Smooth sailing for Rand Paul?

The recent stomping incident had me worried, but this Politico raff suggest his opponent is in pretty bad shape.

Fiscally conservative adult entertainment?

Porn star Stormy Daniels finally announces her party affiliation for her run for Senate in Louisiana:

While this decision has not been an easy one, recent events regarding Republican National Committee fundraising at Voyeur, an L.A.-based lesbian bondage-themed nightclub, finally tipped the scales.

As I have said for well over a year, it is time that our government and our tax policy begin rewarding entrepreneurship and creativity again. It is time again to inspire positive risks and out-of-the-box thinking in the interest of growing a strong economy and a strong America.

For me, this spirit can be summed up in the RNC's investment of donor funds at Voyeur.

As someone who has worked extensively in both the club and film side of the adult entertainment industry, I know from experience that a mere $1,900 outlay at a club with the reputation of Voyeur is a clear indication of a frugal investment with a keen eye toward maximum return.

(via)

No Medicare buy-in?

Lieberman and Snowe may save us.

At this point my > 50% odds scenario is that we get something like the present Senate bill with its subsidies, excise tax, no denials for preexisting conditions nor recissions, the FEHBP-like national nonprofit on exchanges, no public option, no Medicare buy-ins, and it passes with Snowe's vote. That could be 61 for cloture, but I would bet on 60 without Ben Nelson.

Not a happy day for those of us on the right, but a small enough pill that I won't be gagging.

And it'll sure be a relief to finally have this health reform hoopla behind us.

Gang of three to block public option?

Politico:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said she’d deliver the deciding vote to push forward with a sweeping health reform plan in the Senate Saturday, ending days of speculation over whether President Barack Obama’s signature priority would proceed to the floor or suffer a debilitating blow.

As with several centrists before her, Lincoln’s yes vote to start debate came wrapped in series of serious concerns about the current bill – and she said it would require major revisions before she could cast a similar vote in favor of final passage.

"I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a public option is included," Lincoln said, adding that she specifically would vote against the version of the public option in the current Senate plan.

Nate Silver adds:

Needless to say, it would have been very, very bad news for the Democrats if the motion to proceed to debate on their health care plan had failed tonight. But I'm not sure how newsworthy this really is. The potential hold-outs, like Lincoln and Ben Nelson, are going to have much greater leverage later on, when the bill nears its second major procedural hurdle: the cloture motion to proceed to the final vote.

And there's some bad news for Democrats too: Lincoln has joined Senators Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman in making a fairly explicit threat to filibuster a bill that contains a public option. Mary Landrieu, on the other hand, sounds a little bit more open to compromise. But this impromptu Gang of 3 -- Lincoln, Nelson, Lieberman -- could be a tough one for progressives to penetrate.

If they drop the public option on these grounds, maybe that brings Snowe's vote in play as well.  From what I've gathered the Obama Administration really wants Snowe's vote, but of course couldn't drop the public option for this reason alone without risking a progressive revolt.

Sane Republican sighting

They do exist:

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander said Thursday he would support Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, breaking with Republican leaders who have questioned whether she would bring a bias to the bench.

Alexander, the No. 3 Republican in Senate leadership, said that her “political and judicial philosophy may be different than mine, especially regarding Second Amendment rights.”

[..] Alexander criticized then-Sen. Barack Obama and Democratic senators for voting against John Roberts’s nomination for chief justice in 2005, “solely because they disagreed with what Sen. Obama described as Roberts’s ‘overarching political philosophy’ and ‘his work in the White House and the solicitor general’s office’ that ‘consistently sided’ with ‘the strong in opposition to the weak.’”

“Today, it would be equally wrong for me to vote against Judge Sotomayor solely because she is not on my side on some issues,” Alexander said.

“It is my hope that my vote now not only will help to confirm a well-qualified nominee but will help to return the Senate to the practice only recently lost of inquiring diligently into qualifications of a nominee and then accepting that elections have consequences, one of which is to confer upon the president the constitutional right to nominate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Earlier: A Republican Obama would vote against Sotomayor.

Hoping for 1945 redux

From the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri:

Look closely at the first unfulfilled agenda item.

(Via Ben Smith)

And then there were sixty

Coleman finally concedes, so Democrats will have 60 Senators, including independents who caucus with them.

Punblic health insurance option, ctd.

The New Democrat Coalition and Blue Dogs are haggling.

Nanny state cometh

Politico:

President Barack Obama eats his vegetables and exercises every day — and he really wants you to do the same.

[..] The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

[..] The whole situation has libertarians craving a basket of onion rings and a beer.

“If you care about the sorts of things I do, then you are going to be losing big-time for the next four to eight years,” said David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of the book “Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children.”

Don’t get them wrong, critics such as Harsanyi say — they like broccoli and they lift barbells and they have no particular beef with a healthy president who was once described by his physician as having “no excess body fat.” They just don’t like it when government becomes the messenger and the enforcer.

The appointment last month of New York Public Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as director of the CDC really made the libertarian-minded nervous.

Frieden is a big part of the reason New Yorkers no longer smoke in bars or eat trans fats at restaurants and find calorie counts on their menus. Frieden once said that when anyone in New York dies at an early age from a preventable disease, “it’s my fault.”

[..] libertarians like Michael D. Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, aren’t looking forward to it.

“At the very least,” said Tanner, “we are going to get nagged a lot.”

They're still

Killing abortion doctors.

Via LG, some comments at Free Republic:

"It’s too bad the suspect didn’t poke a roto rooter through his skull and then suck him into a vacuum cleaner instead of just shooting the bastard."

"No doubt this ‘man’ is responsible for thousands, maybe tens-of-thousands of needless and wanton deaths. If you think his ‘passing’ is a bad thing in the cause of speaking out and ending the practice of abortion, I don’t know what to tell you. I can only say that I shall not mourn his demise, nor shall I judge others."

"Sounds like a post-birth abortion to me."

A much better response:

"Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life,"

Not as good:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

Fisking Michael Steele

He writes in Politico:

The Republican Party finds itself the minority party in America for the first time in more than 15 years. I’ll be the first to admit it has taken some adjustment. Republicans have engaged in some healthy soul-searching since Election Day, trying to come to grips with our minority status and debating the best way forward as we point out our differences with the Democrats and chart our return to the majority.

I don't know about healthy, but it sure hasn't been pretty. You need to stop defining yourself against your opposition, though, and start offering policies that actually appeal to people. This will require addressing what you've done wrong, and learning from mistakes.

This has been an important debate within the Republican Party, particularly because of the place in history America currently finds itself. Last year the Democrats told voters they would bring “change” to Washington, but their version of change has been to push America to the left farther and faster than I think anyone could have imagined.

It's been painful to watch, but surely we could have imagined it. I admit to hoping otherwise--during the campaign I naively gushed over a "return to Clintonomics". Instead we got LBJ 2.0. But one does not have to imagine pushing America farther to left this quickly--one need only look at historical examples. At the beginning of FDR's term, Congress was a rubber stamp. Bills were written in the White House and passed on the same day without even being read.

That is why I believe America needs the Republican Party now more than ever before. We may be America’s minority party at the moment, but Republicans represent the views and concerns of a majority of Americans.

So you think parties get voted out of office because they better represent the views and concerns of voters? You think Republicans lost the last two elections because of unavoidable twists of fate like "war is hard", the media "wouldn't report the good news", or simply "teh economiez accidentally blew up" ?

I realize it's your job to spin defeats, but parties don't lose when they better represent the views and concerns of voters.

Republicans across America – from our national and state leaders down to our local activists and grassroots supporters – have to get about the business of telling families how Republican principles of less spending, lower taxes, responsive and responsible government, personal freedom and strong national defense stand in stark contrast to the reckless policies we’ve seen from the president and Congressional Democrats in four short months.

Point by point:

• less spending: Republicans increased spending quite dramatically. What good is a principle that doesn't get applied?
• lower taxes: Yes, you did. But in a time of prosperity without commensurate cuts in spending, lowering taxes is irresponsible deficit spending.
  
• responsive and responsible government: If by responsive you mean overreacting to terror threats and if by responsible you mean grotesquely incompetent, o.k.
  
• personal freedom: Really? And here I thought you were the party of socially intolerant bigots and dominionist nutjobs. My mistake.
  
• strong national defense: Eh, welcome to the 21st Century. You already won the Cold War. Overreacting to a terror threast less deadly than the number of auto fatalities that year is not a sign of strength, but insanity.

Holistically, I don't think the contrast is stark at all. In fact--taken as a net whole--I considered Democrats to be better on these principles than Bush-Cheney Republicans were.

(i.e. Democrats are worse on some, but on the ones where they're better they are more significantly better, meaning a net plus)

Steele continues:

Republicans will not be afraid to agree with the president when we believe he is doing what is best for America, but neither will be afraid to disagree with him when we believe his actions are wrong for America.

A political party isn't afraid to have opinions and explain how it differs from their opposition; film at 11.

To accomplish this goal Republicans are turning a corner in three important ways:

First, the Republican Party will be forward-looking – it is time to stop looking backward. Republicans have spent ample time re-examining the past. It has been a healthy and necessary task. But I believe it is now time for Republicans to focus all of our energies on winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas. Republicans are emerging once again with the energy, the focus, and the determination to turn our timeless principles into new solutions for the future.

Translation: We've spent enough time arguing amongst ourselves without any camp admitting that its overbearing social and national security conservatism and corporate supply-siderism has become toxic to the center. So let's brush it all under the rug and pretend everything's fine. Ignore the past and present, look forward!

Second, the Republican Party will not shy away from voicing our opposition to the president’s policies. His honeymoon is over. As a candidate, President Obama sounded moderate in his views. But as president, he is presiding over the most massive top-down expansion of government bureaucracy and spending our country has ever seen.

Yes, Obama has deftly claimed the rhetorical middle ground. That's smart politics. Pointing out that his mouth is in the center while his feet are walking left may be true, but it's not smart politics, particularly when the alternatives you offer have become toxic to the center.

Until you increase your own appeal to the center, yelling about how left Obama is while offering diametrically opposed alternatives is not going to help you persuade the center.

Candidate Obama talked about fiscal responsibility, about government living within its means. But President Obama is spending with reckless abandon and saddling our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt. Candidate Obama boasted about cutting taxes. But President Obama will have to raise taxes to pay for his massive top-down government explosion. Candidate Obama talked a lot about being bipartisan, but he has yielded his legislative agenda almost entirely to Nancy Pelosi who has repeatedly shut Republicans out of negotiations on important legislation, from economic stimulus to the budget to health care.

You know what's worse than hypocrites?

Hypocrites who call out other hypocrites for being hypocritical, i.e. Republicans who fail to govern according to their supposed principles (see list above) yet whine when Democrats do the same.

It's a second-order hypocrisy, and it won't sell. Voters will happy go with the Democrats' first-order hypocrisy which is at least rhetorically centrist and conciliatory.

Let me make one point clear – Republicans will not make our opposition to the president personal. Republicans will challenge policies of the president that we believe are wrong, but our opposition will be done in very sharp contrast to the classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of President Bush.

Ah, yes, I have a whole series from the campaign on Republicans staying classy. What lovely contrast.

Third, the Republican Party will seize upon momentum for a GOP resurgence that is already under way in states and local communities. I have traveled extensively since being elected RNC chairman, meeting with state party leaders and grassroots activists alike. There is genuine enthusiasm for a Republican balance to the reckless excesses of the president and congressional Democrats. I believe the Republican Party can ride that wave of local enthusiasm to victory in upcoming elections.

I'm sorry, was I interrupting your pep rally?

The Republican Party has turned a corner, and as we move forward Republicans should take a lesson from Ronald Reagan. Again, we’re not looking back – if President Reagan were here today he would have no patience for Americans who looked backward. Ronald Reagan always believed Republicans should apply our conservative principles to current and future challenges facing America. For Reagan’s conservatism to take root in the next generation we must offer genuine solutions that are relevant to this age.

Invoking Reagan in the context of not looking backward to Reagan's anachronistic policy proscriptions, i.e. recognizing that the problems of this age are not 1980's problems? Well done--seriously, I like this argument.

Republicans are getting about the business of America’s future, because our vision for America is far different than what the president and Congressional Democrats have shown thus far. And I fear the Democrats are just getting started.

Word of advice: stop spreading fear, stop trying to define yourself as being against Democrats, and concentrate on putting forward a coherent set of believable and actionable principles and policies that appeal to the middle.

Curiouser and curiouser

I'm not entirely sure what to make of Obama's supposed "Sister Souljah" moment.

Like the ACLU, I pretty much favor full disclosure of all torture-related information and evidence, because I think it's important to put these dark years behind us, retake the highest moral ground that's practical for a superpower, and confidently tell the world 'never again.'

However, a Dish reader suggests:

Obama's not saying he's going to continue any of the practices you and millions of others have rightfully condemned. The justice department is currently investigating the Bush administration, and has been good about revealing what went on, with more revelations to come. Also, it's not as if Obama is going to destroy the pictures or never release them. He's just saying that it might be a good idea, for the safety of not just our troops but of hundreds of thousands of others, if the United States did not release these photos to the public right now. That may very well be true, and if it is he's behaving the way a responsible commander in chief should behave. I see nothing immoral in that decision.

Maybe...and if so, perhaps the Obama administration can persuade the courts.

Yet lawyers are scoffing at the idea of introducing new arguments, so Sens. Lieberman and Graham are planning to attach a legislative rider to prevent the release.

It makes me wonder all the more just what's in these photographs that some people are so desperate to hide.

Quote of the day II

"The difference between these Republican videos and the very terrorist propaganda that seeks to damage our society is negligible... Each attempt to stoke the embers of fear in order to disrupt American life. Just as Al Qaeda videos should be viewed as misguided rants from a small group of marginalized radicals, so too should these Republican videos be equally dismissed. As opposed to what the GOP thinks, the American people are not that naive."

&mdashRichard Clarke, who worked as a State Department and counter-terrorism official under Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush 43.

Link blag

TMV: NROite Andy McCarthy does not understand the law. The motive of torture does not matter; the intent matters.

Keith Hennessey explains Obama's international tax proposals. Verdict: they are a form of protectionist isolationist and will actually backfire and give U.S. companies further incentives to move HQs overseas.

Megan: Why was Canada so unaffected by the banking crisis? It wasn't regulation. Its bankers are simply very conservative, and didn't trust easy money.

Ruffini sees springtime for GOP moderates. Politico reports that the party is recruiting RINOs. One can hope, but I don't see them becoming electable without the party reforming its attitudes. For the near future, having that R next to their name is a big sink.

Boston Herald: From the Dept. of Terrible Liberal Ideas, poor welfare recipients in Massachusetts are being given free cars.  Sigh.  The belief that poor won't be poor if government gives them enough free stuff marches ever on in leftopias.

Truth in economics blog headlines: "This Is Not a Post About Jessica Alba".

Another boring press conference?

Politico: "Obama works to avoid being exciting"

Andrew: "I'm beginning to regret watching this terribly dull and unnecessary pseudo-event."

A New York Economist blogger:

I'm starting to wonder after last night's presser, what the purpose of these things are. Barack Obama's first few prime-time appearances before the press were refreshing in their novelty; George Bush seemed allergic to reporters' unscripted, live questions. But do they really accomplish anything? Even when a reporter peacocks with a "tough" question (that he's obviously very pleased with himself for asking), the president can filibuster without saying much. Mr Obama did just that many times last night. Unlike his predecessor, he did allow a few follow-ups, but he still didn't say much that surprised anyone who has been alive since November. I'm starting to feel suckered into watching an hour-long campaign advertisement.

Apparently the hidden hypnosis is wearing thin.

But seriously, better too many press conferences that we can skip watching rather than not nearly enough, as Bush gave us.

Library Grape embeds the video and other reax. Transcript here.

I appreciated the part on Arlen Specter and Republicans:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. On Senator Specter's switch to the Democratic Party, you said you were thrilled.

I guess nobody should be surprised about that. But how big a deal is this really?

Some Republicans say it is huge. They believe it's a game changer. They say that if you get the 60 votes in the Senate, that you will be able to ride roughshod over any opposition, and that we're on the verge of, as one Republican put it, one-party rule.

Do you see it that way? And also, what do you think his switch says about the state of the Republican Party?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think very highly of Arlen Specter. I think he's got a record of legislative accomplishment that is as good as any member of the Senate.

And I think he's always had a strong independent streak. I think that was true when he was a Republican; I think that will be true when he's a Democrat. He was a very blunt in saying I couldn't count on him to march lockstep on every single issue. And so he's going to still have strong opinions, as many Democrats in the Senate do. I've been there. It turns out all the senators have very strong opinions. And I don't think that's going to change.

I do think that having Arlen Specter in the Democratic Caucus will liberate him to cooperate on critical issues, like health care, like infrastructure and job creation, areas where his inclinations were to work with us but he was feeling pressure not to.

And I think the vote on the recovery act was a classic example. Ultimately, he thought that was the right thing to do. And he was fiercely berated within his own party at the time for having taken what I consider to be a very sensible step.

So -- so I think it's a -- overall a positive.

Now, I am under no illusions that suddenly I'm going to have a rubber-stamp Senate. I've got Democrats who don't agree with me on everything. And that's how it should be. Congress is a coequal branch of government. Every senator who's there, whether I agree with them or disagree with them, I think truly believes that they are doing their absolute best to represent their constituencies.

And we've got regional differences, and we've got some parts of the country that are affected differently by certain policies.

And those have to be respected, and there's going to have to be compromise and give-and-take on all of these issues.

I do think that, to my Republican friends, I -- I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine. I can't sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn't work, and the American people voted to change. But there are a whole host of areas where we can work together.

And -- and I've said this to people like Mitch McConnell. I said, "Look, on health care reform, you may not agree with me that I've -- we should have a public plan. That may be philosophically just too much for you to swallow. On the other hand, there are some areas like reducing the cost of medical malpractice insurance where you do agree with me. If I'm taking some of your ideas and giving you credit for good ideas, the fact that you didn't get 100 percent can't be a reason every single time to oppose my position." And if that is how bipartisanship is defined -- a -- a -- a situation in which, basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in an historic election, you know, we're probably not going to make progress.

If, on the other hand, the definition is that we're open to each other's ideas, there are going to be some differences, the majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard- core differences that we can't resolve but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.

QUESTION: Is the Republican Party in the desperate straits that Arlen Specter seems to think it is?

MR. OBAMA: You know, politics in America changes very quick. And I'm a big believer that things are never as good as they seem, and never as bad as they seem. You're talking to a guy who was 30 points down in the polls during a primary in Iowa so -- so I never -- I don't believe in crystal balls.

I do think that our administration has taken some steps that have restored confidence in the American people that we're moving in the right direction, and that simply opposing our approach on every front is probably not a good political strategy.

Link blag

Nate Silver looks at tea party demographics: 2 parts libertarian-conservative, 1 part Palinite know-nothings.

Politico: The GOP Base is in rebellion mode.

Hilzoy explains the magic of recent Wall Street profits.

Daily Beast: Why don't Chinese want more freedom?

Yglesias on Secrecy, Democracy, and Security...

The long-term viability of the United States depends much more on our ability to sustain liberal institutions than on our ability to carve-out effective exceptions to the basic principles of transparency, democracy, and accountability.

RBC: A modern three-fifths rule?

ReadWriteWeb: First impressions of Wolfram|Alpha

The World Privacy Forum has a list of the 10 most important things to opt out of.

In comments, Metavirus and I have a go about lefty arrogance and gov't interference in the housing market.

A serious essay on the evolution of the female orgasm.

Seven years ago, Greenpeace published a guide to environmentally-friendly sex.

Many people don't understand gravity.

Link blag

Daily Beast: What's in the torture memos?

Cato: Obama and The Interrogation Memos: The Right Decision...

Critics, such as the one featured in this Politico article, fail to comprehend terrorism as a strategy. Thus, they are locked into counterproductive policies like secrecy and torture.

Let’s start with the strategic logic of terrorism: By goading strong powers into overreaction and error, terrorism weakens those powers and strengthens itself. Among other things, overreaction and misdirection on the part of the strong power draw sympathy and support to terrorists as it confirms the terrorist narrative that they are in a struggle against evil powers.

(more)

Yglesias and Frum marvel at conservative paranoia.

Raising the drinking age to 21 didn't save lives.

Ordinary E.D. Kain examines what the Iraq war is and isn't.

Politico: Sarah Palin offers bipartisan fundraising appeal.

Yglesias: D.C. should allow taller buildings

2006 NYT: North Korean Defectors Take a Crash Course in Coping

Radley wonders why lefties don't volunteer to pay more taxes

David Friedman has a very simple idea for getting smaller government in the U.S.

Reason: Government is to blame for the housing crisis.

Daily Beast: After gay marriage... comes gay divorce. The humanity of the story is comforting, in a way. But it's also a reminder that we need to repeal DOMA for this to work.

Memo decision-making

Politico: Obama consulted widely on memos...

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”

“He thought very long and hard about it, consulted widely, because there were two principles at stake,” Axelrod said . “One is … the sanctity of covert operations … and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency.”

The president consulted officials from the Justice Department, the CIA, the director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department, according to his adviser.

“It was a weighty decision,” Axelrod said. “As with so many issues, there are competing points of view that flow from very genuine interests and concerns that are to be respected. And then the president has to synthesize all of it and make a decision that’s in the broad national interest. He’s been thinking about this for four weeks, really.”

A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”

“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."

“I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”

Unbelievable?

It seems when Obama spoke of 'change we can believe in', he wasn't referring to former top officials in the Bush administration. Go figure.

Sullivan thinks the journalistic standards here are low.

Link blag

Sen Burr (R-NC) Foolishly encourages bank runs. I keep asking myself, when did the GOP transition from fiscally responsible to financially insane? Is the FDIC too complicated a government agency for some of them to understand the value of? The United States Constitution requires Senators to be of age at least 30. Perhaps we should change that to IQ at least 130?

Recession silver lining? Misguided social conservatives aren't having much luck with their legislation, as moderates focus on real problems:

school prayer and discouraging teaching evolution has been declared dead. Prospects don't look good for a proposal to require ultrasounds for first-trimester abortions. Same goes for a bill to make marriage licenses more expensive for couples who don't take a premarriage education course.

WSJ: Fight piracy with convoys?

DoD Buzz explains the SEAL techniques likely used against pirates.

James Fallows gets an anecdotal take on the state of Iraq.

WSJ: Oregon plans to hike beer tax by 1900%

Politico: Obama will simplify the tax code? More from AP.

Texas governor thinks the state could leave the union. Didn't we have a war to settle that? HotAir calls him down.

David Frum shares my anger at Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and public school teachers' unions.

Megan: Why does Canada have cost-effective healthcare? Location, location, location.

Yglesias: Merely seeing salad on a menu makes you more likely to order junk food.

Radley listens to more left-wing radio.

Monday night link blag

Andrew:

Mexico's ambassador urges the decriminalization of marijuana as a way to weaken the cartels. Domestic production is way up. Mexico's Congress is considering decriminalization. Cultural mainstreaming, especially in the thirteen states that allow for medical use, is gaining pace. Any day now, sanity threatens to break out.

A TMV columnist likes Rachel Maddow.

Another gathers reactions to Captain Phillips' rescue from Somali pirates.

Another gathers even more reactions. (Hey, they're useful summaries of what people are thinking.)

Politico: Obama boosts anti-abortion efforts, but not the way you think.

The Post: Rahm Emanuel knows how to deal.

Civil liberty watchdogs are pissed at Obama's continuation of Bush policies.

Wikipedia is voting to migrate from the clunky GNU Free Documentation License to a Creative Commons license. Yay!

John McCain's daughter wants a gayer GOP.

Some geezers talk about their work at Area 51 during the 60's.

China has really bad air quality.

Various politicians seek to promote software piracy protect the children by taxing violent videogames. No word yet on whether they'll invest the resulting revenue in abstinence-only miseducation.