By Kristen Hamilton, RP Staff, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Move over Vogue – Vogue Paris is coming to town! [The Cut]
From classy to oh-my-gosh-what-is-she-wearing: the evolution of prom dresses. [BuzzFeed]
It’s swimsuit shopping time! Check out this guide to find the best suit for your shape: [SheFinds]
J.C. Penney’s brand overhaul equals one thousand less employees. [Reuters]
By Artur Davis, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET  Hillary Clinton must know that there are at least three ways she might have been president.
Had she been modest enough to return home to build a Senate candidacy, rather than relocate to New York, she would have been handed the 2004 Illinois seat; and the young legislator named Obama who actually won that year might have become, say, a precocious lieutenant governor aiming higher, and the Democratic nomination would have been hers for the asking four years later.
On the flip side, had she been more immodest, she would have sought the presidency earlier, in 2004, a year when the Democratic field was weak and George W. Bush was vulnerable. Had she been a shade luckier, in 2008, Florida and Michigan would have saved their primaries for Super Tuesday, and the comfortable wins they gave her would have been decisive instead of being discounted under the byzantine nominating rules of that cycle.
 It’s enough narrowly missed fortune to haunt even a happy, contented soul who has power and fame to spare. Whether or not she feels cheated by destiny, though, Clinton can’t help but hear the drumbeat: the one from female activists who regret their coolness toward her in the last race; the one from Democratic insiders who don’t like the shape of a 2016 field of national novices; and the one from a surprising combination of the grassroots and the elite who aren’t bound to either party but harbor this quaint notion that for once, the most supremely qualified individual ought to advance to the presidency.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Hillary Nostaligia
By Jeff Smith, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET  Nice analysis by Virginia Young of the politics/policy behind teacher tenure reform nationally and in Missouri. [St. Louis Today]
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET  I try to think each night before going to bed of what I’m grateful for that day.
One item on tonight’s list is not having to have any more “birds and the bees” talks with my children.
I was reminded tonight of my first attempt which did not go the way I had planned.
Finally ready for the talk (me, that is), I launched into it with my son when he age 9. I thought he’d be fascinated and want to know details and pepper me with curious questions.
Instead he interrupted me, “OK. Stop. I don’t want to hear anymore. That’s just gross. You act like picking your nose is gross–well, that’s way grosser. You have to promise me it won’t happen again until I’ve moved out of the house to go to college.”
So, the conversation that had begun with me anxious about trying to explain human reproduction and nervous I’d fail, ended up with me proud that my son was already planning to go to college at age 9.
I guess it all worked out somehow.
By RP Staff, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET JTA, the leading international Jewish news agency featured a piece written by the RP last week in which he lambasted his fellow Jonathan Miller (the British playwright) for signing what The RP termed an anti-Semitic letter.
So reports JTA:
From one Jonathan Miller to another: Your Israeli boycott call is anti-Semitic
By Ami Eden · April 6, 2012
Let’s start with the first Jonathan Miller in the headline.
He’s a former state state treasurer in Kentucky and failed candidate for governor. He’s the creator of theRecovering Politician blog. And (full disclosure) he’s a JTA board member and basketball commentator.
He’s also very upset with another Jonathan Miller.
Not:
… Jonathan Miller, the News Corp executive, Jonathan Miller, the Birmingham Rabbi, Johnathan Miller, the Iran-Contra felon, or even Jonathan Miller whom God called to run for Congress in West Virginia.
Instead, Jonathan Miller (Blogger-Ky.) writes, his “deep disappointment is directed toward the most famous Jonathan Miller.”
For those of you who are under the age of 50 and have never tried to Google me, THE Jonathan Miller is “is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor,” best known for being a frequent guest in the early 1980s on The Dick Cavett Show.
Turns out Jonathan Miller (Actor-UK) has signed on to a call for a British theater (oh, fine, theatre) to exclude an Israeli troupe over the situation in the West Banlk. And Jonathan Miller (Blogger-Ky.) thinks this crosses into anti-Semitic territory:
But he did not protest the inclusion of a Turkish theater in the production (despite that country’s controversial occupation of parts of Cyprus), or China’s theater (despite their much-documented record on human rights in Tibet and other provinces), or Iran’s theater (despite their horrible treatment of minorities, especially gays and lesbians), or Russia’s theater (despite its violent occupation of Chechnya), or the Palestinian theater (despite its support for indiscriminate bombing of Israelis), or even the United States’ theater (despite our continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq).
By Krystal Ball, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET  There’s a concept in sports of playing down to the level of your competition. This occurs when a strong team struggles to beat a weak team because they do not play at their best. Mitt Romney is a vastly superior candidate in terms of organization, skills, and resume than Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich (let alone Herman Cain and Rick Perry). Romney’s not as strong as, say, a Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but he should have had no trouble dispatching a group of competitors who struggle to even qualify for the ballot, fund their travel, and fill out their delegate slates in key states. Romney’s been playing down to the field and it’s badly damaged his chances for victory in November.
 In playing down to a subpar field Romney has taken extreme positions that he won’t be able to Etch A Sketch away. In order to box out Rick Perry, he staked out the most extreme position on immigration of anyone in the field and badly damaged his standing with Latino voters. In order to box out Rick Santorum, Romney was forced to support the Blunt amendment which would allow employers to deny women preventative healthcare, to make a lot of noise about eliminating Planned Parenthood, and to support so-called “personhood amendments” like the one that Mississippi voters rejected as being too extreme. The result has been a stunning decline in the governor’s support among women, particularly women of child-bearing age. The latest USA Today/Gallup poll shows that Romney’s support among women under 50 in 12 key swing states has dropped 14 points in a single month. Over the same period he went from beating President Obama by 2 points in swing states to losing to him by 9. Romney may want to use a Men in Black style mind-eraser trick once he’s through the primary but Democrats are unlikely to allow voters to forget where Romney stood in order to box out his far-right competitors.
Read the rest of…
Krystal Ball: Mitt Romney Has Been Playing Down to his Competition
By Jeff Smith, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET The first Recovering Pol to fall off wagon turns in nice first quarter fundraising report:
Andrei Cherny tops $400K in 7 weeks in Arizona Congressional bid. [The Hill]
By Chris Schulz, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET The first debris from last year’s Japanese Tsunami is getting close to US shores. Officials will have to figure out the best way to deal with it. [yahoo.com]
Scientists have recently discovered evidence that our ancestors may have been using fire earlier than previously thought. [latimes.com]
Plans to build a factory in Brazil make deriving fuel from algae one step closer to an economic reality. [nytimes.com]
Rep. Yarmuth proposes taking subsidies away from oil companies and giving them to car owners. That may be a short term solution to rising gas prices but only hurts any long term strategy of energy independence. [leoweekly.com]
Quinoa is a super food that has recently gained a global appeal. This means rising prices for the Andean farmers but also increased headaches and concerns. [yahoo.com]
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET I’d like to issue a formal, written and heatfelt apology to all dogs I’ve ever make beg for treats.
When I was a boy, I found it amusing and felt a sense of power and control when I could hold a tantalizing but small treat just far enough away from reach to make the innocent animal to strain to stand on his hind legs–sometimes even expecting the dog to “dance” –before finally tossing the tiny morsel in the air as a reward for my amusement.
I am truly sorry.
Now that I am an adult, I hate it when other adults I work for do this to me (figuratively speaking).
It’s awful and I hate it.
And unlike most you dogs, I’m not very good at it and don’t look very cute doing it.
But I do it anyway.
By Krystal Ball, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 11:30 AM ET Yesterday, in my appearance on Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show, Bashir Live (See Clip below), I lost it a bit over Reince Priebus’ comparison of the War on Women to a War on Caterpillars. In my spluttering rant, I listed evidence of the many ways in which the War on Women is very much real and very much a product of the GOP working with shadow organizations like Americans United for Life (AUL). Below are a SMALL and not nearly comprehensive sample of the provisions being introduced nationwide which are designed to shame women and dictate to them what they can and can’t do. Please email additional examples to me at kmb.uva@gmail.com.
Overall
War on Planned Parenthood
***Please note that only 97% of what Planned Parenthood does is preventative health care or providing birth control and other contraception which DECREASES the need for abortions. One in five American women have relied on Planned Parenthood for services.
- In 2011 – 7 states passed bills defunding or limiting funding to Planned Parenthood (IN, KS, NC, NH, WI, TN, TX)
- In 2012 – 8 states are considering legislation to defund or limit funding to Planned Parenthood (AZ, IA, MI, NE, NH, OH, OK, PA)
- Mitt Romney has stated he would defund
- Congressional Republicans nearly shut down the government last year trying to defund Planned Parenthood
- Congressional Republicans launched a bogus investigation of Planned Parenthood last summer based on equally bogus Americans United for Life “research” and gave Susan G. Komen for the Cure an excuse to discontinue their partnership with the organization
- In Texas, Governor Perry decided he would rather low-income women go without preventative health care than have them receive it from Planned Parenthood.
Transvaginal Probes
- Legislators in 13 states have introduced 22 bills seeking to mandate that a woman obtain an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion. Of these, 7 states are pursuing the staterape vaginal probe variety.
Insurance Coverage
- Legislators in 11 states (AL, IN, KS, MI, NE, OK, OR, SC, TX, UT and WV) have introduced 18 measures that would restrict abortion coverage under all private health insurance plans.
- Legislators in 23 states (AL, AR, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, MI, MT, NE, NJ, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA and WV) introduced 49 measures that apply to exchange coverage.
Personhood
TRAP Bills
- Mississippi legislators using arbitrary standards to attempt to close the states single remaining abortion clinic
- 11 states already have instituted arbitrary standards for abortion clinics with the sole purpose of shutting down increasingly rare clinics
Just purely WTF bills
State legislator craziness
Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from ShoqValue.com
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