Today's edition of quick hits:
* Taegan Goddard has a good round-up of some reactions to President Obama's announcement today in support of marriage equality.
* Sam Stein reports that Obama made the decision earlier this year to support same-sex marriage rights, and intended to make his views public before the election, but moved up the timetable in light of the controversy surrounding Vice President Biden's comments on "Meet the Press."
* The relevant detail to that thwarted plot: "The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission."
* A desperate family: "The parents of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured by the Taliban nearly three years ago, have appealed to the Obama administration to swap Taliban prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for his freedom."
* Adam Serwer reports on possible bipartisan changes to the National Defense Authorization Act: "With Congress getting ready to assemble the next big defense authorization bill, two House members are coming together across party lines to ensure that everyone arrested in the United States -- even suspected terrorists -- gets a fair trial."
* Conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg's book describes him as having "twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize." As it turns out, that's not true -- and this isn't the first time he's been caught exaggerating about his background.
* USPS: "The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service sought Wednesday to tamp down concern over wide-scale cuts, revealing it will seek to keep thousands of rural post offices open with shorter hours."
* More on this on tonight's show: "Pregnant women are not required to count their fetuses as full human beings when registering for White House tours, contrary to some reports suggesting otherwise, the Secret Service said."
* And this is not a parody: "Fox Now Asking: Is The Drop In Gas Prices A Bad Thing?"
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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What about Michele Bachmann's revelation that she and her family have obtained dual US-Swiss citizenship. Switzerland requires its citizens who live there to..drumroll please...purchase health insurance, also known as, an individual mandate. Is she going to change Switzerland's health care laws too?
A Romney aide said Mitt misspoke as he was correcting the mis-impression given when he was clarifying his previous support for Mr. Grenell.
Or as they say in Civil Service..."I thought I made a mistake but upon further consideration I realized I was wrong"
I really like Rev. C Weldon Gaddy who said last night on TRMS " I like to associate prayer with truth." I hope he gets a lot of media attention as a counter to those who choose to twist the truth in the name of religious freedom.
I'd like to know if there has ever been a study done about stress in the workplace and the percentage of women who go home in tears at least one day a week. From what I have heard and seen the the percentage might be surprisingly high.
Change.org is hosting a petition for the repeal of Amendment 1 from N. Carolina. As of right now it has over 100,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. Considering the national attention this has received, I think this kind of reaction deserves coverage.
http://www.change.org/petitions/1-million-against-amendment-1
On the USPS closings, I would like to know if any other mail services (like UPS and Fed-ex) are lobbying the Republican leaders to not bail USPS out and also lobbying the Democratic leaders on what cities to close the post offices in so they can make the most money and win compromise, or no compromise. (I think that is a question for Occupy.)
I think closing Post Offices in America's biggest cities would jeopardize National Security by putting stress on the other post office workers in those cities by challenging employee’s attention by creating a lack of concentration while doing more work.
I think the nation's small business community, who use US Post Offices the most out of all businesses, might be forced to travel across town of the biggest cities or ship through Fed-ex or UPS... Let us find out how many congress people have recently invested in these companies.
I would just like the media to ask The White House or Occupy, do not they think it is interesting that Congress wants to close Post Offices only in the nation’s biggest cities and the States biggest cities? Why would that be?
The plan to swap Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has stalled for some time now. Why don't we try something radical (pun intended). Let's lower ourselves to the same level as the Islamos. Tell the Taliban we will execute ten of their buddies in GITMO if they don't release our soldier. That's the language they talk, and respect.
google Remember the Islamo
Why the hell not? The worst that can happen is if they take up arms against the US and we have specialists to deal with that situation and solve it in a permanent fashion.
Regarding women, fetuses, and White House tours got me thinking that with this war on women going on with the wingnuts, along with their insistence that pregnant women must consider their fetuses as full human beings (aka stollaways), to aid the US airline industry should they be required to pay a double fare to fly? What about a pregnant woman presently carrying twins (or an octomom!), would she have declare that fact and pay at least three fares? And if she is even considering having sex prior to her flight, would she have to pay at least an additional half fare?
Re the gas price drop: Yeah, gas has gotten down to $3.59 a gallon in my neck of the woods, when it had previously been around $3.90, mas o menos, a few weeks ago. I've been wondering when the media would take note of this, or when Fox news would spin the life out of it, whichever came first...
In addition to Jonah Goldberg's playing fast and loose with the truth on the dust jacket of his new book, he seems to have deliberately modeled his appearance after Leon Trotsky.
Jonah (scroll all the way down for his dust-jacket pic):
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/jonah_goldberg_pulitzer_book_penguin.php
Trotsky: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/index-new.jpg