Daily Kos

The threadhog emerged, saw its shadow, and settled upon at least six more weeks of blogging.

• What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...
  • For evidence of a war on workers, look no farther than the rise of the lockout, by Laura Clawson.
  • The controversy  and conversations sparked by the “UnFair” anti-racism campaign in Duluth, Minnesota, by Denise Oliver Velez.
  • Why Obama? An Argument to Reluctant Progressives for Supporting the President's Reelection, by Armando.
  • Making new friends, while keeping the old, by Scott Wooledge.
  • Susan G. Komen for the Cure's curious relationship with the science of cancer prevention, by Laurence Lewis.
  • Komen's hypocrisy: Let us count the ways, by Georgia Logothetis.
  • The curious relationship of the Republican Party to the very poor, by Dante Atkins.
• Join us for liveblogging of the results of the Republican caucus in Nevada, starting at 5 PM PT.—Kaili Joy Gray
• Seems like some Republicans want to make a last stand on making sure that children can work in manure pits. Builds character and a work ethic, the way Newt Gingrich would tell it.
• An excellent graphic from the Obama campaign detailing the President's record on job creation. Even better, the page includes utilities to share the graph on your own site or send it as a postcard to a friend. And this is despite the Republican Party doing everything they can prevent things from getting better to damage Obama's reelection chances.
• So, this is back: Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has just passed on word that the Business Committee of Uganda’s Parliament will discuss the proposed “Kill The Gays” bill next week. Despite rumors to the contrary, the bill did not die at the end of the last session of Parliament, nor were its death penalty provisions removed. It is unclear to what extent the measure will advance beyond next week’s debate. The measure would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for some homosexual acts (which are already illegal), require people to report every LGBT individual they know, and criminalize so-called LGBT advocacy.
• And speaking of homophobic bigots: The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has vowed to repeal a proposed gay marriage law being debated in Washington state.

  The Senate on Wednesday approved the measure with a larger than expected 28 to 21 vote. Supporters outnumber opponents in the House, making a vote in that chamber just a formality.

  ...

  Opponents cannot begin a referendum campaign until after the bill is signed into law. They will need to collect 120,577 valid signatures by June 6 to put the issue on the November ballot.

  Obviously, the hope is that they can't collect the signatures. But if they do, let's make sure that the people of Washington vote to uphold basic rights and begin the cascading rejection of NOM's agenda.

• There's going to be a lot more of this on Sunday, but let's be clear: Komen didn't cave to the right wing, they became the right wing.
• If Rick Santorum is right, the good people of Missouri need to start shaking in their boots: During a campaign speech delivered in Missouri on Friday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum did his best to make his audience shake in their boots with the specter of an Iranian nuclear attack.

  “Once they have a nuclear weapon, let me assure you, you will not be safe, even here in Missouri,” Santorum predicted.

  According to The Hill, Santorum is hoping to attract conservative votes in Missouri, where Newt Gingrich is not on the ballot.

  Because we all know the Missouri suburbs are prime terrorist targets, a fact with should leave people like me who live in places like Los Angeles feeling pretty comfortable.

• For the next time your Republican uncle tells you that taxes on corporations are just too high, there's always this: Corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years.

  Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.

  So in short, no. Making rich people even richer will not help the economy, and if reducing corporate taxes could make the economy better, it should already have been booming by now.

It's Super Bowl weekend, and you're either psyched for the game to begin—or you can't wait until the whole thing is over. Because this is Daily Kos, we wanted to find out for ourselves exactly how America feels about this annual spectacle, so we threw this question on to our weekly poll: Q: Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl: the New England Patriots or the New York Giants?

Giants: 37
Patriots: 27
Unsure: 36

I'm a long-suffering Jets fan (is there any other kind?), though I have nothing against the Giants. But I do, of course, have everything against the Patriots. So I'm definitely rooting for New York—along with, I might add, a plurality of my fellow Americans. How about you? Take our own in-house poll below!

Over the last year, we've had lots of fun at anti-semite George Rockwell's expense (see here for an example, where he claims Justice Scalia will bring me to trial at the Supreme Court). That seemingly came to an end in early December, when he announced: friends don't coordinate jew attacks against friends. and the irony is that your only chance of freeing yourself from jew servitude was to listen to me. now you have lost both your chance at freedom and a friend. good bye, markos.

I wasn't exactly torn up, but he had been a great source of hate mail material! Well, he couldn't stay away. The latest on that soap opera (and updates on the Supreme Court bench trial against me) below the fold.

According to TPM, Senate Democrats think they have the upper hand over Republicans when it comes to the $600 billion of defense cuts Republicans agreed to in the debt deal, only to (very, very predictably) vow to renege on that same deal now: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has not only vowed to hold the line on the cuts, but he recently suggested Dems could use it to force the Republicans’ collective hand.

“The purpose of the sequester is to force us to act to avoid the sequester,” he said. “That sword of Damocles can not be splintered,” he continued, “if it’s going to have its effect.” The effect he said he meant was to “move the rigid ideologues to deal finally with revenue.”

Hmm. Color me skeptical, though we'd all love to see it. From the outset I thought the debt deal was absolutely terrible, because of course Republicans would turn around and nullify the supposed defense cuts long before they ever took effect. That was so obvious a move that the Democratic resistance to acknowledging it was outright insulting. And the leverage Republicans would have in such a fight is the same leverage they always have: calling Democrats "weak on defense," or saying it will "impact military readiness," or suggesting that Democrats want the terrorists to win. Then the Democrats predictably start sweating, and then they predictably fold, and the Pentagon gets another few so-expensive-they-should-be-carved-from-platinum jet fighters as trophies of the short-lived fight.

What Sen. Levin is suggesting here is perfectly reasonable, and is in fact the obvious strategy: Use these cuts to force Republican ideologues to choose between their desired defense budget and their entrenched opposition to raising any tax, under any circumstance, since it is obvious to any rational observer that the two goals cannot possibly be reconciled. But it presumes Democrats will honestly be willing to make that fight, and to block attempts to remove the defense budget from the budget agreement even as Republicans warn that the entire future of the free world depends on giving the Pentagon more and more and more money, and that you're a dirty communist and/or hippie and/or traitor if you think otherwise. What history exists here that would suggest Democrats would not cave in? Democrats have established a history of caving in nicely, which is exactly why the demands of the Republican leadership have gotten more and more extreme during each hostage-taking session.

Republicans willingly signed on to the defense cuts only a few short months ago. Now they're seen as apocalyptic, and impossible, and so dangerous that only a fool would do it. They knew, even back then, that they weren't going to honor the deal. And now, just as with every other goddamn negotiation of the past three years, we're reliant on an aimless Democratic caucus to negotiate for whatever hostage Republicans take this time around.

I will be very happy if Levin is right, and there is stomach this time around (perhaps thanks to Republican self-immolation on the payroll tax cuts) to hold firm on this issue and finally force Republicans to recognize that "tax cuts for rich people" is not the be-all, end-all of all national policy. The only evidence of it, however, would be that clearly non-conservatives cannot continue to acquiesce to these hostage-takings indefinitely—they are causing too much damage, economically, for the country to blithely accept—and so statistically there should be some point at which more moderate voices have gotten fed up enough to say "no more."

Keeping the focus on his blueprint for America, today President Obama reiterates his plan to "help millions of responsible homeowners," while building an economy that will last:

Right now, there are more than 10 million homeowners in this country who, because of a decline in home prices that is no fault of their own, owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Now, it is wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom. I don’t accept that. None of us should. [...]

That’s why I’m sending Congress a plan that will give every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgages by refinancing at historically low rates. No more red tape. No more endless forms. And a small fee on the largest financial institutions will make sure it doesn’t add a dime to the deficit.

The President urges Congress to act on this plan and asks for your help:

That’s why I’m going to keep up the pressure on Congress to do the right thing. But I also need your help. I need your voice. I need everyone who agrees with this plan to get on the phone, send an email, tweet, pay a visit, and remind your representatives in Washington who they work for. Tell them to pass this plan. Tell them to help more families keep their homes, and more neighborhoods stay vibrant and whole.

Complete transcript below the fold.

Phil Plait takes down Gingrich's moonbase pander and Rick Tumlinson provides a more nuance look at HuffPo which includes this snippet:

Obama did take action first though, and interestingly, Newt Gingrich and Robert Walker actually came out in support of his initiative -- for about thirty seconds -- before realizing Republicans are not supposed to support anything Obama does, and that most of those defending the socialist approach to space we have followed since Apollo were indeed Republicans... (Oops!) I sometimes wonder if all matters of state are as complex as the space program. The deeper I dig, the more complex and counter intuitive it becomes.

• A possible terrestrial planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby star has been detected. The skies as seen from this world would be particularly interesting: the star it circles is but one member of a trinary star system.
• Yesterday, the tech laden NASDAQ stock index finally got back to near where it was in the earliest days of the Bush administration, 11 long years ago.
• The Milky Way galaxy has an evil twin? Who knew!
• An article at the WaPo this week reviews some of the anti-evolution craziness coursing through far right statehouses. Check out this little piece of ledge for one example: A bill in Virginia would make it illegal for state colleges to require a class that conflicts with a student’s religious views. Critics say that would enable a student to receive a biology degree, for example, without studying evolution if he or she objected to it.

Visual source: Newseum

CBS News:

That means the relatively anemic job growth of Mr. Obama's first three years matters less then what happens in 2012; Silver suggests that every time the economy generates more than 150,000 jobs in a month between now and November, Mr. Obama's reelection odds go up. That's why today's news is so good for Mr. Obama: if January's numbers reflect a trend that lasts deep into the year, it's going to be awfully hard for Romney (or any Republican) to convince a majority of Americans that Mr. Obama has failed in his stewardship of the economy. And with polls showing that Americans are more concerned with the economy than any other issue - by a wide margin - Romney simply doesn't have any other argument on which to hang a viable presidential campaign.

WaPo:

Caught in a maelstrom of public reaction to its decision to cease funding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation announced Friday that it would reverse course...

But officials across the organization said they were still reeling from the fallout of what many described as a public relations fiasco created by Komen’s leadership.

“I felt like we were eaten alive,” said Logan Hood, executive director of Komen’s Aspen affiliate in Colorado. “We had no advance warning.. . . We were sent into battle without armor.”

That's because their leadership, including their board and their CEO, led them off a cliff. They can and should all be fired, but Komen's brand is already ruined.

Bay Area News Group:

Some of the sharpest criticism came from participants in Komen's benefit walks.

"I feel Susan G. Komen acted foolishly and hastily, and maybe they didn't realize the power of the Internet," said Teresa Tirado, of Castro Valley, whose eldest daughter has raised funds for the organization in its Walk for the Cure.

"It's almost like Occupy Susan G. Komen," she said.

LA Times: Komen founder and chief executive Nancy Brinker insisted Friday that the foundation's new rules preventing grants to groups that were subject to government investigations had not been designed to target Planned Parenthood and had nothing to do with its role as an abortion provider. "We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics — anyone's politics," Brinker said in a statement.

By then, a key officer at its Dallas headquarters had resigned, and others in the group's local affiliates had threatened to follow suit if the decision was not reversed. Members of Congress admonished the foundation for playing politics with women's health. Irate women denounced Komen on the Internet and pledged to boycott its upcoming "Race for the Cure" events, which raise several million dollars each year.

The situation has been a "total embarrassment" for Komen, said Tom Madden, chief executive of TransMedia Group, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based public relations and crisis management company. "I can't believe an organization like Komen wasn't aware of what was going on."

The LA Times story suggests that keeping affiliates in the dark was a strategy, not a consequence. Another reason the CEO and board need to be fired.

Gail Collins:

This week we had a huge political fight about breast cancer. Clearly, we have now hit the point where there’s nothing that can’t be divided into red-state-blue-state.

Nothing. The other day I saw a blog called “I Dig My Garden” that had a forum on whether Republicans could truly love gardening. And there was a little dust-up in Albany over politicization of a local pet blog, which had featured a discussion on Mitt Romney’s driving to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.

But breast cancer would seem like the last thing to go. Everybody hates cancer and everybody likes breasts — infants, adults, women, men. Really, it’s America’s most popular body part.

Charles Blow on Romney: This has nothing to do with context. This has everything to do with a caviar candidate’s inability to relate to a chicken-soup citizenry... Romney is not only cold and clumsy, he’s disastrously out of touch, and when talking about real people, out of sorts. If only he had a heart, and if only that heart was connected to his brain. Kathleen Parker runs the table from trite to just plain awful in trying to make the case that freedom to discriminate is an inalienable right of the Komen Foundation and the Catholic Church, and those who disagree are practicing "ideological purity."  And of course, it's all Planned Parenthood's fault for trying to impose its pro-choice way on poor, innocent victims like Komen.

And just when you think the tea party couldn't get any nuttier, the NY Times reports:

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities. There's no compromising with lunatics. Just sayin'.

Where have we heard this before? Shades of "atomic veterans," Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome? The Pentagon says there's no problem regarding the effects of toxins encountered in the course of their work by U.S. troops overseas—not to mention the local inhabitants. Nothing to see here, move along.

Terry J. Allen pulls back the covers a smidge:

“Open-air burn pits have operated widely at military sites in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Department of Veterans Affairs notes on its website. On hundreds of camps and bases across the two countries, the U.S. military and its contractors incinerated toxic waste, including unexploded ordnance, plastics and Styrofoam, asbestos, formaldehyde, arsenic, pesticides and neurotoxins, medical waste (even amputated limbs), heavy metals and what the military refers to as “radioactive commodities.” The burns have released mutagens and carcinogens, including uranium and other isotopes, volatile organic compounds, hexachlorobenzene, and, that old favorite, dioxin (aka Agent Orange).

The military pooh-poohs the problem, despite a 2009 Pentagon document noting “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops, the Times of London reported. In any case, it says, the waste isn’t all that toxic, and there is no hard evidence troops were harmed. Of course, one reason for that lack of evidence, reports the Institute of Medicine (which found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base alone), is that the Pentagon won’t or can’t document what it burned and buried, or where it did so. [...]

[S]ick and dying vets, this time from Iraq and Afghanistan, are trying to trace their cancers and respiratory problems to the toxins of war. Again, the military refuses to release complete data, and claims the data show no harmful effects. Again, the assumption of culpability, and the clean-up efforts will come too little, too late.

A July article in the New England Journal of Medicine studied 80 soldiers disabled with constrictive bronchiolitis, “a very rare finding” in otherwise healthy, young non-smokers. Almost all the cases were traced to “inhalational exposures during service in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The journal lamented : “This group causes particular concern, since their potential toxic exposures are shared by most personnel who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And, oh, yes, by those left to endure the predictable consequences of expedient poisoning. You’re welcome, Iraq. 

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:

We Must Never Forget: February 5, 2003.

Colin Powell went to the UN and engaged in one the most infamous acts of Propaganda in World history.  We must never forget.

 Additionally, Powell violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, his fraternity and fidelity to the men in uniform he served with, and his  so-called Powell Doctrine, that he helped create in the mid 1980s.  He destroyed not only his reputation, but everything he stood for.  Moreover, he tuned his back on Duty, Honor, Country, all in slavish obedience to the temporary occupant of the White House.

Today, we find ourselves in a Quagmire, where 500 G.I.s will die per year, where 10,000 casualties will occur per year, where $50 to 100 Billion will be wasted per year - now and for the foreseeable future - all because Powell and company abdicated the Principle of Exit Strategy.

Today, Karl Rove sent out CIA Director George Tenent (the man sitting behind Powell at the UN) to feed the media machine, so as to distract their recollection of this date.  But we, the true patriots of this country, must never forget.

Tweet of the Day:

High Impact Posts are here. Top Comments are here.

Things that appear certain, based on polling:

• Mitt Romney is on his way to a relatively easy win in tomorrow's caucuses in Nevada.
• Romney is also in pretty decent shape in the two late February primaries in Arizona and Michigan, two states that (on paper) set up pretty well for him.
• Gingrich's national standing, at least in the Gallup tracking polls, has taken a mighty dive.

What is quite a bit less clear, however, is if this really does portend the beginning of the end for the Republican presidential horse race. More on that after the jump. For now, the numbers from two days of polling (yesterday's Wrap having been sabotaged by a computer virus beating up my laptop):

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 33, Gingrich 25, Santorum 16, Paul 11

NATIONAL (YouGov): Romney 29, Gingrich 23, Santorum 20, Paul 14

ARIZONA (Rasmussen): Romney 48, Gingrich 24, Santorum 13, Paul 6

GEORGIA (SurveyUSA): Gingrich 45, Romney 32, Santorum 9, Paul 8

MICHIGAN (Rasmussen): Romney 38, Gingrich 23, Santorum 17, Paul 14

NEVADA (PPP): Romney 50, Gingrich 25, Paul 15, Santorum 8

NEVADA (UNLV): Romney 45, Gingrich 25, Santorum 11, Paul 9

And ... as always ... the general election nums, as well:

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (45-45); Obama d. Santorum (46-44); Obama d. Paul (45-42); Obama d. Gingrich (49-41)

NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Paul (48-40); Obama d. Romney (49-40); Obama d. Santorum (50-40); Obama d. Gingrich (52-37)

GEORGIA (SurveyUSA): Romney d. Obama (51-43); Gingrich d. Obama (50-44)

MISSOURI (PPP): Obama tied with Romney (45-45); Obama d. Paul (45-43); Obama d. Santorum (47-44); Obama d. Gingrich (49-42)

Some thoughts as we head into the weekend, right after the jump.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late Night Snarksters Document Teh Crazy:

"I don't know whether Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich won [in Florida], but we do know one thing for certain: tomorrow both of them can go back to ignoring Latinos."
---Stephen Colbert
-
“Newt may be toast already. The Republican establishment have the knives out for him. Tom DeLay said Newt Gingrich was the most despicable human being he has seen since shaving this morning.”
---Bill Maher
-
“Mitt Romney is getting some heat today for something he said on CNN. He said he's not concerned about the very poor. ... Romney said the quote was taken out of context and that he absolutely cares about the poor. In fact, his campaign bus runs on the tears of the poor."
---Jimmy Kimmel
-
"Rick Santorum says Newt Gingrich is too hot, Mitt Romney is too cold, but he's the 'Goldilocks candidate.' Yes, nothing gets voters excited like comparing yourself to tepid porridge."
---Craig Ferguson
-
"A new website just came out that’s designed to calculate how long it takes Mitt Romney to earn your salary. So from now on, whenever Mitt Romney is running late, he can call there and say, 'I'll be there in five teachers.'"
---Conan O'Brien

Lots more at Dan Kurtzman's place. Oh, and something I heard this week on The Daily Show that you should know about:

Jon Stewart: Your opponent, Scott Brown, has said the media doesn’t give you tough questions, so I'm going to start you off with one that I think is very difficult and somewhat complex. You're running for Senate in Massachusetts, [but] you're in New York right now. Who's the better quarterback, Tom Brady or Eli Manning?

Elizabeth Warren: I hate to tell you this, but Tom Brady. The Pats are gonna spank the Giants. We're gonna git'cha! I'm sorry, it's just reality.

We have nothing further to add.

Your west coast-friendly edition of  Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

It's once again time for our quarterly fundraising chart of key House races throughout the nation:

As always, all numbers are in thousands. "Raised" is the amount the candidate has received in donations from outside donors during the fourth quarter, not including any loans. "CoH" stands for total cash-on-hand at the end of the quarter (Dec. 31). "CTD" indicates a candidate's contributions raised cycle-to-date. Some candidates who have created campaign committees have nevertheless not filed quarterly reports. Those lines are left blank. (In the case of OR-01, the candidates were not required to do so because they filed reports for the special election.)

With regard to redistricting, many campaigns filed their reports using old district numbers which do not reflect the actual new districts in which they plan to seek re-election. We've made every effort to clean up these numbers, but in some cases, we've had to rely on our best guesses. In states which have not completed congressional redistricting (such as Florida and Texas), we have left these numbers untouched.

Please let us know in comments if we are missing anyone notable. For a link to our complete spreadsheet (which you can download in full), click here. For our 3Q roundup, click here. For our 2Q roundup, click here.

Below is a list of challengers who have outperformed incumbents:

Republicans challengers who outraised Democratic incumbents: Richard Tisei (vs. John Tierney in MA-06); Richard Hudson & Vernon Robinson (vs. Larry Kissell in NC-08); Randy Altschuler (vs. Tim Bishop in NY-01); Matt Doheny (vs. Bill Owens in NY-23)

Republican challengers with more cash-on-hand than Democratic incumbents: Ricky Gill (vs. Jerry McNerney in CA-09)

Republicans challengers who outraised Republican incumbents: Paul Babeu (vs. Paul Gosar in AZ-04)

Republican challengers with more cash-on-hand than Republican incumbents: None

Democratic challengers who outraised Republican incumbents: Clark Hall (vs. Rick Crawford in AR-01); Ami Bera (vs. Dan Lungren in CA-07); Sukhee Kang (vs. John Campbell in CA-45); Scott Peters (vs. Brian Bilbray in CA-52); Sal Pace (vs. Scott Tipton in CO-03); Val Demings (vs. Daniel Webster in FL-08); Luis Garcia (vs. David Rivera in FL-25); Christie Vilsack (vs. Steve King in IA-04); Tammy Duckworth & Raja Krishnamoorthi (vs. Joe Walsh in IL-08); Bill Foster (vs. Judy Biggert in IL-11); John Delaney & Rob Garagiola (vs. Roscoe Bartlett in MD-06); Syed Taj (vs. Thad McCotter in MI-11); Annie Kuster (vs. Charlie Bass in NH-02); Dan Maffei (vs. Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25); Armando Villalobos (vs. Blake Farenthold in TX-27); Paul Hirschbiel (vs. Scott Rigell in VA-02); John Douglass (vs. Frank Wolf in VA-10); Jamie Wall (vs. Reid Ribble in WI-08)

Democratic challengers with more cash on hand than Republican incumbents: Ami Bera (vs. Dan Lungren in CA-07); Christie Vilsack (vs. Steve King in IA-04); Tammy Duckworth & Raja Krishnamoorthi (vs. Joe Walsh in IL-08); Gary McDowell (vs. Dan Benishek in MI-01); Annie Kuster (vs. Charlie Bass in NH-02); Dan Maffei (vs. Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25)

Democratic challengers who outraised Democratic incumbents: Ellen Corbett & Ro Khanna (vs. Pete Stark in CA-15); Clyde Williams (vs. Charlie Rangel in NY-15); Beto O'Rourke (vs. Silvestre Reyes in TX-16); Taj Clayton (vs. Eddie Bernice Johnson in TX-30)

Democratic challengers with more cash on hand than Democratic incumbents: Ro Khanna (vs. Pete Stark in CA-15); Hakeem Jeffries (vs. Ed Towns in NY-10)

P.S. Special thanks to trowaman and Katherine Haenschen of Burnt Orange Report for helping us with Texas.

Oh, for the love of:

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, secretly helped guide Komen Foundation’s disastrous strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Well, consider me properly chastened. I should have known right off the bat that, when some group manages to botch up a situation beyond all hope of credible recovery, there was going to be a connection to the George Bush crowd.

Well, from this we know several new things. First, that the Planned Parenthood "issue" was in the fore of Nancy Brinker's mind during the search for a new VP of Communications (the article cites her as being "at her wits end about how to proceed"). And second, that the Planned Parenthood "issue" was a major selection criteria for the position. One can presume, from recent events and from the rigidly conservative stance of Fleischer himself, that they were looking for a particular ideological answer.

So the Komen Foundation was, in December, looking for someone to help them roll out a strategy for properly caving to the right. And the guy they put in charge of the search? Ari Fleischer. That Ari Fleischer, proud face of such great Bush initiatives as shut up, Iraq will be a cakewalk, nobody here mentioned Valerie Plame and these new tax cuts will be great for the economy.

Yeah, I can't imagine how putting a Bush guy in charge of that process could possibly have ended up as a gargantuan public clusterfuck.

Well, that didn't take long. For years there has been a coordinated campaign among the right to defund Planned Parenthood, to subject it to as many spurious new "requirements" and "investigations" as it possibly can, and to attack any group that associated itself with it, even in the most marginal ways. This included the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which gave Planned Parenthood money and was therefore deemed unclean.

But it took only about two days for those very same conservative figures to declare that the blistering public outrage against the Komen Foundation for caving in to those demands (mind you, there was precious little pressure involved with the "cave," as the shift appears to be mostly due to the group's own ideological stances) was itself "gangsterism" and the like. In other words, and as usual, it's conservatives who are the real victims here.

A multi-year concerted effort to shut down a nonprofit for ideological reasons, one even pursued in the halls of Congress: not just fine, but applauded. A pushback against said partisan efforts? Tyranny! Villainy! Oppression!

It's not a made-up sentiment: I'm quite convinced they genuinely feel that way. Their larger premise is, after all, that all non-conservative positions are inherently invalid, therefore any actions you might take to sabotage something non-conservative are inherently legitimate. Merely criticizing those conservative moves, however, are not. It's entirely directional, you see.

More below the fold.

As Kaili Joy Gray pointed out earlier here today, the Komen Foundation hasn't reversed its decision not to fund grants for Planned Parenthood. It's made one of those phony apologies designed to deflect criticism rather than renounce its previous stance and its public leadership is still pretending that its move was not political. So all those folks, including some Congresspeople, who uncorked the Champagne to toast the defeat of the pink giant are celebrating prematurely.

What is worth celebrating, however, is the instantaneous and spontaneous and powerful reaction of the blogosphere and social media that first spotlighted Komen's decision, splattered it from coast to coast, drove a hugely successful fund-raising effort for Planned Parenthood and—assisted by Komen's incompetent management of the crisis it had created—permanently damaged the foundation's brand, bringing to light information that few Americans have previously heard. That is a victory. And it shouldn't be nay-said.

But while quaffing the bubbly, that victory should be recognized for what it is: self-defense. Together, those of us who believe in ensuring that women without means can get basic and preventive health care as well as exercise their reproductive rights, fought what amounted to a rearguard action, struggling to hang onto ground gained long ago. It's not unlike other struggles in other arenas, like those we engage in these days to hang onto the gains of the New Deal and Great Society while right-wing forces do their damnedest to dismantle them. But what we need is both self-defense and offense.

What we've witnessed and participated in during the past two days has been a skirmish in an on-going war with relentless, ruthless foes. This was not an isolated event but a line item on the agenda of a right wing movement determined to return us to the way things were. For the record, those weren't the good old days.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

Editor's note: Today it is my sincere privilege and honor to introduce our newest cartoon contributor, an artist destined to be the maraschino cherry atop the hot fudge and whipped cream sundae that is the Daily Kos Comics page -- Ruben Bolling.  I have known Ruben since at least 1995, and admired the inventive wit and keen intelligence of his weekly strip, Tom the Dancing Bug, for longer than that.  And I'm hardly alone in recognizing his talent -- he won the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2011, and has received the AAN award more times than anyone can count.   There's even a live-action motion picture in development based on one of his recurrent characters.  So please join me in welcoming Ruben (if that is his real name) into the clutches of the Great Orange Satan, where he'll be a regular in the TGIF/happy hour slot each week.  -- Tom Tomorrow

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hired two lawyers in advance of a meeting with the Milwaukee County district attorney, whose office is conducting investigation into members of Walker's staff.

Charges have already been made against four Walker staffers and appointees as part of this investigation. Two former aides were charged with using public resources for Republican political campaigns, while the others are accused of, as Giles goat Boy put it:

A Walker appointee, a Walker campaign aide, and a child molester embezzled money that was intended for disabled veterans.

Walker claims the upcoming meeting with prosecutors is voluntary. He better hope these chitchats stay that way.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment, and imagine that Republicans in Congress actually have any interest in governing, or in making smart policy that makes the country work. It's a tall order to imagine, yes, given their performance in recent years, but just pretend.

That's what Politico does in this story about Republicans in the Senate. Some of them, it suggests, think that they actually should come up with some policy ideas. They are butting heads, the article says, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose explicit and only goal has been making Barack Obama a one-term president. Apparently, there are some other Republican senators who think they should at least make it look like they mean to do ... something.

The divide within the party is sharp. McConnell and other influential senators believe the party should avoid putting out a detailed platform and focus squarely on Obama’s record, while a range of junior senators—and some veterans like Sen. John McCain—think the conference should lay out a Contract with America-type agenda [...]

But the strategies all carry great risk. If the GOP rolls out an agenda, it will be picked apart and take the focus off Obama. If the party doesn’t bother, it risks giving the president more opportunities to slap the “do-nothing” label on Congress.

Actually, that needs to be clarified a little: If the GOP rolls out an agenda, it risks becoming even more unpopular with the American public. But here's something sure to tickle your funny bone:

At a closed-door lunch meeting on Tuesday, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota tried to put a finer point on the GOP’s strategy. [...]

“We need to call out the Obama-Schumer machine when they change the topic from a record they can’t defend,” said Thune’s presentation, referring to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. “After we call them out, get back on offense! Pivot back to what matters—jobs and the economy.”

Back? Yes, if anything, the Senate GOP caucus has just been doing a bang-up job of focusing on jobs and the economy. More of that!!

As if anything the Senate Republicans do matters in this election. The House GOP is hellbent for crazy. No amount of positive spin from the Senate will cover that up. Seriously, not when they're dealing with people like Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, former chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, saying things like: "It's a very political year. The big thing for us is to not be part of the conversation instead of trying to inject ourselves into it."

Cancer survivors stick together on an issue this critical. Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor, champion cyclist and LIVESTRONG founder and chairman, issued the following statement:

“For 15 years, the Lance Armstrong Foundation has served people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities. We join Mayor Bloomberg and our partners in the philanthropic community today in their efforts to preserve access to cancer screening for women throughout the U.S. The Lance Armstrong Foundation will add an additional $100,000 to Mayor Bloomberg’s matching challenge for Planned Parenthood’s cancer services fund.

In addition to that $250,000 pledged by Mayor Bloomberg, the Amy and Lee Fikes’ Foundation provided $250,000 in seed funding, and Credo, a phone company, pledged $200,000.

You can make sure those matching pledges are paid up by donating whatever you can to Planned Parenthood. Your small donation will be doubled, and Planned Parenthood will continue to be able to provide vital health care services to women who otherwise wouldn't be able to get them.

Despite the well-reasoned and comprehensive consideration by the Office of Legal Counsel of the White House that President Obama's recess appointments last month were constitutional, 39 Senate Republicans have decided to join in challenges against them in an as-of-yet to be determined court, or case. The senators said in a letter Friday that they will file a friend-of-the-court brief to support legal action arguing that Obama overstepped constitutional boundaries when he tapped Richard Cordray to lead the consumer agency and appointed three members to join the NLRB.

“American democracy was born out of a rejection of the monarchies of Western Europe, anchored by limited government and separation of powers,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said in a statement. “We refuse to stand by as this president arrogantly casts aside our Constitution and defies the will of the American people under the election-year guise of defending them.”

While they don't specify which actual case they'll be joining, they just wanted the world to know that, yeah, they're still pissed about it and mean to do something, the specifics of which are to be determined. The National Federation of Independent Businesses and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have filed one case against the NLRB appointments, which provides a potential case for them to join.

The Super Bowl comes to Indiana just days after the passage of an anti-union law in the state. With the NFL Players Association having vocally opposed that law, it's an opportunity to draw attention to labor issues in the state. At the same time, you don't want to be the assholes who actually disrupted the Super Bowl, so there's a line to walk here. Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott issued a statement saying that "the Indiana State AFL-CIO does not plan nor condone any attempts to disrupt the Super Bowl," including a reminder that "the Super Bowl in Indianapolis is made possible because of the very working men and women our movement represents and that our state legislature has attacked."

At the same time, unions are highlighting not just the recent anti-union vote but ongoing labor struggles in the state. Think Progress reports that:

The AFL-CIO will have a “constant presence” at Super Bowl events, [Indiana AFL-CIO Communications and Outreach Coordinator Jeff] Harris said, but its actions will be informative rather than disruptive. The union, which encouraged workers to meet with their state representatives in the days before the law passed and organized rallies outside the statehouse Wednesday, will pass out leaflets and pamphlets around Super Bowl village and Lucas Oil Stadium, the site of the game, Harris said.

Unite Here has planned a Friday afternoon rally at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, where 20 workers may lose their jobs as Hyatt switches from one low-wage subcontractor to another; the original subcontractor was recently sued for wage theft. DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, is slated to participate in that rally.