NC NAACP Runs Powerful Radio Ads Against
Amendment One

post from Firedoglake on 30 April 2012 07:15:52 PM. © Firedoglake

The North Carolina NAACP is the only chapter aside from California's that has come out forcefully against an anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment, and Rev. Dr. William Barber makes it crystal clear why voters in NC need to come out and vote against[...]

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Walker raises record $millions out of state

post from MAL Contends . . . on 30 April 2012 07:00:53 PM. © MAL Contends . . .

Gov. Scott Walker raised $13 million since January to fight off the recall bid against him, far outdistancing his Democratic challengers and driving home the challenge they will have in beating the Republican incumbent.

Criss-crossing the country on fundraising trips, Walker has raised more than $25 million in total since January 2011 and has $4.8 million in cash on hand - numbers unlike any that have been seen for a political candidate in Wisconsin. (Stein. MJS)

Does anyone seriously doubt Scott Walker is bought and paid for?

Following is the statement of Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate in response to the announcement by Scott Walker that he had raised $13 million in the recent reporting period and $25 million total.

"Scott Walker's campaign is based on a single premise: That he can raise vast piles of cash to obscure his dismal record of job loss, criminal corruption, attacks on women and rollback of Wisconsin freedoms. His unprecedented and unprincipled money machine, which relies on donations from out-of-state, has put Wisconsin up for sale. Does anyone believe that the special interests that are giving to Scott Walker have Wisconsin's best interest at heart?

The unprecedented amounts of money coming to defend Scott Walker's radical agenda are breathtaking and it is true that we will be badly outspent. It is also true that, at the end of the day, and until Walker makes it otherwise, money does not vote. The people vote. And it is the people of Wisconsin who will win victory over Scott Walker on June 5th."

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Rinse And Repeat

post from Talking Points Memo on 30 April 2012 07:00:48 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Senate Democrats zero in on Republicans' vulnerability among women voters by pushing Paycheck Fairness Act.[...]

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Workers Compensation Destruction Bill now being
debated by the Senate

post from Cottonmouth on 30 April 2012 07:00:40 PM. © Cottonmouth

As outlined earlier here today, the Workers Compensation Destruction Bill is a nightmare for Mississippians who have to work for a living. The Republican-run House didn't care. The Senate now has the bill before them. We'll see if they care about working Mississippians. (My money's not on "no", but on "of course not".)

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Senate passes Workers Compensation Destruction
Bill 31-15

post from Cottonmouth on 30 April 2012 07:00:40 PM. © Cottonmouth

That's it. The Workers Compensation Destruction Bill is off to Gov. Phil Bryant (R) for his signature.

This post is brought to you by Travis Tritt. The Lord better have mercy on the working man, because the Republicans they just elected to the run the state sure as hell don't.

video details and more

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Obama approves drone strikes where identity of
target is "unknown"

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 30 April 2012 07:00:13 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

I hate to keep harping on this, but it's unavoidable. Our testosterone-drunk nation is now (apparently) just fine, as in totally on board, with Obama using drones to kill the unknown, based only on a "signature" ? a pattern of data in the intel matrix.

How is this not murder?

(This is the same way the NSA fingers your phone calls and email for permanent capture and storage, by the way ? by matching the data in your call with a "signature" or profile related to word usage and other parameters.)

Here's Cenk Uygur to explain:

Here's the Washington Post story, if you want to read on.
You remember drone warfare, don't you? It's video games with a meat strike at the end. Obama seems especially fond of them.

Soon these deaths be telecast live on their very own cable network ? The Coliseum Channel.

I hate to say it, but I do think Krugman is right, but for a different reason. There will be a Night of the Krell, when all of this mayhem turns against us. The dawn of that understanding will be dark indeed.

Sad days.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)

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POLL: Muslims Don’t Like Al Qaeda

post from ThinkProgress on 30 April 2012 07:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

A new poll from the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows high unfavorable ratings for the terror group Al Qaeda among Muslims across six different countries. The poll led the Council on Foreign Relations’ James Lindsay to comment that one year after group leader Osama Bin Laden’s death, “he won?t be missed much in Muslim-majority countries.” According to the findings, support for Al Qaeda has declined by between 43 and 12 percent since 2003 in the seven countries surveyed. Here’s a chart from Pew:

(HT: Josh Shahryar)

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Now That ‘Girls’ Has Been Renewed,
Here’s What Lena Dunham Needs to Do

post from ThinkProgress on 30 April 2012 07:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

In the controversy over Lesley Arfin’s pattern of racially-inflected remarks, a lot of folks have asked why Lena Dunham hasn’t spoken up or taken decisive action to remove Arfin from the writers room. To a certain extent, it may have been because there was nothing she could do: the first season was in the can, and until there was a second announced, there wasn’t a writers’ room to rejigger. But now that there is, it would be helpful if Dunham publicly explained why she hired Arfin in the first place, what Arfin contributed to the first season, and said whether Arfin will or won’t be back for the second season, and why she made that decision.

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'La Bamba' Actor Expects Romney 'in a Photo Op
Outside a Taco Stand'

'La Bamba' Actor Expects Romney 'in a Photo Op Outside a Taco Stand'

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A actor and activist who is famous for his role in the 1987 film "La Bamba" on Sunday said that Mitt Romney has begun pandering to Hispanic voters now that he has become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

"We call that Hispandering," Esai Morales told CBS News' John Dickerson in a recent interview. "The problem is that, you know, with Romney, he's says his grandparents or his father was born in Mexico. I surprised I'm not seeing him in a photo op outside of a taco stand."

"But I'm in the middle on this one," he added. "I was looking forward to a lot more immigration reform from our current president. I supported him."

"Remember what you promised us," Morales advised President Barack Obama. "Be true to yourself because every time you don't, you give the opposition a lot of ammunition to say, you know, where's that change that was promised?"

During the Republican primary battle, Romney had courted conservative voters with anti-immigration positions. He called Arizona's tough immigration law a "model" for the country; he promised to veto the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act; and he said that undocumented immigrants should self-deport.

But now that the former Massachusetts governor has pivoted to his general election campaign, he is considering support for a version of the DREAM Act sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and insisting that he only supported the uncontroversial parts of the Arizona immigration law.

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Conservative Democrats agree Democrats will
capitulate on privatizing Medicare

cat food
Today's award for totally clueless Democrats who want the Very Serious People to love them is a tie: former Lousiana Sen. John Breaux, and Alice Rivlin, the former head of the White House's Office of the Management and Budget in the Clinton administration. They say Democrats are ready and waiting to go along with Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it, they're just waiting until after the election to do it.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats who are staking the 2012 election in part on the charge that Republicans will "end Medicare as we know it" likely will join in on that transformation once the election is over, according to high-powered lobbyist John Breaux, a Democrat and former senator from Louisiana.
"You're going to have to get past Nov. 5 or whenever the election is," Breaux told reporters after a Friday House hearing on "premium support," which is at the heart of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan -- that Democrats equate with ending Medicare. [...]
Rivlin, who also testified Friday, recently told The Huffington Post that Democrats "are lying, not to put too fine a point on it," when they say that premium support will end Medicare. Her vision (watch her explain it here), like Breaux's, includes aggressive oversight meant to ensure Medicare survives. [...]
"People are starting to realize that you have to start in the center," Breaux added. "I'm hearing talk from members about that; I think they're open. Max Baucus on the Senate Finance Committee is a type of centrist that can help put together a deal like this. And Orrin Hatch, after the elections."

That's ever so helpful, Breaux and Rivlin, in helping Democrats in this election. Of course, they don't want to help Democrats, because even though that's what they call themselves, it would just be far too nasty and partisan of them to not trash their party in public.

This is how these so called centrist Democrats, including Rep. Steny Hoyer and Sen. Kent Conrad, like to work. Either turn the decision-making over to some unelected, unaccountable commission (preferably with actual power) and have them make the critical decisions about the economic future of every middle-class and low-income American behind closed doors. Alternatively, have a bunch of lame duck Congress members who won't be back next term and who also aren't accountable to their constituents do the dirty work.

Our job is to tell them no backroom deals on Medicare or Social Security.