Battleground Virginia

By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) NOTABLES IN THE HOT SEAT: Lois Lerner, the top IRS official who is at the center of the controversy for the targeting of tea party and other conservative groups, will refuse to answer questions at a congressional hearing today and invoke    

Daily Kos Radio's Kagro in the Morning show podcasts are now available through iTunes. I thought I was done with the gun-toting Utah teachers, but alpaca farmer brought up a good point that I want to get to, and then that led me to another one. And I might have to yell about that one! The Senate immigration bill is actually moving, so we'll want to catch up on that. The House, meanwhile, votes on a bill that basically purports to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Forget the whole three different branches of government thing. That's stupid, just like our founders intended. Hmm. I may have to yell about everything. We're LIVE at 9 a.m. ET with Kagro in the Morning, thanks to NetrootsRadio.com. Listen LIVE here:The Daily Kos Radio Player Can't see the Flash player? Click here to download the stream directly. Or if you prefer, why not download the Stitcher app on your favorite mobile device, and search for the Netroots Radio live stream? And hey, when you do, be sure to sign up with the promo code DAILYKOS, and earn Daily Kos Radio $1 in the Stitcher affiliate program! Please do remember to "favorite" us while you're at Stitcher. We're bouncing up and down in the rankings these days, and the more of you who help us, the more listeners out there who'll find us on the Stitcher network. Miss the last show? You can catch it here: Need more info on how to listen? Find it below the fold.

The immigration bill crafted by the Senate "Gang of Eight" passed the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday evening, with a 13-5 vote. Every senator involved in the markup session leading up to the vote was very proud of him or herself for how great the markup session was going. Especially after the senators bravely shot down a proposal to recognize the marriages of LGBT immigrants.It was a very self-congratulatory affair, as each senator congratulated every other senator for their great legislative skill, their deeply held principles, and their impressive civility. The markup deliberations were "courageous," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, in reference to a bunch of people, mostly old dudes, carefully deciding exactly how awful they had to make an immigration bill before it could pass a Congress full of bigots, cynical fake-bigots and wingnuts. Even Ted Cruz was sort of civil as he hectored the committee for not passing his amendments, most of which were designed to ruin the bill. Everyone who opposes the bill, and those proposed amendments designed to sink it, had to say that they deeply wanted immigration reform to happen, it's just that they defined reform as "no citizenship plus a bigger fence." (Also everyone referred to the bill's authors as the "group of eight" and not a "gang.")Continue Reading

Click for the latest Red Cross Statement on the Moore tornado People who wish to make a donation to support the Red Cross response can visit redcross.org, dial 1-800-REDCROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. - From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE… Cheers to the "Mayor of Castro Street" Today marks the 83rd birthday of the late San Francisco District Supervisor and gay rights (aka civil rights) pioneer Harvey Milk. Not coincidentally, today is also the fourth annual Harvey Milk Day. “It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” - “All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.” He was a talented politician---smart, witty, eloquent, tireless, eager to learn from his early mistakes, but not without his flaws and personal demons. He understood well the power of grassroots campaigning and consensus-building. One of my favorite things Harvey wrote is his 10 rules on how to win a local election (from Randy Shilts' book The Mayor of Castro Street, which doubles as a riveting history of the gay rights movement in San Francisco): - 1. Interviews with all major papers. ['All' was underlined three times.] 2. Knock on all doors. 3. Ride buses 4. Visit non-gay bars during the daytime and any singles bars at nite. 5. Coffee shops and restaurants. Stop off early in morning and late at night. 6. Shake hands. 7. Shake hands. 8. As few meetings as possible---just meet the people. 9. Door to door of registered Demo's is very best thing you can do outside of media coverage. 10. Don't stop. If he hadn’t been assassinated in 1978 at 48, he would've grown in staure as a guiding force and relentless fighter for full equality. He'd be thrilled with the gains made in the military (he was a Navy vet himself), marriage equality, corporate non-discrimination policies, and the overall de-stigmatization of LGBT Americans. But he'd be impatient as all get-out at the snail's pace at which those accomplishments happened, and furious that anti-LGBT violence is still happening with such depressing regularity. Harvey's now-famous core message of hope is as relevant as ever, and it's one of the reasons he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009: "It’s about the us’s out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you…you gotta give em’ hope.” Happy birthday, Harvey. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Mecklenburg County commissioners are still pointing fingers at each other after Harry Jones' ouster last week.Click to Continue »