Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) blasts the Beltway Culture (VIDEO)

Wow.



Traffic? Seriously, dude? Have you been to L.A.??

Also, as a Native D.C.er, as in born and raised in D.C., I have to admit, I've ALWAYS called it a Subway. "Hey, Malcolm...what's the Metro?" "Well, that's our Subway System." I don't know what else you'd call it.

The Rolling Stone Interview with President Obama...

Yeah, the link is right here. Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman and Andrew Sullivan are going to have reasons to smile a bit today.

What do you read regularly to keep you informed or provide you with perspectives beyond the inner circle of your advisers?
[Laughs] Other than Rolling Stone?

That goes without saying.
I don't watch a lot of TV news. I don't watch cable at all. I like The Daily Show, so sometimes if I'm home late at night, I'll catch snippets of that. I think Jon Stewart's brilliant. It's amazing to me the degree to which he's able to cut through a bunch of the nonsense – for young people in particular, where I think he ends up having more credibility than a lot of more conventional news programs do.

I spend a lot of time just reading reports, studies, briefing books, intelligence assessments.

Newspapers?
I'll thumb through all the major papers in the morning. I'll read the Times and Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, just to catch up.

Do you read Paul Krugman?
I read all of the New York Times columnists. Krugman's obviously one of the smartest economic reporters out there, but I also read some of the conservative columnists, just to get a sense of where those arguments are going. There are a handful of blogs, Andrew Sullivan's on the Daily Beast being an example, that combine thoughtful analysis with a sampling of lots of essays that are out there. The New Yorker and The Atlantic still do terrific work. Every once in a while, I sneak in a novel or a nonfiction book.

I thought you were going to say Playboy.
No [laughs].

Also, I thought this was important:

In working with the Republicans in this term, it seems clear that the traditional rules of give-and-take politics have changed – that the Republicans have been playing a "lose-lose" game with you. What's your relationship with the GOP leadership at this point? A little frosty?
It's not frosty. This isn't personal. When John Boehner and I sit down, I enjoy a conversation with him. I don't think he's a bad person. I think he's patriotic. I think that the Republicans up on the Hill care about this country, but they have a very ideologically rigid view of how to move this country forward, and a lot of how they approach issues is defined by "Will this help us defeat the president?" as opposed to "Will this move the country forward?"

Is there any way to break through that obstructionism by Republicans?
My hope is that if the American people send a message to them that's consistent with the fact that Congress is polling at 13 percent right now, and they suffer some losses in this next election, that there's going to be some self-reflection going on – that it might break the fever. They might say to themselves, "You know what, we've lost our way here. We need to refocus on trying to get things done for the American people."

Frankly, I know that there are good, decent Republicans on Capitol Hill who, in a different environment, would welcome the capacity to work with me. But right now, in an atmosphere in which folks like Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist are defining what it means to be a true conservative, they are lying low. My hope is that after this next election, they'll feel a little more liberated to go out and say, "Let's redirect the Republican Party back to those traditions in which a Dwight Eisenhower can build an interstate highway system."

The President's Interview on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon... (VIDEO)

Part 1:




Part 2:




Part 3:




Part 4:




Part 5:




Part 6: (Man, there's a Part 6???)




And finally, and most importantly...slow jammin' the News:



Technically, that was first, but...it's a great way to end this post.

The Daily Show's Extended Interview with Robert Reich

Part 1:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 2:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 3:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The Daily Show: The War on Women...Jason Jones style (VIDEO)

I've fallen behind...badly. So I'm catching up with a couple of greatest hits...

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Rick Santorum...taken advantage of by a rich white man (VIDEO)

For shame, Mr. Santorum...for shame.

Rick Santorum Aborts Presidential Campaign from Ashley Judd

Courtesy of @beardedstoner, the ethical rationale of the Mitt Romney Campaign (VIDEO)

Full props to @beardedstoner for a damn good idea.

The complete Ed Show interview with Vice President Joe Biden (VIDEO)

Intro:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Part 1:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Part 2:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Colbert Interview with Michelle Obama (VIDEO)

Part 1:

The Colbert Report
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Part 2:

The Colbert Report
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And in case you missed this bit of Michelle Obama comedy goodness:

The Colbert Report
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Just wait for it, you'll see it.

Six seconds later...they'll get back to [us] on that... (VIDEO)

"Welcome to the party, pal..." (VIDEO)

And in case you don't get the reference:

President Obama's speech today in Florida on the Buffet Rule (VIDEO)

Billboard Racism... (VIDEO)

Saw these stories in a couple places today, but Jonathan Capehart was the first to collect them both together:

“Long live Zimmerman” was spray painted on a wall outside the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center at Ohio State University on April 5. In a tweet that morning, university President E. Gordon Gee called it a “Deplorable act of intolerance.” As you see in the video [below], the message was removed.

“Trayvon A N-----” was the message to motorists on one of those electronic construction signs early this morning on Interstate 94 in Michigan. According to Shawn Ley of WDIV-TV in Detroit, the computer keyboard used to type those highway messages was torn out and stolen from the metal box on the back of the construction sign.

Trayvon racial slur on Mich road sign: woodtv.com

One more accomplishment for the President to brag about... (VIDEO)

He signed the STOCK act today...so, I'm guessing Mittens is in favor of repeal??

The President's Barnburner of a speech in front of the Associated Press Editors (VIDEO)

Too bad the Associated Press, apparently, declined to listen to any part of it (via TPM):

One of the key moments of President Obama’s Tuesday speech before an Associated Press luncheon came at the end, when he urged reporters not to cast partisan disagreements about the key issues of the day — health care, the environment, the role of the federal government — as a product of equal intransigence on both sides. Republicans, he noted, have abandoned their previous support for Obama initiatives — from transportation funding, to cap and trade, to the health care reforms that comprise ‘Obamacare’ — many of which emerged as conservative alternatives to more liberal policies.

His hosts weren’t listening — and as a result they’ve made Obama’s points about Republicans and the media for him.

“[I]f Republicans have moved to the right on health care, it’s also true that Obama has moved to the left,” reads an AP wrap on the Obama speech. “He strenuously opposed a mandate forcing people to obtain health insurance until he won office and changed his mind.”

It’s true that Obama campaigned against an individual mandate in 2008, only to embrace it — however reluctantly — after he became president. But to say that constitutes a move to the left betrays a lack of understanding about the origins and purpose of the individual mandate, and of Obama’s broader evolution on health care reform.

In the early aughts, as a member of the Illinois state Senate, Obama strongly supported a single-payer health care system.

Over the years, that position became more tempered by political realities, and by the 2008 Democratic primary, he had embraced the basic framework of what eventually became “Obamacare,” with two glaring exceptions: He supported a public option, and he opposed an individual mandate — the latter of which was crucial to the success of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts.

Obama was criticized by a mix of liberal and conservative technocrats and industry stakeholders for opposing the mandate. By embracing it as president, while dropping the public option, he was arguably moving further right still from his past support for single-payer. As Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — then the top Republican on the committee that drafted the health care law — said before health care reform turned toxic on the right, “I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.”

As Obama lurched toward Massachusetts’ plan as a potential framework for bipartisan consensus, Republicans quickly abandoned the pretense of supporting the principle of universal health care of any kind.

Steve Pearlstein: Why we should tell Corporate America to drop dead...

From Eat your broccoli, Justice Scalia, published on March 31st:

My first thought on perusing the briefs filed in the combined cases was to notice what wasn’t there: any involvement on the part of Corporate America.

For the past 20 years, big business has complained endlessly about escalating health-care premiums, which they correctly blamed on “cost-shifting,” including paying indirectly for the free care provided to the workers at firms that did not provide health benefits. They wanted an end to fee-for-service medicine that rewarded doctors for providing more care than necessary. Some even talked of reforms that would begin to move the country away from an employer-based insurance system.

Yet despite the fact that “Obamacare” did all of those things and more, there was not a single brief in support of the law from an organization representing big business.

Small businesses have spent the past two decades complaining that the reason they don’t offer coverage is that it’s too expensive because they don’t get the large-group and community rating advantage. So how did the National Federation of Independent Businesses respond to a law that assured small businesses the benefits of large-group purchasing and community rating and threw in billions of dollars in subsidies to boot? It signed up as one of the named plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the new law.

It’s hard to know what the business community will demand if the Supreme Court overturns the health-care law. At that point, however, it will hardly matter, since they will have lost all political credibility on the issue, particularly with the Obama White House and anyone who happens to be a Democrat.

President Obama's Press Conference with Felipe Calderon (Mexico) and Steve Harper (Canada) (VIDEO)

Just getting warmed up... (VIDEO)

The President launched this ad today, pissing off Mittens:




And Priorities USA came out with this ad on March 30:



I don't think they're coordinating, but they sure as heck are thinking the same.

For once, Santorum should've gone with "Anti-Government Blah Person" (VIDEO)

Key point. Rick Santorum does not call our President a N***** int his video.

But he really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, meant to.



I feel very comfortable pronouncing Rick Santorum as a cheap, two bit racist.

If Claire McCaskill is good enough for @votevets, then she's good enough for me (VIDEO)

Claire McCaskill has been driving me crazy these last two years, tacking right while trying to keep her seat.  She's done it enough to make me not care too much if she got re-elected.

However, if she's good enough for VoteVets, then...



Still mad about Mizzou bustin' my Bracket, though.