The shameless Judge Napolitano actually calls Michele Bachmann a constitutional expert? If she's a constitutional expert, I'm the queen of the world.

An example of her deep constitutional knowledge, right here:

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." -Rep. Rep. Michele Bachmann, March 2009

(h/t PoliticsUSA)

Fortunately, Tarryl Clark is challenging Bachmann hard. If that loony-tunes is sent home in November I could almost live with whatever else happens.

Corporations Have Higher Profits During Liberal Presidencies Liberal Truths

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003 the years where a Republican President was in office show that Corporations have lower Profits Before Tax than when a Democratic President was in office.

Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush:
In 1990 Corporate Profits Before Tax was $236,000,000,000.

Democratic President William Jefferson Clinton:
Started his Presidency in 1993 with Corporate Profits Before Tax increasing to $305,000,000,000.
Ended his Presidency in 2000 with Corporate Profits Before Tax further increasing to $436,000,000,000.

Republican President George Walker Bush:
Started his Presidency in 2001 with Corporate Profits Before Tax reducing to $327,000,000,000.
By the end of 2002 Corporate Profits Before Tax were further reduced to $316,000,000,000.

The highest rate of Corporate Profits Before Tax between 1990 and 2002 was in 1997 with $494,000,000,000 when William Jefferson Clinton was President.

Source: 15-business.pdf No. 737

There Are More Bankruptcy Filings During Conservative Presidencies Conservative Truths
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003 the years where a Republican President was in office show a higher total rate of Bankruptcy Petition Filings than when a Democratic President was in office.

In 1998, when Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was President, the Total Number of Bankruptcy Petitions Filed was 1,429,459.

In 1999, when Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was President, the Total Number of Bankruptcy Petitions Filed decreased to 1,391,964.

In 2000, when Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was President, the Total Number of Bankruptcy Petitions Filed further decreased to 1,276,922.

In 2001, when Republican George Walker Bush was President, the Total Number of Bankruptcy Petitions Filed increased to 1,386,606.

In 2002, when Republican George Walker Bush was President, the Total Number of Bankruptcy Petitions Filed further increased to 1,505,306.

Source: 15-business.pdf No. 756

In early April, CNN's Erik Erickson said he refused to fill out a U.S. Census form and that he would pull out his wife's shotgun if there was an attempt to arrest him for it.

Well, it appears that a woman in Yuba City, California decided she didn't want a census worker at her house either so she pulled out a gun when one showed up at her house -- and she paid for her stupidity with her life.

A routine visit by a U.S. Census Worker on Thursday evening turned deadly when Yuba City police officers shot and killed a woman they said had first threatened the worker with a gun, then later confronted officers with a shotgun.

Sutter County authorities have identified the woman as Victoria Roger-Vasselin, 67, and arrested Lionel Craig Patterson, 51, who was with Roger-Vasselin at the house on Mariner Loop when the shooting happened.

Sonny Le, a census regional spokesman, said the worker, a Yuba City resident, showed her badge and introduced herself to a man who answered the door. From inside the house, the worker said she heard a woman saying that they do not want to participate in the census survey.

When the census worker tried to further explain the process, she said she saw a gun pointed at her.

Officers arrived at the Mariner Loop house about 10 p.m. Pavey said a man answered the door with a handgun. Officers successfully persuaded him to give up his gun, but a brief struggle ensued at the entryway when the man resisted arrest, Pavey said.

As an officer was trying to handcuff the man on the ground, the woman came outside with a shotgun. Officers ordered her to put down the gun, but "she ignored the order and continued to advance with the shotgun pointing at the officers," Pavey said. Two officers fired. Roger-Vasselin died at the scene, authorities said.
Read on...

I can hear the sound of right wing nutters' heads exploding all across the country already. I have no doubt someone on Fox or the usual suspect in the world of hate radio will deem this a government execution of a brave American who stood up against President Obama and his evil, socialist empire.

I abhor violence of any kind, and while tragic, this woman acted foolishly and ended up paying with her life. Perhaps we'll find out in the coming days and weeks whether she was suffering from some form of mental illness or that her actions were motivated by political or media influences.

Religion and the Founders

The Founding Fathers were not devout by the standards of many of today's fundamentalist Protestants. To carefully examine writings by the principal framers (Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington and Madison) is to note the striking degree to which they all shared attitudes toward religion that would disqualify them as "Christians" in the eyes of the religious right, even though they described themselves as such. All these men emphasized the supreme importance of individual reason and conscience--not ecclesiastical authority and dogma--in shaping personal faith. To be sure, they recognized religion's valuable social role, but the assertion heard so often these days, that America was founded as a 'Christian nation', simply is not true.

Tax Day? Fill out the $#*$#@!! census! From our buds at The Full Ginsburg. Open Thread below...

Christopher Walken answers the census from SNL. Open thread below...

Liberal Values: A historical anachronism? Yeah. Just like Lott? Not hardly. But it is amusing that Michael (Injun) Steele is calling for Reid's resignation.

Echidne of the Snakes: Irrational Institutional Inequity, Incompetence and Injustice

naked capitalism: The military-industrial complex is ruining the economy (h/t Politics in the Zeros)

Media Nation: Anti-Coakley (and anti-Brown) push polling reported in Massachusetts

Dailycensored: Transforming education right in front of your eyes

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Tell the FCC: Support Net Neutrality...Broder-In-Training...Why FOX should eschew satire...On any given Sunday...FT Executive Summary...Stoopid...NPR Check...WaPo lets lobbyists write 'stories'...Right's answer to HuffPost...What you're missingat Bigjournalism.com...What Ailes us...

And the answer is...No!

And if they did, America wouldn't even know it. Take a look at the above chart. Paul Krugman then writes:

But the political argument against focusing on the deficit is even stronger than he realizes — because there are very good odds that even if Obama exhibited iron fiscal discipline, voters wouldn’t notice. There’s a remarkable, depressing paper by Achen and Bartels that includes an analysis of voter views of the deficit in 1996 — by which time the huge deficit that Bill Clinton inherited had been drastically reduced.

Yep: after one of the biggest moves toward budget balance in history, a majority of Republicans, and a plurality of all voters, believed that deficits had increased.

Not to put too fine a point on it: if Obama succeeded in reducing the deficit, would Fox News or the Washington Times report it? The truth is that the truth about budgets plays almost no role in real politics.

Bill Clinton actually reduced the deficit and Americans thought just the opposite and that was before FOX News had existed. Ask any of your friends that are deficit scolds this simple question. How is the deficit hurting their life? Ask them to give you real examples. They can't. It's fiction created by Grover Norquist and his conservatives cronies to tear down anything that has to do with the left. I'm not dismissing the deficit, but it's beyond belief the nonsense America believes about it.

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Glenn Beck devoted a long rant last night to his contention that the U.S. Census Bureau shouldn't be counting what he blithely calls "illegal aliens" -- i.e., undocumented immigrants.

But his argument -- that we shouldn't be counting people who can't vote -- doesn't merely cut against the undocumented. It cuts against all immigrants -- who, by definition, are also already non-citizens.

Moreover, the Census Bureau isn't charged with accurately counting the number of citizens living within the United States -- it's charged with counting the entire population.

What Beck wants Census to do -- that is, to exclude non-citizens from its count -- is in direct violation of its charter, which is to count the population whole:

The Census Bureau does not ask about legal (migrant) status of respondents in any of its survey and census programs. As examples, in the decennial census, the American Community Survey, and Current Population Survey as there is no legislative mandate to collect this information. Given the success of Census 2000 in counting nearly every person residing in the United States, we expect that unauthorized migrants were included among people who indicated that the United States was their usual place of residence on the survey date. The foreign-born population includes naturalized U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, temporary migrants (e.g., foreign students), humanitarian migrants (e.g., refugees), and unauthorized migrants (people illegally present in the United States).

Beck would have the Census omit not just unauthorized migrants, but also lawful permanent residents, humanitarian migrants, and foreign-born residents here legally.

Of course, he's arguing for this because he believes counting the undocumented will give the eeeeevil SEIU more power in its quest for total global domination or something like that. You have to watch the video to get it all, and even then it never quite holds together, much less make sense.