This week, the President prepared for and delivered his State of the Union Address, welcomed the Boston Bruins to the White House, and took his message West to Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado.

The week’s top quotes in politics …

“We could see an October surprise a day from Newt Gingrich.” — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney taking aim at Newt Gingrich

“It used to be pious baloney, now it’s desperate baloney.” — GOP White House hopeful Newt Gingrich‘s new nickname for Romney’s rhetoric.

“…well, you kind of get your panties in a wad, and you may say things that you regret later.” — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin advising Chris Christie.

“He didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially.” — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer talking about a tense encounter with President Obama.

“Seems a little bit like I was being detained.” — Sen. Rand Paul discussing his run-in with airport security. (TSA disputed that Paul was “detained.”)

“It reminded me a little of Saturday Night Live, I guess.” — RNC chairman Reince Priebus reacting to Obama’s State of the Union address.

“Eagles… next year. Love Brady, think @Giants.” — Vice President Joe Biden tweeting about who will win the Super Bowl.

Daily Kos

This article appeared on Yahoo today via livescience.com, which draws a link between low-intelligence and socially conservative ideologies.  I guess in my mind I pretty much already knew this fact as well as most of you out there, but it is nice to have some science to back up that claim.

See this link to the full article at LiveScience.

http://www.livescience.com/…

or at Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/… 

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Did anyone ever doubt that Ron Paul was lying when he said he never signed off on those racist newsletters?

The Raw Story

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has consistently denied having written — or even read — the inflammatory racist and anti-gay remarks that went out under his name in newsletters he published in the early 1990s. Although numerous associates agree that Paul does not hold racist views, however, it appears that he may have known more about the racist articles than he has been willing to admit.

The Washington Post reported  on Friday that three people with first-hand knowledge of Paul’s operations say “he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.”

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. … He would proof it,’’ former company secretary Renae Hathway told the Post.

According to these sources, the main author of the racist passages was Lew Rockwell, who was then the vice president of Paul’s company.

The Post also details how closely entangled Paul’s political career, his business ventures, and members of his own family were during those years. According to one source, who chose to remain anonymous, Paul and his associates made a deliberate choice in the late 1980s to increase sales of the newsletter by making it more provocative.

“It was playing on a growing racial tension, economic tension, fear of government,’’ the source stated “I’m not saying Ron believed this stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd businessman.’’

Cato Institute President Ed Crane, who frequently lunched with Paul during this period, similarly told the paper that when the two of them discussed how to increase the circulation of Paul’s newsletters, they agreed that “people who have extreme views” were most likely to respond. Paul told Crane his best response had come when he used a mailing list from the racist and anti-Semitic newspaper, Spotlight.

If that was the strategy, it apparently worked. According to the Post, political disclosure forms show that between 1984 and 1995, Paul went from being up to $765,000 in debt to having a net worth of up to $3.3 million.

A Paul spokesperson contacted by the Post for comment expressed doubt about the assertions made by Crane and the other sources.

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Wow are they saying that AZ Governor Brewer is lying?  Uh, in a word…yes!

TPM Muckraker

Out of the three officials who met President Obama on an airport tarmac near Phoenix earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is now the only one who has characterized the president as anything other than cordial.

In numerous TV and radio interviews since the meeting, Brewer has said the president was “tense to say the least” and took issue with a book she wrote last year. She said Obama walked away from her while she was in mid-sentence and even told one Phoenix television station she felt “a little bit threatened” by the encounter.

But Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who was standing just feet away from the president and the governor on Wednesday during their now-infamous encounter, told TPM that Obama seemed calm the whole time.

“He wasn’t tense at all,” Stanton said on Friday. “The guy’s a pro.”

Though Stanton declined to discuss exactly what the governor and president said to each other, he said Obama’s classic coolness was evident.

“He doesn’t get animated, but he looks you in the eye and tells you what he thinks,” Stanton said. “And I think that’s honestly what he did is he looked the governor in the eye and spoke and told her what he was really feeling.”

Stanton, a Democrat, is now the second elected Arizona official whose account of the incident contradicts the way Brewer has described it.

Continued here…

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It was the last debate before the Florida primary on Jan. 31 the candidates fought to maintain a sunny disposition befitting the Sunshine State. They also fought to hold a sunny disposition about Latino immigrants… about whom some of them had been – well – let’s just say they’d been “less enthusiastic” in states where there are drastically fewer Hispanic Republicans. Indeed, it suddenly seems that if there’s one thing all the candidates agree on, it’s that grandmas are awesome, no matter where…

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Think Progress

Since the 1970s, New Hampshire police have operated under a progressive policy for handling domestic violence cases that has saved countless lives. Under current law the presumption is that an arrest will be made when police observe evidence of abuse. They have a large degree of discretion and don’t need to witness the assault firsthand or obtain a legal warrant before they can separate the alleged attacker from his victim.

All that will change if Republicans get their way. The state’s GOP legislators are pushing two bills that will reverse a half century of progress, the Concord Monitor reports:

Domestic violence is no longer taken lightly legally or by society. That’s the way it should be, but two bills under consideration by this most unusual of legislatures, would undo that progress and put lives in danger. Both deserve a speedy defeat.

House Bill 1581 would turn the clock back 40 years to an age when a police officer could not make an arrest in a domestic violence case without first getting a warrant unless he or she actually witnessed the crime. That’s an exceedingly dangerous change. Consider the following scenario, one outlined for lawmakers by retired Henniker police chief Tim Russell:

An officer is called to a home where she sees clear evidence that an assault has occurred. The furniture is overturned, the children are sobbing, and the face of the woman of the house is bruised and bleeding. It’s obvious who the assailant was, but the officer arrived after the assault occurred. It’s a small department, and no one else on the force is available to keep the peace until the officer finds a judge or justice of the peace to issue a warrant. The officer leaves, and the abuser renews his attack with even more ferocity, punishing his victim for having called for help. [...]

It’s impossible to say how many lives the policy, in place since the 1970s, has saved or how many injuries it’s prevented. If they adopt House Bill 1581, lawmakers might find out, but the price paid could be extraordinarily high.

The other bill Republicans have proposed, HB 1608, limits judges’ ability to order the arrest of someone who has violated a domestic violence restraining order by contacting or abusing the person named in the order. It would also prevent judges from ordering defendants to surrender their weapons or block them from buying guns.

Police say the bill stops them from intervening to protect victims. For instance, they would be stripped of their power to arrest someone who is threatening to use violence against a victim or child. It’s unclear why New Hampshire Republicans have set their sights on repealing protections for abuse victims when promised to focus on economic priorities.

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