Martin Wolf's Exchange : The political genius of supply-side economics

slacktivist: Credit scoring and unemployment

CONELRAD Adjacent: Barry Goldwater's Mothers for Moral America

Sensen No Sen: Land of greatly diminished opportunity

The Reality-Based Community: The party of Lincoln vs the party of Jeff Davis

The Faithful Progressive: And to think the Republicans wanted to give up on the auto industry

The Inverse Square Blog: Happy Birthday, Woody Guthrie

alicublog: What's the deal with airline peanuts black people?

Norwegianity: Linkcetera

The Pump Handle: Chamber of Commerce front group unmasked

The Rude Pundit: Photos that make the Rude Pundit want to throw down a case of Millstream and freebase wheat

onegoodmove: Girl raised from birth by Wolf Blitzer taken into protective custody

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Michael Moore was on Larry King Live last night with Wolf Blitzer, and there was a classic moment after Moore calls insurance companies "thieves and jackals" and says they'll take the fines rather than help people. "The question should never be, 'How much money are we going to make on this?'" Moore said.

BLITZER: Isn't that the basic nature of American capitalism?

MOORE: Yes, it is, Wolf. That's why this economic system we have is broke, it's bankrupt, it's corrupt, it's unfair, it's not just and We need a more democratic economic system where the people are having a say and the richest one percent don't control the whole thing.

Cavuto interviewed Scott Brown today (he touted it as an exclusive interview) and asked him to comment on the tragedy that struck Austin, Texas. The news has swirled around Joseph Stack's suicidal action. Instead of denouncing it as a domestic terrorist act or a lone wolf nut---he didn't hesitate to use it for his own political advantage and said this:

Brown: and I don't know if it's related but you can just sense not only in my election and being here in Washington, people are frustrated. That they want transparency. They want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So I'm not sure if there's a connection there I certainly hope not..We need to do things better.

If he hopes that there's no connection to his "people are frustrated" routine then why did he bring this up in the first place? He uses this catastrophe to pump up his own election. How sweet. Wow. It reveals a lot about the man, doesn't it?

Flipping around to CNN, Wolf's The Situation Room goes gaga over the Scott Brown swearing-in. They are in a frenzy. The devoted almost the entire first hour of TSR to him. Tongues are hanging out, heavy breathing follows as the cameras check him out to the chamber where Joe Biden does the honors.

Fox News stocks talker Ben Stein (fired for ethics violations at the NY Times) opines that he's just the type of guy you want to have a beer with and he's so much better looking than the schoolmarmy-looking Martha Coakley.

Then they picked up his presser. It's all about cutting those damn taxes...

He ducks the DADT question by saying he'll just ask the generals how they feel. That's real leadership. He said the stimulus didn't create one new job...

And Brown said that not only do we have to worry about terrorists attacking our airports, but they are also coming for our shopping malls.

Q: Do you mind being one or two republicans as long as you like the bill.

Brown:...We have terrorists trying to kill not only in our airports, but in our shopping malls.

I hadn't heard of that one. There was the Derrick Sharif case in 2007, but that involved no terrorist organizations and was a conspiracy of one. There have been some right-wing sites that were saying a mall would make a nice, juicy target.

Wonder if that's where Brown was getting his information.

Debbie Stabenow was on CNN's State of the Union this morning and made the case for the public option.

STABENOW: Well, my first choice and very strong choice is a public option. And I have to say, Wolf, that what my friends are saying, Senator Gregg and Senator Alexander really are scare tactics that have been put forward by folks that don't want to change the system because they make a lot of money off the current system right now.

The reality for families today is if there's an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor telling your doctor what they're allowed to do because of what they'll pay for, telling you what they'll pay for, putting you through all kinds of bureaucracy to try to figure out if you can get care, assuming you're not dropped if you get sick or can't get insurance if you have a pre-existing condition. So what we're talking about is putting somebody on your side, being able to make sure that the insurance company, the for profit insurance company won't provide you with a low cost insurance policy for your family that you have another choice.

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I was interviewed Thursday by Anderson Cooper about "lone wolf" domestic terrorism like the Holocaust Museum shooting on Wednesday.

We bounced a little off my new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, but mostly discussed much of the same material I covered in my post on "lone wolves yesterday.

Hope you all enjoy the clip. Let me know how I did. I'm still pretty new at this teevee stuff. (As I'm fond of saying, I have a face made for radio, and a voice made for newspapers.)

CNN:

More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program.

Bison's natural habitat is at high elevations, but they move lower when grass for grazing becomes scarce.

More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.

As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the culling program early.

"There has never been a slaughter like this of the bison since the 1800s in this country, and it's disgusting," said Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group seeking to stop the slaughter program for good.

Government officials say the slaughter prevents the spread of the disease brucellosis from the Yellowstone bison to cattle on land near the park. Brucellosis can cause miscarriages, infertility and reduced milk production in domestic cattle. [..]

The USDA acknowledges that bison-to-cattle transmission is difficult to document, but it says investigations indicate that bison were the likely source of infections in cattle herds in Wyoming and North Dakota.

But critics call the culling an overreaction. There is no documented case of the disease passing from bison to cattle, they said.

Let's call this another front on the War On The Environment, shall we? Since their concerted effort to gut the Endangered Species Act last year, which included de-listing the gray wolf in February, resulting in 10 wolves being killed in Wyoming alone this month, the Bush administration has been responsible for causing at least two species (the Lake Sammamish kokanee and the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit) to become extinct. And even more are threatened as they ignore environmentalists. Further, experts are saying the construction of the ridiculous border fence is threatening to make species like jaguars, ocelots, and the Sonoran pronghorn extinct in the United States. Heckuva job, Bushie.

I'm still trying to figure out who ran the worst campaign in the history of politics in the last 50 years. Was it Thompson or Giuliani? (OK, that's a little harsh) It had to be Rudy the front runner, but Fred ran a close second. Anyway, after his humiliating defeat, Fredrick is heading back to Hollywood.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson is returning to his career as an actor and signed a deal to be represented by the William Morris Agency, the talent group said on Monday.

The 65-year-old actor and politician was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. president before dropping out of the race in January after garnering little support. Arizona Senator John McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee.

Maybe Dick Wolf will create another spinoff series: L&O: Lazy-boy Intent. About an aging DA that's just too tired to show up in court. Or, something...

Addressing California's 14 billion dollar deficit, Ahnold is a one-trick nightmare.

For everyone living in CA like myself, Governor Schwarzenegger's State of the State earlier this year was reprehensible. You can see it here.

We now have no way out except to face our budget demons. It does not raise taxes, it cuts the increase in spending and it cuts that spending across the board. As governor, I of course see first hand that the consequences of cuts are not just dollars but people. I recently brought leaders and advocates of various communities into my office to tell them about what we face financially. I had to look them in their eyes and tell them. I mean talking about fiscal responsibility sounds so cold when you have a representative for AIDS patients or poor children or the elderly sitting across from you. It's one of the worst things about being governor---yet, fiscal responsibility like compassion is a virtue because it allows the necessary programs in the first place.

Steve Lopez of the LA Times wrote a great piece about the Governor and said that we're basically in the same situation that California was in when the Davis recall was instituted.

Only a year ago, Gov. Schwarzenegger was telling us we were in good shape financially, with no need for a rainy day fund. Now he says the wolf is at the door. He's planning to lock the gates at 48 California state parks and beaches. And give get-out-of-jail-free cards to tens of thousands of prisoners statewide. And slash school budgets.

These and many other draconian horrors have been proposed by the governor who rose to power on three main recall promises: No more gaping budget holes. No more reckless borrowing. No more out-of-control fundraising and caving in to special interests. Is it time for Total Recall: The Sequel?