Attribution:DailyKos/GoogleMaps: According to a new PPP survey, 39 percent of people who think Benghazi is the biggest scandal don't know that it is in Libya, including 6 percent who think it's in Cuba.

From Public Policy Polling's latest national survey:

"One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess."

True, these numbers aren't really that big a shock. If you're dumb enough to think that Benghazi is the biggest scandal ever, it's not surprising if you don't know where it is. And 74 percent of Republicans think Benghazi is worse than Watergate.

Just to be clear, the attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, and the fatalities that included U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens were horrific and are not at issue today. What the GOP is trying to make an "issue" of -- and with the willing help of the "Liberal" media -- is their claim that initial speculation that the attacks were a spontaneous response to a video were over-emphasized by the Obama administration, and they are taking issue with the investigation and the response by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

And as we've already seen, if there is one thing the Republican party of today is actually good at, it is dragging out absolutely nothing for an incredibly long time.

The poll also showed that most Americans trust Hillary Clinton over Republicans on Benghazi, by a 49-39 margin.

The House Republican bill H.R. 1406 is the latest in a string of GOP attacks on workers' rights. The bill would force an unnecessary choice between overtime pay that workers rely on and time off that they may never be able to take advantage of. H.R. 1406 -- the "Working Families Flexibility Act" -- would give employers the ability to offer compensatory time off in exchange for any overtime wages the worker has earned.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed the bill on Wednesday that they say gives workers more time off - rejecting criticism from the White House, unions, women's groups and others that the measure is a sham that would force more work for less pay.

Backed by business (There's a shocker.), the bill is part of an effort by budget-slashing Republicans to project a "kinder and gentler image," particularly with women and working families.

On a nearly party-line vote of 223-204, the House approved the measure and sent it to the Senate where President Barack Obama's majority Democrats appear certain to kill it.

The bill would permit workers in the private sector, like those now in the public sector, to swap overtime pay for compensatory time off. They would get 1-1/2 hours time off for each hour of overtime, based on a standard 40-hour work week.

Continue reading »

By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica

We've updated our sequestration explainer to reflect new developments. It was originally published on April 11, 2013.

When the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt faced cancellation this year due to the package of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, the National Park Service kicked into high gear. It rescued the event — held since 1878 — with money from "corporate sponsors and the sale of commemorative wooden eggs," according to the Washington Post.

The nation's airline passengers also caught a break last month when Congress passed (and President Obama quickly signed) a bill allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to shift some funds and halt the furloughs of air traffic controllers that had been blamed for long flight delays around the country.

But other programs haven't been so lucky. Children in Indiana have been cut from the federally funded Head Start preschool program, and one Head Start program in Maine is being cut altogether. Furloughs have begun for employees of agencies from the U.S. Park Police to the Environmental Protection Agency. And cuts to Medicare have forced cancer clinics to turn away thousands of patients who are being treated with drugs the clinics can no longer afford.

We've taken a look at what's actually happened in the two months since sequestration took effect.

Remind me, what is sequestration again?

Remember the clash over the debt ceiling back in 2011?

When Republicans and Obama struck a deal to raise it, they created a "super committee" of six Democrats and six Republicans and gave them three and a half months to hash out $1.2 trillion worth of cuts to the federal budget over the next decade. If they failed, a package of automatic cuts designed to slash funding to programs dear to both parties (military spending, in the Republicans' case, and Medicare and other domestic programs in the Democrats') would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

Needless to say, the super committee failed, leading to the cuts we're seeing now.

Continue reading »

The push to legislate "morality" goes on, and on. But should it? Republican legislators have hammered away at trying to take down Roe v. Wade at the state level. Why is the "morality brigade" so concerned with fetuses, but so quick to cut benefits to children from low income families? Can that behavior really be considered "morality?"

On that matter, is there any argument against same-sex marriage that isn't "morality" based?

Why are corporations given rights that trump those of ordinary people? What about the sweeping Wall Street greed that is decimating our country's economy? Could it be...that this about who has the money and who's working for them? Why isn't the morality brigade fighting that battle? Robert Reich explains the troubling situation.

By Joe Sexton, ProPublica

Here at ProPublica, we're great believers in the idea that public revelation of scandal leads to reforms. Over the years, we've seen plenty of evidence that sunshine is a disinfectant, from the New Orleans police department to California's nursing board.

But I have to admit that there may be one pestilent corner of the body politic where such cause and effect physics don't yet seem to apply, a black hole within which the forces of greed have to date overwhelmed all good sense and every call for redemption.

You've already guessed, of course, that we're talking about Albany, New York.

Like many of the notorious outposts on America's map of graft, Albany has a storied history of dishonest behavior. When Abraham Lincoln wanted to push the 13th Amendment through a recalcitrant Congress, his Secretary of State, William Seward, told the president he'd need to make some ethically dicey promises, work best left to an operative skilled in the darkest arts of politics.

"I'll fetch a friend from Albany," Seward, a former New York governor, is quoted as saying in the movie "Lincoln." "Spare you the exposure and liability."

It doesn't appear much has changed. This week alone, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York went before the cameras twice to announce indictments of state legislators. Thursday's announcement – Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arraigned on bribery charges – came with a twist: a legislator had been wearing a wire for the Feds for months, maybe years.

The collective shiver in the Capitol scored pretty well on the Richter scale.

Continue reading »

Outside of the Republican media bubble, I don't think there has been any doubt that Republicans, not President Obama, are the ones insisting on implementing the sequester's automatic spending cuts. Yet to hear House Speaker John Boehner tell it, you'd never know that. Boehner even went so far as to hold a press conference with the phrase "#Obamaquester" on a placard on his podium, and a "#Countdown to Obamaquester" clock in the background.(See photo below)

Wednesday, however, the unexpected happened -- Boehner admitted his lie. He came clean during an an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tapper's new show, "The Lead." Boehner initially tried to blame President Obama for the sequester, saying that "he forced this process to occur." Then Tapper pointed out that President Obama didn't want the sequester cuts ... and Boehner actually conceded the point:

"Well, no, he didn't want the cuts. But, uh, we have the sequester as a result of his demands. And I've told my colleagues in the House that the sequester will stay in effect until there's an agreement that will include cuts and reforms that will balance the budget over the next ten years."

Let there now be no doubt, this is the #Boehnerquester. Obama doesn't want the sequester cuts, John Boehner does -- and he'll insist on keeping them in place until even harsher budget cuts are enacted.

H/T Jed Lewison

From The Onion: To shore up support among female voters, the GOP has introduced a bill banning "putting angry hands to lady necks" and "hurting pretty ladies with mean sex."

Republicans reaching out to anyone but wealthy old white men should should be a give-away.

In this video from CPAC, a black man seems like he sincerely interested in helping find a way for conservatives to appeal to other African Americans, but then he suddenly gets screamed on by a white guy who insists that "race doesn't matter." Which in short, summarizes why the Republicans continually lose the vote of any group that doesn't have white skin. Here is a partial transcript:

Black guy: "Recruit us."

White guy: "So?"

Black guy: "What's wrong with the message?"

White guy: "Why didn't you go out and look?"

Black guy: "What's wrong with the message? How many?" (Holding up five fingers on one hand)

White guy: "I don't count?!?!"

Black guy: "It matters."

White guy: "I don't ask people what their . . ?"

Black guy: "It matters because."

White guy: ((unintelligible))

Black guy: "I do. Cause race matters."

White guy: "No it doesn't!!! You're an American! You're not a black person! You're an American! I didn't go in and count all the Jews?"

The white guy continues to scream at the black guy, and doesn't get asked to leave. The black guy gets asked to leave. There's a shocker.

Then, perhaps realizing what a racist ass he has revealed himself to be, the white guy accuses the black guy of trying to divide the country by acknowledging that he is, in fact, a black guy in a failed effort to hide the fact that he's a racist.

Near the end of the video, the man who was asked to leave goes on to say:

"I'm trying to understand how come there's no black people here. I'm trying to figure out why the outreach of the GOP and especially CPAC is not working with black citizens and I have yet to find an answer, only I get, all I've gotten is abrasive attitudes and people yelling because I guess I ask the tough question, just ask the simple question, where's the inclusion? Where are the black people? I don't know why that is so offensive?"

Perhaps this man hasn't yet caught on that the Republican Party is a broken flop. Republicans telling white Republicans that race no longer matters only works on white Republicans, and they exclude everyone who isn't white and wealthy.

Here's another shocker: The bald screaming white guy is none other than Jeff Dunetz, yidwithlid. A full blown Breitbart ambushing hack.

[H/T DailyKos]

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, joins Current TV's John Fugelsang to discuss what's next for President Obama and the GOP now that the sequester has gone into effect. Reich argues that Republicans aren't opposed to the sequester because they're simply against raising taxes, but because they represent the wealthy.

"Republicans are saying no taxes on the rich, no closing of any loopholes at all. Mitt Romney's ... special privileges with regard to private equity and all of the other privileges that the rich have — we want to protect. And we want to protect even at the expense of schools and roads and bridges and women and infants and children programs, and everything else the public needs," Reich says.

Check out the New DNC Video. Republicans in Congress got what they wanted – the GOP sequester cuts. John Boehner may have gotten 98 percent of what he wanted with these cuts, but communities across the country are bracing for their harmful impact. As President Obama made clear, these cuts are not smart, they are not fair, and they don't need to happen if congressional Republicans step up and do what's right — accept a balanced approach to growing our economy and reducing our deficit.