The Kids Are Alright (pic taken by PW herownself)

Because we could all use a bit of good news:

 

– The local Chambers of Commerce agree with Minnesota’s most powerful functioning adult, Governor Mark Dayton, and a majority of Minnesotans that revenue increases, particularly tax increases, must be part of any state budget compromise. This puts them squarely at odds with the hyperactive frat-boy Republicans running the Minnesota state legislature. Can the state Republicans live solely off the support of out-of-state far-right Koch front groups like ALEC? I wouldn’t bet on it, especially with the next news item:

– The IRS is telling big donors to political campaigns that their donations could be subject to gift taxes, something that might put a cramp in the notoriously tax-averse Koch brothers’ style. Heh — just when the Republicans thought the Roberts Court’s ruling in Citizens United gave them the ability to have all their rich friends dump tens of billions of dollars into their coffers each election cycle and swamp the Democrats by at least ten if not twenty times over in terms of donations, the Internal Revenue Service has to step in and save us from de facto dictatorship. Awwww. How good of news is this? Republicans are screeching like scalded roosters over it.

– Finally, as a result in part of the sheer number of prominent Republicans who espouse his “Wallbuilders” crackpottery posing as history, the national press is being forced by the reality-based bloggers to notice getting around to noticing the existence of David Barton, a far-right white-supremacist-palling Liar for Jesus who has been on the radar screens of reality-based people since the mid-1990s. Will the same media peeps that so heatedly demonized Ward Churchill, Helen Thomas and Cynthia McKinney treat with equal ferocity a man who the Republican National Committee has hired as a consultant? Or the man who likely Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann calls “a fantastic and insightful writer”?

– Oh, and I almost forgot: The number of persons who’ve joined FDL as a way to hold the traditional media’s feet to the fire is now at 132 and counting. Thanks very muchly, everyone!  If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.