WWII Vet Purged?

World War II Bronze Star winner resents Fla. letter questioning citizenship, right to vote

Bill Internicola, 91, American-born, winner of the Bronze Star for valor at the Battle of the Bulge and a lifelong voter, received a letter recently from the Broward Supervisor of Elections saying the state has doubts that he is a U.S. citizen and challenging his right to vote.

"It was an insult," said Internicola, who was decorated for his service as a medic during the epic winter battle of 1944-45 in Belgian forests, which took 20,000 American lives. "I was flabbergasted..."

Baby Killing Terror

Why the Syrian regime is killing babies - CNN.com

When a slow-motion massacre has unfolded over the course of 15 months, it's easy to lose the world's attention. But even the most jaded gasped in horror as news emerged of the latest carnage inflicted on the Syrian people. The images from the town of Houla defied belief.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went on a systematic killing spree, murdering at least 108 people. Most shockingly, the killers targeted women and children. A U.N. representative said the victims included 49 children who were younger than 10. The al-Assad regime denied it carried out the atrocities, but U.N. officials said they saw clear evidence that the Syrian government was involved in the attacks...

Whoopedy-Doo Defection

Republicans cheer Davis’s defection to GOP - The Washington Post

History Of A Lie

...and the lying liars who twist the truth, including the author of this piece (see the comments at the link). Romney’s unsubstantiated quote from union leader - The Washington Post

Senior Reefer

Joint Effort: Reefer Roadshow Asks Seniors to Support Medical Pot - WSJ.com

...Mr. Platshorn, 69 years old, decided to focus on his fellow seniors—a group that isn't exactly high on the idea of medical marijuana. People who are 65 and older helped sink a 2010 ballot initiative to legalize pot in California, voting 66% against it, more than any other age group, according to exit polls.

"Nobody in the marijuana movement is talking to seniors," Mr. Platshorn says. Yet "seniors are the only damn people that go to the polls." In Florida, people 65 and older represent 24% of eligible voters compared with 18% nationally, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data...

The White Working Class

Ohio's white working-class voters: on the fence | Reuters

...In 2008, Obama carried Ohio by five percentage points against John McCain. He captured other industrial belt states, too, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois. Even Indiana, which had not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, narrowly embraced Obama's message of "hope and change."

 This year the wobbly economy offers Romney a powerful opening, but he has struggled to relate to blue-collar voters. That's hardly surprising. His fortune is estimated at $250 million, he once penned a New York Times op-ed headlined "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," and he regularly complains about "union stooges."

 Both campaigns unleashed ads this month aimed at working-class voters in battleground states. In Obama's two-minute TV spot, steelworkers blamed Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney once ran, for profiting from the bankruptcy of a Kansas City, Missouri mill, calling the Republican "a job destroyer..."

Obama On VN Vets

Obama calls treatment of Vietnam War veterans a disgrace | Reuters

"...You were often blamed for a war you didn't start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor," Obama told a crowd gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which lists names of those who died in the conflict. 

"You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened. And that's why here today we resolve that it will not happen again," he said to applause...

More Koch Evil

How Did Wisconsin Become the Most Politically Divisive Place in America? - NYTimes.com

...From the beginning, Walker, who declined to comment for this article, seemed cognizant that his move to end collective bargaining placed him at the forefront of a national conservative strategy. His attack on public-employee unions was lauded by Mitt Romney, John Boehner and Karl Rove, and he has received significant financial support from the billionaire conservative donors Charles and David Koch. In a widely publicized prank phone call with Ian Murphy, a blogger impersonating David Koch, Walker described a dinner he held for his cabinet at his Executive Residence on Feb. 10, the night before he announced the collective-bargaining measure. “It was kind of the last hurrah, before we dropped the bomb,” he said to the faux-Koch. At the dinner, Walker held up a photograph of Ronald Reagan and told his cabinet that what they were about to do recalled Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic-controllers’ union strike in 1981. “This is our time to change the course of history,” Walker said...

Will v. Trump

We're all winners here: Will, Trump In War of Words - The Daily Beast

More Cyber Warfare

Meet 'Flame', The Massive Spy Malware Infiltrating Iranian Computers | Threat Level | Wired.com

A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation.

The malware, discovered by Russia-based anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab, is an espionage toolkit that has been infecting targeted systems in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa for at least two years...

Maher Nails It

Bill Maher–If Obama Is A Socialist He Is A Lousy One–Realty v Fallacy (VIDEO)

 

How To Really Create Jobs

Let’s Be Less Productive - NYTimes.com

...What, then, should happen when, for one reason or another, growth just isn’t to be had anymore? Maybe it’s a financial crisis. Or rising prices for resources like oil. Or the need to rein in growth for the damage it’s inflicting on the planet: climate change, deforestation, the loss of biodiversity. Maybe it’s any of the reasons growth can no longer be safely and easily assumed in any of today’s economies. The result is the same. Increasing productivity threatens full employment.

One solution would be to accept the productivity increases, shorten the workweek and share the available work. Such proposals — familiar since the 1930s — are now enjoying something of a revival in the face of continuing recession. The New Economics Foundation, a British think tank, proposes a 21-hour workweek. It may not be the workaholic’s choice. But it’s certainly a strategy worth thinking about...

O Troubles

The Obama Wobble: Real or Media Invention? : The New Yorker

Pundit Punchin' Powell

Colin Powell is simply too smart for the Tea Party led Republicans - Jonesboro Public Policy | Examiner.com

...To put it plainly, Colin Powell is just not dumb enough, not shortsighted enough, not hasty enough, not politically selfish enough, not gullible enough, and not pigheaded enough for the current, Republican brand. There are only two kinds of people that you can dumb down—the dumb and the willing, and Powell seems to have no intentions of being either.    

Poor Wall Street

Egos and Immorality - NYTimes.com

...As I said at the beginning, in a way Wall Street’s self-centered, self-absorbed behavior has been kind of funny. But while this behavior may be funny, it is also deeply immoral.

Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market.

And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful.

Maybe, Paul, Maybe

Ron Paul has already won | Washington Times Communities

...Strangely, in spite of the success of Paul’s strategy in accumulating delegates, many pundits insist that Paul remains a nonfactor. These same pundits continue to claim that electorally Ron Paul cannot win the Republican nomination, and while the media miss the mark by discounting Paul as a contender, they miss the truly “big story” of the 2012 election. That is, that Ron Paul, mobilizing both young and old with his message of liberty tempered by personal responsibility, and government power tempered by accountability, has already won far more than the election.  He has won the trust and the imagination of the people, Rocky Balboa-style...

Recalling The Recall

Wisconsin's progressivism faces a recall | Reuters

Tea Party activist Larry Gamble has spent the last few months leading an effort to disqualify the signatures of some of the 1 million residents who petitioned to recall Wisconsin's governor, Republican Scott Walker. The petition protests Walker's Act 10, which eliminates collective bargaining rights for most public workers, among other anti-union measures...

O Not Big Spender

Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:..

Mitt Gets Cold Reception In Philly

Hecklers mar Romney’s visit to inner-city charter school in Philadelphia - The Washington Post

When Mitt Romney came to an inner-city charter school here Thursday to promote his new education agenda, he received something of a history lecture about the persecution of blacks in America and the struggles of African American children to meet the academic achievements of their white counterparts...

Warren Looking Good

Elizabeth Warren pulls even with Scott Brown in new poll - Metro Desk - Local news updates from The Boston Globe

Elizabeth Warren, emerging from what many consider the roughest patch yet in her Senate campaign, has pulled into a virtual tie with US Senator Scott Brown, according to a new Suffolk University/7News poll...

Voter Suppression Update

Ohio Republicans want to disallow ballots with errors caused by poll workers. - Slate Magazine

So much ink has been spilled on how vote suppression will affect the 2012 presidential election, one hesitates to write another word. Ari Berman has done terrific work uncovering the ways in which the new voting laws have aimed at suppressing the votes of elderly, minority, student, and other voters—particularly in swing states—who tend to vote for Democratic candidates. Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice has an indispensible primer on the 22 new laws and two executive actions that will severely restrict voting in 17 states in November. These laws, often modeled on draft legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a consortium of conservative state legislators, will have the effect of disenfranchising millions of voters, all in order to address a vote fraud “epidemic” that should be filed somewhere between the Loch Ness Monster and the Tooth Fairy in the annals of modern fairy tales. As Weiser notes, none of this is casual or accidental: “If you want to find another period in which this many new laws were passed restricting voting, you have to go back more than a century—to the post-Reconstruction era, when Southern states passed a host of Jim Crow voting laws and Northern states targeted immigrants and the poor...”

Mars

Mars Rover Snaps Stunning Self-Portrait: Big Pic : Discovery News

Powell Advises

Colin Powell not ready to endorse Obama, questions Romney foreign policy - latimes.com

"...Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America," he said. "All of the problems we talk about -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, you name them all -- come to about 700 million, 800 million people in a world of 7 billion. What are the rest of them doing? They're increasing their economies, they're building wealth, they're educating their kids, they're building an infrastructure. That's what we need to be doing..."

Uh, No

Desmond Hatchett: Man With 30 Kids Requests Child-Support Break

GOPers Fluff The 1%

Senate Blocks Buffett Rule - Newsroom: Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked legislation to make millionaires pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class families. "It is absurd that at a time when our country has a $15.6 trillion national debt and enormous unmet needs, the wealthiest people in this country have an effective tax rate that is lower than many middle-class people. It makes no sense that the richest people in America pay an effective tax rate lower than small businessmen, nurses, teachers, police officers and others," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. He cosponsored the measure named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who says it is unfair that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.

Another GOP, "Christian" Scam

Scholarship Funds, Meant for Needy, Benefit Private Schools - NYTimes.com

Demographics Is Destiny

GOP problem: 'Their voters are white, aging and dying off' - CNN.com

When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he'll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

"The Republicans' problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off," said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

"There will come a time when they suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes..."

Mitt Likes Dick

The Maddow Blog - Romney embarrassed by Bush, but not by Cheney

...Remember, no matter how far Romney has been willing to go to distance himself from the last Republican president, the former Massachusetts governor has had no qualms in praising the scandalous former VP. In September, Romney went so far as to call Dick Cheney "the kind of person I'd like to have" as his White House partner.

He wasn't kidding. After all the corruption, lies, secrets, and torture, Romney looks at Cheney as a model vice president. Bush is merely described as President Obama's "predecessor," but Cheney is Romney's good buddy...

Fighting For Nuns

American nuns resist Vatican rebuke – USATODAY.com

As the Vatican accuses American nuns of spending too much time on human rights and helping the poor, some Catholic activists who support them are organizing vigils and petitions to persuade the church to change its mind...

Another Job Killer

Coffee Party News | Scoop.it

Mitt Romney Praises Meg Whitman As News Breaks That Her Company Is Slashing 30,000 American Jobs

Mitt Romney, despite the massive job losses Bain Capital caused when he was running it, calls himself a job creator. But that title is hard to believe, especially since Romney is gushing about Hewlet-Packard CEO and former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on the same day it is discovered that her company is killing American jobs...

Churches Want Exceptions

Catholic organizations across the country file suit against contraception mandate | Fox News

Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, in one of the biggest coordinated legal challenges to the rule to date...

Evil Apple: Job Killing Edition

Inside Apple's secret plan to kill the cash register - Computerworld

Fox On Zimmerman

Yeah, it's Fox. Still... What Zimmerman, Martin medical reports tell us and the media didn't | Fox News

Crooks Sued

JPMorgan Chase faces class-action lawsuit over $2B in trading losses - The Washington Post

A class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday against JPMorgan Chase on behalf of investors accusing the bank of misleading shareholders about the $2 billion in trading losses that have roiled the company this week...

A GOPer Makes Sense

Politics Done Right | Scoop.it

...My responsibility is to make judgments about hard, complex issues that I believe to be right. Simply looking at the status quo and suggesting that the tax code is sacrosanct and can never change, and that decisions made in the ’80s and ’90s can never change, is absurd. The tax code is weighted toward the ultra-wealthy and ultra-wealthy corporations, and has created an offshore aristocracy of people who can afford to hire an army of accountants and lawyers. This shifts the tax burden to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and others. I don’t want to see taxes go up on any hardworking American...

AZ Rebirthing

Once again, Arizona is the nation's laughingstock

Tit 'n Tat SuperPac Smearback Boogey

Super PAC's reported anti-Obama ad sparks backlash, quick denial - CNN.com

The Middle Class Creates Jobs

GOPer Hate Comment Round-up

The GOPers were quick to jump on the Kennedy suicide. Cannonfire has the initial collection (be sure and note the comments to Joe's post):
Republicans react to the death of Mary Kennedy: "Christian conservatives should rejoice"---Cannonfire

Catching The Cheats

Senators target Facebook co-founder for giving up citizenship, seek to impose taxes | Fox News

Two top senators went after Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin Thursday over his decision to renounce U.S. citizenship, unveiling a proposal they claim would bar him -- or anyone -- from de-friending the United States in order to avoid taxes.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who unveiled the proposal alongside Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said their so-called "Ex-Patriot Act" would subject high-earning ex-Americans to a steep capital gains tax...

Zimmerman's Medical Evidence

George Zimmerman's head wounds after Trayvon Martin shooting likely bolster self-defense claims - CBS News

Medical records showing that George Zimmerman was treated for a fractured nose and cuts to the back of his head after fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin will likely bolster Zimmerman's argument that Martin attacked him, CBS News legal analyst Jack Ford said on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday...

Kerry's New Opponent

Your Money Your Vote 2012 - Nebraska Rancher Scores Upset in Senate Primary - CNBC

Rancher and state Sen. Deb Fischer overcame two longtime state office holders to win the Nebraska Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, the second GOP primary upset in a week after an insurgent ousted veteran Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana.

The Devils Behind The Door

Bad O Digging Dirt?

Of course. the GOP and its hired hand Strassel would never do anything like this: Strassel: Trolling for Dirt on the President's List - WSJ.com

From The "You Never Forget High School" Department

South Dakota man to plead guilty in grudge killing | Fox News

Phone-Hacking Charges Worsen

BBC News - 'Very serious offence' facing Rebekah Brooks

Rebekah Brooks and her husband, Charlie, are being charged with perverting the course of justice as part of the phone hacking inquiry...

Banks Can't Self-Regulate

Warren: Bank self-regulation "wrong and dangerous" - CBS News

JPMorgan Chase's admission last week that it lost more than $2 billion in one set of trades should be used as a wake up call to end the practice of banks regulating themselves, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said on Monday.

Warren repeated her call for the bank's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, to step down from his role as a top official at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, which oversees the nation's largest banks.

"We have to say as a country, no, the banks can not regulate themselves," Warren said in an interview with "CBS This Morning," adding "what has happened here is not just about JPMorgan Chase..."

The Evil Rich: Wall Street Edition

Fables of Wealth - NYTimes.com

THERE is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad. Well, consider the following. A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law...

Sensible Third Party Idea

Buddy Roemer, the Anti-Spoiler - Lawrence Lessig - National - The Atlantic

But on Friday, Buddy Roemer removed this risk from the reformer's equation. In a press release and email to his supporters, Roemer embraced an "Anti-Spoiler Principle." Though he says he's in this race to win, if he became the Americans Elect candidate, he has now committed to a crucial promise: if at the end of the race, Roemer writes, "I discover I have no realistic chance of winning, I will ask my
supporters to vote their conscience or for their second choice so the issue of spoiler can be dropped once and for all..."

The Name-Selling Of Everything

This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone - NYTimes.com

Another 1% Jerk

What Eduardo Saverin owes America. (Hint: Nearly everything.) | PandoDaily

Let me be clear, Mr. Saverin is no different than most of the wealthy in America trying to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. His case is just exacerbated in that absent America he would likely neither has gotten as successful as he did or might not even be alive.

It is time that the middle class call these guys out. While we pay for the military that ensure they have a safe country, an educational system that ensures they have competent employees, and a middle class to purchase their goods, they are willing to throw America away to save a dollar, They are unpatriotic. PERIOD!...

Media Fails To Let Mitt Escape

Conservative Media Fail In Their Attempt To Dismiss Report About Romney Bullying Incident | Media Matters for America

Right-wing media have rushed to dismiss the Washington Post's report that Mitt Romney held down a high school classmate and cut his hair, claiming that "the source" for the story "wasn't actually there." In fact, the Post story relied on accounts from five separate sources, four of whom were named, and as the Post's ombudsman noted, their "accounts remain unchallenged." Romney himself said that he's "seen the reports" about the incident and that he's "not going to argue with that...."

Tweety Refs Tony & Barney

Walker Re-Exposed

Video: Walker explains divide, conquer strategy  | ajc.com

Newly-released documentary film footage from January 2011 shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker describing a "divide and conquer" strategy for going after the state's public employee unions that would begin with going after their collective bargaining rights, undermining his long-held claim that his divisive union rights law was meant solely as a budget-balancing measure...

Comment Of The Day: Obot Rebuttal Edition

Uncomfortable Truths « The Confluence

Wow, you really weren’t paying attention in 2008 were you? The Democrats are a private party and they can do anything they damn well please. They can award delegates to people who weren’t on ballots, they can take delegates that were fairly won from one candidate and give them to another, they can pretend they’re knocking two state delegations to half strength and then restore them to full strength before the convention in order to make it look like one candidate was behind another, they can harrass, threaten and intimidate convention delegates until they change their votes. It’s amazing what can be done when they want one candidate to win over the will of the voters, especially when that candidate brings with him loads and loads of money from his friends on Wall Street. If the Democrats decide that Obama is dragging them down this election season, they’ll replace him (if they’re smart). They’ll get him to resign or say he’s not going to run for re-election. James Carville said a couple of days ago that the Democrats are cruising for a bruising if they don’t start acting like underdogs...

Big Dog Urges Hillary To Run?

Bill Clinton calls Obama ‘amateur’ president: book - NYPOST.com

Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,

“The country needs you!” the former president told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein’s new biography of Obama...

GOP Changing On Gay Marriage?

In GOP, support for same-sex marriage is growing - CNN.com

...There are tectonic shifts happening just beneath the surface within the Republican Party that haven't percolated to the national dialogue on gay rights. Efforts to support gay rights by GOP state legislators in several states are real and indicative of an increasing realization that expanding equal opportunity and freedom to gay Americans shouldn't be a partisan issue...

Blue Dog Opening

Richard Mourdock: The Tea Party's latest gift to Democrats? - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

In a year that has Democrats playing defense in the Senate, Tuesday night's Republican Senate primary in Indiana has given Democrats an opening they weren't expecting.

Democrats say Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock's victory over longtime incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar puts the seat in play -- much in the way Democrats prevailed over Tea Party candidates in 2010, such as Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. The GOP counters that Mourdock isn't some untested fringe candidate, but a solid conservative with strong ties to the state. On top of that, they argue Democrats simply don't have a chance in a red state when this year's election will primarily be about President Obama...

O Evolves

Shep Smith and Fox Nation Split on Obama’s Gay Marriage Announcement -- Daily Intel

Upon the occassion of President Obama's gay marriage news-making today, the always reasonable Fox Nation essentially put out a call to arms, declaring in an all-caps headline, "OBAMA FLIP FLOPS, DECLARES WAR ON MARRIAGE." But so much for brand unity, because Fox News anchor Shep Smith was not shy on-air about his agreement with the president's stated belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. "The president of the United States, now in the 21st century," Smith said dryly after airing Obama's historic announcement. He then asked Fox host Bret Baier, with some attitude, if the Republicans would dare make marriage equality a campaign issue "while sitting very firmly, without much question, on the wrong side of history on it..."

Screw The Students

GOP blocks Senate debate on Dem student loan bill - latimes.com

Mitt Saved Detroit?

Romney silent after claiming credit for auto industry comeback - latimes.com

The candidate raised eyebrows a day earlier when he said he planned to take credit for the auto industry’s recovery in an interview with an Ohio television station.

“I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back," Romney said Monday on WEWS-TV in Cleveland, arguing that his call for the companies to go through a managed bankruptcy is eventually the path the president took...

Good luck with that one, Mitt.

Right Has No Concept Of Treason

So Scooter Libby and Dead-Eye Dick outed Valerie Plame and entire network of CIA agents but that's not treason? But Obama is somehow guilty of treason. The locos are coo-cooing on this one. Should Mitt Romney have to defend Obama against 'treason' remark? - CSMonitor.com

Hannity Buddy Thinks Women Are Crazy

Fox News contributor laments ‘mistake’ of letting women vote | The Raw Story

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a Fox News contributor, tea party activist and personal friend of Sean Hannity’s said in a sermon recently published to YouTube that America’s greatest mistake was allowing women the right to vote, adding that back in “the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them...”

It goes downhill from here.

SOS Clinton Says "No" To Run

Hillary Clinton talks tough on Iran and Pakistan – USATODAY.com

...She wasn't as forthcoming, however, when the talk turned to her own political ambitions.

"Oh, dear, she's going to get me in so much trouble," Clinton said when a young woman first popped the question. "I'm very flattered, but I feel like it's time for me to kind of step off the high wire," she told another questioner.

Her audience was having none of that during an hour-long forum in a country where Hillary and Bill Clinton have been revered by millions since their separate visits here in the 1990s...

Ahnold Opening Big Tent?

Schwarzenegger: California's GOP should take down its small tent - latimes.com

...That's why I am so bothered by the party's recent loss of two up-and-coming Republicans: San Diego mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher, currently a state assemblyman, and former assemblyman and current Congressional candidate Anthony Adams, both of whom left the party to become independents. On the one hand, I respect their standing up for principle. On the other, I hate to see them go.

I'm sure they would have preferred to remain Republicans, but in the current climate, the extreme right wing of the party is targeting anyone who doesn't meet its strict criteria. Its new and narrow litmus test for party membership doesn't allow compromise...

Heartland Has Bullying Fatigue

Heartland's Unabomber Fiasco Is Par For The Course - Forbes

Best Laid Plans

Schieffer on events politicians can't control - CBS News

...In politics, the best laid plans almost never work out.

Nobody talked much about terrorism in the 2000 campaign, the election before 9/11, but terrorism was the overriding issue of George Bush's eight years in the White House.

As the two sides gear up for what promises to be one of our longest (and certainly most expensive) campaigns, there is no shortage of serious problems - jobs, the nation's precarious financial footing, and some possibly dangerous problems overseas. And did I forget a Congress that remains in gridlock?

THESE are the things this campaign should be about...

New Front On Teh Stoopid War

Billboard likening believers in global warming to criminals pulled - Chicago Sun-Times

...The Heartland Institute — a libertarian non-profit claiming the global warming crisis has been overblown — pulled the ad Friday after just 24 hours on display, amid criticism from opponents and even supporters of the group.

The digital billboard was to be the first of several in a campaign likening those who believe in global warming to infamous criminals, including Charles Manson, Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee, who was shot and killed in 2010 when he took hostages in Maryland...

Rush On Racism

Ignore racism? Fat chance, Rush - CNN.com

"...All liberals are liberals before they're anything else, if they're Jewish, if they're gay, female, male, they're liberals first, Paul. That is their religion. And that religion requires loyalty. You must have faith in them. They are the equivalent of your higher power. You must trust them; you must let them manage your affairs. This guy tweeting today that racism is in the DNA of America, so we are as a country founded in a flawed, sinful way. We are unjust as a country, it's immoral as a country, and that belief allows Mr. Martin excuse to be able to have power over people, to be able to punish people he thinks are racist..."

Recruiting Teachers

Teaching Me About Teaching - NYTimes.com

...A big part of the problem is that teachers have been so maligned in the national debate that it’s hard to attract our best and brightest to see it as a viable and rewarding career choice, even if they have a high aptitude and natural gift for it...

Big Dog Opposes Wife-Beater Amendment

APNewsBreak: Former President Clinton opposes NC amendment that would ban gay marriage - The Washington Post

Nugent Passes Gas--Again

Ted Nugent explodes at notion he's not a moderate - CBS News

Compassionate Unbelievers

Study Reveals Atheists Are MORE Compassionate And Generous Than Highly Religious People | Addicting Info

For years, religious conservatives, despite their hatred for the poor and sick, have been denouncing atheists, agnostics, and those they feel are less religious, such as liberals, as being godless heathens who are destroying the morality of America. A new study, however, finds that less religious people are actually more compassionate and generous than highly religious people...

The World's Most Arrogant Airline?

Spirit Airlines' boss calls complaints 'irrelevant,' says dying veteran should've bought insurance | Fox News

...Spirit is generating complaints at a much faster clip on Facebook, where a "Boycott Spirit Airlines" page has seen its number of "likes" soar to more than 21,000 from about 700 since the carrier denied a $197 refund to Jerry Meekins. The 76-year-old Vietnam veteran and former Marine tried to get his $197 back after learning his esophageal cancer is terminal and being told by his doctor not to fly from Florida to Atlantic City. Airline officials told him to forget it, and Baldanza reaffirmed the company's hardline in an exclusive FoxNews.com interview...

Insulting Advice

How to Insult Your Political Opponents : The New Yorker

Carter Is Still Ahead Of You, Mitt

Romney again invokes Jimmy Carter in blasting Obama - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

"...It was the most anti-small business administration I've seen probably since Carter," Romney told an overflow crowd packed into the company's warehouse. "Who would've guessed we'd look back at the Carter years as the good ole days, you know?..."

Evil Apple: Target Edition

Why did Target boot the Kindle?- MSN Money

Desperation In Smear-Obamaland

Politico defends ‘New York girlfriend’ post - Erik Wemple - The Washington Post

No Gays For Mitt

Conservative Radio Host High-Fives Romney Campaign for Canning Gay Adviser - US News and World Report

The recent departure of an openly gay foreign policy adviser and communications hand from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has left many in political circles scratching their heads, but one conservative radio host is praising the move as a win for American families...

Oakland PD v. Occupy-- Again

Twenty-five arrested as Oakland May Day protests turn raucous - San Jose Mercury News

Twenty-five people were arrested in Oakland on Tuesday after a day of protest against wealth inequality and for labor rights turned into a game of cat-and-mouse between police and demonstrators who clashed intermittently throughout the day...

AZ Is Not In The South

Now which state is in the lead for the "coveted" "Most Racist State In The Union" title? Hint: they're not in the old Confederacy. Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban: An Attempt to Whitewash History | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

O Sneaks In

Obama, Karza ink partnership deal - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

President Obama arrived in Afghanistan Tuesday for an unannounced visit to meet with U.S. troops stationed there and to sign a ten-year agreement with President Hamid Karzai on the role of U.S. forces beyond the end of the war in 2014...

Dem Closet Bones Is A-Rattlin'

Mitt Romney's Nutty Professor | Mother Jones