National

A: Organized labor is a champion of civil rights, and of our civil liberties. Labor stands for economic justice, a robust middle class and (because of lackluster performance by the Democratic Party) it is the only real check on the rapacious greed of twentieth century capitalism right now. What’s not to like about a movement with such high aspirations?

Genius, Gary Simpson today parrots a Cato Institute report that basically says that we are treating people on welfare too well. Not the corporations on welfare taking down the big buck in the form of tax breaks, mind you. The actual poor people on food-stamps that the Republicans keep saying have too much money.

My point falls in line with the conclusion of the Cato report, that “the current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” and that “recipients are likely to choose welfare over work, thus increasing long-term dependence.”

I'll leave it to that left wing outfit, the Wall Street Journal , to completely demolish the Cato Institutes premise that we have created "welfare dependency" (spoiler alert, we haven't. "According to the latest report on welfare dependency (covering 2009, the worst year of the recession), about 4.6% of the population received more than half of its income from the three main means-tested welfare programs: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps and supplemental security income. That’s up from 2007, when about 3.5% were dependent on welfare.")

For wingnuts, up is the new down. Trying to make sense out of what passes for commentary among wignuts is a mug's game. They hate President Obama with a white hot passion. The President is horrible, trying to accrue king like powers to himself in pursuit of a socialist kingship. But wait...this horrible President suddenly needs to hurry up and act more kingly with respect to Congress, or socialism and chaos will ensue. Because socialism flows from collaboration, (which in this case is a trick because he is trying to put congress in the scapegoat seat with this phony collaboration.) Get it? No? Me neither. Suffice it to say, because of Obama nefarious tricks, future Republican Presidents will not be able to bomb the world's brownish people on a whim. The horror!

The Syria talks seems to assume that bombing or turning a blind eye to atrocities are our only two choices. That, obviously, isn't true.

The best interim solution could be a UN-monitored ceasefire as briefly occurred under the Kofi Annan plan in 2012. All sides are dependent on outside backers, and even those who most want to fight need weapons, ammunition and money. Heavy pressure could be put on them to agree to a peace conference and a temporary ceasefire. This would be a Lebanese-style truce – unsatisfactory but better than full-scale war. A peace conference on this basis could be the political and diplomatic counterpart to the limited US military strike President Obama is contemplating. In practice there has been a stalemate in most of Syria for the last year. If the Syrian army did use poison gas, it shows it does not have the strength to retake even the inner rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. It is better therefore for the battle lines to be frozen under some form of UN supervision. Long-term solutions will only begin to be feasible when Syrians are no longer at the mercy of what Northern Ireland politicians used to call "the politics of the last atrocity".

Absent anyone saying that they actually want to be Delaware's next Lt Governor, "Other" (14%) had a pretty good showing in spite of a fairly long list of choices. (Nicole Poore in the house!) Flowers (D) 31% appears to be Mr. Inevitable in the view of DL readers. Peterson (14%) and Biden (11%) round out the Dems top three. (Who thinks Biden is eyeing the Lt. Gov epaullets? Not me.) The R's historcally shallow bench (thanks again Christine O.!) forces Copeland (4%) to the top of the GOPeeps. Bonini (3%) Protack (2%) and Lawson (1%) all fail to come in last.

I'm going to call this ruling the "GO F-Yourself Alabama!" rule. IRS Announces "State of Celebration" Rule to Determine Validity of Same-Sex Marriages for Federal Tax Purposes As a follow-up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent DOMA decision requiring that same-sex marriages be treated like opposite sex marriages for purposes of federal laws, the Internal Revenue Service will apply a "state of celebration" rule for purposes of determining whether a couple is married. Same-sex couples legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages will be treated as married for federal tax purposes[.]

While the teabagger dreams of a no holds barred apocalyptic debt ceiling fight that would leave Obamacare defunded and the having the budget balanced on the strength of Paul Ryan's tax-cut magic beans seem to be fading, I read this story of how the wingnuts WANTED it to go down, and it is "the crazy." Here is the deal. In the January following Obama's reelection, conservative lobby groups were worried that House Republicans would lose their resolve to fight Obamacare on the beaches, on the seas and oceans, and in the air, whatever the cost may be.. (This is before the rise of Ted Cruz and the GOP Senators move to into the wingnut limelight.) So Michael Needham, the CEO of Heritage Action for America, and Chris Chocola, a former congressman and now president of the Club for Growth were let into a super secret meetings of a group of hardcore nutbags led by Paul Ryan. The group - no shit - called themselves the "Jedi Council." The council used their mind control powers to persuade the wingnut lobby groups that they had a plan to crush the ACA. It was a plan that kicked off at the GOP retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia.

I find it very interesting that both political parties are pulled in two different directions (and sometimes three) on the issue of Syria. On the Democratic side, you have the peace movement, the adherents to which believe the use of any military action anywhere is wrong and should never be pursued, even for humanitarian reasons. And then you have the Liberal Do-Gooders, who sometimes want to be the world's policemen to stop atrocities like what happened in Yugoslavia and the Rwanda in the 1990's, and what is happening now in Syria. And then you have those Liberal Warhawks who believe, just as most Republicans do, that the military option is generally preferable as the first tool of our foreign policy, not the last resort. The difference between them and the Neocons on the Republican side who believe the same is that Liberal Warhawks are generally followers, scared and scarred into sounding and acting tough on foreign policy through the experience of Vietnam and Republican attacks on "Democratic weakness" that followed. On the Republican side, you have the aforementioned Neocons, who literally are war pigs. They want to be at war all the time. This is not hyperbole. They wanted to invade Baghdad in 1991. And again in 1998. They truly want the American flag flying over the capitals of all the world, but most importantly, in the Middle East. There is not a war they will not fight, or a fight that they will not turn into a war. They dominate the Republican Party, and they have scared many Democrats into acting the same way as well. This group was born during World War II, got high off American superiority then and during the Cold War, and now believe that if America is not leading the fight and winning a war everywhere, it is losing everywhere. Making more noise recently is the other force at work in the Republican Party: the libertarians, which I think includes the former isolationists or non-interventionists. I will let Steve Newton take it away....