What happens when people try to construct a libertarian paradise? A complete mess.

Are renewable energy sources currently limited? Do we need to supplement them with coal-fired plants, at least in the short term? Maybe so, but the city of Burlington, Vermont, is powered entirely by renewable energy. It can be done!

Yes, the US has quite a bit to do with the creation of ISIS. Essentially, US counter-insurgency teams were too clever for their own good. They figured they'd weaken the opposition by turning different factions against each other. That worked pretty well as long as they stuck with just propaganda, but when they started arming opposing sides, it wasn't such a great idea anymore.

And yeah, for some really strange reason, right-wingers are convinced that ISIS is massing at the Mexican border. The areas in Iraq and Syria that they took over are largely empty and Mosul fell more because it was defended by a hollow, unmotivated force than because ISIS was so powerful. For ISIS to even cross the Atlantic in the first place is very highly unlikely.

On the 13th anniversary of 9-11, RT examines 9-11 theories.

Drone footage reveals absolutely enormous destruction in Gaza. The Israeli neewspaper Haaretz claims Hamas is rebuilding tunnels and other infrastructure for battling Israel.

The fellow who directed police to John Crawford, an African-American who was then killed by the police in a Walmart, admitted that he lied in order to finger Crawford.

Commenting on the IS/ISIL/ISIS situation, Deena Stryker tells us: "There are no moderates in any rebel fighting group inside Syria today. The various groups are fighting with one hand, holding the black flag of Islam in the other, and they in a hurry to finish off Syria and consolidate it with Iraq,"

Governors Scott Walker (R-WI) and Chris Christie (R-NJ) are having very serious economic problems in their states.

Well, THAT'S pretty embarrassing! Andrew Cuomo WAY outspent his primary opponent for re-election as Governor of New York, the opponent had no name recognition and got a very late start and he didn't even get above 60%. So much for his presidential ambitions.

Essays on our incredibly dishonest and incompetent media.

Cheney obviously doesn't subscribe to the wisdom of Sun Tzu: "To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." 

And yes, most of the right wing still thinks invading Iraq was the right call.

Digby comments on the Ray Rice case, quoting a blogger who has worked with battered women. Well worth reading.

Good! Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, states that there is a meaningful and serious distinction between "Let's hold on for a few minutes to make sure that getting to Benghazi results in an effective mission without just needlessly killing a lot of Americans" and a "stand-down order." The commander on the scene said, essentially, "Let's not just raise the body count to no obvious purpose."

Militia people haven't caused any serious problems at the border YET. It seems only a matter of time before they do and the good that they're doing seems awfully difficult to locate.

Excellent, lengthy piece from a former Army NCO on strategy and ISIS. It's not so much that we need to be careful, but that we have to have a really clear idea of what it is we're doing and what we hope to accomplish. The blogger very much approves of the President's deliberate approach.

Media Matters examines the Fox News special on Benghazi. I watched two minutes of an interview with Mitt Romney on this and counted about half a dozen lies in just that short amount of time. Fox News is trying to justify the Benghazi Congressional Committee, but they have to brush aside the facts in order to make the committee appear to be even somewhat credible.

The NRA is claiming (Via Fox News, of course) that firearms instructions were a standard curriculum in elementary school classrooms during the 60s and 70s. I've seen the claim posted at least twice and it's funny, but not one commenter recalls getting firearms instructions in school during that period or prior! Personally, I got some practice with single-shot, .22 caliber rifles in summer camp, but not school. 

Uh-oh! Now those who oppose Net Neutrality are realizing how much they've stepped in it. Even the porn sites are taking the side of the good guys!

And yeah, some good news. To the supreme irritation of its critics, the ACA/Obamacare continues to do exactly as it was intended to do, with costs dropping and patients getting good coverage.

Very interesting to compare Justice Scalia's opinion of women swearing to Turkish government official complaining of women laughing in public. "Women should not laugh in public in Turkey, the Deputy Prime Minister has said in a speech on 'moral corruption' in the country."

Good grief! Politico and it's "brands."A hopelessly trivial and fashion-conscious magazine attempts to understand a man of deep principle. And no, the Politico piece contains just about zero factual evidence.

Juan Cole brings up a very good and highly relevant point about nude celebrity pictures being hacked and displayed: What good is all that NSA surveillance if they couldn't predict the rise of ISIS? Why are we spending kajillons of badly-needed dollars on useless technology that can't predict anything meaningful or relevant?

The results of the analysis of 13 states that raised their minimum wage indicates more a lack of negative harm than presence of positive good, but the lack of harm is very significant compared to all of the weeping and wailing and moaning about "If you raise the minimum wage, horrors! Disaster! Armageddon! Aaugh!"

Kansas Secretary of State refuses to allow Democrat to remove himself from Senate race. Gee, for some strange reason, Republican state secretaries of state have lost an absolutely huge amount of credibility and citizen faith in their objectivity. Hmm, wonder why that is? Keep in mind that the Kansas Secretary of State explicitly reversed his own office's ruling here.

Wow! These policemen were clearly way, WAY outta control! Woman forcibly arrested for waiting for family outside restaurant. Her kids were using restroom inside and she's a human rights lawyer.

Pictures of the Fast Food Strike of Sept 4th.

Very good to hear that New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade will allow gay marchers to join in with identifying signs.

Green Party of Philadelphia is selling tickets for buses going to the New York Climate March on September 21st.

Tch tch tch! Just because the guy's an evil billionaire, doing his best to fund hundreds of secretive front groups and manipulate our politics, people are mean to him!

PhillyIMC has now truly shut its doors and closed it all down.

Disturbing report on Supreme Court using dodgy information from "amicus briefs" to make highly questionable decisions.

Despite having a lot of on-paper advantages, the anticipated Republican "wave" hasn't appeared. The failure of the ACA/Obamacare to fail might be one of the reasons for the “wave” failure.

Former House Majority Leader Cantor will be going to a highly appropriate place upon his retirement from Congress, to an investment bank, where he'll pull in millions of $.

August                         

Why are Americans joining ISIS? Answers are not comforting.

PA Governor Corbett is very unpopular. I especially liked this: "Corbett has tried to attack his opponent, York businessman and all-around good guy, Tom Wolf (D. PA), with every lie he can come up with but voters aren't buying it..."

This is really, REALLY seriously messed up! Why in the heck are the Ferguson police raiding churches to begin with?!?!?! Why are they raiding places where protesters gather in the first place?!?!!? And yeah, Ferguson was an example of white rage more than anything else.

Will there be a government shutdown? A week ago, nobody thought so. Today, it's depressingly likely.

Many who deny global warming have pointed to the slowdown in the rise of atmospheric heat. Sorry, but that doesn't mean global warming isn't real as the seas are very clearly heating up. The good news is that there appears to be more enthusiasm for doing something about global warming. As I've pointed out many times to readers of the Inky (Philadelphia Inquirer), fixing the results of climate change is a win-win. We need to get people employed, we've got very low interest rates on Treasury bonds and we could reduce our dependence on a violent, unstable area of the world.

Comedian Jon Stewart delivers great rant on being black in America and on Ferguson. Michelle Malkin responds "I love watching white liberals swoon over a white celebrity liberal purporting to speak for all 'people of color.'"

Well, that's true, and Chris Rock, an authentically black comedian, has said some good and insightful things about race too, but he's a lot less popular than Stewart is, so Stewart is in kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Does he leave all the race commentary to Rock, who will speak to a smaller audience or does the "inauthentic" comedian speak to a larger audience?

US agencies that have loaded up on military-grade equipment are, amazingly enough, losing large quantities of that equipment.

For five years, conservatives have been griping about Obama's vacations. Americans just couldn't care less about such criticism.

Pretty hilarious look at libertarians. Major problem with the movement is that not many people, even those in the movement, actually agree on what libertarianism really means!

Long-term Gaza truce reached!

NY Times writer describes Michael Brown with phrase saying he was “no angel.” Gets a fierce (deserved) reaction. Good piece featuring extensive interview with reporter. Also, good piece on communities becoming war zones.

Melissa Harris-Perry lets Joe have it with both barrels, proving the Joe is a complete moron. But she does so very nicely, with a smile.

Candy Crowley describes Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as a “War Hawk” because he wants to bomb a lot of stuff. But this is a truly moronic statement from a Villager. To illustrate, when Captain John Paul Jones stood on the deck of a burning ship with cannonballs flying around him and said "I have not yet begun to fight!", THAT was heroic! When G.W. Bush sat in a comfortable, air-conditioned studio several thousands miles from Iraq and said "Bring it on!", that was NOT heroic. One of these things is not like the other. Graham is far more like Bush than like Jones. It takes absolutely nothing in the ways of smarts or cleverness to say "Let's bomb everything, everywhere."

Obama sends representatives to Ferguson for the funeral of Michael Brown.

The name of the group ISIS has created problems for a singing group and for the 70s Saturday morning TV show.

The ALS fundraising gimmick raised $100 million. It challenged people to either get a bucket of ice water over the head or to write a check.

I mean, yeah, it's really great that Rep. Ryan took the ice bucket challenge, but, y'know, kind of cheap and crummy that he voted to de-fund ALS research. One of those "My right hand has no idea what my left had is doing" things.

A Palestinian from Gaza tries the ice bucket challenge. As he has very little access to water or ice, he improvises.

Very good to see that Pam Geller didn't get much of a crowd. Israel does NOT need allies like her! Geller was the driving force behind protests over the “Ground Zero Mosque,” a building of ordinary size and shape that's a block and a half away from the edge of the World Trade Center site.

Premiums are dropping the ACA/Obamacare, a story that's strangely ignored by most media (Well, no, not strange at all). Bwah-hah-hah!!! Cheapness doesn't pay!!! Baseball team cuts worker hours so as to prevent having to pay ACA premiums, stadium gets surprise rainshower, doesn't have enough people to cover the ground, team forfeits game. Krugman adds: “The other involves the 'sticker shock' that opponents of health reform have been predicting for years. Bulletin: It’s still not happening.”

Very cool to see people raising money for Ferguson students.

Ross Douthat usually comes for a lot of (deserved) abuse "Ugh, how is Douthat wrong TODAY?" But today: "How strange is this this Sunday? How about this: Ross Douthat is the only columnist to devote all of his precious inches to the most PRESSING story in the nation, and he's also the only one to be 100% right."

Bwah-hah-hah!!! I agree 100%!! Joe Scarborough, if he's going to comment on Ferguson, should do some on-the-ground reporting first and not just comment from a comfortable air-conditioned studio a thousand miles away!

August 11th, comedian Robin Williams passes away.

August 9th, Michael Brown shot and killed. Only apparent charge or cause or provocation was that of jaywalking

Truth! Things that people WOULD know IF we had a TRULY liberal media!

Rupert Murdoch gives his opinion on global warming. The TV show Cosmos demonstrates that ol' Rupe has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

Yeah, this is cool! Republicans in Congress finally declare victory over a long-dead and buried opponent. The blogger lists a few other more-or-less imaginary problems Republicans appear to be obsessed with, but hey, it's good to see them dispatching at least one!

Yes, it's perfectly normal for all law enforcement agencies in America to have to pick and choose, to prioritize, which crimes they'll enforce. No, there's nothing unusual about what Obama's doing concerning immigration.

Yeah, what this guy says: "I don’t have any qualms with a massive airlift of humanitarian aid, and I have no problem with a much more aggressive air campaign against ISIS." Obama helping out people in serious distress.

Aaugh! Shriek! No-o-o-o!!! Stephen Moore thinks it would cost a BILLION $$$ to educate the unaccompanied minor children coming across the border. Actually, "... the cost to educate these children would be [$620 million, that is] less than 0.006 percent of the value of the economy as a whole."

Hmm, yeah, okay. The NY Times gets one cheer (out of three) for this. They're now referring to "enhanced interrogation" as torture.

Good! A killer was found guilty. A 19-year old girl came to this fellow's porch after an auto accident. She needed assistance and got shot instead. "The jury verdict is likely to elicit a collective sigh of relief in the civil rights community..." after other people were acquitted for much the same offense.

Why, how amazing! [/snark] Turns out a great majority of economists agree with liberal Keynesias (And me, of course). Was mildly surprised to learn the bank bailouts were successful, but everything else was "Yeah, I knew that."

Ah, here we go! I knew someone had added the figures up. Since the year 2000, there have been about a billion votes for local, state and federal elections. How many cases of in-person voter fraud (That is, fraud that would have been preventable by having voter-ID laws in force) have there been? 31. Not 3100 or 31,000, 31.

This is why I recommended to Facebook friends that Netanyahu had better take *any* peace offering, and quickly, as Israel is quickly losing any sort of moral high ground. Good round-up/summary of the Gaza-Israel struggle. The military has done what it can. Only answer now is to make a deal. Half-hour TV spot on situation in Gaza. Impact of Israeli bombing of Gaza's only power plant.

Blogger gets really, REALLY sick and tired of Villagers saying "Both sides are to blame!" between the President and Congress.

Interesting piece on who ends up getting shot. One of the major causes identified here is arguments that get out of control. When people are drunk and get to arguing and are not armed, they're not really competent to do much damage. But when they are armed, damage is very easy to do.

Good to see this. A Turkish lawmaker said it was improper for women to laugh in public, so Turkish women are documenting themselves laughing in public!

Whoof! Yeah, Congressman King comes across as a complete and total jackass and Senator Paul comes across as an absolutely pathetic coward. Senator Paul comes out with ludicrous explanation.

Yeah, the House report on Benghazi SHOULD (But probably won't) change the reporting that Fox News does on Benghazi. Wolf Blitzer gets fingered as an enabler of Fox here. Also, gee, wow, amazingly enough, surprise, surprise, Fox completely ignores the report

The University President says that he's not conducting a publicity stunt by taking a substantial pay cut in order to raise the pay of the university's lowest-paid employees. Heck, I'll take his word for that. If it's a stunt, its a good one that more company presidents should copy.

My coverage of Friday's Gaza rally.

A lot of us knew this anyway, but the Republican House Intelligence Committee has concluded that there was no wrongdoing, no scandal in Benghazi in the 2012 attack. In a sane world, there would be no House Benghazi Committee, but of course there is.

Heh! Allison Lundergan Grimes vs Mitch McConnell. The crowd is notably less enthusiastic for McConnell. At one point, McConnell suggests that Obama has to call on Bill Clinton whenever he gets into trouble. Erm, I notice that McConnell can't do the same with G.W. Bush as Bush reminds people of why this country's such a mess to begin with.

Both the original and the parody of the wife-facing-an-enraged forme boyfriend wth a gun show credible, believable scenes that could really happen. My question is: "Which is more likely to actually happen in real life?" I think the cool, calm demeanor showed in the parody is really awesome and I would like to think that people would react that way, but if you read a few of the Daily Kos GunFAIL pieces, you realize that theory is beautiful, but a greater-than-zero percentage of people are complete eff-ups.

July                         

*Sigh*, the most useless, ineffective Speaker of the House, I think *ever*, fails AGAIN! This time, he fails to get border security bill passed.

Heh! Republicans complain because Pope Francis and President Obama sound so alike.

Book by Frank Schaefer, who performed marriage ceremony for gay son.

One of the problems with Israel today is that "Operation Cast Lead" (that was conducted right before Obama took office) provoked an extensive report that laid serious blame on Israel for human rights violations. The Obama Administration ignored it and refused to enforce it. The current war is very largely a "chickens coming home to roost" problem.

Delaying action on global warming costs the US $150 billion a year. The price will go up every year we continue to delay.

Ah, okay. The heart of the Israeli complaint concerning SecState Kerry is: "...his attempts to bring Qatar and Turkey — two countries viewed by Israel as strong Hamas supporters — into the cease-fire negotiations." Erm, sorry, but if your position is that you'll only negotiate with people you already agree with, your diplomacy is a FAIL!

Hilarious LTE in today's Inky:

I am used to George Parry making up his own facts to use in attacking Democrats, but his latest article saved me time in looking for the lies (“What the government knew or not,” July 27). I stopped reading six words into the article, when Parry stated, “In December 2008, the Obama administration . . .” Of course, President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009.

You know the lawsuit against the president is fatally weak when they accuse him of ridiculous things. 1. The Clean Air Act gives the President the authority to fight global warming, 2. Thank Heavens the Constitution does not require legislative or judicial approval for prisoner swaps, 3. A shameless lie.

Bwah-hah-hah!!! Love it, love it love it!!! Satanists release ALL women from having to comply with "informed consent" laws! Just print out their letter and say "I'm exempt" when the doctor tries to inform you as to how terrible abortion is.

Very depressing, but excellent analysis of the Halbig case (The claim is that the ACA improperly provides subsidies to states on the Federal marketplace)

The Affordable Care Act is working pretty much as intended, and real people are benefiting, so Republicans are obliged to try and impose unnecessary suffering on their constituents so that they’ll demand repeal.

---

Mark Levin rails and spits and pounds his fist on the table concerning Jon Stewart changing his name (Actually, Stewart's father changed it because he was exposed to anti-Semitic feelings). Interesting commentary on Jon Stewart vs. Mark Levin by Cenk Uygur.

Wow! Sen. Lindsey Graham is normally just full to the brim of awful, terrible, no-good ideas, but ending Israeli accountability for possible human rights violations in Gaza is a whopper of a stinker of an absolutely awful idea! That would guarantee that the US would be seen as unfairly protecting Israel at the expense of any dedication to human rights.

A restaurant got awful reviews for the slowness of their service. Problem was, customers are spending too much time on their smartphones and not enough time eating. Herewith, some suggestions: 1. Don't pull out any devices until AFTER you've ordered. 2. Use your device as you would a paper magazine Either have reading material pre-loaded so you don't have to worry about whether there's wifi or if you're with someone, don't pull it out at all. Entertain yourselves by talking with each other. 3. Go ahead and take a photo of your dinner, but save the photo-cropping and email writing until you get to a coffee shop after dinner or home.

Sen. Rand Paul claims to be Senate's and Congresses #1 supporter of civil rights. Sounds real good, until you look at the details of his actual actions and positions.

I was exchanging messages just the other day with a right-winger who claimed that cutting taxes was always a good thing. We never did get to states, but I'm sure he had some canned, ready response to this too.

California raised taxes 30% on the rich and their economy has the 5th highest job growth and first budget surplus in a decade. By contrast, Kansas slashed taxes on the rich and their economy is tanking. 

Good! People reacting properly to rocker Ted Nugent's toxic rhetoric.

Wow. Hmm. Women get themselves photographed topless to support the IDF. Y'know, normally I'm in favor of these kinds of photos, but I have to agree, these are in pretty poor taste.

Hmm, no, I can't support Rep. Paul Ryan's poverty reduction scheme of setting poor people up with a "life coach" to advise them. When I seriously lacked money a few decades back, I talked with someone about it and he agreed, I needed money. Period.
He could recommend the sacrifice of some small expenditures, but he had no super-clever advice that I hadn't already thought of.

No, sorry, I appreciate that PETA wants to help, but blackmailing people into going vegan?!??! Nope, sorry, can't support that.

To someone such as myself, who follows liberal Keynesian economists, this is a very odd obsession as yes, it takes the GOP away from actual, real-world problems and focuses them on imaginary, non-existent ones. No, inflation is not a serious concern. When consumer demand is as slack as it is, the "too much money chasing too few goods" phenomenon doesn't apply.

Yeah, well, so much for the idea of Governor Cuomo ever being a national politician.

Completely unsurprising (No connection between CEO pay and company financial success) and yes, they mention the Walmart example that I found so infuriating when I first heard about it.

Hillary Clinton's been getting a number of negative comments in the media over her money-making. But, yes, it's very, very interesting how another (male, Republican) presidential candidate ALSO collected millions in speaking fees, but very unlike the situation with Clinton, the Beltway press corps yawned at that. Hmm, wonder why that is?

I weigh in the subject of Gaza. Israel's counter-guerrilla strategy seems poorly designed.

Infuriating!!! An appeals court rules against the ACA. An apparent victory for the right wing looks very, very morally shaky.

Very interesting. Liberals and conservatives are switching places on Israel. Reagan and the younger George Bush were critical of Israel, now the constituencies of the Democratic Party are getting sour on same while Republican politicians and constituencies are getting pro-Israel.

Boston is a low-lying city without many hills. Map of where the waterfront would be after five and seven and a half feet of sea level rise. NOT good!

Things are looking good for the Christian left. We may just drive out the notion that Christians are all anti-evolutionists, anti-contraception, etc.

I don't regard the Islamic State (IS) hardcore religious fundamentalists as thugs. Barbarians would be a better term. And no, I'm not enthused about going back into Iraq to fight them, better to build up our wind and solar fuel sources and just have done with the whole area.

Good news! Progress on Iranian nuclear weapons.

Ron Fournier generally gets little love from liberals because he's of the "both-sides-do-it" school, but this is a good piece. My own feeling on taxation is that taxes should be based on how many square feet of factories, office space and retail outlets are in whichever country. If you've just got a mailbox in the Cayman islands, that shouldn't entitle you to pay taxes there. And sigh, the same guy proves he really shouldn't be listened to on the subject of the ACA.

Very serious consequences for downing the Malaysian plane that was overflyng Ukraine. AIDS research has taken a serious hit.

A look at how the other side of the Israel-Gaza fight sees things. 

Well, Rep. Louis Gohmert says something stupid, again. Yeah, I know, that's not news. What I found interesting though, was this statement: "You want to talk about a war on women? This administration will not defend the women of America from criminal aliens!" 

Hmm, why is it that right-wingers are constantly trying to prove that the "War on Women" is something that it's not? Could it be that the phrase resonates with people and that people believe that it represents something real?

President Obama is getting lots and lots of advice from the opposition party. Problem is, it's all pretty vague and useless.

Chilling tale of voter suppression in Georgia.

Good to hear that Speaker Boehner's lawsuit against President Obama is very unpopular.

Todd Aiken comes back and tries toexplain his "legitimate rape" comment. It does not go well.

So Citigroup settles for its role in the financial crisis that started off in late 2007 with the collapse of the housing bubble and went on to wipe out a huge portion of our economy. How much is $7 billion to them? Here's a quote from their site: "Our Hedge and Private Equity Servicing business also surpassed $500 billion in alternative assets..." So the settlement is little more than a mild inconvenience to them.

Detroit's water “crisis.” Well, the crisis is real enough, but it's entirely deliberate, the result of conscious, deliberate action, applied with malice and forethought.

"Pension smoothing" is a budgetary gimmick. It's not as good as plain ol deficit spending. Speaker Boehner opposes it for an extension of unemployment benefits but supports using it to support the Highway Trust Fund. Both higher taxes and deficits are of course really awful and terrible and compleely off the table, not to be used under any circumstances. So the question is, why does Boehner hate the unemployed?

A thinkpiece on the strategy used by Hamas in Gaza.

A look at the failed records of Tea Party Governors. Special looks at Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Scott of Florida.

DKos strongly condemned Maureen Dowd for her column today. Dowd criticized Chelsea Clinton. Granted, out of the $900K Clinton makes, if she were paid exclusively for her talent, she'd make 1/10th of that or less. But y'know, it' not like the sons and daughters of celebrities and business tycoons don't get privileges in any event. Pretty sad to pick on Chelsea for something that's done all over the place.

Update: Media Matters tells us that Clinton gives most of her money to charity. I didn't know that.

I agree with this evaluation of Meet The Press and especially agree that replacing David Gregory with Joe Scarborough will turn a terrible situation into a catastrophic one.

“Why, then, if Gazans want to live in peace do they continue their equally counterproductive rocket attacks on Israel?” Gaza is suffering a dire shortage of fuel and an increasingly miserable population. Gaza by the numbers. A description of the “roof tap” technique. Film of same.

Heh! Ann Coulter has a Frankenstein-meets-his-monster moment as she criticizes a Tea Party kinda guy.

Digby has the latest update on the Benghazi news. As we always thought, Benghazi was a tragedy, but as US troops could not have gotten to the scene any faster than they did, it wasn't a scandal.

Pretty hard to read this and to conclude that Rep. Paul Ryan is anything but a hard-core, utterly devoted Randian. Heh! Took Rep. Paul Ryan FIVE times, but he FINALLY had a non-wealthy person speak on his hearings on poverty. She was lectured by another Congressman about how her receiving public assistance made her "dependent." She had no idea what the Congressman was talking about.

The health situation in Gaza was not great before the Israeli bombardment began. An animated introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

It's really wonderful that Bill Cassidy loves and supports and stands behind his single, pregnant teenage daughter. Kudos to him. But what would REALLY help his daughter and many millions of young people like her would be to drop this whole "abstinence-only" nonsense. It didn't work for Bristol Palin, hasn't worked for anyone else, drop it already!

A look at how opponents of the ACA/Obamacare have to keep revising their predictions of disaster. Reminds me of how Germans knew they were losing World War II: "Our 'glorious victories' kept occurring closer and closer to home."

Bwah-hah-hah! Spending on anti-ACA ads may have actually INCREASED enrollment in the program! Very interestingly, predictions that the program would soon be canceled increased the urgency of "Get good medical care while you can!"

Heh! Families who lost children in the Sandy Hook massacre wanted to meet with Governor Christie, who begged off with a BS excuse. I like the way Joe Scarborugh words it: "I think it’s kind of chicken 'something,' which I won’t say on the air. It’s chicken, we’ll say 'salad,' for Chris Christie to not meet with these families for at least five to 10 minutes."

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched "Operation Protective Edge" on July 7th in response to militants firing rockets from Gaza.

Sarah Palin demands that Obama be impeached. As I said on Speaker Boehner's impeachment threats, President Obama is more enthusiastic about such talk than any of the Republicans are.

Chris Christie has hard time defending his position on the 10-round limit for guns (He's against it) because, well, his position is pretty shameful and hard to defend.

Having been a History major back in college, I agree, it's very distressing to see the media reach for utterly inappropriate analogies. No, there is no "Obama's Katrina." Did Reagan have a "Bay of Pigs"? Did Carter have a "Grenada"? Did Clinton have a "Vietnam"? Of course not. All of these events were unique to certain presidencies.

In response to the poll that claims Obama is the “Worst President” since FDR, here are some charts that prove the claim is "less than meets the eye."

Wow! What an amazing, astonishing, totally unpredictable surprise! [/snark]. In other amazing, totally unforeseeable news, an elder white guy thinks the Hobby Lobby decision is completely insignificant.

A look at Governor Chris Christie and the New Jersey economy. Not looking good for a presidential campaign. New Jersey's economy is going to be a real drag on any campaign.

The sexual assault survivor whose case George Will referenced speaks out and very STRONGLY disputes the idea that she gained any sort of privilege from being assaulted.

June                         

Damn! The Hobby Lobby decision came out the wrong way. It benefits religious people of a particular sub-section of faith who also happen to own large corporations. Everybody else in America is outta luck. Objections to the Hobby Lobby decision from Supreme Court Associate Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Situation in Iraq a VERY confused mess! Oh, and Russia is sending jets to Iraq. Ayad Allawi (Former Prime Minister of Iraq) feels that US policy there is incoherent. "The valiant Iraqi army has nothing to fight for. This brave army has lost its identity and its role. It doesn’t know whether it is fighting for the country or fighting for the sect or for the person or for the party." ISIS declares a "caliphate" of parts of Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi Army tried and failed to re-take Tikrit.

Entirely predictable problems concerning charter schools. One especially not-surprising conclusion: “Charter schools as a whole fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty.” This is because education is a very labor-intensive activity. When expenditures don't really matter all that much, neither does the public-private institutional difference.

No, Matt Lauer interviewed several male CEOs and no, the question of how they balance home and family life never once came up. So when he asked a female CEO how she balanced home and family life, yes, the question was deeply sexist.

Sounds to me like Philly's Police Chief needs to be fired and replaced with someone who will respect votes and properly-constituted authority.

Good heavens, what a horrible, horrible decision by the Supreme Court on buffer zones around abortion clinics! Very distressing that it was unanimous. Major practical difficulty, as I see it, with arguing with a woman who's at the door of the clinic is that it's, uh, kinda late. Their minds are usually made up and all you're doing at that point is to add a layer of harassment, annoyance and bad feelings.

Chief Justice John Roberts said: " “Petitioners wish to converse with their fellow citizens about an important subject on the public streets and sidewalks..." How well does that theory work in practice, in the real world? Wel-l-l-l...

I largely agree with all of the items on today's round-up (27Jun2014). The cell-phone privacy decision is a unreservedly good one, The abortion, buffer-zone decision and the presidential appointments decisions are both horrible ones that are blind to today's realities. More on buffer zones. Abortion clinics have suffered 4,700 instances of violence since 1995.

Army clears Bowe Bergdahl of any misconduct that he may have engaged in while a prisoner of war of the Afghan Taliban.

Speaker Boehner threatens to sue President Obama. On what charges? Wel-l-l-l, that's not so clear. Apparently, for a bunch of items that were perfectly fine when G.W. Bush did them.

UN has to intercede on behalf of Detroit citizens who were getting their water shut off.

Cool! The establishment Republican beats the Tea Party guy by a fraction of a point! The Tea Party guy was the one that wanted to send white "election observers" to black districts, y'know, just to make sure everything was legit.

Very excellent news! LONG overdue! A process for citizens to get taken off the no-fly list should have been a built-in, integral part of the list from the very beginning.

Y'know, for Fox News to not cover the capture of the guy who directed the Benghazi attack is understandable, everyone knows they're a propaganda outlet. But what's up with all the other shows? What's their excuse?

Rev. Frank Schaefer wins appeal. He performed the wedding ceremony for his gay son and lost his church position for that. He announced that his UMC clergy orders were restored at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

Rachel Maddow encourages Congress to speak up, clearly, about the situation in Iraq. Very good question concerning Iraq. What WAS all that money spent on?!?!!?

Oh, and ThinkProgress gives us a good list, the people the media SHOULD be interviewing about the situation in Iraq and Emptywheel reminds us about the “success” that General Petraeus had training Iraqi troops.

Excellent point! Why bother having a moderator when the guest will just say any ol' thing that pops into his head without the slightest fear of contradiction? Gregory's a useless, empty suit.

Bwah-hah-hah! This fellow is convinced, CONVINCED I tell you!!1!!, that IRS chief Lois Lerner's emails are politically significant enough to cause the Democratic Party real problems. Uh, no. The Bush Administration lost 22 million emails concerning very real and serious problems that should have resulted in serious criminal charges (Fox News skips over that of course) and nobody remembers that today.

Excellent question!!! Why DOES the media feel that Sen. John McCain is the go-to guy on foreign policy? When has the guy been right about anything?!?!! And why is Karl Rove being interviewed on the subject? And heavens! Dick & Liz Cheney are also being consulted!?!?

But the former vice president — who spent years arguing that anyone who questions the administration during a time of war is unpatriotic ... [says] “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” 

Fellow who was leader of Benghazi attack captured. Right-wing reaction: "It's a distraction, I tell you!!! A distraction that diverts us from the REAL scandal here!!!11!! Pay no attention that man behind the curtain!!! Arrggh!!!" Also, [Fox News reporter] Rosen asked, "Following your own logic...why didn't we pose as a reporter to capture [Ahmed Abu Khattala] then?"

*Sigh* *tch* Erm, because that would endanger real reporters? Do you guys have ANY notion of how neutrality works in wartime situations?

Should we press Republicans on whether they intend to impeach the President? Heck yes! It's a win-win! If they deny it, they'll demoralize the voters who think they're serious about doing it, if they affirm it, that'll motivate Democrats to get to the polls!

So what's the score on possibly utilizing Iranians against ISIS? The Obama Administration seems to be leaning towards it, Sen. Lindsey Graham likes it (He's always wrong) but Bill Kristol hates it (He's also always wrong), Think Progress thought it was a bad idea (They're usually right) and Juan Cole warned that "The enemy of my enemy" is not always my friend.

Uh, no. The current situation in Iraq proves exactly the opposite of what Fox News says it does. It proves that the only alternative to ISIS making such gains was for US forces to stay in Iraq for 100 years. It was clear in 2011 and is clear today that such a plan just an't gonna happen. Oh, and report on Bush's “prescience” is BS.

Juan Cole as long been a very highly credible source on Middle Eastern affairs. His “7 Myths” is well worth reading.

Good ruling from the Supreme Court on straw purchases of guns. Can't do it under any circumstances. Have to purchase the gun yourself.

Oh-h-h-h yeah-h-h!!! THIS ought to be fun! Buncha American bikers want to go to Mexico to free an American Marine. Hoo boy!

In case you were saying to yourself: "Dang! I missed the Sunday talk shows. I wonder what wisdom they would have imparted. " Never fear, you didn't miss much. People interviewed on the Sunday morning talk shows were pretty much all old, conservative, white men. Conclusion sentence: "This week, for example, Melissa Harris Perry’s show had 10 guests, 4 of whom were women and 5 of whom were people of color. It was also the only show to feature an Iraq war veteran." (emphasis added) Rep, Barbara Lee shares a rare non-old white guy perspective. Note that she was one of the people in the government that was right the first time.

Words are very cheap and easy things to expend when it comes to "support the troops," but when it requires money on the table, Republicans suddenly find "deficits" and "frugality" to be more important.

Yeesh! Mitt Romney says we're about to lose everything "we" fought for. The veteran responds

I must have missed you over there, but it was a busy place. We. The guy who helped set up “pro-draft” rallies and yet somehow managed to avoid service in Vietnam is upset about losing what “we” fought for? We.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) shows himself to be very confused about the history of the Iraq War. Think Progress runs through the options as regards ISIS. Yuck! NONE of them are really any good. And no, I've never seen using airpower as more than a purely defensive means of making sure ISIS doesn't get to Baghdad. And yes, the Iraq War was still very much in progress when the US left in 2011. Iran sends troops to aid Iraqis.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), thinks health-care for veterans is an “entitlement.” But it was okay to pour over $2 trillion into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, eh? Funny how no one ever says we “can't afford” to launch wars of choice.

The US may end up fighting with Iranian infantry and US air support. One of the reasons that might not be such a bad thing is that Iran has been cooperative on nuclear issues lately (Last piece in Round-up), but the traditional media has been relucttant to acknowledge this. As Jon Stewart's Daily Show makes clear, the situation is enormously complicated.

If you want to know why the economy's been so crappy for the last several years, this explains Cantor's part in making it so.

Mosul, Iraq falls to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Iraqi army, with 15 to 1 advantage, crumbles just the way the South Vietnamese Army did in 1975. Juan Cole, a noted and respected voice during the Iraq War, examines the fall of Mosul and finds LOTS of people to blame for it, most prominently the G.W. Bush Administration, for tearing apart the country, demolishing the old regime and putting nothing in its place. Al Qaeda wasn't a problem in Iraq before the invasion. Now al Qaeda has actual territory of its own.

Very good to see politicians taking on an pundit. George Will gets a much-needed and very properly called for slapdown. Will had expressed the belief that women who got raped benefited from the social status of being a victim.

Hoo boy! This guy who won the primary against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is NOT good for America! Granted, I read I.F. Stone's Trial of Socrates so I'm pretty sour on Socrates, but this should be concerning anyway: "And he has called for drastic cuts to education funding, explaining, 'My hero Socrates trained in Plato on a rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money.'"

Very happy to hear that a veteran's funding bill is passed DESPITE obstructionism from the GOP!

Wow! Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader (2nd in rank after the Speaker), loses primary to an unknown Tea Partier! Conservative blames loss on Cantor not being conservative enough.

Word about how poorly Walmart treats its workers is getting around. Regular shoppers there are shopping there less precisely because workers are treated so poorly. "Is saving a few dollars on a shirt really worth it when my brothers and sisters earn such lousy wages?" And keep in mind, it's not just Sam Walton's descendants that are the problem. The old man's cheapness was ALWAYS a problem for the rest of America.

%$#@@!!! And CNN drops the ball AGAIN!!! Why is it only the comedians who bring up past statements from duplicitous politicians?

NSFW, but I agree with every word. On the recent POW exchange.

So the Federal Government puts out a proposal to tackle global warming. The opposition political party is jumping up and down, screaming and yelling about how economically destructive such proposals will be. The Boston Globe points out that industry said exactly the same thing about clean air and water regulations back in the 70s. The Salt Lake City Tribune says:

Like President Obama’s health care reforms, the EPA rules are being described — falsely — as a government overreach that will damage the economy and cost jobs. In fact, like the Affordable Care Act, the proposed rules are very free-market friendly in that they allow interested parties to choose any of a number of means to reduce carbon emissions.

Wow! Not only is Speaker Boehner the most unproductive Speaker of the House ever, he also can't even come up to the level of basic competence when it comes to reading and then knowledgeably commenting on legislation. He commented on a 645-page bill less than an hour after it was released. He was able to do that because he was relying on a month-old Chamber of Commerce paper that was based on predictions about what the report might say. Naturally, his comments are a complete FAIL!

Laura Ingraham brings up Benghazi to a Fox News panel. They laugh at her. Wow! The issue is getting old even for Fox News!

Heh! All of the sudden, Liz Cheney is very, very, deeply concerned about the US government lying to Americans about national security.

The Washington Monthly finds coverage of environmental issues very short on time and unsatisfactory in how up-to-speed the hosts are. The issue deserves the whole hour and true experts who can enlighten the audience.

What did the Iraq War cost America? Well, $2 trillion in actual, already-expended dollars, $6 trillion projected after we've covered all the veteran's costs.

May                        

General Bolger appears to agree with my own analysis. The only way to have conducted a successful occupation of Iraq was by sending an occupation force in on the heels of the spearpoint troops and to then fix everything up with plenty of reconstruction money, spent by people on the ground, in the cities and towns, not just sitting in Baghdad or Washington DC, and then settle in for the long haul of at least 100 years. Either that or charge in and then charge right out again.

I have a hard time agreeing that Obama should be trashed for this. He negotiated with the Taliban for a soldier who had been held for several years. He might very well have broken the law, but as he said, there were "unique and exigent circumstances."

Why in the heck did police officers throw a stun grenade into a private home when they were trying to arrest a drug dealer?!?!?! A 19-month old child was critically wounded and may die from an overly-militarized police force.

*Sigh*, an entirely predictable response as demanding that abortion doctores have admitting privileges to hospitals was never actually intended to really help women in the first place. Helping women was never the point to begin with.

Good piece on the VAs troubles this morning in the Inky. No pushback against Republicans suggestions for privatization, but no support for such a notion either. Good summary deep within the piece about what the problems there are. Lack of resources is large part of it.

No, the widespread and easy availability of guns and the consequences thereof are not accidents. From TheWeek:

Look, we've collectively decided, as a country, that the occasional massacre is okay with us. It's the price we're willing to pay for our precious Second Amendment freedoms. We're content to forfeit the lives of a few dozen schoolkids a year as long as we get to keep our guns. The people have spoken, in a cheering civics-class example of democracy in action.

Oh good grief! Photos of female high school students posing for their yearbooks were made to conform to school policies on modesty in dress. They were given higher necklines and longer sleeves. The real problem, of course, is that it was done without their knowledge or permission.

For anyone you know who says we have a "pro-Obama media," ask them why progress on Iran reducing it's nuclear weapons program isn't front-page news. Yes, for Iran to be disarmed of nuclear weapons capability is not a done deal and still has a ways to go, but WTF?

Okay, let's see, this was a law that "would have required physicians providing abortions to post their profiles on a public website and include how many abortions they performed each year."

Now, what on Earth could this information possibly have done OTHER than to have incited anti-choice fanatics to try and kill those abortion providers?!?!?!

And yes, the guy claims he wasn't aware that the bill might have that effect. What other effect could it possibly have had?!?!??!

As part of President Obama's visit to troops in Afghanistan, the name of a CIA officer was made public. The people on the president's team promptly realized their error and did what damage control they could. Scooter Libby's revealing the name of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent who was performing undercover tasks that were important to national security, on the other hand, was entirely deliberate. BIG difference!

Poor Ron Fournier gets slammed, first in this piece on the "Green Lantern theory of presidential power" and then again here, which holds that Fournier doesn't appear to have much use for actual, real-life democracy. Yes, I agree with both pieces and no, I don't have much respect for the fellow.

The economist Dean Baker (Who, unlike Geithner, saw the housing bubble years before it burst), reviews Timothy Geither's book and Geithner's years in office. Spoiler alert: Baker is not at all impressed.

The problem with CNNs global warming reporting is that eventually, people are going to make up their minds one way or the other, so asking the question "Is global warming something to worry about?" is going to get really old to an increasingly large portion of the audience. Far better for CNN to switch over and to say "Global warming's a serious problem. What are we going to do about it?"

The CEO of McDonald's makes a play for human sympathy: "We are people. We do have values at McDonald’s. We are parents."

Which is all very fine and well, but we notice that they STILL aren't paying their employees a decent, living wage!

Very happy to see PA Governor Corbett throw in the towel on the marriage equality fight! Also, this piece makes a very excellent point. For all the talk about this being a "center-right" nation, when a right-wing governor is in electoral trouble, he doesn't move right, he moves left.

This is seriously messed up! Steny Hoyer wants to treat the Benghazi tragedy as something that STILL requires serious investigation! No Steny, it doesn't. Any further investigation is now a complete joke and should be treated as such.

WaPo's Jennifer Rubin attempts to determine what does and doesn't constitute a scandal, fails.

Dan Bartlett says that the Bush Administration “set a trap” for Obama on taxes. He feels pretty good about that. A commenter calls Bartlett a "smug punk." I'd go along with that. Yeah, it was a really "clever" ploy to impoverish the American people and to starve the government of money just when the need for government action on various issues was acute. Heckuva job, Danny boy!

This was long predicted, that if we legalized pot, the drug cartels would soon be starved of income. Good to see that that was true!

D'oh! Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) doesn't believe in global warming, but as his mansion is only a foot above sea level and right on the beach, he might not have the luxury of disbelief for too much longer. Also, Scott channels Sen. Marco Rubio, who said "I'm not a scientist, man" in response to a question on the age of the Earth. Scott is agnostic on global warming, a wildly irresponsible position for an official of a largely flat state that's very close to sea level as it is.

Good to see that Karl Rove's attack on Hillary Clinton is doing far more to discredit him than to harm her.

Statements made by Benghazi Committee members make it clear that there's nothing to investigate as all of their "concerns" have been asked and answered already. Also, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) asks a series of really good questions, especially his last three.

Good! Education Department says charter schools must comply with civil rights laws.

Good continuation of the debate over Condoleezza Rice and Rutgers.

Wal-mart executive missed his target for being qualified to receive incentive pay, so he re-calculates how his incentive pay is awarded, defeating the entire point of incentive pay.

Problem with Chris Christie's presidential ambitions is that he has many more problems than just "Bridgegate." Primarily, his management of New Jersey's economy. Also, further examination of the economic effect of conservative policies in Kansas. Seems that just making big tax cuts is a really inferior, substandard way of stimulating the economy.

Oh, and 10 million people were scheduled to show up today (May 16th) to overthrow the American government. How many actually showed up? Well hey, it WAS raining out! Yeah, they worked on getting people there starting six monhs ago, but hey, they figured a few hundred showed up.

Senator Rubio (R-FL) thought he had a "gotcha" for liberals on the abortion issue, but it turns out the question, “When does life begin?” uses very fuzzy, vague definitions that are far more philosophical than they are scientific.

Infrastructure. Not a hip, happening, sexy subject, but a critically necessary one for our prosperity. One would think the traditional media would pay attention to it, but Republican obstruction in this area is completely cost-free as the media yawns over the subject. The President gave a speech about it and hardly anybody ran it in their coverage. What is the Republican strategy behind this obstructionism? Unfortunately, it's quite rational, but requires putting party above principle and above what's good for America.

The Navy now says that Norfolk, VA is at risk from rising seas. As someone who was there 1991-1996, I agree. The whole area is pretty flat. Not many hills at all.

Restrictive Voter ID laws appear to be imploding around the country. Good! What's clear in the recent court rulings on the subject is that the laws simply cannot be fixed with a few modest tweaks. The laws are fundamentally like the Jim Crow laws of an earlier era that were designed to disenfranchise.

Speaker Boehner, discussing the Benghazi Committee: "We’ve been having a discussion over the last four or five days over how witnesses will be handled, how documents will be handled, just trying to come to some understanding upfront of what I mean by fairness.”

Erm, here's a clue. When you have to discuss what "fairness" means, you've pretty much much given the game away as to how seriously you take the committee. Ooh! Here's a good idea! Let's appoint Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) as the sole Democratic member of the Democratic side.

*Groan!!!* Y'know, I was around when people bitched and crabbed and whined about Nancy Reagan buying a new set of dishes for the White House. These people in this segment never, of course, specify how many offices with how any people, are being re-furnished. Sorry, but you don't expect government employees to sit around on the floor or to not have decent filing cabinets or lousy desks.

The head of the Benghazi Select Committee has a problem with the legal concept of “Asked and answered.” It's when you repeated a question that's already been answered.

*Sigh* well again, Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) raises the old question "Stupid or evil?" Is he just so dim and uncomprehending on the distinction between denying someone their freedom of speech and between denying them a paid platform or is he just opportunistically trying to confuse his constituents?

The chairman of the new Benghazi Committee accuses liberals of hypocrisy for complaining that the committee is being used to raise funds for the RNC. Well, let's look at Gowdy's examples: Sandy Hook was a non-partisan affair, Katrina was an absolutely clear-cut *&$#-up by Bush, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were clearly the fault of Republicans (Yes, some Democrats voted for them) and lasted years and years longer than all of our previous wars did, so no, I'm not sure where the hypocrisy is on complaining about fundraising off of the Benghazi Committee.

Good thinkpiece on how we judge public figures. I agree with the piece in that I really couldn't care less how public figures act in their private lives. What matters are their public actions, or the secret actions that affect the public. Yes, the young George Bush is a monster who deserves to be serving a life sentence in prison.

From the piece: "What has happened in Kansas should serve as a cautionary tale for tax-cut proponents in Wisconsin, rather than a model." DKos looks at two liberal states California and Minnesota, and two conservative states, Wisconsin and Kansas. Gee, guess which set of states did better economically? And which set crashed and burned economically? Aww, ya guessed!

Heh! Yeah, ThinkProgress pointed out from Day 1 that Neil deGrasse Tyson was taking a left-wing, pro-science stance on Creationism and related beliefs in his TV show Cosmos (Sequel to Carl Sagan's 1980s version).

*Sigh*, the Supreme Court can say "racism is dead" all it wants, but as long as stuff like this happens, that claim is just a lot of hot air.

Christian activists in the Senate demonstrate WHY church and state should be always and forever separate.

Jon Stewart brought up an extremely good point last night. People are unexcited and kinda bored by Benghazi because it pales next to the lies and casualties of the Iraq War. Uh. Mah. Gawd! Republicans, at least some of them, are viewing the Benghazi Committee as the first step towards impeaching the President!

These two stories appeared within a few hours of each other on Facebook this morning. The fellow pictured thought it was really cute and clever to go shopping at a hardware store while carrying a combat-style rifle strapped to his back, then another fellow was showing off various firearms to a group of young boys, demonstrated how a laser sight worked and, oops!, shot his nephew through the head!

Very happy to hear that there's rhetorical way to convince the Evangelical climate deniers/skeptics that they can line with the scientists on the issue and still be faithful Christians.

President Obama does a very excellent sketching out of a sensible and effective foreign policy. Natcherly, lots of real-world questions about how it's applied and executed, but VASTLY better than Bush's "Shoot first and...uh..." policy!

Interesting thoughts on Occupy vs the Bundy ranch.

Wall St. Journal makes a funny, that the ACA/ Obamacare is moving Americans into "a two-tiered health system." Actually, we currently have a four-tiered system and thankfully, the ACA is eliminating that fourth tier.

Benghazi is a “scandal” that still won't led anywhere. Cenk Uygur rants about Republican overkill of Benghazi.

As ACA/Obamacare enrollment hits 17.8 million, Republicans strangely silent about it.

Sure hope Republican politicians and Fox News are proud of themselves for having enabled this group so much! These guys are acting like guerrilla groups from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. Also, fights breaking out between factions.

An execution goes horribly wrong. Best answer is to eliminate executions entirely.

Time to retire, Justice Scalia! Plenty of time left in Obama's term to get you replaced with someone who can do the job!

April                        

What? Have poor people testify at a poverty hearing? Unthinkable! Next thing you know, you'll want women to testify at women's reproduction hearing or blacks to speak at a hearing on race relations!

The strategy that Fox News follows, a diet of constant fear and outrage that keeps about 2 million viewers hooked, is very, very profitable for Fox News. Is it good for the Republican Party? Ehhh, not so much.

Awwww! Poor Governor Scott (R-FL) went to a senior center expecting to hear Obamacare horror stories and was surprised to hear that seniors were largely satisfied with it. That was clearly a big disappointment to him.

Glenn Beck accuses Hillary Clinton of...well...being a politician. He demonstrates his dirty mind by saying she's willing to have sex on a a desk with a woman in order to get elected. Would male politicians do that if it would work? Duh, of course they would.

Good news for Democrats! Governor Corbett's Voter ID law is pretty much dead with this latest decision! The PA Supreme Court could still weigh in, so it's not a final victory quite yet.

Sarah Palin said: "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." Keep in mind that National Review Online is NOT a liberal organization. Here's what they said in response: "There’s a word for that kind of practice: barbaric. The Greeks used to use it to describe the other guys."

Glad to see the GOP getting the message that the repeal crusade for the ACA is over. ACA is a fact guys, get over it.

Bwah-hah-hah!!! Bill O'Reilly tries really, REALLY hard to convince us that Fox News took a moderate view of Cliven Bundy and his violent threats. Complete FAIL! Also hilarious is the Republican National Committee Spokesperson "wondering" "Why is everybody calling us for comment?"

And with a single answer to a constituent, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, shows that he really doesn't understand his own job.

Hoo boy! This guy is just desperately, DESPERATELY re-e-e-eaching to find something, ANYTHING to criticize the President for! Donald Trump demonstrates that he's in the same boat.

Very cool! Digby's been a favorite blogger of mine for many, many years.

Very interesting piece on global warming. We can perhaps fix things up in time to avoid the extinction of our species, but we don't have a lot of time and we've got some pretty big cultural obstacles that work against a solution.

Fred Hiatt and the other Very Serious People in Washington DC are very, very deeply concerned about the US spending more than it's taking in. Of course, the ACA/Obamacare has done far more good for the budget than the Bowles-Simpson cuts would have, the tax rate is FAR lower than it was under Jimmy Carter and it's not like offshore accounts aren't hiding trillions of dollars in untaxed money.

Excellent presentation from last night's Daily Show. Hannity's hypocrisy is staggering. As a blogger pointed out, George Washington's stance towards the Whiskey Rebellion was the precise opposite of Hannity's stance here. Washington would have had no respect for Hannity whatsoever.

Very cool news and it couldn't have happened without all the activity on legalizing pot.

Way, way back when, I read that the elder George Bush had been "blooded" by invading Panama. That struck me as a very odd definition of toughness and manhood as the last time heads of state actually took to the battlefield was during the mid-1800s. Ever since at least Lincoln, American Commanders in Chief give orders from hundreds to many thousands of miles from where the action is occurring. Sorry, but "toughness" and battles that the US engages in have very, very little to do with each other.

No, it may not be sexist, but it's incredibly stupid to think that Chelsea Clinton planned her pregnancy to, in any possible way, shape or form, have any sort of interaction with her mother's campaigning for the presidency. Please people, not everything revolves around politics. Sometimes people just do things for simple human reasons. Update: Yes actually, the criticism of Hillary Clinton was very sexist.

When you hear conservative pundits warn of double and even triple health care insurance premium increases next year, please keep in mind that these predictions are based on a single anonymous insurance executive citing his own gut feelings. Conservative anti-ACA pundits are HUGELY over-interpreting every little hiccup as Armageddon for Obamacare.

Open Letter to Phyllis Schlafly From 12 Year-Old Madison Kimrey (Guest Post)

A blogger for DKos shows us a traditional media "journalist" who's really a sad case, using fuzzy, vague terms like "...over what they say are unpaid grazing fees." It takes our blogger about six seconds to discover that yes, the grazing fees are unpaid. There's no need whatsoever for "...over what they say..." at all.

Ugh! I mean, seriously, has Hillary Clinton EVER come across as so mean, hard and bitter that her daughter having a baby "humanizes" her?!?!?! Yeah, this is a total FAIL!

I agree with not starting shooting over the payments problem (The LAST thing we need are a bunch of martyrs over grazing fees), but yeah, now the stage is set for further trouble.

Very happy to see this and yes, I agree with Stephanie Anders: "The thing is, she shouldn't have to be tried again. The charges should have been dismissed in the first place."

From the piece:

Two member affiliates of the Koch-supported Americans For Prosperity (AFP) organization gave their blessing as armed ‘Patriot’ militias showed up to confront agents of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doing the dangerous, difficult job of removing Bundy’s trespass cattle from federal lands last week. The Kochs have been trying to privatize federal lands in the West for a long time, and Bundy’s cause crystallized that issue in a very public fashion.

Markos Moulitsas, who runs Daily Kos, put out a piece telling us that liberals have won the culture war. A conservative responded by listing 11 ways in which, no, conservatives have won. Markos responds, hilarity ensues.

Really good set of slides showing that wealth inequality has returned to pre-Crash of 1929 levels. Recommended by NY Times economics columnist Paul Krugman.

Very true. And if a plan like LA Governor Bobby Jindal's is the best the opposition can do, they really just better hang it up.

A number of our fellow citizens appear to want to go back to the Gilded Age (Between the Civil War and Progressive Era), when taxes were low and regulations more or less non-existent. Gee, I wonder why the Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era, when citizens struck back at the robber barons and instituted regulations and eventually, unions?

Hmm, I'm torn on this because while I'd like to see this governor (PA's Corbett) booted out of office, politicians raise taxes because taxes need to be raised. I hate the idea of making politicians even more gun-shy of raising taxes when raising them is necessary.

Ugh! As much as I'd LOVE to say that this surprises me, it really doesn't. Only one-sixth of America's citizens know where Ukraine is (When I was stationed in Gaeta, Italy, we did two tours of the Black Sea, which included Crimea both times) and there's a direct correlation between how much they know about it and how much they want to bomb it. Those who have NO idea where Ukraine is are all ready to send the bombers. Those who know where Ukraine is and something of its history say, "No way!"

Fascinating! Did anybody ever consider David Letterman to be representing "Heartland Values"?

Excellent analysis on why people are ticked off at the 1%. No, no one minds Mitt Romney being able to afford a car elevator and no one reads enviously about wild parties in the Hamptons. We're just annoyed because the really rich guys, the "Masters of the Universe" types, bragged about how wonderfully they were handling the nation's money matters right up until the economy collapsed and then didn't even have the decency to suffer any meaningful losses from that crash.

Gee, ya think Ms. Rice's own past actions may have had something to do with our current war-weariness?!?!?!?!

Bill O'Reilly complains about Congresswoman Barbara Lee: "Alright, let's take a look at Miss Lee's history. In 2011 she accused the entire Republican party of trying to deny black Americans the right to vote... the entire party."

Erm, why is this an inaccurate accusation?!?!?! Are any Republicans complaining about what Scott Walker is doing?!?!?! If O'Reilly could show that there was significant condemnation from the Republican Party toward Walker's vote-suppression schemes, then O'Reilly might have a case that Rep. Lee is making wild charges.

Color me completely un-surprised by this. It was pretty clear from accounts shortly after bin Laden's death that not only was torture useless, but someone who knew how to reach him was waterboarded many, many times and never spilled any indication of that. He just decided "That information is worth more than my life is" and so resisted all methods of "persuasion."

Well yes, Neil Cavuto is right “The fact of the matter is, no one is against trying to cover people with preexisting conditions, no one is against removing lifetime caps on medical coverage." That is, he's right NOW. He's correct at the current moment. Now that the ACA has established that insurers can't discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, NOW Republicans are in favor of that provision, etc. That certainly wasn't the case prior to the ACA being established.

THIS is why we need campaign finance reform!!!! NO ONE should have so much influence that candidates troop over to kiss his ring!

March                        

No big surprise that the principle person in the big "Obamacare horror story" is telling a completely false tale (It would be a lie had she done some research and found her real health care costs for herself, but she made it clear that she never did that) and that the "victim" will actually save a bundle on her health care costs. The pity of it is that she allowed herself to be used for propaganda purposes.

Spending more money (Republicans used to call it "throwing money at the problem") may not be the complete answer, but consider this quote from the piece: "Under Gov. Rick Scott, more case investigators were hired, yet money for oversight and family counseling was slashed. The agency’s budget shrunk by $100 million during this fiscal year alone."

All this cost-cutting has a very real cost in beaten and broken babies and children.

The 6,300 page torture report was finished 15 months ago. It hasn't been released because the CIA has still not responded. Forget the CIA's response!!!!! If they can't get their act to get their, release the report ANYWAY!

A bigger march occurred A lot of people are in the habit of blaming capitalism for everything. In this case, I think the shoe fits. There have been similar cases where TV networks tried to spend time on non-profitable pursuits and their investors raised bloody hell about it. Normally, TV networks are happy to give a President airtime to put out important messages, but they clearly weighed the $ vs the importance of the message and decided "Nah."

without incident, but then a smaller group observed International Women's Day by scuffling with police over access to Istanbul's Taksim Square.

Not the slightest bit surprising, unfortunately. From the Rachel Maddow blogger:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has a sweeping new condemnation of the 'war on poverty,' in which he cites a variety of scholars.

The biggest problem: many of those same researchers are now saying Ryan misrepresented their work.

It's interesting that Rep. Ryan's story was fake, but the real problem was that he was presenting a false choice between parents who could afford to prepare lunches for their child every day and parents who were too lazy/cheap to do so. The real choice is whether parents can affrord to see to it that their kids are properly fed in the first place

At Glenn Greenwald's new site, he compares Abby Martin's condemnation of Russia's incursion into the Crimea with the behavior of American journalists prior to, and during, the Iraq War and the current drone attacks. RT comes off pretty well.

From a parody site, but a first-rate commentary on the issue! Strongly advise reading this.

Rep. Ryan headlines his report by saying he's proven that anti-poverty programs don't work. Problem is, once one looks at the actual details of the report, one gets a picture of a very effective set of government programs.

So which is it guys?!?!?! Do you, as Senator Lindsay Graham says, want war with Russia? Or do you. as Rudy Giuliani says. think Putin is the grooviest?

February                        

From MMFA: "Newsflash for Fox: Americans are more concerned with feeding their families than feeding the U.S.' ability to launch large-scale, long-term occupations of other countries at the drop of a hat."

*Sigh*! Once again, fact-checkers giving fact-checking a bad name. The piece contains an update where the fact-checkers acknowledge that the issue is not as cut-and-dried as they first made it out to be.

The GOP plan on taxes has been, for a long time, to trade elimination of tax breaks for a lower overall rate. But, a the old saying goes, "The Devil is in the details." They just *happened* to just, y'know, coincidentally, choose a plan that works against people in Democratic states. Amazing how that happens!

The good news for the day is that the deficit scold group "Fix The Debt" loses one. Good! Those %^%$#ers *deserve* to lose, as many millions of Americans have lost so much due to their proposals already!

Some conclusions about conversations with people on the other side.

Bwah-hah-hah!!! Ah-hah-hah-hah!!! Girl scouts, you now what your formula for success is!

A 13-year-old Girl Scout in San Francisco recently set up shop outside a marijuana clinic and sold 117 boxes of Girl Scout cookies within two hours. The cookies were such a big hit, she's been invited back.

ThinkProgress puts out a detailed report on the troubles in Ukraine.

I haven't been reading Greenwald much in recent years, that has more to do with changing tastes on my part than through any fault of his, but I've always considered him to be a first-rate blogger/reporter and am very pleased to see him being properly recognized and rewarded.

More conversations. We bicker over who's in a bubble and who's out of touch. My suggestion is that if you disrespect the people on the other side and don't know anything about what motivates them, then you're probably the one in the bubble.

Round-up of pieces on the failure of the Republican House to put together an immigration reform package. Not terribly surprising, considering that Speaker Boehner could very easily (And very easily still could) have simply put the Senate bill up for a vote, but disappointing.

Woo-hoo! This is my favorite Pope EVER!!!

The Catholic Church has endorsed The Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street! A 0.5% - 0.005% tax on billions of dollars in currently untaxed financial transactions that create billions of dollars in unjust profits…would raise $350 billion annually towards the US economy! Please LIKE and SHARE this post. Break Wall Street's control of our Government. Twitter @RobinHoodTax twitter.com/RobinHoodTax

Gee! What a surprise! Bwah-hah-hah! NJ Governor Chris Christie apparently flew over the George Washington Bridge during the massive traffic tie-up that was the result of deliberate actions taken by his staff.

David Gregory: "So the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office issues a report this week and all of a sudden you get the debate right back front and center about whether Obamacare is a job killer."

*Sigh*! No David! A "debate" is when BOTH sides are using FACTS! The dispute over the CBO report is just one of one side LYING!

Right-wing critics and *sigh* the fact-checker from the Washington Post agree that the latest CBO report means the the ACA will cost Americans 2.5 million jobs. No, no, no. 2.5 million people will likely voluntarily leave the workforce. Big difference. Not the same thing.

Heh! People try to portray Christie in a positive light by recounting an incident from his youth, which actually makes him sound pretty creepy and amoral. Also, the piece has the Coke "America The Beautiful" ad. Once I understood that they weren't singing different words, just the same words in different languages, I was cool with it.

Good piece in today's Inky. Americans have been far too insulated from the wars of the past decade, which is part of the reason why they've dragged on for so long.

January                        

The title to the story is: “Former TSA Agent Explains Full Body Scanners Didn't Work, But Did Let Him See You Naked.” But...but I just don't understand...WHY is Amtrak so popular as opposed to air travel?!?!?! [/snark]

Nah, nothing surprising about this. Just means the dirty effin' hippies were right AGAIN! The survey inspired me to write this on how the public doesn't see that we accomplished much with either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

In response to the SOTU, Rep. Jim Gerlach writes on a timely and appropriate subject, President Obama is seeking to get things done through executive action as opposed to trying to work with Congress. Okay, but this particular House of Representatives makes Harry Truman's "Do-Nothing Congress" look positively energetic by comparison. Gerlach presents no practical answers for how to get Congress off its duff and moving to address a series of urgent problems. Also, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor appear to be talking to us from the other side of the galaxy, 'cause they sure aren't describing THIS planet! Where has all this cooperation been since January 2011?

Good commentary from C&L. Man, what a useless sack 'o crud Wolf Blitzer is! He's just absolutely worthless as a moderator! Senator Bernie Sanders tries hard to debate Rep. Michele Bachmann, but she just flitters all over the place, putting out all kinds of crazy.

Further conversations with people on the other side of the aisle.

Heh! Yeah, there's a real problem with Republicans continuing to oppose the ACA/Obamacare. It's no longer a theoretical program with unknown advantages and disadvantages. It's now a real program that actually affects people in real time and the advantages are plain to see.

*Sigh*, no Senator Paul, Bill Clinton did NOT "get a free pass" regarding his affair with Ms. Lewinsky. Their relationship was far less a predator-prey relationship and far more like a rock star-groupie kind. Lewinsky never portrayed herself as any sort of victim. Connecting that relationship to any kind of "war on women" is a FAIL!

Oh good grief! Your #FAIL of the day - “Venture Capitalist Compares Liberal Fight Against Gross Inequality To Kristallnacht.”

Why do older conservative men like Mike Huckabee and Rush Limbaugh keep saying such bizarre things about contraceptives? Their beliefs are really weird.

AG Holder announces that the US should open up banks to marijuana businesses.

Governor Corbett's Voter ID law never served any legitimate purpose. It was always intended to suppress Democratic votes, period.

Bwah-hah-hah!!! Nancy Grace does more for the pot legalization cause by hysterically overreacting to it than all of the legalizers combined!

A couple of weeks ago, I got a letter into the Inky about the NSA and mentioned that the current NSA program was fundamentally the same as G.W. Bush's. A right-winger wrote me to complain "You liberals always have to drag up Bush's name, don't you?" Well, this piece about Republicans changing their minds and deciding that Obama's NSA program is the worst thing ever, shows the reason I did that. I completely agree with them that the program is terrible, but the hypocrisy of denouncing Obama's program when they said nothing about Bush's IS pretty stunning.

I would be truly amazed if anyone in Florida thinks that Governor Rick Scott's habit of answering questions was in any way appropriate for any politician under any circumstances. He just casually blows off any questions he doesn't feel like answering. The facts that the citizens of Florida have a right and a need to know his thoughts on some matters is something he treats with complete disdain

Hmm, let's see, hundreds of thousands of voters without IDs, 9,300 polling places and only 71 DMVs (places to get IDs)...nah, I don't see any problems with that! [/snark] If the Corbett Administration had been putting up plans to spend lots of money to fix the problem, that'd be one thing. But they've been doing no such thing, which means to me that they're not at all serious.

Very cool and quite necessary if the pot businesses are going to function well. Attorney General Holder is carrying out an action that's badly needed.

GunFAIL #53 - Numbers 11 & 12 are especially "WTF?!?!?!!"

The Inky's Trudy Rubin thinks it's really terrible that the US is abandoning Syria. Yeah, Assad is a really evil guy, but Russia is backing him and Russia's a whole lot closer to the scene than we are. She makes a heartfelt plea, but as America's armed forces are exhausted by years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's far from clear what the US can do about the Syrian situation.

MMFA makes a very good point. If Christie felt invincible and thus got carried away by the power he possessed, then the media's always giving him worshipful coverage probably had a lot to do with that.

Further conversations with people on the other side of the aisle.

Our blogger loses a good friend to the recession.

Right-wingers HATE the thought of taxpayer-funded home-care workers unionizing, but as the WaPo points out, unionization is necessary if home-care is going to work.

Death penalty by lethal injection is a lousy solution that purports to be a clean, non-guilt-inducing way to execute prisoners. If we're going to continue executions (Which I oppose doing), let's do it "old school" and use something like lions or the firing squad (Guillotine works IF the device is kept in good working condition, otherwise, it's just as messy as an axe is).

On the ACA, now that it's up and running:

In October, an Ohio woman said, "I don't want anything to do with" Obamacare. The same woman now sees it as "wonderful" and "a godsend" for her family.

This, in a nutshell, is exactly what Republicans were afraid of.

With new corruption allegations, I think Christie's pretty much finished as a 2016 presidential contender. No wonder people are looking to Romney with hopeful eyes.

Traditional media: "What? Why would we cover unemployed people losing their benefits?!?!? Ugh, that's so...real life! Why would we cover that when we can re-hash Benghazi for the zillionth time?"

PA Governor Tom Corbett intended to visit one of the schools that has been devastated by budget cuts, learns there were going to be protesters there and cancels his appearance. Protesters showed up anyway and marched and rallied and made speeches.

TV talk show host Nancy Grace rants about how “dangerous” marijuana is. She obviously once saw Reefer Madness and never forgot it. Her story about the stockbroker who lost everything due to her "pot addiction" sounds VERY highly suspect, as in, the stockbroker was probably doing far more than just pot.

Update: Bwah-hah-hah!!! Nancy Grace's hysterical overreaction does more for the pot legalization cause than all of the legalizers could do combined!

Very happy to see PA's Voter ID law struck down! I always thought it was a law blatantly and unequivocally designed to reduce Democratic votes, period!

Public demonstrates common sense by turning away from Duck Dynasty. Show isn't canceled by any means, but ratings are significantly down.

For some reason, the Senate bill to slap further sanctions on Iran has run out of steam. Why? Who knows? Who cares? We'll take our good news wherever we can get it!

I've been having an online argument with a conservative in the Inky about whether the ACA is suffering a "Death Spiral." The piece here is very clear. No.

Uh...what? The NSA can't search its own database to see if it's been spying on Congress because to do that would violate internal rules?!!?!?

Four years after the earthquake, how effective has aid to Haiti been? Not useless, but seriously short of how effective such aid could be. Major problem is that an awful lot of the money is being spent to aid American industry.

Yeah, that's, uh, kind of a sort of a REALLY big problem for Christie. Where was he during the George Washington Bridge lane closures? Was he aware of the problem? Did he do anything to fix it? Turns out he was meeting with the guy who ordered the lanes closed, DURING the time they were closed! And there were other members of the Port Authority present at the meeting. A New Jersey newspaper denounces all of the Republican arm-waving and attempts at distraction. Ooh! This has gotta hurt! Knowing what a man-crush Chris Christie has on Springsteen, he's got to be completely devastated over how his hero disses him here.

I watched this segment of Fox News' Neil Cavuto "wondering" where all that infrastructure money "actually" goes. Yeah Neil, that's a real mystery [/facepalm]. Wonder if it ever occurred to him to actually compare what we need to what we spend.

ZDNet said earlier: "In a document (PDF) on the nsa.gov website, the agency said that the internet carries 1,826 Petabytes of information per day, and that its activity "touches" 1.6 percent of that data — approximately 29 petabytes, or 29 million gigabytes, of data each day." Problem: none of that data collection is actually doing America any good. A study of 225 terrorism cases showed that bulk data collection was irrelevant to solving those cases.

*Sigh*, more coverage from our lazy, derelict press corps. Problem is that, after the initial headlines, the press loses interest and the later corrections never become widely known. I had an online conversation with two right-wingers who insisted that the IRS “scandal” and Benghazi were not "fake scandals." Uh, 'fraid to say, these are very much fake scandals.

Not looking good for the president's ability to make recess appointments.

Former Fox News anchor Brit Hume has a very interesting definition of "old-fashioned" and "masculine." I just can't remember any truly masculine fellows who lost their tempers and exploded at their opponents like Christie regularly does. Maybe General Patton, who went crazy a few times, one time slapping a soldier who clearly had PTSD and stuff like that. As I recall, Patton didn't win any popularity by doing that.

The NYT's Jonathon Weisman says: "With his strong-armed change to the filibuster rule and an iron-fisted control of the Senate floor, Senator Harry Reid has engaged in the greatest consolidation of congressional power since Newt Gingrich ruled the House, unleashing a bitterness that may derail efforts to extend unemployment insurance."

To which I say: "Oh, puh-leeeeze!!!!! Are we completely unaware of how bollixed up the Senate was before the filibuster reform/weakening?" Yeah, it's a significant concentration of power, but context please! Senator Reid didn't just do it for the fun of it.

Hilarious! In the context of the Chris Christie “Bridgegate” scandal, Jon Stewart "defends the honor" of New Jersey criminality. Very interesting theory as to the “why” of Bridgegate. Looking through the document dump, C&L concludes that Christie was/is surrounded by thugs, but by smart thugs who knew how to insulate the boss.

Former SecDef Bob Gates puts out a book and we get some criticisms of Obama. As "criticisms" go, this is pretty weak stuff. Of course Obama didn't believe in the war in Afghanistan. He knew that America wasn't prepared for a draft and that insignificant numbers of people had signed up to serve as construction engineers or to otherwise do public works there. Obama had such limited tools to work with, of course he didn't have any faith of winning there. Folks might recall that when Eisenhower took over and inherited the Korean War, he didn't press for “victory” either. He wanted it ended, ASAP!

Judges to women in Texas who want access to reproductive health minimizes burden of having to make a 300-mile round trip to get an abortion. 42% of women who seek abortions live below poverty line, so no, it's really not that easy for them.

The ACA is doing really well, not that one would know that from our lazy, derelict media. Fortunately, some reporters are starting to call out their peers!

Aww! [/snark] Liz Cheney has dropped her Senate run, citing family health issues.

Boo! Hiss! Supreme Court puts a hold on marriage equality in Utah! 900 couples got together before the decision came down.

Beltway “Villager”calls for Democrats and Republicans to compromise. It would kinda help for him to, you know, do some homework and to understand that his proposed agenda is completely unnecessary in order to achieve reduced deficits. Also, his calls for Social Security reductions are amazingly cruel, seeing as “most older workers have almost nothing saved for retirement.” Reducing Social security pretty directly takes food right out of people's mouths. And no, income inequality has far more to do with declining unionization and the rise of low-wage work than with jobs that need a high level of skill.

Person who later appeared on Fox News openly called for President Obama to be assassinated. What's his main complaint that justifies his calling the President a “tyrant”? Why, of course, Benghazi!!!

Mitt Romney wishes he could re-do the 2012 campaign. It's difficult to see what Romney could have done much better. His main claim was that, being a businessman, he could fix what was wrong with our economy. 1. Business and government are not interchangeable. Success in one doesn't mean you'll be successful in the other. 2. His particular business, Bain Capital, wasn't a model of success that would be in any way applicable to America as a whole. Their record at helping companies thrive was mixed, at beat.

Yeah, he could have had better security at the place where he made his "47%" speech, but that's the only obvious spot where he could have done better.

Uuh, what? Republicans are going to attack the ACA?!?!? Again?!?!?! Uh, guys? Guys? Don't you understand? The fight is over. It's done. It's finished. It's like fighting marriage equality in Utah. The bell has rung. It's finished. Go home.

Speaking of dead-enders, fellow in Utah is starving himself until marriage equality is repealed via nullification. Gee, I guess no one ever told him the unpleasantness between the states in the 1860s. As the blogger says: "Knock yourself out, jackass. Have your friends and family join in."

Oh, and others are advocating an uprising to turn back marriage equality. One of the claims: "State sovereignty supercedes what this judge did."

Interesting reviews on how the ACA is doing on its first full day. Especially worth noting are how the medical situation was just five years ago.

The Nation reviews the case that it and others pursued against the government on the warantless wiretapping issue. As usual, the “dirty fucking hippies” were right!

Hoo-yah to the Chief Justice on this! Low taxes and balanced budgets are "nice to have" kinds of things. A functioning judiciary is an absolutely critical necessity.