John Thune (R-SD) has been rather publicly examining a potential 2012 presidential run for a while, but today, the Republican Senator announced he will not seek the nomination. Thune was viewed as the preferred choice among several party insiders and therefore a “legitimate candidate,” despite the fact that early polling had him trailing most other nominees.

In a meeting Sunday at the presidential palace in Kabul to investigate reports of multiple civilian deaths in a US operation in Konar province, General David Petraeus deeply offended those present when he suggested that Afghan civilians had deliberately burned their children in an effort to blame US attacks for their injuries. Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, the top military spokesperson in Kabul, then provided a statement to the Washington Post suggesting that the burns were inflicted on the children as punishment. This development is remarkably similar to events last March, when Smith initially stated after Special Forces killed two pregnant women in a night raid that the women had been slashed to death by knives before the raid took place, only for a later investigation to reveal that the Special Forces soldiers had used knives to remove the bullets that they had fired into the women.

The UN Security Council will meet in closed session today to look at the Libyan crisis, amidst calls from Gadhafi’s own diplomats for him to stop down, and from Libya’s deputy UN ambassador to impose a no-fly zone and stop a genocide.

In a new poll out this morning, paid for by the AFL but put together by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, Governor Walker’s poll numbers are fading. He has a net-negative favorability of -10 (39/49), and 51% disapprove of his job performance. And the numbers on public employees are quite a bit better.

These are the hard-fought rights that Gov. Walker’s measure would basically take away from public employees – the ability to bargain in their interest for appropriate pay, benefits and working conditions. These rights were won with blood.

Whenever some wingnut plays the “irresponsible brown people crashed the global economy” card, I think of Matt Taibbi’s incredibly satisfying beatdown of Byron York.

Earthquake in Christchurch, revolution (and repression) in Libya.

Billy Bragg performing Woody Guthrie’s Union Maid…

Hi, I’m Allison and I’m a cheesehead. I may live in Illinois now, but I was born a cheesehead and a cheesehead I remain. I cheer for the Packers. I eat protein and carbs. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of my pet ferrets is named Buckingham U. Badger, and I have been [...]

With states across the country facing serious budget deficits, it is important to remember our country’s tough marijuana laws aren’t just unnecessarily cruel to people who break them, but they are also devastating to our states’ budgets.

In Oklahoma, we have a mom who got sentenced to ten years in prison for a $31 pot sale.