Wisconsin Dems vow to recall Scott Walker; see also Greg Sargent.

Money quote from this article:

Unless the composition of the Supreme Court shifts in a new direction, a constitutional amendment that reverses Citizens United and other federal rulings may be our only prayer, the solitary hope we have to prevent the total usurpation of representative government by big businesses with bottomless pockets.

Hey, count me in.

In New Hampshire, Republicans are trying to block broadcasting of a Dem ad on the Ryan Medicare plan. Seriously. Comcast has refused to take down the ad. See also Eric Kleefeld.

Update: Charles Blow, “False Choices.”

Apparently, he didn’t need assistance.

Let’s get back to real issues, shall we? Moody’s Investor Service sent out another warning that it would lower the U.S.’s credit rating if there isn’t some firm progress toward raising the debt ceiling, and soon.

The game of chicken continues, and the GOP apparently believes it has found a win/win. They either manage to blackmail the Dems into supporting Medicare cuts (thereby inoculating Republican candidates from the political consequences of the Ryan budget vote) or else the economy is trashed, and they can blame President Obama for it.

Matt Yglesias:

… the evidence from political science does appear to suggest that if Republican intransigence destroys the American economy, that the voters will respond to this by punishing the incumbent President and electing a Republican. Obviously the models on which that conclusion is based don’t include a scenario in which out-party irresponsibility leads to sovereign default. No model is better than the parameters in which it’s based, and a sovereign default could easily be a model-busting occurrence. Still, it seems like at least one “House Republican close to Boehner” thinks this isn’t the case and the president will get most of the blame for a default. That’s a dangerous case of power without responsibility.

Steve Benen:

As far as Republicans are concerned, there’s no need to compromise — they’re the ones with the gun and the hostage. Why strike a deal? If Obama caves, they get what they want. If Obama stands firm, and the GOP deliberately destroys the economy, Republicans will blame the president and destroy his chances of re-election. As far as the GOP leadership is concerned, all they have to do is wait.

In the abstract, this is arguably one of the great political scandals of recent American history. There is no modern precedent for a political party acting like an organized crime family this shamelessly. The American public isn’t hearing much about these tactics, but I can’t help but wonder what the mainstream would think if someone were to tell them that the Republican Party intends to cause a recession, on purpose, unless Democrats drastically cut Medicare and other popular domestic programs.

Which leads me to ask, why aren’t the Dems saying just that? A lot, and loudly? Why aren’t Moveon and the Center for American Progress and other progressive organizations cranking out YouTube videos and television ads explaining the issue?

I still say most Americans don’t understand the issue. A fairly recent Pew survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that raising the debt ceiling would be bad, because it would result in more spending and a bigger budget deficit.

I say again, lots of people are assuming that the debt itself can’t go above the ceiling, which is not the case. They have no idea what impact not raising the ceiling would have on the economy, and that not raising the debt ceiling would make our debt situation worse.

On the plus side, President Obama says he will not permit the Bush tax cuts for the rich to be extended again.

Update: Senate Dems demand that GOP drop Medicare overhaul from debt-ceiling talks

More and more evidence is piling up that the Anthony Weiner Tweet Scandal is a hoax. A Maddow Show staffer replicates the hoax to corroborate how easy it is.

Weirdly, Andrew Breitbart appears to have leaked some emails the alleged hoaxer, Dan Wolfe, sent him. Although the emails don’t contain an explicit admission of a hoax, they strongly imply Wolf has something to hide. The Smoking Gun has the emails and suggests “Dan Wolfe” is not the alleged hoaxer’s real name. Joseph Cannon calls for an investigation of Dan Wolfe.

Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner will not confirm or deny that the magna weiner in the photo is his. It’s possible it is a private photo that somehow got into “Dan Wolfe’s” hands, who then used a hoax to make it seem the representative had sent the photo to a young woman. Although it may be a tad skeezy, taking photographs of one’s body parts is not in itself scandalous. Unless something new and significant happens, I’m saying the only story here is about how the Right-wing noise machine creates phony scandals.

Elsewhere — you’ve surely heard the story about Gov. Chris Christie taking a state-owned, $2,500-an-hour helicopter to his son’s school baseball game. Yesterday he declared he would not reimburse the state. Today, the New Jersey Republican Party said that they and the governor would kick in some money to pay for the governor’s personal use of the helicopter.

While the helicopter episode was very likely the lead news story in New Jersey, another state story said “the Christie administration is expected to propose cutting the maximum income level of Medicaid from $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three.”

Further, Christie’s recent moves to the Right on environmental issues might play well in Texas, but New Jersey is not that far Right. NJ has a higher than average concentration of adults with college degrees. As I remember, there’s a lot of consumer product research and development going on in NJ, which leads me to suspect a high proportion of those degrees are in science and technology. I can’t see anti-environment policies being popular in NJ.

I say again, by the time Christie is up for re-election he is going to be very vulnerable.

Finally, Moosewoman used the National Lampoon Palin Family Vacation to stomp on Mitt Romney’s presidential bid announcement. This might give us a clue why the Republican establishment doesn’t like her.

There is genuinely serious stuff going on that could have a huge impact on the future of the entire world. And of course, bloggers and media are all focused on silliness. Today it seems that 99.9 percent of news stories focus on Anthony Weiner and Sarah Palin, and for all the wrong reasons.

Yesterday Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire posted what appears to be ironclad proof that the Anthony Weiner Twitter episode is a hoax. Naturally everyone on the Right Blogosphere, and some on the Left, don’t believe it, and they come up with myriad convoluted reasons why. But so far I haven’t seen anything that clearly refutes what’s in Cannonfire.

Then there’s National Lampoon’s Sarah Palin Vacation. It appears she is using PAC money to fund what is a family vacation disguised as some kind of Purposeful Event. And apparently this is not illegal, although it would be if she were a declared presidential candidate.

Palin herself bristled at questions Wednesday about how the tour was being funded. She said during a visit to the Statue of Liberty that the bus was “our own personal motor home” and that SarahPAC was paying for the trip.

“Check SarahPAC.com,” Palin told ABC News. “I don’t know why in the world you would ask a question like that. I’m just thinking about America and our foundations and our freedoms and our opportunities.”

Exactly how America and our foundations and our freedoms and our opportunities will benefit from the Palin family taking a bus tour of random national landmarks is not explained.