Out of Touch in Arizona

Posting has been non-existent because I'm out of town and have very iffy access here. Not even sure I'll be able to post this, but I'll be back tomorrow night and will resume what passes for a normal schedule. Meanwhile, while my connection here appears to be working for the moment, this op-ed by Tim Egan is worth reading in full but here's a couple of the choicest quotes.

But for all its diversity of land and people, Arizona is also a lunatic magnet. As I drove, I listened to the radio blather of a state in mob-rule frenzy of cranky old men. Once in Phoenix, I saw on television that sign in a car’s rear window, the new image of Arizona to the rest of the world: “I’m Mexican. Pull me over.”[...]

But Arizona is more than a laboratory for intemperate times: this place is a warning of what a state can look like when it’s run by talk-radio demagogues and their television cohorts.

It's seriously sad and frightening that Arizona has become the central HQ for batshit crazy, a title formerly held by Oklahoma until Brewer went all in and signed off on the US version of aparteid. At least in Oklahoma there appears to be some sane people left who will push back against the crazies and stop them. For instance the harebrained citizen militia deal was shot down rather quickly, even by the Republican leasdership there.

No such filters apparently exist in Arizona. It's easy to forget in the awe of the sanctioning of facism there that they also recently passed a spate of insane measures.

...Another new measure lets people carry concealed weapons without a permit, following on the heels of the new-found freedom to pack heat in bars and restaurants, something that was outlawed in much of the Old West. And the state house has just approved a bill that would require candidates for high office to show a birth certificate.

As Egan says, "The crackpot laws owe their genesis to the crackpots who dominate Republican politics, who in turn cannot get elected without the backing of crackpot media." Sadly, the crackpot media shows no signs of tempering their "gin up rage for ratings" tactics and even John McCain has abandoned what little principles he had left to pander to the far right, being locked in a rhetorical contest with his primary opponent to see who can come up with the most extreme eliminationist language.

However, on the bright side, while these tactics are working to raise their ratings with the crazy conservative base, it is also re-energizing the reality based community on the left and the Indys are fleeing the GOP in droves. Perhaps we're finally reaching the legendary "peak wingnut" and saner state governance will be restored in 2010 after all.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

My roses bloomed last night

Shell pink and so sweetly fragrant. Nice start to the week. Lord knows I needed something postitive to focus on. I've been sputtering angry about the facism in Arizona. I did my post at DetNews about that and I'm not going to say anymore except I'm pretty sure that law won't survive a legal challenge. I think in the end, they will pay heavily for it.

This is bittersweet. Hudsonette tells me the horse that never won a race in 100 starts, Zippy Chippy retired to the farm. He used to run at the races in Northampton. Never bet on him but always enjoyed watching him compete. The crowd was always pulling for him. Think the best I saw him do was third.

Don't know what Eyjafjallajokull is doing, but if you wait a bit for the download this is a live volcano-cam.

This was good find. No George, we're not missing you at all.

Can't remember if I already posted this, but I would love to live in any of these treehouses. And love these tree tunnels.

Finally, one of my favorite tweeters, Empire State Building pix, tells me they have a sister site in France, Eiffel Tower Pics. That may be my second favorite building in the world.

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Vote for Todd

If you're lucky enough to live in Vermont, you're blessed with residence in one of the most beautiful states in the union. The green rolling hills dotted with little farms and the occassional small city are like something out of Tolkien. As you drive around, it doesn't seem all that farfetched to think you might catch a glimpse of a hobbit, or elf or even an Ent peeking through the trees.
Well, now you're doubly lucky because you have an opportunity to vote for a remarkably honest man to represent you in the Statehouse. My friend N Todd Pritsky is running for the Vermont House and you couldn't ask for a better candidate. He says stuff like this:

We have a great luxury in Vermont where the partisan duopoly isn't entirely absolute, where belief in split government is strong, and where we can simultaneously send a Democrat, a Republican and an avowed Socialist to Washington, DC. I truly appreciate being represented good people as opposed to taking a backseat to factional interests.

I know that in a campaign based on issues, I can reach out to all my constituents and we will find agreement on many things that matter most. That includes folks who have become disenchanted with the political climate in Washington and here at home, whether they support Code Pink or the Tea Party, the 10th Amendment or Second Vermont Republic movements, Democrats and Republicans or alternative parties and independents.

He's a helluva organizer and a tireless advocate for social justice so I expect him to win. Heck, I almost feel like moving to Vermont myself, just so he could be my representative in government. Since that isn't possible, I've fanned him on Facebook and I'm spreading the word to you lucky Vermonters.

Oh, and by the way, contrary to the rumors, he does have a blog.

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Actual Fan Mail

Do occassionally get a commenter who bravely posts that they read me every day and like my work, but it's been a while since I've seen a thread titled anything like this.

Libby Spencer is an Honest and Sincere Person, and She does a good job

Of course it could be the schizophrenic troll who posts as multiple sock puppets, one of which likes me, but it felt pretty sincere. Maybe this will link to the thread.

Meanwhile, I'm out to visit the folks for a while. Haven't seen them in over a week and want to get out before the rain so I can walk. Be back later.

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Not that you'll find it on the internets

My local paper printed my LTE without editing it. They don't post most of them on their internet page. In fact, they have the worst internet presence of any newspaper I've ever read online. But anyway, I can post the text here now that it has been published.

After leaving our nation's unemployed in limbo for weeks, Congress finally overcame a Republican block on an emergency bill and voted to extend unemployment benefits this week. That is to say, the Democrats along with only 3 Republicans voted for it. Our own representative, Virginia Foxx, voted against extending the aid to our district's residents who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Of course, Mrs Foxx doesn't worry about paying her own bills or putting food on the table. She reports her wealth between $2,637,053 to $8,982,000. That's almost double the assets she declared in 2004. Clearly she's benefited from her position as our Congresswoman.

Mrs. Foxx also voted against the health care reform bill and vows to repeal it. Why should she care about protecting our health and cracking down on the worst practices of the insurance industry? She already has the best health care in America which is subsidized by us, the taxpayers. Foxx has fully embraced Republican obstructionism in DC and her votes make clear that she puts the political interests of her party above the practical needs of our country.

Mrs. Foxx is a probably a nice person who means well. However, the power that comes with DC incumbency too often corrupts our politicians. Over the years party loyalty and re-election concerns inevitably take precedence over serving the voters. It's time to send new people with fresh ideas to DC. I'm going to vote for Billy Kennedy and I urge the good people of Iredell County to do the same.

Yeah, I was a little soft on crazy old Foxx but hey, I do have to live in this town and they print your name.

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Working for Kennedy

Didn't post because I had blood tests today. I couldn't have coffee until this afternoon and even though I don't give all that much blood, these tests always wear me out for the day. Glad I voted yesterday instead of trying to do it on the way home from the phlebotomist.

I love early voting. I was able to straighten out my voter registration and cast my ballot, all in less than 15 minutes including the time I spent filling out the forms and proving my identity to the elections person. Of course it was a short ballot because this was the primary and the Democrats barely run anyone in this district.

Hot contest on the "Democrat" ballot is for the Senate seat. I was surprised there were so many candidates. I only knew about three of them. But oddly I don't really care who wins that one. I'll support whoever ends up running against Burr. I was more interested in voting for the better judges.

But my main goal for the midterms is to unseat Foxx and get Billy Kennedy elected. It's looking surprisingly good so far. He outraised her in the first quarter, $91,109 to $69,097, plus Billy raised his with mostly small donors. I'm sure in part, thanks to Act Blue. But he's also a terrific candidate. He has perfect combination of charm and creds for this district, plus a terrific populist platform. Thinking he really can, and will, win this race.

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A chicken in every crackpot

The internets are having a snarkfest over Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowden's bartering for health care plan. She's made more than one public statement now claiming we could contain health care costs by using a bartering system. In her latest statement she recalls her grandparents generation trading a chicken for doctor's visits and by God, if it was good enough for them, it should be good enough for us. The only question that remains is what came first, the chicken or the egg on Lowden's face?

What's not funny however, is I'm told that she stands a pretty good chance of winning the election.

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No, the White House didn't shut down DADT protest

This is depressing. Politico throws up an incendiary post yesterday implying the White House shut down a DADT protest and chased reporters from the scene. The problem is the White House had nothing to do with it, which the Politico added as an update once they bothered to get a statement from the Park Police. They didn't note the update in the headline and numerous blogs and media websites still feature posts with the incorrect insinuation that ran for hours uncorrected on the Politico site.

Politico also stated, "People who have covered the White House for years tell me that's an extremely unusual thing to do in an area that regularly features protests." Well, maybe they should have asked someone who has been protesting in the park every day for 27 years. Doubtin' Thomas recently died, but his co-protester "Concepcion Picciotto, continues to hold vigil in Lafayette Park [24/7] with photos of victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings." Thomas's diary notes numerous occassions when the park was arbritrarily closed during protests during decades past.

In 1990 demonstrators protestind Iraq sanctions were arrested for attaching signs to the White House fence, "violating a ban on such stationary protests." Just a month ago, Cindy Sheehan and others were arrested there and the sidewalk was closed when they attempted to paint on it with mud. It would appear that shutting the park is SOP when the fence or sidewalk is "breached."

The only one I saw exercising due diligence on this story was Tommy Christopher at Mediaite. Unlike Ben Smith, he called the Secret Service and confirmed they had nothing to do with it, before he posted his piece. It appears this was nothing more than an over-zealous park cop enforcing existing regs.

In any event, the press wasn't kept out for all that long. Mark Knoller prevailed on one of the cops to call his superior officer and clarify the reason for keeping the WHPC at bay and they were allowed back to the fenceline shortly thereafter.

Personally, I think the most telling part of the Politico video is the reporter who can be seen "calling the move 'outrageous' and 'ridiculous.'" He also said something along of the lines of, sure it's okay to move the civilians out, but we're the White House press corps and deserve special treatment. You think leaping to blame the White House has nothing to do with the fact they're pissed off Obama isn't giving them exclusive access to his every move? I think it has everything to do with it.

Related: Wonkette discovers a hilarious one paragraph summary of Politico's win the morning technique.

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4/20 Today

More than seven years ago, as far as I know, only me and DrugWarRant were blogging full time for drug policy reform. While there were other policy reform advocacy groups like NORML, Drug Policy Alliance and DRCNet with long established websites, no one was blogging. Most people still didn't know what a blog was. And no one outside of the reform community was really talking about legalization. We've come a long way since then.

Yesterday being 4/20, the unofficial holiday for marijuana consumers, the mainstream media was rife with pot themed stories. Atlantic Wire collected a roundup of cannabis legalization columns. Former Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson issued a press release calling for the legalization of marijuana as a means to reduce crime and cut expenditures. A local news station did a profile on the first-ever marijuana growers convention in Colorado.

Medical marijuana has been legalized in over a dozen states, with many more considering legislation to do the same. In DC, their Council unanimously passed a medical marijuana bill yesterday. Other states, like Oregon and Massachusetts have decriminalized recreational use. Many municipalities have passed resolutions to direct their local law enforcement to make marijuana arrests their lowest priority. Polling on the issue shows a rise in the percentage of Americans who support legalization and regulation of the plant.

Seven years ago, I, along with many advocates, predicted we would see full legalization within ten years. Looks like we're still on track to see that prediction come true.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

FDA salt assault

Much as I hate nanny government, I'm not that upset about the FDA's planned war on salt in processed foods. Even though ironically I've been to the hospital twice because my sodium was so low that I had to be pumped full of saline, most people in this country eat way too much salt, most of it hidden in convenience foods.

While it's true people shouldn't eat so much processed food, it's often the only alternative for those on strict budgets or tight schedules. Besides, salt is cheap. You can always add salt but you can't remove it. Over the long run it will make for a healthier population and that will benefit everyone in many ways.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Sometimes I hate the First Amendment

Well, not really. I've been a huge advocate for First Amendment rights all my life, but I do hate that people use it in such ugly ways sometimes. Nonetheless, the SCOTUS rules correctly in this one no matter how much I hate the protected speech.

In a major and muscular First Amendment ruling, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal law that made it a crime to create or sell dogfight videos and other depictions of animal cruelty.

Certainly I think people who torture animals should be subjected to the same treatment themselves, but as always, free speech has to be protected for everyone, no matter how vile, or no speech is truly protected. Also, as someone pointed out somewhere today, allowing these videos may make it easier to find and prosecute the perps for animal cruelty.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Dissent is patriotic - sedition is not

Not often that I find myself quoting Joe Klein but this is worth repeating:

Let me be clear: dissent isn’t sedition. Questioning an Administration’s policies isn’t sedition. But questioning an Administration’s legitimacy in a manner intended to undermine or overthrow it certainly is. A rally like this yesterday in South Carolina is a good example of seditious speech. It’s not illegal–unless actions are taken to overthrow the government in question–but it is disgraceful and the precise opposite of patriotism in a democracy.

This is in response to a back and forth going on regarding Klein's previous post calling out Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin for borderline seditious rhetoric. Background at link. Good for him for not backing down.

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GOP kicks up the crazy

Of all the crazy tea party memes the GOP could embrace, the birther thing seems to me to be the craziest. I mean, it's pure Grade A stupid at this point to advance the idea that Obama is not a legitimate American citizen. Yet here's the darling of brown skin haters, Tancredo at a South Carolina tea party saying, "If his wife says Kenya is his homeland, why don't we just send him back?"

But this from another speaker at the rally is almost amusing. He calls out Lindsey Graham for being "teh ghey." Everybody is speculating how much damage the tea party will do to the Democrats, but it will be interesting to see just how much the purity demands of this crowd will spill over onto the GOP incumbents as well. I could think of worse things than seeing a lot of too long entrenched pols from both sides getting dumped in the mid-terms.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

North Carolina First

The SEIU backed movement to create a third party in North Carolina called North Carolina First is serious. The same people who organized for Obama and turned the state purple are determined to send the establishment Democrats a message and mount a credible challenge to three Blue Dogs from out this end of the state, Reps. Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre.

There is of course the usual handwringing coming from the party machine about splitting the vote and handing the Republicans the seats. But as the chair of the new party notes, "Does it really matter if you put a Democratic label or a Republican label on them when they go up there and support big companies and big insurance?"

It's a point I've made before as well. It does little good to elect fake Dems if they vote with the GOP anyway and it just gives the GOPers some false veneer of bipartisan support for their wrongheaded agenda. I've been thinking for years we really need a viable third party in this country to challenge the duopoly. This midterm, with anti-incumbent fever running high, is the best environment we've ever had to try and establish one.

Thinking these districts in NC are the perfect place to start. The conservatives here have a strong presence and these psuedo-Dems won on the promise of bringing change. They didn't deliver. And one thing no one seems to be considering yet is with strong messaging they could also bleed off GOP votes since the GOP doesn't deliver for the people either. Giving up the seats won't change the dynamic in DC appreciably but if NC First gets any sort of meaningful support at the ballot box, it could start a nationwide movement for a true "people's party."

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

New on the Blogroll

Busy day, catching up on personal correspondence and I wrote my first letter to the editor of the local paper today, thus launching my Repeal and Replace Virginia Foxx campaign. I've got to get out and run some errands right now, so go check out the latest additions to my blogroll in the interim.

I was thrilled to meet the proprietor of Watauga Watch when I went to the Dem convention last weekend. He focuses on local politics and is a treasure trove of oppo against the vile Ms. Foxx. In fact it was a post there today that inspired my LTE.

Also adding a new Big Media blog, Mouth of the Potomac, home of my latest internet crush Ken Bazinet. As it turns out we have a lot of odd connections that go back to the Happy Valley, but even if we didn't, the more I get to know him through Twitter, the more I realize that he is one of the fairest, most honest journos in the White House gaggle. Also cracks 4/20 jokes there, so how could I not love him? I'm sure you will too. And of course, if you're on Twitter, you should follow him at bazmaniandevil.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

How long has this been going on

Lazy linkfest for a lazy day. If you missed it, Jon Stewart told Fox News To “Go F*ck Yourselves.” One of his better segments, shorter than usual.

Love these "daddy's home!" photos for some reason. Never get tired of this family. [source]

Haven't watched this yet, but Jake Tapper was pretty excited about his appearance on Colbert. He called it one more thing off his bucket list. Me, I'm still waiting to get that ride on the Goodyear blimp.

I really liked this defense of PressSec Robert Gibbs done by one of the gaggle. I admit I've come to have more sympathy for the WH press corps since I've started interacting with them on twitter, but they can be so annoying when they whine about access and not being treated with the proper deference. Nice to see some empathy for the PressSec's side from someone in that crowd.

Of course you know the ash from the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland is wreaking havoc all over Europe. Since the US media was preoccupied with Tiger Woods when it erupted, you may not have seen any photos of the eruption. This is a good photo gallery of it and the ash did create some incredible sunsets in England. And this just in, the best shot of the eruption yet, via Stromboli.org.

Did you see the footage from this stunning fireball in the sky that was caused by small meteor burning up in our atmosphere? Must have been awesome and a little scary to have been there when it happened.

These were a little scary too, but also awesome. Vintage japanese posters from the 1930s.

Roger Ebert continues to amuse me with his finds like this gallery, "This week in WTF?"

Little City webcam.

And my pretend boyfriend Mark Knoller is really a great photographer. Love this from the President's day at NASA. An eagle tends to some chicks on top of a sign at the press parking area.

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The last honest man in America

This is possibly the best local commercial I've ever seen. Just brilliant.



Don't know if it will help him sell any mobile homes, but the ad is going viral on the internets so he'll get lots of exposure. Hilarious.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

GOP: The Banksters Best Friend

Following up on yesterday's post, I did a very long, link rich one at DetNews last night. If anyone has time to read it and see if I made a good case, I'd appreciate the feedback. Since I have mostly have crazy cons in the comment section there, it's not always easy to judge if I'm getting through.

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Fight over Financial Regulation Heats Up

I'm about to do a longer post for the DetNews on this story, which I'm sure readers here are already following. But if you're looking for pushback in your arguments with conservatives and Republicans who are of course against it, since the Democrats are for it and the GOPers have an eye on those lovely Wall St donations, Krugman has the goods today.

So proposed reform legislation gives regulators “resolution authority,” which basically means giving them the ability to deal with the likes of Lehman in much the same way that the F.D.I.C. deals with conventional banks. Who could object to that?

Well, Mr. McConnell is trying. His talking points come straight out of a memo Frank Luntz, the Republican political consultant, circulated in January on how to oppose financial reform. “Frankly,” wrote Mr. Luntz, “the single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.” And Mr. McConnell is following those stage directions.

As the good Doctor says, you can be sure, "Wall Street isn’t lobbying to prevent future bank bailouts. If anything, it’s trying to ensure that there will be more bailouts." Which should be obvious but the tea pot tantrumists in your life can never see the truth through the haze of outrage that surrounds them.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Hannity spanked for tea party hanky panky

So happy Hannity didn't get away with this. His planned Cincinati tea party fundraiser disguised as a live on site broadcast was abruptly cancelled at the 11th hour.

Media Matters led the WTF chorus yesterday when news of the event emerged. Though it's long been clear that Fox is a quasi-sponsor of the Tea Party, this one really crossed the last line of propriety.

"Unequivocally, from our standpoint, this is wrong," declared Kevin Smith, president of the Society of Professional Journalists. "For a news organization to charge people for access, then take that money and roll it over to a political action group that they cover quite a bit."

Smith added, "It has gotten to the point where you cannot delineate between Fox News and the Tea Party movement - it is incestuous. There is a clear conflict of interest here."

Today the Cincy Tea Party founder is pissed, saying he had a deal with Fox and everybody was fine with it until Media Matters flagged the obvious ethical breach. He joins a long line of serial liars and unethical "journalists" that have been targeted by MMFA. Got to love it.

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For What It's Worth

The best protest song -- ever. Kind of works for the tea party tantrums, but in reverse.



Didn't get back here last night because I was on the phone with a long lost friend and we had a lot of catching up to do, but I have a couple of good links if you're interested in how the tea party went. I'm kind of burning out on the whole thing myself. I have a feeling the movement will implode long before November except for the GOP front group Tea Party Express.

For instance there was supposed to be a big demonstration in my little city yesterday from 1:00-4:00. It was organized by some local radio shock jock who told the local press it was going to be big. I strolled down with my camera at about 2:30 and there wasn't a soul there. In fact there wasn't any sign that it even happened and there's nothing in the local paper about it, at least not on line.

The local fail aside, the DC event went on as planned, though I've heard it wasn't as big as the last one. Certainly the breathless media coverage has been toned down a bit as well. Much as I hate to link to WaPo, they posted some good interviews with the protesters. Astounding to see a lawyer expound such deluded views. It does take a certain amount of intelligence to pass the bar, yet this guy was talking just like any kool-aid soused FoxBot. Why don't these people ever fact check?

The other most interesting piece is this short video of counter-demonstrators marching through the tea party with a sign thanking President Obama for the tax cuts that 98% of Americans received. I find it especially telling that these teabag thugs who want everyone to listen to them are so intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them that they hound them off publicly held land with threats of violence. It's their protest. Apparently only their dissent is patriotic - or something. Yet they wonder why normal people accuse them of being clueless and selfish.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Tea Party Day

I already put up a couple of posts at DetNews about the big Tea Party celebrations. This NYT/CBS poll allowed me to make some strong points but I took a pretty soft approach since it's a mainstream newspaper and fully half of my readers are tea party people. But Billmon posting at Kos didn't have any such restrictions. I'm glad he made this point.

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated
Which, if true, would be a terrible indictment of our national diploma mills and matchbook cover mechanical academies, but more likely is another example of the now-familiar tendency of teabaggers to claim things (diplomas, in this case) that are not, in the strict technical sense of the word, true -- in this or any other universe.

But the original headline actually did a much better job of capturing the Times's deliberate cluelessness about the wellspring of all that teabagger rage, which appears to have a hell of a lot more to do with the particular, um, complexion of the alleged recipients of the Obama Administration's generosity -- as well as the guy allegedly giving it -- than it does with their place on the socioeconomic ladder.

As always, Billmon is worth reading in full. The tradmed is doing pretty well in bringing out some of the more damning aspects of the poll, for instance their relentless birtherism, but this point is being largely ignored - 1 in 4 tea partiers say it's OK to use violence against the government. That translates to almost 5% of Americans. Most of whom only watch Fox for their news and think of Glenn Beck as their hero. Good to know.

Meanwhile, I'll be busy dealing with tax stuff and other personal matters for most of the day, so posting will resume this evening.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

I tweet, therefore I am...

...archived at the Library of Congress. The LOC announced today they aquired the entire archives of Twitter, from the beginning. We're talking billions, maybe trillions, of tweets to be preserved for posterity forever. Considering the amount of profanity that roils around in there, I expect they'll have to install a kid proof filter on it. And who knows what future historians will think of the trending topics. Sometimes it's like a high school cafeteria in there. That guy Justin Bieber who appears to be some new teen idol has been trending for weeks.

On a different note, I had my 15 seconds of twitter fame the other day. CNN read my tweet about the plane crash in Russia that killed most of the Polish leadership, on air.

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JoLie thrilled for GOP comeback

Joe Lieberman. Once a putz, always a putz. He's praising the heavens for a GOP comeback.

There were a lot of people, particularly Democrats, who were declaring after the 2008 election that we were beginning a period of Democratic dominance that would go on for decades," Lieberman told Newsmax. "Now, all of a sudden, the momentum is with the Republicans. And that's — thank God — that's the way people have spoken, you know? That's our democracy."

The senator also said that "everybody should listen" to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Now, aren't you glad the Democrats decided to keep him in the caucus and let him keep his committee assignments? He's been such an asset. Oh wait. I think I added two too many letters to that qualifier.

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America on the comeback

Nice to see a optimistic piece on the economy for a change. Newsweek points out that for all the doom and gloom predictions out there, the long-term decline of the U.S. economy has been greatly exaggerated and offers a more rosy prediction.

So what will our new economy look like once the smoke finally clears? There will likely be fewer McMansions with four-car garages and more well-insulated homes, fewer Hummers and more Chevy Volts, less proprietary trading and more productivity-enhancing software, less debt and more capital, more exported goods and less imported energy. Most significant, there will be new commercial infrastructures and industrial ecosystems that incubate and propel growth—much as the Internet did in the 1990s.

Furthermore, "the federal deficit is running significantly lower than it did last year, with the budget gap for the first half of fiscal 2010 down 8 percent over the same period a year ago."

I'm no economist and who knows if this is going to last, but even though I despised the tactics, the economy does seem to be improving for the moment. All I know for sure is if McCain had somehow won in 08, things would be much worse and I would have no hope at all for the future. So there's that.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Show and Tell

Via pwire, a short fun quiz from Pew that most Americans failed to answer correctly. I got all 12 right and I'm betting you will too.

From a fun follow on twitter, Tom Tomorrow just inked one of the best cartoons of his career. If real life were more like the internet.

Filed under WTF?, I find it depressing that Fox pays
Glenn Beck $23 million annually to spew his crap. The rest of the article isn't nearly as disgusting although it still makes you realize how undervalued some workers are, while some are so very overvalued.

And don't remember where I picked this up but these are some gorgeous wildlife photos. Love the elephant shots.

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Tea Party gubernatorial candidate doesn't want to talk about sex with horses

He doesn't want to discuss bestiality, Carl Paladino, the Tea-Party-backed Republican candidate for governor of New York, just wants to watch the video and forward them by email to all his friends and business associates, along with dozens of the racist viral emails that the wingers pass around in an endless loop.

And that email list no doubt includes, via Doug J, "a who's who of Republican hackerama. (Republican Congressman) Chris Lee was there. The head of M&T bank was there. ECRC (Erie County Republican Committee) Chair Domagalski was there" to cheer Paladino on when he announced his candidacy.

Meanwhile in Ohio, Springboro Tea Party founder and uncontested candidate for a seat on the Warren County Republican Party’s central committee Sonny Thomas recently tweeted, “Illegals everywhere today! So many spics makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” A remark that seems especially poignant since he has a partly Hispanic 6 year old son with a woman that appears not to be his wife.

Of course, this is fine because as we all know, "teh left" called Bush a war criminal and call Palin stupid, and that is so much more hateful. [Second link via GottaLaff.]

[Thanks to Mike Finnigan for the linkage]

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Oh no, not this confused again

Or maybe I should I have titled this, "You say yes, I say no, You say why and I say, I don't know." Today's GOP.



Think Progress has the details.

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Since you've been gone

Have a couple follow-up links that came in too late to append to the original posts. First, the internet neutrality story continues to look less alarming. Saw something on twitter about the FCC having a lot of various other regs in the works, but it never hurts to let them know you're watching so please sign this Free Press letter to the FCC. It's a 30 second point + click activism deal.

Don't know if this is true but it made me laugh. They may have figured out what that Qatari diplomat who got in trouble on the airplane was really smoking. Shep Smith speculates.

The wingnuts have been trying to paint Obama's new nuke policy as some kind of dangerous downgrade of national security and many are invoking Saint Ronnie, alluding to some imaginary hard line view. Of course, as Jon Stewart illustrates, Obama and Reagan held the exact same view.

I've been reading John Cole since he was posting wingnut defenses and he was always a great writer. Really good to have him on our side now. We’re a really stupid country.

My love/hate relationship with Jake Tapper continues to mellow towards mostly love. While he does occassionally still annoy, he's become the most responsive big name journalist on Twitter. Not only that, but he takes suggestions seriously. Jay Rosen proposed a fact check system for the Sunday bobbleheads and Jake is adopting it for his stint hosting This Week.

Meanwhile, my new internet crush Ken Bazinet notices Obama's financial reform demands and sees that they are good.

Wasn't going to post this one, but it's so weird I can't stop thinking about it. Gunfight at the Muskogee Mall. This being Oklahoma, maybe they have shoot-outs there all the time, but I'd love to know what this was about.

A lot of people thought this Tina Fey SNL skit was hilarious. I only laughed once but her impression of Palin is so dead on, it's worth watching just for the stagecraft.

And it's not a linkfest without some photos. This is a treasure trove. Portfolios of all AFP photographers.

Also thanks to Kevin for flagging this link. Truly the best shot I saw of the last launch was this time-lapse photo of space shuttle.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

RIP Dixie Carter

Gone at age 70. I loved her acting especially as the strong willed, infinitely articulate rapier wit, Julia Sugarbaker.





The good old broads leave us too soon.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

False equivalency

Avedon doesn't often write extended entries on her blog, but when she does, she's so eloqent and her memory is better than mine. This is a point I've been trying to make for a while.

To begin with, the violent rhetoric from the left was only in the streets and primarily a lot of crap from teenagers, not from broadcasters on national networks, not from elective officials - and certainly not coming from anyone who had run on a national ticket from the Democratic Party. And, for another, most of the violence was committed by the cops, not the lefties - there was only one group that I knew of that actually advocated violence, and for the most part they were shunned by the rest of the left and even their own old friends from their non-violent days recoiled from them. Moreover, even they - the Weathermen - did not have a policy of targeting living beings for violence, and they at least attempted to confine their bombings only to buildings that were vacant at the time.

Read the whole thing, it's still pretty short but there's much more packed into that short burst.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Strange bedfellows in NC

Local paper is pretty bad about reporting political news outside of our little hamlet so first I've heard of SEIU officials setting up a third party with an eye towards running candidates in the next election. "It won’t be lost on political observers that three House Dems who voted No on reform are from the state: Heath Shuler, Mike McIntyre, and Larry Kissell."

Not sure if I think that's a great strategy given the demographics here. While it's true registered Dems outnumber the GOP by a lot, the indys are also significant and guessing that most of them are tea party cons. Leaves the split pretty even. But I'm not that savvy yet about the political dynamic here so if it works to knock out those three, especially Shuler, I'd be happy enough to support it.

Meanwhile, this is really weird. Given my limited interaction with GOPers here, I could be wrong, but they seem to usually be as lockstep as the national offices so when the state party chair calls for Steele to resign, it leaves me wondering what that means. Have a gut feeling it means, this being such a Bible thumping state, they're nervous about the midterms given the string of sex scandals swirling around the party.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

CNN death watch

CNN is betting on the wrong horse's ass. They're sending love letters to wingnut bloggers pitching CNN against the dirty hippies storylines. And then there's this programming decision to air Pete Peterson's thoroughly debunked propaganda docu-liar-mentary "I.O.U.S.A."

I participated in a conference call with Peterson when he first fired up his astroturf machine. Pure corporate pap with an eye towards abolishing every social safety program in America. Apparently CNN won't air any opposing views to counter their spin.

CNN execs are idiots. They are never going to win over Fox fans no matter how hard they pander to the crazies. These people consider CNN the enemy and all attempts to grab their attention will be viewed as trickery. Possible they might get a curiousity spike or two if the bigger wingnut bloggers bite, but they'll never outfox Fox to win the loyalty viewers who depend on Fox to affirm their life views.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

In a world without Fox

Granted it's a softball situation, but the interviewer is asking about common societal myths there. I found it to be a fascinating interview with Obama by the Indonesian press.



Not sure why I liked this so much, but I did. Maybe because it's so refreshing to see a media person treat Obama with warmth and respect instead of trying to trip him up with inane gotcha questions designed solely to catch a lazy soundbite and gin up fake controversy. {Via Andrew Sullivan]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Baby, yeah you're moving way too fast

Scanning Memeorandum this morning and here's a perfect example of what's wrong with the news outlets these days. Everybody rushes to be first to break the news. The *scoop* lasts all of 30 minutes at best and most of the time, the initial reports turn out to be wrong. Then they all spend the day updating the story for accuracy.

This story started yesterday reporting a terrorist was trying to light a shoe bomb on an airplane. At this point, 24 hours later they say it was a Middle East diplomat who was smoking a cigarette in the bathroom and talked trash to the flight attendant. By the end of today we may have the accurate details.

This is actually the downside of Twitter. The rumors break there first usually, spread instantly around the world and within hours, three different versions are circulating and not everybody sees the final corrections. This is no way to inform the public.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Ignorance is bliss

The lies, the hate, the selfish petty meaness of the far right is wearing me down. I can't even talk about the governor of Virginia declaring this Confederate history month. Guess I wouldn't mind if I thought they were going to study the wrongheaded motivations behind the secession but somehow I think it's going to be a celebratation of the good old days when the poor and the black folks knew their place in society.

In any event, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote the best response I've seen and gets quote of the day from his short post.

This is who they are--the proud and ignorant. If you believe that if we still had segregation we wouldn't "have had all these problems," this is the movement for you. If you believe that your president is a Muslim sleeper agent, this is the movement for you. If you honor a flag raised explicitly to destroy this country then this is the movement for you. If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you. If you are a "Real American" with no demonstrable interest in "Real America" then, by God, this movement of alchemists and creationists, of anti-science and hair tonic, is for you.

Sadly, there appear to be a couple of million deluded Americans who feel right at home there.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Obama modifies US nuke policy

If President Obama did nothing else that I agreed with for entire term, today's announced revision of US policy on use of nuclear weapons would stand out for me as the single most important accomplishment he made and was well worth the vote I cast for him.

Under the new policy, the administration will foreswear the use of the deadly weapons against nonnuclear countries, officials said, in contrast to previous administrations, which indicated they might use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states in retaliation for a biological or chemical attack.

But Obama included a major caveat: The countries must be in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations under international treaties. That loophole would mean Iran would remain on the potential target list.

The new policy will also describe the purpose of U.S. weapons as being fundamentally for deterrence.

Outside of the usual suspects in Nutopia, who of course went into nuclear level meltdowns over it, the conservative response has been surprisingly muted. Neither has he received much accolades from the left. He's been working on this practically since the day he took office to little notice and even less appreciation. But as far as I'm concerned, taking nuclear attacks pretty much off the table is probably the singlemost effective step towards greater world peace that has ever been taken by any leader.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Hell has frozen over

Hot off his boneheaded partisan move to block the emergency unemployment extension, leaving hundreds of thousands without a check this week, at a town meeting in his district, GOPer Tom Coburn said Pelosi is a nice person and told his constituents not to believe everything they hear on Fox News.

Of course, he immediately blamed Pelosi for his hold on the UI benefits and there's been a bunch of posts lately describing how Fox is using the GOP to drive its own ratings at the Republican's expense, so maybe not quite a hell-freezing moment, but still notable.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Court rules against FCC on net neutrality

When I read the headline, my heart sank. It sounded so alarming that a Federal District Court ruled against the FCC, finding it didn't have jurisdiction to issue net neutrality regulations for broadband providers. Was hearing the death knell for freedom of expression on the interwebs and pondering what price the gatekeepers would now exact for access.

Fortunately, Balkinization eased my fears. Apparently this is a smallish technical issue that can be remedied fairly simply by legal standards. So hope is not lost yet, but all the more reason to keep this issue alive in the public discourse. It's one of those quiet issues that could easily be ceded to the corporations when no one is looking. Which is why the free wheeling internets are so valuable in the first place. Because someone is always watching.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Tire Swing Down - Updated

Years from now we'll be asking, "Where were you the day McCain totalled the Straight Talk Express?"

"I never considered myself a maverick." ~John McCain

The empath in me finds this so horribly sad, I can't even snark about it.

Update: Is it dementia or just dissembling?



[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

War really is hell - Updated

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch this video released by Wikileaks of our soldiers shooting innocent civilians and treating it like a video game. I still have nightmares about the one I saw back in 2003 on the same theme. That one featured the air to ground slaughter of unarmed Iraqi men. I hear this one is women, children and Reuters reporters.

There was a time when the US mainstream media would have broken a story like this. Those days are long gone.

Update: Via Maddow's Blog I have a better description of the Wikileaks video.

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.

Update: The video has been confirmed as authentic. [Via Greg Mitchell who has been following this all day.]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Nate Silver misses the elephant in the room

Nate Silver unpacks today's polls on the tea party movement, noting no matter how they spin it, the majority of their adherents are far right conservatives with no grasp of reality. Of course he doesn't put it those words but that's the way I read the data. And while this is true on one level:

That does not mean that the tea-party is insignificant. Democrats underestimated it last year: it was one of the first tangible signs of trouble for Obama.

Nate neglects to mention the most important factor that gives these people significance. In terms of sheer numbers, there are many bigger, more motivated activist groups who have far less impact on the narrative. The only reason the tea party has gained significance despite being unable to drum up any truly impressively large turnouts at their rallies, is because of the over-weaning media attention they receive.

As I said on Twitter this morning, millions of anti-war protesters in 2003 were treated as the radical fringe left by the politicans and the media. The tea party's biggest event to my knowledge was the DC rally that drew in real numbers about 60K people. Yet they are feted by the press, catered to by leading GOPers, minutely studied by the pollsters and proclaimed "real Americans." The implications being the majority of Americans who voted in a Democratic majority are still the radical fringe left.

Well, if CNN had embedded with the anti-war movement back in the day, and demographic studies had been done on who showed up at rallies, they would have found those were "real Americans" too and maybe we could have avoided a disastrous war that now, even Republicans are calling a grievous mistake.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Should have gone with single payer

Somebody remind me why they didn't just pass single payer and cut these bloodsucking middlemen out of the equation?"

WellPoint Inc. revealed Friday that it boosted its chief executive's compensation 51% last year, ...Chief Executive Angela F. Braly saw her total compensation shoot to $13.1 million, from $8.7 million a year earlier, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At least three other WellPoint executives got compensation increases of as much as 75%.

Finance chief Wayne DeVeydt took home $7.2 million, up from $4.1 million in 2008. Ken Goulet, the head of WellPoint's commercial business unit, got $4.4 million, up from $2.7 million. Dijuana Lewis, the head of its comprehensive health solutions unit, got $4.5 million, up from $2.7 million.

"WellPoint defended the pay increases, saying they reflected the company's overall positive performance in 2009. Its stock price rose 38.4% last year to $58.29, from $42.13 in 2008." Yet they had to raise individual policy rates up to 39% for "adminsitrative costs?" What the hell do these people do that is worth that much money, besides kill people with their greedy moneygrubbing I mean.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

GOP scared of census scaremongering

After months upon months of using the census to fuel far right anti-government fear and outrage the Republicans are suddenly worried it's going to cost them seats. You know they're really worried when even Karl Rove does a PSA telling them it's really okay for them to fill it out.

In an e-mail, Rove said he agreed to participate, "Because the Census settles apportionment of Congress and the current distrust of Washington should not discourage people from being counted."

Ha, maybe they should have thought of that and muzzled their in-house wacko Michele Bachmann when she was assuring the crazies the census would be used to put them in re-education camps.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Tupelo Tea Party

Something about this photo strikes me as really being worth those proverbial 1000 words. Somehow I don't think the sign holder is an invited guest.

[Original photo from JenciTN.]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Happy Peep Day

Happy Easter to those who celebrate religiously and a belated Happy Passover to my Jewish friends. For those who just celebrate with candy:



Adding, here's a gallery of spring flowers by a really good photographer and Bing Crosby singing Easter Parade.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Bee in my bonnet

A few more links. This is possibly the most useful one I've seen ever and again from the irrepresible Roger Ebert. For those times when you're trying to get the free shipping from Amazon and you're a few cents sort of the limit, this tool will find you something in their inventory to make up the difference.

Kind of forgot what this one was about, but the White House has a tool to calculate your potential tax savings.

Liked these a lot. Apparently Sen Leahey is something of a shutterbug. A gallery of his photos.

Loved this pix of Michelle and Hillary.

Official WH photog Pete Souza has a twitter account where he posts his photos. This set from Obama's trip to Afghanistan was very good.

And this is old but you may have missed it. I didn't get around to watching it myself yet but it was getting rave reviews when it first posted. Plouffe versus Rove on some bobblehead show.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

CNN pumps up tea party

Apparently, CNN is trying to become the new Fox *News* or maybe they're trying to become the new Politico with this sort of Drudge baiting. Under the header, Disgruntled Democrats join the Tea Party, they post a weak story about two, yes count them two, disaffected Democrats they found at a rally in Colorado. The piece implies that this makes the tea party a truly cross section of America. Can't fail to notice they didn't mention any huge turnout for the rally which is probably why they could find the two Dems.

What CNN also fails to mention is they have a vested interest in promoting the tea party *movement*. CNN has a reporter currently embedded on the astroturfing Tea Party Express bus and the studio anchor is just dying to get on the bus for a couple of days himself. Without this kind of pimping by the tradmed, the tea parties would have deadended by now. Disgraceful. No wonder CNN is dying.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Peep Show

I don't know about you guys, but I'm in bad need of a mental health break. Since there's no news to speak of anyway, I'm going to post a bunch of fun links today that I've been saving for a while.

The one of the year that I gladly link to WaPo is for their annual peeps dioramas. I swear the entries get more brilliant every year. The winner, impressive as it was, wasn't even my favorite but I'm not sure I could pick just one. Kind of loved them all.

Roger Ebert also uncovered a a great Easter Egg done by this artist Terry.

Drew found these amazing sculptures that look like they are in motion. I wasn't that impressed with the first few but they just kept getting better.

This was amazing. Imagine the surprise of the passengers on the airplane when they flew by Montserrat's Soufriere Hills volcano erupting.

Loved this Lego art. Click through to the artist's gallery. It's worth it. Via Sully

I can never get enough of these. Gorgeous vintage ads from the 1920's.

These are fun too. Aliens in vintage postcards, via Avedon.

I'm such a huge fan of Grace Kelly, I used to use a pix of her for my avatar. Here's a nice slide show. She was so elegant.

And I have no idea what this is, but think it's very cool. All I know for sure is it's somewhere around Las Vegas.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Obama vs. Limbaugh

The far right has been all atwitter about Obama's interview where he was asked an inane question about whether he was "aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation about him."

Mr. Obama replied, "Well -- I mean, I think that -- when you've listened to Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck it's …"

"It's beyond that," Smith interjected.

"It's pretty - apparent," the president continued, "and -- it's troublesome. But -- you know, keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of -- this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when -- you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling that there's a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans.

As you can imagine, Wingnuttia exploded with indignation. The Blimpbaugh railed on his radio show:

Never in my life have I seen a regime like this, governing against the will of the people, purposely. I have never seen the media so supportive of a regime amassing so much power. And I have never known as many people who literally fear for the future of the country."

Well, when your fan base is comprised mainly of uneducated, easily manipulated, gullible fools I guess that's true enough. I suppose they all were sleepwalking through the 00s.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

CNN's new hire

If CNN thinks hiring Erick Erickson is going to raise their tanking ratings, they should probably rethink it. Their "drive the agenda" pundit, after excusing his previous ill mannered remarks about Souter being a goatfucker and beating legislators to a pulp as being just a quirk of not having grown up yet, had this to say about the census on his personal podcast since then:

I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property. They can’t do that. They don’t have the legal right, and yet they’re trying.

I've never heard Erik speak before. His commentary is cliched and ill-informed, as in completely wrong stupid, but even worse his voice is awful. Not quite up to Palin's screechy twang, but high pitched, somewhat slurred and whiny.

Astounding that CNN thinks this is way to save their station. They seem to have been caught up in the same misapprehension that all the tradmed execs fall victim to, that being a schmuck with a high traffic blog translates into actual reach or viewers. They don't get that most of his blog fans are illiterate knuckledraggers who probably don't even watch news shows.

Speaking of which, I discovered I get BBC News on the local public access station. They had actual news. About the world. Nothing about the inside gossip factory we now call The Village. Funny, I was thinking as I watched it, that this is what CNN used to be like when I tuned in for most of any day.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The Hypocritical Oath

"I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm." ~Hippocratic Oath

A Republican urologist in Mt. Dora, FL has apparently reinterpreted the oath doctors take when they get a license to practice medicine. He is so incensed over the passage of health care reform, according to a sign he posted on his office door, he no longer wants to treat Democrats.

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

Dancing on the thin edge of ethics there but he's an old guy, so maybe he forgot what the Hippocratic Oath he took actually says:

"I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug." ~Hippocratic Oath

Dr. Cassell's sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

What kind of doctor allows his anger to affect his professional work? Personally, even if I was a Republican and hated the reform bill, I would not want to be treated by a doctor so unempathetic that he would post such an ugly sentiment on his door. Who knows what else might piss him off enough to not care to treat you. Your choice in music or food or your religious beliefs?

Good luck to his patients that stick with him.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Zonker joins the Tea Party

I love this latest storyline at Doonesbury and today's panel is my favorite of the series so far. But start at the beginning if you missed it because they're all great and any storyline with Zonker in it is always fun.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Bush found guilty but he'll never pay a price

"The president, just like any other citizen of the United States, is bound by the law."

Except of course, when he isn't. The quote above comes from the latest decision from the federal courts finding the Bush administration guilty of breaking the law with its warrantless wiretapping program. This was the case of the Islamic charity out west where the Bush DOJ inadvertently gave them proof of the crime, although that was never admitted as evidence.

I have to admit that this is a place where I've been bitterly disappointed by the Obama DOJ. I knew he wasn't going to initiate any action to bring the Bush war criminals to justice but I really didn't think he would so fully embrace the state's secret defense in defending them. It's all too depressing so just read Glennzilla's scathing analysis.

Indeed, their stonewalling at one point became so extreme that the court actually threatened the Obama DOJ with sanctions. And what TPM calls the Obama DOJ's "Bush-mimicking state secrets defense" has been used by them in one case after the next to conceal and shield from judicial review a wide range of Bush crimes -- including torture, renditions and surveillance. As the Electronic Frontiers Foundation put it: "In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ's New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush's."

I have some serious disagreement with Glenn and the strategy being employed by the Accountability Now project he and Jane Hamsher founded, but on this point, sadly, I completely concur.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

RNC grounds Young Eagles

The fallout from the RNC expensed visit to the girlie bar in LA continues apace as the RNC announced it is putting its support for the Young Eagles program "for younger donors" on hold. Although they're apparently the only demo that is still willing to give them money, the RNC announced it was cancelling almost all events.

This includes: Opening Day with the Phillies, U.S. Training Center, YE's Leadership Summit and Gold Cup. If there are others in the pipeline, they are also on hold until further notice.

Not sure if the U.S. Training Center is the same event as the weekend at Blackwater HQ but that's cancelled too.

Meanwhile, you have to wonder if there's a saboteur at the RNC. To add to their current PR nightmare, another one of their fake census mailings just blew up. Didn't read the article, but the Memeorandum blurb is hilarious:

A new entrant in the when-it-rains-it-pours category. — The Republican National Committee sent a fundraising mail piece earlier this month with a return number that leads to a phone-sex line offering “live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl...

Since it is April 1st, I suppose this one could be a joke. I'm not going to give Politico the hit to find out but if it's real,. I'm told by a reliable source who received one of the letters, this is indeed true so one might indeed think the RNC is becoming a permanent April Fool joke.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

No joke: The backstory behind LL Cool J and Fox

You've probably heard about the fight between LL Cool J and Fox yesterday over the unauthorized use of ancient interview footage being used to promo Palin's new show. The cynic in me says Fox deliberately flubbed the promos to get more exposure. Which, as a quick check at Memeorandum confirms, they got in spades.

What you probably didn't hear is how Cool J found out about it. Thanks to commenter John W at Balloon Juice who flagged Shoq's post, it turns out that the tweeter known as @QuitPalin and his followers bombarded Cool J's feed asking him why he would appear on the show. Cool J tweeted back the next morning and voila - the story got real legs. For the record, I agree with Shoq that Angelo should have been given some credit for this story. And Fox should send him a thank you gift. Without his help, Cool J might not have tweeted and their trick wouldn't have worked.

Not that I think that's a bad thing. Personally I hope Palin's show is wildly successful. I'd love it if she became such a big Oprah style rock star that she no longer has time for paltry $100K political speaking engagements. Either way her success would be irritating on some level, but if she's just a TV personality it's only annoying. As a potential office holder and political promoter on the circuit, repeatedly inciting violent anger against liberals, she's damned dangerous.

Meanwhile, for you Twitter haters, at DetNews I explain how this proves Twitter is the best tool for activists.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Dan Riehl harbors domestic terrorists

I've been doing a lot of pushback on the false equivalency that the right wing spokesmouths are pathetically trying to build between lefty radicals and tea party terrorists. I did a long post at DetNews yesterday that I would actually encourage you to read in full. But I want to quote this part because it's been sticking with me ever since. More I think about it, the more horrifying I find it. This is a comment on Riehl's very recent post.

Remember, all actions to stop liberals--be they your congresspeople, or your neighbors--are now legitimate.

"We see this as a violation of equal protection of the law, an affront to our sovereignty, and as a breach of the U.S. Constitution."

A government takeover of health care is exactly why the 2nd Amendment is there. They fired the first shot--but we will won't stop until we fire the last one.

All actions.

This was in near the top of the comments on the post when I found it on google. Clearly Riehl, who is a leading voice of the far right and a regularly featured *pundit* on the teevee would have, or at least should have, seen it. One can only conclude that death threats to any liberal in America, even ordinary citizens, is AOK with Dan Riehl but don't expect the "both sides do it" media to make that connection. So irresponsible.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]