Steny Hoyer hypocrisy alert - with #TPM abetting

Per Talking Points Memo, House Minority Whip Hoyer rightly notes that much of the U.S. deficit is due to tax cuts and wars. He/TPM publisher Josh Marshall even have a nice graph of this:

But, what Hoyer doesn't admit, and Marshall (conveniently?) refuses to tell us, is that Hoyer voted FOR the Iraq War, and just six months ago, voted FOR extending all Bush tax cuts.

Texas budget official; time for school suits against Perry?

With the Texas Legislature officially passing a new state budget that, from the start of the current legislative cycle, officially said "eff you" to school districts in the state (among other entities), will we see lawsuits by Texas school districts?

After all, the Rick Perry-sponsored franchise tax revisions are what led us to this point in the first place. And, as bad as they are, to the degree they did help schools, they were in response to previous legal activity against the state.

The shortfall was a result of a business tax that has consistently failed to generate expected revenues and a slump in sales tax receipts. Many commentators said it wouldn't bring in the revenue Perry claimed it would when he drafted its parameters in 2006. And, per the linked story, both Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said they *refused* to consider addressing this issue - five years later.

For public schools, the budget is at least $4 billion short of what districts would be owed for basic operations under current funding formulas. To accommodate the lower spending, the Legislature also is working on a companion measure that would change the formulas so the reduced funding levels are legal.

Note that? Unless the Lege makes the current cuts slashes legal, they ARE ILLEGAL! Can anybody say "ex post facto budgeting"?

Please, Rick, run for president. Even though I would still vote Green, I'd love to see the grudge match between you and Obama (if you made it past the primaries), with the "Texas miracle" getting torn to shreds by public scrutiny.

More about the myth behind that "miracle" here at Salon.

Wouldn't you love to have the Silver Fox, Barbara Bush, quoted against Perry?

Our schools are in crises: We rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma. We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores. We rank 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.

Not crisIS, either, for old Barb, but crisES.

And, that op-ed column by her was in early February, before school districts found out they were going to get this stiffed by the state.

Paul Ryan kidnaps Joe Nocera's brain

How else to explain Nocera's paean to Ryan, even with caveats, about his wisdom on Medicare in light of the NY-26 Congressional special election?

Nocera buries his nutgraf as the last one:

It would be nice if we could treat the Ryan plan not as an object of derision but as a launching off point for a serious debate. That way, maybe for once we could avert a crisis instead of acting shocked when it finally arrives.

Nice? Even if the cost savings of Obamacare are overrated, Ryan's opposed those savings. Ryan would shit bricks on Nocera's desk over the idea of national health insurance regulation, complete with a Washington bureau or agency.

Nocera then refuses to consider Ryan's idea within the larger context of Ryan's Randian political philosophy. And, that's why it is NOT and cannot be, the "launching off point for a serious debate."

Well, so far, Nocera's yet to measure up to the moderate but not too high standards of his NYT columnist predecessor, Frank Rich.

Charles Blow, his colleague, gets it much more nearly right, when he says:

This is not to say that Medicare isn’t in crisis. It is. But, we don’t have to gut it to save it.

But, Ryan wants to gut it. After sucking the brains out of people like Nocera.

Jaguar-nabber off the hook, almost scat-free

I'm surprised, but charges against Janay Brun in the case of the death of Arizona jaguar Macho B have been dropped.

(The dismissal happened) in return for her admission that she was involved in an attempt to capture jaguar Macho B without "authorization or permission."

Brun, a research technician, had already admitted placing female jaguar scat at the site where Macho B was captured, at the orders of Emil McCain, a prominent large-cat biologist.

At least something halfway close to justice seems to have been done; contrary to my earlier fears, the feds didn't shit on Brun. That said, it's said that Thorton Smith, whom I suspect of more than just a moderate cover-up, is immune from prosecution.

I don't think America is 25 percent gay/lesbian

However, that's the estimate of the average American, Gallup says.

I'm not surprised lesser educated think that, but the young? Maybe that's because in that age group, so many more gays and lesbians are out that it leads to overestimates.

And the distribution is interesting, too: not a bell curve, but an exponential curve to the right.

I don't get why Dems and liberals have higher estimates. Perhaps the old Kinsey numbers, plus some of the same things that I noted about younger respondents, are factors. But, it shows that the "reality based community" meme is selective at best and not true at most.

FDR 1936 vs BHO 2012

As President Barack Obama gets ever closer to an official start date for his 2012 presidential campaign and its alleged goal of $1 billion in fundraising, here's some food for thought:

What a difference 75 years makes, eh?