GOP Wants Donor Secrecy, Limbaugh Is Scared, and More

Conservatives Want Donor Secrecy:

File this one under the “Gee, What a Shocker” category. Republicans, who once used the transparency argument against campaign spending limits, are now fighting to get rid of donor disclosure. Apparently, conservatives now believe transparency is “an enemy against free speech.” As if the Citizens United ruling wasn’t bad enough. (Read more)

The Florida Voter Purge Mess Continues: Another conservative who wants to keep things under wraps is Florida Gov. Rick Scott. The Republican has been fighting an uphill battle to purge the Florida voter rolls of noncitizens. His latest effort involves trying to keep secret a list of the names of 180,000 voters who allegedly are not U.S. citizens. His administration has rejected attempts by news outlets and voter advocacy groups to look at the list, and perhaps with good reason. A shorter list that was released was heavily scrutinized and caused much controversy when it turned out that many of the targeted voters actually were American citizens. (Read more)

Palin Brings Back “Death Panel” Talk: In politics, it seems old arguments recycle themselves. Remember when, before President Obama’s health care reform law passed, Republicans said it would create death panels? Well, apparently that idea is being resurrected by Sarah Palin, courtesy of a posting on her Facebook page: “Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding.” Good timing too, since the Supreme Court is expected to deliver its ruling on Obamacare on Thursday. (Read more)

Limbaugh Scared by Obama: Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh lashed out at President Obama yet again, this time telling his legions of listeners that he was “scared” by the Obama administration’s response to the Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law. He also said that the president had gone “Soviet.” Argued Limbaugh: “The Democrat Party—losing traditional American voters in droves, left and right—needs as many foreign citizens and illegal immigrants to come into this country as possible to be converted into voters.” Still, Rush’s words were not as scathing—or quite as good—as Jan Brewer’s reaction. Arizona’s Republican governor said the president’s response was like telling her state to “drop dead.” (Read more)

Video of the Day: If Democrats took away anything from the last U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts, it should have been this: Do not, under any circumstances, upset Boston Red Sox fans. Martha Coakley learned that the hard way. President Obama may have gotten the message this time around when in a speech he poked fun at the Red Sox’s trading of Kevin Youklis to Obama’s beloved Chicago White Sox. Not surprisingly, the president was booed. The White House tried to spin the incident by saying the crowd was actually yelling “Yoooooook” and not “Booooo.” Watch the video to decide for yourself (though it’s pretty clear even Obama realized midway through that he had erred).

— Posted by Tracy Bloom