The whole case depends on the FBI’s contention that a flask Ivins had–RMR-1029–was “the murder weapon.” But in fact, the FBI only has proof that Ivins had what might be one of eight or more potential precursors to the murder weapon. Their efforts to equate the two ignore some interim steps about which they seem to have little evidence (and what they have they’re not examining very closely).

Republican Gov. Scott Walker has been steadily making himself less popular in Wisconsin, so much so that he is now potentially vulnerable to a recall campaign, which could theoretically be launched six months from now.

one of the amendments to the PATRIOT Act Harry Reid made sure wouldn’t get a vote pertained to making it clear how the government interprets the PATRIOT Act. Mark Udall and Ron Wyden wanted to force the government to at least explain how they were interpreting the law so constituents would know how lame their Senators were for voting in favor of it.

Bill Clinton was the ultimate DLC guy in office, and a lot of his economic team is sitting in the Obama White House. They don’t want an excuse to do nothing either, I’d suspect.

Except doing nothing is the best hope of actually keeping safety net benefits at current levels. If you “do nothing,” the Bush tax cuts expire, tax rates go back to what they were under Bill Clinton when we created 23 million new jobs, and the medium-term deficit goes away completely. Doing nothing is a pretty darn good idea, at least compared to the alternatives.

Americans oppose any cuts to the country’s largest social safety net programs in order to reduce the federal deficit according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll (PDF). Two-thirds of Americans want no reductions in Social Security, 59 percent want no cuts to Medicare, and 53 percent want no reductions in Medicaid spending. On the other hand, 57 percent would support either major or minor reductions in defense spending to reduce the deficit.

Senate Democrats moved up their schedule to vote on the Paul Ryan budget, which phases out Medicare and block-grants Medicaid, today, when the sting of the NY-26 special election is fresh in Republican minds.

With almost no predictive power and no effect on the balance of control in Congress, this victory will only affect our government if most people assign a shared meaning to it.

Jared Loughner, accused of shooting Gabrielle Giffords and killing 6 people in a rampage in Tuscon this January, has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial by a federal judge today.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged one trading house and two individuals for illegally manipulating oil prices during the price spike of 2008, when oil reached $147 a barrel, by creating the appearance of a shortage to drive up the benchmark for crude. While the action covers oil trading in 2008, the connection to today, where speculation is seen as a primary cause for higher gas prices, is unmistakable.

More than 60 members of Firedoglake met for a webinar on May 11, 2011 to discuss what FDL should do for the 2011 election. The lively event showed the true depth of both the views of FDL’s members, as well as the great ideas for how we should proceed from both an organizing and journalism perspective for the election.

You can watch a replay of the member presentation in the above video. We want to show what it means to be an FDL Member, and invite you to join as a member to participate in our coming discussions. (Future recordings of webinars will be available to members only.)