It isn’t just contraceptives the Republicans want to take away:

As part of an ongoing look at ALEC and its pet legislators, I’m looking at why certain ALEC bills (such as the Minnesota anti-voter “voter ID” bill which, having been shot down by both an ACLU lawsuit and a Mark Dayton veto, is back for its third go-round as a ballot measure) keep getting revived even after being shot down for unconstitutionality and other reasons.

Having used evangelicals to win Iowa, Rick Santorum is appealing, somewhat successfully, to the same Midwestern strain in Minnesota.

Six Republican Senators unveiled their legislation yesterday to roll back the defense trigger from the debt limit deal, replacing the $600 billion in savings with other cuts. However, this is not a $600 billion deal; in fact, the Senators, led by John McCain, only delayed the first year of defense cuts at a cost of $109 billion. They achieved this through pay freezes and cuts to federal employees. Considering that members of the military are also federal employees, you’re basically sparing one set of federal employees for another.

Meet your government, ladies and gentlemen. Josh Fox, the Academy Award-nominated director of the fracking documentary Gasland, was arrested today on Capitol Hill for attempting to film a public hearing. The GOP Committee did not want Fox filming their latest witch hunt.

The House GOP caucus definitely wants to try to force the issue on the Keystone XL pipeline with another vote. What’s not yet clear is where they want to place the rider. If they choose to attach it to payroll tax cut/UI legislation, that’s an indicator that they really want it to pass. If not, it’s an indicator that they just want to talk about it some more.

I can’t use the photo, so I will direct readers to their own link and I will direct you NOT to Jan Brewer’s finger (or her mouth for that matter which looks as if she is screaming at the top of her lungs… though perhaps there was engine noise and she just wanted the President to hear what she had to say), but to the President’s right arm and hand (which you can’t see but which you can sort of figure out where it is from the angle and so on). He has moved in and is either putting his hand or trying to put his hand on her arm (perhaps on her elbow). He is trying to draw her in, reduce the distance between them.

When you have the kind of power Grover Norquist has held — namely, decades of unquestioned dictatorial control over the Republican Party as its grand ayatollah of anti-tax orthodoxy — it’s easy for a wee bit of hubris to creep into your thinking. The result is the occasional burst of excessive honesty, as exemplified by [...]

But Jerry Ford would have thought it was too conservative… But as usual, Obama benefits from who his opposing critics are. Such as this man, best known for defending endless wars fought for illegitimate reasons with the tactic of implying treason upon their opponents.           Well, that is timely criticism indeed [...]

I still think in the long run, Romney will be “settled” for, not because he is loved but because he’ll do…but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to see this…