• Disgraced Former Speaker/Quitter 2012!
• Sign of the times.
• Uh-oh: the WSJ blasts Willard.
• Big Oil comes to Washington.
• So…are teachers, public defenders, and soldiers slaves, too?

Republicans officially declare the Confederacy deserved a chance to win.

Asylum Street Spankers — Harp Rumble.

Newt, we’ll give you a mulligan on another child bride if you’ll agree to just shut the fuck up and go away.

The House Republican budget written by Paul Ryan has received a huge amount of criticism for its plan to replace Medicare with a poorly indexed private voucher program that could result in more and more seniors every year being unable to afford health care. Less focus has been put on how equally devastating the Ryan plan would be to people who rely on Medicaid because the plan would stop federal funding for the program from keeping up with the increasing cost of actually providing people with care.

The recent Gallup poll found not only that the overwhelming majority of Americans think it is time to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, but even among Republicans there is an even split between those who say withdraw and those who think we should stay. Theoretically, this should create a potential opening for an anti-war Republican presidential primary candidate.

Some of us have been having fun on Twitter discussing the reported power struggle in al Qaeda to replace Osama bin Laden in terms we’d use to discuss an American election. Which made this report–which Frontline linked as part of their Kill/Capture program that aired last night–all the more chilling. The author, Kate Clark, consulted “survivors, witnesses, police, senior Afghan officials – and, crucially, senior officers in the Special Forces unit which carried out” a September 2, 2010 bombing strike. She concluded that rather than killing a senior Taliban official, as Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) still maintains, the airstrike killed a group of men campaigning for parliament.

Republicans are doing more than offering their opinion. They’re threatening the livelihoods of the decision-makers in the case. This only differs from the US Attorney scandal in that Republicans don’t hold the White House, so the threats are coming from a different part of the government.

The sorry economic conditions for the young and educated could have political implications for President Obama who depended on this age group in the 2008 election to not only come out and vote for him but also work as volunteers on the campaign.

With fresh arms and a renewed vigor from an increasingly intense NATO bombing campaign, anti-government rebels in Libya have made tangible gains over the past few days. The rebels captured the airport in Misurata, and sent Gadhafi loyalists fleeing for cover. The airport served as a base and storage facility for Gadhafi’s forces and their heavy weapons. Rebels say they’ve seized weapons and ammunition from the airport. Rebels are now advancing west from Misurata to Ziltan, which is closer to Tripoli. Fighting has subsided on the eastern front around Ajdabiya as well. Gadhafi has gone underground, not even appearing at his son’s funeral, which has fed the rumor mill.