Lets have right size government with competence. The way to do that is to get intelligent policy wonks instead of demagogues with good sounding sound bites that accomplish nothing.

New video released by the Obama administration contradicts Governor Christie's account of why New Jersey failed to receive a $400 million dollar educational grant in the Race To The Top program.  Earlier today after days of finger pointing, Christie fired New Jersey's State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler after Schundler refused to resign.
It is looking like Christie's comments the other day slamming big government and the Obama administration lack credibility after a new video shows New Jersey officials being asked by the selection committee for budget numbers not once but twice.  Both times they couldn't come up with an answer.
Via Blue Jersey:

It turns out the United States Department of Education keeps video of the presentations of Race to the Top applicants. And that video, obtained by Star Ledger (that's it, below) directly contradicts Gov. Christie's claim that Washington bureaucrats were at fault for not letting NJ just fix a basic error in the application.

Excerpt of N.J.'s Race to the Top interview shows officials with no budget answer

Does anybody in Washington, D.C. have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number. - - Gov. Christie

Actually, Christie's characteristic bluster aside, the video reveals that the NJ team was asked directly for that information, and they struggled to answer, and couldn't provide it. In fact, they apparently never provided it.

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Excerpt of N.J.'s Race to the Top interview shows officials with no budget answer

The Urban Politico: Governor Chris Christie Apparently Caught In Lie Over "Race To The Top" Funding

Ken Mehlman, who headed the Republican National Committee between 2005 and 2007, has come out in an interview with the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

"It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," Mehlman said. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."

Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman Comes Out: I'm Gay

I expect this will be an excellent book. It seems as it will draw Taliban & the American Right Wing parallels that many think of but refuse to articulate. If Markos HuffPo piece is indicative of what the book covers, it should be a bestseller. Does not hurt that it has the word “sex” in it.

For the past nine years, I've been told that I want the terrorists to win.

That's funny. Why would I want the radical jihadists to win? Indeed, on issue after issue, there is no daylight between the views of radical jihadists and the American radical right. Fact is, I loathe jihadists for the exact same reasons I hate the modern conservative movement -- because whether it's their violent outlook, or their views on women and gays, or their hostility to knowledge and science, or their fear of pop culture, they are essentially cut from the same
controlling, ideological cloth.

As obvious as this comparison might be, the accusation that liberals and jihadists share common cause has persisted, which is why I wrote my new book, American Taliban: How Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right.

Conservatives haven't reacted well to the book. Actually, they haven't reacted well to the title of the book, because none of them have read it. (Not that they've ever let ignorance get in the way of declaring something evil before.) But to the rational among us, the comparison is incontrovertible:

1. Theocracy

Mixing missionary zeal with government is always combustible, threatening freedom of thought, of religion, and of association. Such repression is obvious and deplorable in much of the Islamic world, where centuries-old Buddha statutes get razed by the Taliban because it offends their sensibilities. Yet such intolerance is also a hallmark of the American Taliban, whether it's their opposition to a Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan, or Glenn Beck asking Rep. Keith Ellison, one of just two Muslims in Congress, "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.

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Markos Moulitsas: How Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right

Mediate's Colby Hall has a new report today claiming that progressive media watchdog group Media Matters was never "serious" about putting up the funds to run an ad on Fox News about News Corp's $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association (RGA), pointing to the fact that Media Matters refused to edit its ad to meet Fox News' requests. But in an interview with the Huffington Post, Vice President of Research and Communications for Media Matters for America Ari Rabin-Havt said that those accounts are completely false.

The idea behind the Media Matters ad was to bring viewers' attention to the political activities of News Corp, which is the Rupert-Murdoch run parent company of Fox News. According to Media Matters, Fox News has devoted just 17 seconds of airtime to the organization's RGA donation, despite extensive coverage by other outlets. The group attempted to make the ad as straightforward as possible, to make it harder for Fox to reject it. View the original ad here. Fox News, however, took issue with some of the copy of the ad. Here are the changes the network requested, as outlined in an e-mail from the media buyer to Media Matters:

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Fox News Rejects Media Matters Ad Highlighting Its $1 Million GOP Donation, Admits News Corp Opposes 'Democratic Candidates'

If Jon Stewarts keeps this up he is going to be taken more seriously than mainstream media news and cable news. He has more truth and analysis in his satire than a large percentage of news we are seeing all day.

To my great liberal friends, it is imperative that we continue to push these snippets virally to combat the volume of misinformation FoxNews and Right Wing talk radio is able to generate. We do not need to become an echo chamber of truth within ourselves but we must engage and enlighten. A group of folks who know the truth basking in their “truthness” does nothing to be a part of the solution to rebuilding this country from the disaster casted upon us over the last 30 years.

If Right Wing and FoxNew’s sweetheart is changing, just maybe there is hope for the rest of Right  Wing land.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck has some surprising opinions.

In a two-part interview with Fancast, the conservative co-host of "The View" came out in support of gay marriage and described President Obama as "an incredibly cool guy."

"I am not ultra-ultra-conservative on every issue. I actually support gay marriage," she told Fancast in part one. "I think the gay marriage thing would definitely surprise people. I mean, for some people, it will surprise them to the point that they won't want to hear it. 'No, that can't be, I really want to have this sort of idea of her in my head,' so I sort of rain on their parade there. I am a person that does believe that life begins at conception, but I also don't believe that the government should tell women what to do with their bodies. So I'm torn there in terms of supporting laws [for or against abortion]. I always say I would rather change a heart than a law. I think it has to start there. Always trying to mandate, mandate, mandate this or that is not the way that I believe this country should run."

Hasselbeck said it would be more appropriate to describe her as a "Federalist" than a "conservative."

In part two of the interview, Hasselbeck told Fancast that she enjoyed hanging out with Obama backstage, even if she grilled him on-set.

"I think I'm still decompressing from the [experience]," she said. "I was really thankful to have the ability to sit there with our president, to be able to ask him face-to-face a question that I thought so many people have on their minds and [in their] hearts.... The president is an incredibly cool guy. We were able to go backstage with him [after the show] in our Green Room and talk about how everything seemed pretty orderly with him there and how comfortable everyone was. And there was definitely a moment - I mean, he and I looked at each other, and I remember him answering

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: 'I Actually Support Gay Marriage,' President Obama 'Incredibly Cool Guy'

FoxNews takes hypocrisy and ignorance to another level. If you are part owned by the Muslim who you accuse of supporting anti-American madrassas and accuse a mosque that may get partial funding from that same guy’s organization of being evil or a problem, then by inference FoxNews is also evil or a problem. FoxNews assumed its listeners are dumb. I think FoxNews listeners are lazy to research information on their own and as such they are easily mislead to support policies that hurt them.

Of more importance, why does it take a comedy show to highlight the hypocrisy of FoxNews with detail evidence? Should not the main stream media be doing this with their research departments? Is not a free media supposed to ensure we are not hoodwinked by government or the propaganda arm of any party?

It is imperative that this video goes viral.

It is time for progressive to double down and make the factual case that the Right’s policy will in fact destroy the middleclass and with it the country.

What the current right has on offer is far worse than anything Bush put forward, which means that this election isn't even about whether we'll go back into the ditch. It's about whether a movement that's gone over a cliff will be rewarded for doing so. A victory for this style of conservatism will be a defeat for the kind of conservatism the country needs. And that's a worthy matter to put to the voters.

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E.J. Dionne Jr. - Why won't the GOP say 'no' to extremism?

Franz explains why he no longer backs Perry for governor

By Steve Taylor

Hidalgo Mayor John David Franz tells reporters why he is backing Bill White for governor. (Photo: RGG/Steve Taylor)

HIDALGO, Aug. 20 - Hidalgo Mayor John David Franz today explained why he no longer backs Rick Perry for governor.

Speaking at a campaign event for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White, Franz said Perry let down the people of Hidalgo when he refused to make himself available to learn about the city’s desperate need to expand the capacity of its sewer system.

“When we needed to speak to the governor, not for anything personal, not for personal benefit or personal gain, but for the 12,000 people that live in this community, we couldn’t visit with the governor,” Franz told the audience.

Franz later explained to the Guardian why his fast growing community needed the governor’s help: the new sewer system would have increased capacity from 1.2 million gallons per day to 2.7 million gallons per day.

In the spring of 2009, Franz said, the City of Hidalgo made an application for a $5.8 million grant through the Texas Water Development Board. The funds had become available to the state agency thanks to a federal stimulus bill. “Millions of dollars in federal funds had been made available for disadvantaged communities like ours,” Franz said.

The Water Development Board agreed that the City of Hidalgo met the necessary criteria, Franz said. However, he said it lacked one permit that was not really necessary for another 18 months.

Franz told the audience that he tried for five months to reach Perry. He said he just wanted to explain the “serious problem” facing his community. He said he would have met with Perry anywhere. He just needed ten minutes of his time. It was to no avail.

“There were 5.8 million reasons for me to talk to the governor for the community of Hidalgo. We never go that opportunity. He was too busy,” Franz said.

“Finally, I was told by a staffer, ‘you have a meeting scheduled in Brownsville.’ The day before the meeting I was told, ‘the governor won’t be able to meet with you, he’s too busy.’ Well that sent a message very clear to this community.”

Franz said the people of Hidalgo need a governor who is going to be a governor for all Texans. “We need a governor who is going to be responsive to the needs of all Texans,” he said.

Franz is a Democrat who has supported Perry and some other statewide Republicans, such as U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, for many years. He has said that it is the person and his character that matters, not the party label. He explained to the audience Friday why he had backed Perry in the past.

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Franz explains why he no longer backs Perry for governor | RioGrandeGuardian.com | news source for the border

The Republican Party is no longer a serious party. They have no real core values. It is simply about ensuring no policy that affects however marginally the financial supremacy of corporations or the wealthy. This is no overstatement. Witness the results of every debate and who’s pocketbook is fattened by the realization of their policies or the objection they have to any policy that provides Americans with a safety net.

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia won his seat in Congress campaigning as a strict defender of the Constitution. He carries a copy in his pocket and is particularly fond of invoking the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

But it turns out there are parts of the document he doesn't care for – lots of them. He wants to get rid of the language about birthright citizenship, federal income taxes and direct election of senators, among others. He would add plenty of stuff, including explicitly authorizing castration as punishment for child rapists.

This hot-and-cold take on the Constitution is surprisingly common within the GOP, particularly among those like Broun who portray themselves as strict Constitutionalists and who frequently accuse Democrats of twisting the document to serve political aims.

Republicans have proposed at least 42 Constitutional amendments in the current Congress, including one that has gained favor recently to eliminate the automatic grant of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

Democrats – who typically take a more liberal view of the Constitution as an evolving document – have proposed 27 amendments, and fully one-third of those are part of a package from a single member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. Jackson's package encapsulates a liberal agenda in which everyone has new rights to quality housing and education, but most of the Democratic proposals deal with less ideological issues such as congressional succession in a national disaster or voting rights in U.S. territories.

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Republicans Hot, Cold On Constitution