Today's edition of quick hits:
* A suicide bomber launched a deadly attack outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey.
* Clinton departs: "Hillary Rodham Clinton left the State Department on Friday 'confident about the direction that we have set,' handing off the secretary of state's job to former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass."
* Egypt: "Protesters threw incendiary devices over the walls of Egypt's presidential palace during Friday demonstrations against President Mohamed Morsi, leading to clashes with riot police officers that filled the area with tear gas and threatened to deepen Egypt's spiraling political crisis."
* Obama remains an awful socialist: "An encouraging U.S. jobs report propelled blue-chip stocks to their highest level since October 2007 on Friday, closing above the closely watched 14,000 bulwark as investors momentarily sidelined their concerns about the recovery."
* Cabinet: "Energy Secretary Steven Chu will leave office soon, possibly by the end of this month, he told colleagues in an e-mail this morning."
* A brazen murder in Kaufman, Texas: "A county prosecutor in this small town southeast of Dallas was fatally shot on Thursday morning near the courthouse by one or perhaps two gunmen, whom witnesses described as wearing masks, black clothing and tactical-style vests, the authorities said."
* With Defense Secretary Leon Panetta set to testify on Benghazi, it's not yet clear what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will whine about next.
* Sometimes, jobs reports showing a slight uptick in the unemployment rate are cause for concern. Other times, not so much.
* Dave Weigel has a sharp, insightful take on this week's questions surrounding Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).
* The White House remains "very confident" Chuck Hagel will be confirmed. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) announced his opposition today, but said he would not support a filibuster.
* And the former president of the NRA concedes the group has moved even further to the extreme when it comes to universal background checks.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Leave a Comment:
One of the biggest complaints I have about the NRA and their top brass (Lapierre/Keane) is their consistent use of the 2nd amendment as a shield or crutch.
The NRA brandishes the 2nd amendment like it is their rule book or bylaws. They forget that the 2nd amendment is part of a bigger thing called the Constitution which is for the entire country.
Not only that but it's a document that has been changed on several occasions and I'm pretty sure the other changes has some resistance also (freeing slaves...women voting) and we fought through that resistance to do what's right.
Whenever women voted in the last election, there were no bullets being fired when they pulled a lever and nobody got injured. What causes more deaths? Women voting or guns?
Something tells me the NRA would be happy to have slaves and no women voting as long as they can have guns.
The 2nd Amendment was originally written to support "well-regulated militias" for the defense of a free country. But the slaveocracy realized that could mean that their slave-catching militias could be declared illegal, undermining the slaveocracy, so they took the constitutional convention "hostage" (some things never change) and Madison changed "country" to "state" to protect the slave owners from "getting justice" by maintaining their posses of ignorant poor whites who couldn't figure out that defending Ol' Massa's right to own slaves was why their own lives were so poor. (Again, some things never change)
It's really too bad more of the slaveocracy weren't shot out of hand when the Union troops liberated their plantations. It would have killed off the Southern ruling class and changed things significantly.
I saw the segment on Senator Hagel's confirmation last nite.His views are on target.I am a currency investor and have action going on Iraq currency.The country has massive resources in OIL,GOLD,Nat Gas etc.That being said I follow the political activity in Iraq.The country looks as though it may go back to dictatorship under PM Malicki.He is a wannabe dictator. and a puppet of Iran.He was our guy there,but since he is @!$%#te majority,he and his party are punishing the Sunni and Kurd factions.After this debacle is ended,we will end where we started.We will show again as we did in VN that trying to impose democracy on ancient tribal societies is futile.
The same will occur in the afghan war.The corruption there due to drugs etc is as bad as Iraq and Iraq is noted as in the top 3 most corrupt countries on earth!!
We made error in our exit from Iraq in the SFA[Status of forces agreement] does not give us enough clout although we probably have many of our folks in country.The situation for me is fascinating in that it has so many aspects to it.I could write a book...
Bottom line is Chuck is on it correctly...these wars are VN2 and 3...Sad to say.
We should never have been there and you are a slime to be profiting from the invasion of Poland, asswipe.
What did John Kerry know about this attack before we didn't know anything about it?!
-John McCain (Blathering on in approximately 1 week...)
Scott Brown is not running for MA Senate!
Godspeed, Steven Chu. As a physicist (physics student) myself, I've loved having a physicist in the Cabinet.
Bill Nye for Secretary of Energy, anyone?
The Science Guy? Or as a Republican might put it -- the Lies From the Pit of Hell Guy?
Anybody else turned off by the "membership" emails from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee?
I don't mind donating a few dollars for a cause I believe in, but somehow the concept of membership cheapens the process. The DSCC is not Barnes & Nobel or Sam's Club. Those who donate are doing what they can above their civic duty, not looking for discounts when they shop.
I thought it had very bad timing since the Senators failed to pass real filibuster reform.
Do our civic duty and send them a check. Don't be greedy. You'll give liberals a bad name. Obama has saved you $2500 a year in health care insurance premiums, so the least you can do is send him a check.
Shaines,
I understand your feelings on this issue, but it is important to give because of the crazy tea-tards in the House and Senate.
And if trolls come out against it, then it must be a good thing!
Again Donna, with your $2500 in annual health care savings, you would honk everyone would be jumping at he chance to donate.
Yep, rusty nail, everyone should give to as many Democrats as they can to keep kooks like you marginalized.
I thank Obama for positively impacting my bottom line and I do give to as many Democrats as I can as much as I can.
And I also thank Obama for kicking republican @ss and making trolls like you absolutely crazy.
And I thank you for posting your bull@!$%# on this thread, so that everyone here can see what exactly is at stake.
Thank you.
Funny, how you do claim he has helped your bottom line. Could you give some real examples? I did watch the YouTube video where he claims $2500 savings for family because of Obamacare.
My strongest hope is that Obama takes another strong left turn, fairly quickly. That would re-create the atmosphere in place when he bungled the biggest majority known for quite some time.
I, as well, contribute heavily to the democrats cause. Gave them $86000 last year via the IRS.