I see this as an opportunity to test a legitimate anti-bank populist message against a real opponent. Massachusetts may be a blue state, but Scott Brown has a 54% approval rating and will have scads of money to tout his record and distort his opponent’s. He’s already doing some of that, playing the role of faux-populist with New England Cable Network, pretending that he “worked very hard to make sure that banks didn’t act like casinos with our money.” The history is clear. He single-handedly watered down the Volcker rule to almost nothing, mainly to protect Mass Mutual and other state banks. He has been the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars of big bank largesse. This anti-bank claim he’s trying to make is untenable. And Warren knows it.

In the United States and most democracies, voters don’t primarily use elections to choose between competing ideologies or plans. First and foremost, voters use the ballot to depose those they think failed to govern efficiently. Elections are often a referendum on the party in power.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed an International Criminal Court (ICC) complaint case that calls on the ICC to investigate and prosecute the Vatican for crimes against humanity. The complaint details what the two groups call “systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.”

People are straining for rationales to this one, but I think it’s pretty simple – the election took place in an environment with a very unpopular Democratic President. That popularity may be in the midst of bouncing back after the jobs address, but that was too late to save Weprin.

Tell me about how “contractors” are cheaper. Federal law enforcement still has no interoperable radio systems, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission.

• The canary in the coal mine?
• Some actual good news.
• Sign of the times.
• Scenes from the Texas Miracle.
• The poor have it so damn easy in this country.

Not much is a better compliment for a person than the quality of the individuals they offend.

St. Petersburg Ska Jazz Review — Too Good To Be True.

I came to San Francisco for OpBART-5 which, given the detention of journalists and students on Thursday, could have gone one of two ways: Very Badly or Okay. It was the latter, except for San Francisco Police Department Officer A. Mora striking a journalist’s camera. Twice. But San Fransisco State University student Eri Verducoza, who [...]

Michele Bachmann yearns for the good old days of whites-only immigration policy before those damn liberals ruined everything: