:
  

  In 2008, columnist Jonah Goldberg triggered a firestorm of controversy with his first book, LIBERAL FASCISM, a #1 New York Times bestseller. Now, he’s about to unleash another bold, funny, and thoughtful argument in his new book, THE TYRANNY OF CLICHÉS: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (Sentinel, May 1). … Please let me know if you’d like a copy of THE TYRANNY OF CLICHÉS.

  I responded by saying that I was grateful for the offer, but that I’d rather slice my eyeballs open with a rusty can-opener. I also gave them permission to use this quote as a back-cover blurb if they liked. They never got back to me (I thought it was at least as good as Brad Thor’s “In the P.C. prison yard of accepted political thought, Jonah Goldberg has just shivved progressivism,” but I’m probably just biased). Now, fate has given me (and Penguin Books) a second chance.
  

  On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.” In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a Pulitzer nominee, but merely one of thousands of entrants. … His publisher, Penguin Group (USA), said the error was unintentional and it would remove the Pulitzer word from his book jacket when it’s time for the first reprint, “just like any other innocent mistake brought to our attention.”

  Henry Farrell, creator of the Toolitzer
  (Photo by Patrick Nielsen Hayden) It’s time to fill that gap on the back cover of the first reprint. So let me simultaneously (a) announce the creation of the Toolitzer Prizes, with myself as sole judge and executive chairman of the nominating committee, and (b) nominate The Tyranny of Cliches, and (retroactively), Liberal Fascism for the award, so that our Jonah will have two new nominations to take the place of the old ones. Should the necessary conditions of the competition be fulfilled (see below), the prize will be awarded to the book with the most serious, thoughtful, argument that has never before been made in such detail or with such care. Of course, deciding this would actually require me to read the books: hence the nomination process will have two steps.

  If readers want to simply nominate books, they may do so by simply leaving a comment to this post, describing the book, and making a brief statement about its merits for the award. Books so nominated will have full and explicit permission to describe themselves as Toolitzer nominees in publicity materials, on the author’s website and so on, regardless of whether an actual award is made in the calendar year 2012.

  If readers actually want an award to be made, they will need to both nominate a book and provide evidence of having made a minimum $500 donation in honor of the award to an organization which, in the opinion of the executive chairman, exemplifies the ideals of Liberal Fascism (examples might include The Baffler, Planned Parenthood, The American Prospect etc). Should readers so do, the sole judge will undertake to read the nominated book (as long as it is under 600 pages), and write a detailed blogpost evaluating its worthiness for the award (the sole judge quietly and selfishly hopes that no-one actually takes this second step, but will take his lumps if someone does).

  Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:
  

  Looking at the front page today, you can see we have spent a bit of time on the GOP Smear of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. The brouhaha is supposed to be about the FBI file of Bush judicial nominee Henry Saad.

  The Thief is Manuel Miranda, who earned his exalted place in the GOP pantheon by  stealing Democratic files while he was working for Bill "Nuclear Option" Frist. He now leads the Extreme Right's fight for Frist's Nuclear Option. A commitment to "ethics," the hallmark of the GOP.

  The Hack is Charles Hurt, Moonie Times "reporter" and stenographer for the Thief, who seems to have forgotten he wrote about Saad's FBI file one year ago. Now which GOP Senator do you suppose was Hurt's source on that one?

  The Shills are the usual suspects, the Right Wing blogs and the rest of the Republican Smear Machine. One fellow stands out though — the foolish Byron York

  Tweet of the Day:
  

  Klein has a bull shit book to sell saying Oprah and First Lady had bitter fight....spare us....we have Drudge for that...and its Free
  — @JeffersonObama via TweetDeck
  

  High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

  
  

  
• 22:00

  California elections: What to watch for

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  California voters could shape the nation. In California, the 2012 election cycle will be one of the most watched, hyped and over-analyzed ever, but not for the usual reasons.

  Compared to the 2010 election cycle, California would not appear to figure prominently in terms of national interest: After all, there will be no hotly contested presidential primary, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein is so invulnerable that the best known Republican who dared to file against her is Orly Taitz. Even so, many eyes will be on California this June—not only because California could be the key to a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, but also because how California voters respond to recent changes in election law could be the factor for whether such attempts at reform succeed or fail in other states.

  Two recent major changes to California's elections have shaken up the way the state's politicians and candidates usually do business. Traditionally, the Democratic-controlled legislature had the power to draw new decennial legislative and congressional boundaries after every census. This process ensured that Democratic incumbents would, for the most part, have safe districts to run in, with the districts that were drawn to be Republican ending up competitive once in a blue moon, depending on demographic shifts and voter attitudes. In 2008, however, voters passed Proposition 11 by less than two percentage points. This measure took the power to draw legislative districts out of the hands of the legislature, and put it in the hands of an independent redistricting commission (a later measure expanded the mandate of this commission to redraw congressional district lines as well). In drawing its final maps, the commissioners are not allowed to consider party affiliation or the residence locations of individual legislators.

  For a variety of reasons, the new configurations promise better results for Democrats overall, especially in races for Congress and the state Senate: Even though the partisan advantages are not as strong, there are more seats that Democrats should win. The wrinkle, however, comes in the fact that unlike redistricting jobs done by the legislature, the redistricting commission designed maps that did not take incumbents' residency into consideration. In some cases, more than one incumbent was drawn into the same district, forcing some to either scramble for new districts, or run against each other.

  But that's not the only wrinkle. In 2010, the state's voters also passed Proposition 14, which abolished partisan primaries in favor of a so-called "top two" primary in which all candidates from all parties appear on the primary ballot and declare their party preference, or no preference at all. The only reason Proposition 14 made it onto the ballot at all was because of our former state Sen. and Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. During his time in the state Senate, Mr. Maldonado, who realized that he would likely never win a Republican primary in the state because of Republican racism, was the one Republican vote Democrats were targeting in order to meet the requisite two-thirds vote to pass a budget. In exchange for his "aye" vote, a deal was struck to put Proposition 14 on the ballot.

  The theory behind Proposition 14 was that since candidates are now required to appeal to all voters in the primary as opposed to merely the ones in their own party, moderates and centrists will do better. But the most tangible effect could be very negative for Democrats. Because the top two candidates advance to the general election regardless of party, hotly contested Democratic districts could face a situation where two popular Democrats advance to the general election and are forced to fight through November what in normal circumstances would have been resolved in June.

  Combine the first go-around with the top-two primary and all-new districts, and it adds up to a very unpredictable election. With that in mind, here are some races to watch on June 5th, as well as some potential implications.

  • Democratic congressional pickups: If Democrats are going to have any chance at retaking the House of Representatives, they will need to clean house in California. While redistricting has made certain Republican incumbents more vulnerable, the key opportunities are in the open seats. The more traditional race is occurring in the 41st district, centered around Riverside County in the southeast part of the state. Situations arising from redistricting forced long-term Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis to retire, leaving an open, Democratic-leaning district. The top Democrat is openly gay community college board member Mark Takano, who will likely be facing off against Republican John Tavaglione. A strong performance by Takano in the primary would bode well for his chances in November.

    Further to the northwest, Republican Congressman Elton Gallegly's 24th District, centered around coastal Ventura County, was redrawn to lean Democratic. This prompted Gallegly to retire, leaving the seat (numbered the 26th) open. Unlike the 41st, however, the dynamics of this race are more complicated. The leading Democrat is progressive Assemblymember Julia Brownley, who will be opposed by conservative Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland. The wild card in the race, however, is Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks. Formerly a moderate Republican who received bitter challenges for her seat from Tony's wife Audra, Parks recently left the Republican Party and is running for Congress under the banner of "no party preference" (while making the weirdest ad so far this cycle). This is exactly the situation proponents of Proposition 14 had in mind: Will the avowedly centrist and non-partisan campaign of Linda Parks propel her into the top two, or will Brownley and Strickland face off against each other in a more traditional matchup?

    Among challenges to incumbents, perhaps the top race will be in the 7th District, where Dr. Ami Bera will be issuing his third straight solid challenge to Republican Dan Lungren—but this time, on more favorable turf.

  • Clash of the titans: No matter what, two Democratic incumbents will lose their seats in November, but not because of Republicans. Rather, in two Los Angeles area Congressional Districts, two Democratic members of Congress will be squaring off against each other. By far the higher-profile battle is occurring in Congressional District 30 in the San Fernando Valley (yes, that valley) between powerful Congressman Howard Berman, ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and follow valley Congressman Brad Sherman. This race is pitting friends against friends in Democratic activist circles, and is a contrast in styles: Sherman is well-known personally in the district and is banking on support from grassroots Democratic activists, while Berman is campaigning on his history of accomplishments in Washington. Interestingly, Berman's allies are also taking advantage of the top-two primary system by courting Republican votes: An allied SuperPAC is running ads touting an endorsement from arch-conservative Darrell Issa. Both campaigns are extremely well funded, and are likely to emerge as the top two finishers and advance to the November primary; but who finishes in first will be a good test as to whether voters prefer grassroots endorsements or more institutional support.

    Meanwhile, in the 44th Congressional District in South Los Angeles, freshman Congresswoman Janice Hahn, who first won a seat in the special election to replace Jane Harman after her retirement from the 36th District, will face off against Congresswoman Laura Richardson. There are unavoidable racial dynamics in this district: It is a majority African-American district, but Janice Hahn, who is white, used to represent a substantial part of it on the Los Angeles City Council and remains popular here. Hahn won the overwhelming endorsement of the California Democratic Party over Richardson, who has been under a constant cloud of ethics violations for some time. This one could get ugly: Richardson has shown that she is not above using identity politics to win a seat. Whether that will work against Janice Hahn remains to be seen.

  • Winning the Senate: Democrats are just shy of winning the two-thirds majority necessary to pass whatever they want in the state Senate (according to our constitution, a two-thirds supermajority is required to pass anything that raises revenues). In order to do that, though, they absolutely must have a solid Democratic vote in the 19th Senate District, but that might be easier said than done. This is another race where the top-two primary could have a significant effect. The endorsed candidate of the Democratic Party is Hannah-Beth Jackson, a progressive former Assemblymember who nearly beat current state Sen. Tony Strickland (who is now running for Congress) back in 2008, but fell a few hundred votes short. On the Republican side, she is opposed by Mike Stoker, who ran unsuccessfully for Assembly in 2010. The widespread expectation is that whichever Democrat makes the general election will defeat Stoker in November. That makes it important to have the right Democrat. Unfortunately, there's another Democrat, Jason Hodge, who is trying to use the top-two primary to his advantage. He is running to the right of Jackson, labeling himself as the "Democrat who doesn't think you need higher taxes" and undermining the Democratic Party as it unites behind a crucial revenue measure destined for the November ballot. In apparent appreciation, conservative interests are running mailers supporting Hodge, apparently realizing that Stoker has no chance and that a Hodge victory is the best way to advance their agenda. While a Democrat will win this seat regardless, which Democrat it is could make a huge difference as to whether progressive legislation advances through the state Senate.
  • Significant Assembly races:

    There's an outside chance that Democrats could achieve a two-thirds threshold in the state Assembly as well, but everything would have to go right. The main priority for Democrats is in the newly created 66th District, which encompasses the so-called South Bay in the greater Los Angeles area. This is a very swingy district with a marginal Democratic registration advantage. The leading Democrat in this race, Al Muratsuchi, is being opposed by two tea party Republicans, including Craig Huey. For those unfamiliar with Craig Huey, he ran unsuccessfully against now-Congresswoman Janice Hahn in the aforementioned special election, and his allies are responsible for what could be considered the most racist, sexist and generally reprehensible campaign ad of all time.

    But the Assembly race that many locals are observing more than any other is a Democratic dogfight in Assembly District 50. This deep blue seat in West Los Angeles and Malibu is expected to be a battle royale between current Assemblymember Betsy Butler and longtime progressive activist Torie Osborn. Butler represents much of the turf that is now in the aforementioned district 66; however, her residence was redistricted into a third district that already contained a sitting Assemblymember who represented a much larger portion of their mutual district. Rather than face a more difficult fight in the 66th, Butler chose to move to the new 50th District, even though she only represents about one percent of it currently. Problem? Torie Osborn, who is a legend in the LGBT and social justice movements, had been running for whichever seat emerged for that region for a long time, and had already garnered a broad fundraising base and important local endorsements. What has followed is a classic "activists versus institutions" slugfest that is straining friendships and dividing traditional allies. While Butler has the official support of the California Democratic Party, Osborn has gained the support of nearly every single local Democratic club in the district. Local progressives are hoping to propel Osborn to victory to have a progressive activist who is unafraid to challenge the orthodoxy, while Butler has raised a large portion of her money from fellow politicians in Sacramento. There is a third Democrat running who is going to gain some support, as well as one Republican. While the ideal outcome of this race in June from a generic Democratic perspective would be to have the three Democrats split the vote in such a way that the lone Republican advances to the runoff in this deep blue seat, the likelihood is that Butler and Osborn will advance to the general election and slug this out through November. Who wins this could have significant ramifications on future candidacies in redistricting years: If Osborn is able to take this seat despite the full power of Sacramento supporting Butler, it might provide impetus for other challengers to buck the system in redistricting years. But if Butler is able to move into a district she doesn't represent and have Sacramento money and endorsements carry her to victory over a powerful candidate like Osborn, it might similarly dissuade others from making such challenges in the future. Therefore, while most other people might be wondering what the big deal is, the results of this race will resonate deeply within the halls of power here in California.

  These are just some of the things to watch for as the California returns come in on June 5th. How will it end up? Stay tuned. On June 10th, I'll analyze the carnage—live from Netroots Nation in Providence, Rhode Island.

  DISCLOSURE: I have endorsed both Brad Sherman and Janice Hahn. In addition to endorsing Torie Osborn, I have also volunteered extensively for her campaign.

  
  

  
• 20:00

  The states to watch on Election Night 2012: Six months to go

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Pennsylvania: From 1st place to 4th Place
  Who is the new #1?!

  For regular readers of these descents into electoral junkie-dom on Sunday Kos, they will note that this is the third installment in a series to determine, somewhat subjectively, what states will be the ones to grab the lion's share of the attention come November. It all started in the summer of 2011, here on Sunday Kos, when I attempted to quantify the level of interest we could expect in the 2012 elections for each state. The top three states were largely where you would expect: Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. But Montana cracked the top 10, as well.

  Clearly a lot was going to change as time went on. The redistricting process would play itself out, Senate and gubernatorial elections would have been firmed up, and the race for the White House started to create a more coherent electoral map. Thus, the top 10 states for round #2 of this exercise varied by quite a bit. Montana ceded its spot in the top 10, and California shot up into the top three on the strength of a dozen competitive House races.

  So, now, with the clock now tricking down within six months of Election Day, it is time again to revisit the top 10, which has again changed quite substantially.

  Before we head through the top 10, however, let's reset the criteria, which has changed a bit courtesy of (yay!) the inclusion of our own race ratings in the downballot races (ratings you can find here):
  

  1. THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
  As always happens, we can expect Barack Obama's re-election to consume the lion's share of the oxygen in this campaign cycle. So, it is weighted the heaviest. Each state's competitiveness was measured by race ratings offered by Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg (since we have not yet constructed our own presidential race ratings here at Daily Kos Elections). Eight points are awarded for a toss-up, four points for a state described as leaning to one party or the other, two points for a state described as likely to be one party or the other, and one point for a state described as a safe win. The average rating will then be multiplied by a factor related to the state's electoral votes. States with 3-9 electoral votes are multiplied by one, states with 10-19 electoral votes are multiplied by two, and so on.

  2. THE RACE FOR THE U.S. SENATE
  With Senate control potentially at a knife's edge, the upper chamber in Congress will deservedly get a lot of attention. Thus, our own race ratings here at Daily Kos Elections were used to determine how close each Senate race should be followed. Once again, if a race is defined as a toss-up, it will be worth eight points. If a race is defined as "leaning" to a party (even if it is not the incumbent party), it will be worth four points. A race defined as "likely" to go to a certain party gets two points. A "safe" seats gets a single point. Thus, if a state has a "Leans Democratic" Senate race, its rating for the Senate would add up to four points.

  3. THE RACE FOR THE U.S. HOUSE
  Count me among those who think House control could also be very easily at a knife's edge. Because it is possible for one state to have multiple races in the mix, the point values here will dissipate a bit: four points for a toss-up, two points for a leaner, and one point for a "likely" rating. The cumulative total for all of a state's races will be factored in, meaning one state could generate well over four points (indeed, the national leader, California, tallied 33 points in the House alone).

  4. THE RACE FOR THE STATEHOUSE
  For now, this will mean just the gubernatorial races ... For the sake of simplicity, let's offer up the same point values as the Senate races.

  With the criteria set, head beneath the fold to find out who makes the top 10. There are two entries in the top 10, and one of them makes its debut, as it happens, in the top five.

  
  

  
• 18:00

  Occupy and the Constitution, Part 2

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  

  OWS is a critique of the system of American democracy and how the engines and devices of American democracy have been perverted for the benefit of the 1 percent and to the disadvantage of the 99 percent. This critique is clearly about the Constitution. And if we look at the text of the Constitution, we will see why that is so.

  The American Constitution is the framework for a democratic republic. A democratic republic, in turn, is system of government that is designed to be responsive to the people of the United States as a whole, and not to the wealthiest 1 percent.

  [...] A broken government, unresponsive to the public, is more than a misfortune. It is a violation of our basic charter-- our Constitution.  - Jack Balkin

  Part 2 of 2. (Here is Part 1.)

  As Occupy continues to march forward, it is important that we try to understand the role the Constitution, and the interpretation of it, will necessarily play in the articulation, execution and achievement of Occupy and progressive objectives. In the Jack Balkin article I excerpted above, I think he really gets to the heart of the Constitutional matter regarding what Occupy is about. In this piece, I will discuss two theories of constitutional interpretation that I believe are relevant to how Occupy approaches the Constitutional questions that its objectives raise.

  I've written before (see, for example, Prof. Jack Balkin on Living Originalism and the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act) and I attended a conference at Yale discussing the ideas in Balkin's book, Living Originalism. These writings and the conference got me to thinking about how to impart the critical importance of these issues to fellow progressives. My article last week and what follows is my meager attempt to do so.

  Last week I concentrated on Professor Sanford Levinson's idea of a constitutional convention. This week, I turn to the related but somewhat competing ideas of Yale Law professors Balkin and Bruce Ackerman. Ackerman's theory posits the idea of "Constitutional Moments." In a review of Ackerman's 1991 book on this theme, WE THE PEOPLE: FOUNDATIONS, Cristy Scott described it thusly:
  

  Ackerman postulates a constitutional structure that grants the Supreme Court the role of preserving law created by the People during highly energized moments of collective political activity. During these periods of extraordinary political mobilization, the People clearly express their wishes concerning issues of higher law. As the energy and collectivity of the populace fades and we return to "politics as usual," the Supreme Court must modify its constitutional adjudication to account for the law created during this constitutional moment, and the Court actively must protect this new constitutional law from erosion or violation. Because of this two-tiered lawmaking structure, consisting of "constitutional moments" and "politics as usual," Ackerman calls the American system a "dualist democracy."

   

  In June, the Roberts Court will hand down its decision regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate. Depending on the reasoning followed, this could be the most significant decision regarding our system of government since 1937, when the New Deal style national government became "constitutionalized." What can it mean for progressives generally and Occupy specifically? I'll explore that and how the theories expounded by Professors Ackerman and Balkin provide ways of thinking, not only about the ACA decision, but the Constitution itself, in a manner which may lead to smart strategic activism by progressives and Occupy. A discussion on these themes will occur on the flip.

  (Continue reading below the fold)  

  
  

  
• 16:00

  Title IX turns 40

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Paige Sultzbach, Arizona High School State champion second-base woman Meet Paige Sultzbach, the face of Title IX in 2012, 40 years after the landmark legislation, the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, passed.
  

  “I just joined baseball because the school does not offer high school softball so I decided why not,” said Paige Sultzbach. “The boys have always been supportive, like my big brothers.”

  It wouldn't have been a story at all, but for the fact that Sultzbach and her teammates reached the state championship and their would-be opponents, the private Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, decided to forfeit the game rather than share a playing field with a female. Officially, the school said "As a Catholic school we promote the ideal of forming and educating boys and girls separately during the adolescent years especially in physical education.”

  It's a testament to the success of Title IX that the remarkable part of this story isn't that Sultzbach tried out for and landed a starting position on her school's baseball team. That's not newsworthy anymore. No, the part that made news is that there's still a school administration out there in 21st century America that has a problem with that. The fact that it's news is progress.
  

  No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...
  —Title 20 U.S.C. Sections 1681-1688

  Title IX wasn't just intended to provide girls and women the opportunity to play sports in public education, but to make sure boys and girls had equal access to every learning opportunity, to get girls out of the home ec class and into shop, and vice versa for boys. By the time I was in high school, just in the decade following Title IX, home ec didn't exist anymore; we had co-ed "life skills" courses in which everyone learned the basics of feeding themselves, balancing a checkbook, running a household independently. Shop was still shop, but less segregated by sex than by the fact, at my school at least, that it wasn't a particularly "cool" elective.

  The advances by women academically in the post Title IX America has been exceptional. In 1976, women were just 48 percent of enrolled undergraduate students. By 1996, they comprised the majority, at 56 percent. In the following decade women earned around 62 percent of the associate's degrees awarded, and around 57 percent of bachelor's degrees. The achievements for minority women are particularly remarkable.
  

  For nearly all levels of degrees within different race/ethnic groups, women earned the majority of degrees in 2008–09. For example, Black females earned 68 percent of associate's degrees, 66 percent of bachelor's degrees, 72 percent of master's degrees, 62 percent of first-professional degrees, and 67 percent of doctoral degrees awarded to Black students. Hispanic females earned 62 percent of associate's degrees, 61 percent of bachelor's degrees, 64 percent of master's degrees, 53 percent of first-professional degrees, and 57 percent of doctoral degrees awarded to Hispanic students.

  Members of the "Original Nine" professional
  tennis players who formed a new tennis tour.
  Back row (L-R): Valerie Ziegenfuss, Billie Jean King,
  Nancy Richey,Jane "Peaches" Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon.
  Front row (L-R): Judy Tegart Dalton,
  Kerry Melville Reid,Rosemary "Rosie" Casals
  and Gladys Heldman, mother of Julie Heldman.
  Julie Heldman sat at the same spot occupied
  by her mother 40 years ago in the bottom picture. But it's for opening up athletic opportunities for girls that Title IX's 40th anniversary is most celebrated.
  

  "In the '70s we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. [...] We had to make it OK for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports."
  —Billie Jean King

  What Title IX has done is pretty damned remarkable, from girls' sports programs at every level of education to the establishment of professional athletic leagues for women. We have a whole new set of heroes for all sports fans, documented in this fantastic gallery from Sports Illustrated, the "Top 40 Athletes of the Title IX Era." A trajectory from Billie Jean King to Mary Decker Slaney to Mia Hamm to Maya Moore has redefined athletic achievement and blown apart preconceptions of what "athlete" means.

  It's not just the athletes, either. You won't get a lot of argument if you say Pat Summitt, Tennessee's women's basketball coach, was in the top five, if not top two, college basketball coaches—men's or women's—of the Title IX era. After eight national titles and a 1,098-208 record, Summitt announced her retirement last month, less than a year after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Her record is burnished by the fact that every woman who completed her eligibility playing for the Lady Vols under Summitt graduated.

  But it's changed the world too for all of us not-so-athletic types, or at least the ones not really good enough to compete, like self-proclaimed "everyday athlete" Risa Isard.
  

  Growing up, I wasn't an elite athlete, but I had passion to spare. I ran, jumped, threw and kicked on a daily basis, and eventually I found my calling in high school track and cross country. I was good (I earned seven varsity letters), but not good enough for the next level. [...]

  Being an athlete is a source of confidence and empowerment and provides women like myself with a positive image of our bodies. It's hard to feel badly about yourself after a five-mile run, even if you end up short of your target time and panting at the finish. It's hard to feel as if there is an obstacle out of your reach after running mile repeats in blistering heat. It's hard to feel alone when you are surrounded by teammates and connected to every other female athlete in an invisible, but powerful, way.

  And that's why Title IX didn't just change the law. It changed the culture. It created a life for me that made it OK to play sports and to race my heart out during gym class. Most important, it gave rise to teams that helped girls like me to find ourselves.

  My only real athletic achievement was becoming a proficient horsewoman in my pre-teens. I don't like running, suck at tennis, am worse at golf, won't drown in a pool, and am a great shot in basketball, but am not coordinated enough to do a lay-up or really anything else on the floor. But I can ride, and as a child, being able to work with a 1,500-pound animal, being able to get it to do what I wanted it to with grace and skill was phenomenally confidence building. For all the girls who aren't lucky enough to grow up on a cattle ranch with horses at their disposal, organized sports provide that kind of experience—the experience that turned a generation of girls into confident, capable women.

  We need every one of them. Because the fight for educational equality is not over, far from it. Girls and women in plenty of schools still don't have the same access to resources and opportunities as boys. In 2011, schools provided 1.3 million fewer chances for girls to play sports in high school as compared to boys. As in every area of life, women still have to sue to get full access to the benefits they are supposed to be provided under the law.

  But here's the good news: 40 years of Title IX has created a lot of strong, competitive women who will gladly take on that fight.

  
  

  
• 15:00

  Midday open thread

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Happy Mother's Day, Mom-in-Chief! (Mike Brand/Creative Commons)

  What a week! President Obama's endorsement of marriage equality was the best news all year, without question. I believe his change of heart was sincere and announcing it in an election year was an act of pure political courage. BRAVO, Mr. President!

  • As for Mitt Romney, however, a profile in cowardice:
    

    Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, told TheDC that she believe that once the campaign realizes the connection they will not go through with the fundraiser.

    "I would be shocked if, after they are aware of the fact that this guy is the chairman of Teva Pharmaceuticals, that they go forward with this fundraiser,” Nance said.. Nance further said that she would strongly urge the campaign to cancel the event “because it is dirty money,” adding that she will be “sorely disappointed” and “question if Gov. Romney has a clear understanding of what it means to be pro-life” if they go through with it.

    Romney's campaign response? Silence.

    So, Mitt Romney's perfectly happy to trample all over women's rights when he wants the votes of the anti-choice crowd. But the CEOs who profit from contraception? Perfectly okay to take their money. Silently.
    
  • It looks like the Beltway media is finally starting to understand what a sham "bipartisanship" is, courtesy of an honest quote from GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock:
    

    Mr. Mourdock, for his part, described bipartisanship as follows: “I have a mind-set that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”

    ...

    There is plenty wrong with the Democratic Party, but monolithic adherence to liberal orthodoxy is not one of them. On the contrary the old Will Rogers joke “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat,” still resonates. Just for example, thirty-four House Democrats voted against the Democratic president’s signature health care legislation. The far left is not dominating the political debate in the slightest; it hardly has a voice at all. What passes as American liberalism today is awfully similar to the Republican platform of the Eisenhower area (something Rachel Maddow has noted.)

    Well, finally somebody in the traditional media has caught up to what we have been saying for years. Bipartisanship isn't the two parties negotiating in good faith. Bipartisanship is when Democrats cave in to whatever Republicans want. Has been for a long time.
    
  • Romney and Santorum deserve each other.
  • Would the Volker Rule have prevented JP Morgan from blowing $2 billion on derivatives?
  • Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid comes to his senses:
    

    “If there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight,” Reid said on the floor. “These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us, anyway. What a shame.”

    Who could have ever predicted? We did! The time to understand that the Senate is a broken institution was many years ago. Reforming the filibuster should have been priority #1 in early 2009. And in early 2011. And in early 2013. No matter who wins a majority, that majority should rule. The federal government cannot continue to be essentially dysfunctional because of an extra-constitutional and archaic Senate rule. If the voters don't like the majority, they can sort it out at the ballot box.
    
  • A Florida mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing warning shots at her abusive husband. A protective order was in place against him. Just contrast that with how George Zimmerman was treated after killing someone. I guess in Florida, standing your ground doesn't apply to women who are victims of domestic violence. She's black and a woman, which explains everything.
  • Betty White endorses Obama. Game over. Because Betty White is awesome.

  Happy Mother's Day!

  
  

  
• 13:00

  President Obama lays down the gauntlet on marriage equality

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Official portrait of President Obama There has been much discussion about the timing of President Obama's announced support for marriage equality, particularly that it came just after North Carolina voters approved an amendment that encoded homophobic bigotry into their state constitution. Some say the president could have made the difference by making his announcement before the vote, and while there is no evidence that even intensive active campaigning against the amendment by the president would have had any impact on the outcome, it certainly couldn't have hurt. Meanwhile, organizations of gay Republicans scoffed at the president by pointing to Dick Cheney's having come out in support of marriage equality as far back as 2009. Gay Republicans ignore the timing of Dick Cheney's announcement, which came after Dick Cheney had left political office, after Dick Cheney's political career had ended, and after Dick Cheney's approval rating had so circled the toilet bowl as to render anything said by Dick Cheney politically irrelevant. But the psychology and political rationalizations of people who are members of a political party that loathes them and actively attempts to deny them what rights they do have is beyond fathoming.

  Unlike whatever Dick Cheney says about anything, the words and acts of a sitting president are relevant. A sitting president coming out in favor of marriage equality is, in fact, paradigmatic. The degree of that paradigm shift is underscored by the simple recollection that the last Democratic president instituted the homophobic and inaccurately titled Don't Ask Don't Tell and signed into law the homophobic and Orwellian titled Defense Of Marriage Act. It's fair to criticize President Obama for his opinion's "evolution" on rights that should need none, just as it's fair to criticize President Clinton for not having stood up to the homophobia of his era. Both presidents engaged in cynical political calculations, but that's not exactly unusual or unexpected. Both presidents are politicians.

  Politicians engage in cynical political calculations in direct proportion to their legitimate expectations of ever being elected president. Call that Laurence's First Law of Presidential Politics. But what is significant is that President Obama now is making a very different political calculation. That his political calculation includes recognition that the polls have moved steadily and increasingly decisively in the direction of a public desire for marriage equality in no way diminishes the importance of what he has done. He is the first president ever to support marriage equality. There will be more, although no thinking person can expect any Republican presidential nominee to offer such support any time in the even distantly foreseeable future, but President Obama was the first. He deserves credit.

  As for the timing of the announcement, while we can debate whether it would have made a difference if it had come before the North Carolina vote, it's also worth considering the political impact of its coming after that vote. Because the impact now may be even greater. The impact now should be national. The Democratic National Convention that will renominate President Obama will be held this summer in Charlotte, North Carolina. North Carolina is a critical swing state on which President Obama is relying for Electoral College help with his reelection. And the day after a state that is critical to his reelection encoded in its constitution homophobic bigotry, President Obama overtly challenged and criticized that vote by becoming the first president ever to declare public support for marriage equality. This was not riding the polling tide, it was bucking it. It was laying down a gauntlet. It was guaranteeing that marriage equality will be one of the defining issues of the Democratic National Convention. It was guaranteeing that marriage equality will be one of the defining issues of this election. Particularly and specifically in a swing state which the president likely will need to win in order to be reelected.

  President Obama is nothing if not a shrewd political strategist, and he has made the conscious political calculation that marriage equality will be one of the defining features of what likely will be his last political campaign. From a president who often is rightly criticized by the more liberal activists in his own party, this cannot be written off as timid or centrist or detached or unwilling to engage. The overall public supports marriage equality, but in much of the country the politics remain complicated and dangerous. President Obama isn't turning away from those complications and dangers, he is seeking them. He isn't worrying whether Republicans will now try to use this as a campaign issue, he is presuming that Democrats will. His statement was personal, and it didn't even mention public policy or how to change it. But he knows that a lot of Democrats know the famous quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he met with labor leaders in 1932:
  

  I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.

  President Obama knows that LGBT and Democratic and human rights and civil rights activists will now be galvanized to make him do what he wants to do. This issue isn't going away, and it isn't going to be off at the side in the shadows. President Obama has elevated it. He is lending to this cause the power of his office and of his unique political, intellectual and oratorical skills. He is placing this cause directly in the spotlight of the uniquely intense media focus that is our quadrennial election circus, and daring this entire nation to turn away. Which it won't. Because marriage equality finally will receive the attention it deserves, and that the very concept of human and civil rights demands.

  
  

  
• 11:00

  Misogynistic minister preaching patriarchy

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  
  
  

  You know there are times that I simply want to cuss. This is one of them.

  The Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson tops my cuss-meter charts this week as the winner for utter tomfoolery in the scramble to be at the top of the "find a black face to spout idiocies" sweepstakes.

  Lord knows I'm sick and tired of having "ignant" black tools of the right-wing agenda being granted face time as guests on Fox News and other venues to spew bigoted, twisted versions of biblical buffoonery into the airwaves and cyberspace.  

  I stumbled across his videotaped sermon at Raw Story:
  

  “I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,” Peterson says. “We should’ve never turned this over to women. And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees with them who’re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction.”

  “And this probably was the reason they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman,” he adds. “They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.”

  The View covered the story, as did The Daily News:
  

  The misogynistic tirade continued, with the reverend warning against women in positions of power because they "freak out” and “go nuts" if confronted with an issue.

  "They can't handle stress. They can't handle anything,” he said. “You walk up to them with an issue, they freak out right away. Especially if they can't get the problem resolved right away … they go nuts. They get mad. They get upset. Because it's not in their nature. They don’t have patience. They don't have love."

  He said wherever women are in control, evil finds its way through, referencing homosexuality and gay marriage as examples.

  ”Wherever woman reins, evil is taking over," he said.

  Fox News has hosted Peterson as a guest since the sexist comments were made public.

  Hannity, who brings him on air, sits on the Advisory Board of Peterson's Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). Teapublican Peterson has landed on my infamy list for other comments like:
  

  "Barack Obama hates white people, especially white men" and that "Barack Obama is Jeremiah Wright Jr. He is the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus! He embodies the aspirations of every left-wing black group that wants to tear down this country and take power away from the "oppressive" white man. He's not an obvious race hustler like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson; but Obama is a smooth pathological liar—with a wicked heart". Peterson has also thanked "God and white people" for slavery and described slave ships as akin to "being on a crowded airplane"

  Had enough yet?

  (Continued below the fold)

  
  

  
• 9:00

  Austerity, bullies and broken spirits

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Maria, a 32 year-old unemployed Greek woman (L) and an unidentified man, also unemployed man, sit on benches in Athens Syntagma (Constitution) Square. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis
  
  

  Cruelty comes in many forms, whether it's exacted at the hand of a high school bully or in a nation's capitol.

  This weekend, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is still on defense over the cruelty he exhibited as a student:
  

  Romney and several schoolmates held down classmate John Lauber and cut off his bleached blond hair after seeking him out in his dorm room at their boarding school in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. The Post said Lauber was "perpetually teased for his non-conformity and presumed homosexuality" and that he screamed for help as Romney held him down. The paper recounted another incident in which Romney shouted "atta girl" to a different student at the all-boys' school who, years later, came out as gay.

  To Mitt Romney, a forcible haircut is just a "prank." For anyone that has ever been the victim of or witnessed an act of bullying, that haircut is symbolic of so much more.

  Across the Atlantic in Europe, a different type of haircut has been debated. The Greek debt crisis is a catastrophic confluence of events. Internal mismanagement and external economic forces have resulted in a recession the depths of which a modern country has never seen. Private creditors (mainly banks) have grudgingly agreed to take a haircut of up to 78% of their debt, but only after they secured a recapitalization plan and only after an agreement was made to use bailout funds almost exclusively to shore up European banks instead of for assistance for the Greek people (read more about that tragedy here and here).

  While the Greek government was used essentially as a pass-through to shore up the European banking system against a sovereign Greek default, Greek citizens watched as their social safety net was set on fire:
  

  Greece, one of three eurozone nations to need an international bailout, has cut spending on just about everything it can — public sector salaries, pensions, education, health care and defense. As a result, unemployment has soared to over 21 percent, fueling social unrest that has sometimes turned deadly. In the last two years, riots have erupted frequently and the country's near-daily strikes and demonstrations have shut down schools, airports, train stations, ferries and harmed medical services.

  If you ever wondered what Social Darwinism looks like, that's it.

  Social Darwinism is executed on the back of severe austerity measures like those seen across Europe and those sought by Romney and his party. It is the ultimate bullying tactic. It is using the brute strength of elected power (usually paid for by wealthy campaign contributors) to grab weakened middle class and impoverished families by the shoulders and slam them against the wall just to see what change might shake out of their pockets.

  What Mitt Romney and the modern Republican Party seek, however, goes disturbingly beyond beating up on the middle class. They're not just content with squeezing families, cutting their Medicare or Social Security and listening to the clink-clink-clink as change, dreams and futures fall to the floor. No, Romney and the GOP are so cruel and so callous, their entire economic policy is premised upon the act of picking up that change and putting it in their own bloated pockets.

  President Obama's campaign could hope for no better metaphor-in-real-life example of the 2012 "moving forward" vs. "going back" dynamic than Romney's bullying. As Markos has pointed out, the key takeaway from this is that Mitt Romney hasn't changed. He is still the same bully, except this time the target isn't a gay kid with shaggy blonde hair, it's the 99% of Americans who can't afford car elevators and multi-million dollar "tear down" beach houses. This time, it's not a pair of scissors or his fists he'll use to break them down. It's severe austerity.

  From his policies, it's clear Mitt Romney can't get beyond his schoolyard mentality of bullying for fun. The only difference is that now it's for profit, though that probably only makes it more fun for Romney and the wealthy corporate interests he represents.

  The wave of pain and suffering sweeping across Europe should serve as a cautionary tale for politicians in the United States like Romney who are focused solely on austerity over pro-growth policies. Last week, a battered Greek electorate went to the polls and up-ended the political system by demolishing the country's two main political and pro-austerity parties. Anti-austerity Francois Hollande was elected to power in France.

  Citizens don't want to be victimized by bullies with slick suits, fat checkbooks and millions in TV ads.

  A wave of anti-austerity backlash is mounting. Iit will reach America's shores soon enough. Mitt Romney's problem is that it well might get here before the 2012 election.

  [Contributing Editor Georgia Logothetis also serves as Managing Director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council]

  
  

  
• 8:30

  Too much for a barbarian to take...

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  (Click for larger image)

  Follow @DailyKosComics on Twitter
  

  
  

  
• 7:32

  Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Happy Mother's Day

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  Visual source: Newseum

  First, President Obama's Mother's Day Proclamation:
  

  Mothers raise children under an array of circumstances, and many work long hours inside and outside the home balancing myriad demands. Mothers are leaders and trailblazers in every part of our society -- from classrooms to boardrooms, at home and overseas, on the beat and on the bench. We celebrate the efforts of all our Nation's mothers, and we recognize that when more households are relying on women as primary or co-breadwinners, the success of women in our economy is essential to the success of our families, our communities, and our country. That is why I created the White House Council on Women and Girls as one of my first acts in office -- to ensure we integrate the needs of women and girls into every decision we make. I was proud to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which continues to help women secure equal pay for equal work, and my Administration continues to promote workplace flexibility so no mother has to choose between her job and her child. And because of the Affordable Care Act, women finally have more power to make choices about their health care, and they have expanded access to a wide variety of preventive services such as mammograms at no additional cost.

  Today, let us pay respect to mothers across America by embracing the women who continue to guide and inspire us, and by holding fast to the memories of those who live on in our hearts.

  From the White House archives, take a look back and visit the Meet the Presidential Moms Gallery.

  Now, on to the punditry...

  Lisa Miller at The Washington Post:
  

  This Mother’s Day, Obama’s declaration [of support for gay marriage] gives gay and lesbian couples, as well as interracial couples, infertile couples and single parents — as well as every mother who fears she’s not doing it right — a reason to rejoice. [...]
  Today, 40 percent of births are to unmarried women and a third of children live in single-parent homes. Single-mother households, like the kind in which Obama grew up, may not be biblically approved, but they are increasingly the rule, not the exception.

  The Bible’s wisdom may be eternal and its stories and teachings eternally mined for broad lessons about God’s justice and love. Together, the Hebrew Bible and the gospels emphasize family love and respect, fidelity in marriage and to God. The Scriptures teach about welcoming strangers and caring for the “widows and orphans,” the weakest members of society.

  Obama’s faith and his moral compass have pointed him to the inevitable conclusion: On the specifics of what constitutes a “good” or “right” kind of family, the Scriptures offer no guidance at all.

  Meanwhile, at Liberty University...
  

  Mitt Romney reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage yesterday in a commencement address at an evangelical Christian university aimed at energizing core Republican Party activists.

  “Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman,” he told cheering, standing graduates of Lynchburg, Virginia-based Liberty University, a regular campaign stop for Republican presidential candidates since President Ronald Reagan visited it a month before Election Day in 1980. [...]

  Romney senior strategist Eric Fehrnstrom said the speech was “not a policy speech” and was meant to focus on the universal themes of family and faith.

  At The Los Angeles Times, Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin writes of a dark chapter in our nation's history:
  

  During her pregnancy, at age 30, [my mother] received care from one of Pullman's few obstetricians. She endured labor without drugs, and I was born healthy in 1972. Because fathers weren't allowed in the maternity ward overnight, my dad went back to their apartment when I was a few hours old.

  As soon as he left, the doctor cut out my mom's uterus.

  He didn't ask permission to perform the hysterectomy. In fact, he ignored her pleas. "There are too many colored babies already," he told her. Exhausted from labor, my mom was too weak to resist as she was wheeled into the operating room and put under anesthesia. On her medical record, the doctor wrote "exploratory" as the reason for the operation. The real reason, of course, was eugenics, the racist pseudoscience of human breeding.

  My mom was not alone in her anguish. According to historian Mark Largent, more than 63,000 people were forcibly sterilized under eugenics-inspired official state programs in the U.S. between 1907 and 1980. [...] It was a horrifying exercise in genetic engineering. The intent was to strengthen the gene pool and reduce welfare rolls. The victims were usually women, including African Americans, Asians, Jews, Latinos, Native Americans, alcoholics, the disabled, epileptics, illiterates, the mentally ill, petty criminals, the poor, the promiscuous, rape victims and "anyone else who did not resemble the blond and blue-eyed Nordic ideal the eugenics movement glorified," as Edwin Black noted in his book "War Against the Weak."

  On a different topic, and also at The Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus looks at political ad spending:
  

  I sent messages to the Koch brothers and all four directors last week asking if they were willing to disclose their contributions. The only reply came from a Koch Industries spokeswoman, who confirmed that David Koch and his company support AFP but offered no details.

  To its credit, though, the organization's staff responded energetically — and vigorously defended every allegation in their advertising.[...]

  Not surprisingly, he disagreed with my contention that his donors' anonymity made it easier for the organization to play fast and loose with the facts. "The more incendiary and wild an ad is, the less credible," he said. "We didn't call President Obama a bad man."

  And he said identifying his donors by name would "definitely have a chilling effect" on their freedom of speech, because they'd instantly become targets of anger from the left.

  Joshua Stockley at The News Star:
  

  [North Carolina's ban on civil unions and gay marriage] amendment could be used to strip child custody and visitation rights, property rights, end-of-life rights (wills, trusts, power of attorney), and health benefits to any unmarried partner relationship — gay or straight. The hypocrisy is obvious. Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but the reality is that they're the party of using government when they see fit. When dealing with religious beliefs, Republicans talk about government staying out of the way. When it comes to personal choices dealing with relationships, what religion others follow, or choices about a women's body, small government rhetoric is pushed aside and intrusive government arrives with a vengeance.

  
  

  
• 0:00

  Sunday Talk: Bully for you!

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  For the past couple of months, Ann Romney has been trying to convince Americans that her husband is a "wild and crazy guy," and this week we began to see evidence of it.

  On Monday, Mitt told a Cleveland TV station that he'll
  take a lot of credit for the auto industry's recovery, which is pretty fucking crazy.

  But it wasn't until Thursday that Mitt's wild side came into focus, thanks to the investigative reporting of The Washington Post.

  According to several classmates who witnessed his high school "pranks" firsthand, at the tender age of 18, Mitt was already displaying wild and crazy leadership skills—much like Jack Merridew in Lord of the Flies.
  

  
  

  
• May 12, 2012
• 21:45

  Mitt Romney announces bold new expansion of Second Amendment

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Via Rick Klein, Mitt Romney's official position on the Second Amendment:
  

  As president, Mitt will work to expand and enhance access and opportunities for Americans to hunt, shoot, and protect their families [...]

  Oh. Oh dear.
  .@rickklein Whoa! Even Dick Cheney thinks shooting is for FRIENDS, not family.
  — @Only4RM via web

  
  

  
• 20:55

  This week in the War on Workers: What working moms at Verizon want for Mother's Day

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  The Hyatt Hurts campaign has some more thoughts about what working mothers want on Mother's Day. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently sent Hyatt Hotels a letter notifying the hotel chain of ergonomic risks to housekeepers and recommending Hyatt take steps to reduce the risk.

  
  

  
• 18:00

  Open thread: Bullies, misogyny and marriage equality

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...

  • Austerity, bullies and broken spirits, by Georgia Logothetis
  • 40 years of Title IX, by Joan McCarter
  • The states to watch in November—an update, by Steve Singiser
  • Misogynistic Minister preaching patriarchy, by Denise Oliver Velez
  • Occupy and the Constitution Part 2, by Armando
  • California elections: what to watch for, by Dante Atkins
  • President Obama lays down the gauntlet on marriage equality, by Laurence Lewis

  
  

  
  

  
• 17:00

  The Chronicles of Mitt: May 12, 2012

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
    Hello, human diary! Mitt Romney here again, in order to put things into you.

  This business about practicing human emotions every day is already getting a bit tedious, Mr. Diary. I get enough of that on the campaign trail, I am not certain why my advisers are so insistent I practice in this written form as well.

  Things today at Liberty University went remarkably well, in that I did not at any point have to flee from an angry religious mob during or after my speech. Now I know what it would be like to have dinner at Rick Santorum's house, ha ha! (Note to self: never have dinner at Rick Santorum's house. I do not trust that fellow, and it seems like touching anything in their home would give me a rash.)

  The campaign rope lines are going smoothly, with some notable exceptions. Upon kissing a baby I, needing some momentary banter, told the parents that it looked like their child had come from 7-11. Their reaction was more subdued than I had expected. Eric F. suggests that I no longer bring up 7-11 in any context. I thought I was supposed to offer witty quips in order to better forge a bond with these common folks? I will never understand campaign logic. Also, that baby was hideously ugly.

  After a recent Fox News interview with Neil Cavorto-something, I am also no longer allowed to mention water skiing. I merely suggested that I would be happy to take on the current President of the United States in some sort of water-ski-related competition: I at no point suggested we wager on it or anything of the sort, after being told that my usual suggested wagers of $10,000 might also be seen as out of touch (Too cheap, perhaps? This is what we always wagered, back at tranquil Cranbrook, but I suppose times have changed.) I do not know why Eric F. insists I not talk about water skiing, however. I would think the American public would be quite satisfied to know that I am water-resistant.

  That is all for now, Mr. Diary. There is good news on the adviser front, as I have been managing to collect more and more policy advisers from the ranks of the George W. Bush administration. Most of them seem astonishingly dim people, but the good news is that they were quite hard up for work and therefore extremely inexpensive. I look forward to downsizing most of them later on.

  
  

  
• 17:00

  Daily Kos Elections Weekend Digest: May 8 primaries bring another jolt to the 2012 cycle

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  Our status as political junkies, to say nothing of the 24-hour news cycle, has a tendency to desensitize us to major election-related news events. This week was an excellent case-in-point. By the time Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar conceded defeat on Tuesday night, the outcome was such a foregone conclusion that it barely registered on our radar. Amazing, isn't it, that the defeat of a six-term incumbent senator (and by 22 points, no less!) was seen as an "as-expected" result.

  Especially when you consider that it had not happened in 62 years.

  Indiana was the latest twist in an election year where expectations and assumptions seem to be challenged on a daily basis. Democrats, once thought deeply imperiled in their bid to retain the Senate, now look like they can stitch together a plausible case for continued majority status. Indeed, one can see a sliver of daylight where they could actually pick up seats, though that prospect remains quite remote.

  At the top of the ballot, we saw the continuation of a consistent theme since the end of the GOP primary: the daily trackers on an island, Mitt Romney showing some competitiveness in key battlegrounds, but needing a lot of help to craft a coalition of states that will get him to 270.

  On top of all that, it is officially on and cracking in Wisconsin, where the breakneck pace of the recall elections heads into a four-week sprint.

  All that (and more!) in the Mother's Day edition of the Weekend Digest.

  
  

  
• 16:00

  This week in the War on Voting: John Lewis, civil rights hero

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  This was far and away the highlight of the week. The players are Rep. Paul Broun, Republican from Georgia, with an amendment to end all funding for U.S. Department of Justice enforcement of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, and civil rights veteran Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr.
  

  REP. LEWIS: It is hard and difficult and almost unbelievable that any member, especially a member from the state of Georgia, would come and offer such amendment. There's a long history in our country, especially in the 11 states that are—of the old confederacy from Virginia to Texas—of discrimination based on race. On color.

  Maybe some of us need to study a little contemporary history dealing with the question of voting rights. Just think, before the voting rights act of 1965, it was almost impossible for many people in the state of Georgia, in Alabama, Virginia, in Texas, to register to vote, to participate in the democratic process.[...]

  It's shameful to come here tonight and say to the Department of Justice you must not use one penny, one cent, one dime, one dollar to carry out the mandate of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We should be opening up the political process and letting all our citizens come in and participate.

  People died for the right to vote. Friends of mine. Colleagues of mine. Speak out against this amendment. It doesn't have a place. I yield to the chairman. This is—I agree with the chairman. This is not the place. I will not yield. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

  Rep. Broun immediately withdrew his amendment. For now, anyway. Republicans are determined to thwart the law, and with a number cases working their way through the courts challenging the Justice Department's authority to enforce the Voting Rights Act, this Supreme Court could roll the country back half a century.

  For more of the week's news, make the jump below the fold.

  
  

  
• 15:00

  Midday open thread

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Major elections are getting close, Netroots Nation is right around the corner...the thread is excited. To the links...

  • According the NRA, this shouldn't be the case:
    

    German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.

    Meanwhile, in the United States, The Atlantic reported that in April, 84 shots were fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, and another 90 at an unarmed man in Los Angeles.

    So basically, one our our cities' police departments fired as many shots at one guy as the police in all of Germany fired all year.
  • This is the most psychotic anti-gay rant you will ever see. All delivered very calmly and read into a microphone at a meeting of the Lincoln, Nebraska, City Council. No, seriously, you need to watch it. I'm not going to quote it, because you should watch the whole thing. Wait, actually, I will. I'll leave you with this:
    

    Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo?

    And with that, I'll let you watch the rest, just, really, because you need to have something that will make you laugh out loud.
  • Betty White just endorsed Obama. To be fair, most other cool people do too.
  • A brilliant cartoon by Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Once a bully, always a bully.
  • The irreplaceable satirist Andy Borowitz:
    

    Dear Friends:

    This week, The Washington Post reported an incident from my high school days in which I bullied a gay classmate by pinning him to the ground and cutting his hair off.  This story revealed a side of Mitt Romney that may have been surprising to many of you: the Mitt Romney with an irrepressible and hilarious sense of humor.

    Some of you may say, “Hold on, Mitt – isn’t holding a kid down and cutting off his hair going a little far?”  Well, the merry prankster in me tells me you can never go too far when it comes to giving the greatest gift of all: the gift of laughter.  And I certainly remember many of us laughing long and hard about what I did to that Nancy-boy.  Was it cruel?  Perhaps, but it’s not like I tied him to the roof of a car or anything.

  • More notes from the war on women. a Catholic high school in Arizona has forfeited its baseball championship game. The reason? They refused to play against a girl:
    

    PHOENIX — Instead of playing in a championship baseball game, Paige Sultzbach and her team won’t even make it to the dugout.

    A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

    They said it was out of their high respect for women: apparently, a slide into second base could have resulted in, oh, I don't know, some inappropriate hand-on-ankle action? I think that the best way they could have shown respect for her is by treating her as a member of the team they were playing against. But that's just me.
  • And we now have a guy selling Trayvon Martin gun range targets. Yep, replete with a silhouetted figure, a hoodie, and a can of iced tea and Skittles. And a big target right on the chest. Offered without comment.

  
  

  
• 13:30

  Saturday hate mail-a-palooza: Welcome to Obama's Gomorrah (the weather is lovely!)

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  In the two-and-a-half years I've been doing this feature, the pickings have never been as sparse as this week. I took a look at my Twitter trolls, and saw stuff like this:

  Is @markos a little bitch? @Progress2day Is Scott Walker A Drug Addict? @dailykos #wiunion
  — @jrios68 via web @markos Did I beat you up at the bus stop in elementary school? Steal your girlfriend in Jr. High? #quityourcrying
  — @IWantMyApplebk via Tweetbot for iOS @markos @ppppolls Plucking your eyebrows too often clouds your brain. Blacks favor West over pot head oBama.
  — @jmigyanka via web @markos Just secretly planning your god-man's political demise.  I love the smell of smarmy leftists on the ropes.
  — @BrandonSFrazer via web

  Yup, nowhere near as good as the good stuff that gets emailed to me. Then, Friday night, when I had lost all hope and despaired about what to do with this feature, I got a beauty. It may be the only email this week (hence we'll default to "below average" and skip the poll), but it's a good one. Check it out, below the fold.

  
  

  
• 12:00

  'Wild and crazy' Mitt willing to have waterskiing competition with Obama

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  (BuzzFeed) It's not that Mitt Romney's aloof or out of touch. It's just that OH MY GOD IS THIS GUY TRYING TO TORTURE US:
  

  Hopelessly Generic Fox News Guy #12: Does it bug you though, on the campaign trail itself, um, that you're portrayed as just not hip. You can't sing, you said yourself you're not cool, the president's cool, he can sing, it almost makes me wonder whether you need a hip or cool running mate.

  Romney: Ha ha. I think I can sing, c'mon Neil, ha ha.

  Hopelessly Generic Fox News Guy #12, Now Identified as Neil: Well you're better than me, but then again everyone is—

  Romney: I'll be happy to a sing off, look, I'll, [...], I'll do a sing off, you know, and, you know, I'll, I don't think I'll play the president a round of golf but I'll be happy to take him through a waterski course, ah, I mean we have different, ah, different skills and different interests and different hobbies, I must admit that my kids and my grandkids are my hobby, and consume a lot of my interest and attention, but ah, people are going to get to know me better, and you know Ann says there's a wild and crazy guy locked up inside of me—

  Hopelessly Generic Brown-Nosing Fox News Neil #12: She has said that!

  Romney: —Now and then I let him out.

  You don't challenge someone to a "sing off" or a waterskiing competition, you're running for president for Pete's sake! Have we learned nothing from the conservative tarring and feathering John Kerry got for admitting he liked windsurfing? That's like something out of one of those movies where the rich, snobby kid dares the lower-class hero kid to a skiing duel, and the winner gets the oil drilling rights under Favorite Local Teen Hangout. Or like that episode of Happy Days where some obnoxious local tools challenge Fonzie to waterski over a—well, same thing.

  And you certainly don't point to the prospect of a sing-off or waterskiing duel as evidence of you being a "wild and crazy guy." Having a sing-off is never wild and crazy. I'm sorry, it's just not. Neither is competitive waterskiing. Oh yeah, I went there.

  Remember: Pretending to like corn dogs and "cheesy grits": good. Bringing up water sports of any kind, with the possible exception of Old Abandoned Quarry Beer Pong: bad. Campaign pandering is a very, very delicate game.
  

  
  

  
• 10:30

  President Obama urges Congress to act now on an economic 'to-do' list

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Acknowledging the economic difficulties America has gone through, this week President Obama urges Congress to act on a common-sense "to-do" list that he says will "help create jobs and restore some of the financial security that so many families have lost." But:
  

  ... the other side isn’t so optimistic. They think all we can do is cut taxes – especially for the wealthiest Americans – and go back to letting banks and corporations write their own rules again.  That’s their plan.

  But I think they’re wrong. We tried their ideas for nearly a decade, and it didn’t work out so well. We can’t go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. We’ve got to move forward.

  And to move forward, the president calls on Congress to "stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas," to help responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages, to help small businesses by "giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages," to extend tax credits to clean energy companies and to create a Veterans Jobs Corps.
  

  So that’s Congress’s “To-Do” List. But now we need them to start crossing things off. I need you to call your Members of Congress, write an email, tweet, and let them know we can’t afford to wait any longer to get things done. Tell them now is the time to take steps we know will grow our economy and create jobs.

  So, you know the drill: call or email your representatives and tell them to get busy!

  Complete transcript below the fold.

  
  

  
• 9:00

  This week in science: This is the end ...

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  NASA's Transhab concept, an inflatable space hab subsequently adopted by Bigelow Aerospace

  SpaceX has teamed up with space station developer Bigelow Aerospace to dramatically lower the cost of reaching and living in space. No aerospace company would turn down money from zillionaires looking for out-of-this-world adventure, but the bread and butter of this business would probably come from other sources:

  Rather than just presenting the space station experience to the general public, Bigelow Aerospace is also focused on engaging corporations as well as entire nations looking to explore opportunities associated with conducting research in microgravity environment. ... Each unit will be powered by solar arrays and batteries and feature four large observation windows coated with UV protection film. Leasing one of the space stations will also include a complete astronaut training program designed to prepare passengers for the rigors of space travel and microgravity living.

  • Scientists get proactive and find under ground features suggesting a chunk of the West Antarctic Ice sheet the size of New Jersey may calve off soon.
  • Watch a conservative zombie lie on climate change grow from conception to live-undead birth and beyond in less than a week.
  • Archeologists find the oldest known Mayan calander, but no end-o-the-world stuff, in fact it goes on forever. But I'd rather light a candle than curse your Armageddon: Here's almost a dozen apocalypses that haven't panned out, yet.
  • Speaking of the end of the world, at about six years old, I had an almost paralyzing fear that the sun would go nova that lasted for weeks. Isn't that a weird thing for a first grader to be anxious about?

  
  

  
  

  
• 7:14

  Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Truth or consequences

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  Visual source: Newseum

  Eugene Robinson:

  It seems clear that his position on gay marriage will cost Obama some support in what promises to be a tough battle for reelection. The crucial impact will be in the swing states. North Carolina, for example, is a former Republican stronghold that Obama won in 2008. Will the people who voted so decisively against same-sex marriage be motivated to vote against him in November?

  Some will, undoubtedly. But it was interesting that Obama’s all-but-certain GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, reacted to the president’s shift on gay marriage with a relatively subdued statement, reiterating his opposition but acknowledging that the issue is a “tender and sensitive topic.” The risk for Romney is that, although his position — he wants a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — is popular among Republican primary voters, it might be seen as mean-spirited and punitive by the independents who will ultimately decide the election.

  Politically, Obama may have taken a big step toward reclaiming the future.

  Melinda Henneberger:

  Meanwhile, in this economy, I doubt the election is going to be over gay marriage, even at the margins. But like every election, it is going to be over trust: Do I believe what just flew out of that guy’s mouth? Do I think he believes what he’s saying?

  It’s in that way, more than anything, that coming out with his support for gay marriage is a help to Obama — and that pretending he doesn’t remember what sounds like one of the worst moments of his life works against Romney.

  Richard Cohen :

  Critics of The Washington Post’s story detailing Mitt Romney’s bullying of a classmate nearly 50 years ago may be right: It has little bearing on the man he is today or the president he might become. The incident hardly matters. His handling of it is a different story. It matters.

  When you've lost Beltway insiders like Cohen, you've lost the argument (hence Romney's quick apology.)

  Ruth Marcus:

  So how to think about The Post’s story of Romney and the purportedly gay prep school classmate he bullied?  Recklessness is a common side-effect of adolescence — drinking too much, driving too fast.  Meannesss is another matter.  Yes, teenager are more prone to displaying the primal cruelty of “Mean Girls” and “Lord of the Flies” than their grown-up selves.  But the Queen Bees of middle school have an unpleasant tendency to grow into the Real Housewives of Wherever.

  Bill Galston at Brookings has published a long but readable paper on why the election will be close.

  It remains to be seen whether the negative perceptions of Romney that resulted from the nominating contest will endure. For the time being, at least, Obama enjoys a sizeable advantage on a host of personal qualities. He has a narrow edge in most of the key swing states. And his path to 270 electoral votes is easier than Romney’s. In short, he begins the general election contest with a modest advantage, which adverse developments at home or abroad could eliminate or even reverse. The 2012 election will be hotly contested, and the victor’s margin is unlikely to approach Obama’s seven-point edge in 2008.

  Must read for those predicting a blow-out.

  Charlie Cook:

  One way to explain Sen. Richard Lugar’s loss to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in this week’s Indiana Republican primary is to attribute it to a tea party takeover of the GOP. A second explanation is that a venerable public servant overstayed his welcome and ran for reelection one time too many. A third is that Lugar was too focused on international relations and grew too distant from his state—that he didn’t keep his political fences mended back home.

  The fact is, all three factors contributed to Lugar’s defeat.

  Dana Milbank:

  Mourdock, a geologist by trade, is Indiana’s state treasurer. Perennial candidate Judd, who goes by the nickname “Dark Priest” and has an extremely long mullet, lists himself as a past member of the Federation of Super Heroes and is doing time for making threats at the University of New Mexico.

  Yet the two men are equally irrational in their plans for changing Washington. And the two are equally likely to succeed with these plans, which is to say they have no chance at all.

  
  

  
• May 11, 2012
• 23:30

  Open thread for night owls: Disconnected in a globalized world

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  emptywheel writes:
  

  About a month ago, I bought a pineapple from Costa Rica at Meijers. It was over 5 pounds and cost something like $1.50.

  The fruit was lovely. But the price got me thinking about how pineapple has become one of those things in globalization that must be too good to be true. If they can grow, ship to Michigan, and market a 5 pound pineapple to me for just $1.50, then someone–probably multiple someones, but especially the people harvesting these heavy, spiny footballs–aren’t getting paid nearly enough to bring me my pineapple (to say nothing of the invisible subsidies shipping must include).

  Pineapples used to be a $7 delicacy everywhere but the most expensive hotels but now, with globalization, they’ve become cheap and easy.
  

  I said FRESH pineapple, dammit.
  (White House.gov) Which is why, after having a great laugh at the list of demands David Petraeus makes on CIA stations around the world when he visits, I also got cranky.
  

  Among the items:

  • Fresh pineapple each night before he goes to bed (not canned)

  • Sliced bananas for his cereal in the morning

  • Someone to accompany him on his morning runs, and a route devised that preferably avoids crossing any streets.

  • Also, he noted, the former General doesn’t open doors. “All doors have to be open when he arrives,” the former senior CIA officer said.

  It appears the war hero can’t keep up his legendary running pace if he has to cross streets like normal people (though I agree the CIA Director should be accompanied on his runs lest he end up in a gym bag somewhere). But it’s the comment one of Laura’s sources makes, that Petraeus demands that CIA personnel in places like Tblisi and Helsinki–where pineapple isn’t at the Meijers for $1.50–bring him that pineapple every day in any case that brought back my $1.50 pineapple.

  It seems appropriate, I guess, that Petraeus demands what to me has become a symbol of too good to be true globalization rather than make do with whatever local fruit is available, like berries in Helsinki. We can’t have our CIA Directors interacting with the unique spots they visit in such a way that they develop an understanding of the place. Better to rely on the underpaid laborers in Costa Rica and the harried office workers at the station to ensure you have a generic, now cheapened pineapple every day.

  Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:
  

  Condoleeza Rice says:
  

  Rice said Iraq appeared to have had a virtually "inspections proof" system of concealing chemical and biological weapons by developing chemicals and agents that could be used for more than one purpose.

  In Rice's world, pesticides in Iraq are not really pesticides, they are WMDs. Any medical drugs are not really drugs, they are WMDs. In fact, the entire nation of Iraq was one giant cauldron of WMDs -- but those wily Iraqis hid them by using them for legitimate purposes. Damn them!

  Then again, as Bush said pre-war [...] :
  

  Bush in an October 2002 speech said, "We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."

  Given that they haven't found a damn thing, it's clear Bush was LYING. Either that or our surveillance photos really suck. I tend to trust our technology. It has served us well. Bush, on the other hand, is a LIAR. So you've got to be skeptical of anything he says.
  And while the US public carries on as blissful sheep, unbothered by their leader's lack of, well, truthfullness, the rest of the world isn't happy about it. US foreign policy will be a hornet's nest for some time to come. At least until a Democrat can start repairing the damage.

  Tweet of the Day:
  

  It's funny how Sarah Palin accused all of us of forcing Bristol into the spotlight when we can't seem to get Bristol to shut up.
  — @aravosis via Tweetbot for iOS
  

  High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

  
  

  
• 20:00

  Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Rasmussen versus the world

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  Rasmussen's status as an infallible pollster to the right, and a inevitable source of derision to the left, has been well established for years. But, looking at some of their recent polling (most notably, their daily tracking poll of the presidential race), it becomes difficult not to ask some serious questions about their data. When you are on an island as often as they have been lately, they are either prescient, or completely full of shit.

  And while we have to wait till November to find out which one of those polar-opposite descriptions match the House of Ras, it is worth exploring today how far on the island they are, in a number of races.

  Before that, though, the numbers:

  PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
  

  NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney d. Obama (46-45)

  NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (50-43)

  OREGON (SurveyUSA): Obama d. Romney (47-43)

  WISCONSIN (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (49-45)

  DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
  

  WA-GOV (SurveyUSA): Rob McKenna (R) 40, Jay Inslee (D) 38

  WI-SEN (Rasmussen): Tommy Thompson (R) 50, Tammy Baldwin (D) 38; Mark Neumann (R) 44, Baldwin 42; Baldwin 45, Jeff Fitzgerald (R) 41

  A few thoughts, as always, await you after the jump ...

  
  

  
• 19:50

  At Liberty University, practicing witchcraft will cost you $500.00

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Cast that spell, pay like hell.
    Just what kind of place is Liberty University, the religious college that invited Mitt Romney to their commencement despite him carrying the notable burden of being considered, according the university curriculum, a member of a cult? Apparently Jerry Falwell instituted some pretty strict rules on the student body. Right Wing Watch takes a look at what sorts of student behaviors merit the harshest penalties, according to the student handbook:
  

  30 Reprimands + $500.00 Fine + 30 hours Disciplinary Community Service + possible Administrative Withdrawal.  NOTE: For each accumulation of six (6) or more reprimands after 30, an additional $150 fine will be assessed.
  

  • Abortion
  • Assault/sexual assault (minimum two (2) semesters out)
  • Commission/conviction of any felony
  • Failure of three (3) Christian/Community Services without reconciliation
  • Illegal drugs-association/possession, use/distribution (minimum two semesters out)
  • Involvement with witchcraft, séances or other satanic or demonic activity
  • Life-threatening behavior or language to others or oneself (immediate removal/exclusion from campus and a minimum of two semesters out)
  • Non-participation/disruption/non-compliance (possible removal/exclusion from campus)
  • Possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages
  • Spending the night with a person of the opposite sex
  • Stealing or possession of stolen property (plus financial restitution; minimum two semesters out)
  • Two or more individuals of the opposite sex together in motel room
  • Unauthorized possession/use of weapons

  That's an, er, interesting list. Committing a felony or using a weapon carries the exact same penalty as witchcraft, abortion, or "spending the night with a person of the opposite sex." Sheesh.

  Murder a guy? That's 30 demerits for you, buster. Spending the night with someone of the opposite sex? Also 30 demerits, you sick freak. And if we catch you casting demonic spells on your classmates, maybe turning your roommate into a newt, or being able to multiply two numbers in your head without pen or paper, well, that's—actually, that's also 30 demerits. Everything's 30 demerits. (Being in a hotel room with someone of the opposite sex during any time of day, I will point out, is a point entirely separate from "spending the night" with them. They just want to be really, really clear about the whole "opposite sex" thing. Same sex, on the other hand, is fine.)

  Is it common for universities to level monetary fines against students who commit felonies, abortions or are caught with beer? A minimum $500 fine strikes me as just trying to bleed your wayward students for a little extra cash, but I suppose it's in line with what you might expect from a university founded by a televangelist. You pray, and you pay.

  
  

  
• 16:02

  Economy still the major issue for President Obama

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Here's the dividend for Republicans in working relentlessly to sabotage the economy for the entirety of President Obama's first term: a shaky economy and tough polling. From Washington Post/ABC News:
  

  With unemployment still high, homeowners still underwater and facing foreclosure, and ongoing financial uncertainty and insecurity, it's not surprising that the nation is pretty ambivalent on Obama's performance on the economy. But what's also important to keep in mind, and for Obama to keep talking about, is the fact that Republicans have blocked all of his attempts to get the economy moving since they agreed to the stimulus.

  Republicans put politics over the country every time for the past three and a half years, and Obama needs to be ruthlessly partisan in pointing that out. This needs to be the face of the GOP for the next six months:
  

  Mitch McConnell: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

  
  

  
• 15:30

  Connecticut and Alabama deal blows to Michelle Rhee-style corporate education reform

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Michelle Rhee (Hyungwon Kang/Reuters)

  There's good news for public education in Alabama and Connecticut, as the Michelle Rhee breed of privatizers and corporate reformers were thwarted in both states, at least partially and at least for now. In Alabama, "a radical, far-reaching charter bill that would have allowed wholesale privatization of public education in the state" was declared dead in the state House for the session just ending. And in Connecticut, legislators fought Gov. Dannel Malloy's initial, teacher-scapegoating plan and gave teachers unions a voice in arriving at a compromise.

  Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst were involved in the efforts in both states. Though StudentsFirst is attempting to claim victory in Connecticut, even Malloy at the height of his teacher-bashing saw Rhee as "divisive" and refused to appear with her, and the presidents of the state's teachers unions make clear that the compromise legislation does not meet the Rhee standard:
  

  “At its lowest point, the debate demonized teachers,” Apruzzese said. “Fortunately, with leadership in the Education Committee and in the House and Senate, the state turned a corner and put the emphasis on where it belongs: more pre-K, early literacy, health and social supports for disadvantaged students, respect for teachers bargaining rights, improved and fair teacher evaluation and dismissal, and access to innovative programs with proven track records.”

  Alabama's governor was a Rhee fan, calling her in to personally be involved in the charter schools push without the knowledge of the state's Board of Education or schools superintendent. When the state to which you were invited doesn't pass the bill you were there to work on, and you were considered too divisive even by the official working hardest to scapegoat teachers in the state that did pass a bill, it has to count as pair of losses. No matter what the StudentsFirst press release about Connecticut tries to claim.

  
  

  
• 15:13

  AP: Elizabeth Warren didn't claim minority status for law school. Will Scott Brown apologize?

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Scott Brown and Mitt Romney, BFFs. They even share a hatchet man. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) This AP story should put the non-issue of whether Elizabeth Warren used her heritage to get into school or to get a job to rest.
  

  BOSTON (AP) — Records show Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren identified her race as "white" on an employment record at the University of Texas and declined to apply for admission to Rutgers Law School under a program for minority students.

  The heads of the recruiting panels at both University of Pennsylvania and Harvard have both stated that her hiring had everything to do with her scholarship and her achievements.

  Should that be enough for Sen. Scott Brown to call off his hounds (in this case, the Boston Herald)? Of course, it should, but it won't. Because that's not how Scott Brown's team works. Specifically, it's not how Eric Fehrnstrom, the consultant Brown shares with Mitt Romney, works.

  Meteor Blades explained earlier how Fehrnstrom operates, and how he learned every bullying trick he knows at the Boston Herald:
  

  "The Herald was like the schoolyard bully," Howie Carr, the legendary Boston brawler who was the paper's top columnist and animating spirit, told me. "We were all about finding people and kicking them when they were down. And then we'd laugh about it."

  And as Meteor Blades elaborates,

  Carr mentored Fehrnstrom in his first days in the 1980s as a political reporter. Carr was also the author of a May 2 column filled with racist slurs attacking Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat who is challenging Scott Brown for his Senate seat. Brown-Fehrnstrom-Carr.

  Maybe it's time enterprising reporters start looking into exactly where this story came from in the first place, and asking Scott Brown when he'll call off his racist attack dogs.

  Please contribute $3 to Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.

  
  

  
• 14:29

  JPMorgan losses show further financial reform is needed, says AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Richard Trumka marching on Wall Street in 2010 (Mike Segar/Reuters)

  With the Securities and Exchange Commission launching an investigation into JPMorgan's accounting practices, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that the nation's biggest bank's $2 billion in trading losses, show "that financial regulation is more needed now than it ever was."  

  Trumka continued:
  

  And [Jamie Dimon] been one of the chief opponents trying to lobby against it, dilute all the stuff in the Dodd-Frank bill, to try to dilute it, but I think every American knows that we need Wall Street reform. The lack of Wall Street regulation is what got us to the mess that we came to, when almost totally disrupted our economy.

  So I think him losing money shows, one, he isn't infallible, two, that he doesn't really understand the market and no one else does, either, because it's so fickle about stuff, and, three, that without regulations, they will lead us off a cliff, just like they tried to the last time, that we must have Wall Street in check to restore the balance between the financial economy and the real economy

  Financial reform has been a key labor movement priority, prominently mentioned in Trumka's statement when the AFL-CIO endorsed Barack Obama for reelection. Trumka has lots of company in pointing out that JPMorgan's massive losses "surely [don't] help" the credibility of CEO Jamie Dimon. But, according to the New York Times, Dimon "refused to concede that the losses necessitated a stronger regulatory framework." While the SEC investigation won't create stronger regulations, it may show the value of some of the regulations Dimon has fought against in the past.

  Also in his appearance on Bloomberg TV's Political Capital with Al Hunt, Trumka addressed questions about whether unions will contribute financially to the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, saying, "I think labor will do some help. I think it won't be as much as it was in the past."

  
  

  
• 14:00

  Jay Inslee (D) moves back into tossup territory in new poll of Washington governor's race

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Rep. Jay Inslee (D) SurveyUSA for KING-TV. 5/8-9. Washington voters. MoE: ±4.2% (2/13-15 in parentheses):
  

  Jay Inslee (D): 38 (39)
  Rob McKenna (R): 40 (49)
  Undecided 22 (12)

  Back in February, it looked like the gubernatorial race was starting to slip away from the Democrats, with two polls by respected pollsters (national robo-pollster SurveyUSA and solid local pollster Elway) showing likely nominee Rep. Jay Inslee trailing Republican state AG Rob McKenna by 9 or 10 point margins. Since then, a couple newsworthy things happened: one, Inslee relented to pressure from Democratic insiders to resign his seat in Congress and focus full-time on the gubernatorial race, and two, the usually wonky McKenna lost his cool in front of rolling cameras. Neither of those seemed like particularly game-changing events—in fact, if you were to believe the local media, Inslee's resignation was only going to hurt him more in terms of exposing his ambitions and the allegedly huge costs of the special election to replace him—but, whatever the reason, the tenor of the race has seemingly changed since then.

  Taking not just SurveyUSA's trendlines into account, but also the previous three polls in the race, two internals from Democratic pollster Grove (one of which showed a 38-38 tie and one a 38-34 Inslee lead) and one from PPP (which showed a 42-42 tie), there's increased cause for optimism here. I wouldn't ascribe the movement to either Inslee's resignation or McKenna's snapping as much as a simple matter of Democrats getting more engaged in the race and Inslee (who, unlike two-term AG McKenna, hasn't been elected statewide before) getting better known. But SurveyUSA's trendlines don't show that either: They simply show McKenna's share dwindling, to the benefit of "undecided." So, it may be more of a case of suburban swing voters who'd been leaning toward McKenna out of a sense of "Democrats have been in charge too long" starting to hedge their bets, especially as voters learn more about McKenna's not-so-moderate social issues stances.

  There's still one other area where Inslee is lagging, though, and that's fundraising. Washington mandates monthly (not quarterly) financial reporting, and the April reports showed McKenna padding his financial advantages even though he was able to raise funds only for 19 days out of the month (as a state official, he's unable to raise money while the legislature is in session). McKenna raised $643K, while Inslee raised $449K, along with a $75K infusion from the state Democratic Party. Given his name rec deficit compared with McKenna, Inslee needs to be stockpiling money now to be competitive on the airwaves in the fall, when that last 22 percent is going to be finally engaging making up their minds.

  
  

  
• 13:35

  School forfeits championship rather than compete against girl

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  You play an entire season, bust your butt on the field of play, give up fun activities to get in more practice—then at the biggest point in your career, you give up a chance at the championship just because of a player on the opposing team?

  Essentially, that's what happened in Arizona:

  Phoenix Catholic school forfeits baseball championship game because opponent has female player
  

  A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

  Our Lady of Sorrows bowed out of Thursday night’s game against Mesa Preparatory Academy in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association championship. The game had been scheduled at Phoenix College.

  Paige [Sultzbach], who plays second base at Mesa Prep, had to sit out two previous games against Our Lady of Sorrows out of respect for its beliefs. But having her miss the championship was not an option for Mesa Prep.

  More below the twisted Cheeto:

  
  

  
• 13:01

  Harry Reid: We should have done filibuster reform

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he's had enough Republican obstruction.
  

  An angry Harry Reid took to the floor Thursday and demanded changes to the Senate’s hallowed filibuster rules, siding with junior Democrats who have sought to substantially weaken the powerful delaying tactic.

  [...] Reid—who struck a "gentleman’s agreement" last year with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to preserve the filibuster from an effort by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Jeff. Merkley (D-Ore.) to water it down signaled he is now on board with their effort given the gridlock in the Senate.

  “If there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight,” Reid said on the floor. “These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong—or most of us, anyway. What a shame.”

  What's substantially changed from the beginning of 2011 and now with the filibuster? The Republicans proved, again, that they don't give a shit for any "gentleman's agreement," the deal struck by Mitch McConnell and Reid to preserve the filibuster as a tool, but for Republicans to use it much less.

  In case you missed it, David Waldman showed just how much the agreement failed earlier this week.
  

  From the time of the invention of the cloture rule, during World War I, until the end of the Reagan administration, there were a total of 385 cloture motions filed. That's a span of about 70 years. But in the five and a half years since Republicans lost control of the Senate after the 2006 elections, there have been 359 cloture motions filed.

  In fact, [Tuesday's] cloture vote [on student loan interest rates] was on the 83rd cloture motion filed in the 112th Congress. That's the third all-time highest number of cloture motions ever filed, and it's only May. And what two Congresses are the only ones ever to see more cloture motions filed? Well, it's the last two: the 110th and 111th. The two immediately following the Republicans' loss of control of the chamber.

  Remember this day, Sen. Reid, when you endorsed filibuster reform. If the Democrats hold the Senate in this election, we're going to be there to remind you.

  
  

  
• 11:49

  House Republicans vote to gut health care programs, boost Pentagon

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  On Thursday, in a razor-thin 218-199 vote of approval, the House passed another extreme bill that is destined to die: its Sequestration Replacement Act. The budget bill overriddes steep cuts to defense spending that were set to begin in January 2013, taking the money out of food stamps, Medicaid, Meals on Wheels and a raft of programs that help the poor and elderly. The Act replaces $109 billion in defense cuts that were triggered last fall under the Budget Control Act, when the super committee failed to agree on a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan.

  Included in the $113 billion in cuts are Medicaid programs, allowing states to drop people who would currently be eligible, including a lot children. Two of the programs that are targeted have increased insurance rates for children to unprecedented levels, but the Republicans voted to repeal money in the Affordable Care Act that has maintained Medicaid and CHIP funding, and a new program that has rewards states for connecting eligible children to coverage. While the bill overrides the automatic cuts to the Pentagon included in the Budget Control Act, it keeps the Medicare cuts that were written into the bill. Oh, and of course it zeroes out the Prevention and Public Health fund in the health care law, the Republican's solution to paying for everything from payroll tax cuts to student loan interest rate cuts.

  All this when, as Meteor Blades detailed, polling shows that the American public wants to see defense spending cut, by really big margins.
  

  The survey found that about three-fourths of respondents wanted immediate cuts in spending. And even more, 85 percent, wanted deep and immediate cuts in spending for continuing U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

  While Republican respondents in the survey indicated they want smaller cuts than Democrats, they still want deep reductions in Pentagon spending.

  Average Republicans want to see defense cuts. Even some tea party Republicans want those defense cuts (not to save any social service programs, just to shrink government even more). With so little popular support, even from their base, for this plan, it's impossible to see the rationale for Republicans pushing this vision of a bloated Pentagon taking money—taking food—from children and the elderly. But it's their platform for November. Mitt Romney has not only embraced it, he wants deeper cuts and even more defense spending.

  The only people who like this plan are Grover Norquist, defense contractors, and the 1 percent who won't have their taxes raised. The true Republican base.

  
  

  
• May 10, 2012
• 19:17

  Bernie Sanders goes after fossil-fuel subsidies again. Maybe somebody will listen someday

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Despite two recent attempts, Congress has not yet been willing to deep-six subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry even though the oil industry is generating record profits and, together with the centuries-old coal industry, continuing to burden the atmosphere with carbon emissions and kill thousands of Americans a year by pumping their lungs full of toxic pollution.

  These past failures aside, Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, joined Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) Thursday to introduce legislation that would chop more than $113 billion out of subsidies for the oil and coal industries over the next 10 years. Here's the announcement:

  As the sponsors point out, whatever else can be said about it, the fossil-fuel energy industry has no need of taxpayer subsidies. Last year, the five largest oil
  companies—BP, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Phillips and Shell—alone made $137 billion in profit. In the first quarter this year, their total was $33.5 billion. That's $4143 every second. Together, they spent $13.9 million lobbying Congress in that same quarter.

  Although it's not included in the Sanders-Ellison bill, there is a perfect place to spend some or all of that saved money: subsidies for solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy sources that don't add to the atmospheric carbon load and don't create pulmonary and other health hazards. Shifting $100 billion of fossil-fuel subsidies over the next 10 years into backing for renewables would go far toward building an alternative energy infrastructure by leveraging hundreds of billions in private investment. Indeed, such subsidies have already helped Iowa to generate 19 percent of its electricity from wind turbines.

  The loudest complainers about subsidies for renewable energy sources are the mouthpieces of the beneficiaries of fossil-fuel subsidies. And, as noted in Right-wing memo urges creation of bogus grassroots effort to undermine support for wind energy, while lobbying to maintain their own subsidies, the fossil-fuel industry is willing to do whatever it takes to obliterate subsidies for renewables. The claim is made that subsidies for renewables are somehow of a different order, an unfair arrangement that goes way beyond those accorded the fossil-fuel industry. On the contrary, you can read here how solar and wind subsidies follow a path well known to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries.

  As noted, the Sanders-Ellison bill won't be approved by the Senate and certainly not the House. There's a pretty fair chance it won't even get out of committee. But that doesn't make it mere shadow-boxing. One thing that should have been learned long ago from the right wing, whether it's attacking reproductive rights or backing industries that are killing us and the environment, is that persistence, the relentless pursuit of one's goals, is crucial to reaching the desired destination.

  So, despite the inevitable cries of we've-heard-this-all-before and this-isn't-going-anywhere-so-why-bother, it needs to keep being brought up until it is heard and actually gets where we need it to go. Which is the in-box on that desk in the Oval Office.

  
  

  
• 17:42

  All the hot young people are doing it. Recalling Scott Walker, that is.

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  

  How's this for college outreach by We Are Wisconsin? The recall election's June 5 date is after students will have left University of Wisconsin campuses for the summer, so now is the time to be reaching out to them.

  These posters should be attention-grabbing, but they also take students' role in the chain of events leading to the recall seriously: "college students have a chance to finish what we started." College students—and high school ones, for that matter—pouring into the streets and into the Wisconsin Capitol were an important spark for last year's uprising against Scott Walker's union-busting policies, and students were among those who stuck it out over weeks of protest. Students are also among those who stand to be barred from voting by the war on voters being carried out by Walker and his Republican allies in the legislature.

  
  

  
• 16:47

  Bipartisan House team attempting a permanent 'doc fix'

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Did something get into the House drinking water supply? First we have a Republican actually trying to protect Planned Parenthood, and now one is working with a Democrat on one of the stickier perpetual issues on the Hill, the Medicare "doc fix," the reimbursement rate for physicians that has been broken for years.
  

  Reps. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and Joe Heck (R-Nev.) introduced a bill Wednesday to reform how Medicare pays healthcare providers and to avoid a cut to reimbursement rates on Jan. 1.

  The bipartisan measure would repeal Medicare's current reimbursement formula and replace it with a new system of payment models. It would also give doctors small boosts in payment rates for four years.

  Money for the changes would coming from war savings from troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan—a move Republicans have opposed in the past as a "Ponzi scheme."

  The "doc fix" is the shorthand used to describe the nearly annual bill Congress passes to override another law they passed, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, which was enacted in 1996 to try to keep Medicare costs under control. Almost every year since, it has been overridden by Congress because it doesn't actually work. Another short-term fix passed in February, along with the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extensions, and like those two programs, it's set to expire at the end of this year.

  Democrats pushed this very funding solution for a permanent fix during the extension negotiations last year, and were rebuffed, even though a Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), the co-chairman of the GOP Doctors Caucus, the group that usually takes the lead on health issues, flirted briefly with accepting it just to make the issue finally go away.

  So at least one Republican is flirting with it again. Given how quickly Gingrey was shut down last year, though, it's not likely to be happening during this session. It might, however, provide the starting point for discussions come lame duck time, when the issue has to be resolved all over again.

  
  

  
• 14:24

  Fox's John Stossel visits union offices claiming to be filming 'beautiful buildings.' Yeah, right.

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Fox News and Fox Business correspondent John Stossel has been visiting union offices claiming he's interested in filming their "beautiful buildings." Yeah, right. A word to the wise John Stossel: The James O'Keefe sting only has a chance of working if they don't know what you're up to. You're a Fox News reporter. It's kind of obvious you're up to no good the instant you come within 10 feet of a union office. The only real question is whether Stossel is actually focusing on union buildings, presumably trying to portray them as unduly lavish, or if he was looking for something else ostensibly incriminating.

  In response, the AFL-CIO is mockingly highlighting some of the beauties of its building:
  

  (AFL-CIO Now)

  If Stossel's focus really was on the building itself, there is one thing he might try to highlight at the AFL-CIO: In the building's lobby and a room right off the lobby, there are two large and very beautiful mosaics showing scenes of work and family. Completed in 1956 and 1973, they are stunning, and if they set the tone for the rest of the building, it would indeed be a showplace.

  They don't set the tone for the rest of the building. I actually worked in the AFL-CIO building at my previous job with Working America, and the pictures above are an accurate representation of the work spaces there: basic gray office-building carpet, cubicles and fairly spartan meeting rooms through the core of the building, with small offices along the outer walls. Hallways tend to feature framed posters or photos from past labor struggles. There's a small cafeteria at which employees can buy basic sandwiches, soups and salads. A utilitarian urban office building with some added union flavoring, in other words.

  It's unlikely that Stossel got any footage beyond the lobbies of the AFL-CIO and whichever other unions he visited, and the staffers denying him entry to the rest of the building. This is apparently the kind of story Fox reporters are trying to break these days?

  
  

  
• 12:29

  Polling analysis: Republicans in trouble on marriage equality, Obama probably not so much

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  In 2011, PPP asked 11,995 registered voters their opinion on gay marriage on behalf of DailyKos and SEIU. With this many responses, we can answer some questions about where public opinion stood last year, where it might be going, and what the political implications of Obama's announcement yesterday may be—based on data.

  Republicans and conservatives have really painted themselves into a corner on marriage equality, as they stand out as the demographic groups in this country that are far off from everybody else and NOT evolving much on this issue. That is, they seem less likely to change in the future—they're stuck being anti-equality—they've made their bed. Meanwhile, Obama's announcement has a limited ability to change people's minds on who to vote for in November (no, not even African-Americans), but may swing a few percent on whether to vote at all. And, there is some evidence that Obama's act of leadership may, well, lead the country towards more liberal positions.  

  We'll first look at where the country is a whole and how to read the charts I will present:

  

  Join me below for more explanation.

  
  

  
• May 09, 2012
• 11:38

  House Republican wants to protect Planned Parenthood. Wait, what?

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Meet Robert J. Dold. He's a freshman in the House of Representatives from Illinois' 10th District. He's a Republican. He's a small business owner. And apparently, he has a political death wish:
  

  Dold plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would ensure Planned Parenthood’s access to federal funding. [...]

  “In response to the growing number of efforts to discriminate against and exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood from participating in health care programs, Dold’s legislation would protect the inclusion of any hospital or health care entity that seeks to participate in the Title X family planning program,” his office said in a release.

  Those "efforts to discriminate" are, of course, coming from Dold's own party. In fact, when Dold came to Congress after the 2010 election, his fellow Republicans made defunding Planned Parenthood their top priority, with some of his nuttier colleagues insisting that the entire government be shut down until that happens.

  Dold, as it turns out, was one of only seven House Republicans who voted against the bill to defund Planned Parenthood. And not only that, but he actually gave a speech on the floor of the House (above) in opposition to his colleagues' bill and in defense of ensuring women's access to health care. And not only that, but he's actually so proud of the speech that more than a year later, he's still boasting about it on Twitter.

  Go ahead, take a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor.

  Given the current climate of the Republican Party—batshit insane (and yes, that's a technical term)—it seems rather odd that one of its members would go out of his way to protect women's health care, while the rest of his fellow Republicans are going out of their way to eliminate it entirely. And the party is not very forgiving these days of anyone who isn't wingnutty enough—like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was teabagged in her 2010 primary, but survived anyway; like Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, who is retiring in part because of the extreme polarization (read: there's no room for pro-choice women in the party anymore); like Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who last night was primaried out of his party for being too (giggle) moderate.

  Dold's colleagues are already scoffing at him. Rep. Cliff Stearns—one of the leaders of the movement to defund Planned Parenthood, who opened the bogus "investigation" that Susan G. Komen for the Cure cited as its reason for pulling its funding from Planned Parenthood—is pretty much openly mocking Dold:
  

  I wonder how many Republican co-sponsors he’ll get [...] I don’t understand why a bill is needed—there’s no discrimination against Planned Parenthood. We’re getting financial records, the cases that we’ve seen where they’ve committed Medicaid fraud, we need to know why this is occurring and why they are getting government money.

  Of course, Stearns answered his own question right there. The reason Planned Parenthood needs to be protected is because of assholes like Stearns who are willing to expend whatever resources are necessary to witch-hunt the women's health care provider out of existence.

  So will Dold's efforts go anywhere? Hmmm, probably not. And it's safe to bet that if he keeps up his support for women's health care, in direct violation of the stated goals of his party, he'll find himself out of a job before too long, like all the other members of his party who don't adhere strictly enough to extremism that is now the prerequisite for being a Republican.

  Good luck, Rep. Dold. You're gonna need it.

  
  

  

• 1:00

  Sparks touches on Mediterranean using wood-burning oven

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  One of the paradoxical things about dining in restaurants is that the experience is not always about the food. Consider places like Mickey's Diner, Mancini's, or the Copper Dome in St. Paul's Highland Park. While the Dome's pancakes are textbook and the selection of breakfast meats is staggering,...

• 1:00

  Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's revival of Dark Shadows

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  A significant portion of Tim Burton's output over the past decade has been concerned with slipping the "Burton treatment" to susceptible texts: Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland &m...

• 1:00

  Girls Got Rhythm festival packs a punch

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  Rock 'n' roll heaven descends upon St. Paul in a three-day flurry of girl garage, power-pop, and punk-rock bands from around the world for Girls Got Rhythm Fest. From influential '60s rockers Ronnie Spector and Nikki Corvette to late-'80s L.A. garage greats the Muffs to Tokyo's punk-a-billy

• 1:00

  Hello Blue's sophomore album worth the long wait

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  Even if seven years in the fast-moving world of indie rock is roughly equivalent to three decades of real-world time, local quartet Hello Blue prefer to let ideas for riffs morph over months, and are willing to spend years tweaking lyrics. The band's long-awaited sophomore album, the aptly titled...

• 1:00

  Vasa Lisa at Open Book

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  In Kira Obolensky's delightful retelling of this Russian folktale, the title character goes on an adventure into the deep, dark forest to confront the witch Baba Yaga, who she believes can bring Vasa's mother back to life. In the hands of Ten Thousand Things, the piece grows richer by the moment,...

• 1:00

  Are You Now or Have You Ever Been... at the Guthrie

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  Early on in Carlyle Brown's exploration of Langston Hughes and his testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations (the Joseph McCarthy-led anti-communist witch hunt of the 1950s), the poet notes that the subpoena he received left the reason for the "invitation" blank. He kno...

• 1:00

  Critics' Picks: The Black Keys, Big Freedia, St. Vincent, and more

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage
  St. Vincent/Shearwater

  First Avenue, Saturday 5.12

  Following her tour-opening performance last fall at the Walker, this is the second coming of St. Vincent locally behind her third album, Strange Mercy, a complex, multi-dimensional musical playground of contrasting...

• 1:00

  CeCe McDonald murder trial

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage

  "Black lady with a knife."

  When the first 911 call came in, that's all police had to go on, because that's all Gary Gilbert could see by the dim light outside the Schooner Tavern, where he worked security.

  Meanwhile, Dean Schmitz was bleeding out on the sidewalk in front of the ba...

• 1:00

  Neon Indian/Lemonade/Silent Diane

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage
  Chillwave maven Neon Indian has graduated to the Mainroom a mere six months after selling out the Entry. But while albums by Neon Indian have a distinct, captivating quality to them, Alan Polomo's buoyant, synth-laden pop songs still need to find a bit more soul and substance to translate as well in...
• 1:00

  Art 4 Shelter

   » ‎ CITYPAGES.com - Dan Savage
  Despite its reputation as a hobby for only the wealthy, collecting art doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive. You just have to know when and where to shop. At Art 4 Shelter, folks will have the opportunity to check out over 1,000 original pieces of art from established and emerging artists. All...

• May 05, 2012
• 10:30

  President Obama declares a 'new chapter in Afghanistan'

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  Afghanistan and beyond is the focus of this week's address by President Obama. Saying that this week he signed "an historic agreement that will help us complete our mission and end the war," the president noted his time in Afghanistan with the troops:
  

  As Commander-in-Chief, nothing is more humbling or inspiring than the chance to spend some time with our troops. At Bagram Air Base, I visited with some of our outstanding men and women in uniform. I thanked them for their extraordinary service. And I let them know that America honors their sacrifice.

  ... and then asks what awaits them when they return home.
  

  As a new greatest generation returns from overseas, we must ask ourselves, what kind of country will they come back to? Will it be a country where a shrinking number of Americans do really well while a growing number barely get by? Or will it be a country where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules – a country with opportunity worthy of the troops who protect us?

  ... and then pivots to Congress and what needs to be done for all Americans:
  

  I don’t think we should prioritize things like more tax cuts for millionaires while cutting the kinds of investments that built a strong middle class.

  That’s why I’ve called on Congress to take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the other half to rebuild America.

  Because we’ve got more jobs to create. More students to educate. More clean energy to generate. More entrepreneurs with the next great idea, just looking for their shot at success. We’ve got to invest in things like education and medical research. We’ve got to build newer, faster transportation and communication networks. And we’ve got to secure the care and benefits our veterans have earned, so that we serve them as well as they have served us.

  Complete transcript below the fold.

  
  

  
• 9:00

  This week in science: jokers are wild

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  When last we heard from the Heartland Insitute, they were reeling from a leaked document revealing their duplicity and hypocrisy. The same jokers are back with a PR campaign comparing climate scientists to murderers and madmen, like bin Laden and the Unibomber:

  Of course, not all global warming alarmists are murderers or tyrants. ... The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.

  Heartland got their ass kicked over it and said late Friday they're going to take it down. But still, I really have to wonder why companies like State Farm, Microsoft, Eli Lilly & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Nucor, Pfizer, and Time Warner Cable are supporting these clowns. I guess they think it's good for a company's image ...?

  • Be sure and look up tonight to catch a glimpse of the huge, beautiful Super Moon:

    Everyone on earth has dreamed of going to the moon and no wonder, it’s been hanging up there, big and beautiful, ruling the night sky since our remote forefathers first stumbled out of an Pliocene forest on two legs.

  • I think I'd rather wave down a Martian tripod brandishing its heat ray in full afterburner than try this: Sticking your hand in the Big Bang machine
  • This could drive the usual suspects nuts, if there are any left who can comprehend it:

    Interestingly, the incomplete copy of the gene seems to have showed up just as the extinct hominin Australopithecus made room for the genus Homo, which led to modern humans.

  • A wingnut amendement that would have defined a blastocyst smaller than the period at the end of this sentence as a human being -- as long as the little tykes don't try to vote while black or join a union or anything subversive -- was struck down in Oklahoma this week. The forced birther brigades have vowed to fight on for the rights of rapists across the nation.
  • Why do conservatives deny so much science? Chris Mooney was on Up with Chris Hayes at MSNBC this morning discussing his new best-seller on that very topic. Daily Kos book review and Q & A with Chris posted here!

  
  

  
• 7:35

  Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Odds and ends

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  

  Visual source: Newseum

  Mark Blumenthal:

  It is still very early in the general election campaign and new surveys are released continually. The polling snapshots in these battleground states may look different in a few weeks than they do today, but for now, a close race nationally is translating into close contests in the critical swing states.

  Nonetheless, Obama's current standing in three key swing states looks slightly better now than it did in June 2008, just after he clinched the Democratic nomination.

  John Sides:

  So why would Mr. Obama be more popular than the economy and other factors might predict? One possibility is his personal likeability. Despite the armchair diagnoses of some pundits, large majorities of Americans perceive him as warm, empathetic and a good communicator. Although many fewer Americans approve of his performance in office, perhaps his personal appeal has boosted his job approval among some Americans.

  A second possibility concerns whom Americans blame for the economy. Based on some recent polling data, I found that Mr. Obama continues to receive less blame than George W. Bush for the country’s economic problems. If, hypothetically speaking, every American blamed Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush equally, his approval rating would be about 11 points lower — enough to erase the gap between actual and expected approval in the first graph above. Of course, “hypothetically speaking” is the best we can do, short of replaying history and having Americans blame Mr. Obama more.

  Nevertheless, “the blame game” conceivably has something to do with why Mr. Obama has remained more popular than we might expect. And if his better-than-expected popularity continues, it might give him just enough of an edge to defeat Mitt Romney in what is likely to be a close election.

  John Sides also helped build the simple election predictor that Ezra Klein wrote up in the WaPo.

  CSM on the twitterwar over The Life of Julia:

  The April employment numbers out Friday morning, showing disappointing job creation, are no doubt a bigger problem for Obama than conservatives piling on poor Julia. But if all the attention gets more voters to click through her “life,” driving home his message that the government is there to help women, then maybe Obama will actually win this skirmish.

  Conservatives waste more money than even Americans Elect.

  Rachel Weiner:

  Mitt Romney boxed in by Richard Grenell

  Spokespeople are supposed to help candidates out of tight spots. In quitting Mitt Romney’s campaign before he even started working, foreign policy flack Richard Grenell managed to stick his candidate into one.

  The former Massachusetts governor is now forced to insist that he didn’t fire an aide for his sexuality, an assertion that could jeopardize his already shaky relationship with the religious right.

  Chris Cillizza:

  But, wait, you say: It’s only May. The election is still more than six months off. Yes, that’s, of course, true. (There are 186 days between today and election day — but who’s counting?)

  That seems like a long time — plenty of time, certainly, for voters’ perceptions on how President Obama is handling the economy to shift in the incumbent’s favor.

  It’s not.

  Consider: We are roughly one month away from most schools letting out and, therefore, we are one month away from the start of summer vacation season.

  Add to that reality the fact that summer is traditionally a time when most Americans zone out a bit from politics — yes, even more than they usually zone out — and that by the time Labor Day rolls around peoples' perceptions about how things are going in the country begin to harden, and you begin to see the potential difficulties for Obama if the next few months of jobs reports don’t get (much) better.

  Over at PNHP (the single payer advocates),Don McCanne (via Paul Offit's JAMA article) takes on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

  Until now, I have been reserved in my comments on CAM, partly because so many sincere, dedicated individuals in our single payer coalitions are supportive of CAM - including some members of PNHP who should know better. But dammit! Quackery is quackery! The smug CAM producers who retreat to their mansions are "dem that takes," and the uninformed patient/victims lacking an adequate scientific background are "dem that gets took."

  Caveat emptor. But if one simply looks at the money spent by NIH on CAM and the lack of results, a case can be made for some budget cuts.

  WaPo on the shrinking labor force:

  The ‘demographics’ story

  But a number of economists are arguing that the recession is distracting people from the real story — long-run demographic trends that have nothing to do with the current economy. Baby boomers are starting to retire en masse, which means that there are fewer eligible American workers.

  Demographics have always played a big role in the rise and fall of the labor force. Between 1960 and 2000, the labor force in the United States surged from 59 percent to a peak of 67.3 percent. That was largely due to the fact that more women were entering the labor force while improvements in health and information technology allowed Americans to work more years.

  But since 2000, the labor force rate has been steadily declining as the baby-boom generation has been retiring. Because of this, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago expects the labor force participation rate to be lower in 2020 than it is today, regardless of how well the economy does.

  In a March report titled “Dispelling an Urban Legend,” Dean Maki, an economist at Barclays Capital, found that demographics accounted for a majority of the drop in the participation rate since 2002.

  
  

  
• May 04, 2012
• 23:30

  Open thread for night owls: A reduced labor force is a lousy way to cut the unemployment rate

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Felix Salmon writes about today's mediocre jobs report:
  

  [The chart below] is just petrifying. The participation rate started falling after the dot-com bust, leveled off during the credit boom (but never really rose much), and then fell off a cliff when the recession started. You’d think it would have started to bounce back up by now, but no. Instead, we’re now deep into pretty much unprecedented territory. Yes, the participation rate has been this low before—back in 1981. But that was during the decades when women were still properly moving into the labor force.
  As Mike Konczal noted this morning, a key indicator of labor recession is still in force: if you’re unemployed, you’re still more likely to drop out of the labor force entirely than you are to find a job. [...]

  For demographic reasons—the retirement of the baby boomers—the labor force participation rate is naturally going to fall over the next decade. But go back just one year, to March 2011, and look at the official CBO projection of the labor force participation rate. The CBO saw a rate of 64.6% in 2012—a full percentage point higher than we’re at right now. The participation rate wasn’t expected to fall to today’s level of 63.6% until 2017.

  Politically speaking, the unemployment rate is still the number that people concentrate on. But increasingly, being unemployed is little more than a halfway house between employment and dropping out of the labor force altogether. Until the labor force participation rate stops falling and starts rising, the so-called recovery will remain a theoretical economic entity and not a real-world reality for hundreds of millions of Americans. We need jobs, and we need them now. Ben Bernanke, and Congress, are you listening?

  Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:
  

  So, it was an ordinary day for our embattled Secretary of Defense as he enjoyed speechifying about spreading freedom and fighting terrorists. All was well in Rummyland until protesters disrupted his speech and challenged him on his spin about the Iraq War. ThinkProgress has the video of a feisty exchange between Rumsfeld and CIA veteran Ray McGovern, who demanded to know why Rumsfeld lied about WMD.

  Tweet of the Day:
  

  Who tested this theory?? “@jbarooah: Twitter is harder to resist than sex, according to research: http://t.co/...
  — @SabrinaSiddiqui via Twitter for iPhone
  

  High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.

  
  

  
• 21:45

  Sen. David Vitter demurs on prostitution scandal

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Sen. David Vitter Great moments in American politics, hooker edition.
  

  Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in his first reaction to the recent prostitution scandal among Secret Service and military personnel in Colombia, called the incident “a very, very serious situation” but skirted specific questions about involvement of the military, which he oversees as a member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

  That's actually an impressive level of control, on Vitter's part. Every time someone mentions prostitution in a political discussion, I always expect the good senator to bolt from his chair and leap out the nearest window.

  Bonus points to NPR's Andrea Seabrook, who no doubt will get a stern talking to even though this is probably the most diplomatic phrasing you could possibly ask for:
  

  NPR congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook predicted Friday this would be Vitter’s reaction when she addressed a crowd at WRKF’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

  “Your senator is in a very bad position because he cannot address the Secret Service scandal,” Seabrook said in response to a question from the audience. “He would be a natural person to come to. ... He used to see prostitutes in D.C. but has never addressed that.”

  Well, he did address it, to be fair. He said he was really sorry, and then Jesus and the Republicans forgave him because the GOP couldn't find a single Republican in the state who wasn't a bigger jackass than he was. It's not the same as doing jail time or having to resign, but hey—when people bring up prostitution, he gets vaguely uncomfortable now. Isn't that punishment enough?
  

  
  

  
• 20:00

  Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Lights out for Lugar in Indiana?

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  It's something of a rarity, but the banner headline on the polling front to close the week is not of the Obama-Romney variety. Nope, it is downballot, where a man who has served in the United States Senate for nearly my entire lifetime appears to be on the cusp of forced retirement.

  After largely trying to gauge the race on internal or sponsored polling on either side, we get our first independent poll in the race in roughly a month. And it is very bad news for the incumbent.

  Before we talk about that, let's take a look at the numbers on a rather thin Friday of data:

  PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
  

  NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (45-45)

  NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)

  MONTANA (Rasmussen): Romney d. Obama (51-44)
  

  DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
  

  IN-SEN--R (Howey Politics Indiana/DePauw University): Richard Mourdock 48, Sen. Dick Lugar 38

  A thought or two, as always, await you just past the jump...

  
  

  
• 19:21

  Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  

  From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

  They're Off to See the Wizard!

  Wheeee!!! Maine's finest Republicans are fixin' to go skippin' through the blueberry fields, arm in arm, in search of that which they lack.

  The Governor needs a heart:

  Last week our tea party Republican governor, Paul LePage claimed that middle managers in our state government are "about as corrupt as you can be." The blowback was swift from just about everyone, including Republicans in the statehouse and Maine's largest newspaper, The Portland Press Herald:
  

  The busy governor---who has already demonized poor people, claiming (without evidence) that welfare fraud was behind program cost overruns; blamed (without evidence) political appointees from the previous administration for hiding computer problems at DHHS; and regularly blames legislators and others for all the problems he was elected to tackle -- rarely follows through with the facts. … Forget about politics, this is just bad management, and our sympathies go out to the good people the governor has abused. … His anti-government clap-trap may play well in some circles, but it doesn't educate children or provide health care to the people who need it.

  The Maine Republican Party needs courage:

  A couple years ago at the Maine GOP state convention, the tea party staged a surprise attack against the establishment types. When the smoke cleared, the party platform suddenly contained such twitch-inducing kookiness as preventing a "one world order," promoting "Austrian economics," and shedding light on "collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth." This year, the party leadership is going to try a little "scrub scrub here, scrub scrub there, and a couple of tra la las." The platform, if approved, will still contain some paranoia and cruelty for the tinfoil-hat gang---things like "protecting the American legal system from Sharia (Islamic) Law," defunding Family Planning of Maine and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and enacting a photo ID law to address the non-existent problem of voter fraud. Can the country clubbers summon the moxie to yank some control back from the tea party? Sure...if ya click your heels together hard enough, anything's possible.

  The Sodomy Slayer needs a brain:

  Last but not least, there's this nut. Michael Heath of No Special Rights PAC---a real "manly man"---is taking a leading role in opposing the gay marriage referendum that'll be on the Maine ballot in November. And while the opposing message during 2009's failed referendum was standard "think of the children" stuff, Heath is kicking it up a notch by going the Full Anita Bryant:
  

  The truth about the vote this November is that it isn't a battle between nice people who happen to disagree. It is not important that we respect the devil. It is important that we condemn him, and those who wish to use the sexual instinct in humanity for their own ends. Politicians are using this issue to get re-elected. … I want to bury this evil, and never have to talk about it again. I want to see innocence and virtue put back in sex. I want men to protect women, and women to love men.

  And that is why I want to see men rise up all over Maine and discover the virtue, courage and goodness that God put in their hearts. This is a dirty, nasty fight. Women must be loved by men enough to be protected from the sordid essence of what is being sought here.

  Dude. It's a civil marriage license---a piece of paper you get from your freakin' town clerk---not rivers running red with the blood of innocents. With Heath at the helm, I like our chances.

  So, anyway. They're off to see the wizard. Just as soon as they figure out how to zip up their flying-monkey suits.

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

  
  

  
• 17:50

  Medical marijuana - gateway drug

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  Tom the Dancing Bug!  Follow @DailyKosComics and find out the instant a comic is posted!

  
  

  
• 17:43

  Colin Powell is so sad he can't erase 'blot' on his reputation

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  Colin Powell examining a vial of his integrity. Former Bush era Secretary of State Colin Powell has a new book out May 22. As with so many political celebs, it's a book written "with" a professional person who does the actual writing. But it includes quotations from the guy who was once seen as potential presidential or vice presidential material. Based on uncorrected proofs released in advance, what we get once again is Powell lamenting the stain he can't get rid of because of the dead-wrong 85-minute speech he gave to the United Nations Feb. 5, 2003. There he declared convincingly that the United States had irrefutable evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

  Within five months, that claim had been convincingly refuted.
  

  “Yes, a blot, a failure will always be attached to me and my UN presentation,” the former U.S. secretary of state writes in a new book of leadership parables that draws frequently on his Iraq war experience. “I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.”

  Powell, 75, laments that no intelligence officials had the “courage” to warn that he was given false information that Iraq had such weapons during preparations for his February 2003 speech before the U.S. invasion the following month.

  We've been hearing this crap from the guy for seven years now. It's tedious. It's sickening. It's self-serving. It's bullshit. It's the same old, same old.

  Except, not quite. Because Powell keeps changing his story about his interactions in the White House. In 2005, he told Barbara Walters that he was "right there with" the president on the use of force in Iraq. In 2007, he told a group of heavyweights at a conference in Aspen, Colo., that he had spent two-and-a-half hours trying to talk Bush out of using force.

  This latest iteration isn't the first time Powell has tried to lay the blame for his bogus U.N. speech on intelligence failures well down the chain of command. Not only has he never held his bosses to account for intentionally distorting what they knew to be untrue, he hasn't owned up to his own distortions.

  For instance, he knew full well from his own intelligence source that the aluminum tubes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice were claiming as proof of Saddam Hussein's intent to make a nuclear weapon couldn't be used for that purpose. But he didn't pass that information along in his U.N. speech. Or anywhere else.

  Most of all, for somebody so concerned about his reputation now, he didn't resign in protest when he learned that what he had said at the U.N. was false. In fact he said in the Walters' interview:
  

  "I'm not a quitter. And it wasn't a moral issue, or an act of a failure of an active leadership. It was knowing what we were heading into, and when the going got rough, you don't walk out."

  Fabricating evidence to start a war is not a moral issue? Better to be the good soldier than to be good, eh? Hundreds of thousands dead or maimed, millions exiled, trillions of dollars spent. For lies. How about a lament for that from the secretary?

  All we get from Powell is a rancid woe-is-me sidestep from responsibility. As he enters his dotage, he claims it was all due to the lack of courage on the part of lower-downs and the failure of his normally good instincts that caused him to make an uncharacteristically bad judgment call.

  Stunningly laughable for a guy whose "instincts" led to this remarkable fantasy recounted in the new book:
  

  Powell, who served as national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, recalls a morning in 1988 when he went to see Reagan and described a problem that needed to be solved that day. Reagan gazed past him at squirrels picking up nuts he had put out for them in the morning by the Rose Garden.

  It was a lesson in delegating authority and trusting his team to make the right decision, Powell says. “The president was teaching me: ‘Colin, I love you and I will sit here as long as you want me to, listening to your problem. Let me know when you have a problem that I have to solve,’” Powell writes.

  He can perhaps be excused for believing that a quarter-century ago. But knowing what we know now about the health of Reagan's brain, Powell's continuing view that he was being mentored by a squirrel-gazing president is as ludicrous as the rest of his tales about what put that unerasable blot on his reputation.

  
  

  
• 17:29

  Federal Appeals Court stops Texas from banning Planned Parenthood from state health program

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  Rick Perry loses, again, and Texas women win The Texas-Planned Parenthood legal roller-coaster continues. On Monday, a federal judge granted an injunction barring the state from barring Planned Parenthood from the state's health care program for low-income women. Then, on Tuesday, Judge Jerry Smith of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling.

  Today, a three-judge panel from the appeals court ruled again in favor of Planned Parenthood, reinstating the injunction at least until a lower court can hear formal arguments.
  

  Appellate Judge Jerry Smith had stayed an injunction keeping the law from being enforced earlier this week so the court could review it.

  But on Friday he said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had not demonstrated that Texas would be irreparably harmed by holding off on enforcing the new law until a trial in Austin.

  “We cannot conclude, on the present state of the record, that the State has shown a great likelihood, approaching a near certainty, that the district court abused its discretion in entering the injunction,” the court order said.

  This is far from over, but it's at least a temporary reprieve for Planned Parenthood, and some 130,000 women in Texas who rely on PP for their health care.

  
  

  
• 17:20

  Republican Violence Against Women Act would make undocumented women more vulnerable to abuse

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  Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) was once abused herself.
  Now, she wants to take protections from undocumented
  women. (Official photo)

  It was bad enough that Republicans in the House, and many in the Senate, openly opposed the bipartisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in part because of a provision that expands the small number of visas available to undocumented immigrant women. These special visas are necessary because in some cases, an abuser who is a citizen or legal resident will hold a woman's immigration status hostage to keep her trapped in an abusive relationship. Currently, these women are able to confidentially apply for protected status. But it turns out that the House version of the Violence Against Women Act would not only fail to expand the number of such visas available, it would eviscerate confidentiality protections.

  Currently, women applying for this special protected immigrant status go to specially trained immigration officers who understand the dangers abused women face and the importance of confidentiality.
  

  The Republican bill would eliminate that confidentiality and require women to go to the closest immigration office. It would allow the officer, not specifically trained in domestic violence response, to reach out to and inform the abusive partner that the alleged victim is applying for immigration status.

  Not only that, but the standard of proof for abused women would be higher than for undocumented immigrants seeking asylum for other reasons, and there would be a 60-day statute of limitations, so a woman who began the process of getting away from her abuser and only later learned about this program would not qualify for a visa. Unless she went back for one more beating, I guess.

  Just when you think you've gotten cynical enough that even today's Republican can't shock you, they pull something like this. Telling a man (or woman) who is using their partner's immigration status as a tool of abuse that the partner is trying to get out of the abusive situation is a recipe for heightened violence, one that could easily kill.

  Republicans, of course, say they're concerned about fraud. Apparently, to them, the slim chance that a woman would claim to be in love with an American, be sponsored over here, and then claim abuse fraudulently but convincingly enough to persuade trained immigration officers to give her one of just 10,000 or 15,000 special visas is more important than the risk of telling an abuser that his especially vulnerable victim is trying to get away from him. It's not just a war on women. It's a war on logic. Also decency.

  
  

  
• 17:20

  Heartland Institute launches campaign comparing climate change 'believers' to murderers, tyrants

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  Bye bye, little shark

  Don your ceremonial Fonzie jackets, one and all, because the anti-climate-science Heartland Institute didn't just jump the shark on this one, they jumped it twice, then jumped it once more backwards, then took it to the movies for the evening, then jumped it once more with roller skates on. Yikes:
  

  Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world's most notorious criminals say they "still believe in global warming" – and ask viewers if they do, too…The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant.

  Already the billboard had has some effect, as Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has pulled out of Heartland's upcoming conference rather than be associated with this nuttery.

  So how does this work? Hey kids, Charles Manson believes climate change is real! If you believe it, you're just like Charles Manson! Who thought up that one, did they scour drunken Young Republican house parties until they came up with the single dumbest idea any person had ever had in the history of having ideas? (Just kidding: Young Republicans do not have house parties. They have cotillions, I think.)

  The result is something that I think is even more egregious than Godwin's Law. The Heartland Institute has a very long history of being wrong for money, but apparently they've given up on even the appearance of trying. What's next?

  Do you breathe oxygen to live? Do you know who else breathed oxygen to live? Genghis Khan.

  Adolf Hitler believed in washing his hands after pooping. Do you?

  Pants-wearers through history have included Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, and that guy from The Silence of the Lambs. Don't be like those guys. Don't wear pants.

  At this point, Heartland needs to come out and just admit they've lost the argument (and, incidentally, the plot. And all remaining sanity.) When your main defense is that you're more out of touch with reality than even Charlie Manson and the Unibomber were, clear out your desk, fellas, it's time to go home. Yes, a lot of companies (Microsoft? Seriously, Microsoft, what the hell you thinking on this one?) pay them good money to come up with this drivel, but at this point they're nothing more than the Rush Limbaugh of climate denialism, running around calling their opponents sluts and the like.

  Now, there's little doubt that Heartland is still going to publish their ridiculous position papers claiming that climate scientists all have cooties and that the only true scientific arbiters of what's happening in the atmosphere are the good people of Exxon Mobil, but let's not pretend that they have any more credibility than these billboards. You're either based in the science or you're just peddling propaganda, and I don't think you can get more propaganda-driven than "people who believe climate scientists are just like Charlie Manson". Puh-leeze.

  
  So let's see, what should we call this? I've got to confess Andrew Sullivan put it pretty well, saying "this is an almost perfect illustration of what has happened to the “right.” A refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association." Brutalist is a rather perfect word for it; it harkens to the old Soviet propaganda efforts against their citizens, where the state was right because fuck you, that's why, and because only people who were enemies of that state would possibly think otherwise. Rather than supposedly leading the right, "think tanks" such as Heartland have merely become products of it, having to bend themselves to coarser and stupider rhetoric in this ongoing rightward quest towards perfect anti-intellectualism.

  The next question would be how long the right can even hold out having "think tanks" at all. Anti-intellectualism is so strong that merely the appearance of scientific or political expertise, no matter how faked, is barely tolerated; the new conspiracy-riddled Tea Party conservatism looks on anything international or scientific as inherently suspicious, and God help you if you're ever seen as compromising on something. The old model of putting out badly premised, misleading industry-backed white papers attacking corporate regulation or anti-pollution efforts may itself be in danger: do true conservatives even bother with such things anymore? Or is comparing people to Manson or Castro the highest and best expression of movement principles?

  I'm not joking on that one: I think the Koch efforts to rein in the Cato Institute and turn it more directly into a clearing house for pro-industry propaganda is a telling example of how even the most hardcore bastions of "intellectual" conservatism or libertarianism are under the same kind of assault as any random gay staffer for Mitt Romney. The new level of purity required in the movement is nearly impossible to achieve; acknowledging basic elements of climate science even in order to supposedly refute it may be soon be considered too heretical to allow. Cheap, brutalist billboard propaganda may be the wave of the industry-backed, "conservative intellectual" future. The weather is fine, damn you, and chocolate rations have increased!
  

  
  

  
• 16:37

  WWJCD: A roadmap for Republican swiftboaters

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  The GOP's pathetic attempt at swift boating President Obama over the raid on bin Laden I don't normally give advice to Republicans, but when I saw the newest swift boat attack ad to come from a Republican front-group, I couldn't resist. The problem with the ad, which comes from a one-man Koch-funded organization called "Vets For a Strong America" isn't that it is based on a totally false premise. Any effective swift boating must be based on a lie. The problem is that it lies about the wrong thing.

  If you've seen the ad, you know it claims that President Obama never thanked the heroes who took out bin Laden—that he took all the credit for himself. That's patently false. But as I said, even though that's a lie, it's lying about the wrong thing, because the best case scenario with the ad is that people who see it are convinced that Obama is a dick...but even if they are convinced he's a dick, he'd still be the dick who killed bin Laden.

  And the last thing you want to do is talk about how President Obama killed bin Laden. It would be as if the swift boaters in 2004 had acknowledged John Kerry's heroism. You just can't do it.

  But it's easier to say what's wrong with the ad than to say what the swift boaters should have done instead. And to answer that question, I needed inspiration. And for that inspiration, I asked myself the question that any good God-fearing Republican operative asks themselves: WWJCD?

  What would Jerome Corsi do?

  The answer came to me immediately. Jerome Corsi wouldn't fuck around with some piddly little ad calling Obama a dick. He'd go straight to the heart of the matter and ask the big question: why hasn't anybody seen Osama bin Laden's dead body? Why was he buried at sea? Where is the death certificate? Why hasn't anybody come forward to say they spoke with him in the afterlife?

  In short, the question Jerome Corsi would ask is this: why should anybody really believe that Osama bin Laden is dead? Today's swift boaters keep on asking why President Obama keeps on spiking the football. Well, that's a bad question to ask if you concede he scored a touchdown. So Republicans should do what Jereme Corsi would do and point out that Obama cannot prove that Osama bin Laden is really dead.

  He's probably alive and well. In Hawaii, perhaps. Or maybe even Kenya. Hidden with Obama's birth certificate. The real birth certificate.

  
  

  
• 16:01

  GOP Madness 2012, Round 1, Match 12

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  Is this really the 12th contest? Only 17 to go before we have a final winner. What did I get myself into?

  The bracket thus far is here. Today's winner will face off against Rick Santorum telling Puerto Ricans to speak English if they want to be American.

  1. GOP AUDIENCE CHEERS "LET HIM DIE!"

  BLITZER: A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.

  Who’s going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example?  Who pays for that?

  PAUL: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

  BLITZER: Well, what do you want?

  PAUL: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical
  policy, but not be forced –

  BLITZER: But he doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

  PAUL: That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody –
  (APPLAUSE)

  BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

  CROWD: Yes! Yeah! (LAUGHTER)

  Ha ha ha, it's so funny when Americans die. Particularly libtards, because good, honest, hard-working Americans couldn't be walking around without health insurance, could they?

  2. MITT ROMNEY INSTALLS CAR ELEVATOR IN MANSION
  

  Romney SOOOO wants one of these. Mitt did so much to prepare for his 2012 presidential bid. He got rid of his undocumented workers, because all that cheap labor could come back and haunt him. He also sold a bunch of his mansions, because that sort of thing didn't play well for John McCain.

  But there was only so much he was willing to sacrifice to his political ambitions. So he set out to quadruple the size of his $12 million California beachside mansion, hiring a lobbyist to navigate through the city planning process. Among his renovations:
  

  At Mitt Romney’s proposed California beach house, the cars will have their own separate elevator.

  For a campaign that has had so much trouble connecting with voters, such ostentatious displays of wealth further cement the fact that Mitt Romney just isn't like the rest of us.

  
  

  
• 15:44

  Richard Mourdock poised to topple Richard Lugar in Indiana Senate GOP primary

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  Garin-Hart-Yang (D)/Bellwether Research (R) for Howey Politics Indiana/DePauw University. 4/30-5/1. Likely Republican primary voters. MoE: ±3.7% (3/26-28 in parentheses):
  

  Richard Lugar (R-inc): 38 (42)
  Richard Mourdock (R): 48 (35)

  It's looking like after six terms (that takes us back to 1976!), Richard Lugar's long tenure in the Senate is about to come to an end. He's on the verge of losing the Republican Senate primary, which will be held this Tuesday (May 8), to a challenger from the right, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. That should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the internal polls and the smoke signals from the ground. But with Friday's release of the new poll sponsored by local political tipsheet Howey Politics and Dan Quayle-alma mater DePauw University (actually taken by two partisan pollsters, one Democrat and one Republican), we now have a public poll putting that in stark relief.

  If you're sitting there thinking to yourself, "who cares? One wingnut replaces another; life goes on," here's why it's important (and why you should be rooting for Mourdock). Previous polls in Indiana have shown that while Lugar has substantial crossover appeal and a reserve of goodwill among Democrats, Mourdock has no such thing; in fact, in matchups against presumptive Dem nominee Rep. Joe Donnelly, Lugar wins huge but Mourdock finds himself in a tossup. (Case in point, the previous Howey poll, which also did a general election portion: Lugar defeats Donnelly 50-29, while Mourdock and Donnelly tie at 35 apiece.) A Mourdock win on Tuesday would immediately put one more Senate seat into play as a possible Democratic pickup, and make the GOP's path toward flipping control of the Senate that much trickier.

  For the last month or more, both sides have been running saturation-level advertising, with various outside groups pouring money into the race (establishment forces on Lugar's behalf, tea-flavored groups like Club for Growth backing Mourdock). Whatever Mourdock and his allies have been doing, seems to have succeeded at defining Lugar, as the newest Howey poll finds Lugar with only a 43/43 approval among GOP voters, while Mourdock is at 47/25.

  In response to the question of "In the last week or two, has your opinion of Richard Lugar become..." only 12% said "more favorable" while 32% said "less favorable." (That would explain those trendlines, where we're seeing not only a Mourdock surge as he gets better known, but Lugar's vote share going down, pretty unusual at this stage in the game.) But Mourdock's voters aren't voting for Mourdock as much as they're voting against Lugar.

  Mourdock's allies tapped effectively into conservative discontent over Lugar's inability to get with the new conservative agenda, which is not just to vote conservatively (which Lugar does), but to stop trying to legislate in good faith and actively trying to sandbag the Democrats at every turn (which Lugar doesn't). The top reasons given by Mourdock voters in this poll are "Lugar been in office too long," "time for a change," "dislike Lugar," and "dissatisfied with Lugar;" only 10% of Mourdock's voters seemed to give a reason that was pro-Mourdock (that Mourdock is "conservative"). (Ironically, later in the poll, 60% of respondents said they want someone to work across the aisle to solve the nation's problems, while 33% said they want a principled conservative first.)

  We're at the point in the campaign where both sides make their closing arguments via TV ad. In a nutshell... Lugar: I'm experienced! Mourdock: Lugar lies!
  

  You can also have a look at various mailers that pro-Lugar forces are putting out here, here, and here. But we're probably at a point in the race where the trajectory can't be unbent for Lugar. At this point, he's basically been reduced to begging for crossover voters from Democrats and independents (which is possible, since Indiana uses open primaries). It's a kind of reverse Operation Hilarity, just not terribly hilarious.
  

  “I believe that right now if a majority of Hoosiers were to vote in an election, that is all Hoosiers regardless of party — Republicans, Democrats, independents, I would win,” Lugar said. “I want everybody in the state to vote for me on Tuesday. Everybody. I’m not asking anybody to cross over. I’m just saying positively ‘register your vote, because if you do not I may not be able to continue serving you. At this point, help.”

  A real Operation Hilarity, of course, would involve Democrats voting for Mourdock ... in the hopes that his weakness against Donnelly does, in fact, put the GOP on the defensive here in November and possibly even turns into a pickup.

  
  

  
• 14:55

  Midday open thread

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  • Today's comic by Matt Bors is The Pope vs. nuns:
    

  

  • What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...
    

  • Things that matter in the presidential campaign, and things that don't, by DemFromCT
  • In Arizona, governing by conspiracy theory, by Hunter
  • Mitt Romney is a businessman like the Hamburglar is a cowboy, by David Waldman
  • History shows renewable energy subsidies are exactly what's needed to get us out of fossil-fuel bind, by Meteor Blades
  • Redistricting Roundup: Republicans win, by not losing, by David Jarman
  • Occupy and the Constitution, by Armando
  • Dumbing democracy down: Leadership is not a drinking game, by Laurence Lewis
  • When your pharmacist is allowed to tell you "no," by Denise Oliver Velez
  • Falling down on the economic treadmill, by brooklynbadboy
  • All politics is personal, especially in North Carolina, by Scott Wooledge
  • The insanity of the Wall Street ethos, by Dante Atkins

  • It "would have meant a lot to him," but Associated Press Reporter Edward Kennedy died 49 years ago, so the AP's apology for firing him for actually being a reporter was a tad belated. The day before the Allies announced the already-in-hand surrender of Germany in 1945, Kennedy broke an agreement with the censors to report the news.
    

  Kennedy, [AP CEO Tom] Curley said, "did everything just right." Curley rejected the notion that the AP had a duty to obey the order to hold the story once it was clear the embargo was for political reasons, rather than to protect the troops.

  "Once the war is over, you can't hold back information like that. The world needed to know," he said in an interview.

  • Kent State survivors haven't given up their quest for justice in the 42-year-old shootings that left four dead young people in the midst of antiwar protests on the campus:

  ...four students wounded that day asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate digitally enhanced audio evidence they believe proves an officer ordered the guardsmen to fire on the unarmed students.

  A command to fire has never been proven and guardsmen said they fired in self-defense. Criminal charges were brought against eight guardsmen, but a judge dismissed the case. Wounded students and families of those slain later received a total of $675,000 after civil lawsuits.

  • It's Star Wars Day: May the fourth be with you.
  • Headline of the week—no Godwin references, please: Hitler Was a Flatulent Coke Fiend Who Bolstered His Libido with Bull Semen. How did he get back in the news? Some documents relating to the Nazi dictator's health are being auctioned next week:
    

  According to Alexander Historical Auctions president Bill Panagopulos, the shorter document reveals, among other things, that der Führer farted constantly as a result of his vegetarian diet, and was the recipient of regular bull semen injections aimed at rejuvenating his flagging libido.

  Caught one day by Eva Braun while he was having one of the secret injections, Hitler said: "Oh, mein Liebchen, don't have a cow."

  • No more friggin' fracking in Vermont.
  • Time to demand a refund. Former "Master and Commander of GE" Jack Welch, yes that's a real title, kindled a few sparks recently with advice to women executives that they have been giving themselves for half a century:
    

  Programs promoting diversity, mentorships and affinity groups may or may not be good, but they are not how women get ahead. "Over deliver," Mr. Welch advised. "Performance is it!"

  • Get ready for Saturday's "Supermoon":
    

  Supermoon 2011 (Tim McCord/Space.com)

  On Saturday night, the full moon will be closer to Earth than at any other time this year, an occurrence that's been labeled a supermoon.

  During this week's perigee, the moon will be 221,801 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, and that close approach will happen within minutes of the official full moon phase, which occurs at 11:35 p.m. ET. [...]

  The moon's proximity won't have any major effects on our planet, according to astronomers, who hope to dispel fears that the looming lunar orb causes natural disasters.

  "While we know that during new and full moons the tides are greatest—and if it's in concert with a storm surge it might produce unusual flooding—there is no scientific evidence that earthquakes and other natural disasters are connected," Gyuk said.

  • T. Boone Pickens says the biggest impediment to a decent U.S. energy plan is Koch Industries.

  
  

  
• 13:51

  Mitt Romney wishes he could have kept gay spokesman. Just not enough to do anything about it.

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  Mitt Romney may have muzzled his now ex-spokesman Richard Grenell and let the homophobic right bully him out of his campaign post because he was gay, but Romney and his remaining, apparently non-gay, advisers wants us to know they had no problem with Grenell's sexuality and wanted him to stay. He just, for his own reasons having nothing to do with them not having his back, decided to leave:
  

  “He’s a very accomplished spokesperson, and we select people not based upon their ethnicity or their sexual preference or their gender but upon their capability,” Romney said.

  The former Massachusetts governor added: “He expressed a desire to move on and I wish him the very best.”

  There's a necessary step after selecting people based upon their capability, Mitt. It's called standing up to pressure from bigots who attack your capable employee for reasons unrelated to his capability or lack thereof. Making a hiring decision without regard to the person's sexuality doesn't advance the cause of equality if you let others unmake your decision because of it.

  But if you thought this signaled something about Romney's willingness to indulge bigotry, fear not:
  

  "Wherever there are voices of intolerance within the party, or the Democratic Party for that matter — it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from — it’s disappointing," [Romney senior adviser Eric] Fehrnstrom said. "And the governor has taken the opportunity in the past to denounce those voices of intolerance.

  Oh, well. That settles things. In the past Romney has denounced intolerance, so we can forget that in the present he let it silence the person he had chosen as the best to carry his foreign policy message.

  
  

  
• 13:45

  Michele Bachmann says her campaign was 'almost mistake free'

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  Except for my mistakes, I never made any mistakes!
  (Gage Skidmore)
  

  Trigger warning for David Brody. And Michele Bachmann. And general WTFness:
  

  Brody: You ran pretty much an impeccable campaign, in terms of a mistake-free campaign.

  Bachmann: Thank you, it really was.

  Brody: It pretty much was.

  Bachmann: It really was, we were extremely careful, and we were almost mistake free, but for those two points, Elvis Presley’s birthday and John Wayne’s birthplace. I’ve apologized, and we moved beyond.

  Um, yeah. Other than celebrating Elvis' birthday on the anniversary of his death, and boasting about sharing "the spirit" of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Michele's campaign was pretty much perfect.

  This isn't the first time Bachmann has patted herself on the back for being mistake free. In November, she proclaimed, "I haven’t had a gaffe or something that I've done that has caused me to fall in the polls." But as Jed Lewison pointed out, this came one day after she insisted that a seven-foot tall doctor told her all medical treatment had to be pre-approved by the IRS, thanks to Obamacare.

  And of course, no one can forget her story that the HPV vaccine causes instant retardation, which she tried to excuse by explaining that she "wasn't attesting to anything" when she told the story.

  Or that time her campaign staff sent an email slamming Newt Gingrich, only to send an email from the same email address denying that the slam came from the Bachmann camp.

  But those weren't gaffes or mistakes. She totally meant to do that!

  So except for Elvis and the serial killer snafu, she was totally on track for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?

  
  

  
• 13:35

  Will the real capitalists please step forward?

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  Warren Buffett and President Obama (White House) and Mitt Romney (Reuters) Shhhh. Don't tell anybody on the political right about this, but with today's jobs report, private sector employment has now finally moved into net positive territory under President Obama.

  When President Obama took office, there were 110,985,000 workers in the private sector, and the number was dropping fast thanks to the Bush economic crisis—more than 800,000 jobs had been lost in the previous month alone.

  Today, there are 111,020,000 workers in the private sector. Now I know that's just an increase of 35,000, and that's nowhere near enough, but don't forget that it took a little more than a year to finally stop the bleeding from the Bush recession, and since February, 2010 we've added 4,247,000 private sector jobs.

  Now, compare Obama's record of 35,000 private sector jobs created despite inheriting the worst economy since the great depression with George W. Bush's private sector jobs record. When he took office, there were 111,631,000 private sector jobs. Eight years later, that number had shrunk by 646,000.

  As it turns out, the weakest part of the jobs market under President Obama is the public sector. Since he took office, we've lost 608,000 public sector jobs. In Bush's eight years in office, we added 1,741,000 public sector jobs.

  Oh, and the stock market? Under Bush, the Dow dropped from 10,578 to 7,949—a 24 percent decrease. Under Obama, it's gone from 7,949 to 13,045, a 64 percent increase.

  To recap, under Obama:

  • Private sector jobs: Up by 35 thousand
  • Public sector jobs: Down 608 thousand
  • Stock market: Up by 64%

  And under Bush:

  • Private sector jobs: Down by 646 thousand
  • Public sector jobs: Up by 1.7 million
  • Stock market: Down 24%

  Now, I'll admit I think it's very bad for the economy that public sector hiring has dropped by so much, and I believe President Obama deserves some of the blame because he took too long to challenge the foolishness of Republican austerity demands. But if somebody forced you to say which of these two records looked more like the Republican fantasy of what socialism would look like, you have to admit, it's the record belonging to Bush.

  To put it another way: there's a reason Warren Buffett supports President Obama, and it's not because "Forward" is Euro-Marxist slang.

  
  

  
• 12:35

  Swift boating jumps the shark

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  The GOP's pathetic attempt at swift boating President Obama over the raid on bin Laden Great quote from a fascinating Mother Jones article on Joel Arends, the South Dakota Republican who is leading the effort to swift boat President Obama over the bin Laden raid (my emphasis):
  

  Joel Arends, [Vets for a Strong America's] founder, chairman, and sole staffer, tells me he's proud of his organization's viral video, even if it's characterized as swift boating. "Yes, it's the swift boating of the president, in the sense of using what's perceived to be his greatest strength and making it his greatest weakness."

  It's hilarious enough that this would-be swift boater actually describes his goal as being the "swift boating of the president," but the best part of the statement is that instead of making Obama's greatest strength his greatest weakness, Arends is actually just reminding people again of one of President Obama's most significant achievements.

  The key thing to remember here is that when the swift boaters went after John Kerry, they were accusing him of fraud. They were saying that Kerry did not actually deserve the honors that he had been awarded. They said he lied about his service. And if their charges were actually true, they would have been damning.

  Arends is accusing President Obama of taking sole credit for having killed bin Laden. That's an absurd and false claim, but even if it weren't, Arends isn't challenging that bin Laden was killed under Obama's watch. If this were really Kerry-style swift boating, Arends would be claiming that bin Laden was still alive. He'd be demanding a death certificate.

  And if the Kerry swift boaters had made the argument Arends is making, they wouldn't have challenged what Kerry did in Vietnam, they'd have merely complained about how his campaign talked about it. You can imagine how ineffective that line of attack would have been: "We acknowledge that John Kerry is war hero, but we believe he shouldn't brag about it." But swift boaters didn't take that line of attack because they didn't want to concede that Kerry had done anything heroic.

  So when Arends runs an ad accusing President Obama of refusing to share credit for ordering the Osama bin Laden raid, the worst possible outcome is that some of the people who watch the ad don't realize it's a lie and as a result walk away thinking President Obama is kind of a dick. But even if that happens, at least they'll still think he's the dick who killed bin Laden.

  
  

  
• 12:22

  Fox News: Stealth Republican Super PAC

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Fox News "on the job" John Bolton, Jay Sekulow and Walid Phares have one thing in common. They regularly appear on Fox News as analysts. Bolton and Sekulow, in fact, are Fox News "contributors." They have something else in common, too. They are all part of Mitt Romney's campaign team, advising on foreign policy, national security and legal matters. The third thing they have in common is that Fox News never tells you of their connection with Romney even when these analysts are telling viewers how great the presumptive Republican nominee's ideas are and how crappy those of the Obama administration are.

  Ben Dimiero and Eric Hananoki over at Media Matters say this failure to disclose violates journalistic ethics. Yeah, well, sure, but that's Chapter 275 in the 10-volume series on Fox's violation of journalistic ethics.

  After all, during the last election season, dozens of Fox's top "news" personalities engaged in fund-raising or campaigning for Republican candidates or organizations in more than 600 instances. Some of them even assisted in initiating pro-Republican fund-raising organizations. If I had done that when I worked for the Los Angeles Times, I would have been sent packing the instant my editor discovered it. Because that is what news organizations with real ethics codes do.

  (Continue reading below the fold)

  
  

  
• 10:56

  Mitt Romney wants a pen pal

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Mitt Romney just wants a friend
  (Rebecca Cook/Reuters) Willard writes a letter:
  

  Dear Mr. President,

  Welcome to Ohio.

  I'm sure President Obama appreciates the sentiment, Mitt. But he doesn't arrive in Ohio until tomorrow. Plus, given that you were in Virginia and Illinois yesterday and are in Pennsylvania today, don't you think it's kind of weird to welcome him to someplace you're not?

  Anyway, what else do you have to say, Mitt?
  

  I have a simple question for you: Where are the jobs?

  I have a simple answer for you: Ohio. But more on that later.
  

  As we enter the fourth year of your term, unemployment is over 8 percent and has been for your entire term.

  I'm glad you pointed that out, Mitt. You see, the last time Republicans were in charge, you guys presided over such a economic disaster that by the time President Obama entered office, unemployment was already nearly 8 percent and was skyrocketing. Soon, it hit 10 percent. But although it took some time to turn things around, we're on the right track now and unemployment is back down to 8.1 percent and falling.

  I'm sure you've got more to say though, right?
  

  Mr. President, forgive me for being blunt, but when it comes to economic affairs, you're out of your depth. Unlike you, I am not a career politician.

  And also unlike President Obama, you're apparently an asshole. Perhaps that's the reason you weren't a career politician: voters didn't like you enough to vote for you. You were so unpopular as governor that you didn't even bother to run for reelection. And Rick Santorum almost beat you for the Republican nomination!

  But anyway, you wanted to talk about jobs, Mitt.
  

  If you have brought new ideas to Ohio for creating jobs, why have you waited three years to unveil them? Have you suddenly had a revelation, or is it because 2012 is an election year? Whatever the case, what you are offering Ohio now is too little, too late.

  Well, Mitt, let's just review the facts. President Obama passed a stimulus plan, fought for middle-class tax cuts—including the payroll tax cut—and saved the auto industry. You opposed all of those things.

  By the time Obama had signed the stimulus, unemployment in Ohio was already over 9 percent. Today it's dropped to 7.5 percent. More than 100,000 jobs have been created in Ohio since the start of 2010.

  Let's compare that to the Bush-Republican record. When Bush took office, Ohio unemployment was 3.8 percent. Eight years later, it was 8.6 percent and rising. 170,000 jobs had been lost and the number was climbing.

  I know you hate it when we point out what a fucking mess you guys left for President Obama to deal with, but those are the facts. It's your tough luck if you don't like them. Now, please, get the hell out of our way as we continue to clean things up and move forward.

  
  

  
• 9:50

  The Pope vs. nuns

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  (click for larger version)

  
  

  
• 9:10

  Another month of weak job growth as the official unemployment rate drops to 8.1%. U6 at 14.5%

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  In a new report certain to generate consternation in the stock market and the White House but private glee in the Republican Party, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday that the private sector generated a seasonally adjusted 130,000 jobs in April. Public sector layoffs brought the total down to 115,000.

  It was the second month in a row that the economy created a disappointingly low number of jobs. This indicates that the upward trend in job creation of earlier this year has gone the way it did in 2011. Only this time, there is no Japanese tsunami or Arab revolutions interfering with commerce and putting uncertainty into the mix of perceptions about where the economy might be headed.
  

  (Calculated Risk) The figure was well below what a consensus of experts had forecast, the weakest April showing in three years and the slowest job growth since October. The official unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent. But that was entirely due to a drop in the size of the labor force.

  One small positive: Revisions changed growth in payroll employment in February from 240,000 to 259,000 and in March from 120,000 to 154,000.

  The civilian labor force participation rate fell to 63.6 percent and the employment-population ratio fell to 58.4 percent.
  

  "This remains a weak economy, and the job counts in March and April—which have come in at considerably below 200,000 per month—may perhaps continue right through the summer," said Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis at The Conference Board.

  Nearly three years after the official end of the Great Recession, 12.5 million Americans are officially out of work, 5.1 million of them for longer than at any time since the depths of Great Depression 80 years ago.

  An alternative measure of unemployment called U6 includes part-time workers who want full-time work and some but not all of the millions of people who have become too discouraged to look for work. That number was unchanged at 14.5 percent. Overall some 25 million Americans are jobless or underemployed. If large numbers were not leaving the workforce, the statistics would look worse than they do. How many of those are leaving for voluntary retirements is a matter of contention.

  Here's what the new job numbers have looked like for April in the most recent six years:

  April 2007:  +72,000  
  April 2008:  -208,000  
  April 2009:  -692,000  
  April 2010: +239,000  
  April 2011: +251,000
  April 2012: +115,000

  While the survey of business establishments showed the 115,000 increase, the BLS's monthly household survey (Current Population Survey) showed the number of jobs fell by 169,000. The CPS number is more volatile, which means it rarely makes the headlines.

  The BLS jobs report is the product of a pair of surveys, one of business establishments and the Current Population Survey of households. The establishment survey determines how many new jobs were added. The CPS provides data that determine the official "headline" unemployment rate, also known as U3. That's the number that is now at 8.1 percent.

  Among other changes detailed in today's job report:

  • Retail: +29,000
  • Financial: +1,000
  • Constructon: -2,000
  • Transportation & warehousing: -17,000  
  • Leisure and hospitality: +20,000
  • Professional & business services: +62,000
  • Health care: +19,000
  • Manufacturing: +16,000

  • The average workweek (for production and non-supervisory workers) was unchanged  at 34.5 hours.
  • Average manufacturing hours rose to 40.8
  • The average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 1 cent to $23.38. Over the past year such earnings have risen 1.8 percent, compared with an inflation rate now running at 2.7 percent.

  
  

  
• 8:00

  Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: PPP takes an early look at the 2013 Virginia governor's race

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. Leading Off:

  • VA-Gov: Public Policy Polling has a very early look at the 2013 gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Democrats would actually start off with a big advantage—but only if Sen. Mark Warner were to try to reclaim the governor's mansion, which he held from 2002 to 2006. Here are the results (4/26-29, Virginia voters, MoE: ±3.8%, no trendlines):
  

  Mark Warner (D): 53
  Ken Cuccinelli (R): 33
  Undecided: 14

  Mark Warner (D): 53
  Bill Bolling (R): 32
  Undecided: 14

  Mark Warner (D): 58
  Tareq Salahi (R): 19
  Undecided: 23

  Terry McAuliffe (D): 41
  Ken Cuccinelli (R): 36
  Undecided: 23

  Terry McAuliffe (D): 34
  Bill Bolling (R): 36
  Undecided: 30

  Terry McAuliffe (D): 43
  Tareq Salahi (R): 18
  Undecided: 38

  Tom Perriello (D): 39
  Ken Cuccinelli (R): 36
  Undecided: 25

  Tom Perriello (D): 34
  Bill Bolling (R): 35
  Undecided: 31

  Tom Perriello (D): 44
  Tareq Salahi (R): 20
  Undecided: 36

  In case you are unfamiliar with the other players, Terry McAuliffe is a former DNC chair and also an unsuccessful 2009 candidate for the Democratic nomination; Tom Perriello is a former one-term congressman who represented VA-05; Bill Bolling is the state's current lieutenant governor and "establishment" choice; Ken Cuccinelli is Virginia's attorney general and a favorite among movement conservatives; and Tareq Salahi is that rich d-bag who is most famous for crashing a White House state dinner with his wife in 2009.

  PPP also tested the GOP primary (MoE: ±4.9%):
  

  Ken Cuccinelli (R): 51
  Bill Bolling (R): 23
  Tareq Salahi (R): 4
  Undecided: 22

  This is actually good news for Democrats, since Bolling performs better against our lesser-known candidates (McAuliffe and Perriello) than the more polarizing Cuccinelli. Of course, that could change over the next year-and-a-half, but for now, I'll take it. (And man must Bolling be regretting his decision to defer to Bob McDonnell in the gubernatorial race in 2009. He figured he'd have a clean shot in 2013 by "waiting his turn," but Cuccinelli's ambition has completely ruined those plans.)

  
  

  
• 7:31

  Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: "Hype and Blame" new GOP slogan

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  Visual source: Newseum

  Michael Schear at The New York Times on the new GOP slogan:
  

  Remember “Hope and Change” from Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign? The Republican Party is hoping to make you to think “Hype and Blame.” [...]

  The Republicans will begin selling bumper stickers with the “Hype & Blame” phrase as part of their campaign.

  Republicans hope to make “Hype & Blame” as ubiquitous as “Hope & Change.”
  “Obama has no record to run on so he’s out on the trail resorting to the same tactics he campaigned against in 2008,” Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for Republican National Committee, said Wednesday night. “He has a litany of broken promises so what does he do? Lay blame, make excuses, run on gimmicks and engage in divisive politics. Four years later we know the candidate of ‘Hope and Change’ is now ‘Hype and Blame.’”

  So their entire messaging strategy is to construct a narrative of "hype and blame" by...blaming all of the world's problem's on President Obama.  Jay Bookman at The Atlanta Journal Constitution adds:
  

  Among Republicans, the fact that the divisiveness is almost entirely their own creation doesn’t faze them in the least. Like a spouse abuser who blames his violence on his victim, the Republican Party hopes to blame the whole mess all on Obama.

  The truth is, Obama infuriates the Republicans simply by waking up as president each morning. Under the rubric of “taking our country back,” they have challenged his status as an American, they have impugned his faith and they have even questioned his loyalty and patriotism. From the very beginning, they have pursued a conscious strategy of refusing to compromise in any way whatsoever, to the point that they have purged any in their own camp who dare to even suggest such a course. (See Lugar, Richard) [...]

  Even [after compromising and taking the Republican position on healthcare], it took Obama a while to come to the realization that no matter what he did, there would be no compromise. The only thing that his opponents wanted from him was his surrender and then his disappearance. That was their price for “unity,” and now they want to blame him for refusing to pay it.

  Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine:
  

  Police officers and firefighters are a tricky occupational category for Republicans. Culturally, they are allies — working class, mostly male, and beloved symbols of American values. Economically, though, they are government workers, which has always put their interests in tension with those of the GOP, and especially so in recent years, as Republicans have increasingly held up government workers as a kind of parasitic class.
  Last night Mitt Romney was strolling across one side of this tricky line and slipped to the other. [...]

  Romney’s position is that these fine public servants are luxuriating in excessive pay, a fact that, unlike swelling income inequality, constitutes a major source of unfairness in American life. (“We will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the taxpayers they serve,” he said last week.)
  This is actually a policy flashpoint between the two parties. Public employment has cratered in recent years, with public sector jobs continuing to decline even as private sector jobs rebound, exerting a continued drag on the sluggish recovery. Obama’s position is that the federal government ought to provide aid to state governments to rehire some of the laid-off teachers, cops, and firefighters. Republicans oppose this. Romney seems to have forgotten that the firefighters he came face-to-face with are one category of Americans whose economic pain he’s supposed to be in favor of.

  Dick Polman at The Philadelphia Inquirer on the Republican attacks on any mention of the killing of bin Laden:
  

  The Romney people would be well advised to brush up on the history of their own party. Consider, for instance, the election of 1900. William McKinley’s bid for a second term featured an end-zone dance about the Spanish-American War. McKinley’s top surrogate was his running mate, war hero Theodore Roosevelt, who told voters: “We drew the sword and waged the most righteous and brilliantly successful foreign war that this generation has seen.”

  But why go back 112 years? I don’t recall any of Obama’s critics complaining in May 2003, when George W. Bush donned a flight suit and strutted around the deck of an aircraft carrier with a banner emblazoned “Mission Accomplished.”

  Everyone knew that ceremony was being choreographed for Bush’s reelection bid. The White House hired an ex-ABC News producer to advise on production values. The carrier was directed to shift positions several times to ensure that an expanse of water, rather than the nearby California coastline, would serve as the backdrop when Bush’s plane landed. And his remarks, noting the end of “major combat operations in Iraq,” were delayed until the cameras could frame him against the golden sunset, at what’s known in Hollywood as “the magic hour.”

  The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson asks "why?" on Afghanistan:
  

  The Taliban government was deposed and routed. Al-Qaeda was first dislodged and then decimated, with “over 20 of their top 30 leaders” killed, according to the president. Osama bin Laden was tracked to his lair in Pakistan, shot dead and buried at sea. To the extent that al-Qaeda still poses a threat, it comes from affiliate organizations in places such as Yemen and from the spread of poisonous jihadist ideology. Al-Qaeda’s once-extensive training camps in Afghanistan have long been obliterated, and the group’s presence in the country is minimal.

  That smells like victory to me. Yet 94 American troops have lost their lives in Afghanistan so far in 2012, U.S. forces will still be engaged in combat until the end of 2014, and we are committed to an extraordinary — and expensive — level of involvement there until 2024. Why?

  Of the U.S. troops who died this year as a result of hostile fire — as opposed to accidents, illnesses or suicide — at least one of every seven was killed not by the Taliban but by ostensibly friendly Afghan security forces.

  Speaking of foreign policy, Jonathan Capehart looks at Romney's response to plight of a Chinese activist and also the treatment of his openly gay (former) foreign policy spokesperson:
  

  Seeming to fight for Chen was a messy move for Romney. But what it lacked in long-term thinking it made up for in short-term benefit. For it shifted the day’s conversation away from Romney’s unwillingness to fight for Richard Grenell.

  Grenell was supposed to be the national security and foreign policy spokesperson for the Romney presidential campaign. Grenell was a longtime spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and then an alternative representative to the Security Council under President George W. Bush; his credentials for the Romney job were indeed impeccable. He also is openly gay. And that didn’t sit too well with some vocal social conservatives such as Bryan Fischer.

  After Grenell announced his resignation, the story moved quickly from the role of social conservatives in his departure to the inability or unwillingness of Romney to defend a qualified aide brought on to hone his foreign policy message against Obama. Romney had to have known about Grenell’s reputation for sharp elbows and a sharp tongue. He of course knew that Grenell is openly gay. He should have known that social conservatives were going to go after him. As Ruth Marcus writes, “Given the predictable, disgusting backlash to Grenell’s hiring, how could the campaign have no plan to deal with it other than shove Grenell into the background — the closet? — until the furor died down?” The absence of independence and leadership from Romney made it impossible for Grenell to stay.

  
  

  
• May 03, 2012
• 23:30

  Open thread for night owls: Lower pay for new graduates follows them for life

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  The Wall Street Journal puts up a paywall for most articles, so unless you subscribe or engage the site with go-around software, you won't be able to read the whole piece I am going to excerpt below. And since I can't get permission for a longer excerpt as I usually do, this will be short. And, like so much information about the labor market these days: frustrating, troubling, even infuriating. Reporting on a new study from the Conference Board, Kathleen Madigan writes:
  

  U.S. wage growth between 2008 and 2010 was the lowest since at least the 1960s. The big reasons: high unemployment diminished workers’ bargaining power, and many laid-off workers and graduates were “willing to accept jobs at lower wage rates than they originally expected,” the report said. [...]

  Of course, not all labor groups are created equal. One very disturbing finding is how far new college graduates have fallen behind.

  The board found median wages for new graduates with a university degree declined in both 2009 and 2010. Even with a bounce in 2011, Levanon said the starting pay for new grads is below the pay in 2008—and that is before inflation is taken into account.

  "Before inflation is taken into account" is shorthand for before reality is considered. In other words, it's worse than it first appears.
  
  

  Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011:
  

  The House Republicans plan resume their War on Women this week, passing H.R. 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" bill. You'll remember this as the "forcible rape" bill, the one that would have redefined rape so that essentially only violent, stranger rape actually counted as real rape for the purposes of abortion funding. Of course, that was the flashpoint in the bill, and uproar over it got that provision removed.

  But the whole bill, with its extremely anti-woman, anti-family provisions intact, moves forward. Don't miss reading David Waldman's explanation of the larger implications of this bill and the large tax increase it includes. In a nutshell: "take the rape provisions out, and still left with a disastrous bill, just on the issue of choice alone. But to go beyond that, you're in fact got a bill that paves the way for using the tax code to select every American's health care options for them, direct from Washington."
  The Joint Tax Committee confirmed this, saying that this bill would put the IRS in the position of having to do abortion audits.

  Tweet of the Day:
  

  STUDY: In 2008, 9% of ad in the presidential campaign were negative. 2012: 70% negative. http://t.co/...
  — @thinkprogress via TweetDeck
  

  High Impact Posts  . Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.

  
  

  
• 20:00

  Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Some states tighten, but road to 270 for Mitt Romney remains tough

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  

  A rash of new polling out today shows more good news for Mitt Romney than bad news. Quinnipiac has a big improvement for the GOP nominee in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio, with Romney even moving into an incremental advantage in the Sunshine State.

  Having said that, though, it still remains awfully difficult to see where, given current numbers, Mitt Romney cobbles together a coalition that can get him to the White House. That includes one new poll entry today that continues to give the president a solid edge in a state that was a reliably Republican state for decades.

  Here are all the numbers from Thursday:

  PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION POLLING:
  

  NATIONAL (Democracy Corps): Obama tied with Romney (47-47)

  NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-46)

  NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)

  "CORE FOUR" STATES—FL/NC/OH/VA (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (46-43)

  ARIZONA (Magellan Strategies): Romney d. Obama (52-43)

  FLORIDA (Quinnipiac): Romney d. Obama (44-43)

  OHIO (Quinnipiac): Obama d. Romney (44-42)

  PENNSYLVANIA (Quinnipiac): Obama d. Romney (47-39)

  VIRGINIA (Washington Post): Obama d. Romney (51-44)

  DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
  

  AZ-SEN (Magellan Strategies): Jeff Flake (R) 44, Richard Carmona (D) 40

  MT-GOV (PPP): Steve Bullock (D) 39, Rick Hill (R) 39; Bullock 41, Ken Miller (R) 35

  MT-GOV—R (PPP): Rick Hill 33, Ken Miller 12, Corey Stapleton 7, Neil Livingstone 5, Jim Lynch 4, Jim O'Hara 4, Bob Fanning 1

  MT-SEN (Rasmussen): Denny Rehberg (R) 53, Sen. Jon Tester (D) 43

  A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...

  
  

  
• 19:19

  Of course President Obama thanked the heroes who took out bin Laden

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  So Karl Rove is pushing a stupid new web ad from some newly invented swift boat group that claims President Obama never thanked the heroes who took out bin Laden.

  We just couldn't let a lie like that stand, so we put together a video response to Karl Rove's ridiculous attack:
  

  Daily Kos response video to Karl Rove's bin Laden attack So yes, of course, President Obama thanked the heroes who put their lives on the line. And no, President Obama never claimed he was one of those heroes. But he is responsible for the policy and leadership that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. And for that he gets credit.

  Karl Rove, meanwhile, worked for the guy who invaded Iraq instead of going after al Qaeda and who declared Mission Accomplished nearly a decade before the war actually ended. Karl Rove worked for the guy who didn't get bin Laden when he should have and when he could have. And now Karl Rove is campaigning for the guy who opposed President Obama's strategy on getting bin laden.

  So if Karl Rove or Mitt Romney wants to keep on talking about taking out Osama bin Laden, they should go right ahead. We'll be happy to talk about it from now until election day.

  
  

  
• 18:47

  Champagne compensation for CEOs, near-beer wages for workers

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  CEO-to-worker compensation ratio, with options
   granted and options realized, 1965–2011 "Options granted" compensation includes salary, bonus, restricted stock grants, options granted and long-term incentive payouts for CEOs at the top 350 firms ranked by sales. "Options exercised" compensation includes salary, bonus, restricted stock grants, options exercised, and long-term incentive payouts for CEOs at the top 350 firms ranked by sales. (Economic Policy Institute) The chart speaks for itself. In 1965, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay was 20.1-to-1. Now the gap is more than 10 times that. When you combine that with the low-wage economy, you get a very unpleasant snapshot that goes to the heart of income inequality. Remind me once again who is engaging in class warfare.

  Laura Clawson looked Wednesday at just how much bigger a slice of the economic pie (shrunken for the past four years) the top 1 percent have cut for themselves.

  The top CEO compensation adds to this picture. Lawrence Mishel and Natalie Sabadish at the Economic Policy Institute show us in detail what's happened:
  

  Though lower than in other years in the last decade, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio in 2011 of more than 200-to-1 is far above the ratios prevailing in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and mid-1990s. This illustrates that CEOs have fared far better than the typical worker, the stock market, or the U.S. economy over the last several decades. That begs the question: is there any gauge against which to measure CEO pay that hasn’t been surpassed?

  The question is: Can something be done about this? Or, if something can be done about this, what is it? Or if the stagnation in workers' wages can be reversed and Americans in the bottom four quintiles of the population given a more livable income, will it matter what the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio is?

  Whatever the case, a little bit of populist rhetoric every election cycle won't do anything to address this imbalance. Serious policy change is needed. Who will give it to us?
  

  
  

  
• 18:39

  Senate outlook for CISPA unclear, potentially very bad

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos
  The House passed its Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) last week, a bill that purports to protect the information systems that run the nation's critical infrastructure network, but mostly provides new and legal ways for private companies and the government to violate our privacy. Now it's up to the Senate.

  POLITICO is reporting that experts believe that some kind of cybersecurity bill will make it  through Congress this session, but they're not sure what it will contain.
  

  The Senate is expected to consider a sweeping measure this month by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Unlike the House-passed CISPA measure, Lieberman’s bill would mandate new security standards for privately owned critical infrastructure networks. It’s the biggest difference between the two bills, and perhaps the biggest stumbling block to getting a measure to President Obama’s desk. [...]

  That could mean bad news on the privacy front, because attacks on the Fourth Amendment and privacy rights of Americans is pretty much all that the House bill contains. The House won't consider mandated standards for companies running any infrastructure network, calling it "job-killing regulation."

  The obvious concern is that, in their zeal to pass what they'll call a national security law in this election year, the Senate will pass a bad bill that the House would agree to. The biggest check on that possibility so far is President Obama, and the veto threat from the White House.

  That's not enough. The Senate needs to hear from the grassroots on CISPA, and to stop a bad bill from becoming law.

  Contact your Senators and tell them to oppose the House CISPA bill and any version of it that would gut existing privacy laws.

  
  

  
• 18:30

  Washington Post poll: Obama 51-44 over Romney in Virginia

   » ‎ Daily KosSearch Daily Kos

  alt="VA congressional district map"
  

  Yes, it's early. Yes, a lot can happen. So, exactly how does Romney get to the White House without Virginia?

  In addition to PPP's 51-43 Obama lead from May 3, the Washington Post has a new poll out Thursday afternoon (MoE +/- 3.5):

  President Obama leads former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in Virginia but commonwealth voters are evenly divided on the White House’s major policies, a new Washington Post poll shows.

  Obama is ahead of Romney, the presumed Republican nominee, 51 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. And Romney does no better against Obama than he did a year ago, despite his emergence as the GOP standard-bearer.

  Here's what struck me in the WaPo story:

  By a whopping 97 to 1 percent, Obama thumps Romney among black voters, and he has a wide lead among women: 56 to 38. Obama’s up by better than 2 to 1 margin among those aged 18 to 29, but he faces a challenge in the coming months in that many of them— 34 percent in this poll— are not registered to vote at their current address.

  Obama's policies get a mixed review, but his job approval in VA is at 53. Meanwhile Republicans in Congress are underwater at Enthusiastic/Satisfied 36, Dissatisfied/Angry 60 (both numbers unchanged from a year ago).

  If the battleground is VA and the southwest, as Kos has observed, Team Romney is going to have their work cut out for them. That's especially true if the VA polls keep coming in like this.
  

  
  

  
• 18:00

  Open thread: 'Debt panels'

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  Forget about death panels—Stephen Colbert reminds us that when it comes to health care, Americans should be worried instead about debt panels:
  

  
  

  
• 17:18

  Elizabeth Warren: Put the Native American question behind you

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  Elizabeth Warren campaign rally Elizabeth Warren is not a professional politician. That's one of the things that we like most about her as a candidate. She's not running for Senate for her own self-aggrandizement, but to make a difference for the 99 percent in Massachusetts and in the country.

  The downside, however, of being a novice politician has shown this week in her continuing flat-footed responses to the character attacks coming at her from the Right, over whether or not she truly has Native American blood (by all accounts she does) and whether she used that heritage to further her career (by all accounts she didn't).

  This is as clear a case of the politics of personal destruction as we've seen in a while, and if you don't believe that, you need to read this column in the Boston Herald, the original source for the story. You're not going to find a more sexist and racist potrayal of Warren, one that exposes precisely what the Right is trying to do to her here. It's a smear job, straight out of the Lee Atwater-Karl Rove playbook, not-so-subtly telling a key segment of voters that this uppity woman (who may or may not also be a minority) took a job away from a white man.

  Yes, it's bullshit. Yes it's a blatant character attack without substance. But it's dominated the news cycle this week, and it's time it went away. Warren has to make that happen. The voters of Massachusetts don't care about her grandfather's high cheekbones or her family oral history or her Oklahoman pride in her heritage. She's not running for governor of Oklahoma, she's running for the Senate in Massachusetts, a job for which she is eminently qualified, just as every university who has hired her has attested. It's indisputable that she's where she is today because of her glowing qualifications and hard work, not because of her bloodline or gender.
  
  So it's time for Warren to pivot and stop getting sucked into letting her personal story become fodder for the Right. In retrospect, it was a mistake to check an innocuous box on a questionnaire for a law school faculty directory in 1985, and she should say so. Likewise, if Warren was aware that Harvard touted her as a Native American hire in 1996, she should acknowledge that it was a mistake on her part not to object at the time. She needs to simply own those mistakes, and move on to the real story: what's at stake in this election.

  That's whether Massachusetts will continue to be represented by a senator who is nothing but a standard-issue, George W. Bush Republican, backed by Karl Rove. Massachusetts voters need to know that Scott Brown has committed to endless obstruction of President Obama's efforts and that he wants to take the country back to the disastrous policies of Bush.

  They're using the Rove attack playbook because they're scared of Elizabeth Warren and the success she has had a consumer advocate. Scott Brown is a reliable lackey for the Republicans and for Wall Street, and they don't want to lose him. That's what this story is about. And that's what Warren and her campaign need to talk about, every day.

  Help her tell that story. Chip in $5 to help Elizabeth Warren get the message out about what's important to Massachusetts.

  
  

  
• 16:46

  Mitt Romney, who thinks government workers are unfairly overpaid, meets firemen who work two jobs

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  (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
  Boy, if you listen to him some of the time, Mitt Romney just wants everyone to live really well. At a northern Virginia fundraiser, showing that he feels for the middle class, Romney cited a firefighter struggling to make ends meet:
  

  "I spoke with a fireman yesterday, and he has a one-bedroom apartment, and his wife is pregnant, and he can't afford a second bedroom," he said, referring to a visit to New York City. "I asked the firefighters I was meeting with, about 15 or them, how many had had to take another job to make ends meet, and almost every one of them had."

  You'd think, to read that, that Romney was suggesting he thinks that's a less than ideal situation, firefighters having to work two jobs or unable to afford a two-bedroom apartment. But while that may have been his implication in that moment, Jonathan Chait flags a quote from Romney's stump speech that reflects his policy positions on how many bedrooms firemen should be able to afford: that "we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the taxpayers they serve."

  The unfairness he's talking about, of course, isn't the unfairness of a quarter of workers earning less than two-thirds of the median income, or low-wage workers becoming an older and more educated group. He's certainly not talking about the unfairness of taxpayers paying a higher tax rate than he does on less annual income than he earns in a day. These are all unfair—and all things Mitt Romney's policies would increase. No, the thing that's unfair to him is that the public sector has lagged somewhat in the race to the bottom. Stories about firefighters with pregnant wives are just a lame attempt at window-dressing on his real position, the one all his policy proposals promote.

  I wonder if he told those firefighters how unfairly overpaid he thinks they are.

  
  

  
• 16:00

  GOP Madness 2012, Round 1, Match 11

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  The bracket thus far is here. Today's winner will face off in the second round against Romney's Etch-a-Sketch.

  1. RON PAUL OPPOSES HONEST RAPES

  Did you know that some rapes are such liars you just can't trust them?
  

  MORGAN: You have two daughters. You have many granddaughters. If one of them was raped -- and I accept it's a very unlikely thing to happen -- but if they were, would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?

  PAUL: No. If it's an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen....

  Like all fierce opponents of abortion rights, Ron Paul stumbles when dealing with the issue of rape and incest. Because if abortion is truly murder, then there should be no justification for ending a pregnancy. But if a "shot of estrogen" (his attempt to avoid saying "morning after pill") is such a trivial procedure and one without moral qualms, then why work so hard to deny it to all women?

  But that's just a boilerplate contradiction in the conservative war against choice. It was Paul's talk of "honest rape" that made this moment stand out. What exactly was he proposing? Hooking up the rape to a lie detector test? An adjudication board that would render legal judgments as to the veracity of the rape? Or as Kaili wondered, "Is this a job for PolitiFact, who can offer its services to rate rapes as true, mostly true or pants on fire?"

  Again, Kaili:
  

  What is also stunning about this interview is that Dr. Paul is admitting he would administer emergency contraception in the case of rape, but he refuses to use that terminology. See, Politician Paul knows that "pro-lifers" oppose emergency contraception because they believe, wrongly, that it is a method of abortion. Dr. Paul knows it isn't, but instead of using the words "emergency contraception" or "Plan B" or "morning-after pill," he says he would administer a "shot of estrogen."

  Which is rather odd, considering that the various morning-after pills available contain other hormones. A "shot of estrogen" is not the standard emergency contraception medication. So either Dr. Paul doesn't actually know how emergency contraception works, or he simply prefers his own homemade brand. Either way, that's a pretty odd sort of treatment coming from a doctor.

  Reminds me of this guy:
  2. RICK SANTORUM IS AGAINST WELFARE FOR "BLAH" PEOPLE

  On the campaign trail in Iowa:
  

  I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.

  Now that sort of thing plays great with conservatives, but not so great to a national audience. Thus, Santorum had to go into damage control. First, he blamed the comments on the documentary Waiting for Superman:
  

  "I've seen that quote, I haven't seen the context in which that was made," Santorum told Pelley, of the Sunday remarks. "Yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it? 'Waiting for Superman,' which was about black children and so I don't know whether it was in response and I was talking about that."

  Then, he decided that it was just a "mumble":
  

  “In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn't say ‘black.’ I started to say a word and sort of mumbled it and changed my thought. I don't recall saying black. No one in that audience heard me say that,” he said.

  Then, finally, he settled on his final answer, which was that he was actually talking about those welfare-sucking blah people.
  

  SANOTURM: I’ve looked at that quote, in fact I looked at the video. In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn’t say black. I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — mumbled it and sort of changed my thought.

  And btw, this is all stupid because, you know, he's the black Martin Luther King:
  

  You guys, you guys — it’s really sad that you are bringing this up. It’s just sad news. I’ve done more in the African-American communities as a Republican than any Republican in recent memory.”

  Talk about a low bar.

  
  

  
• 15:57

  Wage growth decline adds drag to economic recovery

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  (National Employment Law Project) Whatever is shown by the numbers of Friday's much-awaited April jobs report, the analysts will be digging into them like a Roman seer pawing through rabbit entrails for evidence of the direction of the labor market and the greater economy. One thing that typically gets missed in all the amateur and professional analyses of labor-force participation rates, the rise and fall of manufacturing jobs and the impact of seasonal adjustments to jobs is the quality of those jobs and how much they pay.

  Though not the first to do so, the National Employment Law Project points out that the plunge in the rate of wage gains in the past five years is holding back the recovery. Workers simply cannot buy as much as is needed to increase demand so that more workers can be hired to meet that demand:
  

  ...in fact, as of March 2012, hourly wage change was nearly 44 percent below the rate of change as of March 2007, prior to the Great Recession. Not only is wage growth slowing, but the real value of hourly wages—once adjusted for inflation—is also declining when compared to the prior year. From March 2011 through March 2012, real average hourly earnings fell 0.6 percent for all private sector workers and declined by even a great degree—1.0 percent—for nonsupervisory and production workers.

  Changes in the number of hours worked per week by both groups did not make up for the loss in wages: an uptick in the hours worked among all private sector employees left their real total weekly wages (a product of the hourly wage and hours worked per week) unchanged, while an increase in hours for production and nonsupervisory workers still resulted in 0.5 percent decline in real total weekly wages.

  The Bureau of Labor Statistics has noted that for all of 2012, aggregate wages went up 1.7 percent. But inflation for the year was 3 percent. In other words, workers overall lost ground.

  Worse yet is that low-wage occupations are the ones dominating the recovery. And worse still is that fully 30 percent of job openings from now until 2020 will pay around the $20,000 level. Those are poverty wages for a household of four. The litany of wage problems goes on and on. New entrants are being paid less than before. Unemployed people who finally find a job are often paid less even if they get hired in the same field. Those who had to switch fields to find employment took even harder hits. And people who have been out of work the longest typically find it hard to do anything but switch fields because their skills have atrophied and they aren't as attractive to employers as workers with more up-to-date skills.

  People at the very bottom end of the job market are paid a minimum wage (or less)  that has far less buying power than it did at the peak in 1968, $7.25 an hour. To reach parity with the '60s, that minimum would now have to be $10.55 an hour. And if it had kept up with productivity gains, it would be $22 an hour.

  As Laura Clawson explained recently, the low wage floor, when combined with the drop in unionization and shredding of employment protections have made the U.S. the "global leader in low-wage work: the US labor force is made up of a larger share of low-wage workers than any other comparable economy."

  All this has been a major contributor to income inequality. It did not happen overnight or solely as a consequence of the Great Recession. That downturn only worsened a trend that has been on-going since the mid-1970s for all but a few years of the Clinton administration. The median, inflation-adjusted wage has only increased 5.7 percent in the past 30 years.

  Raising the minimum wage or finding other means to provide income support to low-wage earners along the lines of how many European nations have done it, is a crucial first step in rectifying this situation. But it will take a good deal more than such tinkering to truly improve matters for U.S. workers. Progressive tax reform and cooperative forms of ownership are key to making that happen. In the current political climate, short of a movement focused on comprehensive economic reform, making those changes is simply off the table.

  Making it a priority will mean reducing the number of elected Republicans determined to go the other direction in such matters. But it will also require electing leftist Democrats and changing the minds of a lot of already elected Democrats whose best efforts of late have been addressed at rearguard actions to protect gains we once thought were permanent. Getting better Democrats into place and making better Democrats of those already elected will be no easy task. But it's one essential to the future well-being of American workers. And it will take prodigious efforts, with both movement and electoral activists cooperating instead of pretending that they don't need each other to make the changes we so desperately need.

   

  
  

  
• 15:46

  Mitt Romney objects to 'Forward' because of course he does

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  "And always twirling, twirling toward freedom." The inability for Mitt Romney to even mock someone without screwing it up is getting a bit depressing to watch. I mean, please, Mitt:
  

  "His new slogan is: Progress - no, forward. Forward! That's it. Progress would be better," Romney said, according to a pool report. "I must use that one myself, actually. Forward is his new slogan, and it's like, forward, what, over the cliff?"

  "Ha ha ha! What a silly word Barack Obama is using! 'Progress!' Oh, I mean 'Forward,' what a ridiculous word! The word 'Progress' is an acceptable word to me. I am a fan of 'Progress.' You might even call me Progress-ive, so to speak, so much do I like momentum in the frontwardish directions. So long as it is called 'Progress,' which is good, and not 'Forward,' which is bad. Do I have that right yet? Yes, I think I have satisfactorily determined the relative value of those two words. Now give me your money."

  This fellow is just agonizing to listen to. And he rose to the obvious bait so quickly; he knew that whatever Obama was for, he had to be against, and so if Obama uses a word in an ad, that word now has to be the Worstest Word Ever. So Obama chose "Forward" as a campaign slogan, and Mitt, reflexively, has to oppose it. Grr!

  Well, at least he's not calling the word Marxist, which is what the conservative base has been reduced to. And speaking of reduced to, Karl Rove also rose to the bait:
  

  Check out @AmericanXRoads new video "Backward." Four years of Obama moving America backward is enough. http://t.co/...
  — @KarlRove via web
  Oh, what a card. You'd think that a guy whose administration screwed up two wars, wrecked the economy, and left historians scratching their heads as to what communicable disease could best be compared to the abomination of the Bush presidency would have the very good sense to shut his pie-hole when the grownups were talking, but I suppose if Bush administration officials were capable of feeling shame or remorse, we'd have heard of it by now.

  Here's a question, though: Do you think Karl Rove really thinks Obama has been moving America "backwards," making it worse than it was under the Bush administration? Here's hoping he's just his usual shameless, ridiculous, lying-ass self, because if he really thinks of his old administration as being the better of the two, I can't even imagine what craptitudes he's dreaming a Mitt Romney administration could be goaded into. Simultaneous wars with Iran, India and three of Jupiter's nicer moons, perhaps, coupled with a new program to confiscate the paychecks of every American and toss them in a wood chipper.

  Yes, I'm a fan of this new Obama slogan. I've had my differences with this administration, heaven knows, but "Forward" is already driving opponents to distraction. It's not quite as good as my own preferred slogan, "Obama '12: I believe America should not murder children," but I suppose seeing the Mitt Romney and Karl Rove ads objecting to that one might be a little too nauseating even for me. Because you know they'd do it.

  
  

  
• 15:08

  Pyrrhic vindication: Republican cuts to preventive health care would screw everybody, not just women

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  According to NPR, fact-checkers have been having a field day with Democratic claims that the Republicans are continuing their War on Women by proposing to pay for keeping student loan interests rates low by cutting funding for preventive health care services.

  It turns out, say the fact checkers, that cutting funding for preventive health care doesn't just impact women—it also impacts men and children, because they too receive preventive health care treatment.

  So when Republicans say it's unfair to accuse them of exclusively trying to screw over women with their proposal for how to pay for keeping student loan rates low, they are right. It is unfair. Yes, they are trying to screw women. But they're also trying to screw men and children.

  
  

  
• 15:03

  The Obama Western strategy, and why Ohio, Penn and Florida are becoming less important

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  Without exception, since 1960, the winner of the White House has won at least two of the Big Three battleground states: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's hard to picture a presidential contest that doesn't revolve around those three states, and indeed, those three states are among the top four in Obama campaign field offices to date: Ohio (20), Virginia (17), Pennsylvania (14), and Florida (13).

  Yet the rise of the Latino electorate is shifting the nation's balance of power, giving rise to a more electorally relevant Southwest—a combination of blistering population growth and pro-Democratic demographic shifts.

  In 1960, the states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona totalled 17 electoral votes. Today, they total 31. And while in 1960 Ohio and Pennsylvania had 57 electoral votes between the two, today that number is just 38 (though if you include Florida, the total has remained at a constant 67).

  What this all means is that if Democrats sweep the competitive Southwestern states, Ohio, Penn and Florida become that much less important. Let's start with a base map, plus giving Obama Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. I gave Missouri to the GOP, and Wisconsin and Michigan to Obama because those are marginal swing states—if Obama wins Missouri, he's already crushed on the rest of the map, and vice a versa with Wisconsin and Michigan.
  

  As you can see, sweeping those Southwestern states puts Obama just 17 electoral votes shy of victory, while Romney is a whopping 90 electoral votes out. Indeed, Romney could sweep the Big Three, and look what it does:
  The race is still not decided, with Romney still 23 electoral votes shy of victory—something no single state will provide. At that point, it's a matter of math—several combinations do the trick. But note, Virginia has consistently given Obama some of his biggest polling margins to date. Romney would have to sweep North Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire to win the race.

  Now, I'm not suggesting that Obama will lose the Big Three, or that they're not important. They are still likely to be the hardest fought states this cycle. And I'm also not suggesting that Arizona is in the bag for Team Blue. It still leans Red. But changing population patterns and demographics (mostly Latinos) are evolving the electoral college map. There are new paths to victory.

  And by broadening the playing field (Arizona this year, and Texas, Georgia and Montana in future cycles), and locking down old battlegrounds (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and possibly Wisconsin and Michigan) the GOP's path to presidential victory becomes increasingly complicated.