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On This Week with Jake Tapper, David Axelrod points out that we already know what Republican ideology does to the economy. I hope they start pounding home that message, because voters really need that reminder:

TAPPER: So the president's popularity among independents is sinking. It's a real problem for him politically. One year ago, he was at 56 percent approval with independents. Now it's 38 percent. Why do you think independents are turning away from the president?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, there are all kinds of numbers out there, so this is one set of numbers. There are other sets of numbers.

But, look, I think I've said this to you before. When I -- when I sat down with the president and his economic advisers, a group of us in the middle of 2008, and they told us what was about to ensure and -- about the recession that we were well into at that point, I said to him, you know, we're going to -- your numbers are going to suffer here, and we're going to have a difficult election, because these are going to be difficult times for the country.

Our job is not, though, to worry about that, Jake. Our job is to worry about how we get people back to work, how we move this country forward, and if -- if we do our job, the rest will take care of itself.

And, remember, elections -- the presidential election is an eternity away. Elections are about choices, though. They're not referendums. And on the other side of the ballot in November will be a party that has an economic theory, and it was tested, and it led to catastrophe.

We lost 3 million jobs in the last six months of 2008. The financial market almost collapsed. They turned a $237 billion surplus that Bill Clinton left into a $1.3 trillion deficit. And they're running on the same policies.

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Ron Paul went on CNN with Don Lemon on Sunday and actually defended Michael Steele for his bizarre comments attacking Obama for the war in Afghanistan:

LEMON: And before we misconstrue everything, you are coming out in support of the comment, right?

REP. RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: Not in the entirety. I come out in support of Chairman Steele because I think it was overkill. He made a casual comment. He wasn't setting policy and all of a sudden people jump on him like we're not allowed to have a discussion?

As a matter of fact I did like what he said so I enjoyed the fact that we're willing to have a discussion about the popularity of this war. And truly it is Obama's war, even though it was started during the last administration. Obama said this is the good war. He's expanding the war. The American people aren't with him.

The majority of the American people are tired of the ward and they'd like to see it ended; they'd like to see our troops come home.

I mean this idea that as soon as somebody has a discussion, even if it's not in the discussion, people are clamoring for him to resign? I don't think that's quite fair.

LEMON: Congressman, you have to let me get in on this because it seems like, you know -- I understand what you're saying -- you want people to talk about the war. But it seems like he wasn't factually correct. Very little of what he said, if anything, was correct factually in those comment. And he came back himself --

PAUL: What I'm saying --

LEMON: Hang on one second. He came back himself and clarified them. Why are you supporting him for a comment that he had to clarify?

(CROSS TALKING)

PAUL: Well, he -- I didn't hear his clarification. But if he clarified his statement because -- he wasn't making a policy statement. If he came back and said, I'm not stating policy, that is not exactly my position --

STEELE: But he wasn't telling the truth.

PAUL: Pardon me?

STEELE: He wasn't telling the truth.

PAUL: Well, I think you're not telling the truth right now yourself.

LEMON: He said that this war -- he said that this war was started by -- or basically saying the war was started by the Obama administration. No one even wanted --

PAUL: No, he did not say that.

LEMON: That no one wanted to go -- let me finish -- no one wanted to go into this war. In fact, when we went into the war, most of the country supported it and it was started, again, under President Bush. So most of what he said if not all of it was not factually correct.

PAUL: That's right. But he's saying politically this is Obama's war. Even in the last campaign -- as a matter of fact, I thought Obama was more hawkish on this war than McCain was because he was calling for increasing troops in Afghanistan before the Republicans were.

So I think in many ways, at least politically, this is Obama's war. And it is a political issue. The Republicans really suffered from the fact that the Iraq war continued for so long and hurt us at the polls.

So, I think that Republicans ought to have a right to at least say that maybe this war isn't going well and not blindly support every single thing that is being done. And then all of a sudden, if an individual does -- you know, people accuse you, oh, you're un- American, you're unpatriotic. You know, they pile on and then they pressure somebody like Steele -- like Chairman Steele that he has to back off.

He didn't have a policy statement. He was merely making a casual statement. And when he said, for over 1,000 years and even longer, nobody's been successful in invading Afghanistan, he is telling the truth.

Paul wants to have his cake and eat it too: He admits that Steele was just flat wrong when he claimed that Obama got us into this war. But he then wants to claim that Steele is right that it's "Obama war".

Republicans are such lovely creatures. If Obama were to play the consummate pacifist and immediately withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, the attacks would be even more savage. They're going to attack him no matter what he does.

Most Americans Want to See Constitution Replaced by Ten Commandments

via Swift Report ( satire ) Following the lead of France and the Netherlands, American voters are widely expected to reject the US Constitution when they go to the polls later this summer. While the Constitution was once held in great acclaim by voters, its popularity has slid in recent years as it has lost market share to more muscular governing documents, including the Ten Commandments and the Patriot Act.

Most voters say Bill of Rights is 'out-of-touch'

via That Colored Fellas : By La Shawn Barberella

The execution of this poor woman by ‘activist judges’, abortion-on-demand crazed lesbos at Planned Parenthood and Black Liberals who hate me but still read my blog, has now increased demand from the cable networks for my on-air insight and analysis! Such a reflection of my increasing popularity has forced me to hire the veteran publicist/media advisor Bumble Ward, who also represents the famous Director Tim Burton.

With my many appearances on MSNBC’s Connected Coast To Coast, I can now tell you my dear readers that CNN is now the only anti-American cable news network left! read on

(h/t TPM)

Glowing in the news of a resurgence of his approval rating, President Obama tried to pass some of that popularity onto his party and tried to remind supporters that the upcoming midterm elections do have consequences. Frustration at the incumbency shouldn't mean giving Republicans the wheel again:

After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No. You can't drive. We don't want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.

Damn straight, we can't afford to go into that ditch again.

I completely understand the level of frustration; I feel it too. But I also know that the choice to sit this election out or to go to third party candidates (and I say this as a registered third-party voter) is to hand the keys of the car back to the same guys who drove us into that ditch.

(h/t Heather)

You knew we had to post this...

On a related note, the most news generated by this debate was unfortunately not the substance of the issues as raised by Kucinich and Edwards, but that Hillary Clinton was heckled. Turns out that it was a Code Pink member.

Hey media? Do you think maybe focusing more on the ideas brought forth, like Kucinich here, and less on the prom queen popularity aspect might actually be helpful? It's only the health and future of the planet we're talking about...

Hey everyone, I'm Bill Wolfrum. You know, after a tough week like this, I like to sit back with a bottle of H2Om, get super-hydrated and get my zazen on like there's no Mahāyāna.

Corrente: Mitt Romney likes Mel Sembler. Because anyone willing to have a girl beaten, raped, starved and imprisoned to scare her straight is good enough to raise money for Mitt.

The Strange Death of Liberal America: If the military wasn't bad enough, the Pentagon's briefing on it was truly disturbing.

Thoughts from an Empty Head: Luckily, when the re-education centers open, you won't need a passport to enter.

Excuse the mess ... that was just my head: Dear Democratic Congress, explain to me why I voted for you again?

The Gypsy's Caravan: When Dick Cheney is being protested in Wyoming, it's safe to say his popularity is next to nil.

Angry Brown Butch: The latest on the Mariah Lopez case in New York.

I'd like to thank John, Mike and Blue Gal for the opportunity and thank you all for having me here at the Round up. Keep up the great work everybody.

Next up is Mark Hoback of The Aristocrats.

I'm working up a little policy with the help of Jeralyn. Since the popularity of C&L's new "On-Line Magazine" has grown, there's been a lot going on in the comments section. Here's a sample of the new policy:

*Bandwidth is expensive. The comment space is reserved for comments that relate to the topic of the post . You may not reprint lengthy text from your own works or those of others, including news articles. You may link to them.

*Comments that are abusive, offensive, contain profane or racist material or violate the terms of service for this blog's host provider will be removed and the author(s) banned from future comments.

I didn't think I would have to do this. I welcome right wingers to come over and join in. I often find that is what makes blogging enjoyable. It's getting nasty. The emails are too, but unlike many who reprint them on their sites and try and say " liberals are bad, look at this email about me" is simply childish. I 'll post an email more for humor than anything else. More on this later...

(Update)-I don't care about the language all that much,( I'm a NY'er) but some people are going way over the top, mostly from the trolls. Some are putting in page upon page of text to make a point. That's too much. Some comments are by the same person posting as different people. If you have to hide-goodbye. I should have been a little clearer about the trolls. My bad.

In a preview of the concise, expert, and thoughtful commentary Tucker Carlson will bring to MSNBC. Tucker had this to say about the Pope.

Carlson: ...You're huge. You're bigger than Bono.

Download | play -WMP

Download | play -QT

There you go. Scintillating! He boils down the Pope's worldwide popularity into the simplest of all terms: A Rock Star. Maybe this Pope really is more popular than the Beatles!

SAN FRANCISCO - New York Yankees (news) slugger Jason Giambi injected himself with human growth hormone in 2003 and also used steroids for at least three seasons, according to his grand jury testimony reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The testimony given in December 2003 to the federal grand jury investigating BALCO contradicts Giambi's public proclamations that he never used performance-enhancing drugs.

Giambi described how he injected human growth hormone in his stomach, testosterone into his buttocks, rubbed an undetectable steroid knows as "the cream" on his body and placed drops of another, called "the clear," under his tongue, the Chronicle reported on its Web site Wednesday night.

Giambi testified that he obtained several different steroids from Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, who is one of four men indicted by the grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. He said he got the human growth hormone from a gym in Las Vegas.

Anderson's attorney, Tony Serra, declined comment to the Chronicle, citing a court order.

Is Barry Bond's far behind? What should be the consequences for these players actions? Will they be suspended, fined! Should their contracts be nullfied? I say so. You don't get a hundred and twenty million dollar contract for hitting singles and doubles. There's a talk show host named Jim Rome who jokingly says "if you're not cheating, you're not trying." Well I guess he tried a little too hard. Will there be major backlash to the sport, that has shown an increase in popularity again in recent years? Or will the fans not care. The rumors have been flying since 1994, when hitters like Raphael Palmero who from 1986 to1992 hit a combined 95 hr's. Then from 93' till 04' averaged 38 hr's the rest of his career. We aren't' saying Mr. Palmero is a steroid user, but certainly the amount of HR's that increased throughout the league after that season has been a cause of major debate for some time.

From Sfgate:

Both Giambis testified that they had already used steroids before they met Anderson or heard of BALCO, and they said they were drawn to the trainer because of Bonds' success.

Bonds has denied using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.