Armstrong Williams, about whom it must always be first asked, “who purchased this new opinion of yours, Armst?”, has a new opinion about marijuana legalization in Mexico. It appears perfectly aligned with the Mexican drug cartels’ opinion of marijuana legalization. So, Armst, I gotta ask — which Mexican drug boss purchased this opinion of yours and paid you to type it up for The Hill?

After getting roundly whacked by basically the entire internet, the US Chamber has officially apologized for its blog post yesterday that suggested women seeking equal pay have a “fetish for money” and suggested women should “choose the right partner at home.” But don’t let it fool you: the US Chamber has for decades advocated in private the very sentiments posted to its public blog yesterday. We just got a look behind the curtain.

Thanks to a brutal Republican primary battle between Attorney General Bill McCollum and billionaire Rick Scott, Democrat Alex Sink has been able to take the lead for the first time in Quinnipac’s newest poll.

The CBO released their budget estimates for the next ten years today, under current law. It shows that this year’s deficit is estimated at $1.342 trillion dollars, certainly a very high number and almost entirely attributable to the low tax receipts and high automatic stabilizers of the Great Recession. But by 2014, the deficit actually shrinks by well over 60%, to $438 billion dollars, before gradually increasing again. That 2014 deficit is just 2.5% of GDP.

The operative word here is “current law.” Because that assumes a whole host of tax cuts will expire and revert back to their previous state. It also assumes that Congress will not meddle and change those tax laws. If they do what is expected, just for the year 2014, they will double the federal deficit.

Great news from our friends at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: the National Black Police Association, a 38-year-old advocacy group for African American law enforcement professionals, has endorsed Prop 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative.

Zachary Goldfarb at Washington Post points to a little-noticed section of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that regulators could use to set limits on executive pay packages at the largest financial firms. The section 956(a) rules would apply to any financial firm with over $1 billion in assets.

Yet another foolish Democrat, this time Missouri Senate candidate, Robin Carnahan, thinks we should extend the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans, because “now is not a good time for raising taxes.” Are they truly that clueless about what the choices are?