House GOP Priorities Include a Continuation of the War on Women

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Rescuing anon's comment from the Open Thread, Paul Ryan has decided that his first signature act of this new Congress would be to cosponsor a bill that would give legal rights to a zygote. Bills like this were roundly defeated everyplace they came up in 2012, if they even survived legal challenges. So this is the signal, right? That the GOP intends to beat their own record for the Worst Congress Ever.

The GOP’s radical embrace of nullification

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Last fall Steve Benen wrote about the GOP's attempts to nullify federal law related to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by refusing to vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the agency. My take is that the GOP's radical embrace of nullification has become their standard operating procedure and they flat out don't give a flying fuck about the effects that it could have on the country or the Constitution. If it "hurts" the President - they are for it. If it "helps" the President they are not only against it - but they are willing to go to war over it.

Thursday Open Thread [1.10.13]

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President Obama nominates his Chief of Staff, Jack Lew, to head the Treasury Department and the Republicans are having a fit. Why? Jon Chait has the answer:
Lew’s disqualification, according to numerous Republicans quoted in the story, is that he doesn’t agree with Republicans on public policy issues. The quotes are sort of amazing:

Johanns said it’s also about policy, saying a Lew choice would be “controversial.”

Thursday Daily Delawhere [1.10.13]

Hockessin Friends Meeting House, on Old Wilmington Road in Hockessin. The meetinghouse was built in 1738. General Charles Cornwallis' troops are known to have spent a night here. Those traitorous Quakers!

Wednesday Open Thread [1.9.13]

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When can you say an idea is gaining momentum? The WSJ had an essay on Saturday calling the War on Drugs a Failure. To be sure, this essay did not appear on the famously wingnutty WSJ Opinion page, but still. I'm intrigued by these articles that point out the high cost of some of our worst social decisions -- it is looking like we are trying to give ourselves permission to get smarter and stop throwing so much money down the drain: