A Little Night Music

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Quote of the Day

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) on ABC's This Week:

Yes, I think [I could have beaten President Barack Obama in the 2012 election]. I mean, no one can know.

And I could have won the Tony if my play had been done on Broadway. No one can know, right?

HT to Melissa.
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Understatement Of The Year Nominee

A headline in the Huffington Post:

Republican 2012 Presidential Contenders Drift To The Right

That's like saying the Hindenburg had a bumpy landing.
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Nothing Survives

Steve Benen noted a column by Michael Gerson, who used to work for the Bush administration, and how one program that Mr. Bush started -- President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR -- really worked: his effort to stop AIDS in Africa.

The Biblical story of Lazarus is happening again in Africa. At least it looks that way.

One moment, men, women and children suffering from AIDS are lying at death’s door, barely able to move, open their eyes, or speak. Then a few days or weeks later, they are walking, talking, laughing; truly appearing to have come back from the dead.

This astonishing transformation has been repeated all over the continent thousands of times over the past decade. And, since 2003, America has been helping to pay for it.

And, of course, it's now on the chopping block by the House. After all, if they won't send aid to Joplin's tornado victims without some way for paying for it, why should they care at all about saving people in Africa?
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Security Freak

According to Rolling Stone, Fox News chief Roger Ailes is so afraid of "those gays" that he made sure his corner office had extra security features to protect himself.

Barricading himself behind a massive mahogany desk, Ailes insisted on having "bombproof glass" installed in the windows - even going so far as to personally inspect samples of high-tech plexiglass, as though he were picking out new carpet. Looking down on the street below, he expressed his fears to Cooper, the editor he had tasked with up-armoring his office. "They'll be down there protesting," Ailes said. "Those gays."

What is he so afraid of; that a band of gay terrorists are going to sneak into the place and redecorate it?

HT to TPM.
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Back To Work

I hope everybody had a nice long weekend off -- if you got it -- and remembered Memorial Day. I did, but I also spent some time with TiVo and finding shows that it had suggested for me that I'd never seen before like Rizzoli & Isles, and shows that I didn't know were on the air, like re-runs of Charlie's Angels. But there was always the Law & Order marathon to come back to -- ka chung!.

Meanwhile, there were some of the usual antics going on. Apparently there was a hoax about Rep. Anthony Weiner and a picture that got all the righties twitterpated, and then Sarah Palin and her bus tour hogged all the attention away from Rolling Thunder because, well, that's what she does. And then Tim Pawlenty starts in with the name-calling -- who's really the "doofus" here?

It really is like a bunch of sixth-graders cranked up on sugar.
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Short Takes

Is Qaddafi ready for a truce?

More people are killed in protests in Yemen.

President Obama has chosen Gen. Martin Dempsey to lead the Joint Chiefs.

Some hospitals don't like the idea of being paid for good performance.

The housing index hits a low in pricing.

Police are investigating a police-involved shooting on Miami Beach.

The Tigers beat the Twins.
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A Little Night Music

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Cary Gossard Dunn -- 1906-1952

Cary Gossard Dunn was my great uncle, the younger brother of my maternal grandmother. He was born in 1906 in Indiana, one of four children. He married and had two children of his own.

I never knew him; he died in March 1952, six months before I was born. I knew he served in the military and had heard that he had been part of the D-Day invasion on Normandy in 1944. I don't have a picture of him, but I remember seeing one in my grandmother's photo album: a young man with familiar family features and a smile that he shared with my grandmother.

Earlier this month, my parents and my brother and sister-in-law went to Arlington National Cemetery to find Uncle Cary's grave. For some reason, the cemetery administration has no record of his burial, but through his daughter Susan they located it and took some pictures. The one on the post is my mother standing next to her uncle's grave marker.

I wrote to Susan and asked for information about her father's service. I got back her reply just the other day.

"He was with the 467th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion and was in the original landing at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. His rank was Captain and he saw service in Northern France, the Ardennes, and the Rhineland before returning to the states in 1945. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He left the military for a brief period of time, but rejoined and was promoted to Major and taught ROTC at the University of Pittsburgh for about two years. He was transferred from the Army to the Air Force in 1949 and was sent to Okinawa in 1950 where he worked as an engineer at Kadena AFB. He died of cancer at Barksdale AFB, Shreveport, Louisiana, on March 12, 1952 at the age of 45."

I wish I had known him. Given his siblings' long lives (my grandmother lived to be 95), I would have been able to learn about what his service meant to him as I was becoming aware of my own feelings about war and peace, and to put a real connection between the stories I read in history books and the lurid tales depicted in the Hollywood movies about the war.

Susan's description of her father's service captures the simple facts, but like the men who served and tell their stories in such tales as Band of Brothers, the simplicity does not tell of the pain and the burden these men and women carried in service to our country then and now, and the honor and pride they have in doing their duty without any other thought than protecting the rest of us.

Rest in peace, Uncle Cary. Thank you.
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Memorial Day

This post originally appeared on May 25, 2009.

I grew up in Perrysburg, Ohio. It's a small town, a suburb of Toledo, and when I was a kid in the 1950's and '60's, it fit all of the images that small towns in the Midwest have: tree-shaded streets, neat homes, lots of churches, and a main street -- Louisiana Avenue -- with little shops like the drug store with the fountain, the dime store, the barber shop, the hardware store, the bakery with the smell of bread baking and the sweet scent of icing, and the bank with the solid stone exterior. They're all still there, just under different names now, and my parents, who still live there, still call the drug store by its old name, even though it's changed owners and become a jewelry shop. In the winter the Christmas decorations line the street, and each Memorial Day there is a parade that starts at the Schaller Memorial, the veterans hall, and proceeds up Louisiana Avenue, taking a turn when it reaches the Oliver Hazard Perry Memorial ("We have met the enemy and they are ours...") and marches down West Front Street past the old Victorian homes that overlook the Maumee River.

When I was a kid the parade was made up of the veterans groups like the American Legion and the VFW, and platoons of soldiers and veterans, including, through the 1970's, the last remaining veterans of World War I. They wore their uniforms and their medals, and those that couldn't march sat in the back seat of convertibles, waving slowly to the crowds that lined the sidewalks. They were followed by the marching band from the high school, the color guard, the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the drum and bugle corps, floats from church groups, all of the city fire equipment, antique cars, and the service groups like the Shriners, the Elks, and the Kiwanis Club. After the last float came all the kids on their bicycles decorated with streamers, bunting, flags, and all the patriotic paperwork we could muster. My friends and I would try to outdo each other, and it had less to do with patriotism than it did with seeing how many rolls of red, white, and blue crepe paper we could thread in between the spokes of our wheels.

I was about ten or so on one Memorial Day when I spent a lot of time getting my Schwinn Racer ready for the big parade. It was a perfect day; the sky was a sparkling spring blue and all the floats, cars, and fire trucks were gleaming in the sun as the parade organized on Indiana Avenue in front of the Memorial Hall. The high school band in their yellow and black uniforms marched in precision as the major led off with a Sousa tune, and as the parade slowly made its way down the avenue we could see the crowds along the sidewalks waiting and waving. As we waited our turn we wheeled our bikes in circles, just like the Shriners in their little go-karts, and finally we got the signal that it was time for the kids to roll. There was an organized rush to lead off, and then we were slowly pedaling down the street, waving to everybody outside the library, the Chevy dealership, even the people lined up on the roof of the pizza parlor. I looked for my dad shooting movies with the 8mm camera, but didn't see him. Oh, well, it didn't matter; we were supposed to meet at the home of friends who were hosting a post-parade picnic in their backyard. Their house was at the end of the parade route, so that was the perfect place to pull out of the parade and have the first of many Faygo Redpops that summer.

But for some reason I stayed with the parade, on down West Front, and then up West Boundary and past the gates of Fort Meigs Cemetery. The floats and the fire trucks were gone, but what was left of the parade -- the color guard and the veterans -- went through the gates and along the path. There was no music now, just a solemn drumbeat keeping a steady muffled tapping. The color guard turned at a small stone memorial, and then past it to a gravesite where a family was gathered; a mother in a black dress, a father in a grey suit, and a teenage son and daughter, looking somber and out of place. The grave was still fresh, the dirt mounded over, the headstone a simple marker with a flag. A minister spoke some words, and then the color guard snapped to attention. A volley of rifle fire, then Taps, and then a tall young soldier in dress blues handed a folded flag to the mother, who murmured her thanks and tried to smile.

I suddenly realized that I felt out of place there with my gaudily-patriotic bike and my red-white-and-blue striped shirt. No one noticed me, though, and when the people started to slowly move away from the gravesite and back to the entrance, I followed along until I was able to ride slowly back to our friends' house, park my bike with all the others, and find my parents, who probably hadn't even noticed that I was not there with all the other kids running around and playing on the lawn.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
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Short Takes

President Obama visited Joplin yesterday.

Syria promises to end nuclear secrecy.

NATO apologizes for Afghan civilian deaths.

Clashes erupt in Belgrade over the arrest of Mladic.

Shuttle Endeavour leaves the space station for the last time.

Dan Wheldon won the Indianapolis 500.

The Tigers split a double-header with the Red Sox.
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Literally Unbelievable

There is a site called Literally Unbelievable that chronicles the folks on Facebook and other social media that think the stories on The Onion are real.

And these people vote.

Now I will grant you that for sheer genius in terms of earnest satire, The Onion has no peer. After all, who else could put up a headline like Jews Ordered Back to Egypt for Pyramid Duty with a straight face? And in a world where Fox Nation can get all jiggy over a fist-bump between Barack and Michelle Obama and call it a "terrorist" gang sign, some people will fall for "Hey, your shoe's untied." But, come on; are people really that breathtakingly stupid?

HT to CLW.
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Sunday Reading

"The Good War"? -- Adam Kirsch looks at how time has changed our perceptions of World War II and other conflicts.

The passage of time doesn’t just turn life into history; it also changes the contours of history itself. Over the last several years, historians, philosophers and others have begun to think about the Second World War in challenging and sometimes disturbing new ways, reflecting the growing distance between the country that fought the war and the country that remembers it. As always when history is debated, the stakes are not just the past but the present and future as well. Even as the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made Americans less confident about the ways we use our military power, the struggle with the Axis remains the classic example of American might deployed for virtuous ends. President Obama had that history in mind when he explained his decision to intervene in Libya’s civil war: “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” Obama said. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.” Even today, World War II helps underwrite our claim to that moral difference.

Americans’ favorite World War II stories have always been about the democratic heroism of ordinary soldiers; this kind of popular history has never disappeared, and probably never will. Laura Hillenbrand’s “Unbroken” (2010), which has resided for months near the top of the best-seller list, tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an ex-track star turned airman, who was shot down over the Pacific and survived weeks adrift on a raft and even worse ordeals in a Japanese prison camp. As the title suggests, Zamperini is an untroubling kind of war hero, because his greatness was his refusal to break, not his ability to break others — a part of the soldier’s job that is far less comfortable to read about. Zamperini was a bombardier on a B-24, and at the very time he was being tortured by the Japanese, other bomber crews, made up of men no better or worse than he, carried out “Operation Gomorrah” — the weeklong raid on Hamburg, Germany, that in July 1943 killed some 40,000 civilians and destroyed virtually the entire city. Can we make room for that story, and others like it, in our memory of World War II? And if we do, can we still keep our pride in a “good war”?

More below the fold.

After Thirty Years -- The AIDS epidemic is a part of our lives.

As AIDS nears its 30th anniversary on June 5, there is both hope and concern.

“Advances in antiretroviral drugs have been the spectacular success story of the past 20 years,” says Dr. Mario Stevenson, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “They’ve changed the face of AIDS on the planet.”

Ron Cox, 44, of Wilton Manors, who at 28 watched his lover die in part from AIDS-related muscle-wasting, has fought back from his own HIV diagnosis to live a relatively normal life, down from 40 pills a day to seven.

“I’m not a quitter. I’m a body builder,” he says. He works out regularly and can squat-lift 250 pounds.

But for Dale Penn, 54, of Miami Beach, who has been HIV-positive for 20 years, the concept of premature aging strikes a note of recognition. He used to be a high-powered commercial lender for big New York banks, but now says “to get up each day and know I have the energy and brain-power to solve complex problems is no longer feasible.”

As research continues, doctors say an absolute cure remains elusive.

“It’s unclear if we can get a real cure any time soon,” Dr. Tae-Wook Chun, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, told a Miami symposium in April.

The new research comes at a time when HIV patients are so well-controlled that many believe any crisis is over. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that, while 44 percent of Americans in 1995 saw HIV/AIDS as the nation’s most urgent health problem, only 6 percent felt that way by 2009.

That upsets Charles Martin, executive director of the South Beach AIDS Project, which counsels patients.

“We’ve come a long way, but people still die. I lost a friend the other day,” he said.

For all the successes in controlling HIV, it remains a resilient enemy. New cases in the United States peaked at 160,000 in 1985 and plummeted to 40,000 by 1991 as potential victims learned to take precautions. But it has been stuck at that number ever since, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Carl Hiaasen -- Democracy remains elusive in Florida.

According to a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters, Rick Scott is now one of the country’s most unpopular governors, a dubious feat after only four months in office.

It’s bad news for Republican Party bosses, but all is not lost. Scott recently signed a new election bill that is callously designed to suppress voter turnout, making it harder for many disgruntled Floridians to cast a valid ballot in 2012.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, so GOP leaders are desperate to find ways to keep certain people away from the polls. One of the Legislature’s top priorities was to change the voting rules to avoid a repeat of 2008, when Barack Obama won the state’s 27 electoral votes on his way to the presidency.

Obama benefited from early-voting days, which proved popular among minorities, college students and retirees. Republican officials became incensed during the election when then-Gov. Charlie Crist — one of their own — decided to extend polling hours to accommodate the long lines.

The nerve of that guy, making it easier for common citizens to vote!

Determined not to let this whole democracy thing get out of hand, the GOP-held Legislature crafted a bill that reduces the number of early voting days from 15 to eight, and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a deliberate inconvenience aimed at students.

Historically, provisional ballots are counted at a much lower rate than regular ones, meaning many young voters won’t get heard — exactly what Scott and the Republican leadership want.

The new bill also throws out a rule that had been in effect for 40 years allowing Floridians to update their legal addresses when they arrive to vote. Now you can only do that if you moved within the same county.

To hinder community groups that register first-time voters, the law requires volunteers for organizations such as the League of Women Voters to register with the state as if they were sex offenders.

Upon signing the anti-voting bill into law, Gov. Spaceman said the following: “I want people to vote, but I also want to make sure there’s no fraud involved in elections. All of us as individuals that vote want to make sure that our elections are fair and honest.”

Those who recall what happened here in the 2000 presidential election can’t help but chuckle at the comic aspect of a Republican governor pretending to fret about voter fraud.

Interestingly, the officials who are most familiar with the fraud issue — the county supervisors of elections — are mostly opposed to the new voting law, and say current voter-data bases are fairly accurate. They actually asked the Legislature for more early-voting sites, and were of course rebuffed.

The statewide association of elections supervisors also warned Scott that imposing the restrictive provisions could cause a fiasco at the polls in 2012, just what we need to reinforce our national reputation for electoral dysfunction.

When the governor promised to bring all those new jobs to Florida, who knew he was talking about lawyers?

Doonesbury -- Mad edgy?
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Short Takes

The death toll in the Missouri tornado has reached 139.

It's personal -- Osama bin Laden's killing was also evening the score for the CIA.

A leak at a North Carolina chemical plant has caused evacuations.

R.I.P. Jeff Conaway, 60, actor in Taxi and the film version of Grease; Gil Scott-Heron, 62, godfather of rap and black culture.

The Tigers were rained out against Boston; they'll make it up later.
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A Little Night Music

They're saying it's going to rain this weekend.


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Saturday Morning Cartoon

It's been a while since I've turned on the TV on Saturday morning... Remember these guys?


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Short Takes

Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip.

Secretary of State Clinton had a tense visit with officials in Pakistan.

The G8 meeting in France pledged money to Egypt and Tunisia to help them after the Arab Spring.

A man with a plan to kill abortion doctors was arrested in Wisconsin.

The Tigers lost to the Red Sox.
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Across The Universe

An amazing video from Popular Science.

There’s very little we can write to preface the imagery below, so we’ll just set the scene and get out of the way. The video below was captured by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert. And it might make you cry.

What makes this time lapse particularly amazing--because we’ve all seen plenty of time lapse videos of the night sky--is the four telescopes in the foreground. Watching these instruments work against a black background would be endlessly fascinating on its own. Unfortunately you won’t be able to pay them too much attention. Because damn, what a sky.

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Question of the Day

Every time I call a colleague at work, her first question is...

What are you reading?

She means books.

My mom sent me two of the Stieg Larsson books, so I'm starting on those.
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Bait and Switch

So what was it that the Republicans hammered like mad last year during the campaign? Oh, yeah; jobs. Jobs jobs and more jobs. "We will put America back to work," said John Boehner and just about everyone else running on the GOP side, blaming the loss of 8 million jobs during the Bush administration on the Democrats and, like Rick Scott in Florida, melting it down to a bumper sticker: "Let's get to work."

So far, the Republicans haven't done squat. Oh, wait; they did publish a comic book-like pamphlet on how they'll put America back to work by, among other things, cutting more taxes. Now there's a new idea.

But as Rachel Maddow points out, the only jobs that the Republicans have guaranteed are the ones making up the Uterus Patrol.

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

Regardless of where you stand on abortion rights, it's clear that the GOP conned the voters with the bait-and-switch about jobs. That's because they knew if they ran on the platform of going after ladybits and banning gay marriage, they would not have won. The majority of Americans are now in favor of marriage equality, and while there may still be an even split over abortion, they're certainly not in favor of the draconian laws such as the ones that require a woman to carry a fetus to term just so she can watch it die fifteen minutes later.

It's especially ironic that the Republicans did this charade about jobs when clearly their intent was to revive the culture wars of the 1980's. Thanks to all their shrieking about it back then made people look at what they were talking about, and they found out that there are a lot of LGBT people in America; they are their co-workers, their teachers, maybe even their brother or sister or mom or dad. And there are people who get abortions not because they want to but because they have to make a terrible choice about what to do with their body and it should be their decision alone. So if they want a re-match on the culture war, they had better be ready to lose it again by going to the extremes that lost it for them the first time.

And it's even more ironic when you remember that the direst warning the GOP had about Barack Obama was that under that cool calm centrist demeanor beat the heart of a demagogue and dictator who wanted to control our every move and take away our freedoms. What are they worried about; copyright infringement?
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Our Republican Governor

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida allegedly said he would be the governor for all the people of the state. That's assuming all the people are Republicans.

At a campaign-style event that banned some Democrats, Republican Gov. Rick Scott fashioned himself into Florida’s new veto king Thursday when he axed $615 million from the state budget before signing it.

The biggest target of the veto pen: $305 million targeted for environmental land buys. Scott also cut $169 million in college projects and vetoed scores of hometown spending lawmakers earmarked for their districts.

Scott blamed “special interests” for the “shortsighted, frivolous, wasteful spending” — thereby irking some of his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature. Some accused him of hypocrisy, others of inflating his veto amount with financial gimmickry.

[...]

Members of The Villages Democratic Club were barred from the budget signing by Scott staffers who said the outdoor event in The Villages town square was “private.” Other staffers and Republican operatives scoured the crowd and had Sumter County sheriff’s deputies remove those with anti-Scott signs or liberal-looking pins and buttons. They escorted more than a dozen people off the property.

Tea party groups and conservatives praised Scott for making good on his pledge to cut spending and reduce legislative earmarks, nicknamed “turkeys” in Tallahassee.

Scott called the bill signing a “celebration” of the “jobs budget.” He first used the term in February when he proposed his version of the budget at a Eustis tea party rally, an early indication that the political newcomer would use his office for partisan theatrics.

It may have been a Republicans-only event, but I will give him credit for one bipartisan thing: he managed to piss off just about everyone with his selective vetoes.

VETOED FROM THE BUDGET

Public Television and Radio Stations, $4.7 million

Dan Marino Foundation Vocational School, $500,000

National Veterans Homeless Support Group, $12 million

Little Havana Activities and Nutrition Centers of Dade County, $300,000

DeAllapattah Community Center Hot Meals Program, $430,000S

Senior Citizens Center grants, $1.4 million

University of Miami Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitus Project, $777,169

Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease Testing, Newborn Screening, $1.9 million

Biomedical research in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, $50,000

Statewide Brain and Tumor Registry Program at the McKnight Brain Institute, $500,000

Establish a Public Children’s Hospital in Southwest Florida, $1.5 million

Florida Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, $1.7 million

Civil Legal Assistance, $1 million

Florida Horse Park, $500,000

Knowledge is Power school (KIPP), $400,000

Some of them are pet projects, but the environmental land veto just confirms that developers are blessed. And the last one -- the funds for KIPP -- is especially ironic, since it was at that charter school in Jacksonville where Mr. Scott held a Tea Party campaign rally bill-signing of the merit pay for teachers bill.

It's like he enjoys making people dislike him. Well, so far he's got nothing to worry about.
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Friday Blogaround

The unofficial start of summer is this weekend. Start it off with a blogaround.

A Blog Around The Clock asks, is education what journalists do?
Bark Bark Woof Woof: heartless to the heartland.
Dohiyi Mir harks back to a revolutionary Quaker.
Echidne Of The Snakes on Kathy Hochul's victory.
Florida Progressive Coalition Blog: Kenneth looks at the big picture.
The Invisible Library is post-rhapsodic.
Left Is Right: bits and pieces.
Pen-Elayne on the Web: the Muppets are coming....!
Rook's Rant: WTF happened to Minnesota?
rubber hose notes the end of the War Powers Act.
Scrutiny Hooligans: first, they seize the water works....
The Yellow Something Something: women, don't expect to have a choice in the military.

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S. No matter where you are, remember the ones who served and sacrificed.
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Short Takes

Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general who massacred over 8,000 Serbian Muslims in 1995, has been captured.

Eight Americans were killed in a bombing in Afghanistan.

A judge has overturned the Wisconsin law that stripped public unions of bargaining rights.

The PATRIOT Act gets extended.

The list of missing people from the tornado in Joplin stands at 232.

The Supreme Court ruled that states can punish employers for hiring undocumented workers.

Democrats such as President Obama and Sen. Bill Nelson are doing pretty well poll-wise in Florida.

To the Finals: The Heat beat the Bulls.

The Tigers lost big to the Red Sox in a shortened game.
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Friday Catblogging Classic

"Are the comments fixed yet? I'm feeling especially acerbic."
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A Little Night Music

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Quotes of the Day

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, May 25, 2012:

I worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on.

Vice President Dick Cheney, November 2002:

Deficits don't matter.

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We Will Remember

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) voted along with most of the rest of the Republicans in the Senate to end Medicare as we know it.

He's trying to explain why he did in an op-ed in the Miami Herald, but it sounds like he's just trying to get cover for having to explain to the rest of us here in Florida, where Medicare is more than just a passing interest, why he voted to kill it off.
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Rude, Crude, Lewd, and Socially Unacceptable

Ed Schultz, the MSNBC talk show host, is off the air for a week on unpaid leave after calling right-wing talker Laura Ingraham a slut.

Left-leaning Ed Schultz has been suspended from msnbc cable television for referring to radio talk show host Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut" and "talk slut" on his syndicated radio show Tuesday.

In a statement released Wednesday, the cable channel said: "Msnbc management met with Ed Schultz this afternoon and accepted his offer to take one week of unpaid leave for the remarks he made yesterday on his radio program. Ed will address these remarks on his show tonight, and immediately following begin his leave. Remarks of this nature are unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

To his credit, Mr. Schultz went on the air before taking his leave and gave Ms. Ingraham and everybody else he'd ever met an unconditional apology. There were no "if I offended" or attempts to excuse his behavior. Good for him. But it's still way over the line, and I'm glad to see that he got his ass kicked for it.
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The Next Summer Blockbuster

Someone thought it would be a good idea to make an epic biopic about Sarah Palin.

No, it's not a sequel to Independence Day. It's going to be called The Undefeated, which is better, I suppose, than The Quitters. But John Cole and the the commenters at Balloon Juice have been coming up with their own suggestions for the title.

My humble contribution: Survival of the Twittest.
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Awesomely Stupid

Sometimes these people make this way too easy.

Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) faced criticism this week when video was released of him telling a constituent that she should sponsor her own health care instead of using the government’s Medicare program.

The Georgia Democratic Party released more video Wednesday from that same town hall event where Woodall explained why he wouldn’t give up his own government-funded health care program.

“You take government-subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don’t want to,” Democratic activist Ilene Johnson told Woodall. “Why aren’t you going out on the free market in the state where you are a resident and buy your own health care?”

“It’s because it’s free,” Woodall replied. “It’s because it’s free. The same reason I went out to Walgreens and bought Activon when I don’t have any arthritis pain. Because it’s free. Folks, if you give people things for free, don’t blame them for taking them.”

To quote my Grade 8 math teacher, how many know that "government-subsidized health care" such as the one Mr. Woodall is on is not free? It's paid for by us, the taxpayers. So is Medicare; anyone who collects a paycheck and looks at the deductions sees that they pay into it.

I'm not sure what is more incredible: that this person actually made it this far through life to be old enough to get elected to Congress, or that there are people in this world that would vote such a piece of vegetation into office.
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Blog Note

The commenting system, JS-Kit, or Echo, or whatever they call themselves, seems to be having issues as of early this morning. They also don't seem to offer any visible means of support. I've fired off an e-mail to one of the contacts I have there, so hopefully they'll get things fixed.

What usually happens next are abject apologies and promises to do better and assurances that it will never happen again. What I really don't understand is why they took a perfectly good system like HaloScan that hardly ever had a glitch and "improved" it only to have it turn into a giant mess.

On their behalf, I apologize, and, for what it's worth, I'm seriously considering finding a better system.
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All In

The Senate Republicans voted for Paul Ryan's budget.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday stood by a GOP plan to transform Medicare, one day after the party lost a conservative House district in Upstate New York amid a strong effort by Democrats to make that proposal the central issue.

The measure was defeated in the Democratic-run Senate on Wednesday.

But the unity among Republicans — with only five out of 47 voting against it — served as an important sign that party leaders remain wedded to a deficit-reduction plan that is a loyalty test for many GOP voters but is widely unpopular, according to polls.

I guess it all comes down to what's more important: show party unity or actually come up with something that will work. It's no surprise they went with the former.

It'd not really a surprise, either, that they stuck to their position even after the election in New York state that turned a solidly Republican district over to the Democrats. Nor is it a surprise that the GOP would stick with the Ryan plan even though enough economists on both sides of the spectrum have said that the plan is based on fantasy and ideology rather than practical math.

But that's how they do things in the GOP. They would rather stick with an idea, no matter how whacked it may be, rather than admit to the possibility that they could be wrong. Compromise or reconsideration -- usually a sign of maturity and realistic awareness of one's surroundings -- is a sign of weakness to them. (This in spite of the fact that Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have done more flip-flopping in the last few weeks than Cirque de Soleil.) To some people, that's a sign of strength and determination. To the rest of the world, it's desperation.
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Short Takes

The U.S. has ordered non-essential diplomats out of Yemen.

John Edwards could be indicted over campaign finance violations.

Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter in Tuscon, is ruled incompetent to stand trial.

Relief groups seek relief after a hard spring of natural disasters.

Foreclosures are still high, slowing the economic recovery.

Miami-Dade teachers and school administration strike a deal for next year.

The Tigers had the night off; they're bracing for the Red Sox.
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A Little Night Music

May 25, 1977 -- the opening of Star Wars (as it was called back then).


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The Height of the Pits

It's a good thing Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) has decided not to run for president.

Gov. Rick Scott is one of the least popular governors in America, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll that shows 57 percent of voters disapprove of his job performance.

Only 29 percent favor the job Scott is doing, the poll of 1,196 registered voters shows.

Scott's job-performance numbers mirror public sentiment about the $69.7 billion state budget, which cuts schools, healthcare and programs for the environment. The poll finds that 54 percent of voters say the budget is "unfair" to someone like them, while 29 percent favor it.

Scott has praised what he calls the “jobs budget” as a way to get Florida’s economy moving. But despite the nickname, the budget will lead to more layoffs in the short-term because it eliminates nearly 4,500 state worker positions.

Scott also plans to veto tens of millions of hometown spending projects that lawmakers inserted in the $69.7 billion state budget to benefit their districts.

“The data on the perceived fairness of the governor’s budget is crucial. When voters by almost 2-1 say his approach is unfair to them, that’s a giant flashing political warning sign for Scott,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a written statement. “When voters don’t think they are being treated fairly, they tend to react negatively.”

Twenty-nine percent favorable. Richard Nixon did better at the height of Watergate. And we've got 42 more months to go with this guy unless his past catches up with him.

Well, the only way to go is up, and with a little help, maybe he could make it to 35 by the time 2014 rolls around.


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Question of the Day

It's the end of the Oprah Winfrey show on daytime TV.

Have you ever watched Oprah?

There's no doubt that she's been a powerful and important influence on women, minorities, and opened a lot of doors to a lot of people in television and other areas. And I say that as someone who has never, in my recollection, watched an entire episode of her program in the twenty-five years it's been on the air.
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Rick Scott - Not 2012

Here's one bit of good news about Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL):

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has added his name to the list of prominent Republicans who say they are not running for president.

There hasn't been much speculation about Scott, who's still learning how to be governor, running.

But that didn't prevent the question from coming up at a news conference on hurricane preparedness Monday.

He's also taken himself out of the Taylor Lautner look-alike contest.
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Heartless to the Heartland

As if you need another example of political tone-deafness and just plain cruelty:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.

“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.

Translation: you won't get anything from us unless we cut the budget somewhere else. We can't just borrow money to pay for every natural disaster, y'know.

From a purely political point of view, this is stupid. These tornadoes struck in the reddest part of the country; you can't get much more Republican than Southwest Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama without taking up residence in Karl Rove's colon. And even the most hardened teabagger is going to expect to get government assistance after a natural disaster. In fact, they are the ones who are pissed when FEMA isn't standing there with a cup of hot coffee and a settlement check the moment they come out of their storm cellar.

On the humane side, it's just plain heartless to stand there and recite budgetary mumbo-jumbo when people have lost their homes, their property, and their loved ones. The last thing you talk about at a time like that is what it will cost unless that's the only thing that matters to you, which is apparently the case with Mr. Cantor. By the way, Mr. Cantor isn't the only one who is basically saying, "Hey, suck it up."

I'll say this much for them: they don't sugar-coat it.
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Democrat Kathy Hochul Wins in NY 26

This normally wouldn't get a lot of attention, but the race to fill the House seat in upstate New York became a referendum on the Republicans and Paul Ryan's Medicare plan, they made it a national election, and they lost decisively.

Democrats scored an upset in one of New York’s most conservative Congressional districts on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the national Republican Party in a race that largely turned on the party’s plan to overhaul Medicare.

The results set off elation among Democrats and soul-searching among Republicans, who questioned whether they should rethink their party’s commitment to the Medicare plan, which appears to have become a liability heading into the 2012 elections.

Two months ago, the Democrat, Kathy Hochul, was considered an all-but-certain loser in the race against the Republican, Jane Corwin. But Ms. Hochul seized on the Republican’s embrace of the proposal from Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to overhaul Medicare, and she never let up.

On Tuesday, she captured 47 percent of the vote to Ms. Corwin’s 43 percent, according to unofficial results. A Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, had 9 percent.

To give you an idea how conservative this district is, it went for Carl Paladino over Andrew Cuomo for governor last fall. It was also Jack Kemp's district when he was in Congress.

The spinning has already begun: "Well, you know, special elections don't really mean anything, and Jack Davis, the Tea Party dude was really a Democrat in disguise and hey, how about those Yankees?"

What happens now is that Republicans and the Villagers are going to stop calling Paul Ryan's plans "bold" and "courageous" and, if they haven't already, start running away from him as if he had the plague: "Well, you know, I never really liked the plan, but it's a good starting point for a discussion and we need to look at all the options, and hey, how about those Tigers?"

The only questions that remain are: What made the Republicans think that voting en masse in April to support the Ryan budget and ending Medicare as we know it made any sense at all, and why did they think they could get away with it? Is their hatred for President Obama so blinding that even such political geniuses as Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich wouldn't see that coming up with an attack on the most popular government plan in generations would spell disaster for them? In terms of letting passion and emotion overtake the sensibilities and political astuteness, this plan is the political equivalent of Monica Lewinsky's blue dress.
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Miami Run-Off

The Miami-Dade mayoral election resulted in less than 50% for any candidate, so there will be a run-off.

The race to be the next Miami-Dade County mayor is down to two, after voters threw their support behind former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and former County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez but failed to give either candidate more than 50 percent of the votes required to crown a winner.

The election — which was voters’ first crack at remaking the leadership of Miami-Dade County’s much-maligned county government — now sets the stage for a month-long campaign between the two candidates that will culminate June 28.

From the start, Robaina and Gimenez were pegged as frontrunners among 11 candidates in the short sprint of a campaign that didn’t officially start until last month, following the March 15 ouster of county mayor Carlos Alvarez by an overwhelming margin.

With all precincts reporting, Robaina won 62,829 votes or 34 percent, and Gimenez garnered 53,803 votes, or 29 percent.

Great. That means another month of robocalls.
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Short Takes

Bad Weather -- More tornadoes hit the Midwest, including Oklahoma and Kansas, killing at least four.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed Congress.

President Obama toasts the Queen; he will return to visit storm-damaged Joplin, Missouri, on Sunday.

The Mississippi River is not rising to the occasion.

Chrysler has paid back its bail-out.

The Heat beat the Bulls in OT.

The Tigers beat the Rays.
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A Little Night Music

Happy 70th birthday, Bob Dylan.


(The line is "the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind," not "the ants are my friends...")
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Election Day in Miami

It's not getting all the attention of other races around the country, but voters in Miami have an election today to replace the recalled mayor of Miami-Dade.

On Monday the candidates fanned out across the county for one last pitch to sway skeptical voters. Former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina appeared on call-in radio programs and made a campaign stop in Homestead. Former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez phoned voters and dispatched volunteers to wave signs at a busy intersection in Miami’s Flagami neighborhood. Former state legislator Marcelo Llorente appeared on Radio Mambi. Luther Campbell, the former 2 Live Crew frontman, walked through Miami Gardens knocking on doors.

Campaigns also ended for two vacant county commission races and on six proposals to amend the county’s charter, which include 12-year term limits for commissioners and banning former county politicians from lobbying the government for two years after leaving office.

I've been getting robocalls for weeks now, and Bob reported the other day he got a robocall complaining about one candidate's robocalls. No kidding.

If you live here and meet all the state's new voter requirements, go vote.
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Canary In the Coal Mine

There's a special election today in upstate New York to fill the seat of Chris Lee (R-NY) who resigned after posting his bulging biceps on Craigslist last winter. The race is between Jane Corwin, the Republican in this very GOP district, and Kathy Hochul, the Democrat. There's also Jack Davis, a Tea Partier, in the race. But recent polls indicate that Ms. Hochul has a slight lead, and the issue isn't just local; it's turning out to be a referendum on the Republicans' plan to kill off Medicare as we know it.

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

All politics is local, indeed.
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Marriage Equality in Minnesota

It's been almost thirty-five years since I lived in Minneapolis, but it's part of my heritage; my father was born and raised there, and I have a lot of great memories of the years I spent in grad school there at the University of Minnesota. Back then, in the mid-70's, the state had a reputation of populist liberalism seasoned with the pragmatic decency of the rural parts of the state where live-and-let-live was the way you treated other people. The Democrats, known as the DFL for Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, gave the state people like Hubert Humphrey, who, before he became a senator and vice-president, was the mayor of Minneapolis. In 1948 he demanded that the Democrats make civil rights a forefront in their presidential campaign -- and drove the Dixiecrats out. Minnesota was the home of Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Paul Wellstone, and the state also led in the fight for decent healthcare for the poor and fairness for all people.

Minneapolis was also the city where I came out of the closet. Back in the 1970's it was a very active city for gay rights and it had a thriving community, and not just among us theatre folk. Even though this was years before the AIDS epidemic, there were LGBT organizations that looked out for the health and well-being of gay citizens. In 1976, it seemed like Minnesota was the example for the rest of the country to follow in equality.

So I don't know where Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and wingnut preachers like Bradlee Dean come from, and I don't know what would lead the Republican-led state legislature to come up with something like this:

After a long, passionate and solemn debate that lasted deep into the night, the Minnesota House passed a proposed constitutional amendment on Saturday to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Voters will decide the question in November 2012. The final vote was 70-62. Four Republicans voted no. Two Democrats voted yes.

"I do not believe it is up to judges or even this body, but it should be up to Minnesotans," said Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, sponsor of the bill. But he said his beliefs are not paramount: "It is not about what I think. It is about what we think as Minnesotans."

In personal, sometimes tearful speeches, opponents said the amendment is wrong.

"Members, I understand discrimination. I have experienced discrimination. And have felt discrimination," said Rep. John Ward, DFL-Brainerd, who often holds his microphone in a shrunken hand. "If you think there is a tiny bit of discrimination in this amendment, I beg you, I ask you, I implore you to vote no."

The amendment question will set off multimillion-dollar campaigns from both sides. It also is expected to draw in national donors, operatives and attention, as did campaigns in several dozen other states that have voted on the issue.

Minnesota law already bans gay marriage, but backers of the proposal say only a constitutional amendment could keep courts from deciding the issue. An amendment also works around DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, who said he opposes it with "every fiber" of his being. Governors have no veto over constitutional amendments passed by a legislative majority.

If certain other states where I've lived have set examples for crazy politicians and in-the-pocket legislatures and held patents on wingnutty preachers -- hello Colorado and Florida -- it's not that much of a surprise; there have always been sharp political divisions in those states and the scales tilt back and forth. (Florida, though, is taking its own sweet time to get back to normal.) But Minnesota... practical, pragmatic, fair, friendly -- there's something bonding about enjoying a quiet evening at home when it's -35F or sailing on Lake Minnetonka and battling the mosquitoes; what was it that drove it off the rails?

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Footnote: One thing Minnesotans are famous for is their dry sense of humor -- maybe that's where I get mine. When Tim Pawlenty, the state's former governor, announced he was running for president yesterday, the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran the news on the obituary page.
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Devastation in Joplin

Over 100 people were killed in the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri Sunday night.

The death toll jumped to 116 on Monday after a massive tornado tore through this city on Sunday, leaving six miles of destruction: a forest of splintered tree trunks where neighborhoods once stood; a hospital and high school destroyed; and cars crushed like soda cans.

Emergency crews searched through the night and through a thunderstorm with driving rain on Monday for additional survivors.

"We still believe there are folks alive under the rubble, and we're trying hard to reach them," Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon told reporters in Joplin.

If you want to help or are looking for friends and relatives in the area, look here.

HT to Melissa.
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Short Takes

NATO bombs Tripoli.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that California's prisons are woefully overcrowded.

President Obama is welcomed to Ireland.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty makes it official that he's running.

Crime is down in the U.S. and South Florida.

The Tigers beat the Rays.
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A Little Night Music

This was in the top five this week in 1967.


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Civcs 101

Herman Cain, freshly-announced GOP candidate for president, wants Americans to "re-read the Constitution."

CAIN: We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. … And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” don’t stop there, keep reading. Cause that’s when it says “when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” We’ve got some altering and some abolishing to do!

For those of you who have not taken Grade 8 Civics, the phrases regarding “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and altering or abolishing the government are not in the Constitution. They are in the Declaration of Independence.

Newt Gingrich suggested that voters take a test in American history before being allowed to vote. Tell you what; how about we apply the same standard to presidential candidates?
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Question of the Day

I was going through the junk drawer in the kitchen -- doesn't everybody have one? -- and came across a box of wooden matches. They have to be at least ten years old; the last place I lived where I would have needed them was my place in Albuquerque with the gas stove and water heater. When I was a kid, they were a staple in our house with the gas appliances and fireplaces, but now...

What have you got in your junk drawer that is truly junk?

(Oh, please, don't touch my junk.)
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Belly Rubs

Now that Donald Trump is out and Newt Gingrich is sputtering, Sarah Palin is trying to get the attention back to her.

CNN) – Sarah Palin has given few indications in recent weeks she is still actively considering a presidential run, but the former Alaska governor said Thursday she has the “fire in my belly” to mount a bid for the White House.

“I think my problem is that I do have the fire in my belly,” said Palin.

Dear Ms. Palin: try Prilosec.
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Over The Border

President Obama got into a lot of trouble with Republicans, including Karl Rove, last week when he said:

There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish a Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.

What a terrible way to throw Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu under the bus. The president must truly be a secret Muslim to promote such a radical idea.

Yeah, except that quote wasn't from Mr. Obama. It was President Bush in 2008.

Just another example of GOP knee-jerk anti-Obama reactions to something they supported. It joins cap-and-trade, individual mandates, and going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden in the pile.

HT to Steve Benen.
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Believe It Or Not

For a while now -- going back to the Clinton administration at least, but more noticeable now in the time of Barack Obama -- the Republicans have come up with some very strange litmus tests for their candidates, and some very tough stands on those who don't toe the line. Jacob Weisberg notes in Slate how it is tilting the party to the edge of reality.

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. "That's none of your business," the New Jersey governor barked in response.

This minor incident, which barely rated as news for a few political blogs, offers a glimpse of Christie's personality, which seems increasingly grumpy and snappish. But it says even more about the current state of the national Republican Party, where magical thinking trumps rationality, and even to acknowledge basic realities about the world we live in runs the risk of damaging one's political future.

Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.

Moments like this point to a growing asymmetry in our politics. One party, the Democrats, suffers from the usual range of institutional blind spots, historical foibles, and constituency-driven evasions. The other, the Republicans, has moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.

Last week proved another part of the equation: violate the orthodoxy at your peril, as shown by the paroxysms of pretzel logic that Newt Gingrich went through between his appearance on Meet the Press last Sunday and his appearance on Face The Nation yesterday. Mr. Gingrich certainly got a taste of the GOP version of campaign waterboarding.

It sends out a very clear signal to the rest of the candidates or those who are thinking they might run as well: watch what you say about anything ranging from the debt ceiling, climate change, the economy, and of course the major issues such as evolution and biblical truths. One of the reasons Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels may have decided on passing up a run for the White House goes back to a statement he made about calling a "truce" on social issues such as marriage equality and focusing on the economy in the 2012 campaign. The guns were already being loaded on that gaffe. The fact that Mr. Daniels was also the budget director in the Bush administration -- the one that got us where were are today -- and that he was seen as a credible spokesman on the economy tells you that we've skated off into La-La Land.

Mr. Weisberg wonders if the GOP candidates who are chasing the nomination actually believe the stuff they have to repeat. I'm not sure it matters. It's a test of their character, and they lost.
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Happy Victoria Day

If you're in Canada and other parts of what's left of the British Empire, enjoy the rest of your long weekend that ostensibly celebrates the birthday of Queen Victoria. It's the unofficial start of summer for Canadians, much the way Memorial Day will be next week here in the U.S.
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Short Takes

A deadly tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, yesterday.

President Obama is off to Europe.

Syria is now going after social media to shut down protesters.

The special election in New York's 26th district is getting national attention.

The Feds want to deny bail to the South Florida terror suspects.

The Heat beat the Bulls in Game 3.

The Tigers finally took one from the Pirates.
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A Little Night Music

Barbra Streisand... and Frederic Chopin


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Sunday Reading

Modern Mythology -- Garrett Epps of The Atlantic looks at the bogus claims about what is and isn't in the Constitution.

Constitutional argumentation is a means Americans employ to keep from killing each other. Ridiculous claims about the Constitution, then, may often be a sign of political health rather than sickness.

So it's not surprising that, as we lurch toward summer, the national air is filled with claims about the "plain meaning" and "clear intent" of the Constitution; it's also not surprising that the "plain meaning" asserted isn't usually to be found in the actual text, and the "clear intent" supported often has no foundation in the actual history.

But even so, the last time I remember hearing so many dangerous and bogus claims about the Constitution, I was a boy in the segregated South listening to my elders explain that the Commonwealth of Virginia had the power to pass a statute "nullifying" Brown v. Board of Education. That experience taught me to be suspicious of grand claims about the secret meaning of the Constitution (such as the eerily familiar claim, advanced earlier this month in federal court, that the Commonwealth of Virginia has the power to pass a statute nullifying the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act); it also taught me that at some point, constitutional arguments may lead to, rather than prevent, blood in the streets.

The constitutional bosh propounded by charlatans like James J. Kilpatrick during the Civil Rights era was aimed at convincing the nation that racial equality was unconstitutional--instead of being, as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments make clear, commanded by the amended Constitution. Those arguments live on under the surface of the bilge peddled by figures from Glenn Beck to Tom Coburn.

But the current far-right campaign is aimed at an even broader target: it seeks to convince us that the Constitution somehow forbids the United States from becoming a modern nation-state, with an integrated economy, a rational health-care system, a unified national citizenship, an open electoral process, and a system of bedrock civil and political rights.

The Constitution isn't the only document that breeds mythological interpretations. Nicholas Kristof has a short quiz on the Bible and examines how misinterpretations and intentionally misleading deceptions have distorted its meaning. The only reason it matters is that a lot of people, including legislators, Congressional representatives, and people in power have taken to interpreting the Constitution through the lens of the Bible. They're using fables and faerie stories to turn the foundation of our nation into some bizarre mix of legal legerdemain and bigotry.

More below the fold.

Fertilizing Grass-Roots Education -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending a lot of money promoting new initiatives in education in America. Does it come with a price?

For years, Bill Gates focused his education philanthropy on overhauling large schools and opening small ones. His new strategy is more ambitious: overhauling the nation’s education policies. To that end, the foundation is financing educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies on issues like the seniority system and the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers.

In some cases, Mr. Gates is creating entirely new advocacy groups. The foundation is also paying Harvard-trained data specialists to work inside school districts, not only to crunch numbers but also to change practices. It is bankrolling many of the Washington analysts who interpret education issues for journalists and giving grants to some media organizations.

“We’ve learned that school-level investments aren’t enough to drive systemic changes,” said Allan C. Golston, the president of the foundation’s United States program. “The importance of advocacy has gotten clearer and clearer.”

The foundation spent $373 million on education in 2009, the latest year for which its tax returns are available, and devoted $78 million to advocacy — quadruple the amount spent on advocacy in 2005. Over the next five or six years, Mr. Golston said, the foundation expects to pour $3.5 billion more into education, up to 15 percent of it on advocacy.

Given the scale and scope of the largess, some worry that the foundation’s assertive philanthropy is squelching independent thought, while others express concerns about transparency. Few policy makers, reporters or members of the public who encounter advocates like Teach Plus or pundits like Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute realize they are underwritten by the foundation.

“It’s Orwellian in the sense that through this vast funding they start to control even how we tacitly think about the problems facing public education,” said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who said he received no financing from the foundation.

Mr. Hess, a frequent blogger on education whose institute received $500,000 from the Gates foundation in 2009 “to influence the national education debates,” acknowledged that he and others sometimes felt constrained. “As researchers, we have a reasonable self-preservation instinct,” he said. “There can be an exquisite carefulness about how we’re going to say anything that could reflect badly on a foundation.”

Open For Business -- Fred Grimm on the gold rush in Tallahassee.

News out of Tallahassee might have been bleak with stuff about cutbacks and layoffs and desiccated budgets for education and public services. But for private companies looking to scarf up public money, the 2011 legislative session was more like an outing in Disney World.

The Legislature kept discovering new and exciting ways to funnel taxpayer money into private bank accounts. Privatization, a kind of right-wing socialism, became all the rage.

Lawmakers decided to privatize prisons and other Department of Corrections operations, though only in the politically safe 18 counties nestled at the southern end of Florida (so much for 1,751 DOC workers). Private medical contractors will take over health services for the entire state prison system.

Most of the state’s three million Medicaid recipients will be pushed into for-profit HMOs, despite profound problems with the HMO model in the state’s five-county pilot program.

The Legislature cut education funding by $1.5 billion but created a mighty business opportunity for the educational testing industry. A new law tosses out teacher tenure and links merit pay to the end-of-the-year standardized tests. In all courses. Not just the old FCAT classes. Which means each school district will need lots of expensive new standardized tests and study guides and grading services. The first year of a similar merit pay plan in North Carolina cost the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District $1.9 million.

Rep. Luis Garcia of Miami captured the essence of this peculiar strain of capitalism back in March, when the Legislature was still debating the merit pay bill. “This bill will be a bonanza for the private companies that make their money grading tests but will do nothing for teachers or our children’s education.”

Each district must pay for its own testing regime, but the state budgeted $41 million to pay a private contractor to compile a statewide test bank. “Bank” here refers to a collection of suggested questions and answers in the various courses that the school districts can access. Not to the honey pot of public money awaiting some lucky testing firm. Robert Schaeffer, public education director of The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest), called the merit pay bill “a boon for the testing industry.”

Sen. Nan Rich of Weston noted that the new education law also mandated, oddly, that each student enroll in at least one on-line computer course as a graduation requirement. “That’s a nice little prize for somebody.” She said the private, for-profit companies will relish a chance to stage the low-overhead virtual courses that, under the new law, don’t require a certified teacher to administer the course, or even a physical office in the state.

There's nothing wrong with private business getting into doing this kind of work if it can be shown that it's more efficient and less expensive than having it done in the public sector. But that's a big "If," and so far no one has proven that it is. But most importantly, no one has shown that the end result -- a better education for all of Florida's students at a lower cost -- is anything more than a myth and a sales pitch.

Doonesbury -- making the case.
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Still Here

There were no massive earthquakes and naked people floating up to heaven yesterday on the Rapture.

I guess I'll go make some coffee.
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Short Takes

NATO widens its campaign to weaken Qaddafi.

Iceland airport shuts down because of a volcanic ash eruption.

Too much snow in the West threatens flooding.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels won't run for president.

Herman Cain, Tea Party darling, makes it official that he is running for president.

No Triple Crown -- Shackleford beat Animal Kingdom at the Preakness.

The Tigers lost to the Pirates.
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What If They Threw a Tea Party...

And nobody came?

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley speaks during a meeting of the Tea Party in Columbia Thursday night at the Statehouse.
The final count was 30.
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The Week in Review

The Daily Show - Recap - Week of 5/16/11
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

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Short Takes

A bombing in Pakistan hit a military hospital.

Syrian protestors gain ground.

NATO says Qaddafi is on the run.

The new president of Ivory Coast will finally be inaugurated.

The PATRIOT Act will be extended.

The new voting law in Florida ends early voting in Miami.

The Tigers lost to the Pirates.
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Cry Havoc, And Let Slip The Dogs of Newt

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
John Lithgow Performs Gingrich Press Release
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

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Question of the Day

I hear there are big plans for tomorrow...

What are you doing to prepare for the Rapture?

There will probably be a lot of yard sales going on...

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That Was Then - Again

The Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the appointment of Goodwin Liu to a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It's not the specific appointment that is interesting, although Mr. Liu would be the first Asian-American appointed to a court that serves a large population of Asian-Americans. But it does point out -- yet again -- that the Republicans are the masters of situational ethics: they're staunchly against filibustering judicial nominees unless they have been appointed by a Democrat. Via Think Progress:

Just six short years ago, Republicans sang a very different tune when it came to judicial filibusters. Senate Republicans almost unanimously declared filibusters of judicial nominees to be a horrific betrayal of their constitutional role. Many Republicans outright declared judicial filibusters to be unconstitutional. Here is a representative sample of how current GOP senators felt about such filibusters when a Republican was in the White House:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN): “I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.”

Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA): “Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it.”

Tom Coburn (R-OK): “If you look at the Constitution, it says the president is to nominate these people, and the Senate is to advise and consent. That means you got to have a vote if they come out of committee. And that happened for 200 years.”

John Cornyn (R-TX): “We have a Democratic leader defeated, in part, as I said, because I believe he was identified with this obstructionist practice, this unconstitutional use of the filibuster to deny the president his judicial nominations.

Mike Crapo (R-ID): “Until this Congress, not one of the President’s nominees has been successfully filibustered in the Senate of the United States because of the understanding of the fact that the Constitution gives the President the right to a vote.”

Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster.”

Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation.”

I don't have to tell you that each of these Senators voted to block Mr. Liu's nomination from reaching the floor.
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