This thread and the health insurance reform law have something in common: they are both a big f---ing deal. So are the links.

• The fourth annual Earth Hour happened yesterday. Did you participate?
• Take a look at some tweets from Glenn Beck here, here, and here, just to name a few. thereisnospoon encapsulates my thoughts perfectly on this. It's really creepy. Wait--of course it's creepy. It's Glenn Beck.
• Sports note: with its gutsy win yesterday, Butler University will play a Final four game in its hometown of Indianapolis. The last team to be so fortunate? UCLA's undefeated national championship team in 1972, which won it all at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
• If you read nothing else this weekend, read Frank Rich in the New York Times--because the rage isn't about health care. An excerpt:

  The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

  That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care.

  And that's just a small bit. Just read the whole thing.

• Per David Dayen at the FDL News Desk, we may be just a few weeks away from a vote to end taxation without representation for the residents of Washington, DC.
• Bill Maher's new rule:

  New Rule: You can't use the statement "there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year" as a threat if there was no cooperation in the first half of the year. Here's a word the president should take out of his teleprompter: bipartisanship. People only care about that in theory, not in practice. The best thing that's happened this year is when President Obama finally realized this and said, "Kiss my black ass, we're going it alone, George W. Bush style."

  Yeah, what Bill Maher said.

President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev head to a signing ceremony and press conference in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, July 6, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As most of you know, this past week, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev announced something that those of us interested in arms control had been anticipating for almost a year: a new strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty, or New START. Since it will be signed on April 8, 2010 in Prague, some are proposing we call it the Prague Treaty.

On the day of the Obama-Medvedev announcement, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates summed it up:

The subject of America’s nuclear deterrent and this treaty carries special personal meaning for me.  My professional career began as a junior Air Force Officer under the Strategic Air Command, and my first assignment 43 years ago was at Whiteman Air Force Base, then home to 150 Minuteman ICBMs.  Since 1971, I have been involved in strategic arms negotiations in different capacities at CIA and here at the NSC.  And I particularly recall the day President Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Treaty, which marked the transition from arms control to disarmament.  That process accelerated with START and reaches another important milestone with this treaty.

The journey we have taken from being one misstep away from mutual assured destruction to the substantial arms reductions of this new agreement is testimony to just how much the world has changed and all of the opportunities we still have to make our planet safer and more secure.

The first START treaty, START I, was signed by President George H. W. Bush and President Gorbachev in 1991. The Cold War had just ended; the Soviet Union had broken up, and the circumstances under which the treaty was signed were complicated, to say the least.

Since then, a lot has changed in both of our countries, and in our relationship. From the beginning of the Cold War to the present, it has been a rocky road; you can think of the START treaties as appliance maintenance agreements that have to be renewed, while the ownership of this rather large and complicated appliance keeps changing.

That said, the significance of this agreement cannot not be understated. Though it is routine to renew a treaty, it has been done by two presidents who have verbally emphasized their support for nuclear abolition. Finalizing a New START agreement is an important step in this goal.

The Nitty-Gritty: Numbers, Verification, and Missile Defense

Numbers

The White House press release gives the limits on warheads as laid out in New START:

• 1,550 warheads.Warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs count toward this limit and each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments counts as one warhead toward this limit.
  • This limit is 74% lower than the limit of the 1991 START Treaty and 30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.

• A combined limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
• A separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
  • This limit is less than half the corresponding strategic nuclear delivery vehicle limit of the START Treaty.

Nuclear arms control analyst Pavel Podvig breaks it down further, and uses the word that I've been hearing from many other experts: this is a modest treaty, defining modest reductions. This assessment is based on a number of things, such as the counting rules for warheads (as mentioned by the Federation of American Scientists' Hans Kristensen here, and in the comments at the Nukes of Hazard here).

Verification

I participated in a conference call with senior White House officials on Friday. Part of the discussion involved verification procedures, the specifics of which will become available once the treaty is signed, of course. The officials emphasized that the new treaty builds a strong verification regime (transparency, via inspections, etc.), and that the general importance of having this treaty is:

... if we have this information, that can help us build a more trusting relationship. When you don't have the information, then your natural tendency -- and for some in the US government, it's their obligation -- is to do worst-case scenario planning, to think about the worst, and that leads to a dangerous spiral, and unintended consequences. So that's the first thing.

I asked a specific question about the role of ballistic missile test data (telemetry) discussions in the overall New START negotiations. They said this was, indeed, a sticking point during the negotiations; the bigger picture is:

[Telemetry is] a valuable tool, and ultimately what we decided to do was include telemetry here, as basically a confidence-building and transparency measure, even though it's not required specifically to monitor this particular treaty.

So it's a positive sign that we were ultimately come to an agreement to put it into the treaty, even though there's no specific requirement to have it in the treaty.

Missile defense

Let me just say this loudly and clearly, so the people over at the Heritage Foundation can hear it:

There will be no constraints on missile defense in the New START treaty.

One of the biggest roadblocks encountered in the treaty negotiations was probably the Russian concerns about our new ballistic missile defense plans. As I learned from senior White House officials, there will be some language in the treaty preamble acknowledging an interrelationship between offensive and defensive missiles, but there will be no constraints on our missile defense system. They very specifically said that "The statements are not unilateral statements." and that we have not agreed to any unilateral statements, though they have been discussed, and there has been some attempt to plant seeds of concern about such statements.

The White House officials also emphasized the rather significant role the two presidents played in the treaty negotiations. When things got tense regarding missile defense, President Obama called President Medvedev and warned him that we'd have to walk away from the treaty if Medvedev insisted on limitations on missile defense. This effectively broke the logjam, and the treaty negotiations gained momentum from there.

One final missile defense note: please read more about New START and missile defense in Kingston Reif's March 3, 2010 post at the Nukes of Hazard. Although he wrote it before the treaty was finalized, it's still applicable, and outlines why the meme that "missile defense will derail New START" is an overblown concern.

The Big Picture: Why Is New START Important?

I asked Daryl Kimball, the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, exactly that question. What's the larger significance of New START? His answer:

The big picture is that the United States and Russia have agreed to verifiably slash bloated, Cold War nuclear arsenals, and to maintain a system of monitoring and verification to ensure both sides are confident about what one another is doing. That's critically important towards moving towards a world without nuclear weapons, maintaining better US-Russian relations, opening the possibility for cooperation between the US and Russia in other important areas, and pressing other countries, whether they have nuclear weapons, they don't have them, or they're thinking about having them, to do their part.

Although the limits defined in the treaty are being called "modest", finalizing the treaty itself is something that was absolutely critical, and had to be done. The overarching theme is that we need the treaty not just as a stabilizing force between the world's two largest nuclear powers, but as an example to other countries.

The story doesn't end here, of course. The US Senate and the Russian Duma both have to ratify the treaty, which is a whole other issue. There is bipartisan support in the US (see Senator Kerry's statement, and Senator Lugar's statement, as well as John Isaacs' comments here). But, as we all know, every issue taken up in the Senate these days is a huge battle, and although the treaty explicitly does not limit missile defense, you can be sure that there will be considerable argument over it anyway.

We'll know more details when the treaty text is available, of course. We'll also learn more when the Nuclear Posture Review comes out, hopefully in a few weeks.

In the meantime, keep in mind the long road taken to get to this treaty, and how much the world has changed. We still have thousands upon thousands of nuclear weapons, which is why arms reduction treaties are so critical. Without having them in place, with their verification procedures, there is no way to trust that what other countries are doing is legitimate.

Treaties build trust. I'm very glad that New START will be signed soon, but we've got to get it through the Senate. It's critical to our national security that we do it as quickly as possible.

Gays in the military?  Bad for morale and unit cohesion. Sexual assaults against women? Oh well. It's a problem, but hey, it's not that bad a problem.  

The Department of Defense released an annual report on Tuesday showing an 11 percent increase in reports of sexual assault in the military over the past year, including a 16 percent increase in reported assaults occurring in combat areas, principally Iraq and Afghanistan.

And in case you think the majority of the 3,230 reports filed were relatively harmless cases -- you know, inappropriate jokes or the occasional playful ass-grab -- actually, no.  

In the report, sexual assault was defined as rape, sodomy and other unwanted sexual contact, including touching of private body parts. It did not include sexual harassment, which is handled by another office in the military.

This isn't a new problem; in fact, it gets worse every year. It's so bad, there's even a name for it: Military Sexual Trauma. And the Department of Veterans Affairs offers treatment for it.

Maybe that's why the military has devoted April to Sexual Assault Awareness Month. This year's theme? "Hurts one. Affects all." As in, Hey, soldier, you might want to rape that soldierette, but before you do, ask yourself, Is this wrong? How much will this bum out my fellow comrades in arms when they have to lie on my behalf because some chick wants to make a federal case out of my raping her in the battlefield?

Despite its failure to prosecute the vast majority of reported cases, the military has been lauded (mostly by itself) for attempting to address this problem. After all, they give it a Month and everything. And yet, the numbers increase every year. Naturally, the Pentagon doesn't see it that way. This 11 percent increase doesn't actually represent an increase in incidents, according to the Pentagon, but rather, it's a reflection of the great work the Pentagon has done to encourage victims of sexual assault to come forward. Maybe if it increases another 11 percent next year, the Pentagon will throw itself a ticker tape parade.

The Pentagon offered no evidence that reporting rather than sexual assault itself was on the rise in the military, and there have been reports in recent years suggesting that the strains between men and women in close quarters in war zones have exacerbated the problem.

Obviously, the stress of warfare has really taken a toll on the ability of men in the military to resist that all-too-natural instinct to rape the hell out of their female colleagues to blow off a little steam at the end of a long, hard battle. But fortunately, the Pentagon has a brochure about that. And we all know the most effective way to combat sexual assault is with brochures.

But despite the brochures, the training, and the special month, the military is largely ineffective at curbing this problem. A 2007 study found that in more than half of the reported incidents, no action is taken. Those who do come forward often face retribution and are threatened with criminal prosecution for filing false reports. Meanwhile, their attackers rarely face charges.

In other words, the military is more willing to lose a female service member who dares to come forward to report a crime than a male service member who actually commits a crime. Take the case of an Army reserve sergeant in Pennsylvania, who was accused of rape but only convicted of the much lesser crime of indecent assault because none of the soldiers who witnessed the rape would cooperate with the investigation. (Maybe the Pentagon should look into designating May as How Not to Obstruct a Criminal Investigation Month.) The sergeant's lawyer was nonetheless disappointed that he was convicted of anything because, "After all, he did serve his country."

This latest study makes a mockery of the military's insistence that unit cohesion, above all else, takes priority in establishing policy. No panels have been convened, no studies commissioned, to examine whether the military should consider banning straight men. Where is the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy to ensure military readiness by excluding rapists?

In fact, if there's one thing this latest study makes perfectly clear, it's that gay members of the military are not the problem. Or, more accurately, they are only 7 percent of the problem. Meanwhile, 87 percent of the reported incidents were about men attacking women. Which means that the medal-wearing bigwigs should focus much less on whether gay members of the military are going to feminize the glories of battle, and instead figure out how to reform the military culture -- a culture that discourages honest reporting, protects the aggressors, blames the victims, and pretends that the biggest concern, when it comes to inappropriate sexual behavior in the military, is not just how many women are attacked, but whether the ones who attack them are gay.

Because apparently, women in uniform think, If I'm gonna get raped while serving my country, please let it not be by a closeted gay man. 'Cause that would really be bad for morale.  

When the banks failed, stock market tanked, and the TARP money rolled out in the last months of the Bush administration, books on the topic were right behind. But even when those books weren't facile in their analysis, they were generally lacking in the one thing that makes for a compelling read: a good narrative that cuts to the heart of the problem. Without a coherent presentation of the central issues, reading about credit default swaps and mortgage valuation formulas can be a little daunting. And boring. And really quite pointless.

But now we're getting what might be considered the "second generation" of books on the financial crisis. Not only do these books provide a better narrative of the names and motivations behind the mess, they provide some idea of what we might do next. Most of all, they recognize something that's still slow to dawn on most people, especially if they're looking at the relatively rosy results from the stock market -- the financial crisis isn't over, and the real problems are still in our future.

13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson and James Kwak is one of these second round volumes, and reading it shouldn't just be a wakeup call, but a call to arms.

Their story begins with a meeting that took place in March of 2009. The stock market was down 40%, the shares in major banks were down as much as 95% despite billions in bailouts. And the banks were still handing out millions in bonuses to the executives who had caused the problems.

That Friday in March, thirteen bankers — the CEOs of thirteen of the country's largest financial institutions — gathered at the White House to meet with President Barack Obama. "Help me help you," the president urged the group. Meeting with reporters later, they toed the party line. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs summarized the president's message: "Everybody has to pitch in. We're all in this together."  ...

What did that mean, "we're all in this together"? It was clear that the thirteen bankers needed the government. Only massive government intervention, in the form of direct investments of taxpayer money, government guarantees for multiple markets, practically unlimited emergency lending by the Federal Reserve, and historically low interest rates, had prevented their banks from following Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia into bankruptcy or acquisition in extremis. But why did the government need the bankers?

Any modern economy needs a financial system, not only to process payments, but also to transform savings in one part of the economy into productive investment in another part of the economy. However, the Obama administration had decided, like the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations before it, that it needed this financial system — a system dominated by the thirteen bankers who came to the White House in March. ...

Despite the central role of these banks in causing the financial crisis and the recession, Barack Obama and his advisers decided that these were the banks the country's economic prosperity depended on.

It was at that meeting that President Obama told the bankers that he was "the only thing between you and the pitchforks." He demanded that bankers drop the bonuses and practices that were enraging the public and support new regulations. The bankers all may have nodded their agreement that day, but once they were back on Wall Street, they ignored the president and everyone else. How could they get away with it?

By March 2009, the Wall Street banks were not just any interest group. Over the past thirty years, they had become one of the wealthiest industries in the history of the American economy, and one of the most powerful political forces in Washington. Financial sector money poured into the campaign war chests of congressional representatives. Investment bankers and their allies assumed top positions in the White House and the Treasury Department. Most important, as banking became more complicated, more prestigious, and more lucrative, the ideology of Wall Street — that unfettered innovation and unregulated financial markets were good for America and the world — became the consensus position in Washington on both sides of the political aisle.

They got away with it because what George Bush senior once referred to as "voodoo economics" has become not just mainstream, but the foundation of our system. The Wall Street influence was not just in the money that was driving campaigns, it was in the people. Wall Street was no longer just exerting pressure on Washington, Wall Street was Washington. The same people, moving back and forth between the Hill and the Street through one administration after another. The regulators who were supposed to be controlling Wall Street didn't miss the warning signs because they were stupid, they missed them because they were Wall Street people, brought up on the same Wall Street ideas as the people driving toward a leveraged and packaged disaster. Wall Street didn't believe they could be regulated, and neither did the people who were supposed to regulate them.

Even after the disaster, that attitude hasn't changed.

The political influence of Wall Street helped create the laissez-faire environment in which the big banks became bigger and riskier, until by 2008 the threat of their failure could hold the rest of the economy hostage. That political influence also meant that when the government did rescue the financial system, it did so on terms that were favorable to the banks. What "we're all in this together" really meant was that the major banks were already entrenched at the heart of the political system, and the government had decided it needed the banks at least as much as the banks needed the government. So long as the political establishment remained captive to the idea that America needs big, sophisticated, risk-seeking, highly profitable banks, they had the upper hand in any negotiation. Politicians may come and go, but Goldman Sachs remains.

If this sounds disheartening, that's just the start.  Johnson and Kwak take a look at the type of proposals now being put forth by Senator Dodd and conclude (quite convincingly) that they're almost completely worthless. The consumer protections aren't a bad idea, they just don't come close to addressing the real issue at the heart of the problem.

The problem is that the banks are still as large as they ever were. In fact, thanks to the buyouts of their failed neighbors using loans that we provided, they're bigger. Citigroup currently has over $2.5 trillion in assets. There's absolutely no evidence that banks need to be even a twentieth of this size to compete internationally, and there's certainly no evidence that the existence of such banks is good for the economy. The only thing that's certain is that banks this large provide a huge and looming risk. They are able to take any chance no matter how ridiculous, ignore any warning, reward their executives with a lavishness that would make Caligula blush, and at the end of the day come cap in hand, sure that the government will bail them out.

The solution that Johnson and Kwak propose is one that has been suggested by many others -- make the banks smaller. Use anti-trust regulation to break up these enormous banks, and set new limits so that no bank ever again has such a stranglehold on our nation that it becomes immune to its own stupidity.

The trouble with that solution is that, thirty years on from "morning in America," America has forgotten what reasonable regulation looks like. Reagan-Rand-Greenspan-Gramm economics defines our limits. We're two generations deep into "government is the problem," and the people who believe it are not only waving "moran" signs on main street, they're wearing pin stripes on Wall Street -- and in Washington. Even though we can directly point at the deregulations that allowed this cancer to grow, suggesting that we need to put those regulations back is now viewed as a shockingly radical idea by bankers, economists, and politicians who've somehow become convinced that "unregulated free markets" are somehow engraved in our constitution. The regulations being put forth by Senator Dodd have as much chance of stopping the next round of speculation and collapse as a Dixie cup does of holding Niagara.

Preventing another massive meltdown doesn't just demand that we roll back deregulation. It demands that we roll back the kind of thinking that led to deregulation. The safeguards put in place after the Great Depression saw us through decades of relative stability despite staggering changes and challenges on the world stage. Removing those guard rails has brought us the savings and loan disaster, two major crashes of the markets, and now a fiscal disaster that's still in its opening stages.

If we can't find our sanity, and the nerve to take the wheel away from the money-drunk drivers steering our economy, there is no government in the world large enough to bail out what happens next.

In the United States, we like to think that oligarchies are a problem that other countries have. The term came into prominence with the consolidation of wealth and power by a handful of Russian businessmen in the mid-1990s; it applies equally well to other emerging market countries where well-connected business leaders trade cash and political support for favors from the government. But the fact that our American oligarchy operates not by bribery or blackmail, but by the soft power of access and ideology, makes it no less powerful. We may have the most advanced political system in the world, but we also have its most advanced oligarchy.

Sunday funnies. Spring has sprung and the sky is a little bluer, the grass a little greener.

WaPo:

Americans overwhelmingly see the new health-care law as a major shift in the direction of the country, but they remain as deeply divided today over the changes as they were throughout the long congressional debate, according to a Washington Post poll...

But there are signs that Democrats have started to rally, with the party's base firming up after intense internal battles over a public insurance option and provisions covering abortion funding. Fifty-six percent of Democrats now "strongly support" the recently enacted health-care changes; last month, 41 percent were solidly behind the proposals. Eight in 10 Democrats now approve of the way Obama is handling health care, the most since last summer.

Obama's overall approval rating is at 53 percent in the poll, about the same as it has been in Post-ABC polls in the past several months; 43 percent disapprove.

PS More on the teabaggers. Want to understand this better? See Frank Rich:

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of "traitor" and "off with his head" at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing  of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to "You lie!" piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan "Take our country back!," these are the people they want to take the country back from.

Season the sauce with some Nate Silver:

What I think we're seeing are sort of two competing frameworks for how voters evaluate the performance of the Congress. One is more literal-minded: do we like the policies that the Congress has enacted or tried to enact? And the Democrats don't score so well there -- the numbers on health care are perhaps marginally improved, but they still aren't very good and perceptions of the Democrats in Congress remain poor overall. On the other hand, voters may also be responding -- perhaps more at a subconscious level -- to the extent to which each party in Congress looks effectual or not. There, the numbers seem to be a bit better for Democrats -- they've at least managed to do what Democrats with large majorities are supposed to do. Moreover, the gains may be coming from relatively important groups, such as independents who would still consider a vote for the Democratic party Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have also gotten some credit for their valiant goal-line stand -- but most of it seems to becoming from Republicans themselves, who were already highly motivated to turn out to vote.

Have some Charlie Cook for dessert:

No matter how talented the pollster, the results of any survey conducted the day after an event ought to be taken with quite a few grains of salt. Nevertheless, the outcome of the Monday night USA Today/Gallup Poll, which checked the nation's pulse less than 24 hours after the House passed its massive health care package, demonstrates that seemingly huge, consequential events can have a rather small impact on public opinion if the topic has been debated ad infinitum.

I'll provide the coffee:

As the dust begins to settle on health care, it’s fair to point out that it’s a long way between now and November. Health reform is no magic bullet for Democrats, no insta-win for Republicans. Some skeptical voters will benefit right away from some things (such as the option of keeping your older kids on your insurance), but even that needs time to sink in. That means in real terms that it would be prudent to be wary of what you read. Too many people are trying to define the results of what reform means politically, in advance, and not enough are trying to analyze them (and even those who are need more time.) It’s likely other factors will be more important to the average voter, and the intensity of Tea Party supporters can’t win elections by itself (right now, the overheated rhetoric is scaring off moderates.)

Thomas Friedman:

This tiff actually reflects a tectonic shift that has taken place beneath the surface of Israel-U.S. relations. I’d summarize it like this: In the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for Israel — has gone from being a necessity to a hobby. And in the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for America — has gone from being a hobby to a necessity. Therein lies the problem.

Maureen Dowd:

Yup, we need a Nope.

A nun who is pope.

The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal.

Nicholas Kristof:

The National Honor Society says that 64 percent of its members — outstanding high school students — are girls. Some colleges give special help to male applicants — yes, that’s affirmative action for white males — to avoid skewed sex ratios.

A new report just issued by the Center on Education Policy, an independent research organization, confirms that boys have fallen behind in reading in every single state. It found, for example, that in elementary schools, about 79 percent of girls could read at a level deemed "proficient," compared with 72 percent of boys. Similar gaps were found in middle school and high school.

And don't miss this Sunday profile of Daily Kos founder and namesake Markos Moulitsas.

On the morning of Tuesday, March 23, President Obama signed into law a bill which will expand health care coverage to more than 30 million currently uninsured Americans.

As Vice President Biden rightly said at the time, it was a big fucking deal.

In fact, it might've been the biggest fucking deal since the dark days of LBJ.

And so, with that in mind, it's hardly surprising that nearly one quarter of all Republicans believe that President Obama may be the Anti-Christ.

Welcome to tonight's rescued diaries! Today's rangers include grog, watercarrier4diogenes, HoosierDeb, sunspark says, and shayera, and jlms qkw lassoed everything together.

• Orinoco plays with and illustrates triangles in Fundamental Understanding of Mathematics LVIII. (jlms qkw)
• Asp analyzes margin notes and praises the polished outcome in Hail to the (editor in) Chief: How Obama transformed a make-or-break speech. (HoosierDeb)
• In a perfect world, this message from Libby Shaw would actually get through (though in this world, we know it most likely won't). Earth to Republicans: We live in a Democracy (sunspark says)
• RvgAqs examines compassion and how it can be used when Answering Christian Distress on HCR. (grog)
• Seeing the HCR fight in a new perspective, Aris D puts on his Gene Roddenberry mask and examines Obama's Fourteen Month Mission: To Boldly Go Where No President has Gone Before... (sunspark says)
• Two of tonight's diaries speak to politics and violence:  dlperry42 shows the long history of Incitement, Threats and Violence: Right-Wing SOP; (watercarrier4diogenes) and In Memory of Norman Bethune looks at long hot summers in Woodstock, Long Hot Summer, & the 18th. (bonus Karl Marx quote) (watercarrier4diogenes)

Tonight's hat tip is to a necessary resource in these times. Bookmark/hotlist it for use later when you encounter that revisionist historian that lurks in your family tree.
pinback provides a valuable analysis of How we got here: the Republican budget deficit. (watercarrier4diogenes)

This evening's extras are:
jotter has High Impact Diaries: March 26, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 3-27-10 – Losing Battle Edition.

Please join us in this open thread by suggesting your own favorite diaries from today, sharing the latest news, and playing nicely together.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/22/2010-3/25/2010. Registered Voters. MoE 2.8% (Last week's results in parentheses):

Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.

There are weeks where it is exceedingly difficult to try to divine a trend or a notable point of data in the week-to-week changes in the Daily Kos State of the Nation tracking poll.

Quite clearly, this is not one of those weeks.

The Democrats get a big boost out of the week in which they managed to finally pass a comprehensive health care reform package. Everyone except Harry Reid sees gains, and fairly notable ones.

Most of that gain, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes from the base. For example, a key component in the three-point net gain for the Congressional Democrats was a ten-point bump among Democrats, where the favorability among the base rose above 70% for the first time in recent memory.

An interesting contrast, incidentally, develops on the other side of the partisan ledger.

As you see above, the GOP delegation in Congress took an absolute drubbing this week, losing a net seven points of favorability for the week. What's noteworthy about that drop, however, is that it happened in equal measure between Democrats (where the net drop was nine points) and Independents (where the net drop was also nine points).

What is equally noteworthy is the fact that the Republican base did not rise to their feet in applause in quite the same way. Perhaps what the GOPers in Congress thought was noble obstruction was viewed by their own base as...well...futility. While the Democrats in Congress picked up a net of ten points of favorability with their base this week, the GOPers picked up just a single point, and actually saw their unfavorabilities increase by one point.

Independents, while fairly blunt in their assessment of Congressional Republicans this week, did not offer much in terms of swing in their opinion of Congressional Democrats. The net favorability of the Blue team rose, but only by a single point.

The contrast between the relative steadiness of Independent views on Congressional Dems with the starkly negative response towards the GOP in Congress clearly proves false the conventional wisdom that building an entire campaign rationale around obstruction is a recipe for adoration among Independent voters.

The reconsideration of the Republican Party among Independent voters extended to our variation of the generic Congressional ballot, as well. The Democrats move out to a six-point edge (48-42), buoyed by the fact that the GOP dropped from 43% of the vote among Independents down to 40% (the Dems picked up a point to pull even at 40% among Indies).

The polarization among hard-core partisans is also evident in the wake of the health care battles. The GOP can only manage 5% of the Democratic vote, while the Democrats do even worse, only drawing 4% of the Republican electorate.

Perhaps most importantly was the point covered yesterday by Markos. The single statistic that could best be described as a game-changer is the marked narrowing of the enthusiasm gap, which had been growing steadily for months and was instrumental in the upset GOP win in Massachusetts in January.

More than approval ratings, or even the margins on the generic ballot test, that is going to be the statistic to watch in this election cycle.

This kind of stuff needs to stop:

Bricks were thrown through the windows of the Albemarle County GOP headquarters overnight in what appears to be the Charlottesville area’s latest act of politically fueled vandalism.

County GOP Chairwoman Rachel Schoenewald arrived at the office in the Albemarle Square shopping center Friday morning to find three windows shattered.

Whoever is responsible for this is engaging in a disturbing cycle that must end, no matter what their motive might be. Earlier this week, propane gas lines at the home of Congressman Tom Periello's brother were maliciously severed after tea partiers posted the brother's address. Now, we have this. It doesn't matter if this attack was designed to exact revenge or if it was a faux-attack designed to make it look like both sides are doing it (both are plausible) -- this kind of stuff is unacceptable.

Whatever the motive, violence always begets violence. The only way to stop it is by refusing to participate. Nobody should give in to their impulses of hatred. It is simply not the American way. We all have a responsibility to maintain a civil society. This is our country: we must respect it.

Rachel Schoenwald, the local GOP chairwoman, deserves credit for sending the same message:

“Hopefully, everyone will conduct themselves as community members and that this violence does not escalate or continue,” she said.

Schoenewald declined to blame any particular group, but noted that people are angry on both sides of the political spectrum.

“There are millions of people across the country,” she said. “Many of them are upset, one way or another. I hope this is the last of the violence.”

Indeed. Break the cycle. No matter who is responsible for the violence, stop.

Nothing is more boring than listening to someone talk about an experience they had while playing a game. Nothing. Really, your Aunt Ida and Uncle Jim showing those slides they took at the 1973 Iowa State Fair? Your six year old second cousin tap disco-skating to music from Xanadu? That's Shakespeare compared to the best story that ever started with "I was playing this game and..."

So, yeah, one time I was playing this game. It was 1998 and the game was Ultima Online, the multiplayer game that really defined the idea of an MMORPG. I'd been playing video games since there were video games and role-playing games since before Gygax put the idea in a box, so this game where you could role-play in a medieval world while steering your little character around the screen seemed interesting. But it didn't seem like anything special until a single event told me that the world had changed.

A few weeks into playing with the game on and off, I'd built my doughty warrior up to the point where he was armed with some nifty gear and able to smash monsters that originally would have rent him limb from little cartoon limb. I was feeling pretty good about that. As I was passing through a town, a figure came running up to me. It was another player, a low level player dressed only in rags.

"Can you help me?" he asked. "I've just started playing this game, and this player -- one not as far along as you -- killed me and took all my stuff. He ambushed me right outside of town."

Being exceeding noble, I followed this poor man back to the scene of the crime. Want to guess what happened next? If you think I managed to kill off the criminal and return the victim's gear, please come back when Barney is over. If you think that I fought the good fight and the victim and I became online pals, that's endearing, but no. If you think that as soon as I took ten steps out of town, the "victim's" half-dozen bruiser pals jumped out of hiding, beat me senseless, and took every scrap of my gear and money now you're talking. They killed me, jumped up and down on my corpse, and laughed at me.

And the first thing I did was get angry, and the second thing I did was think "wow, this is going to be huge."

Multiplayer games work on a level that other games don't because, while any game can be frustrating, it takes a human being to make you really, really mad. It also takes a human to make you ecstatically happy, or to share an inside joke, or make you feel that bond of shared experience. Stories about what happened to someone in a game are the most boring stories in the world, unless you were also part of that story. The ability of multiple people to participate together in games, even though they were separated by miles or oceans changed the whole nature of gaming. Subscriptions to that first serious MMO, Ultima Online, peaked at around 250,000.  Everquest, which started in 1999, came close to doubling that number. The next generation of these games would measure their subscribers in the millions, and the current champion -- World of Warcraft -- has more than 11 million subscribers around the world.

Most of these games provide some means of people grouping together -- guilds or alliances. Even when they don't players invent their own means of forming groups, electing leaders, watching out for each other and sharing resources. Each MMO is an experiment in human interaction.

But MMOs aren't the end of social gaming. Every genre of gaming has been transformed by the ability to participate with and against other human players. Even games as action based as first-person shooters are often purchased by gamers more interested into their online multiplayer abilities than their single-player mode.  And more recently a new trend has emerged to shake up the gaming world.

"Casual social games" take advantage of the communication and economic models worked out by MMOs over the years, but substitute some more benign activity -- running a restaurant or candy store -- rather than slaying beasties. The most successful of these games, FarmVille, has only been around since last summer and has already signed up over 82 million active players. There are over twice as many people in FarmVille as there are in Canada.

The success of those initial MMOs spawned a thousand imitators. Social games are generally much cheaper to produce than full-on MMOs, and cheaper to support. So you can only imagine the absolute flood of these games on its way to a browser near you. It's also daunting to contemplate the number of virtual farms, towns, businesses, and empires that will rise and fall as these games come and go in the marketplace. Some of these games will persist long enough and gain enough popularity that the bits and bytes of their worlds will become worth something in this world (my son eventually sold all the holdings of my Ultima Online character for $300 on eBay -- which caused me to think "wow, I spent way too much time on that game"). Most will fade away, packing in their universes with a whimper.

And who knows, some of them might be good. Fun. Enjoyable. Even enlightening. One thing is sure: as long as these games depend on interaction between humans, they'll have more complexity, subtlety, intrigue, and joy than could be inserted by the best programmer.

And now, even though I've spent a whole column talking about games, it's book time. Because I would not have you bookless, friend.

Speaking as someone whose entire lifetime oeurve is at this moment out of print, I can tell you with certainty that books are no more guarantee of immortality than games. In fact, I'd guess that my average novel had a lifespan somewhat less than that of a Dwarven Paladin in World of Warcraft. But if novels are transient, short story collections are the mayflies of the literary world. Even for name authors, it's hard to keep a short story collection on the shelves (well, unless that name is "King"). So the books I recommend below may require a trip to your local used bookstore or a willingness to trust in the used book dealers online. Still, a good short story is a jewel of writing, and a collection of stories from the same author can subject you to more ideas, more emotion, and more pure wonder than any novel. They're a great chance to get an insight into the most important character in any book -- the one behind the pen.

Sandkings by George R. R. Martin
The difficulty of keeping a short story collection in print can have no better illustration that this: Sandkings is out of print. The title story concerns Simon Kress, a more than a little cruel character with a fondness for exotic pets. When Kress acquires a set of sandkings -- insectile creatures that live in a large terrarium -- he has the opportunity to study and shape a whole miniature world and society. But Kress uses the opportunity to explore the limits of his own depravity, and ultimately shapes his "children" more than he knows. Also included in this collection is "The Way of Cross and Dragon," where a future Church fights to define heresy. If all you've read of Martin is his astounding "A Song of Fire and Ice" fantasy series (and if you haven't, be warned that I'm going to devote a whole story to it soon enough) this is a terrific introduction to the scope of his work.

Soft and Others: 16 Stories of Wonder and Dread by F. Paul Wilson
Most of F. Paul Wilson's work falls on the horror side of speculative fiction, and that horror is never more effective than when it's mingled with science fiction as it is in several stories of this collection. The title story deals with the last survivors of a plague. But this plague doesn't kill quickly. The disease it brings softens the bones, working from the feet, leaving its victims to watch day by day as the effect creeps upward through their bodies. Be warned, there are a couple of horror stories here designed to explicitly tweak social issues, including one on abortion that nobody is going to love. But if you like your fiction to leave you squirming, this collection will bring on the jim jams.

The Worlds of Clifford Simak by Clifford Simak
I usually try to not fill these articles with books from many decades past, but in this case I'm making an exception because this collection (which first came out in 1960 and includes works from quite a bit earlier) was the book that really turned me toward science fiction. Where so much of science fiction at the time seemed to involve polymath genius billionaires (I'm looking at you, Heinlein) saving the world for those dull ordinary folk, Simak's work focused on remarkable things happening to regular people. Whether it was a salesman who figured out a way to communicate with another dimension for fun and profit (mostly profit), or a man who came home to find that the front door of his house now connected to another world, the stories here were more likely to feature pickups than spaceships. Some of them are so dependent on twists as to be nearly puns, and time hasn't been kind to a couple, but most of the stories still hold up quite well all these years later.

The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainder Smith
Unlike the other collections mentioned here, this book is actually still in print. For this we can only say, thank all the gods of nuts, bolts, and publishing. Smith's stories are often set in the distant future, but they don't have the feel of the future. They can be as autumnal as Tolkien's fantasies -- the far future written as if it is the distant past, sunk into legends and half-remembered tales. Like Simak's stories, many of the stories contained here date from the 1950s, but there's a poetry here -- a more serious view on the literary possibility of sci fi -- that you'd be hard pressed to find from another author in any decade. If you've read one of Smith's pieces in another collection, what you may have missed is that nearly all of his work is part of one long interconnected tale. This collection gives you a chance to read them together and see how Smith feels around the edges of the future and looks at the less shiny aspects of where things are headed. Go. Buy. Read.

Finally, when talking about short stories, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that science fiction and fantasy still enjoy something that has long vanished in many areas of fiction -- a number of active magazines dedicated to publishing new work and new authors. Not only can you still go down to a news stand and pick up Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy & Science Fiction, there are a number of younger publications that are bringing out great fiction with regularity. Among these I'd like to make special mention of  Black Gate whose quarterly editions arrive with nearly the heft of an old Sears' Wish Book. It's not just the quantity but the quality of the stories in Black Gate that have made it one of the few recent magazine start ups to hang on through tough times. They've taken chances on some new authors and on some risky stories... and I don't just say that because they've published several of my own bits.

You may not be able to fit in a novel today (especially if you have an appointment to sack a castle or raid a dungeon with a few dozen of your friends), but you can definitely grab a short story before you go. Heck, take two, they're small.

First we had the teabagger living on government disability checks who was inciting people to protest health care reform by throwing bricks "through the windows of Democratic offices nationwide," and now this:

When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.

Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist.  [...]

Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” and Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law,” which denounces public benefits as “false philanthropy.”

As we say all too often these days, you just can't make this shit up.

Please mock.

Coming up on Sunday Kos ...

• Devilstower looks at the story of 13 Bankers, and the unresolved danger they pose.
• Meteor Blades will explain why Republican complaints about deficit spending requires a boatload of chutzpah.
• After many months of difficult negotiations, the United States and Russia have finally settled on terms for a new strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty. Page van der Linden will discuss the details of the treaty, and what obstacles it is likely to face during the ratification process.
• In place of an essay, Dante Atkins will examine the 'citizen' initiatives on the June California ballot.
• Angry Mouse will discuss why morale and unit cohesion in the military is only important when it's about discriminating against gays and lesbians, but apparently irrelevant when it comes to the increasing rates of sexual assault against women.

It was a heady week for most Democrats with the signing of the long-awaited health insurance reform package. In a few cases, the votes in Congress infused primary campaigns with additional energy, particularly those in Arkansas and Massachusetts. One thing for sure, if it was all about getting the candidate's name into the blogosphere, Jennifer Brunner's Ohio Senate campaign would have taken the prize. Her new media outreach team deluged Daily Kos with diaries from the candidate herself and her supporters in a well-coordinated push.

But did you know that in all those diaries, 19 of them, including three from the candidate herself, only one contained a photograph of Brunner? The campaign's Victory for Courage sticker and take-off on the iconic World War II Rosie the Riveter poster could be found in most of those diaries. But neither of those includes the candidate's name, and had it not been for pistolSO's Oh-Sen:Why I'm donating $25 to Jennifer Brunner Today, the casual reader who didn't want to call up the Google wouldn't know what she looks like. Visuals matter.

As noted in previous digests – March 20, March 13 and February 13 – all good candidate diaries should include a photo, a link to the campaign's web site and the candidate's blog if s/he has one, a link to a volunteer sign-up page, and, of course, a link to a contribution site. And the diarist shouldn't wait until the last minute, this information should be included in the introduction – "above the fold," as we anachronistically say. The same information can be repeated at the end of the body text.

In past weeks, I've urged diarists to get their candidate's name in the headline. Remember that you're campaigning for money and votes not just in the state or district but also here. Readers need their interest whetted. The nameless "Help Elect a Progressive" just may not cut it. There are, however, some exceptions to that advice.  Spotlighting a campaign for a state legislature seat in Massachusetts, MassDemActivist chose the alluring Help a Howard Dean Democrat Win Scott Brown's Seat. The candidate's name in that case couldn't possibly be as compelling as the two well-known names that made it into that headline – a very smart choice.

As previously mentioned, in campaigns for the House, diarists should also consider including maps of the contested district. As the election season grows older, supporters will be tempted to leave basic information about their candidate out of their diaries, figuring that everyone already is clued in. That's a mistake. While it's valuable for us political junkies to read stuff that only somebody closely following the campaign knows, diaries are also being read by people who are taking their first interest in a particular candidate. So don't leave out the basics or the photos, maps, and, of course, the links.

Next week, we'll talk about first impressions: how to write a magnetic lead paragraph.

The digest begins below the fold.

Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo has the lead in all recent primary polling in the Kentucky Senate race. That's unfortunate, given that he'd be to the Right of Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson, vowing to oppose the health care reform law. His primary opponent, Attorney General Jack Conway, is betting the farm on the issue:

Democrats are certainly underdogs in this race. But Democrats won't do themselves any favor by electing the guy desperately trying to be Republican-lite, in the hope that Republicans will opt for him instead of the real thing. And given the GOP will likely nominate über-wingnut Rand Paul, the teabaggers and Paulites will certainly be motivated to get their guy over the finish line.

Thus, Kentucky Democrats would be better off nominating a guy who can rally the base, not depress it; a guy who can create clear contrasts with the opposition, rather than engage in a futile effort to blur the lines.

Jack Conway for Senate
Dan Mongiardo for Senate

So, you might be asking yourself, what does the latest government takeover of a federal program mean for me? (Seriously, have you read that quote from Lamar Alexander? “The Democratic majority decided, well look, while we’re at it, let’s have another Washington takeover. Let’s take over the federal student loan program.”  Seriously, he was Secretary of Education and he doesn't know what the word "federal" means? But I digress.)

If you're already paying student loans, probably not a lot. But if you're either soon needing to get loans, or to send your kids to college, it's good news. The government takeover of the federal student loan program is brilliant in it's simplicity. Thus far loan programs have been both direct loans, and federally-guaranteed loans from private lenders. The federally-guaranteed program means that the feds (us, the taxpayers) guaranteed loans made by private lenders, so the taxpayer has all the risk, and the bank makes all the profits. Now, all federal loans will be direct (the majority, 88% already are). The interest on those loans goes back to the federal government, and not to banks. All that extra money taking the remaining 12% of loans into the direct program will and not subsidizing the middle man banks goes into making college more affordable. Extra money to the tune of $61 billion over the next ten years. Hmmm.... sounds like smart fiscal policy, huh?

Here's more of what it will do, courtesy Rep. George Miller's Ed & Labor Committee [pdf]

Invest the bill’s savings to make college affordable and help more Americans graduate

• Invests $36 billion over 10 years to increase the maximum annual Pell Grant scholarship to $5,550 in 2010 and to $5,975 by 2017. Starting in 2013, the scholarship will be linked to match rising costs-of-living by indexing it to the Consumer Price Index. This includes an investment of $13.5 billion to fund a shortfall in the Pell Grant scholarship program due to increased demand for the scholarship.
• Invests $750 million to bolster college access and completion support for students. It will increase funding for the College Access Challenge Grant program, and will also fund innovative programs at states and institutions that focus on increasing financial literacy and helping retain and graduate students.
• Makes federal loans more affordable for borrowers to repay by investing $1.5 billion to strengthen an Income-Based Repayment program that currently allows borrowers to cap their monthly federal student loan payments at 15 percent of their discretionary income. These new provisions would lower this monthly cap to just 10 percent for new borrowers after 2014.
• Invests $2.55 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions to provide students with the support they need to stay in school and graduate.
• Invests $2 billion in a competitive grant program for community colleges to develop and improve educational or career training programs.

Provide reliable, affordable, high-quality Federal student loans for all families

• Converts all new federal student lending to the stable, effective and cost-efficient Direct Loan program. Beginning July 1, 2010, all new federal student loans will be originated through the Direct Loan program, instead of through the federally-guaranteed student loan program. The Direct Loan program is a more reliable lender for students and more cost-effective for taxpayers.
• Keeps jobs in America. Under the bill, 100 percent of Direct Loans will be serviced by private lenders. Lenders will compete for contracts to service all federal student loans, which will guarantee borrowers high- quality customer service and preserve jobs. Unlike loans made by banks, Direct Loans can only be serviced by workers in the U.S. Last year, Sallie Mae was forced to bring 2,000 jobs back to U.S. soil to win a direct loan servicing contract. Sallie Mae is now one of four private banks servicing 4.4 million direct loans.

What does the student loan reform not do? Katie Andriulli at Campus Progress details the myths:

Myth 1: The reconciliation bill taxes students to pay for health care....

Fact: The bill will indeed take $9.1 billion of the $61 billion in savings from ending wasteful government subsidies to banks and use it to pay for health care reform. But for decades the banks have simply been putting these subsidies in their pockets, so it is bizarre and hypocritical for them and their allies to suddenly act like protectors of students. In addition, the funds saved by reforming student loans that is used by health care is more than offset by $13.18 billion in education investments paid for by the health insurance reform section of the reconciliation bill.

Myth 2: Passage of student loan reform legislation will result in the loss of thousands of loan industry jobs....

Fact: There will be no shortage of work for loan companies under the new reforms; all current loans under the old Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) will still need to be serviced, as will all new loans made under the Direct Loan Program (DLP), and the same big lenders have already lined up for contracts to service new loans. In fact, student loan giant Sallie Mae has announced it is in the process of bringing back 3,400 jobs from overseas. These jobs are returning to the U.S., at least in part, so that the company can be eligible for Department of Education contracts to service Direct Loans....

Myth 3: Student loan reform changes mean that students will be charged higher interest rates....

Fact: Interest rates on federal student loans are set by Congress, and the reconciliation bill will not change the interest rates that students are charged. This bill will reduce monthly payments in the Income Based Repayment program, however....

Myth 4: Student loan reform will eliminate student choice....

Fact: In the current system, students don’t have a true choice; they have the choices their schools provide for them, which, as investigations by the New York Attorney General’s office and others have shown, have sometimes in the past been secured through kickbacks, improper inducements, and other nefarious tactics....

Myth 5: Student loan reform is just another government takeover....

Fact: Both the DLP and the FFELP are already government programs, administered by the Department of Education....

I guess that last point can't be made too often, huh? Which makes one begin to think that it's gonna take more than just making college more affordable for some of these people to really get how government works.

No, this thread did not shoot a bullet into Eric Cantor's non-office.

• For women, the health insurance reform law isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and more work remains to be done on achieving gender equity in health care.
• Former President George W. Bush has a compulsive need for hand sanitizer. Unfortunately, he fits former President Bill Clinton's shirt into that category.
• Move over Harry Potter: invisibility cloaks are on the way.
• I had to post it sometime, so it might as well be now: Wired's Arachnid Hall of Fame.
• Some California campaign notes: GOP Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman was on the board of Goldman-Sachs. The same Goldman-Sachs that undermined California's credit rating to make a few extra million for their other clients. Oh, and Carly Fiorina, the failed CEO who now deems herself worthy to replace Senator Boxer, is a global warming denier who believes that our landmark environmental legislation, AB-32, is a "job killer." Where do the Republicans come up with these people?
• Glenn Beck believes that cap and trade is really bad. How bad? This bad:

  It's just like 9/11 all over again, except we didn't have the burning buildings.

  No, I'm absolutely serious. Here's the video:

  The right wing needs to understand something clearly: you don't get to claim that policy initiatives proposed by Democrats are tantamount to armageddon, Stalin, Hitler, the 9/11 attacks, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and an internal contradiction of the space-time continuum that will lead to the destruction of the universe--and then turn around and say that the last thing you wanted was to see people stirred to violence. You either sincerely think it's bad enough to merit violent resistance or you don't. Pick a side and stick with it.

• And speaking of Glenn Beck: Roger Ailes is going all mafioso against Fox News employees uncomfortable with the fact that Beck is becoming the face of the network.