Chuck Schumer has it exactly right

He's getting flack for saying it, but he's exactly right. It's a simple matter of politics -- the Republicans have a vested interest in the economy being bad.

They calculate that the worse the economy is, the better their chances of beating Obama in 2012. Therefore, it's in their political interest to make sure that nothing be allowed to create more jobs or improve the economy. They must stand in the way of anything that helps the economy get better.

It's just politics.

WASHINGTON -- Republicans may be slowing the recovery on purpose to hurt President Obama's reelection chances in 2012, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a speech on Thursday.

The speech made explicit a message Democrats have been hinting at for weeks: Republicans are hurting the recovery with their focus on spending cuts, and it may be an attempt to slow "down the recovery on purpose for political gain in 2012."

"Now it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan -- and it has a double-benefit for Republicans," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "It is ideologically tidy and it undermines the economic recovery, which they think only helps them in 2012."

As proof, Schumer referenced remarks by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said last year his main aim was to make Obama a one-term president.

Vague generalities

Herman Cain showed that he's not able to give specific answers, preferring instead only vague generalities. Those times he has given specifics, he's walked them back later, claiming he was "exaggerating." (Three-page bills, anyone?) If he's really a serious candidate, he needs to start bringing some real game.

From Matt Schneider at Mediaite:

Depending on one’s view of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, either Eliot Spitzer did a public service last night or committed another example of that often mentioned “mainstream liberal bias.” In his interview with Cain last night, Spitzer demanded specific answers from Cain on a bunch of issues, to which Cain uncomfortably and frequently responded “I am not going to let you pin me down on a specific.”

Spitzer’s request for specific regulations stifling innovation, specific deficit numbers, and specific percentages of the budget may have seemed like an unfair “gotcha” quiz to some, yet Cain’s non-answers on most questions may have established that Cain’s knowledge of certain issues is not as deep as Republican primary voters would hope.

Right wingers want less intrusion?

Someone just wrote to me, I presume with a straight face, that right wingers “want less government intrusion” in our lives.

Yeah. Except for gays wanting to get married. Or a woman wanting to have an abortion. Then it’s nothing BUT intrusion and regulations.

This person also tried to write to me that right wingers “want ALL people to vote.”

Uh, no, they don’t. Not by a long shot. That’s why in teabagger-run state after state, they’re trying to pass new laws and government regulations adding more hoops to jump through, hoops specifically harder to jump through for those who tend to vote Democratic. It’s not an accident. These new regulations are designed to suppress the votes of those who usually vote for their opponents, and in their version of America, they can’t have people voting for the “wrong” party.

Limbaugh using Nazi rhetoric

I wonder if all right wingers really mean to cheer pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who are deliberately - I think - using the same rhetoric against Obama and Democrats that the Nazis used against the Jews.

Really. You can take their rants, change the object to "Jews," and you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between what Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh say from what Hitler said.

Right wingers are OPPOSED to government regulations

Right wingers are OPPOSED to excessive government regulations! Government regulations are evil!

Unless it's about young people or minorities wanting to vote.

Or a woman wanting to have an abortion.

Or a brown-skinned person carrying all his legal documents with him in case cops pull him over.

Or if you want to rent an apartment to someone who looks foreign.

Bristol gets snarky with Michele

Bristol Palin gets catty with Michele Bachmann, accusing Bachmann of "totally" ripping off her mom's look:

I think she dresses a lot like my mom. But a lot, a lot of women have done that the last few years. I do think it’s odd, you know, seeing people with red blazers with their hair up with glasses.

I don’t know if she’s wearing glasses but you want to be “Hummmm, do you think that people don’t notice you’re dressing like my mom?”

Meow.

Jon Stewart nails Fox News AGAIN

When will Fox News learn? Even though they used practically everyone on the network to trash Jon Stewart, he'll always score.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oh, for Fox Sake - Stewart Eviscerates Stewart
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Anti-government nut sentenced to death for killing cops

An anti-government nut, who targeted police because he was convinced society was collapsing, has been sentenced to death.

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania man was sentenced to death on Tuesday for killing three Pittsburgh police officers who responded to a domestic dispute at his mother's house in 2009.

Richard Poplawski, 24, was found guilty over the weekend of murder and other charges for fatally shooting officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo on April 4, 2009, at the house in the city's Stanton Heights neighborhood.

Poplawski's mother had called 911 to report a domestic dispute. He was arrested after being wounded during a three-hour standoff with police. His mother said she had argued with her son that morning after discovering his dog had urinated inside the house, according to a criminal complaint filed by police.

She said Poplawski had been discharged from the Marine Corps for assaulting his drill sergeant and had been stockpiling guns and ammunition because he believed police were no longer able to protect society due to the economic collapse, according to court documents.

Jon Stewart demolished Fox News again

Another must-watch from Jon.

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Nice to have Olbermann back

Sure is nice to have Keith Olbermann back in action. But does anyone know if DirecTV has plans to upgrade Current to HD? Is Current even offered in HD anywhere?

Blatant lies and boneheaded flubs

Michele Bachmann's blatant lies and boneheaded flubs are raising eyebrows.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michele Bachmann's claim that she has "never gotten a penny" from a family farm that's been subsidized by the government is at odds with her financial disclosure statements. They show tens of thousands in personal income from the operation.

And, on a less-substantive note, she flubbed her hometown history when declaring "John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa," and "that's the kind of spirit that I have, too," in running for president.

The actor was born nearly 150 miles away. It was the serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. who lived, for a time, in Waterloo.

Those were among the latest examples of how the Minnesota congresswoman has become one to watch — for inaccuracies as well as rising support — in the Republican presidential race.

Bachmann's wildly off-base assertion last month that a NATO airstrike might have killed as many as 30,000 Libyan civilians, her misrepresentations of the health care law, misfires on other aspects of President Barack Obama's record and historical inaccuracies have saddled her with a reputation for uttering populist jibes that don't hold up.

The Great 405 Freeway Conspiracy!

The 405 through L.A. is one of the busiest, most congested freeways in the world, and for about two and a half days a 10 mile stretch of it will be closed for some freeway work, displacing millions of cars and no doubt causing gridlock for hundreds of miles around.

This blog writer is having a bit of fun with his conspiracy-minded friends about the project:

Wait a minute, though. Ten miles of freeway? For a bridge demolition? Seems like a bit much to me. Why can’t they let us get any closer than that? Does this seem a little hokey to anyone else?

Knowing there are plenty of people out there who are determined to find out the truth behind the lies we’re told, I went to my trusty old series of tubes to get some answers.

But alas—there were no deeper answers to be found! Can it be that no one has any insights as to what they might really be doing on the 405 over the weekend of the 16-17 July? Constructing new underground viaducts for the lizard people? Israeli scientists doing killer shark exercise at the Skirball? A perfect setup for some Thomas Crown shit at the Getty?

Since the usual truth-seekers haven’t offered any ideas about what’s going on with the Sepulveda Pass, I ask you, dear readers: What do you suppose might actually be important enough (bridge demolition? ha!) to divert traffic for two days?

For more fun, here's a list of the 7 craziest conspiracy theories of all time. (Odd that the 9-11 conspiracy didn't make the list -- hmmm.... IT'S A CONSPIRACY!)

Expelled

Remember the creationist movie, "Expelled"? Its makers have gone bankrupt and the movie is on the auction block. PZ Myers has the story:

As I've already mentioned, the makers of the Expelled movie have gone bankrupt, and the movie itself is on the auction block…and a few people on the side of goodness, light, and knowledge are making a bid to buy it. There's some reasonable interest there: the Expelled crew did a lot of interviews, and only a small portion of them actually made it to the screen. Personally, I can tell you that they spent about three hours with me one afternoon, and maybe a minute of that total made it to the movie. I was actually surprised that that one bit was all that made the cut, and even it was absurdly innocuous — it made me suspect I'd been doing my teddy bear imitation that afternoon again.

Anyway, it's a reasonable interest to get all the other stuff that was left on the cutting room floor, as the Panda's Thumb bidders have already explained:

The auction promises that besides all available rights and interests in the finished film itself (there is an existing distribution contract), the winner will get all the production materials and rights to them. Want to know what was in the rest of the interviews with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers? I know I would like to have that material archived and made available to the public, among other things that Premise Media found inconvenient to include in their film.

“Are you a flake?”

Chris Wallace asks Michele Bachmann, "Are you a flake?"

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said Sunday that it was “insulting” for a Fox News host to ask if she was a “flake.”

“I am very serious about what I want to do,” Bachmann told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “People recognize that I’m serious.”

“You say that people saw in the debate, saw you as a serious person,” Wallace noted. “I don’t have to tell you that you have — that the rap on you in Washington is you have a history of questionable statements, some would say gaffes — talking about anti-America members of Congress, to on this show a couple of months ago when you suggested that NATO airstrikes have killed up to 30,000 civilians. Are you a flake?”

“Well, I think that would be insulting to say something like that because I’m a serious person,” Bachmann replied.

Newt talks, we laugh

Newt Gingrich is defending his political "strategy" of having all his top people constantly quit his campaign. Oh, and he's pissed about gays getting married.

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Saturday said the adoption of same-sex marriage in New York showed the nation is "drifting toward a terrible muddle."

Saying he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, he told reporters that he "would like to find ways to defend that view as legitimately and effectively as possible."

Speaking at a Tea Party bus tour event in Indianola, Gingrich said mass resignations among his campaign staff stemmed from his "fundamental disagreement" with consultants.

A former aide said the differences mainly involved the staff view that Gingrich should campaign heavily in the early primary states and Gingrich's view that he should instead go on a Greek cruise with his wife.

Protecting marriage?

Some Christians say they have to protect marriage from gays getting married.

But it's interesting to note that the Bible says nothing about gay marriage. On the other hand, it does forbid remarriage after divorce and Christians from marrying non-Christians. But I certainly haven't seen a big push by Christian groups to make remarriage after divorce illegal, or to ban Christian and non-Christian marriage... certainly not at the level of effort they put into stopping gays from marrying.

Why is that? Why are they ignoring two explicit, outright biblical prohibitions about marriage in their zeal to stop the "nasty" gays from marrying the person they love?

Treason

Remember when Bush was president and any talk of voting down military authorization was called TREASON?

The House has voted down a measure giving President Barack Obama the authority to continue the U.S. military action against Libya.

The vote was 295-123 on Friday. The congressional action has no immediate effect on American involvement but represents a repudiation of the commander in chief.

The vote marks the first time since 1999 that either House has voted against a military operation. The last time was over President Bill Clinton's authority in the Bosnian war.

Show us the jury notice

Sarah Palin claims she cut her bus tour short because she was called for jury duty. I don’t know about you, but I want her to show us the original, long-form jury notice!

How long can Sarah Palin claim that jury duty is keeping her from her cross-country bus tour? Indefinitely, in theory.

The state of Alaska is not required to disclose if or when Palin (or any citizen, for that matter) has been called for jury duty.

“Jury lists are confidential, regardless of who is on them,” a spokesperson for the Palmer courthouse, which presides over Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, told ABC News today.

The former Alaska governor/potential presidential candidate blasted the media Wednesday for reports that she canceled her “One Nation Tour,” which has been on a three-week-long hiatus since it left the Northeast. (Palin previously told ABC News she wanted to tour Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada and beyond.)

Herman Cain plays the race card

Remember how every time you turned around, teabaggers accused you of "playing the race card" for daring to defend President Obama? I wonder what they think of Herman Cain, ACTUALLY PLAYING THE RACE CARD.

No love for teabaggers in the sunshine state

Support for teabaggers has COLLAPSED in Florida.

Aligning yourself too closely to the tea party could be a great way to lose an election in Florida, apparently. So says a recent poll by Gainesville, Florida based polling firm War Room Logistics. In the poll, registered Florida voters said 2:1 that the tea party did not represent their views. War Room's Alex Patton says this could pose "a real danger to Republican candidates".

Democrats and independents both gave the tea party the thumbs down, with independent voters holding unfavorable views of the nascent far-right movement 3-to-1. Typically Florida elections are decided by independent voters, and the only constituency still in favor of the recent tide of tea party politicians elected in the Fall of 2010 are Republicans, 68 percent of whom view the tea party favorably.

Patton says the risk for the GOP lies in embracing the tea party in order to win the primary election, then being pilloried in the general election by a population who find the tea party's views to be extreme and divisive. Primary elections, however, most often draw a party's most committed members, and in the Republicans' case, these are the voters most likely to support the tea party.

The Florida poll mirrors national Gallup polls that show only 33 percent of Americans holding favorable views of the Tea party. Pollster Dave Beattie says that one reason for the decline in popularity is that, "Republicans are parents, too, and they don't like cuts to the classroom."

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/23/poll-tea-party-poses-real-danger-to-gop-in-florida/

The First Lady and Nelson Mandela

This is why nothing can get done–Republicans refuse to compromise on ANYTHING

Obama and the Democrats are always compromising - sometimes to their detriment - because back in the Golden Age the parties accomplished things by compromising with each other. Today's reactionary extremist Republicans suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome cannot compromise on anything -- even on things they used to support until Obama agreed to them.

The Republicans intend to destroy this nation out of sheer hatred of the black man in the White House.

House Republicans are pulling out of negotiations being led by Vice President Joe Biden on the budget because Democrats insist on pairing spending cuts with at least some tax increases.

Cantor said the Republican-dominated House simply won't support tax increases and that he won't participate in a meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Iquiterod!

Sarah Palin quit her term as governor halfway through. She said she was quitting to do more work for the people of Alaska. Obviously that was bullshit.

Well, now she's quit her bus tour halfway through!

Amid diminishing media interest, Sarah Palin has quit her high-profile bus tour halfway through and returned to Alaska with her family, according to RealClearPolitics.

The move puts a damper on widespread speculations that Palin's "One Nation" bus tour, which launched on Memorial Day, was a potential precursor to a potential White House bid for 2012. Palin never made it to her scheduled stops in the key primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Kissin' babies

No doubt, the teabaggers will screech, "INDOCTRINATION!"

Vitter in trouble again

David Vitter's in trouble again, and this time it doesn't have anything to do with him paying hookers to put diapers on him.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) says Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) may have gone too far when he demanded President Barack Obama's Interior secretary approve deepwater oil well permits in exchange for a salary increase.

CREW filed a complaint (PDF) Tuesday calling for the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate Vitter for bribery.

In a May 23 letter (PDF) to Secretary Ken Salazar, Vitter was clear that he would not vote for a pay raise until the Department of Interior began issuing six deepwater exploratory permits each month.

Huntsman's in

Moderate Republican Jon Huntsman is now officially in the race. Does he have a chance in hell, or is he way too moderate for the right wing extremists now in control of the GOP? They'll probably refuse to even consider him, seeing as he he once said nice things about that nasty black man in the White House.

Obama impersonator pulled off stage for mocking Republican candidates, NOT racist jokes

I'm still seeing headlines that say Reggie Brown, an Obama impersonator, was yanked off the stage at the Republican Leadership Conference for making racist jokes. That's not what happened. The right wing audience loved the racist jokes, didn't have a problem with them at all. It was when he went after the Reopublican candidates, Michele Bachmann in particular, that his mike was cut and he was pulled off.

The Obama impersonator is now telling his side of the story.

Reggie Brown, the Obama impersonator whose set was cut short at the Republican Leadership Conference this past weekend, is pushing back against the idea that he was yanked off stage for making racial remarks about President Obama -- but he does acknowledge that his barbs at GOP presidential candidates may have struck a nerve with the conservative audience.

“I was told it was a time constraint,” Brown told CNN's Kyra Phillips on Monday. He says conference organizers told him that he had 15-20 minutes for his set and that he had run a few minutes over when his microphone was cut off mid-way through a joke about Michele Bachmann.

Was it a coincidence that he was escorted off the stage just as he was poking fun at a Republican presidential candidate, Phillips asked? “I was at the Republican Leadership Conference, and I was just entering my set where I was starting to have some fun with the Republican candidates,” Brown replied. “I do believe that I was over my time by a few minutes, and I also believe that the material was starting to get to a point to where maybe they started to feel uncomfortable with where it was going.”

RLC President and CEO Charlie Davis told CNN that the performance had gone too far and was getting inappropriate. "Had I been in the room I would have pulled him sooner. We have zero tolerance for racially insensitive jokes. As soon as I realized what was going on I rushed backstage and had him pulled," Davis said.

Brown said that organizers should have been aware of the material he planned to use, since much of it had been done before at other events. “Whenever we work with a client we always forward them our website, so a lot of the material that I did do at the Leadership Conference had been done time and time again in front of all different types of audiences -- Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, all ends of the political spectrum. We may have added two or three jokes, but all was pretty standard from my set.”

Brown disputed that the racial jokes played in part in his set being cut short.

“I didn't hear any boos on any of the racial jokes,” Brown said. “The president, like myself, shares a mixed background. My mother's white, my father's black, and I feel very safe delivering content like that. And the president himself has poked fun at his heritage.”

“I wouldn't touch anything that I don't think the president would feel comfortable with or hasn't done himself," Brown said. "He's someone that I respect, and I want to make him happy, and I want him to appreciate what I'm doing.”

GOP hoping for a bad economy

The GOP is hoping for a bad economy, because they think that's the only way they can beat Obama in 2012. So it's obvious why they'll oppose anything that would create jobs and make things better for America.

And the bad economic news would appear to hurt Obama's chances, until you dig deeper into the numbers.

According to a state-by-state analysis conducted by Matt McDonald, a partner at the GOP-aligned Hamilton Place Strategies, the unemployment rate outpaced the national average in only four swing states last month: Florida, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina.

Of that quartet, Nevada is in the toughest economic shape by far, with a 12.1 percent unemployment rate. Florida (10.6 percent) and Michigan (10.3 percent) have double-digit jobless rates, while North Carolina’s 9.7 percent keeps it slightly above the national average.

Those four states will account for 66 electoral votes in 2012. Both parties are likely to target 10 states that have unemployment rates below the national average — Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Those states have a total of 106 electoral votes.

That means Obama could lose all four states where unemployment is above the national average and — assuming he can retain the other states he won in 2008 — still win a relatively comfortable reelection with 299 electoral votes.

“All of this is in the context of a pretty bad economy, but if I were sitting in the White House, the silver lining is that the economy is less bad in the places the president really needs to win,” McDonald said.

Taxpayer-funded teabagger rallies

Michele Bachmann used taxpayer money for a teabagger rally.

According to House expense reports, Bachmann and three conservative GOP colleagues — Reps. Tom Price (Ga.), Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) — each paid $3,407.50 that day, a total of $13,630, to a sound and stage company called National Events, apparently for the sound system used at the rally.

The money came from the Members' taxpayer-funded office accounts, despite House rules prohibiting the use of these funds for political activities. Bachmann's office insists the expense was a proper use of official funds.

Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press and, unlike most press conferences, it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

A few days earlier, the Minnesota Republican had appeared on a Fox News talk show and made an appeal for activists to come to D.C. for the event, promising to help them lobby Congress against the bill.

If atheists acted like some Christians

What if atheists acted like some hardcore right wing Christians? It might look something like this:

Bipartisan golfing

President Obama, Vice President Biden, House Speaker John Boehner and Governor John Kasich joined together for a round of golf yesterday. And if you're wondering whether Team Democrat or Team Republican won, the answer is no. Only because bipartisan-minded Obama teamed with Republican Boehner against Biden and Kasich. No scores were released, but we're told Team Obama/Boehner beat Team Biden/Kasich at the 18th hole, and won a whopping prize of two dollars.

Like yesterday, right wing pundits are today slamming Obama for playing golf while making no mention that Boehner and Kasich played golf with him. I heard one radio host ranting for about a half hour that Obama shouldn’t dare play golf while anyone is out of work, while making no mention of Boehner, or the fact that plenty of Washington Republicans are playing golf too. It seems it’s only an outrage if Obama does it.

Cue right wing pundits screeching about how "arrogant" Obama was for touching Boehner!

Teabaggers may hate Obama more than they hate Romney

Don't underestimate the hatred teabaggers feel for President Obama. They might just hate Obama more than they hate Mitt Romney, and be willing to hold their noses and vote for Mittens.

And if they're willing to vote for Romney, whom they hate, it just shows the ferociousness of their hate for the black man in the White House. They figure a white guy - even if he's a "libruhl" RINO - is better than any black guy.

Among just Republican respondents, his net positive rating is 35 percent (46 percent positive/11 percent negative), with a strong thumbs up coming from men over 50, core GOP voters, and those who say the government is doing too many things that should be left to the private sector. No surprises there.

But among Tea Party supporters, his net positive rating is +40 percent. (53 percent positive, just 13 percent negative.)

That’s slightly BETTER than Sarah Palin’s approval among Tea Party supporters. Fifty-eight percent view her positively but her negative rating is also higher at 22 percent.

And while Romney may benefit from stronger name ID than some other declared candidates, he’s besting several of them with Tea Party types: Pawlenty (+22 percent with Tea Party supporters), Newt Gingrich (+4 percent), and Jon Huntsman (dead even). 

The one GOP figure more popular with Tea Partiers than Romney? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (+49 percent) … who recently said that he is “100 percent certain” he’s not going to run for president.

The favorability of Tea Party-favorites Rep. Michele Bachmann and pizza magnate Herman Cain was not tested in the NBC/WSJ poll, but in horserace matchups, Romney still won a plurality of Tea Party supporters.

Sarah Palin tells a sex joke

Sarah Palin makes a sex joke about Anthony Weiner... Or is she smart enough to know she made a sex joke? That's the real question.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin made an appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch to discuss the hoopla surrounding her emails (In a nutshell: Palin rightly points out that the entire situation was wildly dumb. In so many words.) She also took a moment to comment on Anthony Weiner’s scandal. Judge Napolitano asked Palin whether she thought Weiner’s constituents were “entitled to have a pervert representing them in Congress” if that is what they so choose. Palin said that people are indeed entitled to have “someone like Anthony Weiner” represent them, but that she has faith in the people of Queens and Brooklyn to want and receive better.

Also, this:

Anthony Weiner from henceforth after his personal indiscretions were disclosed, he was going to rendered impotent, basically, there in Congress and he wasn’t going to be able to be effective.

Watch the video here.

Weiner resigning today

Anthony Weiner is resigning today for doing something 1 in 5 Americans do. On principle, I don’t think he should resign, because this involved nothing illegal, just embarrassing.

But politically, I know he has to, even though people like David Vitter are still in office, because Weiner’s seat is not in danger of falling to a Republican, so the Democratic Party had no political reason to defend him… and this “scandal” IS distracting from the message.

However, there is one thing I won’t be able to forgive Weiner for… and that’s giving slime like Andrew Breitbart just a teeny tiny ounce of credibility.

Interviewed Olbermann in his underwear

Stephen Colbert interviewed Keith Olbermann in his underwear. Colbert was in his underwear, that is, while Olbermann was wearing pants. Jeans, to be exact. With a dress shirt, jacket & tie.

See the video here.

And Keith Olbermann's new Countdown show debuts Monday on Current TV, at 8pm ET.

1 in 5 Americans do it too

Anthony Weiner is resigning for doing something 1 in 5 Americans do: sexting.

Don't point the finger at Anthony Weiner, people. You do it to. At least some of you do. And you can't all be raging liberals.

A new poll commissioned by the maker of Trojan condoms finds about one in five Americans "have engaged in sexting."

Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't avoid sending a photo of your boner to women who aren't your wife. Especially if you're a U.S. congressman. But still, a lot of us are guilty here because ...

... the survey looked at Americans ages 18 and older. So it's not just the kids who have figured out how to make their mini keyboards sing. (And look people, if you're going to sext, do it properly).

The survey also found that 18 percent of Americans -- again, almost one out of five -- have had sex with someone they've met online. So that's like, beyond Weiner.

In California, sexting for teens could become a crime. Almost. A bill by Torrance-based state Sen. Ted Lieu would allow schools to expel kids for sexting.

But not if they're U.S. representatives.

The abortion hypocrisy of Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum says ABORTION IS MURDER. And he means it. He means it so much, he'd like to see LEGAL PENALTIES for abortion. Except he won't say the death penalty... Which is odd because you'd think a law and order guy like Santorum would believe MURDERERS should get the death penalty, and ABORTION IS MURDER, at all times, in all situations, even in cases of rape or incest.

Except when his wife had one. That's right. Rick Santorum okayed not just an abortion, but a PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, to save the life of his wife.

Of course, his situation is different. It's okay for him and his wife to have made that choice. It's just not okay for anyone else. IT'S MURDER.

And for those who say abortion is murder except in cases where the woman's life is in danger, their logic is a bit suspect there too -- if abortion is murder, surely they're not saying that murder is permissible to save someone's life, are they?

They are, of course. They won't admit it, because they just love the juicy ABORTION IS MURDER rhetoric. But if they don’t call for the death penalty for abortion - those who provide them and the women who have them - and if they make any exceptions, then they don't really believe abortion is murder.

And that's okay. The Bible doesn't think abortion is murder either. In the Old Testament, causing the death of a fetus was nothing more than a minor property crime.

What in the world are they talking about?

The vilest campaign ad ever

This is possibly the vilest, most racist, most sexist campaign ad ever made. No surprise it was made on behalf of a teabagger.

The special election to replace the retired Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) just took a turn for the spectacular. A new web video aimed at boosting the Republican chances for an upset win is
dropping jaws at the Democratic candidate's headquarters and prompting calls for a bipartisan condemnation of the shockingly negative attack.

The election pits Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn (D) against businessman Craig Huey, a tea party Republican who's second place finish in one of California's first jungle primaries came as a surprise to most. The race to the July 12 runoff has fallen to the national backburner as attention shifted to the NY-26 race and a more general discussion of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R) budget plan.

That could be about to change, thanks to the web ad produced by the brand-new Turn Right USA PAC, which filed its official paperwork last week.

More bad news for right wingers

Yet more bad news for right wingers, who were banking on the economy being bad enough to sink Obama in 2012: gas and food prices are headed back down.

Wholesale food prices fell last month by the most in nearly a year, and gas prices keep dropping after peaking in May. A separate survey suggests CEOs are feeling more optimistic and will hire more in the second half of this year.

It amounted to welcome news Tuesday after a rough patch that has stoked worries the economic recovery is slowing. More jobs and lower prices would both give Americans more money to spend on other things and rejuvenate economic growth.

Gas prices at the wholesale level rose in May by the smallest amount in eight months. At the pump, they're coming down. On Tuesday, the national average was $3.70 a gallon, according to AAA. Gas has fallen steadily since the national average almost hit $4 a gallon in early May. It's still about a dollar more expensive than a year ago.

What's Sarah hiding?

What's Sarah Palin afraid of us finding out?

Nearly a month of former Gov. Sarah Palin's emails are missing from the documents released to media organizations last week, a gap that raises questions about what other emails might also be missing from what's being nationally reported as her record as Alaska governor.

The records include no emails between Dec. 8, 2006 and Dec. 29, 2006. The state's log of emails that it withheld from public release also lists none from that time period.

That means, if the record is to be trusted, Palin did not send or receive a single email about state business during a time when she was busy taking the first major actions of her new administration. That means zero emails during a period during which, among other things, Palin put out her proposed state budget, appointed an attorney general, killed the contract for a road out of Juneau and vetoed a bill that sought to block state public employee benefits to same-sex couples.

The state had no explanation Monday.

Top 2 takeaways from last night's GOP debate

The two biggest things I took away from last night's GOP debate were:

1) Tim Pawlenty has decided to stop running for president and is running for vice president. It seems he's convinced Mitt Romney is going to get the nomination so he's angling to be the running mate. That's why he didn't press any attack on Romney when given the opportunity. Twice. In fact, that may explain why none of the rest of them appeared to go after Romney too hard.

2) Michele Bachmann has the ability to be slightly more coherent than Sarah Palin, in that she was able to memorize more complex sentences and slightly larger words than Palin. But only slightly.

Santorum’s words should make you vomit

In an era when abortion providers are assassinated and gunned down in cold blood by religious nuts, Rick Santorum used a turn of phrase that should make you vomit.

“You can look at my record,” Santorum said. “Not only have I been consistently pro-life, I have not just taken the pledge but I’ve taken the bullets to go out there and fight for this and lead on those issues.”

Almost two years ago, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed with actual bullets.

Fischer: Gays threaten free speech but he wants blasphemy & profanity outlawed

Bryan Fischer, the nation’s preeminent hater of all things gay, says that homosexuals threaten liberty and free speech. I can’t imagine what Fischer thinks should be done about that, since it seems to me such a dire threat must be answered by, I don’t know, outlawing gays, deporting them, or maybe even firing up some ovens.

But the irony in Fischer saying gays threaten free speech is the fact that he thinks profanity and blasphemy (and I presume he’ll decide what blasphemy is) made illegal.

The horror of American-style health care

What are British voters afraid of? "American-style" health care. They're so afraid of it that the only way British politicians can get support is to promise not to change their health care system to an "American-style" one.

Two years ago, Britons were outraged when U.S. politicians like Sarah Palin, in the debate over healthcare reform, turned this country's National Health Service into a public whipping boy, denouncing it as "evil," "Orwellian" and generally the enemy of everything good and true.

Britain is now embroiled in a healthcare argument of its own, prompted by a proposed shake-up of the NHS. And the phrase on everyone's lips is "American-style," which may not be as catchy as the "death panels" that Palin attributed to socialized medicine but which, over here, inspires pretty much the same kind of terror.

Ask a Briton to describe "American-style" healthcare, and you'll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can't afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy.

How homophobic is Allen West?

When one of Allen West’s interns re-tweeted a pro-gay tweet, West fired him.

Same-sex marriage foe Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has fired the intern who re-tweeted a message responding to Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant sent out by the openly-gay band the Scissor Sisters. “Dear Tracy Morgan’s son: if you are gay, you can TOTALLY come live with me. We’ll read James Baldwin & watch Paris is Burning. xxANA,” the group wrote. Moments after West’s intern forwarded the message, the congressman’s staff deleted the tweet and apologized for the “unauthorized” use of the account. “Very sorry about the unauthorized RT. We were not hacked, an intern made an error. Apologies to all.”

GM to recapture top global sales spot

GM is set to overtake Toyota as the top in global auto sales. This must be aggravating news to Republicans, who had demanded Obama let the US auto industry (and all the interrelated industries around the world) fail.

General Motors is poised to recapture the title of world's largest automaker, a distinction it lost to rival Toyota Motor when global auto sales collapsed in 2008.

GM nearly caught Toyota last year, finishing only 28,000 vehicles behind its Japanese rival. In the first quarter, it moved solidly ahead of Toyota, selling 2.2 million vehicles, an increase of 11%.

Toyota sales dropped 12% to 1.8 million vehicles, putting the company in third place behind GM and Volkswagen Group, which sold nearly 2 million vehicles. Ford Motor was No. 4 in global sales in the quarter with 1.4 million vehicles sold.

“Some of my best friends are gay!”

Even thought Rick Santorum compares homosexuality to bestiality and incest, he insists that some of those bestiality and incest-practitioners are his best friends.

That’s just like saying he’s best friends with people who practice incest and bestiality. Who knew you were such a libertine, Rick?

Sarah’s emails, part 2

The first batch of Sarah Palin's emails from part of her half-term as governor have been released, and they show us what we knew already -- that she is small-minded, vindictive, paranoid, and extremely thin-skinned. But interestingly, before she was tapped as McCain's running mate mainly because she had a vagina and the McCain figured one vagina is as good as another, she praised speeches by presidential candidate Barack Obama. Coincidentally, she praised Obama for something she later turned around and condemned him viciously for. So, you know, typical Palin.

Sarah’s emails

They're releasing the emails from Sarah Palin's half-term as governor. I sure hope they redact the national security ones, because she was our first line of defense against Putin rearin' his head, you betcha.

Mark Foley says it should be legal to adults to talk dirty to underage kids

Democratic party affiliations are up, thanks to Obama’s surging popularity

Thanks to President Obama's resurgent popularity, Democratic party affiliations are up, according to a new Gallup poll.

In May, 45% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were independent but leaned Democratic, compared with 39% who identified as Republicans or leaned Republican. The six-percentage-point Democratic advantage represents a slight increase from the four-point advantage Gallup measured in April, which matches the 2011 average to date.

These results are based on more than 30,000 interviews conducted in May as part of Gallup Daily tracking. Though the changes in party affiliation are small on an absolute basis, they are meaningful because of the large number of interviews in each month's sample.

Longer term, the current six-point Democratic edge is the largest measured in Gallup Daily tracking since October 2009, when the gap was seven points. The high point in the more than three-year history of Gallup Daily tracking is 19 points in December 2008. Since President Obama took office, that gap has generally shrunk over time to the point that the parties have been more competitive in recent months, including a tie in August 2010 tracking.

The recent increase in the Democrats' advantage in party affiliation coincides with Americans' more positive evaluations of President Obama, who averaged 50% job approval in May, compared with 44% in April.

Historical Gallup trends indicate party affiliation often shifts when presidents are very popular or unpopular. For example, Republicans gained an advantage in 1991 after George H.W. Bush's approval ratings soared during and after the Persian Gulf War. Democrats expanded their advantage in party affiliation in the late 1990s during the latter part of Bill Clinton's presidency, when the economy was booming and Clinton's approval ratings routinely topped 60%. Between 2005 and 2008, the Democrats built up a large advantage as George W. Bush's approval ratings suffered due to the Iraq war and later to record-high gas prices and a poor economy.

The current data show a similar pattern, with party affiliation moving toward the president's party as he has gained popularity. However, the magnitude of the change reflects the more modest increase in Obama's approval rating.

Rick Santorum, Mr. Family Values

Rick Santorum never called for his pal John Ensign to resign, and what Ensign did was far worse. Rick Santorum never called for David Vitter to step down, and what Vitter did was far sleazier.

But Rick Santorum says Anthony Weiner must resign, and right now!

Newt's campaign just collapsed

Newt Gingrich's senior campaign advisers, along with some primary state advisers, have resigned en masse. Sources report that Gingrich says he intends to stay in the race.

It must suck for Newt to have people he depends on to just dump him suddenly right when he needs them most... Oh wait, now he knows how a few of his ex-wives must have felt.

Rand Paul says he should be arrested

Rand Paul says that anyone who listens to a speech calling for the overthrow of the US government should be arrested.

If that's true, then Rand Paul should all be arrested too. Because Rand Paul attended a speech where someone called for the overthrow of the US government.

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Question for right wingers

Question for right wingers: Please explain your logic.

Rush Limbaugh, and therefore every right winger everywhere else, claims that President Obama is making our economy worse "by design." In other words, Obama's trashing the economy on purpose.

But right wingers also gloat that Obama's going to lose in 2012 because of the economy not being good. We see them in our discussion forum all the time, constantly harping on the bad economy and how that means Obama will go down in flames in the election, ha ha ha.

So, um, Obama is deliberately making the economy worse so that he'll lose, on purpose, in 2012? Is that what you're saying? If that's the case, shouldn't you be GLAD Obama's making the economy worse?

Also, can you resolve the logic of your claims that Obama is stupid and ineffectual and can't do anything right, with your claim that Obama is deliberately making the economy worse (and apparently, according to you, succeeding)?

Please try to resolve your rather faulty logic for us. Thanks.

10 reasons why Andrew Breitbart needs to shut up and go away

A fantastic article from Mark Howard on Alternet. Worth taking 5 minutes to read.

After commandeering the podium at Weiner’s press conference, Breitbart declared, “I’m here for some vindication.” He portrayed himself as a media-contrived victim of character assassination and challenged the reporters in the room to substantiate their alleged assaults on his reputation.

“The media says ‘Breitbart lies, Breitbart lies, Breitbart lies, Breitbart lies.’ Give me one example of a provable lie. One. One. Journalists? One. Put your reputation on the line here.”

For some reason, no one in the room responded. It’s almost as if the press were clueless stenographers, unfamiliar with Breitbart’s past, and were incapable of providing a substantive rebuttal.

This is actually fairly typical of the modern press corps. Another example occurred when the New York Times asked Breitbart about the Weiner affair on Saturday and he attempted to strike a non-partisan tone, saying, “I am as offended when John Ensign acts like an idiot, when Chris Lee acts like an idiot.” However, the Times failed to note that Breitbart’s Big Government blog did not publish a single story about the travails of either Ensign or Lee. Not one single story. How offended was he? Compare that to his obsession with Weiner, which produced 17 separate stories and consumed every single headline (except for the plug for his book), and that was four days after the story broke.

For those who are interested, including members of the press who were struck dumb yesterday, here is a brief compilation of Breitbart’s "reportorial" resume, replete with dishonesty and deliberate disinformation. Feel free to offer these in response to Breitbart’s future challenges. We will await his profuse and heartfelt apologies.

Read the list here.

Obama has solid lead over Republicans

President Obama still has a solid, commanding lead over his Republican rivals in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, despite the economy.

Obama's approval rating inched up 1 percentage point from May to 50 percent but the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track also rose as pricier gasoline, persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market chipped away at public confidence.

Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points — 51 percent to 38 percent.

Police smash man's camera for filming them

Police shoot a man. Another man is filming it with his cell phone. Police come over, demand the man's phone AND THEN SMASH IT.

What police-state dictatorship did this happen in?

Miami, Florida.

A police shooting of a man in Miami Beach on Memorial Day was terrifying, but when it was over, officers turned their attention to a man filming the violent scene with his cellphone. They demanded the device, smashed it and probably thought that was that; no video anymore. It was not: Narces Benoit had had the presence of mind to pull the phone's memory card with the video on it from his cellphone and put the card in his mouth.

That action saved the video you see above, showing the police shooting dead a suspect at the end of a chase, and some of what happened to Benoit. It was after the shooting ended that police turned their sights on Benoit, who had been darting behind trees and stop signs, filming with his HTC Evo phone.

At about 1:38 into the video, we see and hear a police officer turn to Benoit and shout: "Gimme the phone now!"

Who will be Queen Teabagstress?

 

Get out the popcorn, it's Michele Bachmann vs. Sarah Palin! (And Bachmann's strategist has already come out swinging with insults and jibes at Palin. But most interesting is the importance being placed on how "attractive" they are. Ah, right wing politics!)

Over the next few weeks, the battle to play out will be Bachmann and Palin trying to out-crazy each other.

The coming confrontation is being driven by a belief in Bachmann’s camp that the same grassroots, conservative primary voters and caucus-goers may have to choose between the two women—and that they will choose Bachmann if she presents herself as a more seasoned, reliable, and serious conservative than her high-profile rival. The apparent effort to draw distinctions broke into the open Tuesday when her new top strategist, Ed Rollins, dismissed Palin as “not serious” in a radio interview.

He suggested in an interview with POLITICO that Bachmann would profit from the contrast.

Bachmann will “be so much more substantive,” Rollins said. “People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.’”

Heat wave

A heat wave is sweeping across the US with record temps.

Funny how the climate change deniers on Fox News go silent when there's weather news like this, because whenever there's a snowstorm, they show up laughing as if a snow day disproves climate change. But when the story is a heat wave, suddenly the weather's not worth talking about.

Santorum is as smart as Palin

Seems like Sarah Palin isn't the only one on a quest to "correct" American history. Rick Santorum has a few things to teach us too. Like, for example, the Declaration of Independence is inside the Constitution.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Pawlenty's Google test

Tim Pawlenty, surveying the Republican field and coming to the conclusion that the only way to get ahead with right wing voters is to be as stupid as possible (see Palin, Bachmann, Beck, Cain, Trump, et al), has come up with something he calls "the Google test." In other words, any government service that you can Google and find a private company offering, that government service or program should be shut down.

A quick test-run of Pawlenty’s big idea reveals a small hiccup. Under the Google Test, the government would no longer need to pay for U.S. soldiers, military weapons, the FBI, law enforcement, firefighters, food safety, road construction, arbitration, Social Security, and Medicare.

As Protect Your Care Communications Director Eddie Vale pointed out, “I can Google ‘seniors’ and ‘health care’ does that mean Pawlenty would completely end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? I can Google ‘veterans’ and ‘hospital’ does that mean Pawlenty would dismantle the VA system? I can Google ‘pharmacy’ does that mean no senior citizen or child would ever get assistance with their medicines from Pawlenty?”

Wow!

So with all the Weiner business today, conservatives on Twitter are all tumescent. But most interesting were the dozens of rabid racist and anti-Semitic tweets I was getting all afternoon.

Right wingers are so classy.

Hard to say I'm sorry

I noticed a big difference in Weiner's apology today and the "apologies" right wingers usually offer when caught in some scandal. Right wingers give those mealy-mouthed conditional apologies, "I'm sorry IF anyone was offended." As if they're not apologizing for what they did wrong, they're apologizing that people might be offended.

Weiner just basically said, "I screwed up, I was stupid, I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone."

By the way, anyone know if diaper-wearing David Vitter has anything to say about today's events? It might be hard for him to talk, what with hookers putting pacifiers in his mouth.

Weiner!

Now that Weiner's weiner is out of the way, do you think the House GOP will FINALLY put forth a jobs bill?

And does David Vitter have any diaper-wearing comments to make on today's news?

She calls THAT a gotcha question?

Sarah Palin is mad that she's being ridiculed for her ridiculous attempted "reboot" of the Paul Revere story, and claims that it was the result of a "gotcha question."

So what was the "gotcha question"?

"What have you seen so far today, and what are you going to take away from your visit?"

She calls that a "gotcha question."

Sarah Palin is an idiot.

Define Santorum

Google-challenged Rick Santorum makes it official: he's running for president.
Santorum is a frothy mix of misogyny and homophobia.

Pat Buchanan admits it’s because Obama’s black

Pat Buchanan, on TV, has finally admitted the plainly obvious truth that evangelicals won't support Obama because he's black! See it for yourself here.

"But if [Romney] gets that nomination, and then you've got a race between Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, and Barack Hussein Obama, who is an African American of the left, evangelicals and fundamentalist, I think, in the South will go strongly for Romney."

In other words, Buchanan says that evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians would not vote for Obama because he's "African American."

Fox News mixes up Palin & Tina Fey

Fox News mixed up Tina Fey and Sarah Palin in an on-screen graphic. Since Sarah’s so incredibly thin-skinned, you know she’s gonna be PISSED!

NPR’s morning shows beat Fox News and Rush Limbaugh

Earlier we had seen the news that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show beats all of Fox News. But now, looking at the numbers, we can see that NPR's morning shows beat Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

Here’s why Fox News is always trying to defund NPR. In 2010, Morning Edition and All Things Considered averaged 13 million and 12 million plus listeners each. In 2011 Fox and Friends have an audience of 1.09 million, while Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh’s radio shows are in decline.

While the top rated Fox and Friends averages 1.09 million, FNC’s daytime lineup averages 1.085 million. Before anyone on the right grumbles about an apples and oranges comparison, consider that in the spring of 2010 Glenn Beck only had 9 million listeners. Rush Limbaugh, who depending on the market, had 15 million listeners, and Sean Hannity had 14 million listeners. (I gave Fox and Friends a bit of break and used their current ratings which reflect a 13% increase over 2010).

Today, Limbaugh is now down to 10 million listeners, and Hannity is down to around 9 million. Glenn Beck’s radio ratings dipped 39% at one point. For all the talk of the strength of the right wing media, the point remains that they cater to a relatively small audience. They are loud, but they are not huge. No wonder Fox News and the right wing talkers are so desperate to defund NPR.

They don’t want anyone to find out the truth. Compared to the reach of NPR, Fox News is tiny. Only Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can compete with NPR, and they are in grave decline.