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1:58 PM PT: According to MSNBC, investigators will play video of of the two men they are seeking from the scene of the attack. The press conference is scheduled to begin at 5:00 PM ET. 2:02 PM PT: Here's another stream. A press officer just said the video and photos will be posted on FBI.gov in "five to ten minutes." 2:06 PM PT: According to CBS, the FBI will be asking the public to help name the people in the videos. One man wears a white cap, and his actions led them to be interested in the...

Mitch McConnell definitely wins for worst person in the world today. If his utterly crass gloating about killing sensible gun legislation wasn't enough to secure the title, this insane new campaign ad will seal it. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is seizing on a series of recent attacks against him for campaign ad fodder, tying a controversial liberal group to President Obama and decrying the "dirty" tactics of "liberals." "Mitch McConnell is Obama's number one target. Because Mitch protects Ken...

This is a developing story, and sadly, not likely to get better any time soon: Scores of people were injured and numerous buildings were damaged in the large explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas, according to local authorities. The Waco Department of Public Safety told NBC 5 of Dallas that many of the injuries were severe in the blast, which occurred at about 7:50 p.m. (8:50 p.m. ET) at the West Fertilizer plant in the small town of West, about 20 miles north of Waco. [...] NBC 5 ...

Surrounded by Newtown family members, President Obama gave a speech this afternoon angrily denouncing Senate inability to pass meaningful gun safety legislation, in particular the Manchin-Toomey amendment to strengthen the current system of background checks. "All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington." He also promised that today's votes were "just round one" of the ongoing fight for gun reform: "[T]he fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we woul...

Whoa! Absolutely nuclear! Politico reports that the NRCC is cutting Sanford loose in the wake of this whole trespassing debacle, and this isn't some half-heard rumor—it's an on-the-record quote, and a pretty lulzy one at that: "Mark Sanford has proven he knows what it takes to win elections. At this time, the NRCC will not be engaged in this special election." Hahah, maybe they're saying this because they know Sanford will wreck shop and the timing is all just a big coincidence? Sorry, just a...

Grab a tiny violin and give it to Sen. Rand Paul, because: Rand Paul defended the appearance he made at Howard University last week, saying he wasn't trying to teach black students about their own history and that the "left wing media" had misrepresented his speech. At a breakfast held Wednesday by the Christian Science Monitor, Paul said it was "unfair" how the media had portrayed the speech, which was by and large appreciated by the students in attendance — even if they said they still woul...

Fifty-six percent of Americans polled think that sales of assault weapons should stop and that high-capacity magazines should be banned. Eighty-six percent want expanded background checks on people getting guns online or at gun shows. But a minority of 41 senators oppose those things, so the sensible gun laws that are supported by a majority of the nation's population and a majority of the Senate will very likely be filibustered out of existence today. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was im...

Think Progress Sen. Mitch McConnell: "On 9/11 we forever disabused of the notion that attacks, like the one that rocked Boston yesterday ,only happen on the field of battle or in distant countries. With the passage of time, however, and the vigilant efforts of our military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals, I think it’s safe to say that for many, the complacency that prevailed prior to September 11th has actually returned. And so we are newly reminded that serious threats to our...

via Mediaite It's a bit early to hand out the award for Worst American, in the wake of yet another act of mass murder on the national stage, but I would be surprised if anyone manages to beat professional conspiracy peddler and continued actual cable news guest Alex Jones. His contribution to the discourse was a tweet immediately speculating whether it was a "#falseflag" operation, e.g. government-based, which would by itself be merely stupid, but when paired with actually sending a correspon...

If Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston had had his way, the National Guard wouldn't have been at Tuesday's Boston Marathon when two bombs exploded, killing three and wounding more than 170. A year ago, The Georgia Republican pleaded with the guard’s leaders to skip participation at the annual race because state-based troops were stressed by the oncoming sequester budget cuts and the need to be in global hotspots like Afghanistan and Bosnia. “The Boston Marathon, we got to take a pass,” King...

Three of eight: McCain, Schumer, Rubio The Senate's Gang of Eight is rolling out its immigration reform proposal Tuesday, though in a lower-key fashion than originally planned, due to the Boston Marathon bombing. The full details of the plan aren't yet known, but broadly, Sens. John McCain and Chuck Schumer write in the Wall Street Journal that: This legislation is truly comprehensive. It would provide a credible way for undocumented immigrants to apply for legalization and eventually citizen...

Just in time for Tax Day, President Obama released his 2012 return to the IRS. And right on cue, conservative commentators blasted the president for paying only 18.4 percent ($112,000) of his $609,000 in income to Uncle Sam. Predictably, while CNN's Erin Burnett slammed Obama's payment to the Treasury as "pretty low and frankly almost competitive with Mitt Romney's rate," Joe Scarborough said Obama's "hypocrisy is mind-boggling." As it turns out, right-wing rage over Barack Obama's tax rate i...

I'm going to recap Game if Thrones each week. Yes, I've read all the books, and I reserve the right to mention book items so long as I don't think they constitute a spoiler. You have the right to scream. I also reserve the right to tell the story of how when George was nominated for the World Fantasy Award, there was another nominee standing right beside him on stage. See name above, and expect this story to be repeated. Okay, let's go to Westeros.

Perhaps nothing illustrates how disconnected the Republican Party is from modern America than the GOP response to Jay-Z and Beyonce visiting Cuba. Led by Sen. Marco Rubio, the nutcase right is in an uproar over it. Because Communism. Watch former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino on the mic: Ho ho! He he! "The funniest thing I have ever seen in my life" says one Foxbot. Jay-Z, never one to talk a controversy lying down, teamed up with Timbaland and Alicia Keys' husband Swizz Beatz to put down his ...

A cautionary tale for current lawmakers. Thus far, the traditional media has reported on opposition to President Obama's inclusion of Social Security cuts in his budget as "liberal backlash." Even Rachel Maddow, in introducing this segment that included an interview with David Alexrod, frames it so: "President Obama releasing today what he describes as his compromise budget, compromising with Republicans on cuts to Social Security especially, and in the process enraging some of his own libera...

via Right Wing Watch I don't know what exactly gay Americans have done to America's diverse collection of far-right imbeciles to convince them that we are so very close to rounding up all the anti-gay social conservatives and putting them in camps, but they're obsessed over the notion. First it was far-right talk show host Janet Mefferd, who I initially ignored because who the hell cares about Janet Mefferd: Talk show host Janet Mefferd posted a link to Starnes’ article on her Facebook page t...

One of the big arguments you'll hear from low-wage employers trying to keep the minimum wage as a poverty wage is that raising it would be bad for workers because it would lead to job losses. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, a research assistant professor at the UMass-Amherst (the H is silent, contrary to what you hear here) Political Economy Research Institute, both challenge that claim. Wicks-Lim tells The Real News that: One year, in 2006, we looked at Arizona state minimum w...

The ExxonHatesYourChildren coalition of three progressive groups created the following ad as part of its satirical campaign against the biggest company in the world. It was supposed to be broadcast on ABC, NBC and Fox affiliates this week in Little Rock, Arkansas. But the ad was pulled moments before airing by the stations when Exxon threatened legal action. Exxon's cease and desist letter says the ad is factually wrong, makes a big deal of all the programs it sponsors for young people and it...

Ben’s love of fun and his excitement at the wonders of life were unmatched. His boundless energy kept him running across the soccer field long after the game was over. He couldn’t wait to get to school every morning. He sang with perfect pitch and had just played at his third piano recital. Irrepressibly bright and spirited, Ben experienced life at full tilt. Until that morning. Twenty of our children, and six of our educators – gone. Out of the blue. President Obama turned over his weekly ad...

This advertisement was produced by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America: Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—A Fatal Mischance: Yesterday, hope for a miracle deep beneath the mountains of West Virginia was extinguished as the bodies of the last four miners were found. The cause of the explosion that took the lives of 29 men has not yet been determined, but from the nature and strength of the explosion, it seems likely that it involved both a build up of methane and a...

Elizabeth Warren once again reminds us why we love her, pinning down government banking regulators on why they aren't telling the public—or even the homeowners in question—more about illegal foreclosures. In what's becoming a familiar scene, Warren first methodically asks the regulators what they do and don't know and what they're actually doing to hold banks accountable or at least let foreclosure victims do so, and then she flatly lays out the implications of what they've just told her, mak...

Despite receiving a smattering of pressure from the right for attacking President Obama's Social Security cut proposal, Rep. Greg Walden, the head of the House GOP's campaign committee, is standing by his criticism of the president's budget as a "shocking attack on seniors." In a statement provided to MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Walden's office says: Chairman Walden supports the budget passed by House Republicans that preserves and protects Medicare and Social Security while also balancing the budget...

As Joan McCarter wrote earlier, Rep. Greg Walden, the head of the House GOP's campaign committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that President Obama's budget represents "a shocking attack on seniors." Blitzer then asked: BLITZER: What's so shocking about changing that CPI, that consumer price index the way that you would determine how much inflation would go ahead with increases for Social Security recipients, for example? And Walden responded: WALDEN: Well, once again, you're trying to balance thi...

A clearly peeved Mitch McConnell doesn't know who released a tape of he and his staff discussing how best to smear potential opponent Ashley Judd. It's a near-certainty that the tape was released by a disgruntled staffer, but that's no fun so he's going to go with the invisible leftists theory: “Well, as you know, last month my wife’s ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky and then apparently they also bugged my headquarters,” McConnell said during his weekly press conference...

"We asked all 14 Republican senators for an interview about their filibuster threat, but none of them were available." Well, at least they have some shame. Or recognition that going on national television to tell the country they don't even want sensible gun regulations to be debated on the Senate floor is kind of bad politics. Please sign our petition to all senators demanding an up-or-down vote on gun safety legislation.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE… Dear President Obama, Cllick here please: "Let's lay it to rest once and for all … Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outgo of Social Security, that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit, it would go into the Social Security trust fund. So Social Security has nothing to do with balancing a budget or erasing or lowering...

Both the president's men. According to Roll Call, quoting a senior administration official, here is the defense of the president's attack on Social Security: “While this is not the president’s ideal deficit reduction plan, and there are particular proposals in this plan ... that were key Republican requests and not the president’s preferred approach, this is a compromise proposal built on common ground and the president felt it was important to make it clear that the offer still stands,” the ...

Note the violation of basic gun safety at about the :50 second mark ...

One of three posters produced by Batchelor Press/Batchelor Institute to commemorate the day Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the stolen generation (February, 13, 2008). On May 26th, each year since 1998, people in Australia come together for National Sorry Day events, and on February 13th to commemorate the National Apology to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous Australians given by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of the government and the nation. This is part two in a ...

Flashback: King defended supporting Boehner for Speaker despite aid delay Rep. Peter King, still talking a good game about how outraged he is that Republicans made New York and New Jersey wait three months to get emergency relief add after Hurricane Sandy: “My relationship with Congress will never be the same again,” the Long Island lawmaker said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “They made us wait 90 to 100 days to give the most basic human aid. It was absolutely disgraceful. When I see these Republ...

Mediaite I can think of nothing to say about this, so here it is. In a conversation about a hypothetical future race between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, Chris Matthews wondering aloud as to whether violence against women is really something women are concerned about: Chris Matthews: Is that close to the bone, the idea of wife beating, some old beaters? Andrea Mitchell: That was part of it. Matthews: Yeah, but is that something that women really worry about, men being brutal? Mitchell: Yes....

Every week Daily Kos diarists write scores of environmentally related posts. Many of these don't get the readership they deserve. Helping improve the odds is the motivation behind the Green Diary Rescue. In the past seven years, there have been 221 of these spotlighting more than 12,300 eco-diaries. Below are categorized links and excerpts to 78 more that appeared in the past seven days. Lots of good reading for the spare moments of your weekend. [Disclaimer: Inclusion of a diary in the rescu...

Join me below the fold for hunger strikers, pregnancy discrimination, and more.

Our top priority as a nation, and my top priority as President, must be doing everything we can to reignite the engine of America’s growth: a rising, thriving middle class. That’s our North Star. That must drive every decision we make. President Obama used his weekly address this morning to make promises to the middle class and tout his budget that was released yesterday, claiming that the never-ending debate between those who want to increase revenues and those who want to cut programs is a ...

Except for, you know, when it does ...

Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. Leading Off: • MA-Sen: I've been wondering what Stephen Lynch's path to victory might look like for a long time—in fact, since before he even got into the race. Fairly predictably, though, the conservative Lynch has trailed Ed Markey in every poll, sports poor favorability ratings among Democratic primary voters, and since he's well to the electorate's right on most issues, he doe...

Jake Tapper: Governor, how would you respond to somebody who says, look, I understand where you're coming from, but you still oppose same-sex marriage, and yet you are somebody who did not lead an exemplary life as a husband? Who are you to deny love between two men or two women, when you are somebody who talks about following his heart, regardless of the laws and traditions of the state of South Carolina? Why are you sitting in judgment of same-sex couples, when you have had the life you hav...

Crooks and Liars finds Fox delivering a new twist on its usual fare of putting two sociopaths on air to talk: Here it is Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin defending now fired Rutgers men's basketball coach Mike Rice: The "gems" were nonstop from this pair: MALKIN: "I think there should be scrutiny of people who blow the whistle on these kinds of things." Time to check some countertops! Malkin also blamed the "left wing Media" for the controversy. Yes the uber liberal ESPN. But she forgot a cer...

Right Wing Watch The question posed to conservative televangelist Pat Robertson from a 700 Club viewer: Why do amazing miracles (people raised from the dead, blind eyes open, lame people walking) happen with great frequency in places like Africa, and not here in the USA? What can we do to encourage those things to happen here? Is America too far gone for miracles like this? — KEN Pat Robertson's response to Ken: ” Those people overseas didn’t go to Ivy League schools. Well, we’re so sophistic...

As noted earlier today, conservatives are really bristling at the notion that they're bigots for, among other things, opposing marriage equality. The video above features top Romney adviser Stuart Stevens trying to explain why Republicans aren't bigoted, and why, this isn't a Republican-Democrat issue anyway! STUART STEVENS: First, I think we have to say, 200 hours ago, Hillary Clinton hadn’t announced that she was for gay marriage. The 2008 Democratic platform that Barack Obama ran on was no...

Back when there was a Republican president and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, Republicans supported infrastructure investment—to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Now, when President Obama proposes relatively modest federal expenditures on infrastructure with a major focus on encouraging private investment, this is the Republican response: Republicans responded by saying they also wanted to upgrade American roads, bridges and other infrastructure, but only if it co...

That's the second in a round of ads the DCCC is running against vulnerable Republicans who voted for the Ryan budget. The first largely focused on the Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher plan. This one hits them for the big giveaway to the wealthy and big corporations in the plan, at the expense of everyone else. The ads open with Ryan describing his budget as the GOP’s “vision” and an “expression of our governing philosophy,” before cutting to clips of pundits describing the policy as ...

Keep an eye on this: It is normal for the ice to crack and for leads to occur. However, this is very extensive cracking and there are some very big leads, and all of it seems to come earlier than expected. Given last year's melting mayhem and the low amount of multi-year ice, it makes one wonder whether this early cracking will have any effect in the melting season to come. There are still several weeks to go before this part of the Arctic is going to start melting, up till then the ice will ...

Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard Part of what is so important about history—to me—is how it is connected to our here and now. As a social scientist, and as an individual who is directly affected by my own nation's ugly history of enslavement and deeply embedded systemic racism, examining how nations (as represented by their elected officials) deal with past violations of the civil and human rights of a portion of their citizenry is a topic I find deeply absorbing. I also think there...

On this Easter Sunday, as believers and non-believers alike celebrate the return of Chocolate Jesus, the gay agenda is slowly but surely replacing the traditional values that this country was founded upon. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases which could ultimately decide the fate of "responsible procreation" in America. If, as is widely expected (YMMV), the Court rules against the constitutionality of Prop 8 and/or DOMA, the practical effect will be to requi...