Obama compares Israel-Palestine situation to US Civil Rights struggle.

To get a good sense why the immigration reform ‘debate’ is probably over, read this.

Yesterday TPM Reader AM flagged to us that the New Jersey legislature is considering a bill to ban so-called “gay conversion therapy.” Of course, if it is passed, it would need the signature of Gov. Chris Christie. If he signs it, it’s probably another nail in the coffin of any national political ambitions in the GOP. If he vetoes it, he probably damages his increasingly potent cross-party appeal going into this fall’s election campaign. Read More

Montana legislators poised to allow eating roadkill for dinner.

ICYMI: My quick take on why it’s going to be much harder for the GOP to de-leverage its position on race politics than people seem to think.

President Obama kicks off spring with a visit to Israel, and some respite from Congress.

Full-size version.

So it turns out Dylan Ratigan dropped out of the New York media rat race to go work on a hydroponic organic farm.

We’ve been monitoring the collapse of January’s Senate rules reform agreement over the past couple months, mostly through the lens of presidential nominations. But this week brings us with exciting new examples of its colossal failure.

Here, for instance, is our most recent story about must-pass legislation to avoid a government shutdown. Long story short, some Republicans weren’t allowed votes on their amendments. Then instead of accepting the fact that the bill has supermajority support, they wasted three legislative days out of protest. That’s three days the Senate wasn’t debating the Dem budget Republicans have been salivating over for four years.

But the filibuster reform flop is also partially to blame for the early demise of Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban. Read More

Rand Paul seems to have engineered the unconditional surrender of the Tea Party anti-immigration caucus in the House.

Jeff Bezos and team have recovered from the Atlantic some of the Saturn V rocket engines that powered the Apollo missions back in the day. Take a look.