Dan Balz of the Washington Post asks the big question dogging Mitt Romney right now: Can he fix the enthusiasm gap? His support among conservatives is collapsing, and the Wall Street Journal says it's a bad sign for Mitt.
Meanwhile The New York Times profiles Foster Friess, the very wealthy patron of the Santorum campaign.
Politico looks at Pres. Obama's pivot to all things political and makes the point that all presidents do it, but Obama promised to be different.
And here's some White House intrigue courtesy of James Fallows from The Atlantic, about what kind of president Barack Obama really is.
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David Boise's explanation of the birth control issue, as hear on the Lawrence O'Donnel's The Last Word, is cyrtal clear! There is no constitutional issue here. If the Catholic Church (in its schools and hospitals) is an employer the church must follow the labor laws of the land. All the labor laws!
Why should I pay, with MY taxes, for a church's obligation to employees? I don't understand why churches are tax free. That means I pay for them. Now they are getting away with not paying full medical for ee's. I have to pay for it.
I agree that Chris should have David Boise on to explain the facts of law to him and his viewers. I have never been so disappointed in Chris and his insistence on his knowledge of the Catholic church that he could not listen to a reasoned argument (not just a White House meme) on the law. He shut down a guest for not having a source to uphold information, but I would like to see his sources of a well reasoned argument for whatever Chris thinks is his position of the church over U.S. law.
crystal
Our political process is nutty at best. The process needs to be shortened considerably, office terms for the executive and legislative branches need to be extended with term limits, the Supreme Court Justices need to have term limits so as to minimize the influence of presidential appointments, and measures need to be taken to drastically minimize the money influence of wealthy individuals, corporations and Unions (i.e.,financing by individuals). As you have put it on your show, the Republican presidential campaign is a "clown show". How can any of us who are not are part of the campaigns and the news media who covers them really get interested and concerned with the political process given it's state of affairs?
Also, will it really matter who gets in the Oval office from a domestic policy point of view if the House or the Senate can block anything the President want to do? I can hear it now, Romney is elected President, the Republican Senate holds 51 seats, Minority Leader Sen Reid first remark will be...my highest priority is to make Romney a one-term President. If Obama is re-elected and the Republicans continue to control Congress then we will see a continuation of the last 4 years...hatred of Obama and frustrate at every turn any of Obama's domestic initiatives.
Finally, so what will happen at the end of 1212 when the Bush tax cuts expire? Will Obama simply let them expire which will cause an increase in tax rates for all levels of income including the middle class? Or will he cut some deal that gives breaks to a few so as to keep tax rates for the middle class unchanged?
Grant:Here is a conspiracy theory of mine.The republicans will stall talks on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts until November.If Obama loses the election they will refuse to negotiate on the cuts.Believing that Pres Obama,with nothing to lose will say ok we'll just let them expire for everyone.This way they can blame the Pres.for letting them expire.So when the new pres.takes over the national debt begins to improve along with the deficit because of more revenue coming in. Corporations start to hire again because they've been stalling for four years.The banks start lending again because they to have been stalling.And so the republicans think they can say,see what we did,are'nt you glad you elected a republican. Just a theory.
Not just a theory. This is what will happen. The Republicans can't risk having this nation suffer for another four years. They will hope their voter disenfranchisement effort works and they can get a Republican in the WH but they aren't counting on it. That is why they are making so many hard core moves on labor and in civil rights revocation while they still can.
If however Obama does get re-elected the Republicans will simply blame him for raising the taxes knowing it will take a few years for the impact to be felt, for the budget to level out and perhaps start to go into the black when Obama's second term will be coming to an end. Then they can hope to run better candidates like Jeb Bush or who-ever-other they think can con everyone into buying their same old message and who can then take credit for Obama's improved second term budget.
Interesting Article, like the background on Santorum's Sugar Dadddy...however well written, it is really an exercise in political futility, as the general election is going to Obama, unless the scandal of our lifetimes unlikey transpires before election day. I know there is no truly debating with a hard-line Republican, but anybody who votes with their party on every issue isn't truly being American..decide for yourselves w/o pre-conceived hatreds...close your eyes and just listen to these men speak..the choice is apparently simple
and to briefly touch on another story on msnbc..why is this lady who worked for JFK telling us 50 years later..he had affairs? really? re-write the history books..enough trash tv already!!!
The flaw in Fallow's Atlantic story is it attempts to straight-jacket our thinking, and there's no room for alternatives like "It's possible that the President has been both lucky and smart."
It's an old poker saying that "Good players make their own luck."
Fallow's article is just a bit of drama-llama projection, and it's based in part on a wholly unlikely scenario that has Obama being defeated in 2012. Well, the author didn't read the Virginia poll numbers that were released yesterday...
Chris, to follow your thought process on the Catholic / religious freedom issue, I suppose the US was wrong to out-law polygamy and animal sacrifice which were important elements of religious faith. It is time for constitutional scholars to step forward and explain how it was not unconstitutional for the Government to make polygamy unlawful and why the proposed employer mandate to offer free contraceptive services is in violation of the constitution. THE REAL FIX TO ALL OF THIS IS TO REMOVE HEALTHCARE FROM EMPLOYERS AND PUT IN PLACE A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM.
Joan Walsh knocked Tony "whatever the last name" out of the park. She reduced him to a sheepish grimace.
On the matter of attacking Obama. Republicans use the false First Amendment issues to incite support from those who want reason to badger Obama while their objective is to increase profit for the insurers and drug companies by increasing the number of medical services not provided or covered by the health care act.