×
- From a new Democracy Corps poll: "Nearly half of voters think the deficit can be reduced without real cost to entitlements, with 48 percent believing there is enough waste and inefficiency in government spending for the deficit to be reduced through spending cuts while keeping health care, Social Security, unemployment benefits and other services from being hurt." Well, at least 43 percent believe the opposite, although "spending cuts" is preferred over "tax increases" by a margin of 71-18 percent. If only there were some sort of nationally-observed day when the federal government could send out tax booklets and adorn the cover with a big and colorful pie chart that visually breaks down how our tax dollars are spent. Too optimistic?
- To paraphrase Spencer Ackerman's reaction to news that an award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has defected to the United States, this is a big effing deal. Obviously, the chief benefit of this defection, from the point of view of the U.S. government, is that we could finally have details about the timetable for Iran's nuclear program, which I suppose will bolster the administration's case for pursuing sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Like Daniel Larison, I think pursuing sanctions will do absolutely nothing to compel Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, and like Zbigniew Brzezinski, I agree that we can "live with" a nuclear Iran. The only reason to believe otherwise is to subscribe to the madman theory of nuclear deterrence, the default position for Iran hawks.
- Conservatives have been complaining ever since last year's DHS report on right-wing extremism that liberals are exaggerating the threat of violence from those quarters, and are even starting to push back with the meme that it's Democrats who are orchestrating the ugliest moments of protest. With this in mind, we should all be relieved to learn that the FBI considers the threat level of militia violence to be "low." This doesn't let irresponsible Republicans off the hook for encouraging secession, nor does it mean armchair revolutionaries couldn't eventually decide to act on their paranoid fears. And let's just say that I don't trust gun rights' groups who schedule Washington rallies on the fifteenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, even if it was likely inadvertent.
- Remainders: Meg Whitman vows to gut California's social services and make promises she can't legally keep if she's elected governor; I'd love for Ben Pershing to explain precisely why offshore drilling is the "ideological middle" position; it's a safe bet that Michael Steele gets shown the door the day after the midterm elections; and the Family Research Council's deep commitment to theology includes junior high school-level jabs at the president;
--Mori Dinauer
