According to a new poll, Sen. Thad Cochran (R) is ahead of challenger Chris McDaniel. But not by much. It’s 45% to 40% with 15% undecided. And that’s after the whole “Constitutional Clayton” Kelly Derptastrophe.
Cochran nursing break-in conspiracy began with “Constitutionial Clayton” Kelly striking up Facebook chat with “Obi Wan Kenobi” account, according to documents obtained by TPM. Because of course it did.
So Redskins management is now apparently cold-calling tribal leaders and asking if they’ll come forward to say “Redskins” name is awesome.
As you’ve now heard, Eric Shinseki has now resigned as Secretary of the VA.
I’m ambivalent about whether it was necessary or right for him to do so. But the bipartisan calls for his resignation probably made it inevitable. I know people who at least lack any partisan axe to grind who think he deserved to be fired just on the merits. All that said, I find it bittersweet in part because of the broad breadth of his decades of service but more particularly because of his role in our public life in the last decade and a half.
Climate change law expert Ann Carlson tells us the real reason why Obama is rolling out new major regulations that could help with climate change: “Obama is following, not skirting or flouting, the law.”
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Nichole Perkins takes a look at the newish TV show “Salem,” which seems to be taking all the wrong lessons from the puritans. Rather than teaching us that religious fundamentalism taken to an extreme is bad, there’s a strong anti-sex current running through the show.
Good Grief. Former TPMer Benjy Sarlin should really credit GOP Chair Reince Priebus for a layup or its journalistic equivalent for this article just posted at MSNBC. Priebus asked the crowd at the Republican Leadership Conference event in New Orleans today why the GOP isn’t seen as the party of equality. “We’re the party of freedom and we’re the party of opportunity and we’re the party of equality, we’re the ones with that history,” said Priebus. “It’s the other side that has a shameful history, but you wouldn’t know it because we don’t talk about it.” Meanwhile, the keynoter at the event was Phil Robertson, the guy who became a folk hero/GOP martyr last year for saying gay men were gross and blacks actually had it pretty good during Jim Crow.
Catherine Burke, a public administration professor at USC’s Price School of Public Policy, explains why all these calls for Secretary Eric Shinseki’s job won’t do anything to fix the problems at the VA — and might even make them worse.
I got a mass email this morning where someone from a Democratic party committee referred to the Duck Dynasty guy as the GOP cause celebre after “Joe the Plumber” ™ and before Cliven Bundy. Pretty standard partisan snark. But it got me thinking because I hadn’t really thought of the phenomenon in quite these terms before. And, man, there’ve been a lot of them – all following a relatively consistent pattern.