Hilarious WaPo story:

President Obama's refusal to raise taxes for the vast majority of Americans [. . .] is making it difficult for him to achieve his goals for reducing the budget deficit, according to administration and congressional sources. [. . .]

"It's a tremendous letdown," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "The purpose of the fiscal commission is to give politicians cover to do hard things, to pull back from the promises they can't stick to and to be a game-changer that promotes the real policies we need to fix the situation. If the White House returns to the stale debate over untenable promises about what they won't do, then they're not even letting the fiscal commission help them."

Ha! Riiiight, OBAMA's reluctance to raise taxes on the middle class is the problem. Republicans are lining up to raise taxes. If The Deal proved anything, it was that, right? Sheesh. Where were these Serious People during The Deal debate?

This is possibly the stupidest article I have ever read. Of course, it represents the highest order of Beltway thinking and will lead to the conclusion that we need massive spending cuts.

Speaking for me only

Great Krugman column:

[C]ommentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. [. . .] But that was then. Today’s G.O.P. sees much of what the modern federal government does as illegitimate; today’s Democratic Party does not. When people talk about partisan differences, they often seem to be implying that these differences are petty, matters that could be resolved with a bit of good will. But what we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government.

Politics and democracy is the vehicle for a society to decide on the policies that will be employed. Essential to that process is debating these differences. Does it matter that people be "civil" when debating these differences? Not to me, but I am not opposed to it. But it is important to understand that no matter how nice folks are to each other in the political arena, the important thing is to understand what people are advocating for in terms of policy.

Speaking for me only

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has commuted the death sentence of Richard Clay. Clay is another defendant prosecuted by former Congressman Ken Hulshof.

Nixon was Missouri's Attorney General before becoming Governor. He's a staunch advocate of the death penalty. In the 2008 Governor's race, his opponent was...Ken Hulshof. Yet, Nixon said Hulshof was not a factor in the commutation decision.

Hulshof should have been a factor. In 2009, Josh Kezer was released from prison after serving 17 years, half of his life, in prison. He's another case of wrongful conviction prosecuted by Hulshof. In 2008, the Missourian described six more cases. [More...]

(Just click on the "close" to get rid of the ad."

Jon Stewart mocks the partisian media criticism of the Tucson Memorial Service. Mediaite's description:

Stewart takes the high road and allows the words of his subjects damn themselves with partisan sniping completely at odds with what seemed to be the whole point of Obama’s speech.

Don't miss Stewart's blast of Michelle Malkin.

I'm just catching up with the news today. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Dick DeGuerin, Tom DeLay's lawyer, is confident DeLay's conviction will be reversed on appeal. First there's the legal argument on the money laundering statute, which includes. [More..]

Jobless claims rise:

The number of first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments jumped in the first week of 2011 to the highest level since October as more Americans lined up to file following the holidays. Initial jobless claims rose by 35,000 to 445,000, according to Labor Department data released today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for 410,000 filings. The average number of applications over the past four weeks, a less-volatile gauge, increased to 416,500.

And just wait until Part 2 of the Norquist Strategy kicks in.

Atrios has long said, rightly in my opinion, that:

It's long been the case that what really gets the Republican base excited is anything that pisses off liberals. There are genuine policy differences, of course, but to get an audience of Republicans on their feet and cheering you need to mention something, no matter how pointless, which pisses of liberals. It's the glue that keeps them together.

For whatever reason, Sarah Palin seems to be the figure that most pisses of "The Left," to borrow Jennifer Rubin's construction. As I noted in my post below, the past 4 days have been disastrous for Sarah Palin. Does this qualify as a "victory for 'The Left'" by the Rubin metric? And a defeat for "The Right" using the Atrios metric?

Speaking for me only

One of the difficult aspects for the Media regarding the Tucson tragedy was that it was largely taken out of its it political score keeping comfort zone. To do so would of course have been "injecting politics" into a tragedy. Yesterday, the keeping score approach was unavoidable, as it started with Sarah Palin and ended with the President of the United States. The President and his party scored big yesterday. Which makes this post from Jennifer Rubin rather bizarre:

Why were the last four days a mini-disaster for the swampland of the left? It boils down to: facts, response and time. [. . .] So, for my friends on the left: facts count. You can't spin a narrative and not be expected to be called on the underlying, flawed premise.

I'm not sure what Rubin is talking about. "The Left" lost? I did not know "the Left" was playing. My appreciation of the week is that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party "lost" and President Obama and Beltway Dems "won." Put it this way, a few more "wins" like this and we won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald documents the latest in the Media's continuing war on Wikileaks:

Last week, on January 3, The Guardian published a scathing Op-Ed by James Richardson blaming WikiLeaks for endangering the life of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the democratic opposition in Zimbabwe. Richardson [. . .] pointed to a cable published by WikiLeaks in which American diplomats revealed that Tsvangirai, while publicly opposing American sanctions on his country, had privately urged their continuation as a means of weakening the Mugabe regime[. . . .] This accusation against WikiLeaks was repeated far and wide. In The Wall Street Journal, Jamie Kirchick [. . .] wrote under this headline: "Julian Assange's reckless behavior could cost Zimbabwe's leading democrat his life." [. . .] The Atlantic's Chris Albon [. . echoed the same accusation[.]

There was just one small problem with all of this: it was totally false. It wasn't WikiLeaks which chose that cable to be placed into the public domain, nor was it WikiLeaks which first published it. It was The Guardian that did that.

In an update, Greenwald writes:

In 2009, I supported Richard Aborn for District Attorney of Manhattan. I liked most of his stated policies (except the ones on gun control) and wrote about them often. Aborn lost to Richard Vance.

In the light of Jared Loughner, who while not a teenager, is still quite young, I started thinking about Richard's policies, which laid out concrete solutions that well could make a difference.

Again, I am not one of those calling for a gentler political discourse as I think the topic had little to do with Loughner's actions. I think his slide into mental impairment holds the key. The question becomes, since we know he's not the only unbalanced, unhinged, mentally impaired young person out there, how do we spot the next one and what do we do to turn him around?

This paper by Richard presents some excellent suggestions. I urge you to read it: BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE: A NEW STRATEGY FOR PREVENTING JUVENILE CRIME: [More...]

Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports on yesterday's Supreme court oral argument in Kentucky v. King, about when the police can enter your home without a warrant, claiming exigent circumstances.

police officers in Kentucky were looking for a suspect who had sold cocaine to an informant. They smelled burning marijuana coming from an apartment, knocked loudly and announced themselves.

Then they heard sounds from inside the apartment that they said made them fear evidence was being destroyed. They kicked the door in and found marijuana and cocaine but not the original suspect, who was in a different apartment.

Orin Kerr points out the facts of the case are not quite clear. [More...]