Mike Lofgren, a former GOP op who left the party, writes that both parties are terrible, but the Republican Party is definitely worse -- and the media sucks by playing the false equivalency game. And that false equivalency plays into the GOP's hands. "[The] constant drizzle of 'there the two parties go again!' stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends," he writes. "The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions -- if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote?"
The woman who works as campaign treasurer for several Democratic politicians -- including Diane Feinstein -- has been arrested by the FBI for mail fraud. The report's a little light on specifics, but it sounds like she was embezzling campaign funds. California State Sen. Lou Correa says he was called by the FBI and informed that he was a "victim." The right will probably try to make hay with this, but it's hard to see how it would stick -- the crime was committed against these dems, not by them. It's not like the party chairman blew the money at a bondage-themed nudie bar or anything.
Robert Reich sees the American middle class as wounded, but argues the wound is only mortal if we allow it to be.
Jewish scholar Eliyahu Stern writes that the current anti-Sharia panic on the right "undermines American democracy, ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation, and creates a dangerous divide between America and its fastest-growing religious minority."
Another day, another insane economic idea from Michele Bachmann.
How the right denies climate change with pseudo-scientific bullshit.
Finally, Jim DeMint is a sanctimonious jackass.
