Politics

That's what Lois Lerner repeated in the hearing before she invoke the fifth. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/irs-official-lois-lerner-not-done-anything-wrong-153037583.html

Hoover, not Herbert but J. Edgar, was apparently a learned disciple of the Dewey Decimal system. He had the largest collection of porn in existence at the time. Who knew? I think we know now that he was a homosexual although one with a unusual physc flaw or whatever. Regardless of any or all of that, he was a tyrant who was revered during his hey day. What does all that mean? History is busy re-writing all we know on a daily basis and he, as well as many others, will see what they deserve sooner or later. Best regards, RA1

If Mark Sanford can come back from multiple ethics violations and a sexual scandal, so can Anthony Weiner! Mark Sanford, whose political career was left for dead with dozens of ethics violations and an extramarital affair made very public, will return to Congress. With 71 precinct of precincts reporting, CNN and the Associated Press have projected Sanford the winner over Elizabeth Colbert Busch in South Carolina's First Congressional District special election. Sanford leads Colbert Busch, 54 percent to 45 percent, with more than 100,000 votes counted. http://columbia-sc.patch.com/articles/ap-mark-sanford-wins-sc1-race-over-elizabeth-colbert-busch?icid=main…

... and continues to do so. Here is a mighty good read about how the austerity band wagon built up steam and acceptance based on erroneous economic research, and ignoring lessons from past experience . How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled Paul Krugmanhttp://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/how-case-austerity-has-crumbled/?page=3

The Guardian's house civil-libertarian dissects the latest outrage from the Obama admin: Justice Department's pursuit of AP's phone records is both extreme and dangerous The claimed legal basis for these actions is unknown, but the threats they pose to a free press and the newsgathering process are clear Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 May 2013 10.21 EDT Attorney General Eric Holder was required by DOJ regulations to personally approve efforts to obtain phone records for AP journalists. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images (updated below)Associated Press on Monday revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) "secretly obtained two months o…

WaPo's Ezra Klein thinks it is all fizzling w.r.t. threat to BO. Interesting conclusions and also embedded side references. The scandals are falling apart By Ezra Klein, Published: May 16, 2013 at 11:47 am Things go wrong in government. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s rank incompetence. Sometimes it’s criminal wrongdoing. Most of the time you never hear about it. Or, if you do hear about it, the media eventually gets bored talking about it (see warming, global). But every so often an instance of government wrongdoing sprouts wings and becomes something quite exciting: A political scandal. The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-leve…

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 May 2013 08.22 EDT Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente, on CNN, discussing government's surveillance capabilities Photograph: CNN screegrab The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a …

I can't believe what this guy is saying. So all those powerless woman volunteered to become as slaves? If a war breaks out in Japan, he should volunteer as a gay sex slave and experience for himself what is it like to be one. He should volunteer since he believes that's how it works.. http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-mayor-wartime-sex-slaves-were-necessary-042050746.html

"OUR NIXON" SYNOPSIS: Throughout Richard Nixon's presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. Young, idealistic and dedicated, they had no idea that a few years later they'd all be in prison. This unique and personal visual record, created by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, then filed away and forgotten for almost 40 years. OUR NIXON is an all-archival documentary presenting those home movies for the first time, along with other rare footage, creating an intimate and complex portrait of the Nixon presidency as never …

Steve Rattner, a key orchestrator of the U.S. auto industry bailout, writes in today's NYT what he thinks it will take to save the euro. May 10, 2013, 10:16 pm Europe’s Careless Dithering By STEVEN RATTNER EUROPE’S economic problems are growing steadily worse, with unemployment in parts of the Continent now above the level reached in the United States during the Great Depression. Meanwhile, policy makers dither over solutions. Last week, the European Central Bank cut interest rates by a meager quarter of a percentage point, akin to giving two aspirin to a patient with pneumonia. Meanwhile, pressure is growing to ease the emphasis on austerity and to allow larger bu…

Report: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's repeated requests for a lawyer were ignoredThere is zero legal or ethical justification for denying a suspect in custody this fundamental right Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 April 2013 14.43 EDT (updated below - Update II [Tues.]) The initial debate over the treatment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev focused on whether he should be advised of his Miranda rights or whether the "public safety exception" justified delaying it. In the wake of news reports that he had been Mirandized and would be charged in a federal court, I credited the Obama DOJ for handling the case reasonably well thus far. As it turns out, though, Tsarnaev wasn't Mi…

Rmoney Mittens gave a commencement speech you wouldn't believe. There enough people in the world! "" Mitt Romney to college grads: Quick, get married, make a bunch of babies Thursday, May 2, 2013 by: jennlouisew@gmail.com (Jennifer Wadsworth) Comments | E-mail | Print Romney suggests you have a “quiverfull of children if you can.” (Photo via Associated Press) Mitt Romney shared some questionable (though, if you’re into that biblical stuff, pretty righteous) advice with a gathering of college grads about how to live a full life. Quoting scripture, Romney, a former Mormon lay bishop, told an audience of Mormon college graduates to “launch ou…

Open letter from former Guantánamo prisonersFormer inmates of the notorious prison say Barack Obama must made good on his claim to want it closed The Observer, Saturday 4 May 2013 17.43 EDT 'At first the world was shocked by images of shackled kneeling men in orange jumpsuits wearing face masks, blacked out eye-goggles and industrial ear muffs. Then they were mostly forgotten.' Photograph: Shane T McCoy/AP The hunger strike by our former fellow prisoners at the Guantánamo prison camp should have already been the spur for President Obama to end this shameful saga, which has so lowered US prestige in the world. It is now in its third month and around two-thirds o…

Well, thank goodness not absolutely everyone has lost their mind just yet. The writer is a Louisiana native who, as his online Guardian bio says, "is a science education activist and student at Rice University in Houston. For his efforts to prevent the public funding of the teaching of creationism, he won the National Center for Science Education's Friend of Darwin Award and the Hugh M Hefner First Amendment Award." Louisiana counts the cost of teaching creationism – in reputation and dollarsGOP Governor Bobby Jindal defends anti-evolution education policy, but it costs his state millions in science-based business Zack Kopplin guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 May 2013…

Intriguing (encouraging!) Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernBaptistSissies

Hell in a Handbasket It looks like an average briefcase, except that it’s made of titanium, carried by a military officer with a license to kill, and holds the launch orders for Armageddon. It’s the nuclear football. Maxim, Jan 2001 By Colonel David H. Hackworth, U.S. Army (Ret.) Where the hell was the president? The military aide frowned. Cuffed to his wrist was the nuclear football, but the quarterback was nowhere in sight. The orders were burned in the aide’s brain. Don’t get out of the president’s protective envelope. Yeah, Roger that. But what do you do if the commander in chief changes the game plan? Just moments earlier on this morning of April 24, 1999, Pres…

After Casting Key Fifth Vote For Bush, Justice O’Connor Now Regrets Bush v. Gore By Ian Millhiser on Apr 29, 2013 at 9:00 am Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the conservative retired justice who provided the fifth vote to install George W. Bush as president, is now having second thoughts about that decision: Looking back, O’Connor said, she isn’t sure the high court should have taken [Bush v. Gore]. “It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” O’Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’” The case, she said, “stirred up the public” a…

The skit from last night's White House Correspondents Dinner wasn't too bad... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=SCk-Z4ekLSc

In W's 15 minute speech today as he basked in the Texas sun, why did he not once mention Iraq? He mentioned 'dictator' & 'freedom', but never "Iraq", and the 10+ year wart he gave this great country. Shameful, and consistent.

So Grover can read the poll numbers. Regardless, can only be for the good that he comes out full-throated in favor of the immigration bill. Loaded, no less, with all the empirical studies his side long ignored. Immigration reform is a no-brainer to help the economy People are an asset, not a liability. The Senate's immigration bill would reduce America's deficit and should be passed soon Grover Norquist guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 April 2013 08.30 EDT Grover Norquist has been described as the 13th member of the supercommittee, such is his influence over Republicans. Photograph: Haraz N Ghanbari/AP People are an asset, not a liability. The United States is …

As if we needed to know yet more about La Palin's pathologies... http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/10/sarah-palin-201010?currentPage=1

Why is there not a great hue and cry about BO only paying this amount of income taxes? After all, there was such a hue and cry when it was disclosed that Romney paid only 14%. I am not a proponent or opponent of either one but what is fair is fair, or so it seems to me. Many folks who make 100 or 200 or so thousands of dollars end up paying around 40% or more to include social security taxes, income taxes, etc. Does our president not pay social security? I realize he has a unique retirement program but still............... Best regards, RA1

Looks interesting, all things given. One might almost wish to see this made into a musical comedy -- "Springtime for..." j/k Lady Thatcher's authorised biography sparks excitement and scepticismAuthor Charles Moore had access to thousands of private papers, but some question whether he is too ardent a fan Mark Brown, arts correspondent The Guardian, Friday 19 April 2013 16.22 EDT The former Telegraph editor Charles Moore, whose Thatcher biography Not For Turning – the first of two volumes – is out on Tuesday. Photograph: Ian West/PA The opening extracts of the long-awaited definitive authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher focus on previously unknown youthf…

I didn't like the late Thatcher much at all but this extended obit from The Economist seems to do her about right: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21576094-now-especially-world-needs-hold-fast-margaret-thatchers-principles-freedom-fighter I can't quite believe myself saying that from a liberal knee jerk lefty stance, but I am. There must be several layers of psychopathology that I have yet to get to grips with.

So much for political courage in South Carolina. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/us/10sanford.html?_r=1&hpw