In what was an expected outcome, but still one that is a bit shocking, tea party-aligned candidate Richard Mourdock defeated Sen. Richard Lugar in the Indiana Republican primary on Tuesday. Mourdock is the state's treasurer and he hasn't spent much time on the national scene, but it's clear that he's one of the most extreme right-wing candidates running in the 2012 elections. Let's take a closer look...

Despite the fact that Indiana's economy depends heavily on the auto industry and the fact that Indiana greatly benefited from the auto industry bailout, Mourdock argued in an editorial in the South Bend Tribune that the bailout was illegal:

By any traditional legal analysis, fundamental elements of the Obama administration’s Chrysler bankruptcy plan were illegal. It turned 200 years of U.S. bankruptcy law on its head by awarding more value to a select group of unsecured creditors than to secured creditors. Others are apparently willing to tolerate the violation of federal bankruptcy laws simply because they liked the result: It helped their friends. But most Americans, including the Hoosier retirees who had their property stolen away, see such picking and choosing by the federal government as fundamentally un-American.

Mourdock has consistently railed against bipartisanship:

Those who want to call out for bipartisanship are wrong. It is bipartisanship that has taken this country to the very brink of bankruptcy.

He opposes the direct election of senators (while running to be directly elected as a senator):

Repealing the 17th amendment. Do I think it will ever happen? No. Is it something that I would like to see? Yes it is. And I’ll tell you the trackers in the room, my Democrat tracker friends who are here as they always are probably seeing something that you’ll see in a tv commercial not too far from now. You know the issue of the 17th amendment is so troubling to me, our founding fathers, again those geniuses, made the point that the House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states. In other words the government of the states. I will tell you as someone who spends a lot of time in the statehouse obviously, and a lot of time in local government, one of the most frustrating things state government and local government deals with are called unfunded mandates. It’s where the federal government will say you must do this, and we’re not going to pay for it. You got to figure out a way to go get the money and you must do this. How many unfunded mandates do you think would be coming from the United States Congress, if those same Senators had to come back every two years to help those people get reelected so they would elect them. You know I think most senators if they had to come back every two years and by the way that would solve another problem. It would solve the idea that Senators move out of their state and never return. But it would cause those senators to have much greater contact with their states. You know just think of this. In today’s you see millions and millions of dollars spent on Senate campaigns. Two years ago, in 2010, Sharon Angle out in Nevada spent 31 million dollars, just herself. How much money would be spent in federal senate races if the state legislators were electing those people. You just took the money out of politics. Is that a bad thing? (AB 21 Tracking Footage, 2/4/12)

He thinks that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are unconstitutional, and shows that he doesn't understand basic constitutional law or the Ninth Amendment or the Elastic Clause:

I challenge you in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution where those so-called enumerated powers are listed. I challenge you to find words that talk about Medicare or Medicaid or, yes, even Social Security. You know, Article I, Section 8 says the U.S. government shall have the power to tax to pay off its debts, to pay for its defense, and then it says to provide for the general welfare.

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There is simply no understanding the prevalence of gun violence in America - as evidenced by the recent attempted assassination of a congresswoman during a mass shooting - without discussing the nefarious role played by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Once an organisation primarily concerned with the education and training of sportsmen, in a coup that came to be known as the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977, hardliners took over the leadership and believed that any gun regulation would take us down a slippery slope to Khmer Rougism.

In the years since, unlike the US in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - or for that matter Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre - the response to senseless gun violence has been to discuss everything from the rhetoric on our airwaves to the weather outside.

But any public conversations regarding restricting who has access to guns has been considered verboten (although, thankfully, this time some cracks are beginning to show).

This is largely because the NRA's duping its own members, which we'll discuss below, and coming to the realisation that the real money was in actually protecting the rights of gun manufacturers, which we'll discuss in Part II of this series.

If the NRA leadership is not radical, they certainly see the benefit in playing radicals on TV in order to enrich their financial benefactors who produce and sell the weaponry of death.

In the 1990s, in a climate of fear and paranoia that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, they were all too happy to refer to the government authority that tries to enforce gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF), as "jack-booted thugs". This led former president George H.W. Bush to resign his membership.

They then decided to up the ante by accusing former president Bill Clinton of murder and saying he "had blood on his hands" - all for the crime of supporting background checks at gun shows - which is among the many legislative proposals to reduce gun violence that they have repeatedly blocked.

Others include a ban on high-capacity magazines, banning sales to those on terrorist watch lists, and fully funding the aforementioned ATF (think about the latter when they say they want to "strengthen existing gun laws" after each new tragedy).

In fact, just a few days after the mass shooting in Tucson it was reported by Ryan Reilly from TPMMuckraker that a "jihadist" in America who was... "a moderator and contributor on Islamic extremist web forums, posted songs praising suicide bombers, discussed his jihad fantasies in the open..." was able to get an AK-47, no questions asked.

Emerson Begolly, the "jihadist" in question, responded when queried about this with laughter and facetiously exclaimed that "someone at the FBI showed up to work drunk". Perhaps, but if they were, it was only because the NRA forced them to do keg stands.

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This is a real bummer of a day for those of us who really, really wanted to see Dawn Johnsen's nomination confirmed. It's even more of a bummer to realize it was probably Ben Nelson who scuttled it months ago, before Scott Brown was elected and after Al Franken was sworn in. From the Huffington Post:

But the votes, apparently, weren't there. Johnsen had the support of Sen Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) but was regarded skeptically by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) -- primarily for her positions on torture and the investigation of previous administration actions. A filibuster, in the end, was likely sustainable. Faced with this calculus, the White House chose not to appoint Johnsen during Senate recess, which would have circumvented a likely filibuster but would have kept her in the position for less than two years.

I have my doubts about Lugar, to be honest. The Republicans are too dogged in their determination to undermine this administration at every turn to let any of their ranks fall away. And Nelson once again demonstrates his undying loyalty to Republican principles with his "skepticism".

Dawn Johnsen is hardly a six-headed monster. She's a highly regarded lawyer with experience in the OLC's office. She has expertise in the legal questions surrounding executive power and yes, she's known for her views on abortion.

Frankly, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of the Republicans and Ben Nelson using abortion as an excuse for every obstructionist tactic they can throw against a wall. This Congress has done more to undermine women's reproductive rights on spin alone than any other I can recall in recent history.

It would be good for Democrats in particular to remember they ran on a platform that honored a woman's right to choose and make her own reproductive decisions. It's truly time to quit making us the sacrificial lamb for political pokey points.

Russell Wheeler, visiting fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, predicts trouble for Obama's judicial nominees.

This Jeffrey Toobin piece in the latest New Yorker illustrates what I predict will be the fatal flaw of the Obama administration: this strange, intellectualized fixation with a non-partisan strategy that is in no way supported by the results on the ground - nor is it an appropriate response to the electorate, which overwhelmingly rejected Republican policies.

The president doesn't yet seem to understand that the continued opposition to his choices doesn't have anything to do with his choices. It's Republican obstructionism, plain and simple. (Although Orrin Hatch contends: "He started it!" Uh huh. Go take a nap, Orrin, you nasty old coot.)

The Obama Administration wanted to send a message with the President’s first nomination to a federal court. “There was a real conscious decision to use that first appointment to say, ‘This is a new way of doing things. This is a post-partisan choice,’ ” one White House official involved in the process told me. “Our strategy was to show that our judges could get Republican support.” So on March 17th President Obama nominated David Hamilton, the chief federal district-court judge in Indianapolis, to the Seventh Circuit court of appeals. Hamilton had been vetted with care. After fifteen years of service on the trial bench, he had won the highest rating from the American Bar Association; Richard Lugar, the senior senator from Indiana and a leading Republican, was supportive; and Hamilton’s status as a nephew of Lee Hamilton, a well-respected former local congressman, gave him deep connections. The hope was that Hamilton’s appointment would begin a profound and rapid change in the confirmation process and in the federal judiciary itself.

[...] “The unifying quality that we are looking for is excellence, but also diversity, and diversity in the broadest sense of the word,” another Administration official said. “We are looking for experiential diversity, not just race and gender. We want people who are not the usual suspects, not just judges and prosecutors but public defenders and lawyers in private practice.” Yet Hamilton and Sotomayor are the usual suspects—both sitting judges, who had already been confirmed by the Senate. Of Obama’s seven nominees to the circuit courts, six are federal district-court judges. The group includes Gerard Lynch, a former Columbia Law School professor and New York federal prosecutor, and Andre Davis, who was nominated to the Fourth Circuit by Bill Clinton. (At the time, Republicans blocked any vote on Davis.) Two of the seven are African-American; two are women; all but one are in their fifties. (None are openly gay.) The one non-judge is Jane Stranch, who has represented labor unions and other clients at a Nashville law firm and is nominated for the Sixth Circuit. They are conventional, qualified, and undramatic choices, who were named, at least in part, because they were seen as likely to be quickly confirmed.

But then, as the first White House official put it, “Hamilton blew up.” Conservatives seized on a 2005 case, in which Hamilton ruled to strike down the daily invocation at the Indiana legislature because its repeated references to Jesus Christ violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Hamilton had also ruled to invalidate a part of Indiana’s abortion law that required women to make two visits to a doctor before undergoing the procedure. In June, Hamilton was approved by the Judiciary Committee on a straight party-line vote, twelve to seven, but his nomination has not yet been brought to the Senate floor. Some Republicans have already vowed a filibuster. (Republican threats of extended debate on nominees can stop the Democratic majority from bringing any of them up for votes.)

“The reaction to Hamilton certainly has given people pause here,” the second White House official said. “If they are going to stop David Hamilton, then who won’t they stop?”

See what I mean? Why are they surprised? Why do they constantly split the difference on everything, watering down any meaningful differences? If I were making these decisions, I'd be pushing the most liberal judges I could find, and make the Republicans explain over and over why they don't want judges who rule in favor of working people. Why would you throw away that opportunity?

Republicans in the Senate have not allowed a vote on any of the other nominees, either. So far, the only Obama nominee who has been confirmed to a lifetime federal judgeship is Sotomayor. The stalemate provides a revealing glimpse of the environment in Washington. Obama advisers (and Democratic Senate sources) aver that all the nominees, even Hamilton, will be confirmed eventually, but contrary to the President’s early hope the struggle for his judges is likely to be long and contentious.

“The President did not set a good example when he was in the Senate,” Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican senator from Utah, told me, pointing to Obama’s votes against the confirmation of John G. Roberts, Jr., and Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to the Supreme Court. “You have to be a partisan ideologue not to support Roberts,” Hatch said. “There is a really big push on by partisan Republicans to use the same things that they did against us.” Hatch himself, who had voted for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and every other Supreme Court nominee in his Senate career, voted against Sotomayor. (The vote for her confirmation was sixty-eight to thirty-one.)

ABC's "This Week" - Former President Jimmy Carter; national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Defense Secretary Robert Gates; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Democratic strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum; Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy.

CNN's "Late Edition" - Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Joe Biden, D-Del., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Joe Lieberman, I-CT; Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

"Fox News Sunday" - Former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Hadley; Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek; Alex Ovechkin, left wing player for the Washington Capitals hockey team.

"The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel David Brooks, Clarence Page, Elisabeth Bumiller, Kelly O'Donnell. Topics: Is McCain the change voters want? Can he outshine the anti-war Dems? Will Hillary's supporters go with Obama if they have to?

Sunday on C-SPAN at 6:30pm (ET) How We Pick the President Sunday "The Week" Magazine & The Aspen Inst. host a panel discussion on the 2008 presidential campaign titled, "How We Pick the President: What's Moving Voters in 2008." Panelists include Republican Strategist Karl Rove, Democratic Pollster Doug Schoen, and Fmr. NY Times Executive Editor, Howell Raines.

By the way, this is a good time to let our readers know how much we appreciate all the tips and support you folks offer us in the comment threads. We read 'em, we use 'em. Thanks much. Feel free to let us know in the thread below if you see anything this morning that's clipworthy--first time commenters are always welcome to pipe in.

Washington Monthly:

In most issues of the Washington Monthly, we favor articles that we hope will launch a debate. In this issue we seek to end one. The unifying message of the articles that follow is, simply, Stop. In the wake of September 11, the United States became a nation that practiced torture. Astonishingly—despite the repudiation of torture by experts and the revelations of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib—we remain one. As we go to press, President George W. Bush stands poised to veto a measure that would end all use of torture by the United States. His move, we suspect, will provoke only limited outcry. What once was shocking is now ordinary.

Bi-partisan statements (because decrying torture should never be party politics) can be read at the individual links:

Bob Barr , Rand Beers, Peter Bergen, Jimmy Carter, Steve Cheney, Amy Chua, Richard Cizik, Wesley K. Clark, Jack Cloonan, Chris Dodd, Kenneth M. Duberstein & Richard Armitage, Eric Fair, Carl Ford, Lee F. Gunn, Chuck Hagel, Lee H. Hamilton & Thomas H. Kean, Gary Hart, John Hutson, Claudia Kennedy, John Kerry, Harold Hongju Koh, Carl Levin, Richard Lugar, Leon E. Panetta, Nancy Pelosi, William J. Perry, Paul R. Pillar, Tim Roemer, John Shattuck, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Theodore C. Sorensen, William H. Taft IV, Thomas G. Wenski, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Steve Xenakis

It is past time to hold the administration accountable for this and to stop the faux debate. There is no debate, it is simply immoral, wrong and un-American. I know C&L readers are engaged politically, but please do not allow those around you to be apathetic. Forward the Washington Monthly article to everyone you know...ask that they make their voices heard by contacting their congresspeople and more importantly, presidential candidate. Let's make a concerted effort to pressure the White House from vetoing the measure. It has worked before, and it can work now.

DKos:

It's a fact: Media conglomerates' labor practices are harming the quality of TV and radio news.

A CBS television newswriter says: "We take a lot of stuff from 'Entertainment Tonight.' We watch it at 6:30 and decide what to use."

Most Americans still get their news from "old media" like newspapers, TV and radio. There's concern about how Rupert Murdoch will gut the Wall St. Journal when he gets his hands on it. MSNBC Anchor Mika Brzezinski recently tried to burn a script on air in frustration over being asked to lead the day's news with a story about Paris Hilton rather than Richard Lugar's declaration that Bush's Iraq strategy is failing. Who can we trust to tell us what's really going on? Now, a new study of broadcast journalists from the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) gives an inside look at how the media conglomerates are destroying broadcast news quality with the same tactics other big companies are using against their workers.

The AFL-CIO has more...including a copy of the WGAE report. Take the time to read it; it confirms what we've been saying for years about the decline of journalism.

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

"It's a bad idea. So we ought to get over it and we ought to have a very careful, constitutional look at this," Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on "Fox News Sunday."

Video

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, cited earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions. "There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process ... if you're going to detain people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years," Levin said, also on Fox.

David Frum:
"The story is going around Washington that Senate Foreign Relations chairman Richard Lugar handed Condoleezza Rice a list of names of “neocons” he wanted blacklisted from the Department of State – and that Rice assented."

Full transcript:

Sen. John Warner, (R-Va.), Chairman, Armed Services Committee:

"The problem as I see it right now is that we put our whole case, resting our case, on the ability to bring in the Iraqi people and train them in police, national guard, army duties and security forces. And there we're doing an all-out battle. We visited, Senator--I mean--excuse me. Senator Levin and I, Petraeus, saw his team being put together. But, Tim, the raw material is lacking in the willpower and commitment after they receive this training to really shoulder the heavy responsibilities."

This is one of the fundamental problems with the Iraq occupation. If the Iraq people are too scared to secure their own country, then how is it possible to ever have our troops withdraw? The security needed to protect the election process is tenous at best even if it does go off as planned. The administration has not been able to train Iraqi's adequately enough:

Sen. Joe Biden, (D-Del.), Ranking Member, Foreign Relations Committee:

"The training program--I came back with Lindsey Graham, appeared on your show about eight months ago, and said it was a joke. There was no training program."

Ziaspace Video not currently available.

The insurgency, which are primarily Iraqi's themselves, seems to have struck enough fear into the general population to make sure that they will not police their own country. It's just another failing of Rumsfeld. Should he be fired? Of course not. It seems it's better to stick with a losing hand than go in a different direction.

Senator Levin:

"If I thought a change at the top of the Pentagon would change the policy of this administration, I'd be all for it."

Senator Warner:

"We're at war. And you're right, Dick, we should not at this point in time entertain any idea of changing those responsibilities in the Pentagon."

Senator Lugar:

"He should be held accountable, and he should stay in office."