Another Daily Question

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What's the difference between Goldman Sachs and the Somali pirates?
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The size of their boats....
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Thought for Today

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What's the difference between Goldman-Sachs and Bernie Madoff?
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Besides Bernie already being behind bars, I mean.
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Prairie Recommends: Eugene Robinson on AZ law

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Vengeance is mine, sayeth the rightwing in Arizona... and Governor Brewer and Senator McCain giddyup go along to get along....

Eugene Robinson is must reading today (and when is he not....)
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Pull Up a Chair

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This morning I've been guest-hosting the Pull Up a Chair thread over at Firedoglake. Here's the link. You, too, can contemplate your inner migrant....

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Lesson Not Learned....

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In Arizona.
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Pastor Martin Niemoller's words. Anyone listening?

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
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Prairie Recommends: JK Rowling on true patriotism

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Ooooh, this essay by J.K. Rowling is wonderful.

I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.

Every bit as much of a must-read as her Harry Potter series.

h/t and thanks to Phoenix Woman at FDL for the milemarker
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Wear Blue

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Today is Wear Blue for Child Abuse Prevention Day. April is National Child Abuse Prevention month. Wear Blue. And take care of the children.

Three decades ago I tried to write a true crime story and was overwhelmed by the life story of one child named Sarah. There was no Wear Blue day back then, there were little resources. And she died at the hands of her own father. The story haunts me still. It's the unfinished business of my writerly self.

Now, there is hope and resources...and there is, sadly, too much to do, but today we can start. Wear blue. And learn more. And vow that you will help assure the little children should suffer no more.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

The Elephant at the Tea Party

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The NY Times poll demographics prove it: the Tea Party is "Dick" Armey and his ilk. White. Male. Older. Republican. I'd toss in greedy and selfish, but that's just me.

So who are they really mad at? Barack Obama? 'cause they sure weren't complaining while Dubya drove the deficit wagon, so the arguments they're mad about financial issues ring hollow.

Or the black man at the head of the RNC?

Or any black man in a seat of power?

Just askin'.
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The Enemy Within?

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Thought for today courtesy a comment thread over at Thinkprogress:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

–Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator

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You betcha.

Pulitzers Due Today

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Read here about the subtext of the Pulitzers — their role in investigative journalism. Not just honoring, but also settting markers that may guide future journalism.

The announcement is this afternoon, and we'll update.

Meanwhile....

UPDATE Here's the list: 2010 Pulitzers
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The 70% Solution

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Frank Rich cuts through the economist apologist bullpucky with the finesse of a ginsu knife.

"Mistakes were made..." "everyone believed...."

Maybe the denialist crowd Rich weaves together, including Rubin and Greenspan and the whole WMD platoon, can gather where East meets West and spare us all further spewings of their self-serving sludge.

I believe the word is seppuku.
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Get Over It, You Lost

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Once again, Jon Stewart cuts through the Confederacy nostalgia claptrap and gets it right.

CW was 145 years ago. South lost. Get over it.

Happy Union Appreciation Month!

And the best part is, Happy Union Appreciation Month works for all kinds of occasions. Maybe the workers at the hotel where the RNC partiers are gathering could pass out commemorative buttons.
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Number 1 Story

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Via Countdown's replay of Senator Tom Coburn's town hall, we learn the Aussie Emperor Rupert Murdoch has no clothes...and Fox may be foxy, but it's full o'crap [my translation].

So have the Republicans finally awakened to the fact that the Fox tail is wagging them?

And David Frum had it right.
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