Mr. Cool drives Red-faced Republicans crazy.

THE NATIONAL Journal’s Charlie Cook calls it “blind rage.” Turn on right wing radio any time to hear it. Read the comments of the perpetual Obama haters.

Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s second term, after the Monica Lewinsky story broke? During that time, Republicans became so consumed by their hatred of Clinton and their conviction that this event would bring him down that they convinced themselves the rest of the country was just as outraged by his behavior as they were. By the way, what was Clinton’s lowest Gallup job-approval rating in his second term, throughout the travails of investigations and impeachment? It was 53 percent. The conservative echo machine had worked itself into such a frenzy, the GOP didn’t realize that the outrage was largely confined to the ranks of those who never voted for Clinton anyway. – Republicans’ Hatred of Obama Blinds Them to Public Disinterest in Scandals, by Charlie Cook

The latest slew of polls amid spring scandal mania is fueling the rage of red-faced Republicans, but they’re not getting anywhere. That doesn’t mean they can’t block Obama’s agenda and make Democratic politicians work even harder as we get deeper into summer and closer to the launch of the 2014 campaign.

What Republicans have to do now, regardless of not laying much of a glove on Mr. Cool, is keep funneling the anger of their red-faced base, while using the righteous IRS outrage to prepare the vote for the midterms.

The latest ABC-Washington Post poll shows President Obama showing steady approval ratings, even after Republicans have done their best to punch a hole in his job rating.

The president’s approval rating, at 51 percent positive and 44 percent negative, has remained steady in the face of fresh disclosures about the IRS, the Benghazi attack and the Justice Department’s secret collection of telephone records of Associated Press journalists as part of a leak investigation.

We also learn that the public stands with President Obama on the AP leak dragnet, which is why he came out so forcefully saying he wouldn’t apologize for it. Remember that Vali Nasr quote from the other day?

In the cocoon of our public debate Obama gets high marks on foreign policy. That is because his policies’ principal aim is not to make strategic decisions but to satisfy public opinion— he has done more of the things that people want and fewer of the things we have to do that may be unpopular. To our allies, however, our constant tactical maneuvers don’t add up to a coherent strategy or a vision of global leadership. – Vaili Nasr The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat

Obama versus Red-faced Republicans on Benghazi [Washington Post-ABC poll]

There is one issue that continues to dog the Obama administration, proving that if you don’t get out first with a strong message you’ll pay for it in the end.

Obama administration are paying for handling Benghazi information badly.

As for former Secretary Hillary Clinton, the red-faced Republicans trying to bathe her in Benghazi are losing. So expect more “whistle blowers” and malcontents to pop up as time goes by. They cannot let this one go, because it’s the only chance they have of dinging up Clinton preemptively, as 2016 nightmares dance in their empty little heads, with Clinton’s approval rating above any potential rival, Democratic or Republican.

Red-faced Republicans losing in tarring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Benghazi.

After all this time, it turns out the economy is becoming President Obama’s friend. Many people can feel it easing. So, like Bill Clinton before him, who saved the country from Reaganomics, Obama just might have done the same thing in the aftermath of Bushonomics.

There’s nothing that will turn conservatives into a red-faced Republicans faster than a Democrat making things just a little bit better.

The post Poll: Red-faced Republicans Losing to Mr. Cool appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

The Oklahoma twister.

A giant tornado, a mile wide or more, killed at least 91 people, 20 of them children, as it tore across parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday afternoon, flattening homes, flinging cars through the air and crushing at least two schools. [...] Amy Elliott, the spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City medical examiner, said at least 91 people had died, including the children, and officials said that toll was likely to climb. Hospitals reported at least 145 people injured, 70 of them children. [New York Times]

WHEN I was a little girl growing up in Missouri, we used to travel to places close to tornado alley, where what’s being deemed as a “giant tornado” hit in Oklahoma on Monday. When the sky would blacken and the weather service would announce tornado warnings, my mom used to tell me of times she’d heard the sound. I can’t imagine the sound of a 200 mile per hour, one mile or more wide twister.

Mom told me to listen for a train. That’s what she said the biggest twisters sound like. A locomotive coming straight at you that the only thing you can pray for is that you aren’t in its direct path.

The folks in Joplin, Missouri, where my dad and brother were born and raised, found out what hell nature can wreak.

This time it was Oklahoma’s turn.

As devastating as the tornado was, the quick thinking of some prevented the death toll from going higher.

When the tornado sirens went off around 2:15, the staff of the AgapeLand Learning Center, a day care facility, hustled some 15 children into two bathrooms, draping them with a protective covering and singing songs with them to keep them calm.

As the wind ripped the roof off one of the bathrooms, and debris rained down on the children, they remained calm, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” the assistant director, Cathy Wilson, said. Though the day care center was almost entirely destroyed, the children were unharmed.

“Not a child had a scratch,” Ms. Wilson said.

People built cellars in the old days, most had basements.

Sometimes the uncanny trajectory of a twister can skip right over you.

There’s nothing that prepares you for what extreme weather brings or the aftermath of its fury when there’s nothing but destruction left behind.

The post Giant Tornado in Oklahoma Kills 91 appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

THERE IS nothing more virulently inciting than the right wing extremists who breath fire on right wing talk radio. Host Pete Santilli has now gotten the attention of the Secret Service for recently calling for Hillary Clinton to be shot, which follows similar comments directed at President Obama.

From Right Wing Watch, the audio, with the transcript below:

How about Hillary Clinton? That frickin’ assbag has not only been involved in drug trafficking out of Mena, Arkansas, okay? Not only that; and all these people try to have this plausible deniability thing, yeah sure, they’re removed, they’re just a bunch of politicians. Well, guess where they got all of the money to acquire the power that they have?

This ‘C U Next Tuesday,’ Hillary Clinton, has been involved in the killings of American troops. Namely, the mysterious suicide of the emotionally unstable Navy SEAL commander who just so happened to be involved in all of her dealings in the Middle East, okay. And he just mysteriously got suicided along with everyone else associated with the Clinton family. Miss Hillary Clinton needs to be convicted, she needs to be tried, convicted and shot in the vagina. I wanna pull the trigger. That ‘C U Next Tuesday’ has killed human beings that are in our ranks of our service.

I want to remind you that in Benghazi, Miss Hillary ‘the fricken’ biggest vagina on the face of the planet’ told troops to stand down and to not go in and interfere with the operation that they set up because they’re moving arms; Barack Obama is moving drugs through the CIA out of Afghanistan and Barack Obama needs to be tried, convicted, and shot for crimes against the United States of America. And if anybody has a problem with that, then you are an enemy of our state.
..

I want to shoot [Clinton] right in the vagina and I don’t want her to die right away; I want her to feel the pain and I want to look her in the eyes and I want to say ‘on behalf of all Americans that you’ve killed, on behalf of the Navy SEALS,’ … the families of Navy SEAL Team Six who were involved in the fake hunt down of this Obama bin Laden thing, that whole fake scenario – because these Navy SEALS know the truth, they killed them all – on behalf of all of those people, I’m supporting our troops by saying we need to try, convict, and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina.

The post Right Wing Host Calls for Clinton to be Shot appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Our flowering pond is incredible this year!

IT’S A FUNDRAISER. Because advertising alone doesn’t cut it.

Final days of the annual late spring fundraiser, so if you haven’t jumped in, now’s the time.

Several months ago I lost two-thirds of my advertising, the company I’d been using for years folding.

It’s been an ugly advertising year, though recently I started trials with two companies on opposite ends of the political spectrum, progressive and Newsmax. We’ll see what happens.

Subscribers have made a huge difference. Thanks to each and every one of you, whether you’re giving $5/month, $10, $15, $20 or more. Every single subscriber is so important to TM.com.

The average donation is $20, but any amount is appreciated.

Subscribers are needed, too, whatever is comfortable for you to pay monthly, options below.

Politico was the latest to go to sponsor-generated content and I hope like hell it works for them! More and more new media sites are working to monetize in a medium that started out as free and now has a lot of talented writers working for free or barely breaking even and trying to figure out how to change it.

For independent, boutique sites like mine it’s a constant battle, with fundraisers necessary.

THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT. IT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.

This was originally posted on 5.12.

The post Fundraiser: Support TM.com appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Huffington Post screen capture on President Obama’s AP secret dragnet stance. It applies to the Kim – Rosen case as well.

“The latest events show an expansion of this law enforcement technique,” said attorney Abbe Lowell, who is defending Kim on federal charges filed in 2010 that he disclosed national defense information. A trial is possible as soon as 2014. “Individual reporters or small time periods have turned into 20 [telephone] lines and months of records with no obvious attempt to be targeted or narrow.” [Washington Post]

JAMES ROSEN of Fox News is being accused by the Justice Department, according to documents made public by the Washington Post, of receiving classified information, then reporting on the information. U.S. Attorney James Machen and the Justice Department claim “all applicable laws, regulations, and longstanding Department of Justice policies intended to safeguard the First Amendment interests of the press in reporting the news and the public in receiving it.” That remains to be proven at this point. No reporter has been prosecuted for doing his job, which is obtaining information through sources.

The case revolves around the 2009 case against Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who was a State Department arms expert and security adviser with a security clearance, suspected of sharing classified information. Kim is a naturalized South Korean indicted in 2009 for alleged espionage. We now know that James Rosen, Washington correspondent for Fox News, is the journalist the DOJ has accused of information from Kim. American intelligence was warning that any further United Nations sanctions against North Korea would likely result in more nuclear tests. James Rosen reported that the CIA had learned of this from a source inside North Korea.

They used code names, Kim was “Alex,” Rosen was “Leo.”

A judge signed off on DOJ’s unparalleled targeting.

Privacy protections limit searching or seizing a reporter’s work, but not when there is evidence that the journalist broke the law against unauthorized leaks. A federal judge signed off on the search warrant — agreeing that there was probable cause that Rosen was a co-conspirator.

DOJ basically stalked Kim and Rosen.

They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

[...] Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

From a tweet earlier today by Ryan Lizza [h/t Glenn Greenwald], the screen capture below gives you an idea of what the Justice Department’s possible end game is.

The DOJ case against James Rosen.

The Obama Justice Department intends on not only branding James Rosen a criminal for talking to a source, working a story, and reporting what he learned, but is threatening him and anyone else with jail who dares to practice the craft of journalism.

James Rosen’s doesn’t appear in the court document embedded below, but the Washington Post has confirmed by “several” officials that he is the reporter at the center of the DOJ investigation.

FBI agent Reginald Reyes tracked Kim and Rosen, detailing their movements in and out of the State Department in specific detail. Reyes also wrote that, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

Affidavit 0520

The post DOJ Accuses Journalist James Rosen in Kim Case appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Aboard Air Force One, 2009
Official photo by Pete Souza.

“I’m doing something completely different… My passion for technology actually predates my passion for politics.” – Mark Penn

THERE is a lengthy piece in the Washington Post about the veteran Hillary campaign people who are unlikely to join her in 2016, if she decides to run. One of my favorite sections is onHoward Wolfson, who will reportedly will not be reprising his role as campaign chief. Other big names include Mark Penn, who if he is anywhere will be well out of sight, as well as Patti Solis Doyle, who should never have had the job she did.

A brief snippet:

Philippe Reines, one of those former Senate loyalists who followed her to the State Department and is now a paid spokesman for the former first lady, dismissed speculation about a 2016 run even as he pronounced that Clinton “would be a great president and I would want to help her do that.” He also contacted veterans of the ’08 campaign and urged them to avoid anonymous sniping that would reflect poorly on Clinton, according to several people who’ve been on the receiving end and who took the request as a warning not to criticize her. (Reines denied that he policed anyone’s conversations and insisted that he only encouraged former staffers to put their names to any comments.)

He and other boosters sought to put the lingering leadership concerns to rest by pointing to Clinton’s relatively smooth tenure as secretary of state. But even he acknowledged that running an existing bureaucracy is not analogous to building a billion-dollar campaign. That leaves Clinton with only one model as a reference point if she runs for president in 2016.

“I can go into the plus sides of the theory of the Team of Rivals and the downsides of the theory of the Team of Rivals, but I don’t want to do that,” Solis Doyle said. She explained that the past was too painful and filled with “so many” traumas.

You can’t know if you’re not involved, but it’s pretty hard for me to imagine Philippe Reines policing anyone’s comments. It’s been a long time, but I’ve had email conversations, as well as drinks once at the height of the McCrystal Rolling Stones scandal, where we had a friendly debate on the subject. I’m certainly not one of the ’08 campaign insiders, but I was very close to the campaign from the outside, and Reines just doesn’t seem that paranoid, though I have no doubt he wanted people to talk on the record and not be an anonymous sniping “source.” If you read “Game Change,” you’ll understand Reines’s aversion to traitors talking on deep background.

As I detail for history in my book The Hillary Effect, the slug fest of 2008 took the life out of a lot of people. It was difficult as hell writing that book, let me tell you. Howard Wolfson and I have not talked about this, but I would imagine that campaign finished him for good, which is what the Post claims.

It should have finished Mark Penn, with the Post writing politics is not in the future for him. Don’t believe it, because Penn clearly states in the Post article that if 2016 manifests it’s “up to them.” Penn turn down the Clintons? If asked, he will serve, but he just might not be asked.

You can bet almost everyone else doesn’t want to see Mark Penn anywhere near Hillary Clinton if she does run again.

The vast majority of the former Clinton aides — many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of upsetting the powerful Clintons — believed that it was impossible for Penn to rejoin an eventual campaign.

“If you are the losing team,” Penn said, “you get blamed. Hillary told me, ‘It comes with the territory.’ ” He said that he and the candidate had a “thorough post-discussion of everything” but wouldn’t divulge specifics. He admitted, though, “You are always a little bit haunted when something is lost.”

He said that he has had civil conversations with former colleagues, including frequent antagonist Mandy Grunwald, a media consultant for the 2008 campaign who has since worked on several Democratic Senate races; Grunwald declined to comment for this story. “We had a particularly nice talk at the funeral of Hillary’s mother,” Penn said.

Huge fan of Mandy Grunwald. As for Mark Penn, he’s the most overrated political strategist in campaign history, the bookend to Dick Morris.

The post Hillary Clinton ’08 Vets Say No to ’16 appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Slate and the Twitter feed @GunDeaths continue their project of collecting data to determine the number of U.S. deaths by guns since the Newtown shooting on December 14, 2012, and as of today, at about 2:30 Central, the total was at 4,236. You can see a graph, a “deaths by city” interactive map, and additional data, along with methodology, at the link above.

The project is described a “crowd sourced interactive.”

This data is necessarily incomplete. But the more people who are paying attention, the better the data will be. You can help us draw a more complete picture of gun violence in America. If you know about a gun death in your community that isn’t represented here, please tweet @GunDeaths with a citation. (If you’re not on Twitter, you can email mail to: slatedata@gmail.com ) And if you’d like to use this data yourself for your own projects, it’s open. …

And this:

The information is collected by @gunDeaths from news reports about the deaths. The Slate interactives team and @gunDeaths continually manages and revises the data.

The data are not comprehensive because not all gun-related deaths are reported by the news media. For example, suicides often go unreported.

So once again, where’s the outrage? Where’s the media? Where are the Electeds? There are exceptions, of course, since there are certainly people who are working very hard to change things so that this truly astounding number of murders, suicides and accidental deaths can at least be reduced. But in general, it seems fair to say that the NRA leadership is still winning.

No matter how many times I see such numbers, I absolutely cannot understand how the carnage can be justified by one particular interpretation of the Second Amendment.

The post U.S. Deaths by Guns Since Newtown: At Least 4,236 appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Kaitlyn Hunt, a Florida high school senior, has been expelled, and arrested, as Think Progress reports, charged with a felony for a lesbian relationship. It’s one of several recent reports that make clear that, in spite of all the progress, full equality under the law remains a goal, not a reality, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

A few other recent (within the last week) examples: New York City Rocked By Hate Crime Murder And Spate Of Anti-Gay Violence; Gay Texan cut off from partner of 34 years who has Alzheimer’s after sister-in-law obtained guardianship; Washington Florist Countersues For Religious Right To Discriminate; Judge says lesbian mom’s partner must go. This is just a short list. It could be much longer.

Now, about Kaitlyn Hung, via Think Progress:

A Florida family says their 18-year-old daughter was charged with a felony and expelled from high school as a result of a consensual, same-sex relationship with another student.

Kaitlyn Hunt started dating a female classmate at the beginning of the school year when she was 17 and the girl she was dating was about three years younger. According to an account posted to Facebook by Kaitlyn’s mother, in February, shortly after Kaitlyn turned 18, she was arrested on felony charges at the behest of her girlfriend’s parents. The specific crime was ‘sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.’

The parents of the girl friend also managed to get Kaitlyn expelled from Sebastian River High School.

Kaitlyn’s mom reports that the State Attorney, Brian Workman, has offered Kaitlyn a plea deal ‘of two years house arrest and one year probation.’ Kaitlyn has until … Friday (May 24) to accept the plea deal or face a trial.

More from The Advocate:

Kaitlyn Hunt was a popular student at Sebastian River High School, participating in everything from cheerleading to basketball. Hunt began dating another female student and the latter girl’s parents became enraged, according to Hunt’s parents. Kaitlyn was 17 at the time the relationship began, while her girlfriend was 15. Upon Kaitlyn’s 18th birthday, her girlfriend’s parents sent the police to the Hunt home and the teenager was arrested.

Weeks before the excitement of your high school graduation, and anticipations of what happens next in your life, Kaitlyn is now living in a nightmare. And while we have no information about what’s happening with Kaitlyn’s girlfriend, it’s a fairly safe guess her life is in turmoil as well.

And I think this is a fair question (and I’m far from alone is asking it): Had everything been the same, in terms of ages when two teenagers started dating and when one turned 18, had the 18 year old been a guy and the 15 year old a girl, would felony charges and expulsion from school been the likely responses? It’s not impossible, of course, but a comment by the younger girl’s parents, according to Steven Hunt, Kaitlyn’s father and via Think Progress is revealing:

Kaitlyn’s father suggests his daughters arrest — and the substantial sentence sought by the prosecutor — are motivated by anti-gay bias. He told ThinkProgress that the younger girl’s parents have told teachers at the high school that ‘their daughter will NOT be gay.’

In the same report:

On Friday night, 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt and her family went public with their story … . . The response in the 48-hours that followed, … Steven Hunt told ThinkProgress in an interview, was ‘extraordinary.’

Already, nearly 40,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Assistant State Attorney, Brian Workman, to drop the case. On Facebook, more than 13,000 people have joined a group — Free Kate — in support of the family. …

The family’s attorney, Julia Graves, has assembled a table of experienced defense lawyers that will convene next week to discuss Kaitlyn’s legal options. Meanwhile, Kaitlyn is scheduled to appear in court again on June 20. At that time, if a plea agreement is not reached, the judge could set a date for trial.

See the petition at Change.org here.

(Stop the Hate Free Kate via Change.org)

The post Queer Talk: FL Teen Kaitlyn Hunt Arrested for Lesbian Relationship appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Buzzfeed has the collection of the “10 most” anti-gay words from Republican nominee for Lt. Governor of Virginia, E.W. Jackson. Jackson will “run alongside Ken Cuccinelli.” Check at the link for more details provided in Andrew Kaczynski’s article. Below are the basics.

1. ‘I believe there is a direct connection’ [between being gay and being a pedophile]. …

2. In his Senate run on the issue page, he said he would lead the fight to ‘stop our government from using the law to promote the normalization of homosexuality in society.’ …

3. Gays attempt to ‘sexualize people’ at ‘the earliest possible age.’ …

4. Gays are ‘frankly very sick people…’ …

5. ‘The Democrat Party has equated homosexuality with being black…’ …

6. On last year’s boycott of Chick-fil-A, he said gays ‘want to destroy the very faith which established this nation…’ …

7. The repeal of DADT was ‘a disaster of historic proportions and it must be reinstated.’ …

8. ‘I know people who have been delivered from homosexuality…’ …

9. Gay marriage is a ‘sledgehammer used to shatter our Judeo-Christian culture.’ …

10. Homosexuality is ‘killing black men by the thousands’ because of HIV. Pro-gay rights liberals have ‘have done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery and Jim Crow ever did…’

I checked out Jackson’s campaign site, and noticed that among other issues he specifically identifies, under his “Agenda to Inspire and Unite Virginia,” are: “Protect our 2nd Amendment Rights,” “Defend Religious Liberty,” and “Permanently Defund Planned Parenthood.” His anti-LGBT comments, and a number of things on his “agenda,” probably “inspires” some of his supporters, but I’ll bet it also inspires his opposition.

The post Queer Talk: Anti-Gay Words of Lt. Gov. Nominee E.W. Jackson (R-VA) appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Cannes Film Festival experiences second break-in.

THE French Riviera has a reality show going on reminiscent of “To Catch a Thief.” Last week the Cannes Film Festival was hit by a millionn dollar jewelry heist. In case you missed it…

A million dollars’ worth of jewellery to be worn by celebrities at the Cannes film festival has been stolen, according to French police. The items, which were snatched from the room of a Chopard employee at the Hotel Novotel, were in a security box, which was smashed and taken away. The creations by the Swiss luxury jeweller had been scheduled to be worn on the red carpet, which has become as much a showcase for haute couture designers and extravagantly priced jewellery, particularly diamonds, as it is for films. [UK Guardian]

It’s happened again.

China Film Group vice president Zhang Qiang canceled plans to preside over a press conference on Monday with Keanu Reeves for the actor’s directorial debut Man of Tai Chi after all of his possessions were stolen from his rented apartment at Pierre & Vacances Cannes Beach Residence.

The senior executive first exposed the burglary in a post on his official Weibo account (China’s version of Twitter) on May 16, saying that he got back to his apartment after dinner to find his door ajar and all of his luggage gone.

Zhang said the staff at the hotel brushed off his pleas for assistance and said they could change the locks but he would have to contact the police himself. “Security in France is so bad, and the [people] are so arrogant,” he wrote.

Zhang Qiang’s comments were tweeted by Chinese film fans, which evidently caused embarrassment. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that in reaction the Cannes film festival and the hotel both reached out to him.

The French have a rather notorious reputation for being “rude,” though I’ve never experienced this myself when traveling in France. It’s been quite a while since I’ve visited the country, which I love, so my French is very rusty now. But it really helps if you can at least make a passing stab at the language, though it’s not easy.

The security situation during Cannes would be something you’d think the French would make absolutely sure is covered.

Eva Longoria on WhoSay, pictured with her little sister at Cannes.

Ms. Longoria suffered what was a rather humiliating wardrobe malfunction during an appearance. Calling Victoria’s Secret! Sexy lingerie, at the very least a g-string, could have saved her half of the embarrassment. Hey, but what’s a little, er… skin at Cannes? Call it Eva’s Marilyn Monroe moment.

The post Cannes Film Festival Hit by Second Burglary (…and a wardrobe malfunction) appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Yahoo Inc. has agreed to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr, a six-year-old company with more than 100 million users but very little revenue, a deal that highlights the shifting balance of power in the technology business. Veterans like Yahoo have shown they have staying power—and they have cash to spend. But companies like Yahoo’s target, a blogging site, have something valuable as well: the rapt attention of fast-growing communities of users. That has pushed up the price tags as more established companies fear getting left behind as people’s online habits evolve. [Wall Street Journal]

IT’S official. Yahoo Inc. buys Tumblr. …and I reblogged the announcement on my Tumblr account, which I’ve had for quite a while now.

Lots more newsy articles on the subject at Mediagazer.

News!

Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.

Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.

So what’s new? Simply, Tumblr gets better faster. The work ahead of us remains the same – and we still have a long way to go! – but with more resources to draw from.

Yahoo is the original Internet company, and Marissa and her team share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. I couldn’t be more excited to have her help. We also share a vision for Tumblr’s business that doesn’t compromise the community and product we love. Plus both our logos end with punctuation!

As always, everything that Tumblr is, we owe to this unbelievable community. We won’t let you down.

Fuck yeah,
David

The post Yahoo Inc. Gobbles Tumblr appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

President Obama, stepping in it a lot lately.

In the cocoon of our public debate Obama gets high marks on foreign policy. That is because his policies’ principal aim is not to make strategic decisions but to satisfy public opinion— he has done more of the things that people want and fewer of the things we have to do that may be unpopular. To our allies, however, our constant tactical maneuvers don’t add up to a coherent strategy or a vision of global leadership. – Vaili Nasr The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat

PRESIDENT Obama is confusing people still, amid a scandal atmosphere he didn’t think he’d ever have to address. Obama’s gone from aggressive on national security to being called “skittish” by the Washington Post, to “President Paserby” by Dana Milbank. He’s caught in the vortex of Washington smelling weakness, because Republicans finally see a way to wound a man who came into office in 2008 as one thing, when people refused to see simply another politician smartly playing the game to win.

From the Washington Post and make sure you notice the headline:

President Obama’s professed ignorance of the targeting of conservatives by one government agency and his support of tracking journalists’ sources by another highlight one of the great paradoxes of his presidency: Sometimes he uses his office as aggressively as anyone who’s held it; other times he seems unacquainted with the work of his own administration.

The controversies over the Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of tea party and other conservative groups and the Justice Department’s surveillance of Associated Press journalists are only the latest examples of Obama’s a la carte governing style.

[...] Obama came into office promising to rein in what he and other Democrats charged were frequent overreaches of executive authority by George W. Bush’s administration. He vowed to strive for non-ideological, bipartisan solutions to problems.

In practice, Obama followed Bush’s lead when it came to executive power in fighting terrorism and other areas. His administration invoked the state-secrets privilege to avoid disclosing information when challenged in court, and Obama asserted executive privilege to withhold information from Congress amid questions about the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation. …

[...] “It’s one thing for the president to make sure he doesn’t say or do anything that might undermine the independence of agencies like the Justice Department or the IRS,” Tribe said. “It’s quite another for the president to insulate himself to a degree that creates the false public impression of disinterest or indifference.”

President Obama thinks his primary purpose as president is to find common ground between parties, which he said himself in 2007 and to which I refer often. On policy it’s quite different, which informs one reason why he has not been successful in negotiating with Congress. He can’t succeed on Capitol Hill because Republicans decided a long time ago to thwart Obama no matter what. There’s not a lot he can do about that.

However, a case that Vali Nasr makes in his book, which we’ve talked about around here a lot, is that President Obama never demands anything. Not from Congress, not from the American people, and not from his military advisers either. There’s less bully and more pulpit word salad slinging from Obama, who is the antithesis of LBJ. Obama can be manipulated by the ingrained forces that need to be challenged. This has shown up again and again in his presidency.

Obama is seen as strong on national security, because he doesn’t buck tradition, ceding most of the decisions to the Pentagon, which is why he wanted Hagel at the DoD, because through a military man Obama can find cover for what he wants to do. President Obama will not take on the military industrial complex himself. This is something I warned about from the start, with no one believing that Obama was much the same when it came to national security as Clinton, except that she believes in soft power much more. Clinton did prove she’d take on the military, through budgeting and asserting diplomatic power over military, even when White House aides stymied her again and again, because of their skepticism and outright distrust. This dynamic is being proven conclusively through the history being written about the Obama administration, from Nasr to Ron Suskind, with the power Obama’s aides maintain on the Obama presidency very real, reminiscent of the Reagan era in many ways.

The reason Obama has no problem standing by the AP secret dragnet is because he sees this as a national security problem, not a First Amendment issue. He has sided with CIA Director Brennan and the intelligence complex on it, which isn’t surprising, however uninspiring.

As far as Benghazi, it will remain a Republican fetish, with Obama haters never to be satisfied. But with the email release and the reporting that Republicans had doctored emails, along with ABC being duped, and Stephen Hayes being shown as the best partisan stenographer Republicans have, the general public has turned it off.

This brings me to Obama’s domestic policy, which includes the IRS scandal especially. The bubble in which President Obama operates has gotten him into this mess. His aides make it possible. It’s not so much he’s “skittish” or a “passerby,” but insulated so that a plausible case for deniability is always available to him. However, caught in the traditional DC scandal atmosphere where Obama now finds himself enveloped, they just don’t know what to do. They didn’t anticipate it, aren’t prepared for it, and all they can hope is the public tires of it all as Memorial Day and the summer looms.

Republicans won’t let the IRS scandal go. They can’t possibly pass by the opportunity to let a good yarn of a weakened and allegedly scandal ridden Democratic president be churned into a preemptive campaign to take back power.

The post Obama and the GOP Scandal Fetish appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Pat Robertson doesn’t know it’s not the 1950s anymore.

“Males have a tendency to wander a little bit. And what you want to do is make a home so wonderful he doesn’t want to wander.” – Pat Robertson

INFIDELITY is expected of men, according to Pat Robertson. But that really wasn’t the worst of his advice to a woman having a hard time grappling with forgiving her husband. Pat Robertson looks to the woman, blaming her for why it happened.

The furor inspired big reaction over at the Huffington Post: 51,000 Facebook “likes”; 10,400+ Facebook shares; and over 7000 comments and counting. A snippet:

While Robertson’s co-host hedged on the question, calling forgiveness “difficult” and spousal infidelity “one of the ultimate betrayals,” Robertson got right to the point.

“Here’s the secret,” the famous evangelical said. “Stop talking the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he’s a man.”

The wife needs to focus on the reasons she married her spouse, he continued.

“Does he provide a home for you to live in,” Robertson said. ‘Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children… Is he handsome?”

The Christian Broadcasting Network has been in clean-up mode ever since.

The Christian Broadcasting Network released a statement, saying, “As a first step in the process, Dr. Robertson stated that she should stop dwelling on the cheating. Next, he recommended that she remind herself of all the reasons she fell in love with him in the first place so that she might try to fall back in love with him all over again.”

“Lastly, his point was that everyone is human and there is much temptation outside of the home, so she should do whatever she can to strengthen their home and relationship. His intent was not to condone infidelity or to cast blame. We regret any misunderstanding,” the statement concluded.

There’s no “misunderstanding.”

Pat Robertson is a throw back from the post-WWII, Freudian fetish American society, in the lull before the sexual and feminist revolution; that time in our country when Alfred Kinsey was dropping a bombshell about the sexuality of American women, while Betty Friedan was preparing to blow the roof off of the “feminine mystique.” That idea that women can cuddle up to their appliances and just be, instead of actually doing anything.

This is that era Republicans and conservatives want to relive, because it gives power back to the old boys club, instead of the new Lean In moderns.

The Pat Robertson philosophy is also seen in the writings of conservatives on relationships, people like Phyllis Schlafly’s daughter Suzanne Venker, who declared there’s a “war on men.” The notion that if women would relinquish our power to men, all would be right, because then men could do what they’re supposed to do, which is provide for women, while we center our focus on home and when providing, make sure the man still has that as his primary purpose in our partnerships.

Feminism and women’s rise economically is not a “war on men.” What our independence reveals is that traditional men, conservatives in particular, especially religious males, haven’t accepted the sharing of economic strength, thinking that women being equal is emasculating. Women, of course, have to understand that when we make equal to our husbands and boyfriends this doesn’t negate his foundational belief that to provide and protect is his job. We still must acknowledge what he does, appreciate him for providing, something that is revealed in a simple “thank you” when he does it. When he takes you out to dinner or buys you something. It may sound corny, but nothing is more important than taking the time to acknowledge a man’s contribution. That doesn’t require we relinquish our power, but instead take turns sharing it.

It’s why Sheryl Sandberg wrote that the most important decision a woman makes is the man she marries. For modern women, nothing could be truer. A man who wants to protect and provide, but relishes allowing a woman to produce and be treated equally, without robbing him of his own joy to care for her. It’s really not that difficult if you simply honor one anther.

There is no “misunderstanding” the message from Pat Robertson. He has said these things before and will again, because for religiously conservative men, traditionalists, this is what they believe. From ABC News:

Robertson, 83, gave a similar answer when he spoke about Gen. David Petraeus’ affair with Paula Broadwell last year.

“The man’s off in a foreign land and he’s lonely and here’s a good-looking lady throwing herself at him. I mean, he’s a man,” Robertson said on an episode of “The 700 Club.”

Earlier this year Robertson was criticized when he suggested a woman’s looks might be to blame for her marital problems. Robertson told a story about a woman who asked a reverend how to stop her husband’s drinking problem.

“She was awful looking. The preacher looked at her and said, ‘Madam, if I was married to you I’d start to drink too,’” Robertson said.

h/t Atlantic for “Jealousy” vid; graphic via Le Blow

The post Pat Robertson’s Advice on Infidelity appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

“I Want to See You Be Brave” is the first single from the third studio album by Sara Bareilles. The Blessed Unrest. GayNet calls it the “uplifting gay anthem you’ve been waiting for.”

From the lyrics:

You can be amazing. You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug. You can be the outcast or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love. Or you can start speaking up.

Nothing’s going to hurt you the way words do when they settle ’neath your skin. Kept on the inside, no sunshine. Sometimes a shadow wins.

But I wonder what would happen if you say what you want to say

Honestly, I want to see you be brave. Say what you want to say, and let words fall out. …

Everybody’s been there. Everybody’s been stared down by the enemy. Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing, bowed down to the mighty.

Don’t run. Stop holding your tongue.

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live. Maybe one of these days you can let the light in. Show me how big your brave is … .

More from Gay.Net:

The infectious song, which the pop performer wrote with fun. lead guitarist Jack Antonoff, was actually inspired by one of Sara’s close friends, who was struggling with coming out of the closet. …

The appropriately upbeat and energetic video features folks of all ages, races, and sizes breaking loose and dancing like there’s no tomorrow in public settings like the mall, the gym, and on the street.

Here’s the official video:

And here’s the lyric video:

I think this is a great follow-up from yesterday’s post, Riot Against LGBTs at Anti-Homophobia Rally, with the video of a mob attacking a vehicle in which LGBT activists, rallying for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, were leaving. The bravery shown by those activists is something to inspire anyone working on getting out of the “cage where you live.”

The post Queer Talk: Sara Bareilles, “I Want to See You Be Brave” [Video] appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Via John Aravosis at America Blog Gay, a video of a riot against LGBTs (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) at a small anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, anti-biphobia rally.

It’s a horrific video. Thousands … of former-Soviet Georgians rioting in the streets of Tbilisi, attacking a small handful of gay rights protesters holding a rally for the International Day Against Homophobia.

The video is just horrific. Crowds were shouting ‘Kill them! Tear them to pieces!’ and ‘Where are they? Don’t leave them alive!’

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