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Political Junkie

Mitt’s Bestseller

Mitt Romney's new book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," will debut on top of the New York Times bestseller list due out March 21 according to a source. So far, his book tour has attracted large crowds, sometimes over 1,000. While not on par with Sarah Palin's book tours, Romney supporters are taking the tour numbers as a sign that he's a figure of genuine popular interest. [Politico]

Tags: republican

And Justice For All

Backing Down

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) was for removing rights and protections from LGBT workers...until he got caught up in a firestorm of negative press. First, the governor removed all legal protections for LGBT state employees. Then, the Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, tried to strip protections for LGBT students from all state colleges and university non-discrimination policies, a policy which Gov. McDonnell said he supported. Many college students protested, local and national new outlets broadcast the story, and now Gov. McDonnell has issued a new directive, publicly distancing himself from the effort. Let's clear this up guys: LGBT Virginians are equal citizens, and should be protected under the law. [Wonk Room]

Tags: lgbt

Green Is Good

Believing in Global Warming

...or not, as the case may be. A new Gallup poll found that 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is "generally exaggerated," up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question. [Gallup]

Tags: climate change

Right Wing Wackiness

Representative Paul Ryan

Quote of the Day

"It’s difficult to design a tax plan that will lose $2 trillion over a decade even while requiring 90 percent of taxpayers to pay more. But Congressman Ryan has met that daunting challenge".--Citizens for Tax Justice report. [The Atlantic]  Ed note: the rich would overwhelmingly benefit from Ryan’s tax cuts. By 2014 people making in excess of $1 million-a-year would enjoy an average tax cut of more than $600,000. To put it another way, their after-tax income would rise by nearly 30 percent.

Tags: taxes

Source: flickr/jwpacifist

Thursday, March 11

White House

11:15 AM: POTUS addresses the Export-Import Bank's Annual Conference to discuss his commitment to doubling exports in five years
1:45 PM: POTUS meets with members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
3PM: POTUS meets with Sens. Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham.
6:20PM: POTUS meets with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

On The Hill

10AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - hearing on "A Fair Share for All: Pay Equity in the New American Workplace."
10AM: Senate Energy Committee hearing on Energy Efficiency Jobs

Other Cool Stuff

12:15: Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, delivers a speech on regulatory reform at the New America Foundation, Washington, DC
Jimmy Fallon: Michael Moore
Stewart : Eamon Javers, author, Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage
Colbert: David Aaronovitch, author, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History

Fun Time Waster To Start Your Day

Have you seen this yet? Sign in with your Facebook account and you can put yourself on Glenn Beck's blackboard. Way too much fun. http://bit.ly/anreeU

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Health & Wellness

Source: flickr/scottobear

Limbaugh Loves Universal Health Care

Sigh. Cancel your crabcakes order with the caterer and shelve the champagne back in the fridge - the Bon Voyage Rush party is canceled. Yesterday, we were all abuzz after Rush Limbaugh announced that, if health care reform passed, he was going to Costa Rica. Today he backtracked, saying he didn't mean he was moving there, just that he'd go there for his health care. Why this is amusing: Costa Rica has Universal Health Care that covers everying, in part with help from their government which actually owns hospitals and clinics. And most Costa Ricans get their health care coverage through a plan called the Caja - which is very similar to, you guessed it, the public option. [ThinkProgress]

Tags: health care reform, rush limbaugh

Money Money Money

Whatta Crock, Corker

Today's Moral Hangover of the Day Award goes to Sen. Bob Corker, the conservative lawmaker from Tennessee. Sen. Corker is the lynchpin to coming up with a bipartisan agreement on new financial regulations. He's also the guy who fought to remove regulations aimed at predatory lenders, the so-called payday lenders, which make money by charging 400% interest on short-term, high interest loans aimed at low-income Americans and our military. The New York Times reports Corker, surprise, surprise, gets a lot of campaign dough from these neighborhood loan sharks, though he denies that influenced his decision to kill legislation that would regulate them. [NYT]

Tags: campaign finance reform, predatory loans

Political Junkie

Cut It Out

The House of Representatives yesterday voted to outlaw misleading fundraising mailers (you know, like the ones that appeared to be official documents from the U.S. Census but really were fundraising letters from Michael Steele and the RNC). And who says there's no bipartisanship in DC these days - this measure passed 416-0. [MSNBC]

Tags: rnc

Over The Rainbow

Source: flickr/foundphotoslj

Canceling Prom

Rather than let a lesbian couple attend their prom together, the the Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Mississippi canceled the event for all students. The school went on to say, "It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors." A private event wouldn't be subject to the same legal standards (like equality for everyone) as the public school. [Clarion Ledger]

Tags: lgbt, prom

Star Gazing

Source: flickr/wojciech.felendzerr

Anna Nicole, The Opera

Move over, Figaro, there's a new opera in town. Mark your calendars for next February 17 for the Royal Opera's debut of their new performance of..."Anna Nicole, The Opera." The opera will star Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek  in the role of the former Playboy model. [CBS News]

Tags: opera

Right Wing Wackiness

Budget Roadmap to Nowhere

So, as for that Republican “budget roadmap...” As it turns out, not only does it call for sharp cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and all other government programs combined with privatization of Medicare so that a larger share of your diminished benefit goes to for-profit insurance companies, apparently when the Center for Tax Justice (PDF) ran the numbers, they discovered that most Americans will pay higher taxes under Ryan’s plan than under Obama’s. Only the very richest will pay less. [Yglesias]

Tags: economy, budget, taxes, republicans

Just Plain Cool

Shut Up and Do Your Work

Apparently, if you were born after 1980, your sense of entitlement is making baby-boomer employers CRAZY!

But we'll blame your parents for giving you that 9th-place trophy for that basketball tournament in 4th grade. [Wall Street Journal]

Tags: jobs

Political Junkie

What Filibuster?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pledged on Wednesday to take a serious look at revising the filibuster rules at the beginning of the next Congress, calling the current level of obstruction in the Senate unacceptable.

In a reflection of the party's commitment to changing the parliamentary rules, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) followed the majority leader by saying that his committee would address the topic soon. [Huffington Post]

Tags: congress

Health & Wellness

Source: flickr/italintheheart

The Bottom Line on Health Care Reform

With the constant back-and-forth on health care, it's easy to lose perspective when gauging what the public really wants.  So, plain and simple, no matter what, the American people want a change: A new a new Associated Press-GfK Poll finds that only 4 percent say it the current health care system shouldn't be changed at all. [Associated Press via Huffington Post]

Tags: health care reform, poll

Money Money Money

Source: flickr/Tracey O

BILLIONS UNCLAIMED

Were you one of the 1.4 million people who didn’t file a tax return in 2006? Then, the IRS may owe you money. According to a new report, the IRS says it has more than $1.3 billion in refunds for 1.4 million people who didn't file a 2006 return. The money will become the property of the U.S. Treasury if those due money don’t file a claim by April 15. [CNN]

Tags: irs, tax reform

Just Plain Cool

Source: wikicommons/wiki

WHEN I GET THAT FEELING…

Women may have a longer lifespan on average than men, but a new survey found that men may outlive women sexually. According to the study, men have an average of 15 years of sexual activity left at the age of 55, while women average just 10 years. "Overall, men were more likely than women to be sexually active, to report a good quality sex life, and to be interested and thinking about sex on a regular basis," lead researcher Stacy Tessler Lindau, director of the Program in Integrative Sexual Medicine at the University of Chicago, told LiveScience. We guess this explains Hugh Hefner's lifestyle. [Fox News]

Tags: informational studies and reports

Health & Wellness

CUTTING DOWN ON WASTE AND ABUSE

Today, the White House is set to announce an initiative to cut down on Medicare and Medicaid abuse. President Obama will deliver remarks on health insurance reform in St. Charles, Mo., and will discuss new efforts to get back taxpayer dollars through the use of payment recapture audits. White House officials say that expanded use of payment recapture audits "could return at least $2 billion in taxpayer money over the next three years — double the current amount of projected recovered costs.” [Politico]

Tags: medicaid, medicare

Safe, Sound, Secure

NO-FLY LIST DOUBLES

Since the arrest of Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab in December of 2009 , the no-fly list has nearly doubled from about 3,400 people to about 6,000 people, according to a senior intelligence official. Part of the reason the list was expanded was to add people associated with al-Qaeda's Yemen branch and others from Yemen and Nigeria with ties to Abdulmuttalab. The no-fly list has remained one of the government's most public counterterrorism tools since the September 11th attacks in 2001. [USA T]

Tags: homeland security

Art Crime Black Market Fueling Organized Crime, Terrorism

Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Ulrich Boser is the author of "The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft," which comes out in paperback next week.  Boser looks into the infamous robbery specifically, and more broadly takes a look at often-overlooked global problem of art crime.

1.) The Gardner Heist [USA Today]

• March 18, 1990: robbers stole $500 million in art from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - a dozen artworks, including a Vermeer, three Rembrandts and five Degas. 

• Twenty years later, still no sign of the art and no solid leads on who perpetrated the crime

• Boser took up the chase after inheriting the case files of art-theft detective Harold Smith, who pursued the Gardner "caper" (as Boser repeatedly refers to it) for years until his death in 2005.

2.) The Dark World of Art Crime [FBI]

• Art and cultural property crime - which includes theft, fraud, looting, and trafficking across state and international lines -- is a looming criminal enterprise with estimated losses running as high as $6 billion annually.

• To bring these criminals to justice--the FBI uses a dedicated Art Crime Team of 13 Special Agents to investigate, supported by three Special Trial Attorneys for prosecutions and mans the National Stolen Art File, a computerized index of reported stolen art and cultural properties for the use of law enforcement agencies across the world. 

3.) Terrorism and Art Crime [Israel News Agency]

• "Perhaps the best documented case of stealing property and valuables to finance terrorism was when the Sir Alfred Beit Art Collection was stolen by the IRA in 1974," said Dick Ellis of Swift-Find, who previously served as General Manager of Christie's Fine Art Security Services and created the Art and Antiques Squad at the Scotland Yard. This was the world's largest art theft for terrorism with the IRA carrying away canvas after canvas of Rubens, Goya and Vermeer.

• The theft was calculated at $32 million at the time - today that value would be $100 million.  It is noted that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta attempted to peddle stolen art to pay for his terrorism training.

4.) There's an Think Tank for That [ARCA]

• The Associate for Research into Crimes Against Art is an interdisciplinary think tank/research group on contemporary issues in art crime. This international non-profit organization studies issues in art crime and cultural property protection, runs educational programs, and consults on art protection and recovery issues brought to them by police, governments, museums, places of worship, and other public institutions.

• They hold events and conferences around the world and you can even complete a master's degree in International Art Crime Studies. 

5.) The Book - The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft [Amazon]

• Out in paperback the week of March 15th

• The reviews: "A vivid portrait of the high-stakes world of art crime." (Associated Press); "Artfully done... Grade: A Minus." (Boston Herald); "Boser cracks the cold case of the art world's greatest unsolved mystery." (Vanity Fair); "Boser has produced a captivating portrait of the world's biggest unsolved art theft." (Wall Street Journal)

Check our our podcast interview with author Ulrich Boser here.

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And Justice For All

Time to Say Thanks

Today, March 10, is the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. The day marks the anniversary of the 1993 assassination of Dr. David Gunn, the first abortion provider killed in the U.S. because of his occupation. This past year, another abortion care provider, Dr. George Tiller, was gunned down in his own church by an antiabortion zelot. Since the threat of violence is constant for many providers, and harassment often extends to their families, many family and women's groups use this day to send thanks to doctors who help provide women with their legal right to choose. [NAF]

Tags: abortion

Star Gazing

Source: flickr/franceshui

RIP Corey

Corey Haim, 80's movie star, passed away Wednesday morning, according to California police. Haim was most well known for his role in the 1987 movie Lost Boys, which he co-stared with Corey Feldman. His death appears to be an overdose, though obviously fans will want to wait for a toxicology report before jumping to conclusions. We'll miss you Corey! [CNN]

Tags: 80's, 80's

Health & Wellness

Congress Matters

Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Fl), inroduced a bill today that would give every citizen in America the option to buy into Medicare.  The “Public Option Act,” also known as the “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act,” would open up the Medicare network to anyone who can pay for it. While we don't think it will pass, Grayson's logic on the bill makes a lot of sense. “Obviously, America wants and needs more competition in health coverage, and a public option offers that. But it’s just as important that we offer people not just another choice, but another kind of choice. A lot of people don’t want to be at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that will make money by denying them the care that they need to stay healthy, or to stay alive. We deserve to have a real alternative.” [West Orlando News]

Tags: health care reform, public option

Source: flickr/jwpacifist

Wednesday, March 10

The White House

• 4:50 PM POTUS travels to St. Louis to discuss health insurance reform
• 12:30: Mrs. POTUS speaks to the National Legislative Conference of the Parent Teacher Association.
• 2:45PM Mrs. POTUS joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in presenting the 2010 International Women of Courage Awards.

On The Hill

• 10AM: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee - Hearing "The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack: Watchlisting and Pre-Screening."
• 10AM Senate Judiciary Committee - Hearing "We the People? Corporate Spending in American Elections after Citizens United."

Other People, Other Stuff

• Letterman: Top Ten List presented by former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
• Leno: New Oscar winner Christoph Waltz
• Stewart: Jerry Seinfeld
• Colbert: Author Sean Carroll ("From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time")

Fun Fact To Start Your Day

• Please, Santa? Please?! Mattel announces they're coming out with a set of Mad Men Barbie dolls. [NYT]

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Trouble In Somalia

According to a new report from the U.N. Security Council, as much as half of the food sent to help the poor in Somalia "is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members." [NYT]

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Full-Court Press

Source: flickr/sebastienb

When Scotus Met Phelps

Court Watch
The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday said they would hear the case over whether hate-monger "Rev." Fred Phelps has a First Amendment right to disrupt funerals of fallen U.S. troops with signs like "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For Dead Soldiers." Oral arguments for the next Court term begin in October. [ABC News]

Tags: scotus, phelps

And Justice For All

Abortion Subway Ads

New anti-abortion advertisements are running in New York subways reading, woman saying, "I thought life would be the way it was before." We liked Salon's Broadsheet's response: "Not that abortion can change a woman, but that it always does, and that is quite simply a lie. It isn't the sort of message born of concern for women, but rather a concern for converting women. Also, you know what is guaranteed to change you and your life in a profound way? Motherhood. But I don't recall seeing any subways ads featuring a woman knee-deep in dirty diapers with the text, "I thought life would be the way it was before." [Salon]

Tags: women, right to choose

Right Wing Wackiness

Source: flickr/therocketeer

Glenn Beck Doesn’t Like Your Church

Glenn Beck is trash talking your church. The right-wing megamouth is telling his listeners that Christian churches they must quit any churches that talk about "social justice" (aka: poverty or human rights) because that's "code" for socialism. "I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!" [Belief Net]

Tags: faith, beck

Health & Wellness

Source: flickr/roadsidepictures

Soda Diet

According to nutrition researchers at the University of North Carolina, if the price of soda were increased by 18%, we'd all consume an average of 56 fewer calories a day and weigh about 5 lbs. less every year. Adding more ammo to those politicians who want to levvy a "soda tax" on our fizzy drinks, Prof. Barry Popkin at the University of North Carolina says, "What shocked me is that it's a much higher weight reduction than we expected. If we could reduce everyone in America's weight by five pounds, they'd be happier and healthier." [USA Today]

Tags: weight