Midday open thread
- A drumbeat that every elected Democrat should be pounding:
In a significant escalation of the progressive campaign to make Republicans pay a political price for voting to end Medicare, the progressive advocacy group Americans United for Change will run broadcast TV ads in the districts of Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Paul Ryan (R-WI).
- Former Senator Rick Santorum apparently thinks that ending health care reform is worth any cost:
SANTORUM: [The health care law] is a program that if the president wants to defend, he should stand up and say the 2012 election is about Obamacare. We?ll put this on hold, and make it a referendum on Obamacare.
WALLACE: Well ok that?s 2012, but you?re saying you?d let the country go into default on this issue.
SANTORUM: No I think the president would let this country go into default on this issue.
WALLACE: But you would make that the condition ? you?d make that the price?
SANTORUM: Absolutely. Absolutely.
- A very serious candidate:
Donald Trump says he's considering running in the primary for the Republican presidential nomination, but the real estate mogul didn't vote in primary elections for more than two decades, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
The possible GOP candidate voted in a primary election in the 1989 New York City mayor's race - when Rudy Giuliani beat businessman Ronald Lauder - then didn't vote in a primary for 21 years, board spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said Saturday. The report on Trump's voting record initially appeared on TV station NY1 a day earlier.
- How will Haley Barbour's drawl play in Peoria?
He is not like them. And the breakfast crowd at Chez Vachon knows it the instant Haley Barbour opens his mouth. It?s not that they haven?t met Southern politicians before. Or that they don?t recognize the oddly shaped pin on his lapel as the state of Mississippi. The people of New Hampshire have been courted by politicians of all shapes and sizes over the years. It?s just that very few of them have encountered an accent quite like this.
?I noticed it, absolutely. You notice it,? said Jim Waddell, a state Representative from Hampton. He?s a one-time jogging partner of President Bill Clinton and recently shared breakfast here with Barbour. ?Some people might say, ?Ah, that?s phony, or that?s not real, or that?s hickish, or that?s redneckish.? But I don?t feel that way. ... From my own point of view, I love a Southern accent and I love the way they use a lot of expressions in it. It?s lively.?
It may be lively, but the question is whether Barbour?s profound drawl will hurt his campaign to win over voters in the nation?s first presidential primary. The consensus on the trail this month was that the Mississippi native could be a hard sell in a Northern city set nearly 1,500 miles -? and a world away, culturally ? from the governor?s mansion in Jackson.
- Republicans are finding out that slashing education spending is about as popular as ending Medicare:
Angry residents confronted Republican state Sen. Tom Casperson at a town hall last week over his support for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder?s (R) proposed budget, which ? like those of many other GOP governors ? would slash funding for education while cutting corporate taxes. Snyder?s budget would cut spending on education by $471 per student and reduce teachers? pay and benefits. Yet while students and teachers are asked to sacrifice, Snyder?s budget would give huge tax breaks to businesses in the form of a flat 6 percent corporate tax rate.
At Casperson?s town hall in Marquette, Ishpeming school board member Mike Flynn joined numerous other constituents in speaking out against the cuts. Flynn said his district is already struggling to make ends meet, having shut down its middle school, laid off teachers and staff, and privatized its bus and custodial services. Flynn asked those in attendance to stand if the oppose education cuts. ?Nearly everyone in the room jumped to their feet while cheering and clapping,? the Maquette Mining Journal reported.
Casperson responded that he was trying to minimize the impact on education, but that cuts are necessary. ?What about a higher business tax?? one constituent shouted, met with cries of ?yes!? from other attendees and a chorus of applause.
- Chuck Norris, trading in on his fading celebrity, has been peddling anti-Muslim talking points that he's plagiarizing from right-wing sources.
- In case you missed this earlier:
The Supreme Court has denied Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli?s petition to hear Virginia's lawsuit against the health care overhaul immediately. The order was released Monday without explanation.
- Things continue to go swimmingly in Afghanistan:
The Taliban staged an audacious prison break here early Monday, freeing at least 476 political prisoners through a long tunnel, according to the warden, Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar.
He said that security authorities had discovered in the morning that the prisoners from the political wing of the building were gone, and that the authorities had just found the tunnel. ?We do not know if the tunnel was dug from outside or inside the prison,? he said.
- Moron:
Televangelist Franklin Graham suggested he was unsure about whether President Obama was American, saying on ABC?s This Week yesterday that potential presidential candidate Donald Trump ?may be right.? Graham went on to praise Trump and implied that he may end up endorsing the real estate mogul.
- Class:
Sheen said that he and his wife were fighting a lot at the time and that he was several hours late to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, a place he said "looks like a cheap set." He said Trump wanted to cheer him up, so he gave him what he thought was a pair of platinum and diamond Harry Winston cuff links valued at more than $100,000.
And they say Sheen is the crazy one?Sheen said Trump kept complimenting his Patek Phillipe watch too, but Sheen pointed out he wasn't going to give his watch to a "billionaire," noting, "He could buy the company!"
Long story short: A few months later, as Sheen and his wife were divorcing and lawyers were divvying up the wealth, they had the gift cuff links appraised. They weren't Harry Winstons, it turns out. They weren't platinum. They weren't gold either. And those diamonds? Cubic zirconium. He said the cuff links appraised for about 60 bucks.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/Y4JH5VLuKh0/-Midday-open-thread
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