Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Monday said that she would be willing force a "thoughtful" shutdown of parts of the United States government if President Barack Obama did not agree to deep spending cuts.

"What we want to make certain is that this president, this administration, this bureaucracy realizes that kicking the can must stop," she told MSNBC's Chris Jansing. "It is spending cuts and it is imperative that we reduce the size of the federal government, that we get in on a mega-diet, that we end this out-of-control spending."

"There is the option of government shutdown," the Tennessee Republican continued. "There is an option of raising the debt ceiling in short-term increments... There's also the plan of three dollars in cuts for every one dollar of debt limit increase. So, the healthy thing is this, we are having a good discussion on it."

Jansing pointed to a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center which found that the government could continue to fund interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, food stamps during a shutdown -- but it would mean that almost every other federal program would grind to a halt.

"[B]ut doing all that will mean defaulting on everything — really, everything — else," The Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote last week. "The FBI will shut down. The people responsible for tracking down loose nukes will lose their jobs. The prisons won’t operate. The biomedical researchers won’t be funded. The court system will close its doors. The tax refunds won’t go out. The Federal Aviation Administration will go offline. The parks will close. Food safety inspections will cease."

"I think that there is a way to avoid default," Blackburn insisted. "If it requires shutting down certain portions of the government, let's look at that. Let's put these option on the table, be very thoughtful, but get this spending pattern broken. We cannot afford a $4 billion a day deficit and trillion dollar plus deficits every single year."

"So, it requires thoughtfulness and it requires that we are going to have a plan to work through this. I think that's where we as Republicans are headed."

Former president Bill Clinton made an appearance during Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards and gave an inspirational introduction to Steven Spielberg's film "Lincoln."

"A tough fight to push a bill through a bitterly divided Congress," Clinton began before describing the difficulties Lincoln had passing the 13th amendment. "Winning it required the president to make a lot of unsavory deals that had nothing to do with the big issue. I wouldn't know anything about that," Clinton quipped to the delighted crowd.

"President Lincoln's struggle to abolish slavery reminds us that enduring progress is forged in a cauldron of both principle and compromise," Clinton continued. "This brilliant film shows us how he did it, and gives us hope that we can do it again."

"That was Hillary Clinton's husband," host Amy Poehler exclaimed after the surprise guest left the stage.

"That was Bill Rodham Clinton!" Tina Fey exclaimed.

I caught some of Obama's last presser of his first administration and although he is fighting against the psychos wanting to destroy the global markets by refusing to raise the debt ceiling; I just don't understand some of his other words pertaining to our economy. Why does the President spend so much time on convincing America that the deficit is the GOD of all things and he's there to reduce it in a balanced approach? That's not what he was elected for.

The always awesome Charles Pierce:

The general public seems to think that The Economy is defined by how many people are working and how many people are not. The political elite, including the president, and the courtier press that services that elite, all seem to define the economy through the deficit. The cognitive dissonance in Washington is about how best to deal with an economy defined by the deficit. The cognitive dissonance in the country is about how best to deal with an economy that is being defined at the highest levels of the government in a way that the rest of the country finds odd and inadequate. So when the general public hears the president say this...

As I said on the campaign, one component to growing our economy and broadening opportunity for the middle class is shrinking our deficits in a balanced and responsible way. And for nearly two years now I've been fighting for such a plan, one that would reduce our deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade, which would stabilize our debt and our deficit in a sustainable way for the next decade. That would be enough not only to stop the growth of our debt relative to the size of our economy, but it would make it manageable so it doesn't crowd out the investments we need to make in people and education and job training and science and medical research — all the things that help us grow.

...it thinks the president has his priorities in the wrong order. When he talks about The American People, and the Middle Class thereof, he ought not to convince himself that he was re-elected because he's the guy who'll best bring down The Deficit. He got re-elected because the other guy convinced America that he wouldn't much care if people ate grass by the side of the road. The people who voted for this president did not do so because they wanted a balance program to bring down the deficit. They did so because they thought he was less likely to make their everyday lives harder than they already are. Because, as the blog's First Law Of Economics states: Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money.

Prez Obama has used the Republican talking points about the federal debt for a long time now and I had hoped it would disappear for his second term, but I've been mistaken. I wonder if it's the beltway villagers unduly influencing his advisers to make sure he constantly talks like this when discussing the economy in front of America or if he really believes this FOX News strategy. It makes no sense at all. Americans want to work. Americans want to make money.

That's what the economy means to them.

The additional maddening thing is that if you fix the jobs problem you largely fix the deficit problem. The reverse is not true. If you "fix" the deficit you kill the jobs.

It's that simple.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is a Republican, is lashing out at a "dark vein of intolerance" in his own party, which he says is being created by people like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu who use racial code words and "slave terms" to attack President Barack Obama.

During a Sunday interview, NBC's David Gregory asked Powell why he continued to consider himself a Republican after supporting Obama and taking moderate policy positions.

"I think the Republican Party right now is having an identity problem, and I am still a Republican," Powell explained. "In recent years, there has been a significant shift to the right and we have seen what that shift has produced: two losing presidential campaigns."

"When we see that in one more generation that the minorities of America -- African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans -- will be the majority of the country, you can't go around saying, 'We don't want to have a solid immigration policy, we're going to dismiss the 47 percent, we are going to make it hard for the minorities to vote,' as they did in the last election."

"There is also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party," he continued. "They still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that? When I see [Palin] saying that the president is 'shucking and jiving,' that's a racial-era slave term. When I see [Sununu] after the president's first debate, where he didn't do very well, says that the president was 'lazy' -- he didn't say he was slow, he was tired, he didn't do well -- he said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans, but to those of use who are African Americans, the second word is 'shiftless' and there's a third word that goes along with it."

Powell went on to slam Republicans for "the whole birther movement."

"Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?" he wondered. "I think the party has to take a look at itself. It has to take a look at it's responsibilities for health care, it has to take a look at immigration, it has to take a look at those less fortunate than us."

I didn't think I'd ever see the day when conservatives would disagree with their hero Antonin Scalia, but that's what's happening in the current gun control debate. It also points out how far outside the norm these gun nuts are when trying to defend the gun manufacturers over all Americans. When Larry Pratt says guns without limits, ---he's really just trying to be the pitchman for every gun /ammo manufacturer and supplier in America. It is really that simple.

FOX News Sunday:

WALLACE: OK. I want to get into one last issue, a bigger issue. Mr. Pratt, you say, one of the -- maybe the basic problem here, is that President Obama's disdain for the constitutional right to bear arms and, in fact, you have compared him to George III, British monarch during the American Revolution.

PRATT: He might be learning from his example.

WALLACE: Yes. But when the Supreme Court ruled on the Second Amendment in the 2008 case, the Heller case here in D.C., I want to put up what Justice Scalia said. Let's put it up on the screen. "There seems to us, no doubt on the basis of text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to bear arms. Of course, the right was not unlimited." In fact, in his decision, Scalia talked about restrictions on what kinds of guns can be --

TANDEN: Absolutely.

WALLACE: -- guns can be sold, who can buy them and, where they can be carried. So, yes, he said, there is a Second Amendment individual right, but he didn't say it's without limits.

PRATT: Well, that was unfortunate because the Amendment does provide its own degree of scrutiny. It says shall not be infringed. And, we know that at least one justice, Mr. Thomas, takes that point of view.This is not something where the government is supposed to be free to tell we, the people, the government's boss, how much -- how far we can go with the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is there to constrain the government. Not the people.

WALLACE: So you think that Scalia was wrong when he said that that right is not unlimited?

PRATT: He was not speaking from a constitutional perspective.

WALLACE: And, finally, Ms. Tanden --

TANDEN: That was the Supreme Court Justice.

WALLACE: Pardon?

TANDEN: That was the Supreme Court justice.

WALLACE: Well, you disagree with Supreme Court justices all the time.

TANDEN: I do. But I'm surprised he is disagreeing with Justice Scalia on this issue.

The NRA puppets like Pratt are trying to get rid of every gun control law in America. It's pathetic and dangerous, but very profitable for all parties involved.

Video via Al Jazeera

Some of the world's largest energy giants are moving into eastern Australia and investing billions of dollars to exploit coal seam gas reserves so vast they could rewrite the world's energy map. Despite generating massive amounts of revenue and creating thousands of new jobs, they are being met by a groundswell of public protest and a rising chorus of concern about the long-term impacts of coal seam gas extraction on the nation's health, environment and land. Coal seam gas has the potential to make Australia an energy superpower, but at what price?

12 protesters were arrested this week during a demonstration of about 150 people at a coal seam gas drilling site. Activists had locked themselves to trees and trucks.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham criticized police for being forceful:

"It's a sad reflection on the coal seam gas industry that police have to arrest local residents and force their way through a community blockade so that they can drill for gas," he said in a statement.

"There is no future for coal seam gas in NSW if each drill rig needs to have a police guard to force its way into communities."

The protesters have been keeping a blockade of the drilling site going for nearly two months now, but police seem determined to break any protest that interferes with drilling.

I have a lot of friends who don't get the shot; myself, I've gotten it faithfully for the past ten years, ever since I was unemployed, uninsured, got the flu and it turned into pneumonia. There's nothing like lying in bed, shaking with fever and listening to your lungs crackle like a dried-out accordion to make you want to avoid going through that again. (Yes, I get the pneumonia vaccine, too.)

Experts insist it's only a matter of time until we're hit with another flu pandemic like the one that decimated our country in 1918. That flu infected 500 million, and killed somewhere between 20 to 50 million around the world. (That's one to three percent of the world's population.) Even when it doesn't work completely, the vaccine can keep you from getting as sick, and it provides a degree of herd immunity.

If you live out west, you may not have seen this flu yet. But it's a very bad one, and if you can do anything to avoid getting it, you should. It's not too late to get the vaccine -- if not for yourself, for the people around you.

Michael Specter in the New Yorker urges readers to get the flu vaccine:

Nobody yet knows how severe this year’s epidemic of influenza will be. Nobody can ever know in advance. Yet, the evidence that this one will be bad is mounting: in New York, where twenty children have already died, Governor Cuomo has declared a public-health emergency. The virus has already spread widely throughout the country and it’s not peaked yet. (California is the biggest exception, the only state largely spared so far, and unless they shut the airports, the cargo ports, and the roadways, that it is likely to change any day.) Unfortunately, high flu season is also the time when some of the smartest people I know act in the most irrational ways. On Friday, a highly educated, very smart colleague at The New Yorker explained her decision to remain unvaccinated with these words: “I never get a flu shot, and I never get the flu.”

O.K. Let’s play her game. Turn to whomever you are with and say these sentences out loud: “I never wear seat belts, and I never get killed in car crashes”; “I never use condoms, and I never become infected with sexually transmitted diseases”; “I eat red meat seven times a week, only exercise once a year, and I’ve never had a heart attack or a stroke.”

When it comes to influenza, most people are denialists. So far, fewer than forty per cent of Americans (adults and children) have been vaccinated against this flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The vaccine is far from perfect: preliminary data suggests that it will work at most two-thirds of the time. Still, influenza kills as many as forty-five thousand Americans a year and the vaccine reduces deaths, illnesses, the use of antibiotics, and the number of hospital visits. It can greatly lessen the burdens on a health-care system that can hardly cope as it is.

The C.D.C. reported this week that hospitalization rates were already higher than expected—particularly for people sixty-five and older, the most vulnerable cohort.

The vaccine has a very strong safety profile. (Each year public-health officials select three strains of the influenza virus that, based on surveillance data, are most likely to cause the most illness that season. It’s educated guess-work but it explains why you need a new one each year. Scientists are working on a more universal solution.)

People often say, “I got the vaccine, and three days later I was sick.“ That can happen, but it probably won’t be influenza and it certainly won’t be from the vaccine. This is the season for all sorts of viruses, and people often use the word “flu” to signify any ailment that strikes them between Thanksgiving and the day of the Yankees’ home opener.

In 2009, when the novel virus H1N1 emerged, public-health officials throughout the world declared an emergency. (A novel virus is one that humans have never encountered; it means we have no antibodies and are far less capable of fighting the infection.) It turned out the virus was unusually mild; nonetheless it infected nearly a third of the world. If it had been powerful, tens of million of people—and possibly more—would have died. In circumstances like those, the sixty-five per cent effectiveness rate for the flu shot is a large number indeed.

Even if you think you are invincible, your elderly neighbors and infant children are not. People with weakened immune systems—those undergoing cancer treatments, for example—are not. Your parents and grandparents are not. The flu vaccine is not perfect, but it’s what we have. It’s available at drug-store chains and malls, big-box superstores and, naturally, at your doctor’s office. Get one today.

I said a few weeks ago that if President Obama refused to use the platinum coin or the 14th Amendment to stop the debt ceilling fight, it's because he wants his Grand Bargain deal with the Republicans, and having a showdown is the best way to make it happen. I saw nothing during today's press conference to change my opinion that the president is determined to make the Republicans sit down and cut a deal that includes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Read the transcript here:

President Barack Obama ratcheted up pressure on congressional Republicans to authorize an increase in the nation’s debt limit, warning of potentially catastrophic results for many Americans and the overall economy if the U.S. were to default on its obligations.

“The issue here is whether or not America pays its bills,” Obama said at a press conference on Monday, the last of his first term in office. “We are not a deadbeat nation.”

Anticipating a politically bruising fight this spring with the GOP – members of which in Congress have increasingly and openly discussed the prospect of refusing to raise the debt ceiling or allowing a government shutdown – Obama urged lawmakers to avoid using the vote over the debt limit as a point of leverage.

And the president sought to frame the risks of default in stark terms. He warned markets would go “haywire” if Congress would not act; Obama said that interest rates would rise, and checks to Social Security beneficiaries and military veterans would cease.

But as some Democrats urge the administration to consider options to sidestep Congress and assert the authority to unilaterally authorize more borrowing, Obama all but ruled out these sorts of “Plan B” options.

In the middle of a rant about gun control, outing people with gun permits in the newspaper, and counter-outing journalists at the same paper, Rush Limbaugh comes up with this, with regard to proponents of responsible gun safety laws:

They're good people. They'd never use a gun to kill kids. They use abortion for that.

If I were an advertiser on Limbaugh's show, I'd worry about having my brand associated with inflammatory, unnecessary cracks like that. Seriously. That was offensive, unnecessary and a complete non-sequitur, designed to feed his slavering masses some red meat at the expense of women's health across the nation.

Oh, I know. Limbaugh fancies himself to be just a jokester who says these things but doesn't really mean them. Sure he does!

Consider this a public service announcement. The effort to encourage advertisers to leave Rush Limbaugh's airwaves goes on, and is succeeding, mostly because people object to comments like this.

So Rusty, just keep making an ass of yourself, and we'll keep on making sure you bleed until you've bled Clear Channel dry and have to rely on wingnut welfare just to stay on the air.

Are you ready for the CrazyTown USA on guns? It's here, it's near and coming to a wingnut village near you.

Toledo Blade:

The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education has approved the carrying of handguns by its custodial staff.The 5-0 vote of the board Wednesday night to allow handgun training for four custodians to be able to tote weapons at the K-12 campus at the Williams County school came after last month's deadly shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. School officials say that having armed personnel - believed to be the first for any school system in Ohio - is designed to thwart incidents of violence and prevent what happened in Newtown, Conn., from occurring here. "Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn't happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures," Supertendent Jamie Grime told The Blade today. "Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect."

School board President Larry Martin said that while the school district began looking into arming employees about six months ago, the board didn't announce the concept publicly until Wednesday's monthly meeting. He said the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook heightened the decision to put the resolution on the board agenda."Our main goal is to offer safety for our students while they are in the classrooms and in the buiding," Mr. Martin said. "We have to do something and this seems like the most logical, reasonable course to go with."Before voting on the resolution, which was approved 5-0, village Police Chief Jeffrey Lehman met with the board and superintendent in executive session to provide advice, suggestions, and his professional opinion, said Mr. Martin, a school board member for 20 years.

Have you ever heard of a more ridiculous idea than this in a long time? OK, strike that, but it's still insane, dangerous and very reckless.

Via Lawyers Guns and Money.

Really hard to see what could go wrong here. And given that school custodians are often poorly paid and treated as expendable labor, my thoughts that nothing could go wrong are only reinforced.