Let me just say, I have some gems for all of you today.
- A multipart series on When Income Redistribution Is OK. Part 1: The Lottery. (Gin and Tacos)
- British Businessman Neil Heywood was murdered by Bo Xilai’s wife for refusing to move large amounts of cash without additional recompense and threatening to blackmail her. Bo Xilai was a high ranking Communist party leader in China who was removed under unusual circumstances several weeks ago. (Reuters via HuffPo)
- The Buffett Rule and other tax measure are coming up for votes in Congress. (AP via HuffPo)
- Mitt Romney wants to eliminate some federal departments, but won’t tell anyone which ones. (HuffPo)
- The GOP has problems with the Latino community. (HuffPo)
- Truth or Consequences: the story of Dan Rather’s report on George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard Service. (Texas Monthly)
- Tea Party support is stable, interest is waning. (Washington Post) That’s kind of the problem with an Astroturf movement. Its quick to setup and gives the appearance of grass, but never grows beyond the initial length, and starts to look really shitty after a while.
- Hillary Clinton has a beer. (HuffPo) Also, dances. (HuffPo)
- South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is just making stuff up at this point. (Herald Online) I’d like to point out that she was JUST elected in 2010, just like Rick Scott, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, and Chris Christie, none of whom may survive re-election.
- Battleground America: One nation, under the gun. (Jill Lepore, The New Yorker)
- Free waffle fries, free bigotry. (Balloon Juice)
- Airline Deregulation: The One Event In The History Of Mankind Which Explains Everything It Touches (Doghouse Riley)
- There is no mission in Afghanistan anymore. There isn’t anything. There is only abject failure. And that alone. (Charles P. Pierce)
- Teen Birthrates are down, everywhere except the Bible Belt. (The Atlantic) Gee, can’t imagine why.
- Fake orgasms and the Tea Party. (The Atlantic)
- Exposing ALEC: How Conservative-backed State laws are all connected. (The Atlantic) You know how Conservatives balked at the idea of a vast right-wing conspiracy? Turns out, the liberals were right, and it’s name is ALEC.
- Campaign 2012 will be nasty, brutish, and long. (The Atlantic) /dick joke
- The Obama-Romney Election will be close, not a landslide. (The Atlantic) I disagree. Santorum’s legacy: A focus on social issues in the general election. (The Atlantic) That would be why.
- What CISPA really says. (TPM) As an Information Security professional, I’m adamantly opposed to any kind of legislation that forces or allows for private organizations to turn over personal information to the government without anything less than an immediate threat to national security and a warrant from a judge, because the Federal Government has Game Boy-level security pretty much everywhere.
- Pro Gun laws have swept the nation since 2009. (TPM) Gee, I can’t imagine why. Could it be because there’s a Democrat in the White House, and he’s gonna come and take your guns away? Did I mention he’s black?
- Representative Virgina Foxx has very little tolerance for people with student loans. (ThinkProgress) I can only assume this is because Virginia Foxx attended college sometime before 1990 when tuition costs, as compared to housing prices and the Consumer Price Index, went completely off the rails.
- Michelle Bachmann says, and I want to quote this, “Women don’t need anyone to tell them what to do on health care. We want women to have their own choices, their own money, that way they can make their own choices for the future of their own bodies.” (ThinkProgress) I’m just gonna leave this here.
- NRA member calls NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre “Over the edge” and “a wingnut”. (ThinkProgress) This is why I’m not opposed to the NRA as an organization; just some of the really nutty things their leadership supports.
