Open Thread

"Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they favor giving citizenship to those who came here illegally and now hold jobs. Support jumped to 76% for a plan that required immigrants to pay fines, back taxes and pass a security check, among other measures, to gain citizenship. Bipartisan legislation now being written in the Senate could open a pathway to citizenship with similar requirements."

Anglin is one of the first, small batch of Philadelphia parents to join a national "opt-out" movement - a grass-roots rebellion against the outsized role that standardized tests like the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) play in the day-to-day classroom experience, in the closure of urban schools rated as "failing," and in stressing out both students and their teachers, whose careers may soon ride on the results.

And all of [the Hillary in 2016 talk] does something else: it sends the chill wind of a potential 16 years of Democrats in the White House, along with a Supreme Court where the justices actually do justice, through the fevered right-wing swamps of the Clinton-haters and the Obama-abominators who see the white-male dominated America of their imagining fading away. My colleague, friend, and podcast sparring partner David Frum is certainly not among them—instead he's offered the GOP perceptive counsel, fortunately spurned so far and perhaps indefinitely, about how to remake the party in substance as well as style. Now, however, on CNN and in The Daily Beast, he has weighed in with advice for Democrats and Clinton herself: She would be "a mistake for 2016." It is a provocative, fresh, and seemingly well-argued piece—but it's just plain wrong.

Said spokesman Andy Shapero: "It's been 125 years since our last bearded President, Benjamin Harrison, was elected. We're hoping that with our support, bearded individuals will shrug off over a century of political irrelevance and start running for office again."

"If we gave our voters an accurate portrayal of our ideas, that we want to cut the rate of growth on Social Security, give tax cuts to billionaires and then the values issues, the values issues would be more popular than the economic agenda of the current Republican Party.”

Does ... any of the idiot conservatives who repeat this nonsense ad infinitum [that families have to balance their budgets] have any clue how people manage their budgets? They use credit cards, which is debt. They get mortgages, which is debt. They get student loans, which is debt. They get car loans, which is debt. And let's not get started on businesses and their leveraged debts. So if Republicans want Washington to act like American families do, then we're already there!

U.S. household consumer debt profile: Average credit card debt: $15,266 Average mortgage debt: $149,667 Average student loan debt: $32,559 vs Income: $44,389 So, if we balanced the budget the same way households do, the federal debt to income ratio would be: 78/22 = 3.5/1 But it's currently approximately 1.7/1 So, if the Republicans actually meant what they said, we should be on a debt spending spree like never seen before in the history of the nation.