The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices are never seriously addressed.

What's notable about ex-Republican candidate Rick Santorum's response to Obama's endorsement of gay marriage today is that it's a different stance than most other Republicans. 

This weekend, Karl Rove's mom-and-pop PAC, American Crossroads, took a couple shiny quarters out of its $100 million billfold and gave the world "Obama Cool," a political attack ad that accuses Barack Obama of being cool.

This doesn't work on me, because I like cool @!$%#.

The increasing levels of disdain Americans hold toward government also extends to the Supreme Court, which according to a new Pew Research Center survey is at its lowest approval ratings in 25 years.

You might have read this headline a week ago, "Bruising Primary Has Put Romney in 'Historically Weak' Position", and then this one, "By Historic Standards, Obama is in Trouble", by the same author. So, one of these rules has to be broken … right?

A multimillionaire financier who was a top henchman in Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's old outfit of corporate plunderers, Conard is currently riding with the small but fearsome Citizens United Gang, which has taken over presidential politics in our country.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) released ads against his top two Democratic rivals in his recall election, blaming them for job losses that are much more likely the fault of his own policies and the national policies of his party before Barack Obama came to office. During his tenure, Wisconsin has the worst record of job creation of any state

“We’ve been frustrated with the pace of it from the beginning,” said Salvador Reza, a longtime immigrant rights activist in Phoenix. “Even if they file a civil rights lawsuit, you’re still talking about months, years.”

In the last four years, the National Rifle Association has accused President Barack Obama of plotting to ban handguns, quintuple the price of ammunition, eliminate the entire legal construct of "self defense," and working with the United Nations to do everything short of taking Charlton Heston's Glock from his cold dead hands—although surely that will come in due time.

Conversely, women lost a huge number of jobs in states and municipalities as a result of teacher layoffs — a hemorrhaging that could have been stanched by Obama-proposed legislation to spur teacher hiring, which the GOP blocked.

... Charles and David Koch, the multibillionaire principals of Koch Industries, would like to see the final week of March 2012 vaporized, at least in the public mind. For the Kochs, it was a week of bad news: a new documentary about their political activity and corporate negligence was making a splash -- on the same day a story broke announcing an FBI investigation of two Wisconsin groups tied to Americans for Prosperity, the political ground organization they founded and fund.

The individual insurance requirement that the Supreme Court is reviewing isn't the first federal mandate involving health care.

There's a Medicare payroll tax on workers and employers, for example, and a requirement that hospitals provide free emergency services to indigents. Health care is full of government dictates, some arguably more intrusive than President Barack Obama's overhaul law.

It's a wrinkle that has caught the attention of the justices.

...

the rise in gas prices has almost nothing to do with energy policy. It has everything to do with America’s continuing failure to adequately regulate Wall Street. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Republicans to tell the truth.

As I’ve noted before, oil supplies aren’t being squeezed.

Following GOP strategy, Fox News is again blaming the Obama administration for rising gasoline prices -- a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by energy analysts. But back in the summer of 2008, when the average U.S. gasoline price hit a record high of $4.11, Fox said that "no President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices."

The audience, apparently, had not been won over. Neither had Congress: the American Jobs Act was filibustered in the Senate and ignored in the House. The White House attempted to break the act into component parts, but none of the major provisions—expanded payroll-tax cuts, infrastructure investment, and a tax credit for businesses that hired unemployed workers—have passed. The President’s effort at persuasion failed. The question is, could it have succeeded?

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/19/120319fa_fact_klein#ixzz1p9Fgwg9L

A willingness to speak truth to power is an essential civic virtue for the well-being of a democratic-republic. Equally virtuous and essential, however, are those rare citizens willing to risk their personal well-being by standing up to speak truth about power.

Meet Lt. Col. Danny Davis, a 48-year-old career Army man who fought in both the first and second Iraq wars and has had two year-long deployments in the Afghanistan war.

President Obama has moved up in the latest polls – or is that down?

Depends which poll. This week has seen four new public surveys from highly regarded, nonpartisan polling organizations – two one way, two the other. Two other polls show not much change at all.

Driven by fear that a second-term Obama administration won’t be as lenient towards Israeli expansionism and dispossession of Palestinians as a Republican (or even a first term Obama) administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using Iran to change the course of the US election.

Voters are appalled at President Barack Obama’s handling of gas prices, even though virtually every policy expert in both parties says there’s little a president can do to affect the day-to-day price of fuel in a global market.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73947.html#ixzz1p3fax1ty

How will healthcare reform affect the 2012 presidential election? The topic is back in the news with the publication of a new paper by five political scientists who demonstrate not only that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a major effect in 2010, but also how that effect happened: by branding those who supported “ObamaCare” as very liberal.

And so sad, I’m sure, for those people, those blanket-wearing, beard-growing, false-god-worshiping, probably-related-to-terrorists, citizens of Afghanistan whose wives and children and babies were gunned down in their beds, shot, murdered, slaughtered, and then burned by one of America’s finest Sunday morning. But hey, what are ya gonna do? These things happen.

What if “Obamacare” not only helped save Medicare from fiscal doom, but also quashed the GOP’s longstanding goal of privatizing the program? It’s too early to know what will ultimately happen, but new evidence suggests that nightmare scenario for conservatives is within the realm of possibility.

Local Tea Party activists are pressing House Republican leaders to pursue their investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun-tracking effort more aggressively.

When I handed him the Haggadah, President Obama, who famously stages his own seders at the White House, (which is a very nice philo-Semitic thing to do, IMHO) spent a moment leafing through it and making approving noises. Then he said (as I told the Times): "Does this mean we can't use the Maxwell House Haggadah [*] anymore?"

[*] The publication of its Passover haggadah by the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency beginning in 1932^[7] made Maxwell House a household name with many American Jewish families.^[8]

Attack messaging is a “double-edged sword” says Dan Schnur, the communications director for John McCain’s 2000 campaign. Negative messaging often “causes a pretty significant backlash,” but the lack of counterattack by Santorum has kept it from bringing Romney’s numbers down so far. Still, the ads have “come at a long-term cost” for Romney, says Schnur, as the Republican frontrunner’s overall favorability numbers have been significantly reduced among the electorate as a whole, which leaves him a pretty sizable hole to climb out of if he does claim the nomination.

The very first stop for Rick Santorum's campaign in Florida (where he came in third) was at Pompano Beach's WorldWide Christian Center, headed by the Reverend O'Neal Dozier, who was also his honorary Florida chairman. A noted anti-homosexual preacher, Dozier announced yesterday that he'd be holding a Sunday morning press conference to "ask Governor Mitt Romney to renounce his racist religion."

Just a few months ago, Rush Limbaugh was attacking President Obama for sending advisors to help take out Kony and his henchmen, before laughingly admitting he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Limbaugh characterized the mission as “a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda,” saying “Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians.  They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan.”

Several major unions, as well as the AFL-CIO itself, now have their own "super PACs," independent political organizations that can raise unlimited funds.

A broader philosophical debate is also underway as union leaders discuss whether they can afford to invest the estimated $400 million overall that organized labor spent on Obama and congressional Democrats four years ago. Labor is also confronting a rash of Republican-backed efforts in the states — including California — that would make it harder for unions to organize and use their political clout.

The jury decision followed a six-week trial and came three years after Mr. Stanford was accused of defrauding nearly 30,000 investors in 113 countries in a Ponzi scheme involving $7 billion in fraudulent high-interest certificates of deposit at the Stanford International Bank, which was based on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

“Who,” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly asked on his program Thursday night, “is running Sandra Fluke?” He explained to viewers that The Factor believes that the controversy surrounding the activist and Georgetown law student has been manufactured in a calculated move to help the Obama administration.

Look at it this way: If the Wall Street banking crisis had taken place in 2007 instead of 2008, George W. Bush wouldn’t be able to leave home without being jeered. (As it is, he rarely leaves Texas.) Hardly anybody would buy the brand of tycoonomics GOP presidential candidates are selling. People would understand that save-the-millionaires tax cuts and deregulation had dramatically failed. President Obama would get more credit for pulling the economy out of a nose dive.

"Once we defeat Barack Obama this economy will start turning around," the former Pennsylvania senator told a crowd in Miamisburg, Ohio. "Because you'll know you have someone in there who's going to unshackle businesses, reduce rates, not increase them. The president's promised increased taxes if he's re-elected."

That’s a good sign, because there’s just about nothing a president or any other policy maker can do about this in the near term.  More drilling wouldn’t help and, in fact, domestic energy production is way up.  There’s a lot of noise about the White House’s decision to deny (I’d say delay) the permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, but anyone who argues that had the decision gone the other way, prices would be lower now, is just blowing smoke.

The letter war started when Messina sent a fundraising letter saying the billionaire brothers bankroll “Tea Party extremism” and manipulate oil prices to buttress their energy business. The Kochs responded that Obama was treading on their “right to free speech.” (To them, I guess, being criticized by the president is tantamount to being arrested for sedition.) Team Obama shot back again, and here we are.

Rush has taken to the airwaves and lauded the Kochs. “This is how you do it,” he says. And on the surface, the reason for Rush’s apologetics is straightforward enough: he’s a man of the Right, and so are the Koch brothers. But below the surface of this defense lies a much more complex and insidious truth. The fact is that Rush needs the Kochs,and the Kochs need Rush.

There are two main schools of thought about how air strikes on Iran would work out. Most Americans seem to envision something cleanly surgical--a few days of bombing runs and then we get that "mission accomplished" banner out of the closet. A smaller number of Americans--notably including a lot of national security experts--realize that Iran would probably retaliate, possibly in ways that drew America into a sustained and even far-flung conflict.

We seem to have found ourselves between a rock and a hard place.  The threat of a war with Iran is being forced on the US by a number of forces.  The problem is what should we do?

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected to raise the issue at a White House meeting on Monday after weeks of intense diplomacy in which Obama has dispatched senior officials – including his intelligence, national security and military chiefs – to Jerusalem to try and dampen down talk of an attack.
Diplomats say that Israel is angered by the Obama administration's public disparaging of early military action against Iran, saying that it weakens the prospect of Tehran taking the warnings from Israel seriously.

... the Showdown at the AIPAC Corral, where pro-war Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been planning to ambush President Obama with charges of being "soft on Iran" because U.S. military commanders have said that an Israeli military attack on Iran would be a very bad idea.

Someone asked the Israeli public what they thought.

And it turns out that the majority of Israelis have their shekels on the lanky guy from Chicago.

Who knew?

Brazil’s foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, made a courageous and very important statement last week about the rising threat of a military attack on Iran.  He asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to weigh in on the legality of a threatened military strike against Iran.

"One sometimes hears the expression, 'all options are on the table.' But some actions are contrary to international law," said Patriota.

An “incident” may set the stage for war, but no one keeps shooting unless they think it’s a good idea. The Great War started because the countries involved decided they would profit by it, delusional as that conclusion was.

It is useful to keep this idea in mind when trying to figure out whether the United States or Israel will go to war with Iran.

In yet another public relations embarrassment for the Mormon Church, a Utah researcher has discovered that slain Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl was posthumously baptized last year in a serious breach of church protocol.

According to records, Pearl, who is Jewish, was baptized "by proxy" last summer in a Twin Falls, Idaho, temple -- much to the surprise of his parents, who learned of the event this week.

For Rep. Allen West, the skyrocketing price of gasoline is not just a policy matter, it's a personal pocketbook issue. The Florida tea-party Republican (who, of course, blames President Obama for the increase) recently posted a message on Facebook wailing that it's now costing him $70 to fill his Hummer H3. ~~~ It's hard to feel the pain of a whining, $174,000-a-year congress-critter, but millions of regular Americans really are feeling pain at the pump ...

The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is set to take effect in 2014, and would comprise 15 President-appointed and Senate-confirmed experts charged with holding down Medicare per-beneficiary spending by restricting reimbursements to providers. It is forbidden from cutting payments to beneficiaries. Congress can override the panel is by passing an alternate way to save the same amount of money, or with a three-fifths Senate majority. The health care industry has been outspoken in its hatred for IPAB. Republicans are united in their effort to kill it, and even some House Dems are on that page.

Santorum complained that "this was a mistake and there was no deliberate act," and "there was no act that needed an apology." So, if you accidentally drop your spouse’s Bible in the toilet, don’t worry: it was an accident; no need to apologize. It’s so freeing to discover that you never apologize unless you did something intentionally.

"[Santorum's] not just offending left-wingers in Manhattan and Georgetown, he’s offending conservative right-wing women that have never voted for Democrats in their life!” Scarborough exclaimed. “And I’m dead serious! And it ain’t just my wife and her friends. I’m hearing this from across America, women who have never voted for a Democrat in their life saying — what is wrong with Rick Santorum?

... groups have gotten involved in defending Walker against recall, including the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the Illinois-based Heartland Institute. Last week, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint alleging the Americans for Prosperity Foundation violated its charitable status by running ads supporting Walker's reelection. "True the Vote" and its parent group, the King Street Patriots, have previously been accused of violating their nonprofit status and state election laws (and for their defense attorney they hired James Bopp Jr., the anti-campaign finance crusader behind the infamous Citizens United case).

How time flies! Remember when you and Christine O'Donnell were best friends and she said all that crazy stuff? Remember the rallies and the glory? Here's to all the memories we've had.

Would you believe the Tea Party is three years old today? Happy birthday, Tea Party! Here's our look at the five highs and five lows in the birthday animal's young life ...

I can understand the Tea Party’s infatuation with him. It’s his anger. It is in perfect synch with the constituency he is wooing.

Even at the height of his political success, when he had a lot to be happy about, Santorum was an angry man.

Islam dominated the headlines during the summer of 2010. Remember Terry Jones and his pledge to burn the Qur’an? Or those persistent rumors of President Barack Obama’s Muslim faith? Plus, of course, that controversy over Park51, the Islamic cultural center planned for lower Manhattan. Those 2010 elections became a litmus test for how a lot of politicians stood on Islam. An embarrassing number of them are against it

... some of the largest corporations, such as General Electric and Wells Fargo, pay no taxes at all. This is possible because the tax code is riddled with exceptions and loopholes, created at the behest of lobbyists and exploited by teams of tax experts, many of whom used to work for the IRS and the Treasury.

"The week actually has been very trying," Babeu, 43, said after the Thursday evening meeting. "Yet I am stronger for it. I never thought of quitting. And I've been overwhelmed by the measure of support we've received.... Did you see all the hugs I received here tonight?" The affection was hard to miss; at least three women whispered "I love you" in his ear.

Santorum -- his voice thick with derision -- said on Saturday: "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob. There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard everyday and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor that [tries] to indoctrinate them."

... the decision by the producers on Morning Joe to bring on Franklin Graham to throw flames on whether President Obama is a Christian or not, or whether he's supposedly "more concerned about Muslims than Christians that are being murdered in Muslim countries"

In an open letter addressed to campaign manager Jim Messina, president of government & public affairs for Koch industries Philip Ellender accuses the Obama campaign of sending an "irresponsible and misleading letter" to supporters.

"If the President’s campaign has some principled disagreement with the arguments we are making publicly about the staggering debt the President and previous administrations have imposed on the country, the regulations that are stifling business growth and innovation, the increasing intrusion of government into nearly every aspect of American life, we would be eager to hear them," Ellender writes.

Gov. we have people jumping in front of trains and out of buildings over the economy, over money how do we get back to having our priorities right, where family, kids are most important?

Gov. can you tell us anything about the suspected arson investigation of your church. It's disappeared from the news

[America]

has a president who does not understand why it is great, he said. Mr. Obama has created a “hostile” environment for business, Mr. Santorum said, in part because of the president’s “ineptitude.”

As for energy and the price of gas, “things are only going to get worse.”

Yesterday, Virginia legislators backed away from a “personhood” measure and the state’s conservative governor removed his support for an extreme ultrasound bill. Even Pat Buchanan, a leader on social issues within the party and a former GOP presidential candidate, this morning warned that Republicans like Rick Santorum are overreaching in their opposition to contraception.

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner, who has already dubbed President Obama an anti-Christian Leninist and called for civil disobedience to fight his administration, today writes that Obama’s support for environmental protection shows that he has “embraced radical environmentalism – a form of neo-paganism,” and is “behaving like a quasi-religious zealot.”

Steve Doocy: 

"As you look at the price of oil going through the roof, and nobody's talking about it, this has the opportunity to disrupt what some are saying, 'oh look, good news for President Obama. The economy is getting better.' Not if gas prices mess it up."

But Santorum’s Mister Rogers looks belie a demagogic social message which makes even Newt appear like a pillar of reasonableness and moderation."Everybody is guilty of some transgression somewhere against conservatism,” Rush Limbaugh has observed, “except Santorum."

BLITZER’S BLOG: It’s going to get nasty!

(CNN) – If you think it’s been a rough ride for the Republican candidates during this current campaign season, just wait. This will be seen as child’s play once the general election campaign begins.

Newly-elected Cardinal, Archbishop of New York, Timothy Michael Dolan, left, is congratulated by other cardinals after his elevation during a consistory inside the St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012. Pope Benedict XVI is bringing 22 new Catholic churchmen into the elite club of cardinals.

Photo: Andrew Medichini, Associated Press - Ap

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My mother, a devout Catholic, had heart trouble before having six children in seven years during the 1950s. Exhaustion, combined with her weak heart, contributed to bouts of pneumonia and the removal of a lung.

Afterward, she tried to talk to my equally devout father about using birth control. It upset him.

"We'll go to hell," he said.

"I'm in hell now," she replied ...

For example, confronted with a 2005 book in which he condemned feminists for a "misogynistic crusade to make working outside the home the only marker of social value and self-respect," Santorum insisted that he wasn't saying that a woman's place was in the home but only that he thought women's choices should be respected.

The argument goes like this: Rick Santorum is such an implacable foe of modernity that casting a vote for him is only possible if one shares his nostalgia for the chauvinism, authoritarianism and unbearable whiteness of the 1950s.

“We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth’s benefit,” Santorum told a Colorado crowd earlier this month.

As his campaign surges, Rick Santorum is testing an untested model for incorporating religion into his message. He is betting that Americans want a president who uses faith not just to inspire — but also to judge.

Obama addressed 2,900 mostly adoring supporters at a fundraiser Thursday night, the largest and most raucous event on a three-day West Coast swing.

The president was greeted with a standing ovation and repeated outbursts of "I love you!"  The crowd jumped to its feet again when the president mentioned the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays from serving openly in the military.

The president did something agile and wise the other day. And something quite important to the health of our politics. He reached up and snuffed out what some folks wanted to make into a cosmic battle between good and evil. No, said the president, we're not going to turn the argument over contraception into Armageddon

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is invoking a big name, in explaining his co-sponsorship of Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) push for a moted-kennedy, ral-convictions exemption from provisions of the federal health care reform law — a response to the Obama Administration’s contraception insurance mandates. Brown says he simply has the same position as the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Lawmakers sealed the deal late Wednesday night on yearlong extensions of the payroll tax cut, unemployment compensation and Medicare physician payment rates. It’s a political victory for President Obama and the conclusion of a no-win situation for Republicans that they were eager to move past.

It wasn’t so long ago that these same Republicans were playing last-second brinksmanship while threatening to shut down the federal government in fervent protest of Big Government. Since when did the Tea Party become so meek?

If the consensus reporting from Capitol Hill is correct, sometime in the next two days, Republicans and Democrats will agree on a deal that keeps the payroll tax cut in place, extends unemployment benefits (albeit with a gradual reduction in the length of benefits put into place) and, once again, protects doctors from a cut in their Medicare reimbursement rate.

The endorsement of Megadeth guitarist Dave Mustaine hath been given.

Apparently, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is the best possible choice for Americans kicked out of Metallica who join new metal bands. At least until Jason Newsted speaks out.

The Club For Growth, the right-wing economic group known for going after incumbent Republicans and establishment favorites in the primaries, has now set its sights on a big target: Six-term Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, with the Club endorsing state Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s challenge in the Republican primary.

Facing emboldened Democratic negotiators and a quickly thinning legislative calendar, House Republican leaders have offered to extend the payroll tax holiday through the end of the year without paying for it. The development represents a dramatic reversal for GOP leaders, who nearly allowed the payroll tax cut to lapse in December in part because of their insistence that the package be financially offset.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew should really not have to be explaining to Gregory that austerity measures when the economy has not recovered would do nothing but take us backwards when there are still so many people hurting out there.

President Obama will lay out a budget blueprint on Monday that amounts to an election-year bet that a plan for higher taxes on the rich and more spending on popular programs like infrastructure and manufacturing will trump concerns over the deficit.