SOME ISRAELIS ALSO THINK NETANYAHU IS VERY WRONG

That includes a former head of Mossad, Meir Dagan:

Former Mossad head urges Israeli voters to oust Binyamin Netanyahu

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
Friday 27 February 2015 14.09 EST
THE GUARDIAN

Meir Dagan says prime minister’s policies are ‘destructive to the future and security of Israel’

A former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad is urging voters to oust Binyamin Netanyahu in the next general election, accusing the prime minister of endangering the country’s security with his stance on the Iranian nuclear programme.
Meir Dagan, a vocal critic of Netanyahu’s Iran policy since stepping down as Mossad chief four years ago, is to be a keynote speaker at a rally in Tel Aviv next weekend, calling on the public to turf the prime minister out of office on 17 March.

The intervention by Dagan – who ended his tenure as the head of Mossad in 2011 – is doubly significant because he shares the prime minister’s view over the risk posed by a nuclear Iran and is regarded as generally hawkish on defence and security matters.

JERKS VS. JACKASSES

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is fed up with "this self-righteous, delusional wing of the party" and is called a RINO or a dupe by the supporters of delusion.   This could be a VERY interesting week in the House.

ROGER HEDGECOCK TIDBIT

Now that he's quitting his radio show, we get to learn a little more about his past:

Yes, Droopy, you got the job

Roger Hedgecock announces departure from talk-radio show

By Ken Leighton, Feb. 24, 2015
SAN DIEGO READER ON TAP

On February 23, Roger Hedgecock, announced on the air that March 27 would be his last day hosting his nationally syndicated three-hour talk show on KFMB (760 AM). He started his career as a radio-show host soon after a campaign-funds scandal led to his resignation as San Diego mayor in 1995.

KFMB has been steadily losing ground to KOGO in the past six months since KOGO started focusing more on live news and less on syndicated talk shows. KOGO doubled its ratings since October and is now 13th in the Arbitron ratings among all listeners, eclipsing KFMB’s 18th place.

Hedgecock, who regularly implored listeners to “hold their feet to the fire,” said on Monday that he “reached a transition point in my life” and that he always “spoke as an American,” speaking up for the “role of the individual and the rights of private property…. When I started, people told me nobody wanted to talk about politics on the air. This was before Rush [Limbaugh] and Sean [Hannity]. It turns out a lot of people did.” (Note: Limbaugh began his talk-radio career in 1984.)

FOX NEWS IS HARMFUL TO AMERICA

The Daily Show made a Vine of 50 FOX News lies and Pundit Fact checked out most of them.  Here's the list for reference:

* * *

1. "In July 2010 the government said small businesses -- 60 percent -- will lose their health care, 45 percent of big business and a large percentage of individual health."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 11, 2013
False

* * *

2. "And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this."
Anna Kooiman, Oct. 5, 2013

* * *

3. Labor union president Andy Stern is "the most frequent visitor" at the White House.
Glenn Beck, Dec. 3, 2009
False

* * *

4. "Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns."
Tucker Carlson, Aug. 9, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

5. White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard once served as the "right-hand man" for Bertha Lewis, who heads up ACORN.
Steve Doocy, Sept. 29, 2009
False

* * *

6. "Look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president than all those other presidents combined."
Sarah Palin, May 31, 2011
False

* * *

7. "There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people."
John Stossel, Dec. 4, 2014
False

* * *

8. "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 1, 2010
Pants on Fire

* * *

9. "The insurance industry is actually run by mostly Democrats."
Dana Perino, Oct. 31, 2013
False

* * *

10. The Obama administration "manipulated deportation data to make it appear that the Border Patrol was deporting more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration."
Lou Dobbs, July 1, 2014
False

* * *

11. Some doctors say Ebola can be transmitted through the air by "a sneeze or some cough."
George Will, Oct. 19, 2014
False

* * *

12. Says the Texas State Board of Education is considering eliminating references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks.
Gretchen Carlson, March 10, 2010
Pants on Fire

* * *

13. Because of President Barack Obama’s failure to "push job creation," the black unemployment rate in Ferguson, Mo., is three times higher than the white unemployment rate.
Lou Dobbs, Aug. 19, 2014
False

* * *

14. When White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Mao Tse-tung was "one of her favorite philosophers, only Fox News picked that up."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 23, 2009
False

* * *

15. "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day."
Michele Bachmann, Nov. 3, 2010
False
(Note: Bachmann’s claim was made on CNN, not Fox News but Glenn Beck made a similar claim on Fox)

* * *

16. "We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it."
Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 27, 2010
Pants on Fire

* * *

17. "If you make more than $250,000 a year … you only really take home about $125,000."
Steve Doocy, July 11, 2012
False

* * *

18. A Census Bureau worker says he was told to skew information to bring the unemployment rate down "as we headed into an election season."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Nov. 19, 2013
False

* * *

19. "Health care mandate will require imprisonment and fines for Americans who can’t afford to purchase insurance or pay hefty government penalties."
Patients First, Sept. 21, 2009
Mostly False
(Note:  Fox hosts have said closely similar statements because of our research into Bill O’Reilly’s Pants on Fire claim -- No. 16 -- that no one on Fox News ever said it.)

* * *

20. "And finally tonight, although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart? Comedy Central? He was right. Now on his program last night, he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican health care rally on Capitol Hill. He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event. It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, so Mr. Stewart. you were right, we apologize. But by the way, I wanna thank you, and all your writers, for watching."
Sean Hannity, Nov. 12, 2009

* * *

21. "I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time (2000-08)."
Eric Bolling, July 14, 2011

* * *

22. The United Way and Enroll America, in Coral Gables, Fla., had "navigators going door to door, knocking on the homes of the uninsured … helping them navigate through the different plans that are available.
Phil Keating, Oct. 1, 2013

* * *

23. Less than 10 percent of Obama's Cabinet appointees "have any experience in the private sector."
Glenn Beck, Nov. 30, 2009
False

* * *

24. During the lead-up to the American Revolutionary War, "some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea."
Andrea Tantaros, Jan. 15, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

25. "American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation."
Karl Rove, March 23, 2001
False

* * *

26. "The 'Denver Post' has actually hired an editor to promote pot."
Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 9, 2013
False

* * *

27. "The amount of attention paid this week to Chris Christie makes the coverage of Benghazi ... pale in significance."
Karl Rove, Jan. 12, 2014
False

* * *

28. Liberals have figured out a Facebook algorithm and "all the people getting banned from Facebook are somehow conservatives."
Todd Starnes, April 17, 2014
False

* * *

29. Obamacare is "one big fat VA system."
Kimberly Guilfoyle, May 21, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

30. Says Gov. Rick Scott's approval ratings are up.
Brian Kilmeade, April 15, 2001
False

* * *

31. "Under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government."
Sen. Tom Coburn, March 4, 2009
False

* * *

32. If you log into the government's Cash for Clunkers website (cars.gov) from your home computer, the government can "seize all of your personal and private" information, and track your computer activity.   
Kimberly Guilfoyle, July 31, 2009
False

* * *

33. The Massachusetts health care plan is "wildly unpopular" among state residents.
Laura Ingraham, May 12, 2011
False

* * *

34. "The Constitution simply does not authorize the federal government to own any of this land (in the Western states)."
Andrew Napolitano, April 23, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

35. Says President Barack Obama is "sending a much larger (force) " to deal with Ebola "than ISIS is getting."
Brit Hume, Sept. 21, 2014
False

* * *

36. On climate change, "the temperature readings have been fabricated, and it's all blowing up in their (scientists') faces."
Dana Perino, Feb. 9, 2015
Pants on Fire

* * *

37. Says President Barack Obama’s recent New York fundraising trip "cost between $25 million and $50 million."
Donald Trump, Oct. 13, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

38. Under President Barack Obama, "8.3 (million) fewer Americans are working today than there were four years ago."
Sean Hannity, Jan. 20, 2013
False

* * *

39. Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
Sarah Palin, Aug. 7, 2009
Pants on Fire
(Note: This claim was made originally on Facebook. It’s unclear to us if Palin said it on Fox News.)

* * *

40. New poll by YouGov shows that 7/10 people who voted for President Obama’s re-election in 2012 ‘regret’ doing so
Fox and Friend tweet, Feb. 19, 2014
False

* * *

41. "NASA scientists fudged the numbers to make 1998 the hottest year to overstate the extent of global warming."
Steve Doocy, June 24, 2014
Pants on Fire

* * *

42. A new Colorado law "literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to ‘collectors.’ "
Megyn Kelly, Oct. 21, 2014
False

* * *

43. The Affordable Care Act alters the "sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program ... we see today."
Sarah Palin, Nov. 24, 2013
False

* * *

44. Since 1965, the United States has spent "untold trillions" yet the poverty rate hasn’t budged.
Bill O’Reilly, July 26, 2011
False

* * *

45. Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy marijuana.
Brian Kilmeade, Jan. 21, 2014
False

* * *

46. "Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in the dismissal of the criminal charges" against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation
Bill O’Reilly, July 17, 2010
False

* * *

47. "Barack Obama had 150 days in the U.S. Senate where he was able to vote quite often 'present.' "
Sarah Palin, Feb. 6, 2010
False

* * *

48. "It will cost $50,000 per enrollee in Obamacare over the next 10 years."
Stuart Varney, Jan. 27, 2015
False

* * *

49. "We're going to be looking at $8 billion a day that we're going to be pouring into foreign countries in order to import that make-up fuel that we're going to need to take the place of what we could have gotten out of the Gulf (of Mexico)."
Sarah Palin, May 1, 2013
Pants on Fire

* * *

50. "Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth? We're the only country in the world that has it."
Glenn Beck, June 10, 2009
False

* * *

THE GOP & OBAMACARE

From what I've read, it's unlikely that the Supreme Court will declare most of Obamacare null and void but just in case, some GOP senators are trying to work out a plan to maintain the current subsidies according to Byron York:

GOP scrambles to keep Obamacare subsidies flowing in case of Supreme Court victory
By Byron York | February 26, 2015 | 5:16 pm
Washington Examiner

If the justices bar the payment of subsidies through those exchanges, it would be both a victory for the health law's critics and a problem for Republicans running Congress.

Which is why a Senate GOP working group has been meeting for months to figure out what to do should the challenge to Obamacare succeed.

"We're committed to helping the people who have been hurt by the healthcare law," said Republican Sen. John Barrasso, leader of the working group. "We're not going to help the law, but we're going to help the people, so they are not left in the lurch."

What that means is Republicans are going to find a way to continue paying subsidies to the estimated 7.5 million Americans who receive taxpayer-funded help to pay their insurance premiums through the federal Obamacare exchange.

In recent private polling for the conservative group Independent Women's Voice, a huge majority of respondents said it would be important to "do something to restore the subsidies" in the case of a Court decision striking them down.

The GOP working group still hasn't decided on a specific plan. One group member, Sen. Ben Sasse, has proposed a system based on the old "Cobra" law that allowed people to continue their health insurance after leaving a job. Under Sasse's proposal, the subsidies would continue for 18 months, until Congress passes a new health law to supersede Obamacare.

This is more evidence that Obamacare is here to stay.

SCOTT WALKER == NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME...

and my hunch us that he never will be ready.   Even one writer for the National Review agrees that this is a fuck-up:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Taking on ISIS is totally like busting up unions
ARTURO GARCIA
2/26/2015

“If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” Walker said in response to a question about how he would handle groups like ISIS.

UPDATE: Rick Ungar of Forbes got to the main point at the beginning of February -

Here is the reality—as I’ve been saying for longer than I can remember, Scott Walker is a mediocre county executive who has risen far beyond his talents.

GLENN BECK TIDBITS

Yes,  he's still going apocalyptic about Net Neutrailty but today he showed a little overdue humility by stating that we wouldn't see the bad part of net neutrality for at least 3 years, perhaps even 5.

More interesting was his comment to Rick Santorum that we are now "stuck with" Obamacare and Santorum's tacit consent.

THIS POLL OF GOP PRIMARY VOTERS EXPLAINS A LOT

(h/t Steve Benen)

At least half of the GOP's base are unAmerican because they want a national religion.  From PPP:

I'M CHANGING MY OPINION OF THE FEDERALIST

Maybe Sean Davis had a bad day so he wrote this drivel instead of something closer to reality as he has done in the past (see here & here).

DIANE DOUGLAS PROMISED TO ELIMINATE COMMON CORE

And now that won't happen, so will she resign?

Senate votes to preserve Common Core

By: Howard Fischer,
Capitol Media Services
February 23, 2015 , 6:05 pm

Common Core appears to be here to stay, at least for the time being.

On a 19-10 vote the Senate on Monday killed legislation which would have allowed schools to develop their own academic standards. More to the point, those standards would not have to be linked to the Common Core standards that were adopted by the state Board of Education in 2010.

Monday’s vote comes less than a week after the House Education Committee voted to block the education board from implementing the standards.

But what the House thinks may end up being irrelevant unless state senators reach the same conclusion. And this is the second year the Senate has refused to scrap the standards.

THE ECONOMIST GETS RIGHT TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER

This is a great reply to the Giuliani/Walker/Issa nonsense about Pres. Obama's patriotism:

A politician capable of projecting an earnest, simple, unstinting love of a spotless and superior America is either a treacherous rabble-rouser or so out of touch that he is not qualified to govern. So Barack Obama doesn't love America like a conservative. So what? His realism and restraint are among his greatest strengths.

NOT A SURPRISE

Benjamin Netanyahu lies just as much as our neo-cons.

Leaks contradict Israel's claim Iran was close to bomb
AFP
5 hours ago

London (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Iran was a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his secret services, according to reports Monday citing leaked documents.

In 2012 Netanyahu told world leaders at the United Nations that Iran could create a nuclear weapon within a year, brandishing a diagram in the form of a lit bomb to indicate the advanced state of Tehran's development effort.

But weeks after the speech, Mossad shared a report with South African intelligence which concluded Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons," according to the Guardian.

DANIELLE PLETKA IS STILL WITH US

Despite being so wrong about so many things since the year 2000, she's still invited to one of the most prominent Sunday news shows.

ARE BAD CONSERVATIVE IDEAS IMMORTAL?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, AKA "The Ole Perfesser," has reminded me of a bit of conservative ugliness during the years of debate about the Iraq War.  Here's Reymolds from his USA Today op-ed:

In a country like ours, where voters reign supreme, it seems as if concern about the patriotism of rulers ought to also apply to voters.

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, in his famous novel Starship Troopers, envisioned a society where voters, too, had to demonstrate their patriotism before being allowed to vote. In his fictional society, the right to vote came only after some kind of dangerous public service — in the military, as a volunteer in dangerous medical experiments, or in other ways that demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice personally for the common good. The thought was that such voters would be more careful, and less selfish, in their voting.

So when the five-day wonder of questioning Barack Obama's patriotism is over, perhaps we should address another question: How patriotic is the electorate? And how long can we survive as a nation if the answer is "not very"? And we should proceed from there.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BANKSTER SCAM IS REVEALED

(h/t Atrios)

The system of modern high-finance needs a complete overhaul.

Leaked files show that the HSBC chief executive was a client of the bank’s Swiss subsidiary at the centre of the scandal.

James Ball, Juliette Garside, David Pegg and Harry Davies
Sunday 22 February 2015 16.03 EST
THE GUARDIAN

Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC chief executive who has vowed to reform the crisis-hit bank, sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company and remains tax domiciled in Hong Kong.

Leaked files show that the Derby-born Gulliver, who is due to present HSBC’s annual report on Monday in the wake of the international controversy over its Geneva-based private bank, was also one of its clients, holding about £5m in a Swiss account.

The bank executive was listed as the beneficial owner of an account in the name of Worcester Equities Inc, an anonymous company registered in Panama, containing a balance in 2007 of $7.6m. It was through this entity that Gulliver’s HSBC bonuses were paid until 2003. He also held a second account in the name of Worcester Foundation, which had been closed before 2007.

The documents, covering 2005-07, detailed how the private bank was complicit in tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, doled out bricks of cash in mixed currencies to clients, and provided banking services to criminals, drug smugglers, and friends and families of dictators.