Qatar diplomat tries to light cigarette on flight from DC to Denver, tells air marshals 'I'm lighting my shoes on fire'

They should have shot him on the spot. What the hell is an Arab diplomat doing making jokes about blowing up US planes? The government of Qatar has some serious explaining to do, if this is how serious their government officials take terrorism, mocking US officials about recent attempted terrorist attacks on American citizens. Read More......

Top House Dem: Latinos view Obama with 'suspicion'

From The Hill:

A member of the House Democratic leadership said Wednesday that Latinos view President Barack Obama with "suspicion" for failing to meet expectations.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), the House Democratic Caucus vice chairman, offered stern words for Obama, saying that the Latino population wants to see more from the White House on issues that are important to them.

"I think there’s a lot of suspicion, a lot of doubt, a lot of concern," he said on KPCC Radio of Obama's image among Latinos. "The president made a promise. He hasn’t fulfilled that promise. Rightfully, I think a lot of folks are questioning where the president’s priorities are."

Becerra's comments are one of the most significant broadsides from a lawmaker against Obama's sway with Latinos.

During the 2008 presidential race, Obama was able to galvanize Latinos into a solid Democratic voting bloc after President George W. Bush attracted a record level of Latino support for a GOP presidential nominee in the 2004 election.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has been negotiating immigration reform with the White House and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), said last month that the issue is "dead" in the Senate this year because the contentious healthcare debate left Republicans with a sour taste in their mouths.

I think the Latino leadership in Congress is playing this right. The administration tends to pay attention to the squeaky wheel - that would be conservative Dems, and Republicans, who threaten to bring down the President's legislative priorities. Progressives are going to need to step up their game if they want to be noticed, and if they want to hold the administration to its promises. It will be interesting to see whether the Latinos have any success. I suspect with their voting power, they will. Read More......

HCR battle raises more for Ds than Rs

From Ben Smith:

The Republican National Committee -- for whose Michael Steele healthy fundraising may be a lifeline -- raised more than $11 million, though it was able to sock away just $2 million of that for its war chest.

But the DNC did even better, raising more than $13 million, according to communications director Brad Woodhouse.

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RNC bondage club controversy convinces porn star to become Republican

From the Hill:

The porn star who has toyed with a run against the Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) announced today that she is becoming a Republican.

Stormy Daniels has been considering a (joke?) campaign ever since Vitter was linked to the "D.C. madam" in in 2007. But back then, she was a Democrat.

Now that the RNC has patronized a lesbian bondage themed club in Hollywood, Daniels says the GOP is the party for her.

"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," Daniels said in a tongue-in-cheek press release. “For me, this spirit can be summed up in the RNC’s investment of donor funds at Voyeur."

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Murdoch: MSNBC, CNN 'Tend To Be Democrats,' NYT Carries Obama's Water

Remember what we've told you before: Republicans accuse us of being and doing what they already are. In poker it's call a "tell." If FOX's Rupert Murdoch accuses the NYT and CNN of being stooges for Democrats, he's actually admitting that he's a stooge for the Republicans. Not to mention, that's some real chutzpah for former Murdoch - who hired a former GOP consultant, and a man who wrote a strategy memo for President GW Bush, to run FOX News (Roger Ailes) - to accuse CNN and the NYT of being biased.

Murdoch doesn't get it. He thinks CNN and the NYT are his competitors. They're not. They're media. He's a propagandist. Read More......

FBI impersonated right-wing Teabagger-friendly group to catch man who threatened to kill Dem Senator

It'd be a real shame if all the Teabaggers, and the rest of the far-right government hating crowd, thought that every time this group called, or organized something, or did a fundraiser, that it was really the FBI trying to lock them up. Real shame.

As the F.B.I. moved in on a man who allegedly threatened Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, because of her support for health care legislation, law enforcement agents faced a challenge: they needed to confirm that Charles A. Wilson, the man whose phone number was used to leave menacing messages on her office voicemail, was in fact the man who made the threats.

So they found a convenient way to get Mr. Wilson talking about the issue that seemed to be weighing so heavily on him. Special Agent Cory Cote of the F.B.I. called Mr. Wilson at his home number and, according to the criminal complaint (PDF), “disguised himself as a representative of Patients United Now, a group that was ostensibly attempting to have the federal health care reform legislation repealed.”

Patients United Now is a real organization, part of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a conservative, antitax advocacy group, that has actively opposed the legislation and also runs a project called “Hands Off My Health Care.” The foundation has also been active in publicizing Tea Party events. It advocates for the federal government to “return to its Constitutional limits” and also seeks to highlight the “alarmism” around global warming.

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Fmr. RNC official: Steele and Michigan GOP had deal to increase fundraising numbers, possibly to circumvent federal funding limits

What's particularly interesting is that this is a conservative new site that's raking this muck. DailyCaller:

The Republican National Committee at the end of last year struck a deal with the Michigan Republican Party that if the state party could raise what turned out to be a half a million dollars for the RNC from its donors, the committee would immediately give the money back, in a scheme apparently devised to increase the RNC’s 2009 fundraising numbers.

“It was a known secret that a deal had been struck on the topic,” a former RNC official confirmed to The Daily Caller.

“I think the benefit to them was them getting guaranteed money,” the source said of the Michigan GOP, “and the benefit to the RNC was getting higher fundraising numbers.”

RNC spokesman Doug Heye, contacted by a reporter Tuesday afternoon, did not comment.

Michigan’s August primaries are later than other states, and the funds came when all eyes were on another election in another state. When $250,000 was disbursed to Michigan in January — the same month of the competitive Massachusetts senate special election — the Massachusetts GOP only received $42,000.

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VA Gov.'s removed anti-slavery language in Confederacy proclamation, hopes it will promote tourism

I have to admit, my jaw dropped when I read this passage in the Washington Post's front page article about Governor Bob McDonnell's proclamation that April is "Confederate History Month":

McDonnell left out anti-slavery language that Allen's successor, James S. Gilmore III (R), had included in his proclamation.

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

He's actually trying to downplay the slavery issue as a factor in the Civil War. Wow. Maybe McDonnell should venture into DC someday and check out a document called the "Emancipation Proclamation" at the National Archives. It was written by his fellow Republican, Abraham Linconln. Of course, for McDonnell, venturing across the Potomac into DC means he's leaving the Confederacy and entering Union territory.

Just keep in mind that Bob McDonnell is touted as one of the great new hopes for the GOP. That's why he was chosen to give the Republican response to State of the Union in January:

In tapping McDonnell, GOPers hope to capitalize on the momentum the party has earned from recent electoral gains. McDonnell has been credited with laying out a blueprint for conservative GOPers to compete even in centrist states, and the party believes he is the best face to put in front of the country's surging populism.

Now, McDonnell is best known for honoring the Confederacy. Read More......

Grijalva caves on climate change because of health care reform

The co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Raul Grijalva, said yesterday that he won't make any absolute demands on climate change legislation since he made such demands on health care reform, demanding a public option be included in the final bill, and then didn't follow through on his threat. Now, the lesson Grijalva could have learned was "if you don't follow through on your threats, people won't take you seriously. Instead, Grijalva learned that you shouldn't make threats.

This does not bode well for immigration reform, or any other progressive issue in the future, if the co-head of the progressive caucus is now admitting defeat.

And, this was a concern that we had enunciated last fall. By caving on health care reform, liberals were setting themselves up for fails on other progressive issues - no one would take their demands seriously. I'm not convinced that liberals should have voted against HCR, but I've always been worried that the approach the administration took towards the debate (one of weakness) would end up haunting us on other legislation in the future. And now it already has.

Liberal House Democrats are shifting their political tactics on climate change after failing to secure a public option in the new healthcare reform law.

The move comes in the wake of liberals having to walk back threats that they would vote against a healthcare bill without a government-run program.

“Drawing the line in the sand too quickly was part of the lesson we learned on healthcare,” the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), told The Hill.

Grijalva voiced strong concerns about the direction of the climate and energy bill, which has moved toward the center as Democrats try to build a bipartisan consensus that can win 60 Senate votes. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are leading the effort in the upper chamber to pass a comprehensive bill.

A cap-and-trade program, which was included in the House bill that passed last year, is likely to be jettisoned, and President Barack Obama disappointed liberals last week by announcing his support for expanding offshore oil drilling. The president’s decision was seen as a move to garner the support of conservative Democrats and Republicans who would be open to voting for a comprehensive climate and energy measure.

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WV mine had '1,342 safety violations from 2005 through Monday'

The CEO of the coal company that ran the mine where 25 miners died and four are missing thinks the mine was "safe to operate." The explosion on Monday and the mine's safety record indicate otherwise:

The mine was written up more than 50 times last month for safety violations. Twelve of the citations involved problems with ventilating the mine and preventing a buildup of deadly methane.

Interviewed on CNN Wednesday morning, Massey's president and chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, asserted that the hundreds of citations the mine has received for safety violations were neither excessive nor significant. He said that officials "knowledgeable" about the mining industry "had concluded that the mine was safe to operate."

Federal regulators and members of Congress said they would examine the safety history of the coal mine south of Charleston, the site of the worst U.S. mining accident in at least a quarter-century. Massey Energy says on its Web site that the company's safety record has been better than the industry average for six consecutive years, with its workers losing less time on the job through work-site accidents than its competitors. But in seven of the past eight years, Upper Big Branch miners lost more time on the job through work-site accidents than did other miners nationally, federal records show.

Three miners have died there since 1998, and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration cited Upper Big Branch for 1,342 safety violations from 2005 through Monday, proposing $1.89 million in fines, according to federal records.

That record "is a sign that they are not fixing their safety problems," said Celeste Monforton, a former senior official at the Mine Safety and Health Administration. It is not unusual for a mine to receive a substantial number of citations, she said, but the recent violations involving the mine's ventilation system "are a red flag. It's a signal that something is not right there, something is going wrong at that mine."

On a radio show, Blankenship said that accidents are "unfortunately an inevitable part of the mining process." My guess is that it's especially true when there are so many safety violations. It just appalling. It's 2010, but Blankenship is running his company like it's 1910.

Congress only seems to act on mining safety after mining disasters. Read More......

GOP Sen. Coburn defends Pelosi as 'nice woman,' says FOX News is 'biased'

From Capitol News Connection:

When discussing the short-term unemployment benefit extension that he is stalling, to the chagrin of Democrats, Coburn said he is "180 degrees in opposition" to Pelosi but that "she is a nice lady."

That comment drew boos and jeers from the crowd, but Coburn asked the crowd for calm and spoke about civility.

“Come on now. She is nice – how many of you all have met her? She’s a nice person,” Coburn said. "Let me give you a little lesson here. I hope you will listen to me. Just because somebody disagrees with you don’t [sic] mean they’re not a good person. And i want to tell you, I've been in the senate for five years and I’ve taken a lot of that, because I’ve been on the small side –- both in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party."

The Oklahoma senator is seen by many as a divisive figure.

“What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make a determination yourself,” Coburn added and then again warned the crowd against the myths perpetrated on FOX News.

“So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOX News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know,” Coburn said.

Coburn is not a nice guy. For him to be talking like this means that he's concerned - the GOP is concerned - that their crazies have gone too far, too crazy. And that's great. And it's all the more reason for Democrats to push the issue even further, that the GOP has been taking over by Teabagging extremists. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President now has another big problem to deal with in the war in Afghanistan: President Karzai, who has been increasingly erratic of late. Earlier in the week, Karzai said, "I swear that I'm going to join the Taliban." Yesterday, at the White House briefing, Robert Gibbs suggested Karzai's May 12th visit to Washington could be cancelled, "We certainly would evaluate whatever continued or further remarks President Karzai makes as to whether that’s constructive to have such a meeting, sure." What a mess. Thanks again, George Bush and Dick Cheney for ignoring Afghanistan for eight years.

Also at yesterday's press briefing, in response to a question from Kerry Eleveld, Gibbs took a swipe at the Department of Justice over the controversial brief it filed defending Don't Ask, Don't Tell last week:

I will say, was it odd that they included previous statements from General Colin Powell on a belief set that he no longer had? I don’t think the President would disagree with that.

It was "odd" to say the least. And, that brief had more problems than that. It still looks like there really is no strategy to finally end DADT, despite Obama's promise to do it "this year."

The President is leaving for the Czech Republic tonight.

It's going to be in the 90s today here in DC --- and we are under a full scale pollen onslaught. It's a brutal allergy season already.

What else is going on? Read More......

Report: housing foreclosures heading up again

And apparently the problem could get worse again, very quickly. CNBC:

Yes, banks are ramping up loan modifications and ramping up short sales and ramping up deeds in lieu of foreclosure, but the plain fact is that as the systems are oiled, the loans are moving through faster, and the pig in the python is showing its face.

We won't get the numbers until next week, but sources tell me they will likely be a new monthly record.

Tens of thousands of loans have been hitting the "notice of trustee sale" bin, and that means they are coming to foreclosure.

The actual foreclosure numbers have been down recently because of all the modification efforts, but as we see more loans not qualifying for modifications and more loans defaulting on modifications, the foreclosure numbers rise.

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Regional bailed out bank executives living off the fat of the land

As if the national bankers weren't bad enough, now this. How do they possibly justify these pay increases and why are they not being called out? Everyone has had enough of socialized losses and privatized profits. Increasing the CEOs pay by over 50% is obscene in this climate. Reuters:

Yet at the same time, Fifth Third, PNC, Regions, KeyCorp and other large heartland banks have been quietly approving pay increases for their top executives as well. Even banks that had yet to repay TARP money rewarded their bosses handsomely.

While far from Wall Street—and away from the spotlight—the pay practices of the so-called second tier banks are still a concern.

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont who has proposed a tax on bonuses, called it a "rip-off" for banks still receiving taxpayer support to reward their CEOs with pay increases.

"Whether they call it a bonus, a stock option, or they inflate their salary, that is wrong and a rip-off," Welch said.

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Wash Post: Republican National Committee rocked by resignations

From Cillizza at the Post:

The resignation of Republican National Committee chief of staff Ken McKay and the decision by media consultant Curt Anderson to sever ties with the committee marks a public airing of fissures that have marred the organization for much of Chairman Michael Steele's tenure.

Steele's remaining allies cast McKay's departure -- and the promotion of deputy chief of staff Mike Leavitt -- as a long overdue move that will set the committee on the right path heading into the midterm election this fall. Leavitt won praise from, among others, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie who touted him as an "experienced political hand who knows the chairman well and how best to maximize his strengths."

But, those allies were in a clear minority among the political professional class, much of which has long disliked/distrusted Steele and saw McKay's ouster as the latest sign of a chairman who seeks to eliminate dissenting opinions. Anderson, who had played a central role in Steele's surprise victory last January, had stepped back from day-to-day involvement with the RNC several months ago -- leaving McKay as the lone voice of opposition to the chairman, according to several informed sources.

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Net neutrality takes a hit in court

Is there a good reason why anyone would want to continue with Comcast? If that's the only choice, perhaps, but hopefully the state of competition isn't really that bad that they are the only option. It's companies like Comcast that are holding back the US from having a vibrant, competitive and fast internet. Maybe Congress will step in? Terrible news.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC's authority to impose so-called "net neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

The ruling also marks a serious setback for the FCC, which is trying to officially set net neutrality regulations. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski argues that such rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over Internet access to favor some online content and services over others.

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