The Secessionist says crazy shit like this in Texas all the time, and can get away with it. And while it’s true this kind of wingnutty talk will endear him to the Teabirchers, good luck winning the presidency calling America’s favorite social programs criminal conspiracies.

Since the 2010 Republican wave election, voters have started turning against the Congressional Republicans and are now more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates for Congress. According to the latest poll from Gallup, among registered voters Democrats now lead the generic Congressional ballot.

On Wednesday, August 17, Firedoglake.com will hold a tele-news conference call with Lt. Dan Choi and his attorney Yetta Kurland to discuss his upcoming trial in DC federal court on August 29 for protesting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in front of the White House last year.

FDL readers can sign up now to be on the August 17 call and ask questions of Dan and Yetta.

In this segment, I explain how we may be moving beyond the liberal model which seeks to regulate capitalism to something more egalitarian, participatory, and decentralized, grounded in the emerging new economy. Here, as in my book America Beyond Capitalism, I call this possible new system “the pluralist commonwealth.”

By now the political world has heard about Mitt Romney’s statement to a group of hecklers at the Iowa State Fair yesterday. Explaining why he didn’t want to tax corporations to lower the deficit and pay for social insurance programs, Romney stated that “corporations are people, my friends.” This received the requisite amount of attention from partisans. But who initiated the exchange?

It turns out that the hecklers were a group of about a dozen members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI). They are a grassroots community organization that is part of a broader coalition called The New Bottom Line, which seeks to challenge big bank interests on behalf of everyday communities. And they have a message for members of both parties who visit Iowa during caucus season. I spoke with Dave Goodner, an Iowa CCI organizer who was part of the exchange yesterday.

A couple days ago, Yves Smith speculated that Standard and Poor’s broke SEC regulations by leaking word of its imminent downgrade of US debt before it occurred. Charlie Gasparino backed her up a day later. And now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating whether S&P leaked.

The Go-Go’s were the first band to come out of the LA punk scene to break Billboard’s Top 40. And, more importantly, The Go-Go’s were the first all-female band to top the charts who wrote their own music and played their own instruments. Their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, held the number one spot on the Billboard chart for six consecutive weeks and went triple platinum, selling over 3 million copies.

This weekend in my state there truly are Idiots Out Walking Around.

Louis Prima — Up A Lazy River.

Why did the Prime Mister forget about Egypt and the things he said to Hoser Mubarak? It sounds like someone needs to tell him the same things he told Hoser. Instead of fighting and stopping Twitter and instant messages, maybe he needs to do something to make a “future with greater rights”, because right now he only seems to be protecting the rights of the rich, not the rights of everyone.