Axelrod Says Democrats Have Health Care Votes

He said it on This Week with Jake Tapper.

Clarence Thomas’ Wife Is Part Of The Tea Party

Of course she is.

The brand of faux resentment and self-inflicted paranoia practiced by the tea party should remind her a lot of her husband.

George Washington Vs. A Bengal Tiger On A Sinking Boat. During A Hurricane.

For a first president, this sets the bar ridiculously high. (via)

Does German Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal Go Up To The Pope?

Link

A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made ‘serious mistakes’ in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.
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Times Topics: Roman Catholic Church | Pope Benedict XVI
The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the...
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The Stupak Whine

Bart Stupak has gone crying to his ideological bretheren at the National Review that it’s becoming clear that the House Democrats are finally going to stop letting him hold them hostage. Stupak’s small, narrow minded coalition is breaking up and he’s realizing – shocker – that of the two major parties in America, it is the Democratic party that has a vested interest in preserving a woman’s right to reproductive healthcare.

There are many issues I think should have wiggle room for Democrats in order to maintain a big tent, but holding on to a few seats by appeasing those who think women are second class is no place to be.

Utah Republican Kevin Garn Paid Off Woman After Nude Hot Tub Encounter

Wow

Utah’s House majority leader said late Thursday he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going nude ‘hot-tubbing’ with her when she was minor a quarter century ago.

In a shocking statement on the House floor, Kevin Garn, 55, a Republican from Layton, said he paid her to keep quiet about the incident during his unsuccessful U.S. congressional bid in 2002, but did not have sexual contact with her.

Garn said the woman, who he didn’t identify on the floor, has been calling news outlets and that he wanted to be open about the incident that occurred when he was 28 years old, before any stories...
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The Very Definition Of Dead Ending

Here is a post from “gqmartinez” at Corrente:

In every case where a state held both a primary and a caucus, Obama did much worse in the primary. Hell, just look at Texas. Hillary won the state by 100,000 votes, but Obama won by double digits in the caucus. Its hard to take seriously Obama’s delegate lead–which was based almost exclusively on his caucus performance–based on this information. Add to this the paper trail on the Texas caucus and alleged fraud as well as union bullying in Nevada, and your stink filter should be on super high.

Then there is FL and MI. Forget the machinations that led to FL and MI breaking the rules and thus having their...
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Danny Glover Vs. Hugo Boss

Danny Glover tried to get celebrities to boycott wearing Hugo Boss clothes at the Oscars in retaliation for the closure of a plant in Cleveland. Turns out it worked, according to Hugo Boss’ internal memo.

More: Danny Glover, Hugo Boss

AP: House Dems Bypassing Stupak Faction

I sure hope so.

House Democratic leaders Thursday abandoned a long struggle to strike a compromise on abortion in their ranks, gambling that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming as early as next week.

More: Bart Stupak, Nancy Pelosi

MoveOn Members Support Passing The Health Care Bill

By a lopsided margin of 83% to 17%. Either MoveOn supporters are mindlessly echoing the cautious centrist prattling of proto-third way elitist bloggers like myself…

OR

Most of us on the left realize that the best way forward is to pass this bill, “kill the bill” be damned and unrealistic.

Israel Playing Games With American Lives

The idea that they’re still pushing settlements now is amazingly ludicrous. Thankfully the vice president apparently made that clear.

People who heard what Biden said were stunned. ‘This is starting to get dangerous for us,’ Biden castigated his interlocutors. ‘What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.’

The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.

Both sides in this...
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Mormon Church To Glenn Beck: We Do Social Justice Too

TV’s biggest moron.

Mr. Beck, in vilifying churches that promote ‘social justice,’ managed to insult just about every mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, African American, Hispanic and Asian congregation in the country – not to mention plenty of evangelical ones.

Even Mormon scholars in Mr. Beck’s own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in interviews that Mr. Beck seems ignorant of just how central social justice teaching is to Mormonism.

The controversy began when Mr. Beck said on his radio show on March 2: ‘I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice,...
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Colbert On Glenn Beck’s Survival Seeds Advertiser

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Multiple Choice Mitt Romney Strikes Again

I’ve now watched this game for Mitt Romney for 8 years and it is still hilarious. When Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he claimed to be pro-choice. Ever since then, as he tried to get national office as a conservative Republican he’s tried to revise history. In 2008 he claimed to be “effectively” pro-life, despite all the video to the contrary. And now he’s claiming he never called himself pro-choice.

As some like the late Sen. Kennedy noted, Mitt Romney’s been on every side of every issue. If by some trick of fate he were to become the Republican nominee in 2012, I would advise President Obama to...
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The Perfect Pony Is Dead

You cannot get the perfect pony. It is a mythical creature that doesn’t exist. Sort of like the perfect health care reform.

What would be ideal would be some form of a single-payer system here in America. The problem is we don’t have a zero moment here, a time when we can just hit “pause” and make it so. Here’s Obama back in 2007:

“If you’re starting from scratch,” he says, “then a single-payer system”—a government-managed system like Canada’s, which disconnects health insurance from employment—“would probably make sense. But we’ve got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be...
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You’ve Seen This Movie (Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer)

I’m sure you have.

Glenn Beck Hates You

No, YOU, specifically. Be sure to sign into it with Facebook.

American Taliban Watch: Praying To Control The Media

Religious right leader Janet Porter makes a prayer for Christian control of the media. (via)

National Review Is Funny

I like how they pretend that Thomas Friedman was this uber-liberal opposed to war in Iraq.

Here’s Thomas Friedman in 2003 saying we need to tell Iraq to “suck. on. this.”

Here’s the Daily Show explaining why “we won” in Iraq is still the dumbest thing ever.

Jags Fans: No Tebow Please

Hey Redskins fans, we need to do this too:

During a media conference call with Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Gene Smith today, it was revealed that in a poll of 800 Jags season ticket holders, 55 percent voted against the idea of the team drafting Tim Tebow — in any round and in any capacity (this according to Jags beat writer Vito Stellino). This is an interesting wrinkle, because team owner Wayne Weaver has been quoted as saying that he’d be amenable to Tebow on the roster if the Florida Hero of Intangibles put butts in the seats.