Will Kramer says there’s a tiny sliver of Congress that actually isn’t as bad as you think.
As we noted the night before last, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had till midnight yesterday (Israel time) to form a coalition or (an extremely improbable event) give up the chance to be the country’s next Prime Minister. And now he’s done that just an hour or so before the deadline, adding the far-right Jewish Home party of Naftali Bennett (a one-time protege turned quasi-nemesis) to his new government. It was always a given that Bennett’s party would join. But things changed on Monday when Avigdor Lieberman (another protege turned quasi-nemesis) abruptly announced that he would not join the next government and would instead take his now greatly diminished Yisrael Beiteinu party into the opposition.
That dramatically changed the situation.
Amanda Marcotte: “Should Black Widow bag four out of six Avengers, the world that comes to mind is not ‘slut.’ but hero. Perhaps superhero.”
An interesting development in the Social Security wars. Look for Democrats to propose combining the separate disability and retirement funds so that they can be managed as one fund. That would take away the need to “reallocate” between the funds, which requires congressional approval and therefore gives Social Security foes a chance to make trouble periodically. No chance of this yet-to-be-unveiled Democratic bill passing the current GOP Congress, but as an effort to change the terms of the debate, it’s worth noting.
There’s an element of the failed attack in Garland, Texas that most are probably unwilling to broach. Both sides of this drama amount to the War on Terror B team, or perhaps the C or even D team, hapless clowns and cartoonish caricatures on both sides of the equation who need each other to sustain their own drama and nonsense. Somewhat to my surprise Pam Geller herself is now starting to catch flak for being the clown show that she is, even partly from the right, and endangering police for no reason. She is responding with predictable histrionics and nonsense. Her would-be attackers are something like her mirror image.
Catherine Thompson is our lead reporter on the military (non) takeover of Texas story. And today at 1 PM she’s holding a Live Chat at The Hive (sub req) to answer your questions about just what on earth is going on down in Texas, what the states Republican politicians are thinking and whether shuttered Walmarts are really part of President Obama’s plan to take over Texas. Get your questions in now and join Catherine tomorrow in a half hour. I’ll see you there.
The Mayor of Garland, Texas says Pam Geller’s anti-Islam event “invited” the attack.
Greta Van Susteren on Fox too.
If Texas would like to get out of the business of having a ton of the country’s military bases and aerospace installations on its soil, Joe Manchin would like them all to come over to West Virginia. “I don’t know what’s going on in Texas. I don’t know the paranoia that goes on in Texas, but the people in West Virginia welcome, welcome the special forces exercises. Please come to West Virginia. We’ll welcome you with open arms. We’re not afraid of you. We embrace you, we want you to be part of us.”