Start the timer....now!

According to the NYTimes, Republicans are claiming they're going to soft pedal on the Supreme Court Justice nominee and try to avoid over the top language.

I give them just one day after a name is announced.

Crist wilts

Notice that Charlie Crist, now looking very much uphill in his Senate primary, only raised $1 million in the last quarter.

If that's not a sign that the Florida GOP insiders see him as dead, I don't know what is.

(He does have $7.5 mil cash on hand, though.)

Thought

Can you imagine what would happen if any other organization acted the way the Catholic church has regarding pedophiles in their ranks?

The Boy Scouts? A school district? A government welfare program?

A remarkably reasonable revolution

The lede on this story is how former Kyrgyzstan dictator Bakiyev had looted his country's treasury before his ouster, but, reading past that, I was struck by the absolute rationality and reasonableness in the quotes of the revolution's leader.

You just don't expect that from a revolutionary leader...

It's not your imagination....

Business Insider:

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Cliché, sure, but it's also more true than at any time since the Gilded Age.

...and social mobility is at an all-time low.

(Good thing we're fighting the socialist takeover.)

Seriously, though. Click on "View as one page" (under the picture) and take a look at the graphics. It's pretty unbelievable.

Obama delivers a little slap

Obama brushed off criticisms from former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin about his nuclear weapons policy.

"I really have no response. Because last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues," he said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

(...but, but, but.... she can see Russia from her house!....)

Quote

Sarah Palin recounting her first meeting with Michelle Bachmann,

Palin responded in kind, recalling a meeting in Alaska: “I knew that we’d be buddies when I met her when she said, ‘Drill here, drill now.’ And then I replied, ‘Drill, baby, drill’ and then we both said, ‘You betcha!’....”

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Michel Steele - The RNC's joke

When they can do this to you, you're already gone.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Steele Plays the Race Card
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Think there will be a pro-Steele backlash? I'm guessing not.

Thought for the Day

The "party of Lincoln" is celebrating the Confederacy.
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A sentence that made me laugh

From yet another poll about Sarah Palin,

College graduates were also among the demographic groups likely to have a negative view of Palin...

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Observation - Fundraising

Steele's RNC raised a really, really good $11 million fundraising month in March following on healthcare, BUT.....

The DNC is saying they raised still more, "almost $13 million."

And then there's this,

The Republican National Committee at the end of last year struck a deal with the Michigan Republican Party that if the state party could raise what turned out to be a half a million dollars for the RNC from its donors, the committee would immediately give the money back, in a scheme apparently devised to increase the RNC’s 2009 fundraising numbers....

Asked the motivation for the individual contributors to donate to the Michigan Party through the RNC, the official said by doing so, “they would be able to give more money to the Michigan state party than the federal limit of 10k.”

If such a deal is provable, I think that would be illegal.

Light Day

Something's up. It may be a light day...

(or maybe later. I don't know.)

Marketing

If nothing else, you have to admire the Apple folks for getting their new product featured for days on frontpages around the country (especially since there's no real application for it yet.)

Virginia Gov declares April is Confederate History Month.

No, I'm not kidding.

Net neutrality

A major appeals court ruling says that internet service providers can slow down traffic by type and website meaning that net neutrality is temporarily gone.

Your service provider can choose the sites it will carry and the speed with which any of them are delivered.

In other words, they can charge money to websites to promptly deliver content, rendering many sites useless unless they pay. (It means small and independent sites like this one or most of the blogs you visit will slow to a crawl while Clear Channel, Disney, and Doritos' content will zip to you.)

There's also a second level where this would allow effective content blocking. Think the Christian Right folks are getting ready to write their letters to Comcast? It'll start with porn and work its way towards political content.

This is just awful, and we're going to have to depend on getting a bill through the Senate to fix it! Aarrgghh!

Steele

FirstRead claims that the RNC is about to turn in its best fundraising month ever outside of a Presidential campaign (fuelled by healthcare.)

Quote

Hamid Karzai in a closed door session with Afghani MPs,

'If I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taleban.'

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The new normal

Billionaire Meg Whitman has already poured $59 million of her own money into her California Senate race (where there hasn't even been a primary yet!)

Curious: Do you think she fancies herself in the future buying the first female presidency? Obviously not 2012, but by 2016?

Picture of the Day

The picture with the giant bunny always freaks me out.


(President Barack Obama speaks as the Easter Bunny looks on during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.(AFP/Saul Loeb))

The new nuclear policy

The Obama administration intends to lay out a new, more explicit policy on the use of nuclear weapons today.

The geopolitical intent clearly seems to be an effort to create a pressure relative to the non-proliferation treaty. Those outside the NPT (N. Korea, Iran) are being specifically excepted and put under a more intense retaliatory threat while those that are inside the NPT are technically exempt from nuclear strike, intending to create a pressure on those considering weaponization (Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia) to stay inside the NPT.

I'm not sure it works, but I do get it.

(However, I think the domestic political timing could be a little tough. By laying out specific conditions, you are allowing Republicans to find extreme examples of "not keeping America safe" and screaming them from the stump. (I mean, if they were allowed to repeat "death panels" for six months....) Take the 36 pt. Drudge headline this morning, "No nukes: Even in self defense!"

You're asking Democrats to win subtle national security arguments in the middle of a campaign....)

The Steele mess

Michael Steele threw his second in command under the bus, but it's still not going to make his critics happy.

Also an interesting point here. Steele has now left himself surrounded only by loyalists. Good for Steele, but that also means that the inside cadre has little link to the big donors and power players, so they will have to raise money from the small donors which means still bigger stunts and even crazier rhetoric.

This was supposed to be their big rebound year....

Quote of the Year?

Facing a primary challenge over his right wing fealty, John McCain in a Newsweek interview said...

"I never considered myself a maverick," McCain said. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities."

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Interesting point....

Mark Halperin notes that despite all the chatter about a Republican resurgence, potential 2012 presidential challengers aren't exactly off to a running start. Besides Pawlenty and Romney, who else is really laying the groundwork?

Slow

I think we're still on holiday.....

Thought for the Day

Texas Governor Rick Perry has presided over 342 executions during his time as governor..