I WAS GOING TO DEFEND PRES. OBAMA...

for his reversal of his 2003 support for single-payer health insurance and then I read a little more:

On one end of the spectrum, there are some who've suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. And though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry -- whether it's state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. The argument is, is that that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I'm concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don't believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America.

Had he said that there was too much opposition to single-payer, I could both agree with him and support his triangulation of the alternatives. As it is, he went out of his way to attack government employees.

OLD LADIES CAN ALSO BE WACKOS

One called Billy Cunningham tonight and claimed that we are not required by law to pay Federal taxes.

WE HAVE AT LEAST TWO FREAKSHOWS ON THE SUPREME COURT

Justices Scalia and Thomas think that beating the shit out of a prisoner does NOT violate the Constitution, not because of any reasonable claim of "original intent," but because of an English law written 100 years before our Constitution was ratified.

Torture memos resemble Clarence Thomas' way of thinking
By David G. Savage
March 7, 2010
LA Times

Over two decades, Thomas and Scalia have repeatedly dissented when the court ruled for prisoners who alleged they were subjected to cruelty. They include an inmate who was handcuffed to a "hitching post" and forced to stand shirtless for seven hours in the hot summer sun of Alabama. Another involved an inmate from Louisiana who was repeatedly punched in the mouth by a guard.

According to Thomas, this harsh treatment did not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. "Judges -- not jailers -- impose punishment," he wrote.

The two justices explained that the word "punishment" as it was used in the English Bill of Rights in 1689 referred to judges imposing punishment for a crime. Prison guards do not impose "punishment" even if they mete out cruelty, they said.

BONUS FACTOID: John "Torture" Yoo clerked for Thomas.

UPDATE: Emptywheel did a little digging and found that 4 former DOJ lawyers who worked on the criminal Bush regime torture memos also clerked for Thomas:

John Yoo. Clerk, Clarence Thomas,1994 to 1995

Patrick Philbin, Clerk, Clarence Thomas, 1993 to 1994

Jennifer Koester, Clerk, Clarence Thomas, 2004 to 2005

Steven Bradbury, Clerk, Clarence Thomas, 1992 to 1993

UNEMPLOYED? YOU'RE A SLACKER!!!

That seems to be the conservative and libertarian stance on unemployment insurance benefits and perhaps can be traced back to another horrid Austrian, Ludwig von Mises. The disgraced Tom Delay is the latest freak to make this argument. (h/t HuffPo) From CNN's State of the Union, 3/7/2010:

CROWLEY: But this particular time, you know, to halt peoples' jobs that were working on, public infrastructure jobs, to put in jeopardy peoples' unemployment benefits and their health care just was not exactly the right vehicle to make that stand. You don't think that's a PR problem at the very least?

DELAY: No, I really don't, if it's communicated properly. You know, there's -- there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact, there's a study -- there's some studies that have been done that shows that people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

CROWLEY: Congressman, that's such a hard sell, isn't it?

(LAUGHTER)

It's -- you know, to say...

DELAY: It's the truth.

CROWLEY: ... well, people are unemployed because they want to be?

DELAY: Well, it is the truth. And people in the real world know it. And they have friends that -- and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don't even have.

FATS LIMBAUGH IS OK WITH FEAR

I'm listening to his week in review show and he's completely behind the GOP's plan to raise money by playing on people's fears. At least he's consistent.

UPDATE: Sen. Mitch McConnell said that "I don't like it. I don't know anybody that does," he said. Will he have to mollify Limbaugh?

WHAT WILL THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION SAY ABOUT HONG KONG NOW?

I noted before that Heritage ranked Hong Kong #1 in the world for economic freedom yet it is still far from being a democracy. Here's a little more evidence that Heritage will have to spin.

China warns again against Hong Kong democracy push
Mar 7 03:24 AM US/Eastern
By MIN LEE
Associated Press Writer

HONG KONG (AP) - China has warned that a plan by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong to use a special election as a de facto referendum on democratic reform is a threat to stability in the former British colony.

While Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, it maintains a separate political system and enjoys Western-style civil liberties typically denied on the mainland. But Beijing has continued to deny full democracy. Hong Kong's leader is chosen by an 800-member committee stacked with pro-China figures and its legislature is half elected, half picked by special interest groups.

IT'S MORE THAN THE CONSTITUTION...

(h/t David Neiwert)

In Mother Jones, Justine Sharrock has a very interesting article on the Oath Keepers and I was struck by this passage about Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers:

Then, in early 2008, SWAT received a letter from a retired colonel declaring that "the Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered" and that service members, veterans, and police "is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!"

Rhodes responded with a breathless column starring a despotic president, "Hitlery" Clinton, in her "Chairman Mao signature pantsuit." Would readers, he asked, obey orders from this "dominatrix-in-chief" to hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters?

I remember some callers several years ago trying to convince Limbaugh and Hannity that the powers given to the President by the Patriot Act would be dangerous if someone like Hillary Clinton managed to win election. Even though both of them have described her in terms similar to those used by Rhodes, neither of them were convinced because at heart they aren't bothered by an authoritarian, militaristic state, as long as a Republican is President.

HARD TO BELIEVE BUT...

Sarah Palin defended her elementary school tactic by reminding the rubes at an Alaska at Right to Life fundraiser that God also wrote on His hand.

Before she compares herself (Herself?) to God again, she might try answering some questions:

4 "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— 9 when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, 11 and said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'? (Book of Job, 38, New Revised Standard Version)

VIRGINIA GOP POLS TRY TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK

The governor and attorney general of Virginia, both Republicans, have decided that it's OK to discriminate against gays and not OK to ban discrimination against them. I'm sure these actions will please the Fundies but I wasn't aware that they had that much power in Virginia.

FOR WINGERS, THE BATTLEGROUND IS MUCH LARGER

One major Fundie has decided that the GOP's new plan to raise money through FEAR is too much and has decided to stop contributing to the RNC and other GOP PACs. This brought a denunciation OF said Fundie by Dan Riehl, who states that the mission of the GOP is truly GINORMOUS:

Said presentation isn't just indicative of a culture within the RNC, as DeMoss asserts below. It's indicative of a mindset taken hold across the broader culture because DeMoss is apparently losing his own battle by not minding his flock. The GOP is tasked with winning battles out in the culture, not in DeMoss' echo chamber of a church mentality.

BECK & HOROWITZ, A PERFECT FIT

Yesterday, Beck had Crazy Davey Horowitz on to drum up preposterous fears about "Communist" college students. Here are a few excerpts:

HOROWITZ: Andy Stern is an old SDS radical. He's a Leninist. The two, what I would you know, the two communist unions, aside from the teacher unions would be the SEIU and ASME, which is the municipal employees which is also here.

HOROWITZ: But their agendas are identical because, look, to defend the free market system, you defend private property, you defend individual rights and you oppose group collective rights, or you don't. And we saw all these so called liberals and progressives, they are against the First Amendment, they attacked the Supreme Court decision which was a basic First Amendment decision. They are for they're racists. They are for racial references that is privileging certain designated groups who they call oppressed. I mean, they've corrupted our laws that way. And they are for socialism.

HOROWITZ: I think the potential for violence and actually disastrous violence is very real and that is because these first of all, these are violent groups and they will commit violent acts. But much more serious is that they are integrated with our terrorist enemies. They have networks and their ideology links them into the Islamic jihad.

In the second paragaph, Horowitz is referring to the Citizens United decision, which strongly asserted that corporations have 1st Amendment rights. Most Americans are against that decision, not just liberals and progressives:

In Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance, the Public Dissents
February 17, 2010 7:00 AM
ABC The Numbers

Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 80 percent of Americans likewise oppose the ruling, including 65 percent who “strongly” oppose it, an unusually high intensity of sentiment.

Seventy-two percent, moreover, support the idea of a legislative workaround to try to reinstate the limits the court lifted.

The bipartisan nature of these views is striking in these largely partisan times. The court’s ruling is opposed, respectively, by 76, 81 and 85 percent of Republicans, independents and Democrats; and by 73, 85 and 86 percent of conservatives, moderates and liberals. Majorities in all these groups, ranging from 58 to 73 percent, not only oppose the ruling but feel strongly about it.

ROVE'S BOOK IS OUT AND IT'S CHOCK FULL OF LIES...

as David Fiderer and David Corn have already shown. I think it's worthwhile adding that Rove also lied to Scotty McClellan about his role in the Plame scandal, just as McClellan stated.

UPDATE: David Corn also picked up on this.

SOMETHING I THOUGHT I'D NEVER SEE

Think Progress has a post about a Christian hate group in Texas that's worth reading but what's more interesting is the source: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. If you didn't know his past, you'd swear Johnson was a life-long liberal.

WHY WASN'T THIS OBVIOUS A YEAR AGO?

Paul Krugman points out that (1) Republicans are much more concerned about a tax cut for the top 0.25% of estates than they are about unemployment benefits and (2) they won't change their badly skewed vision of a proper society.

Now, why didn't Pres. Obama and Sen. Reid realize this a year ago?

WHICH ACTIONS DO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY?

The wingers go on and on about tax cuts as the cure for the Great Recession but Moody's analysis shows that they are counter-productive. (h/t naked capitalist) This chart shows the return to the general economy for each dollar in stimulus.

HILLSDALE COLLEGE IS ANOTHER WINGNUT HATCHERY

After listening to freaks like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and Mark Levin promote it, I should've known that it wasn't any good and Daniel Henninger of the WSJ in his absurd op-ed, "Bring Back the Robber Barons," provides some evidence.

"Robber baron" became a term of derision to generations of American students after many earnest teachers made them read Matthew Josephson's long tome of the same name about the men whose enterprise drove the American industrial age from 1861 to 1901.

The antidote to Josephson's book is a small classic by Hillsdale College historian Burton W. Folsom called "The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America" (Young America's Foundation). Prof. Folsom's core insight is to divide the men of that age into market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs.

RADIO TIDBITS

Jeff Kuhner, a wack job at the Washington Times, subbed for Michale Savage yesterday and accused Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) of using "thug" threats to intimidate Republicans on the health care reform vote. As I recall, this is the sound bite Kuhner played to make his point:

We—if they‘re going to—if they‘re going to try to filibuster in the traditional sense or in the more modern obstructionist sense that they do, they‘re going to have to—they‘re going to have—they‘re going to pain too.

To a rube, this would sound ominous and you can be sure the rube would never bother to look up the MSNBC transcript to get the real meaning, which is nothing more than telling the GOPers that the Dems will make full use of existing Senate procedures:

MADDOW: Yes. It seems to me like in terms of political calculus for the Republicans, the worst situation is if the bill passes and they all vote no for it. In the -- with the expectation that health reform is going to actually improve things for average Americans and improve the overall economic situation with regard to health care. But Senator McConnell today started talking about not wanting to tip his hand as to what he had in mind for stopping health reform. I understand they`re desperation to stop it.

Do you know what they`re going to pull out their hat to try to kill it?

BROWN: I think they`re going to -- with reconciliation, they`re going to try to do amendments, as many as they can get away with. And I think we keep them all here tonight, the next night, the night after, the night after. We -- if they`re going to -- if they`re going to try to filibuster in the traditional sense or in the more modern obstructionist sense that they do, they`re going to have to -- they`re going to have -- they`re going to pain too. They`re going to have to stay all night and we`re going to have quorum calls and we`re going to do whatever we need to do to get this passed within the Senate rules and within fair play.

But that`s the way we`ve done it all along. And I just -- you know, this whole thing when they say, we`re going to -- reconciliation, we`re going to turn over 1/7 of the American economy, reconciliation, for one thing, it`s a majority vote, as you point, which every other country in the world runs their parliamentary or their congress by. But more than that, the reconciliation part of the bill is small, at the edges, fixing, making positive changes in the big bill that both houses have already passed and the Senate with the supermajority of 60 and in the House.

So, this whole thing that we`re turning to reconciliation -- one more point, when I hear them say they only did little things with reconciliation. When I was in the House, the Senate did reconciliation -- when they did reconciliation on tax bills, they took a surplus that was going to be trillions of dollars and turned it into a deficit -- a debt, which was going to be trillions of dollars. And they say that was a minor thing they did with reconciliation? Nice try on that one, my friends

YUP, RUSSELL KIRK IS STILL CORRECT

He was right back in 1988 and he's still right about a large part of the GOP:

California's sinking, but GOP Senate race is about Israel
By Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010

WASHINGTON — California is broke, its 12.1 percent unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation, housing prices have plunged, home foreclosures have skyrocketed and a drought is threatening the state's dwindling water supply. There also are plenty of other issues for would-be U.S. senators to debate, including the battered economy and a massive effort to overhaul the nation's health care system.

Instead, the state's Republican Senate primary has been heating up over Israel.

With former Rep. Tom Campbell leading in the polls, his challengers for the Republican nomination — businesswoman Carly Fiorina and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore — are taking persistent shots at the front-runner, saying that his record consistently has been anti-Israel.

I GUESS 2 GOP SENATORS ARE ALSO IN ON THE PLOT

Krazies like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann (and others) are claiming that Pres. Obama nomination of Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson's brother for a federal judgeship is another sordid deal to get Matheson's vote for health care reform. The truth? Not so much, really...

A White House official called the question “absurd.”

"Scott Matheson is a leading law scholar and has served as a law school dean and U.S. attorney. He’s respected across Utah and eminently qualified to serve on the federal bench,” the official said.

The official said that Scott Matheson was nominated with Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's support. Indeed, Hatch put out a statement hailing Obama's selection of the Utahan calling Matheson “a bright attorney whose experience has prepared him for judicial service.”

And fellow Republican Utah Sen. Bob Bennett also rejected the notion that Obama was using Scott Matheson’s nomination as leverage.

“Sen. Bennett has heard of all kinds of pressure being applied and offers being made to Democrats for votes on health care, but Scott Matheson’s nomination is not one of those because it has been in the works for a long time,” spokeswoman Tara DiJulio said.

MAYBE THE BAGGERS ARE MORE BARK THAN BITE

I would expect that the Tea Party crazies would have a great deal of influence in a reactionary state like Texas but the Houston Chronicle revealed that they weren't much of a factor in the recent primaries. If the Baggers aren't a big deal in Texas, then they certainly aren't a big deal nationally.

Lackluster showing puts damper on Tea Party
Faithful are left to wonder if Perry is worth their vote
By JOE HOLLEY and R.G. RATCLIFFE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
March 4, 2010, 12:08AM

Anti-establishment voters simply didn't materialize at the polls on Tuesday, and most Republican incumbents cruised to victory over their Tea Party challengers.

“After all the talk from the 9-12 groups and the Tea Party, it's surprising,” said John Gay, one of three Republicans who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside. “From what I was hearing, there were a lot of people saying they were going to vote for someone besides the incumbent this time.”

They didn't. Paul, considered by some to be the founder of the Tea Party movement, got 80.8 percent of the vote against insurgents on his right flank. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Woodlands, got 79.2 percent of the vote against three Tea Party challengers who had maintained that the incumbent was too liberal.

There were some local Tea Party successes.

Roy Morales, who finished fourth in the Houston mayor's race last fall and whose Tea Party support fueled something of a surge toward the end of that campaign, won the GOP nomination for the 29th Congressional District this time.

Don Sumners, who knocked off incumbent Harris County tax assessor-collector Leo Vasquez, also claims Tea Party bona fides, running on the slogan, “I was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool.” Sumners said he believes his anti-tax message, an integral part of the Tea Party movement, resonated more strongly with voters than Vasquez's pledge for businesslike efficiency.

But the only clear Tea Party winner outside of Houston was David Simpson, who vanquished state Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview. Simpson credited his victory to shoe leather, prayer and the power of the people. Merritt had held the seat since 1997.

THE NEWS ABOUT THE GOP & FEAR IS SPREADING

The GOP's plan to again use fear for political gain has gotten some play in the news. This screen grab is from Yahoo! News front page -


Note that this is in the "Most Emailed" category but with 1,669 recommendations it should also be in the "Most Recommended" category.

EZRA IS ON TOP OF IT

This morning, I heard Brian Kilmeade argue that this time, reconciliation is different (and wrong) because when it was used in the past, there were large bipartisan majorities. I can't recall the exact numbers he gave but several were over 70 in favor, which lead me to wonder if so many were in favor, why bother with reconciliation? I suspect Kilmeade deliberately ignored these votes that Ezra Klein dug up:

But reconciliation hasn't been limited to bipartisan bills. Here's the recent record: The 1995 Balanced Budget Act was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 52 to 47. The 2001 Bush Tax Cut was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 58 to 33. The 2003 Bush Tax Cut was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 50 to 50, with Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. The 2005 Deficit Reduction Act was also passed in reconciliation with a 50 to 50 vote and a Cheney intervention. The 2006 Tax Relief Extensions Act was passed in reconciliation. The final vote was 54 to 44. This is as you'd expect: If bills had overwhelming bipartisan majorities, they wouldn't need to go through reconciliation.

THE PARTY OF FEAR

Politico was given a copy of the GOP's fund raising strategy for 2010 and when it comes to small donors, it will be targeting the people talk radio has done a pretty good job of terrifying. Note the first item:

IT'S NICE THAT ABC GAVE THIS STORY SOME ATTENTION

It's only on The Blotter but a few more people will now be familiar with the SPLC report.

Dobbs, Beck, Palin, Bachmann Share Blame For Rise in Right-Wing Extremism, Says Activist Group
Southern Poverty Law Center Cites Violent Incidents; Lou Dobbs Calls SPLC Director 'Paranoid'

By ANNA SCHECTER
March 3, 2010

THE BUNNING BANDWAGON

Hannity supports Bunning's filibuster of extended benefits and had him on his radio show yesterday. I don't want to be mean but Bunning is clearly past his prime, as are other Senators.

Levin also approved of Bunning's move and went so far as to describe the extended benefits as "welfare."

If the DNC had any sense of how hard we need to fight the conservatives, Bunning, Shelby and Gramm would be household names by October.

I HAVEN'T POSTED AS MUCH AS USUAL BECAUSE...

I've gotten what I call "the sleepies" and I'm not awake long enough to keep up with the news.

HOBBES ON THE ANTI-GOVERNMENT FOLKS

I occasionally run into posts by what seem to be ultra-libertarians. They assert that they want absolutely nothing to do with government at any level and I think Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan describes what would result:

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

ARIZONA ISN'T ALWAYS REACTIONARY, I GUESS

Despite re-electing rat bastard Kyl, the state occasionally makes a good move.

Arizona Leads the Way in Combating Foreclosure

Monday 01 March 2010

by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

As the Obama administration works up its 12,487th plan for keeping underwater homeowners in their homes, Arizona's legislation may have the courage and good sense to do the obvious: let foreclosed homeowners stay in their home as renters. A bill was just introduced in legislature that would allow homeowners in houses that sell for less than the median price to remain in their home as renters for at least one year following foreclosure.

With this simple gesture the Arizona legislature could do more for the nation's underwater homeowners than all the brilliant DC policy wonks have managed to accomplish in the last three years with all their billions of dollars. The legislation would give low and moderate-income homeowners security in their homes. It doesn't make them jump through hoops and prove to bureaucrats that they were worthy. It doesn't require them genuflect before loans servicers or bankers.

HOW MANY KRAZIES???

BuzzFlash linked to an interesting post by Sarah Robinson about how many right-wing krazies there are in America and she found that there are basically two groups of krazies.

"Chip, how many far-right wingers are there in the United States?"

I knew the question was vague. I figured, based on our past conversations, that I'd have to carefully define "far right" and qualify who belonged in that group. And then we'd have a discussion about how you slice and dice the various factions and their relationships to the whole, and....

But that's not what happened. Chip didn't even skip a beat.

"Ten percent of the population." He declared this with a jaunty certainty that's uncharacteristic of Chip, who usually has a sociologist's inbred caution about putting caveats around his claims.

"Ten percent? That's it? Flat out?"

"Ten percent. That's it. It's been the same number for most of our history, and it doesn't change much." He went on to explain that sociologists and social psychologists have spent decades doing on a large scale what I was doing with my little clutch of studies. And invariably, he said, no matter how they define "far right" or "authoritarian," no matter how they count up the fundamentalists and nationalists and proto-fascists, the numbers always come up somewhere between 7 percent and 12 percent. Or, on average, about 10 percent. Always. And it's been that way going back as far as they can go.

Using a different metric, I concluded that there were between 10% and 13% who were deranged.

The second group comprises those that psychologist Robert Altemeyer described as having authoritarian personalities. This group may be as large as 25% of the population, and with the right external circumstances, they can act as just as bad as the hardcore krazies.

In short, during bad times we may have as much as 37% (12 + 25) of the adult population who are basically unhinged.

OK, HERE ARE THE FREAKS WHO VOTED AGAINST EXTENDING BENEFITS

They may only be a "minority" of the GOP Senate caucus but since 19 voted against, that's only true by 2 votes. Here they are:

NAYs ---19
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Coburn (R-OK) Corker (R-TN)	Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT)	Johanns (R-NE) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Sessions (R-AL) Thune (R-SD)

I KNOW THIS POST SEEMS REDUNDANT

but so many wingers still think we found WMD in Iraq, such as the yellow cake at Tuwaitha, that I think it's worthwhile to highlight this.

Rove admits to error on Iraq as Bush strategist
Mar 2 06:50 PM US/Eastern
By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Political strategist Karl Rove says President George W. Bush made the right decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003, but the former White House adviser admits the failure to find weapons of mass destruction badly damaged the administration's credibility.

RADIO TIDBITS

This morning, Slots Bennett provided a little more info about the Wingnut Web when he said that Bill Kristol was his chief of staff when Slots was Sec. of Education.

A more serious event occurred on Beck's show when a woman called in and broke down and cried on air because she bought into all the fear-mongering that Beck has done. Beck has a lot to answer for.

GOLDMAN SACHS GIVES THE FINGER TO ITS OWNERS

In another example of corporate feudalism, Goldman Sachs has refused a request by its owners, the shareholders, that it revamp its pay policies.

Goldman board rejects shareholder demands on pay

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) board has rejected demands from shareholders that the firm investigate recent compensation awards, recoup excessive compensation and reform pay practices.

Wall Street's dominant bank, criticized for paying billions of dollars in bonuses soon after the taxpayer bailout of the banking industry, reported the board's decision in a regulatory filing on Monday.

ONE REASON THE NEO-CONS LIKE BACHMANN

I was a bit surprised a couple of weeks ago when I heard Bill "Slots" Bennett speak very well of Michele "Teh Krazy" Bachmann and I think I just found one reason for that: Both Bennett and Bachmann sometimes think the capitol of America is Tel Aviv.

Bachmann fundraiser could land nonprofit in legal trouble
By Andy Birkey 3/1/10 10:47 AM
Washington Independent

Rep. Michele Bachmann visited Tennessee over the weekend to speak at Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN), a nonprofit committed to “educating Christians about their biblical responsibility to stand with their Jewish brethren and the state of Israel.” But a fundraiser for Bachmann by the group’s executive director could land the nonprofit in trouble with the IRS.

According to The Tennessean, Laurie Cardoza-Moore sent a fundraising appeal to members of the PJTN network asking them donate $500 to Bachmann’s campaign. Non-profits are prohibited from fundraising for candidates.

“The IRS takes the position that sending a fundraising e-mail for a candidate or a candidate’s campaign is considered intervention in a political campaign,” Marc Owens, a former IRS official, told the Tennessean.

A MEME TOO FAR

Yesterday I heard Hannity and Michael Savage try to imply that Pres. Obama has a drinking problem based upon a dubious interpretation of his doctor's recommendations and even a wack job like Ann Althouse can't buy into that. This misleading interpretation started, as so many do, on The Drudge Report.

GOOD CONGRESSIONAL NEWS

Because of retirements and resignations, only 216 votes will be needed in the House for a new health care reform bill and in the Senate, 30 Democratic senators have signed on to try to pass a public option through reconciliation.

Let's hope for the best.

RADIO TIDBITS

Scott Alan Miller subbed for John Gibson and argued that unemployment benefits should be cut off insteads of extended. This didn't sit well with his first few callers but it fits in with Sen. Kyl's thinking:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl.

I DON'T THINK GEORGE WILL HAS ANY SELF-AWARENESS

(h/t Digby)

Will has consistently botched the facts on global warming and is strongly opposed to minority filibusters, except when the GOP is doing them. In a saner America, he would be limited to posting on Clownhall instead of having his own column at the WaPo.

Anyway, here's proof that he has no self-consciousness:

It is axiomatic that when there's no penalty for failure, failure proliferates.

I wonder how Will would explain the continued success of Bill Kristol?