Wow. A Republican Attorney General, talking common sense? I may faint from the shock. I mean, I thought some of the politicians opposing the Affordable Care Act might have legitimate concerns and not just a political agenda, but I certainly didn’t think any of them would say it out loud:

ThinkProgress spoke with Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Caldwell opposes Obamacare and the individual mandate, but for a different reason than most of his fellow litigants: it props up the private health insurance industry.

“Insurance companies are the absolute worst people to handle this kind of business,” he declared. “I trust the government more than insurance companies.” Caldwell went on to endorse the idea of a single-payer health care system, saying it’d “be a whole lot better” than Obamacare:

KEYES: You don’t think the subsidies for low-income people are going to be helpful?

CALDWELL: No, no. The worst thing you can do is give it to an insurance company. I want to make my point. All insurance companies are controlled in their particular state. If you have a hurricane come up the east coast, the first one that’s going to leave you when they gotta pay too many claims is an insurance company. Insurance companies are the absolute worst people to handle this kind of business. I trust the government more than insurance companies. If the government wants to put forth a policy where they will pay for everything and you won’t have to go through an insurance policy, that’d be a whole lot better.

I guess someone from Louisiana would know. There were numerous cases of insurance companies stiffing customers after Hurricane Katrina.

Olbermann out at Current TV. Now what? (How is it that Dear Leader Rush and his ilk get to spew hatred and bigotry and stay on the air, while someone generally decent and thoughtful, if admittedly also a tad egomaniacal, like Keith can’t find a media home?)

Mario Piperni: Racism (on the right) is alive and well in America.

Echidne of the Snakes: Arizona plans draconian abortion restrictions.

And so do Kansas and New Hampshire. Women, the war on you is in full swing. Let’s all fight back with everything we’ve got.

And some international content:

The Duck of Minerva: How China may respond to containment.

Fruits and Votes: Trouble for democracy in Mali and Senegal.

Round-up by Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction (@mjwstickings).

Send tips to [email protected]

First Ski Jump. h/t DailyViral.

Open thread below….

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Tea party reporter Susie Sampson gives us yet another installment of The Tea Party Report. This time from The Big Easy – New Orleans.

In a show of solidarity for slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin, some California Democrats donned gray hooded sweatshirts over their suits and ties during Thursday morning’s legislative session.

The Sacramento Bee reports that State Sens. Curren Price, Juan Vargas, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg were among those who paid tribute to Martin with sweatshirts with “In memory of Trayvon Martin” printed on the back.

In the above video, State Senator Curren Price calls the session to order with a statement of the facts of Martin’s death when “neighborhood watchman” George Zimmerman shot him, twice, as he walked home from a near-by store to buy Skittles and iced tea. Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, and has not yet been charged with any crime.

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It’s no secret that Fox News leans to the right, but one host may have crossed the line on Friday when he actively encouraged viewers to “vote Republican” if they didn’t like big government.

During an interview with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy seemed to endorse the congressman’s “Path to Prosperity” budget.

“This really is kind of a campaign document because it draws a bright line between what the Republicans stand for and what the Democrats stand for,” he explained. “If you want big government then the Democrats are your party.”

Doocy added: “Whereas, if you want a party that’s making some hard choices, vote Republican.”

During the interview, Ryan had declared his support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“Here’s the reason why I endorsed him,” the House Budget Committee chairman said. “It’s clear to me he understands the fork in the road America is facing. It’s clear to me he understands exactly what we need to do to stop America from having a debt crisis.”

“I also think he’s the best chance of winning and defeating President Obama in the fall.”

On Sunday, Ryan indicated that he was willing to “consider” accepting a nomination to be his party’s vice presidential nominee.

“I would have to consider it,” the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News host Chris Wallace. “But it’s not something I’m even thinking about right now because I think our job in Congress is pretty important.”

(H/T: Media Matters)

The Republican relationship with economic health is akin to that of a leech and its host, which is why I will no longer refer to Republican “leadership.” From here on out, it’s “bleedership”, especially in my home state of Pennsylvania under the Tom Corbett administration:

While many panelists at this weekend’s Pennsylvania Leadership Conference complained about the Pennsylvania government being too big, a new study shows Pennsylvania may be the poster-child for a stagnant unemployment rate due to state level cuts under Republican leadership.

Bryce Covert and Mike Konczai illustrate a painfully obvious point in The Nation regarding the Commonwealth’s cutting of public jobs and enacting partisan social legislation. And while Pennsylvania may be the most obvious example used by the authors, we’re one of many states undergoing a conservative transformation to the dark side.

Republican state legislators, empowered by new control of the governorship and the state house, proposed one of the most stringent mandatory ultrasound bills in the country. The House passed a voter identification law that could block 700,000 Pennsylvanians from voting, most of them young, of color, and poor. Meanwhile, the same state legislators led a successful charge to shrink public employment. The number of government employees fell over 3 percent that year, one of the sharpest declines in any state.

The piece goes onto to explain that “Pennsylvania isn’t alone.” In fact, as we’re all likely aware, 2010 was a blood red electoral year, and happened because those Republicans promised massive job growth if they only got the chance to rule over us. Lots of swing and oft-blue states went red. The result: the economic and social equivalent of a tire iron to the face. In those 11 states where Republicans have taken control since January 2011, “public sector layoffs are disproportionately concentrated, leading to one of the biggest rounds of job losses for the public workforce since record keeping began.” And with that has come a massive increase in conservative bills meant to limit voting by minorities and the poor, and limiting abortion rights.

In 2011, Pennsylvania state and local employment by the state legislature dropped by more than 3 percent, according to the article. Corbett’s lowering of the corporate tax rate and imposition of a low effective tax rate on drilling the Marcellus Shale have “made the deficit even worse.”

“There could have been fewer layoffs than there were,” said Mark Price, an economist based in Pennsylvania. “They could have avoided this.” As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found, many of these newly GOP-dominated states, including North Carolina, cut corporate taxes, or cut taxes on high-income earners, including Maine and Ohio. Wisconsin did both.

I don’t believe they wanted to avoid this. Repeat after me, class: Cheap, disposable labor with no legal protections! It’s the Holy Grail of the Grand Old Party.

As to these bleeding-heart whiners, I can only imagine what PA Gov. Corbett would say: “Hey, work on your uppercut! Don’t be such a girl!” Because he’s so good at that tough-love thing:

Philadelphia already doesn’t have enough beds in domestic abuse shelters to serve a glut of demand, andGov. Tom Corbett‘s proposed 20 percent cut to state social services funding will make matters worse still, likely requiring shelters to reduce their services. Then, there’s General Assistance, the $205-per-month, nine-month cash payout that abused women can use to help them get back on their feet after leaving their abusers. As CP’s Daniel Denvir reported, the loss of GA to recovering addicts could make thousands homeless. The impact on abused women is just as terrifying: It could discourage them from leaving their abusers.

[...] Another Corbett move — rolling human services funding into a single block grant before slashing it by a fifth — has introduced yet another level of uncertainty for organizations that serve women in crisis. “We’ve already trimmed our staff,” Scioscia says. “We’re operating on such a skeletal level that what we’re going to have to cut are services.”

Putting people out of work, pushing addicts into the street and locking poor women into dangerous and abusive relationships? That’s what Gov. Corbett would call a good job!

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Last week, in a fit of anger at the injustice of the Trayvon Martin case, director Spike Lee stupidly tweeted the address of a George Zimmerman of Sanford, Florida. The only problem was that it was NOT the George Zimmerman who shot Trayvon Martin. It was instead the address of an elderly couple whose son shared the same name. At universal condemning, Lee apologized to the couple and today, agreed to a settlement for their distress. I agree with Balloon Juice’s John Cole’s initial reaction: Spike Lee is an idiot and should not be encouraging vigilante “justice”. Unfortunately, Lee also gave the likes of Sean Hannity all the ammunition he needed to run a segment like the one this Thursday.

That said, I do agree with Ellen over at Newshounds who pointed out Hannity’s hypocrisy. If he wants appoint himself the campaign donor police for President Obama (as they’ve done and failed already with Bill Maher), he probably should avoid playing the “both sides are equally terrible” game with his statements, considering his own connections to a charity run by a slavery-justifying, misogynistic Jesse Peterson:

A few quotes from Peterson, via the above links:

“I’ve often said that, ‘Thank God for slavery,’ because, you know, had not, then the blacks over here would have been stuck in Africa… The ride over (in a slave ship) was pretty tough but you know, it’s like riding on a crowded airplane when you’re not in First Class. It’s a tough ride. But you’re happy when you get to your destination.”
“Women’s rights are “a trick from Satan.”
“One of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote.”
“N)ot all, but most (women) turned into little whores.”

Or the hours upon hours of hate and misogyny that Rush Limbaugh spews on his show daily and that he was still doing this week despite hemorrhaging sponsors, as Media Matters documented here – Limbaugh: If Health Care Reform Law Is Overturned “College Co-Eds” Might Have To Pay “To Have Protected Sex”.

Hannity never seems to be concerned about crazy things anyone says that donate to political campaigns unless those donors happen to be supportive of President Obama’s campaign or a Democrat, so it’s pretty obvious what the source of his feigned indignation is here.

He was also completely dismissive of the new video obtained by ABC News where it seems pretty obvious to me that Zimmerman had not been in some life or death struggle with his head being beaten into the concrete and his nose broken shortly before . I’ve heard people on a number of outlets trying to claim he was “cleaned up” by paramedics before this was recorded. Did he change his clothes as well? It’s absolutely ridiculous to believe the claims by Zimmerman’s father that he was beaten as badly as he was and somehow reconcile that with how he looks in the video released.

And back to the video above, Hannity’s guest was also allowed to get away with the whopper that Media Matters noted here — Fox’s Tamara Holder: Black People Are Making Trayvon Martin Case “More Of A Racial Issue Than It Should Be”.

Sorry, Tamara, but no. This is a racial issue because the type of racial profiling that happened to Trayvon Martin happens way too often and this is not an isolated incident. If this was a one-off, you would not be seeing the outrage from Civil Rights leaders and from all different community, irrespective of their skin color.

The right’s answers to problems with poverty and race relations have been to escalate them rather than do anything to solve their root causes. Their answer to crime has been to just incarcerate as many black men as possible and make sure they can’t vote for anyone that might actually care about solving the problems within their communities when they come out of jail.

The right’s reaction to a black man finally being elected president has been to do nothing but inflame racial hatred and bigotry in America. They prey on the lizard brains to make every racist out there scared to death of our centrist, educated and even-tempered black president and turn him into something foreign, radical and out to take advantage of white people. They claim he wants to turn us into a “welfare state” that coddles lazy black people that don’t want to work while those “hard working” white people have to foot the bill for them sitting at home, living high off the hog on their welfare checks and laughing at the rest of us. And if they’re not doing that, they’re up to no good and are going to rob, or rape or attack you.

Or maybe they’re some kid walking home in the wrong neighborhood, armed with some Skittles and iced tea, with the wrong idiot whose father is a judge with friends in the right places stalking him. Sean Hannity thinks it’s absolutely fine for that idiot to confront and shoot the kid because he was supposedly “defending himself” during an altercation he instigated. And now he’s going to turn it into a race baiting game after someone on the left acted irresponsibly. He’ll make it about President Obama–because everything is this president’s fault–instead of the fact that the only reason this child was killed is because George Zimmerman decided to confront him while he was armed, when the only thing that kid was doing wrong, is trying to walk home while black.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I thought, but it’s still depressing to actually hear it from Wendell Potter. The insurance companies are just salivating at the thought of getting their hands on all those additional premium dollars – they just want to make sure there are as few consumer protections as possible so they get to keep most of the money instead of spending it on pesky things like patient care:

Wendell Potter spent 20 years as top executive with CIGNA. He wrote “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans”. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act – with a decision expected in June – the insurance industry whistleblower says the industry’s real goal is not to repeal the law, but to defeat Democrats in November.

Wendell Potter: “They don’t want the bill – quite honestly – to be overturned or repealed. They want the bill to go forward with the individual mandate intact. But what they want to do is to get people to vote out the Democrats who voted for the bill so that they’ll have more friends in Congress to strip out the consumer protections.”

Potter says for-profit health insurers are killing health health care and their unsustainable system will implode within a few years. That’s the view he got from the CIGNA corporate ladder.

“The higher up that ladder I climbed the more I could see what these companies do to meet Wall Street’s profit expectations. And most of the big insurance companies are now for-profit companies. They cancel people’s health insurance when they get sick. They refuse to sell coverage to people who need coverage. They price policies so high that small businesses can no longer afford care. They are spending less and less of our premium dollars on our health care and more and more to reward shareholders and senior executives.”