National

According to NPR, President Obama scoffed at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) suggestion that he would, on Day 1, revoke any nuclear agreement with Iran if he is elected president. Said Obama: “It would be a foolish approach to take and perhaps Mr. Walker — after he’s taken some time to bone up on foreign policy — will feel the same way.” LOL. Talk about some shade being thrown by the President. I will love if he actively stays involved in the GOP primary. It will drive them literally insane, and benefit Hillary all the more.

Can we stop pretending that Duke is a University and just admit that it is a minor league feeder for the NBA? For that matter can we just stop pretending that Division I athletes are students and not employees? While we are at it, let's tax these extremely wealthy corporations. In the meantime, I endorse this Claire McCaskill tweet:

"Congrats to Duke, but I was rooting for team who had stars that are actually going to college & not just doing semester tryout for NBA," tweeted McCaskill.

So Jeb Bush lied on his 2009 voter registration form and claimed that he, John Ellis Bush, was Hispanic. Yeah, that's going to play well in both the Tea Party and Latino community.

Easter day is "so beautiful, and so ugly because of the rain," Pope Francis said during his Sermon on Easter Day to a Roman crowd being drenched in rain. Thankfully, here in Delaware, it looks to be a sunny and relatively warm day. The Pope made his first public comments about the recent Iranian accord, and aimed at ensuring Iran doesn't develop a nuclear weapon.

"In hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world." Decrying the plentitude of weapons in the world in general, Francis said: "And we ask for peace for this world subjected to arms dealers, who earn their living with the blood of men and women." He denounced "absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence" in Libya, convulsed by fighting fueled by tribal and militia rivalries. He hoped "a common desire for peace" would prevail in Yemen, wracked by civil warfare. Francis prayed that the "roar of arms may cease" in Syria and Iraq, and that peace would come in Africa for Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan and Congo. He recalled the young people, many of them targeted because they were Christians, killed last week in a Kenyan university, and lamented kidnappings, by Islamic extremists, that have plagued parts of Africa, including Nigeria. He also cited bloodshed closer to home, in Ukraine, praying that the Eastern European nation would "rediscover peace and hope thanks to the commitment of all interested parties." Government forces have been battling Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, months after a cease-fire was proclaimed following international diplomatic efforts.

So much for the notion that President Obama has no foreign policy legacy. Ryan Grim noted some of the notable recent breakthroughs:

The deal with Iran comes two months after Obama announced a warming of relations with Cuba, another longtime U.S. foe. […] In November, Obama, during a trip to China, surprised observers with a bilateral climate change deal that puts China on a path to reduced emissions. American opponents of acting to stave off climate change have long used China as a reason not to act, arguing that whatever the U.S. does will be overshadowed by the coal-heavy nation.

Steve Benen elaborates on both the President's success and setbacks in foreign policy....

Ed Kilgore:

[C]onservatives have little choice but to accept legal and political setbacks over marriage equality, but they’re making it as clear as ever that given the opportunity they’d reverse those trends, ban gay marriage all over again and probably bring back the sodomy laws to boot. Look at the huge field of Republican proto-candidates for president. Do any of them actually support marriage equality? Sure, they’ll not talk about it or mumble about it being a state matter or engage in various other evasions, but they’re a long way from “surrendering.” And that’s even more obvious on the abortion issue where (a) the only meaningful difference among 99% of Republican politicians is about whether 99% or 100% of abortions should be banned; (b) Republican controlled state governments are beavering away at new restrictions that strike mainly at the availability of any abortion services; and (c) the right to choose hangs by a thread in a Supreme Court that any Republican President would be lynched for failing to tilt with his or her next appointment into a reversal of Roe v. Wade. All this weepy talk of being attacked while trying to surrender also misses the even more obvious point that conservatives are hardly impotent politically; they do sorta control Congress and a majority of states. So no, there’s no real “surrender” going on here, and Lord knows conservatives aren’t withdrawing from political combat[.] What they are doing is better understood as a strategic retreat: unable to outlaw or (increasingly) even to stigmatize gay behavior as a matter of law, they’re working to protect private discrimination. It’s what a big part of their constituency expects of them, and it’s the obvious next front—not some sort of Appomattox—in the culture wars.

That is why we progressives must be relentless in destroying anyone and everyone we find to be a bigot. There must be no mercy.

The bill passes 11-9 and moves onto the the House. According to the NJ, the bill survived attempts by Pete Schwartzkopf to undo the repeal bill and add a weighted scale of death significance, with police deaths rated as the most significant.

NATIONAL--PRESIDENT--REPUBLICAN PRIMARY--Washington Post-ABC News: Bush 20, Cruz 13, Walker 12, Paul 9, Huckabee 8, Carson 7, Rubio 7, Christie 6, Perry 2, Santorum 2, Fiorina 1, Graham 1, Jindal 1, Kasich 1 CRUZMENTUM!!!! Another poll from PPP also finds Cruz skyrocketing into the high teens at 16%. NATIONAL--PRESIDENT--Washington Post-ABC News: Clinton 54, Bush 40; Clinton 58, Cruz 37; Clinton 55, Walker 38; Clinton 55, Rubio 38 Those are 49 state numbers right there.

Wealthy job creators and large corporations get huge tax cuts. They plow that money back into the economy and, Bango! Your government is sitting on big budget surpluses. That's what was supposed to happen. It never worked, and it was complete horseshit from the get go. However, supply-side die hards claimed that it had never been fully implemented because pesky liberal Keynesians kept the government from cutting taxes as deeply as they needed to be cut in order to unleash this economic marvel. This time it would be different. This time Kansas would lead the way and prove the ability of tax cuts alone to drive an economic revival. This time the Keynes lovers will be shut up, but good.

12 years after invading Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity in the middle east, Dick Cheney's dreams of a region rebuilt on the principles of free market capitalism and Jeffersonian democracy have not yet been fully realized.

The Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen threatens to turn what has been a civil war between competing branches of Islam into a wider regional struggle involving Iran. It could also destroy any hope of stability in Yemen. Even before the Saudis and their Arab allies started the bombing, Yemen was in severe distress; on Tuesday, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights warned that it is now on the brink of collapse.