With the number of vacant judicial seats nearing epidemic levels, one legislator is demanding some answers: professional judge-blocker Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

During the Judiciary Committee’s  recent hearing on immigration reform, Sen. Cornyn complained that his home state of Texas was suffering from a  shortage  of immigration judges. Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the Southern border into Texas each year, Cornyn explained, many of them even “wearing some form of turban.” 

As frantic rescue missions continued Monday in Oklahoma following the catastrophic tornadoes that ripped through the state, it appeared increasingly likely that residents who lost homes and businesses would turn to the federal government for emergency disaster aid. That could put the state's two Republican senators in an awkward position.

Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief.

The idea of impeaching Obama is industrial-strength insane. Republicans will probably try anyway, predicts Michael Tomasky.

When the histories of this administration are written, I hope fervently that last Friday, May 10, does not figure prominently in them. But I fear that it might: the double-barrel revelations that the White House hasn’t quite been telling the whole story on Benghazi and that some mid-level IRS people targeted some Tea Party groups for scrutiny are guaranteed to ramp up the crazy. But to what extent? I fear it could be considerable, and the people in the White House damn well better fear the same, or we’re going to be contemplating an extremely ugly situation come 2015, especially if the Republicans have held the House and captured the Senate in the by-elections.

As absurd as this may sound, an anchor from the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, had the audacity to claim that the reason Republicans are intransigent about their economic stance is that America does not have the money to do otherwise.  Horse feathers!

The budget plan President Obama released this morning is squarely aimed at brokering a long-term fiscal compromise with House Republicans, who have demanded entitlement cuts and other spending reductions to reduce the nation’s deficit. Obama’s budget mirrors the compromise offer he made to House Speaker John Boehner (R) in fiscal cliff negotiations, offering less in stimulus spending and revenues than he has previously sought and including reforms to Social Security that have infuriated his liberal base.

While far too many are focused on the proposed cuts to the safety net contained in Obama’s budget, not enough are focused on how the Republican Party is trying trash the safety net.  One of the best examples of how they are doing so is RepubliCare. as this excellent editorial by Paul Krugman demonstrates.

Remember 2009, the depths of the economic crisis? That year, the country spent way more than it brought in and ran an eye-popping shortfall that topped 10% of the size of the economy.

This year the deficit is expected to be half that -- around 5.3% of GDP, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

And by 2015, it's projected to drop to 2.4%.

Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.

That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.

It's easy to forget that science is not always as scientific as we might like to think it is. Like any other discipline, scientific research is a complex web of connections between scientists, universities, other research institutions, the government and the arbiters of all things worthy: the journals. Back in the ink-and-tree days, journals were few and many were prestigious with names like Science and Nature. If you read about something in one of these journals, it was damn legit. The journals also hosted academic conferences, where peer-reviewed research was presented and sometimes scientific history made. But that was then.

Ann Romney insisted in an interview with Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace over the weekend that the media was to blame for her husband’s loss in the presidential race last fall.

While the media is a convenient (and common) scapegoat, Ann Romney is simply wrong when she says: “I believe it was the media’s fault as well, is that he was not giv[en] — being given a fair shake, that people weren’t allowed to see him for who he was.”

As the House Budget Committee discussed marking up Chairman Paul Ryan's austerity budget on Wednesday, leaders from the Congressional Progressive Caucus revealed their fiscal plan for America.

Entitled "Back to Work," the budget lays out policies that proponents say would bridge the deficit by stimulating employment, raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting the Pentagon budget.

By just about any measure, Congress is at its lowest point in history. Only 9 percent of the country has a favorable view of the 535 men and women who make up the bicameral body. One poll even revealed that they're less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, and that ultimate barometer of public repulsion, Nickelback.

It is highly unusual for 91% of Americans to favor anything, but when we do, one might think that political support for such things would be nearly universal.  But that does not take into account today’s Republican Party, that continues to goose-step in lock step behind Wayne LaPierre and the gun industry.

This is not the first time I have covered this story, but in light of recent developments, it is time to revisit what the Republican Party is doing to the US Postal Service.  To be brief, the post office is under assault by Republicans, who are trying to destroy it for their own political ends, which as usual, conflict with the best interest of the American people.

While her former opponent, Scott ‘Bought Bagger’ Brown is fulfilling his calling as a professional liar on the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, Elizabeth Warren is doing exactly what we hoped she would do, using her vast knowledge of the industry expose abuse by Banksters and regulators.

Now that the American people have at long last been shocked into demanding reasonable firearms reform, Republicans have been twisting in the wind, with scheme after scheme to prevent it, each one more absurd than the last.  I thought it could not get any worse, but I was wrong.

The State of the Union address was not, I’m sorry to say, very interesting. True, the president offered many good ideas. But we already know that almost none of those ideas will make it past a hostile House of Representatives.

Here in the US, ethnocentrism is rampant.  That is the notion that we are better than everyone else.  This applies particularly to Republicans.  They use it to justify the wars they started in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the wars they want to start in Iran, Syria, and anywhere a progressive government is blocking exploitation by US companies.  The truth is, we are number one in GDP, but that’s all.

In his response to the State of the Union, Sen. Marco Rubio said: “This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.”

Democrats in Virginia are accusing state Republicans of taking advantage of a prominent civil rights leader’s trip to Washington for the presidential inauguration to pull a “dirty trick” in order to take control of the state Senate in the 2015 elections.

Today in his second inaugural address, President Obama became the progressive leader that many liberals thought they were getting when they voted him into office four years ago.

Couched in rhetoric about the need to come together as a country was a strong — and surprisingly pointed — invocation of a laundry list of progressive principles: gay rights, voting rights, climate change and the inherent value of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

In 2000, once the Supreme Court stopped the vote count, George W. Bush won the state of Florida by 537 votes.

Five hundred and thirty-seven votes.

In 2012, pundits saw an election that was just as close, if not closer, than 2000. Even The New York Times‘ Nate Silver, who ended up calling 50 out of 50 states, was unsure if the state would go to President Obama or Mitt Romney when the voting started on November 6. Even after the polls closed, after the election had been called for President Obama by everyone who wasn’t Karl Rove, the state was too close to call.

JENNIE LINN MCCORMACK was 14 when she had her first baby. It was 1993, and she was in junior high in southeast Idaho, where she’s always lived and where she still lives now. Blond, petite, and fine-featured, she did tap, ballet, drill team, and cheerleading. She started spending time with an 18-year-old boy in her group of friends. Because he was older and she was a virgin, she trusted him when he said nothing bad would happen if they had sex. The first time they did, she got pregnant.

Have you read Brad Plumer’s terrific, chart-heavy primer on America’s insane defense budget? If not, I’ll wait while you do.

Done? Good. The numbers there should shock you. In particular, this one: “Since 2001, the base defense budget has soared from $287 billion to $530 billion — and that’s before accounting for the primary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.” Or, if you prefer to see it in graph form:

Public relations experts who have experience working with the gun industry expressed horror on Friday afternoon at the National Rifle Association's response to the Newtown, Conn., shootings.

The group's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, struck a scolding tone on Friday, blaming the video game industry and media for exposing youth to a culture of violence, and calling for armed police or security guards in schools: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," LaPierre said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) fierce resistance to reforming the filibuster isn’t fazing Harry Reid, who insists that he will weaken the minority party’s power to obstruct legislative business with Republican support or without it.

Following is the letter of resignation sent last week by former President George Bush to the National Rifle Association: May 3, 1995

Dear Mr. Washington,

I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as "jack-booted thugs." To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms" wanting to "attack law abiding citizens" is a vicious slander on good people.

lorida took center stage in the 2012 elections, when voters around the state had to wait in line at the polls for up to nine hours. Gov. Rick Scott (R) initially denied that there was any problem, saying it was "very good" that people were getting out to vote.

But a new study shows that tens of thousands of people were actually discouraged from voting because of the long lines.

few weeks before the election, the invaluable Rick Perlstein published a lengthy article in The Baffler titled "The Long Con," about how successful conservative entrepreneurs have been at separating the right-wing rank and file from their money over the past few decades. If you were to sign up for updates from the likes of Human Events or World Net Daily, you'd be inundated not only with come-ons from political groups but with innumerable offers for miracle cures for every ailment under the sun. "The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march," Perlstein wrote, "of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began."

John Boehner (R-OH), aka Agent Orange, is showing frustration, because the dirty tricks, blackmail, and economic terrorism that worked do well for him after the 2010 elections, have failed to make headway against a far more resolute Obama.  so Agent Orange doing what he does so well: trying to lie his way out of the corner.

As an outside observer, I consider it obvious that the only way for the Republican party to survive, over the long term, is to moderate their policies and to govern for all Americans, not just the 1%.  It appears evident that they are not willing to do so, given the the stance of Fox, aka Faux Noise, the Republican Ministry of Propaganda.

The decades-long campaign by conservatives to build a lasting majority on the U.S. Supreme Court may come to an end over the next four years, now that President Obama has apparently been reelected to the White House.

While it is possible all five of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices will try to hold onto their seats until the end of the Obama presidency, death and the siren call of a well-funded pension plan may pull one or more of them off of the bench. That would give Obama the opportunity to swap in a left-leaning justice who could prevent Chief Justice John Roberts from obtaining a majority in the cases that divide conservatives and liberals — abortion, affirmative action and employee and property rights.

Politicians who lack factual data to make their point on an issue often use fallacies as a rhetorical tool, and they can be used purposefully to win arguments because they appeal to emotion and not reason. Devoid of facts to back up their arguments, Republicans have little option but appealing to emotions, but instead of fallacies, they intentionally deliver false statements and the payoff is nearly always not in the public’s best interest. For the past year, the GOP has lied to the American people about the benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline, and as the President and Congress work to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, there is little mystery that Republicans will use the pipeline’s approval as a bargaining chip to give the oil industry greater subsidies even as they attempt to cut their taxes. The President and Democrats could protect the environment and Americans’ health if they informed the people that Canadian tar sand is not coming to America, but through it on its way to China and Europe.

Social Security, the government entitlement that provides support to seniors in retirement, the disabled, and other Americans, has long been in the cross-hairs of budget reformers. The program’s trust fund currently won’t be spent out until 2033, and after that it would still pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits.

t’s great to be what you people are now calling a plutocrat.  I know.  I am one.

We plutocrats live incredible lives, surrounded by luxury and insulated from risk and discomfort.  Things have gone very well for us over the last several years.  Since George Bush left office, the stock market has doubled, we got a (sweet!) $700 billion rescue of the financial system, and corporate profits are at a 50-year high.  BOOYA!

It is alleged that Mitt  and Ann Romney  “personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailout—and a few of Romney’s most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romneys’, were astronomical—more than 3,000 percent on their investment.” And the UAW and others listened.  SOURCE

Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers pointed out that Mitt Romney was busy writing op-eds opposing the Detroit auto rescue, but was even busier making money with his Delphi investor group “off the misfortunes of others.”

Most of you have heard by now that earlier this week, for some idiotic reason, Mitt Romney managed to insult women, minorities, immigrants and the young during a conference call with major campaign donors.

It seems Romney told those top donors that he lost the election because President Obama bestowed “gifts” upon potential voters “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community, and young people.”

I trust that by now you have heard that Anonymous claims that they prevented an attempt by Karl Rove to rig the vote counting in several swing states in the recent elections.  That may or may not be true.  The problem is that, since Anonymous is anonymous, anyone can claim to be anonymous.  While I recognize Rove’s long history of attempts at election theft, I cannot accept the claims of unnamed people as absolute fact.  However, it it is true, it is imperative that we find out.