I would state my support for the law that lets the state revoke the business licenses of businesses that willingly employ illegal aliens and note that Republican business groups really hate this law and are trying to get rid of it. Now who is more likely to play ball with the Business Republicans, me or the Republican (who is probably taking money from the Republican business special interests)? FWIW, I really do support cracking down, hard, on businesses that use illegal aliens to wedge American workers out of jobs and benefits. I think that the only way we are going to get real and positive immigration reform is for the status quo goes from a positive situation to a negative one for big business. If business starts getting hurt with real penalties for their actions, we will get a decent immigration bill pronto.

So Durbin sat on this letter since the Spring, when he became aware of it? Screw him. This isn't about Republicans threatening to reintroduce Glass-Steegall, because Kyl's little threat to the banking industry is probably among the lamest I've ever heard. The bankers know damn well Kyl is a liar and shill for big business, as is most of the Republican Congress. He has no where else to go but their arms. Those campaign donations aren't going to come from anywhere else. I bet the bankers got a good laugh out of their man declaring himself free their bondage! This is about Durbin trying to deflect attention from the fact that the Democratic caucus contains plenty of their own impediments to reform.

Doesn't AZ's Constitution have one of those "nearly free" clauses governing the price of secondary education in the state? I think this the only proposal out of the ones you listed that would help the states budget, the rest would increase it, and it is unconstitutional. Exceedingly stupid.

To be fair, I don't think Cokie Roberts isn't really a conservative. I bet if you interviewed her you would find she doesn't give a rip about gays or abortion or the few other things that conservatives really care about. She is a rather uninformed villager trying to curry favor with conservatives so they will quit calling her a liberal. Interestingly, NPR is chock full of the Cokie Roberts types, that are probably socially liberal but bend so far backward to please Republicans that they push conservative dogma harder and more effectively than your average AM radio head. Keep track of the program guests for Diane Rehm or Neil Conan's Talk of the Nation for a week or so. I bet the overwhelming bias toward conservatives would surprise you. I think the AMerican Enterprise Institute, Weekly Standard, and Heritage Foundations share an office in NPR's D.C. studio.

I think it would be due diligence on their part to send out e-mails to all the people on their lists informing them that the big study they were pimping might have been faked. They might also give all the papers that wrote editorials about the study a call as well so they can get their editorial departments working on the big expose. Now I don't hide the fact that I think that the study didn't prove what they claimed in the first case, plus I think GI are a bunch of crooks, so I won't hold my breath.

Very nice. I had read Nate Silver's posts about Strategic Vision faking poll results, but I hadn't put together that they are who does the polling for GI. This just gets better and better.

Not only are political consultants usually fighting the last war, listening to them makes politicians often look like bigger phonies than they already are. For a bunch of Republicans to run and pretend they aren't just into giving each other tax cuts and backdoor business deals just makes everyone shake their heads and laugh. These are people who wouldn't think twice about taking a deal where they were offered a 1% tax cut for every cop or firefighter they personally fired.

Right now there is talk of building dozens of new nuclear power plants around the world within the next ten years. Given what I wrote (i.e that our supply of Uranium as a fuel isn't enough for long term energy stability at even current usage rates), is your simplistic supply and demand statement worth visiting in regards to energy policy now, or should we wait until after we give away a bunch of government money to contractors who want to build nuclear power plants? I know you claim to be a libertarian...well there hasn't ever been a nuclear power plant built in the U.S. via the free market, every single one has used public money (e.g. gov backed loan guarantees). They cost too much and are too risky for investors. The ones they are talking about building are going to use taxpayer money. Nothing like dumping a bunch of taxpayer money into multinational corporations so the can build power plants that have to be mothballed. I mean the MNC's won't care, they will make money whether the power plants come on line or not. Here is the article I was talking about: http://is.gd/4NfGd I'm not even anti-nuclear power. I am a geoscientist who once tried to get a job in the field. I also think if we could develop Thorium as a source that gives somewhat more of a supply of fuel. I just think we need to decide if the fuel is there, given the extremely high public costs of nuclear power. I also think the Republican/Libertarian reactionary contrariness and their underlying hatred of science deludes them into not asking hard questions.

I think one of the biggest takeaways of the elections last night are that the right-wings TABOR Amendments failed in Maine and Washington. As we all know, these types of bills are the holy grail of the Republican money boys, and they care a hundred times more about getting these things passed than gay marriage laws. Now if the electorate was really as pissed about government overreach and spending as Dick Armey and his teabaggers claim, then why didn't their TABOR bills pass?

I read a sobering article recently at the oil drum website discussing how after you cut through all the chest thrusting and hand waving in the strategic minerals assessments, there is about an 80 year supply of accessible uranium at current usage rates (i.e. all the uranium in the world doesn't mean anything if it scattered across the globe at 10 parts per million). Maybe Sylvia Allen thinks Jesus is going to bury some more in the next couple years.

People who don't want to be called teabaggers don't carry around signs like the one at this link: http://is.gd/4Hkg4

Since 100% of humans eventually die, I suppose Kyl could technically be correct! Of course Kyl's use of the word "efficient" proves Alan Grayson's charge that Republicans want people to go die, and for them to do it quickly. That said, I will remind everyone again that Jon Kyl lied to the Supreme Court during the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case. If someone is willing to lie to the Supreme Court, they are going to have no qualms about deceiving anyone else, especially a lightweight like David Gregory.

The extremely right-wing Prescott Daily Courier printed an editorial on the very anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing (4/19) lambasting Janet Napolitano for having the nerve to suggest that a disgruntled veteran would ever resort to blowing up fellow Americans. I asked the Courier to apologize to the Oklahoma City victim's friends and families for having such a callous attitude toward domestic terrorism, but they never did.

I take it Matthew Ladner was using "good faith estimate" as a derogatory term, given all the "bad faith estimates" he and his organization attach their names to.

I suppose these kids went to Ronald Reagan Elementary School.

It is even worse that Horne is not an idiot. That means he is purposely acting like a jerk. He really hates the people of Arizona to be so patronizing toward us.

So looking over the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "issues page", you get the idea that Federal regulation = bad if those regulations cover: energy production, economic and tax policy, insurance companies, labor, and consumer protections. However, the Chamber demands that the Feds regulate our state court system because it hurts massive corporations. This is just what I outlined in my comment above. Sorry, this comment was made by a person paid to put out favorable comments on blogs for the Chamber of Commerce. You all are phonies and hypocrites.

When she was breaking the law by doctor shopping to support her drug habit, she also got a "government bailout", by having her husband cover up her crimes.

Tort reform is effectively unconstitutional under Arizona's Constitution. I love linking to this article about that fact from the Goldwater Institute: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/1260 When Republicans demand Federally mandated tort reform, they are basically demanding that states cede an area of statue that has traditionally fallen to them. Same thing with Republican demands that states be required to accept all insurance policies (aka interstate portability of policies). Republicans want to destroy states' rights. The next time a Republican whines about "states' rights" and the big bad federal government, go ahead and point this out (bonus points if you point out how racist the only states' rights issues Republican really care about are). Further, states already have the ability to address tort reform (here in AZ it would require amending the constitution). I also believe states already have the ability to accept insurance written for the standards of other states. If the AZ legislature decided they really liked the junk insurance written in South Carolina or Georgia, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from passing a law accepting such insurance or even watering down AZ's standards to fit the crappier ones.

Here's my contribution to the Republicans playing the false equivalency card: http://is.gd/32iCk

Wow, that Dwight or Dwayne guy is losing it.

The creep from Florida that started this nonsense supposedly has a long and sordid history of giving political speeches to schoolkids; one parent even claimed that after he talked at her kids school her child came home cracking jokes about Hillary CLinton. http://is.gd/2VIlf Not a single Florida Republican leader would even call the creep on it either.

I found this yesterday: http://is.gd/2VhSb

Remember when Bush I tried to count super-processed Catsup as a vegetable? Was that "indoctrination"?

Former insurance executive Ben Nelson, Lieberman (whose wife is aa medical industrial complex executive), and Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas (where Limbaugh is more popular than the president, and polls show a hard-core right winger beating her in the next election). Lincoln is the only one up for re-election in 2010.